Something’s fishy — Normally we love fish-related stories, for obvious reasons, but this one scares us a little. If you’re a male who’s thinking of skinny-dipping in Scandinavia, you may want to think again. As CNN’s Leslie Holland reports, an exotic species of fish that has a habit of chomping on testicles has infiltrated the Danish/Swedish strait of Oresund. A “friendly cousin” of the piranha, the Pacu is actually a vegetarian and uses its large teeth to crush nuts, but sometimes bites the wrong type of nuts after mistaking testicles for their favorite snack. The fish is native to South America and could have been brought to Scandinavia by “amateur aquarium owners and fish farmers.” Don’t worry though, the Fishbowl is still Pacu-free.

The real Weiner film — We recently laid out some damn good ideas for an Anthony Weiner movie, but as TWT’s Cheryl K. Chumley reports, a real documentary may be in the works. In what could be only speculation, Chumley writes that Weiner has been close to MTV filmmaker Josh Kreigman, who has been recording nonstop for the past few months. The NYC mayoral candidate has also been carrying a black microphone box in his back pocket. According to the New York Post, and Weiner campaign officials, Weiner’s filming is only for a television ad. Kreigman, who used to be Weiner’s congressional district director, wouldn’t comment. We’re hoping to see a documentary soon on MTV, because we, at least, can’t get enough Weiner and please don’t take that the wrong way!

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The longer Anthony Weiner‘s New York City mayoral run festers, the more it seems to resemble a movie. The crazy twists and turns seem fit for Hollywood gold, and it’s bound to hit theaters at some point. So we’re helping Hollywood out and running through our top three ideal movies, including the titles, casts and movie posters.

Anthony Weiner: Himself

Huma Abedin: Herself

Sydney Elaine Leathers: Herself

Cameo: Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough

Reporters: Jimmy Fallon, John Oliver

Paparazzi: Bill Murray

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

After his political career fizzles out, Weiner will need something to keep him occupied, and who can play Weiner better than Weiner? M. Night Shyamalan brings the story to life again, but is the story what you think it is? Look out for an insane twist ending. Bill Murray will also be in it, and that alone is enough to make a great movie.

Anthony Weiner: Sean Penn

Huma Abedin: Penelope Cruz

Sydney Elaine Leathers: Christina Ricci

Cameo: Dana Bash

Reporters: Alicia Silverstone, Jennifer Garner

Paparazzi: Alec Baldwin

Directed by: James Cameron

In this dramatic retelling of the heartbreaking story, Cameron brings to life the struggles of Weiner to keep his reputation and poll numbers up, which are both falling quickly. On top of his political career, he has a marriage to take care of, but all is jeopardized by a hard-fought sexting habit that he can’t escape. Plus he loves shower scenes, so we gave him a bubble bath.

Anthony Weiner: Pauly Shore

Huma Abedin: Freida Pinto

Sydney Elaine Leathers: Snooki

Cameo: Bob Scheiffer

Reporters: Sarah Silverman, Jennifer Lawrence

Paparazzi: Quentin Tarantino

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

A dark and comical tale of the life of a former congressman running for mayor, his online mistresses, his seemingly-loyal wife and the media following them. This will make you laugh one minute and leave you wondering what type of human-being Tarantino is the next.

Peter Ogburn and Betsy Rothstein contributed to this report.

On Wednesday, The Hill published its annual list of “The Hill’s 50 Most Beautiful People,” which caused quite a buzz around Washington.

The list typically generates explosive chatter among Hill staffers and D.C. journalists, but the response to this year’s list mainly questioned how deserving those 50 people really were. So The Daily Caller, in its typical brash fashion, decided it could do a better job. In fact, it decided, their interns could do a better job (because interns are great).

So a team of three Daily Caller interns was dispatched to Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon with cameras and instructions to stalk good-looking Hill staffers. The team was made up of Ariel Cohen, Elizabeth Dorton and the now-famous young intern Gabe Finger.

They came back with “The 28 Most Beautiful People On The Hill That TheDC’s Interns Found In A Single Afternoon.” The list, as The Daily Caller notes, “has no particular order and is of course composed entirely of women.”

Kate Upton apparently wasn’t on the Hill visiting her uncle, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), or she would have undoubtedly been on the list.

But 28 others found themselves on the list, and we have to say, those interns have pretty good eyes when it comes to spotting beautiful people on the Hill.

According to Daily Caller publicist Nicole Roeberg, many of the staffers that the interns approached thought The Hill’s list was subpar, though some didn’t want to be on The Daily Caller’s list. Read more

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Weiner lasting more than four months is doubtful — When Anthony Weiner announced his bid for New York City mayor, his campaign was about a fresh start and using his past to learn from his mistakes. He had mostly been laying low, and it appeared that NYC voters were in support of Weiner’s political comeback. But, as Politico’s Edward-Isaac Dovere and Maggie Haberman report, July has not been a good month for the Weiner as another sexting scandal emerged with the now infamously porntastically-named Sydney Elaine Leathers. Most recently, his dismissal of the opinions of the Clintons, who Dovere and Haberman label “the first family of Democratic politics, cements his nose dive that he has little chance of stopping before the Sept. 10 primary. A recent poll puts him in fourth place and shows that 53 percent of New Yorkers want him to drop out of the race.

Why you should read it: Weiner’s campaign has definitely suffered from continued blows, and this piece looks at how he went from a strong mayoral candidate to a running joke.

About those Twitter messages — Speaking of Weiner, Charles C. Johnson of The Daily Caller reports on the varying accounts of the mayoral candidate’s communication with a then-17-year-old girl in 2011. The girl, Margaret Henning, and her family offer differing accounts of just how many messages Weiner sent Henning and what the contents of those messages were. Henning’s mother says he sent two messages, an unnamed family member says he sent three and Weiner says he sent five. Wow, did he foolishly high ball that one that? Leading up to the communication, Henning had made public on Twitter her obsessive love of Weiner, tweeting things like “HE IS MINE ALL MINE HE LOVES ME AND NO ONE ELSE ILY ILY ILY!!!” She also made public her love of caps lock and lack of punctuation. After expressing her Weiner love, he followed her on Twitter until he was called out by Twitter users, but followed her again after multiple tweets begging him to do so. The Daily Caller also pulled some pretty great pictures from Henning’s Facebook page to publish with the story.

Why you should read it: Henning had a very high school-like crush on the then-congressman, which Weiner apparently couldn’t resist after seeing his Twitter handle in so many tweets. Make sure you read the tweets at the end.

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For Abby the Shih Tzu mix, Tuesday was a big day. Until last Friday, when she was picked up by animal shelter Homeward Trails, she had been roaming the streets of Washington. On Tuesday, however, Abby got a chance to find a new home at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal’s Paws for Celebration adoption drive (yes, that was a mouthful)  in the Cannon Caucus Room.

Abby, just 1 year old, wasn’t alone. About 50 other dogs, and some cats, from seven animal shelters around D.C. wandered around the room as swarms of people ate “pupcakes” (cupcakes with pictures of dogs on them) and bent down to pet the animals, while some applied to adopt a new pet.

Among the throng of guests were members of the media who were seen ogling the dogs (we weren’t the only ones). Hannah Jeffrey, a Houston Chronicle intern, could barely tear herself away from Abby (her hands are seen around the pooch’s neck on the next page), and was soon on the phone asking her parents for permission to adopt the dog. Jeffrey applied for adoption despite her parents’ hesitation, hoping photos of her with the dog could sway their decision.

Other media outlets represented include HuffPost, Reuters, Roll Call, Scripps Howard and U.S. News & World Report.

Jessica Johnson, ASPCA’s senior manager for grassroots advocacy, said the planning started about a month and a half ago. All the shelters at the event had a hand in making it come together.

In addition to the Paws for Celebration event last year, ASPCA also organized a similar Paws for Love event in February. Johnson said it’s a way to give Capitol Hill a much-needed break.

“There’s a lot of tension in Congress sometimes, and this is an event where members from both sides of the aisle can come together and they can agree on dogs and cats,” Johnson said.

Many Hill staffers, along with journalists, were among the throngs of people petting the dogs and asking for their names.

Since the dogs were only able to bark, staff and volunteers from the various shelters and ASPCA gave us the animals’ names and stories.

Here are a few that we met.

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About that NYT article — Jonathan Van Meter’s piece on Anthony Weiner for the April 2013 issue of NY Times Magazine was well received. The story with the headline, “Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s Post-Scandal Playbook,” narrated Weiner’s fall from Congress, his life after and his first steps back into politics. But WaPo’s Erik Wemple argues that the story is now “being blamed for enabling Weiner’s political rehabilitation.” Weiner told Van Meter that he was “eying” the mayor’s race and enlisted the help of pollster David Binder. As many journalists do when writing profiles, Van Meter immersed himself into Weiner and Abedin’s life. But, Wemple argues, immersion wasn’t the key to this story. Instead, skepticism should have ruled his reporting. Van Meter didn’t question Weiner on when he ceased having those online sexy chatfests or phone sex, which we now know he continued having after he resigned.

Why you should read it: The NYT piece drew well deserved praise, even from the likes of Poltico Editor-in-Chief John Harris, when it was first published, but had Van Meter pushed Weiner on whether he had halted the online relationships, it could have been a very different story.

Hindsight is 20/20 — In an op-ed for Scoop San Diego, Doug Curlee says he has covered Bob Filner, San Diego’s pervert mayor, since he was elected to school board in 1979. He says that he and many other San Diego journalists knew how abrasive and abusive he was throughout his political career. Now that Filner is facing a slew charges of sexual harassment, Curlee questions why the media, including himself, didn’t investigate Filner earlier. He doesn’t know the answer, but offers a few suggestions: the media could have been lazy, because Filner had established himself as a Democratic power or because Filner controlled votes and campaign funds of “large and ever-growing organized labor groups, the unions.” None seem like good reasons to not investigate the mayor’s behavior, but Curlee says the media as a whole “didn’t try, or try hard enough” and that San Diego journalists “should be a little ashamed of that,” noting that he is.

Why you should read it: How often does a journalist say he f–ked up? That in itself is a good reason to hear him out. According to Curlee, Filner had been a subject of speculation among San Diego journalists, and he offers insight into why those stories were never pursued.

Prepared for battle — Religious scholar and author Reza Aslan’s interview Friday with Fox News’ Lauren Green has spread around the Internet like Chicken Pox before there was a vaccine, starting with it being posted by BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, and labeled as one of the most embarrassing interviews to appear on the network. Green tore into Aslan asking how, as a Muslim, he can write a book about Jesus Christ. But Slate’s Josh Voorhees argues that Aslan knew what he was doing coming into the interview. In battling Green and establishing credibility for himself by listing off his college degrees, Voorhees says that Aslan “highlighted the gaping hole in Green’s line of questioning.” The interview worked out well for Aslan. After the interview, Zealot was at the top of the Amazon and Barnes & Noble best-seller lists.

Why you should read it: Voorhees offers–something different–a look from Aslan’s side.

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