Kobe Bryant’s Long Goodbye

Last week, about an hour before the Los Angeles Lakerswere to face the Timberwolves here at Target Center, Gary Vitti leaned against a wall outside the visitors’ locker room and exhaled. Vitti has been the Lakers’ athletic trainer for 32 seasons, but he has other responsibilities, too. He fields ticket requests. He helps manage the schedule.

“It’s like herding cats, man,” he said. “They’re all over the place.”

Vitti knew his biggest challenge of the night was still ahead: marshaling the players out of the arena and to the airport in a timely fashion. It had everything to do with Kobe Bryant, who was about to make his final appearance in Minneapolis on his farewell tour of N.B.A. arenas.

“The most disruptive thing is trying to get out of here after the game,” Vitti said. “He has to do his postgame therapy, and then he does his media, and then everybody wants a piece of him because they’re not going to see him again. I’m just trying to get these guys to the next city.”

The Rise of Hate Search

HOURS after the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, and minutes after the media first reported that at least one of the shooters had a Muslim-sounding name, a disturbing number of Californians had decided what they wanted to do with Muslims: kill them.

The top Google search in California with the word “Muslims” in it was “kill Muslims.” And the rest of America searched for the phrase “kill Muslims” with about the same frequency that they searched for “martini recipe,” “migraine symptoms” and “Cowboys roster.”

People often have vicious thoughts. Sometimes they share them on Google. Do these thoughts matter?

Yes. Using weekly data from 2004 to 2013, we found a direct correlation between anti-Muslim searches and anti-Muslim hate crimes.

Japan’s Top Court Upholds Law Requiring Spouses to Share Surname

Japan’s highest court on Wednesday upheld a law dating back more than a century that requires married couples to share the same surname, rejecting a claim that it discriminates against women by effectively forcing them to give up their names in favor of their husbands’.

The ruling was a blow to Japanese women seeking to keep their maiden names after marriage. Some couples have chosen not to register their marriages — opting instead to stay in common-law relationships with fewer legal protections — in order to keep separate surnames.

These incredible photos reveal split-second moments of one of the most mysterious natural phenomena in the sky

This might look like an egregiously misplaced school of fish, but it's actually an example of what ornithologists (bird experts) call a murmuration:It's a flock of hundreds to thousands of tiny song birds called starlings. But exactly how the birds within these swarms decide to move and when is a complete mystery.

Within a murmuration, starlings are constantly on the move, so the shape is always changing. 

But some photographers managed to capture some incredible, split-second moments of these flowing flocks that look strikingly similar to common shapes like a gigantic smoking pipe, goose, and sting ray. Check them out below:

3 Navy SEALs reportedly beat an Afghan to death during an interrogation — and the incident was quietly closed

On May 31, 2012, three Navy SEALs along with an Afghan Local Police unit reportedly beat more than half a dozen Afghan detainees during an interrogation, The New York Times reports.

The beatings were serious enough that one local died from his injuries later in the day, according to the investigative report.

After the beating, despite sworn testimony from four US soldiers on the scene and Afghan witnesses, the case was cleared in a closed court that is routinely used for minor disciplinary infractions.

Since the case, the Navy SEALs involved in the incident have faced no repercussions, and "two of the SEALs and their lieutenant have since been promoted," The Times notes.

The Navy acknowledges that the beatings took place but says they were carried out solely by Afghan forces.

A Harvard psychologist describes a simple exercise to reduce your anxiety in stressful situations

If your strategy for calming down before a job interview or big presentation is to pace up and down, muttering, "You got this!" until you almost, sort of believe it, then we've got good news.

There's a simpler and more effective way to beat anxiety. The trick? Remind yourself of what you value most.

Japanese porn stars let fans touch their boobs for a 'good cause

Japanese porn stars are saving the world through the strength of eroticism by donating their chests to charity. The porn stars were groped for a good cause on a Japanese TV marathon called "24-Hour TV: Eroticism Saves the Earth".

Supermodel Bar Refaeli and her mother arrested on charges of tax evasion on millions in income

Bar Refaeli, one of the most well-known supermodels in the world, was arrested Wednesday on charges of tax evasion in Israel,Agence France-Presse has reported.

Refaeli was arrested in a home raid. She's suspected of lying about where she lived to avoid reporting millions of dollars in income.

She's also charged with accepting free accommodations in the form of luxury apartments and cars not registered in her name, according to Israel's Tax Authority.

Refaeli's mother, Zipora, was also arrested on suspicion of tax evasion.

Nigerian court sentence 9 foreign nationals to 20yrs in prison for crude Oil theft

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos today sentenced 5 Filipinos identified as Axel Joseph Gibo Jabone, Juanito Camireno Infantado, Suarin Fernado Alave, Gatila Jaypee Gadayan and Rolando Jose Commendador and four Bangladeshis identified as Md Zahirul Islam, Islam Shahinul, Islam Rafiqul and Shaikn Shibli Nomany, to 20 years imprisonment each, with fine options of N20million per person for crimes relating to crude oil theft in Nigeria.

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Mom who says her job is 'Being The Best Mom' arrested after children were found dead in a storage

6 year old boy and 3 year old girl, dead

A woman who was arrested after the bodies of a three-year-old girl and six-year-old boy were found shoved inside plastic tote containers hidden a storage locker said her career was: 'Being The Best Mom I Can Be'.

Tami Joy Huntsman, 39, and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Gonzalo Curiel, are behind bars and facing charges of felony child abuse, torture, and mayhem, after the gruesome discovery in Redding, California, on Monday night.

Police were led to the remains after they discovered a 'severely abused' nine-year-old girl at an apartment Huntsman was taken. The youngster was taken into surgery suffering multiple injuries.

 

Sheriff Greg Hagwood said she weighed about 40 pounds, had broken bones in her shoulder, broken fingers, a dislocated jaw, and teeth that were missing or loose. 

 

Neither them or the nine-year-old girl had been enrolled in local schools.

Huntsman is a relative of the two homicide victims but not their mother. Her Facebook page lists her work as "Being the Best Mom I Can Be."

8 people were injured after a Southwest Airlines plane skidded off the runway in Nashville

A Southwest Airlines jet landed off the runway at Nashville International Airport on Tuesday evening.

At least eight people were injured, according to a report from WTVF-TV in Nashville.

Southwest Airlines Flight 31 had been traveling to Nashville from Houston when it skidded off the runway.

Here are the best moments from the Republican debate

Nine candidates took the stage on Tuesday for the fifth prime-time Republican debate of the year.

Here are the candidates who were onstage: Real-estate mogul Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

For the second consecutive debate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) was relegated to an earlier, "undercard" debate.

Saudi Arabia forms ‘Islamic Military Coalition’ of 34 countries to end terror group

The end of Islamic State terrorists may be just around the corner after 34 countries formed a new military task force to finish the death cult once and for all.

Saudi Arabia announced this morning that it had brokered the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism.

A statement read: "The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations centre based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations."

Arab countries involved include Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, together with Islamic countries Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Gulf Arab and African states.

Philip Chism murder trial: Teenager who raped and killed his maths teacher faces life in prison

Trial: Philip Chism was just 14 when he committed the sickening crime

A teenager who raped and killed his maths teacher while at school faces life in prison after being convicted.

Jurors today found Philip Chism guilty of first-degree murder in the death Colleen Ritzer as Danvers High School in Massachusetts.

The teenager’s defence lawyers claimed he was in the midst of a psychotic episode when he stabbed her 16 times in the neck in the women's bathroom.

Prosecutors said the schoolboy, who was 14 at the time, used a box cutter to brutally stab the 24-year-old, before using a recycling bin to take her body into the woods.

Once there he raped her and violated her with a wooden stick before abandoning her half-naked.

Reuters

Teacher: Colleen Ritzer