GameSpot • April 17 2026

Ex-Fortnite Player And R&B Singer D4vd Arrested On Murder Charges

David Burke, who performs professionally under the moniker "D4vd," has been arrested for the murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez, whose decomposed remains were found in the singer and once-upon-a-time Fortnite gamer's Tesla after she went missing last spring, according to multiple news reports.According to NBC4 Los Angeles, Burke was arrested on April 16 at a Hollywood Hills home on Marmont Avenue. The Hollywood Reporter corroborated NBC4's reporting, sharing a statement from the LA Police Departm...

GameSpot • November 19 2025

TGA Performer, Fortnite Gamer D4vd Reportedly Identified As Murder Suspect

David Anthony Burke, who began his music career as D4vd after uploading Fortnite montages to YouTube with his own original songs in 2021, has reportedly been identified as a suspect in the murder of Celeste Rivas.According to TMZ, law enforcement said that despite there being no official paperwork classifying Burke as a suspect yet, "investigators are looking at [him] as a suspect." Those same investigators reportedly claimed they're viewing Rivas' death as a homicide while waiting on toxicology...

Kotaku • May 14 2022

Mass Shooting Apparently Planned On Discord, Streamed On Twitch, Investigated As Hate Crime [Updated] - Kotaku

Tragedy struck New York on May 14 as an 18-year-old white male shot and killed at least 10 people and wounded three others in the New York city of Buffalo, police said. The shooter, whose online username is reportedly “jimboboiii,” has been taken into custody after livestreaming the whole thing on the gaming platform Twitch, the company told Kotaku on Saturday evening. The shooter released a 180-page manifesto detailing his racist and anti-Semitic views, which he partially attributed to the cont...

GameSpot • April 16 2026

Mamdani Uses Mario Kart To Explain New Tax On The Super-Rich

Zohran Mamdani, the newly minted mayor of New York City, has announced sweeping taxes on the ultra-rich to make what's often described as the most expensive city in the US a little more affordable. To describe the level of impact his tax plan will have, Mamdani took an unconventional approach: bringing up Mario Kart.In a press briefing on April 16, Mamdani (D-NY) was joined by Elle Bisgaard-Church (D-NY) and other board members of the newly established Mayor's Fund to discuss what the fund will...

GameSpot • February 20 2026

Trump's Tariffs, Which Impacted Gaming, Ruled Illegal By Supreme Court

After decimating countless industries with his ultra-aggressive and wide-ranging tariff plan, President Donald Trump's expensive duties have been ruled illegal by the now-majority conservative Supreme Court.According to reports by AP and CNN, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 that Trump's sweeping tariffs exceeded the powers he has. The decision--which centered on the "reciprocal" tariffs he levied on nearly every other country--came from Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote for the court that the...

GameSpot • September 24 2025

Former Pokemon Legal Chief "Wouldn't Touch" Homeland Security Video That Used Ash Ketchum

In response to the Department of Homeland Security's video using Ash Ketchum to promote ICE, The Pokemon Company's ex-legal chief said he "wouldn't touch" it, suggesting some possible reasons why the company might not pursue legal action.This week, Homeland Security posted a video to X of an arrest compilation. In between footage of ICE agents handcuffing people at their homes and in their cars are clips from the OG Pokemon TV series, with the famed "Gotta catch 'em all" theme playing in the bac...

GameSpot • March 23 2026

YouTuber Who Hid Behind GTA "Livestream" Found Guilty Of Murdering Pregnant Girlfriend

Stephen "Votesaxon07" McCullagh, a YouTuber who primarily engages with science fiction entertainment (like Battlebots toys and Star Wars sets), was convicted of murdering his 32-year-old girlfriend who was 15 weeks pregnant with a baby boy in December 2022.According to the BBC, McCullagh--who was on trial for more than four weeks--appeared in a Belfast court in Northern Ireland on March 23. After just over two hours of deliberations, the jurors returned to deliver a guilty verdict, with McCullag...

GameSpot • April 15 2026

Police Break Up Chaotic Costco Scene Over Pokemon Cards

Police had to get involved at a Costco in Mississauga, Ontario after a chaotic scene unfolded following an early morning release of highly anticipated Pokemon cards.As IGN reported, an Instagram video posted by PokeStreetz showed a crowd of people groaning over soiled and trampled Pokemon cards on April 10. Local news outlet 905Hub shared the video on X on April 13, detailing the messy situation as police intervened."A crowd of 30–40 people had lined up for a Prismatic Evolutions drop around 6:4...

GameSpot • March 26 2026

Two Dead After Stabbing At Tokyo Pokemon Center, Including The Attacker

Following a stabbing incident that left two dead at a Pokemon store in downtown Tokyo on March 26, The Pokemon Company has commented on the situation, saying that the store would be temporarily closed and they are fully cooperating with local police.According to the AP, a man had brandished a knife at the Pokemon Center Mega Tokyo & Pikachu Sweets in Sunshine City. The individual then suddenly turned the knife on a female employee of the store, stabbing her in the neck, before doing the same thi...

GameSpot • January 14 2026

Rockstar Games Bans Fan-Made Charlie Kirk Assassination Mission From GTA Online

Rockstar Games has removed a fan-made mission simulating the assassination of Charlie Kirk from its popular online crime sim Grand Theft Auto Online, with the publisher even banning the conservative activist's name to prevent similar missions from appearing.As reported by IGN, developer Rockstar North introduced a new feature in the A Safehouse in the Hills update on December 10, allowing GTA Online players to create and share unofficial missions within the game. Not long after the tool was rele...

GameSpot • January 16 2026

Armed With Guns And Hammers, Thieves Steal $116K In Pokemon Cards

Three masked suspects stormed a newly opened Pokemon store and stole over $100,000 worth of collectibles--including rare cards, $1,000 in cash, and a cell phone--according to reports, employees, and police.As reported by Fox5NY, The Poke Court opened its doors in New York's Meatpacking District in November 2025. Specializing in Pokemon collectibles and trading cards, the store was hosting its first-ever arts and crafts community event on January 14 when three masked men--wearing anime backpacks...

Kotaku • April 4 2023

YouTuber Shot After Trying To Prank Man In A Mall [Update] - Kotaku

A YouTuber was shot in the stomach on April 2 in a Virginia mall after attempting to play what he called a “simple practical joke” on a man. Tanner Cook is a member of the Classified Goons, a group that has been posting prank videos on YouTube since May 2022. Known as “just a couple of ‘bone heads,’” according to the group’s YouTube channel description, these pranksters have racked up millions of views across TikTok and YouTube for their typically silly and infantile jokes. One of the group’s mo...

Kotaku • July 17 2023

FBI Used Nintendo Switch To Locate Abducted Child [Update] - Kotaku

The FBI used a Nintendo Switch console to locate an abducted 15-year-old girl, who had been missing for 11 days back in August 2022, Forbes reports. In a horrendous case involving kidnap and sexual exploitation, a teenage girl was found and rescued only after she logged online with her Nintendo Switch. The unidentified Virginian teenager is a homebody, said family and friends, and unlikely to run away. However, she met a stranger—then 28-year-old Ethan Roberts—on the online chatting platform Ome...

GameSpot • January 26 2026

Missing Teenage Boy Reportedly Rushed Off To Meet Someone From Roblox

A teenage boy has been missing for two weeks after allegedly rushing from his Long Island, New York prep school into Manhattan to meet someone he met on Roblox, according to a statement from the boy's family.Thomas Medlin left the Stony Brook School on Friday, January 9, at around 3:30 PM ET to reportedly catch a train from the Long Island Rail Road station to Grand Central, where surveillance footage spotted him at about 5:30 PM ET. In an interview with Long Island news outlet News 12, his moth...

GameSpot • March 25 2026

Meta And YouTube Lose Social-Media Addiction Lawsuit

California jurors have found YouTube and Meta--the latter of which owns social apps like Instagram and Threads--liable in a civil court for getting a young adult woman addicted to social media and impairing her mental health.According to a March 25 CNN report, the jurors have decided that, after a seven-week trial and more than eight days of deliberations, Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design of their platforms, knew their design was dangerous, failed to warn users of those risks, and c...

GameSpot • February 20 2026

LA Sues Roblox Over "Unsafe Online Environment" For Kids, Marking Yet Another Roblox Lawsuit

Roblox Corporation has been hit with yet another lawsuit, this time from LA County, over the company's online social game Roblox being "an unsafe online environment that has become a breeding ground for predators."According to a February 20 Game Developer report, LA County has cited myriad "unfair and deceptive business practices" that put children in danger. Posted to the county's official website, the suit alleges that Roblox "failed to protect children from predatory behavior" and "repeatedly...

GameSpot • September 17 2025

Florida Sets Its Lawsuit Sights On Porn Games

Florida has set its lasers to "sue" as the Sunshine State moves to attack porn games and their distributors in court.As reported by the Tallahassee Democrat, Florida's attorney general James Uthmeier filed two separate lawsuits against Lustyheroes.com and the parent company of Nutaku.net and SpiceVids.com. The dual suits allege that these websites have violated HB 3, the state law that went into effect in January and forced explicit websites to verify the ages of Florida users.According to Uthme...

Complex • October 9 2024

Florida Man ‘Lieutenant Dan’ Goes Viral Amid Hurricane Mi...

UPDATED 10/10, 2:19 p.m. ET: Lieutenant Dan, the Florida resident who refused to evacuate his boat in Tampa Bay, has survived Hurricane Milton’s landfall.Speaking with Kevin O'Donnell, a reporter at Fox 13, Malinowski stated that the experience was not as bad as he expected it to be.“Was it as bad as you thought?” O’Donnell asked, to which Malinowski replied “No.”See original story below.As Hurricane Milton approaches Florida’s coast, many residents are taking to social media to explain their ch...

The Establishment • January 29 2018

The Racist Undertones Of The ‘Urban Contemporary’ Grammys Category

Modified from Wikimedia
Back in 2013, Kelly Rowland and Nas presented the first Grammy Award for Best Urban Contemporary Album, designed to honor “artists whose music includes the more contemporary elements of R&B and may incorporate production elements found in urban pop, urban Euro-pop, urban rock, and urban alternative” and “albums containing at least 51 percent playing time of newly recorded contemporary vocal tracks derivative of R&B.”
Of all the nominees — Chris Brown’s Fortune, Frank Ocea...

Kotaku • February 28 2023

It’s About Damn Time Games ‘Git Gud’ At Black Hair - Kotaku

When you think of Black hair in games, what comes to mind? Maybe a clean set of cornrows? What about some dreadlocks? Or, and this is probably the most likely, do you think of an afro, a Caesar fade, or just a bald scalp? This litmus test is a conversation that’s been raging in the games industry for as long as games have featured playable protagonists and character creators. Even former Kotaku staffer Evan Narcisse took the discourse to task in his essay on the difficulties depicting Blackness...

The Establishment • August 2 2017

Dear Black Men: If You Want Long Hair, Have Long Hair

The clippers jolted to life, buzzing like a swarm of bees, waiting to shred through my short afro. “Hey, P, it’s time to cut them naps,” my brother yelled from the bathroom. Crying profusely, I sauntered to the bathroom, staggering, reluctant to get my hair cut. I plopped onto the chair and peered through salty rivulets of tears as black sheep wool fell from my head. “Why do I always have to get my hair cut?” I asked my brother. “Grandma said,” he replied militantly.
“Because you don’t take care...

Endless Mode • October 30 2025

The Importance Of Marcus Holloway: How Watch Dogs 2 Disrupts Norms Of Black Characters In Games

The first Black character I remember videogames introducing me to was Final Fantasy VII’s Barret Wallace. Built like a freight truck with a Gatling gun attached to his right arm, Barret was the first game character that I had a personal connection with. Later came Carl “CJ” Johnson, the protagonist of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I felt a similar attachment with CJ, a member of the Grove Street Families, one of the top gangs in Los Santos. Then there was Augustus Cole of the Gears o...

Sacramento News & Review • October 12 2016

SN&R • Opinions • Essay • ‘I’m going to die’ • Oct 13, 2016

It was 2:14 a.m. and I was restless, flipping through YouTube, when I came across a video titled “Police Admit To Killing Innocent Black Man.”

My heart sank and my blood slowly ran cold: the headline alone was unsettling, but I already knew what to expect. In the video, posted to the The Young Turks channel, an American political commentary web series, the hosts discussed how Los Angeles police had “accidentally killed” a black man while pursuing a carjacking suspect in late July. During the in...

Endless Mode • October 30 2025

Doomfist Is a Disappointing and Frustrating Jumble of Stereotypes

Regardless of how we perceive characters, black stereotypes extensively permeate media. From the Black Dude Dies First to the Black and Nerdy to the Sassy Black Woman, and everything in between, on-screen portrayals of black characters lean heavily on tropes that have been ingrained in media since its birth. Abhorrently disgusting and inherently wrong, these spurious portrayals paint black people in ways that are not reflective of the population. It’s discrimination feigned as fiction that was i...