When journalist-turned-Clinton-shill Sidney Blumenthal was blocked by the Obama White House from a full-time job in Hillary Clinton’s State Department, he settled for the next best thing: Constantly spamming Clinton’s secret, private email account.

Like the narrator of the Bruce Springsteen classic “I’m Goin’ Down,” Chris Christie just can’t stop lovin’ somebody who doesn’t seem to love him back. Except in Christie’s case, it’s not the dying flame of an old relationship he wants, but the love of Bruce Springsteen himself. Recently unearthed emails show that the New Jersey governor’s adoration has gone unrequited since long before Bruce Springsteen or anyone else even knew who Chris Christie was.

To: scocca@gawker.com

Cool Pope Francis announced today that for one year only, the “Jubilee Year of Mercy,” coming to a soul in you on December 8, priests may forgive contrite women who have had an abortion. “Couldn’t they already do that?” you might be wondering. Hey, guess what—NO!!!!

Every so often a rumor begins to circulate and, for whatever reason, you think: “I hope it’s true.” I had such a moment this week.

Grow up, J.K. Rowling! C’mon!

A man who was injured after three DeKalb County police mistakenly responded to his Georgia home Monday night was shot by one of the responding officers, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement today. Police also killed the homeowner’s dog and may have seriously wounded a fellow officer.

Jonathan Franzen makes it deceptively easy to criticize Jonathan Franzen. Yes, he sounds like a boob when he talks about himself, but that’s not really what’s wrong with him, or not really what’s wrong with his writing, if you are one of the people who has the feeling that there is something wrong with his writing. This feeling is deeply subjective and hard to express, a sort of literary Uncanny Valley effect, but if you sense it, you sense it—and, luckily for those of us who do, so does Grantland’s Brian Phillips. Of Franzen’s novels, and their “weird, spiraling cluelessness,” Phillips writes:

Around 150 students at Hillsboro (Mo.) High School walked out of school Monday to protest against a trans classmate using the girls’ locker room during gym class. Thirty or forty students also protested in support of Lila Perry, a Hillsboro senior who has identified as female since age 13 and came out as trans last school year.

Yesterday, San Antonio’s KSAT released a video of two Bexar County sheriff deputies fatally shooting a 41-year-old man who appeared to have his arms raised in surrender.

The New York Times has footage of the final hours of Carlos Mercado, who died of complications related to diabetes hours after entering Rikers Island for allegedly selling heroin in 2013. Mercado repeatedly alerted guards to his condition on the night he arrived, but did not receive medical help until the next morning.

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, continued to deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples Tuesday, in defiance of the Supreme Court’s direct order that she do so. Davis, an elected official, had asked to be excused from that part of her job on religious grounds. The Court denied her appeal Monday.

One week after detonating the 2,000-year-old temple of Baalshamin, ISIS has destroyed a second ancient temple in the Syrian city of Palmyra. Tuesday morning, the UN released satellite photos confirming the demolition of the Temple of Bel, which dates back to 32 B.C.

A homeowner was injured and his dog killed when three Georgia police officers responded to the wrong residence after receiving a report of a suspicious person on Monday night, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

How big was that shark? That shark was so big it scared famed Australian television personality Karl Stefanovic out of the water forever: “That’s the biggest thing I’ve ever seen.”

After a measure granting a degree of autonomy to eastern Ukraine was passed in Parliament, clashes between protestors and police intensified, the New York Times reports. One policeman was killed after a grenade was thrown at police lines.

After entertaining two perspectives on whether the Black Lives Matter movement should be categorized as a “hate group,” Bill O’Reilly decided, “They’re a hate group.” Well! Glad that’s settled. Just kidding—there’s always more: “And I’m going to tell you right now, I’m going to put them out of business.”

“Taylor Swift Went To Africa To Film A Music Video And There’s Only White People In It.” And how very white they are!

Police said on Monday that Shannon Miles, 30, who is accused of shooting and killing Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth, has a history of mental illness, the Associated Press reports. After an arrest in 2012, he was sent to a state mental hospital for several months.

On Monday, Frazier Glenn Miller was convicted of murder and other charges in last year’s shooting deaths of three people at two Jewish community centers outside Kansas City, the Associated Press reports. As the jurors filed out of the courtroom, Miller, 74, raised his arm in the Nazi salute.