Two of Richard Branson's space tourism planes—SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo—lifted off on their first test flights in nine months today, but at some point during the test SpaceShipTwo suffered what Virgin is calling an "in-flight anomaly," killing one pilot and injuring another. Authorities confirmed the casualty in a press conference this afternoon.
In June, Rick Berman of the PR firm Berman & Company gave a speech to a room full of oil industry executives. Presumably believing his talk was private, he spoke of waging "endless war" against fracking's opponents and exploiting fear and anger to win supporters. Unfortunately for him, he was being recorded.
Add "making your son think he's dying" to the list of things people will do for the Vine. These parents put on protective masks, took their kid's temperature, and told him he had Ebola. Then they put his tears of fear and shock as he confronted his own mortality on the internet. He wasn't viral, obviously, but now the video is.
The official brand of Austin, Texas, USA is: "Keep Austin Weird." If you visit, you will be inundated with the mantra wherever you strut your cowboy boots. It is an amorphous identity projected by Austinites onto and into everything they do and it often sounds like a battle cry—this is the only "liberal" place in Lone Star State, and let's keep it that way!
Kim Kardashian is maybe possibly having another baby. Or she's at least thinking about having another baby. In a recent interview with U.K. beauty company Pixiwoo, she mentioned her maternity style "this time around" before getting flustered—in the flat, dead-eyed way a Kardashian gets flustered—and moving on.
An F Train was nearly bored into by a 10-inch-wide drill bit yesterday while traveling under an East Side Access construction site in Queens. There were roughly 800 passengers inside, and though the bit scraped the body of the train and shattered several windows, no one was injured.
This is perfect. On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate it an 1814.
Doot-doot! The internet's spookiest meme isn't really spooky at all. Start the video, and a disembodied skull holding a trumpet appears, hovering over a field of black. Without menace, it turns toward you, and the bell of its horn begins to throb. Doot-doot! Skull Trumpet's musical salvo lasts all of two notes, and it's over.
Happy Halloween! If you're going out in the world tonight, there's a good chance you'll see racist idiots dressed up like racist idiots, because Halloween is racist idiot Christmas: Whether you're at a frat party, a parade, or even a family event, there's bound to be one sad soul in blackface, yellowface, Arabface, brownface, redface... [trails off staring into middle distance]
In a recording leaked to CNN, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham made a great "joke" at an event for an organization that's exclusively made up of white guys. "I'm trying to help you with your tax status. I'm sorry the government's so fucked up. If I get to be president, white men in male-only clubs are going to do great in my presidency." Haha!
Amanda Bynes was released from her psychiatric hold at a Los Angeles hospital yesterday when a hearing officer ruled she was stable enough that she could not be held involuntarily. She left, wandered along Sunset Blvd., and ate diner food by herself.
Derek Ward, the Long Island man who beheaded his college professor mother before jumping in front of a train Tuesday night, was apparently scheduled to see a psychiatrist today. His mother Patricia Ward's brother, the Rev. Robert Lubrano, told the New York Daily News that Derek had been off his medication for four days when he killed his mother.
The parents of a 17-year-old D.C. student are suing their son's substitute teacher, claiming she lured him to her high school classroom and performed multiple sex acts on him.
An Alabama husky-pit bull by the name of Bo broke the cardinal man-dog omerta this week when he turned state's evidence on his meth dealing owner.
