The NYPD is searching for three people it says are connected to the deadly shooting of a 69-year-old grandmother Wednesday, who was shot in the face as she was returning home after getting lunch.
The shooting happened around 12:30 p.m. near 110th Street and Madison Avenue in East Harlem.
Friends of the victim, Robin Wright, said she lived across the street from where she was killed. She was walking home after picking up lunch when she was shot in the face, police said.
Witnesses said they heard at least a dozen shots, but they do not believe Wright was the intended target.
Images from the scene showed a solitary walker with blood on a corner that was taped off with police vehicles nearby.
Police are looking for three men, all wearing black face masks, who were last seen fleeing on Madison Avenue.
MANHATTAN, New York (WABC) — Police are investigating after a cyclist was struck by a stolen cab in Manhattan on Thursday, according to police sources.
They say a cab driver got out of his Toyota RAV4 and left the engine running as he went to grab food around 9:15 p.m.
That’s when a male suspect got into the cab and struck a cyclist near Second Avenue and East 33rd Street as he fled from the scene.
The cyclist refused medical attention and the vehicle was recovered near East 35th Street and Park Avenue.
There are no arrests, and the investigation remains ongoing.
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Museums throughout New York City were just reopening in the wake of the COVID pandemic when Jane August launched what seemed like a straightforward plan: She would travel to every single museum in the city, producing a short video log of each one. She figured it would take three years at most.
But with 136 museums documented since 2021, she still has about 64 to go by her estimation. And with new museums opening and some old ones changing so dramatically that they deserve a revisit, the 26-year-old now says she’s realistically aiming to complete the project before she’s 30.
“At first, I started the project for myself to safely get out of my house and experience culture in the city again,” said August, who grew up in Arizona and has lived in New York for nine years. She said she wasn’t a big museum person before starting the project, and had only been to around seven at the time.
But as she began, the plan quickly evolved.
“I decided TikTok would be a cool way to document this so my friends could keep up with my journey and maybe discover something new,” August said. Her audience has since far expanded with about 40,000 followers across social platforms.
Museums big and small, Manhattan and beyond
Visiting its museums has sparked a new appreciation for New York City, she said, as well as for the sheer breadth of what’s on offer, particularly for those willing to explore smaller museums and those in the boroughs beyond Manhattan.
And yes, she has favorites.
“I love Poster House. It’s the first poster museum in the country, has great programming and is free on Fridays,” she says of the largely unsung museum at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue, which features graphic design and advertising posters ranging from Art Nouveau to political propaganda.
Others on her list of favorites include the Tenement Museum in lower Manhattan and the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, as well as three Brooklyn museums: the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum, the New York Sign Museum and the Red Hook Pinball Museum. She also has a soft spot for The Paley Center for Media NYC in midtown Manhattan.
“They have archives with every TV show you could possibly think of. It’s amazing,” she said of The Paley Center.
Staten Island offerings are worth the ferry ride
As for the city’s smallest borough, the ferry ride to Staten Island (free, with views of the Statue of Liberty along the way) is well worth the trip for museum-goers, she said.
The borough features the Newhouse Center of Contemporary Art, as well as the Alice Austen House, a Victorian Gothic house important to LGBTQ+ history. It was the home of one of the country’s earliest and most prolific female photographers, famous for documenting the city’s immigrant communities.
“You wouldn’t imagine that Staten Island had one of the gayest museums in New York, dedicated to a queer photographer, but it does,” August said.
Staten Island is also home to the Jacques Marchais Museum of Tibetan Art and the Chinese Scholar’s Garden, which claims to be one of only two authentic classical outdoor Chinese gardens in the United States.
“It’s so peaceful and quiet, and I love riding the ferry,” August said.
Taking advantage of free days and slow hours
While museums can be expensive, she said she makes good use of museum passes at her local library, and that many museums have days or times when they are free.
And because her “day jobs” tend to be at night — she works at different venues in ticketing and production, and also bartends — she’s able to visit museums in the middle of weekdays, when they tend to be less crowded.
August recently became a licensed New York City tour guide, and she says it’s given her a renewed appreciation both of the city and its visitors.
She’s also seen a few trends take hold, like the rise in museum programming aimed at younger audiences and the trend away from chronological exhibits, which she says make return visits less enticing.
“So many of us are desperate for third spaces,” she said, referring to a place distinct from both home and work where people can relax or socialize. “For a lot of us, we have a hunger to come back and visit again, especially when it’s free.”
And at peak times and seasons, like summer, it’s nice to know there are plenty of smaller museums to visit.
Seeing the whole city
“I think this is especially important for the lesser-known museums that don’t often get press or social media features,” she said. “There are some small museums that get a huge bump in attendance and press after I have posted my videos so it’s exciting to be able to play a small role in that success.”
As for her motivation to continue the project, she said “it boils down to the people. I get to connect with fascinating and passionate people who are making these museums what they are and I get to connect with enthusiasts who want to find something fun to do with their weekend.”
For anyone interested in giving something like this a go for themselves, she says it takes a lot of endurance.
“Be prepared to go to corners of the city you never considered — I’m talking edges of the Bronx and middle of Staten Island,” she said. “But if you’re up for the challenge, you’ll probably gain a lot of insight on not just the museums and their content, but also the communities they serve.”
New York City ist einfach ideal um zu zeigen welche Vorteile die Samsung Galaxy AI im Alltag liefern kann. Ich habe hier einmal ein paar coole Beispiele.
New York City zählt zu den beliebtesten Touristenzielen der Welt. Die Metropole zieht jedes Jahr Millionen von Besucherinnen und Besuchern an, die aus allen Teilen der Welt kommen, um die berühmten Sehenswürdigkeiten, das vielfältige kulturelle Angebot und das unverwechselbare Stadtbild zu erleben.
Ob das Empire State Building, die Freiheitsstatue, der Central Park oder der Times Square, überall begegnet man Menschen, die fotografieren, staunen oder einfach das pulsierende Leben der Stadt genießen. Gerade weil New York so ein beliebtes Reiseziel ist, ist es kaum möglich, ein Foto der Stadt zu machen, auf dem keine anderen Menschen zu sehen sind. Überall wimmelt es von Touristen, Passanten und Straßenkünstlern.
Und genau hier kann die Galaxy AI ihre Vorteile ausspielen. Ich habe natürlich auch so einige touristische Bilder in New York gemacht. Und selbstverständlich sind überall zig Leute im Bild, die ich am liebsten nicht dort haben möchte. Aber wie stelle ich das an? Früher musste man hier so einiges an Photoshop-Skills an den Tag legen, jetzt reichen ein paar Sekunden.
Ich bin hier mit dem Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 unterwegs und habe mir anschließend mal den Spaß erlaubt mit der Galaxy AI und der Generativen Bearbeitung einige Bilder zu verändern. Hier seht ihr die Vorher / Nachher Bilder. Und ganz ehrlich, würdet ihr auf den ersten Blick erkennen dass diese mittels KI verändert wurden?
Bildergalerie
Der Central Park nur für uns. Zumindest auf dem Bild.
Ein Bild beim DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) zu machen, ohne eine Menschenmenge? Meistens unmöglich, es sei denn man ist Frühaufsteher. Einfach kurzerhand die Menschen und den Eiswagen entfernt und das Bild sieht doch gleich viel besser aus!
Wie würde eigentlich die New Yorker Skyline ohne das Chrysler Building aussehen? Einfach einrahmen und schon ist die Fläche frei.
Zwar würde das geübte Auge auf dem zweiten Bild erkennen dass diese Gebäude gar nicht in Manhattan stehen, aber auf den ersten Blick erkennt man nicht dass hier vorher eine Person stand und per Generative AI einfach durch Straßen und Häuser ausgetauscht wurde.
Ein menschenleerer Strand mit Blick auf die Skyline von Manhattan? Gar kein Problem. Schnell die Personen einkreisen und löschen und innerhalb von Sekunden hat man ein cleanes Bild.
Wie würde eigentlich die Skyline ohne den Central Park aussehen? Vielleicht so.
Samsung Galaxy AI | Fazit
Für all diese Bilder hätte man vor einigen Jahren noch richtige Bildbearbeitungsskills benötigt. Heutzutage reicht es aus die unerwünschten Objekte einzukreisen und innerhalb weniger Sekunden hat man ein Bild welches ungefähr den Erwartungen entsprechen sollte. Einfach faszinierend. Ihr seht aber auch dass unter jedem veränderten Bild der Hinweis „KI generierter Inhalt“ zu sehen ist, unabhängig davon was hier verändert wurde. Klar kann man das unten abschneiden, allerdings finde ich solch einen Hinweis in der heutigen Zeit durchaus wichtig.
Man kann übrigens nicht nur Objekte einkreisen und entfernen, sondern auch verschieben. Wenn euch also das Chrysler Building zu mittig war, könntet ihr es einfach zur Seite schieben. Das kann je nach Bild auch durchaus interessant sein.
Wer mehr Bilder des neuen Foldables von Samsung sehen möchte, inklusive Bilder der 200 Megapixel Kamera, schaut mal hier vorbei: Bilder der Samsung Galaxy Fold 7 Kamera.
NEW YORK — Timothée Chalamet made a surprise appearance Sunday at his own look-alike contest in Manhattan.
Four people was arrested after a large crowd formed and police broke up the event in Washington Square Park.
Chalamet posed for photos with his doppelgängers, some of whom came dressed as his characters from the movies “Wonka” and “Dune.”
The look-alike contest was one of several such competitions hosted by the YouTube personality Anthony Po, and it promised $50 for the winner. As word spread on social media, thousands of people RSVP’d.
From “a silly joke” to “pandemonium”
Miles Mitchell, 21, winner of the Timothee Chalamet look-alike contest, holds his trophy near Washington Square Park, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, in New York.
Stefan Jeremiah / AP
Minutes after the competition started — and before Chalamet arrived — police ordered the group to disperse from the park. Organizers were hit with a $500 fine for an “unpermitted costume contest,” and police said four people were taken into custody and issued summonses.
“It started off as a silly joke and now it’s turned pandemonium,” Paige Nguyen, a producer for the YouTube creator, told The Associated Press.
The group relocated to another park, and the audience eventually crowned Miles Mitchell, a Staten Island college senior, as the winner.
“I’m excited and I’m also overwhelmed,” Mitchell said. “There were so many good look-alikes. It was really a toss-up.”
The contestants were asked to demonstrate their French skills, about their romantic plans with Kylie Jenner, and what they would do to make the world a better place.
NEW YORK — Donald Trump is finally getting his Madison Square Garden moment.
With just over a week to go before Election Day, the former president will take the stage Sunday at one of the country’s most well-known venues, hosting a hometown rally to deliver his campaign’s closing message against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red “Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the gathering crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as “the world’s most famous arena.”
“It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
The rally is one of a series of detours Trump has made from battleground states, including a recent rally in Coachella, California – best known for the famous music festival named after the town – and one in May on the Jersey Shore. This summer he campaigned in the South Bronx.
While some Democrats and TV pundits have questioned Trump’s decision to hold what they dismiss as vanity events, the rally guarantees Trump what he most craves: the spotlight, wall-to-wall coverage and a national audience.
To reach them, Trump has spent hours appearing on popular podcasts. And his campaign has worked to create viral moments like his visit last weekend to a McDonald’s restaurant, where he made fries and served supporters through the drive-thru window. Video of the stop posted by his campaign has been viewed more than 40 million times on TikTok alone.
“He’s not just going to be speaking to the attendees inside Madison Square Garden. There will be people tuning in from battleground states all across the country,” said former U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin, a New York Republican and ally of the former president, who said Trump has been talking about holding an event at the venue since the start of his campaign.
Harris has also traveled to non-battleground states for major events intended to drive a national message. She appeared in Houston Friday with music superstar Beyoncé to speak about reproductive rights, and will deliver her own closing argument Tuesday from the Ellipse in Washington, where Trump spoke ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
Trump will be joined at the rally by supporters including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has spent tens of millions of dollars to boost his campaign.
Trump often compares himself to the country’s greatest entertainers. The former reality TV star has long talked about wanting to hold a rally at the venue in interviews and private conversations.
“Madison Square Garden is the center of the universe,” said Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller, noting the venue’s storied history hosting events including the 1971 “Fight of the Century.”
House control could run through New York’s suburbs Beyond the national spotlight and the appeal of appearing on one of the world’s most famous stages, Republicans in the state say the rally will also help down-ballot candidates.
New York is home to a handful of competitive congressional races that could determine which party controls the House next year.
Zeldin ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, but did better than expected, driving turnout in competitive districts that helped House Republicans win a tiny majority. That underscored, he said, the importance of the top of the ticket doing as well as possible. He said the Garden event is sure to be featured on newscasts in areas with high-stakes races like suburban Long Island, where Trump held a packed, raucous rally last month.
Trump will also use the stop as a major fundraising opportunity as he continues to seriously lag Harris in the money race.
A native returns to the city that made him and convicted him New York has not voted for a Republican for president in 40 years. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to insist he believes he can win.
“We think there’s a chance,” he said on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” earlier this week, pointing to frustrations over an influx of migrants to the city and concerns over crime.
Trump routinely uses his hometown as a foil before audiences in other states, painting a dark vision of the city that bears little resemblance to reality. He’s cast it as crime-ridden and overrun by violent, immigrant gangs who have taken over Fifth and Madison avenues and occupied Times Square.
Trump has a complicated history with the place where he built his business empire and that made him a tabloid and reality TV star. Its residents indicted him last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He was found guilty in that case, and also found liable in civil court for business fraud and sexual abuse.
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NEW YORK (AP) — The Vessel, a towering, honeycomb-like sculpture in Manhattan that was popular with tourists before a series of suicides forced its closure in 2021, will reopen Monday with new safety features.
The 150-foot (46-meter) structure opened in 2019 as the centerpiece of the Hudson Yards development on Manhattan’s West Side. The climbable sculpture with zigzagging stairs drew crowds of tourists, but was closed to the public in 2021 after several people took their own lives by jumping off the structure.
Related Companies, which owns Hudson Yards, confirmed Sunday that the Vessel will reopen Monday with floor-to-ceiling steel mesh barriers installed on parts of it. Only the upper level sections that have been fitted with mesh will reopen and the top level will remain closed. Tickets are required.
“Not a day goes by that we don’t have visitors walking up to our staff asking where they can buy tickets and when it will reopen,” Related CEO Jeff T. Blau said in a prepared statement, “that interest hasn’t diminished during the time we’ve been closed and we’re excited to welcome guests from all around the world back to Vessel with additional safety measures in place.”
Related had announced in April that the attraction would reopen at an unspecified time this year with the steel mesh barriers.
The Vessel was designed by Thomas Heatherwick and fabricated in Venice.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.
NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs asked a New York judge Tuesday to force prosecutors to disclose the names of his accusers in his sex trafficking case.
The lawyers wrote in a letter to a Manhattan federal court judge that the hip-hop music maker needs to know the identities of his alleged victims so he can prepare adequately for trial.
Last week, a May 5 trial date was set for Combs. He has pleaded not guilty.
A spokesperson for prosecutors declined comment.
Combs, 54, remains incarcerated without bail after his Sept. 16 federal sex trafficking arrest. His lawyers have asked a federal appeals court to let him be freed to home detention so he can more easily meet with lawyers and prepare for trial.
So far, judges have concluded he is a danger to the community and cannot be freed.
The request to identify accusers comes a day after six new lawsuits were filed against Combs anonymously to protect the identities of the alleged victims. Two of the accusers were identified as Jane Does while four men were listed in the lawsuits as John Does. The lawsuits claimed he used his fame and promises of boosting their own prospects in the music industry to persuade victims to attend lavish parties or drug-fueled hangouts where he then assaulted them.
The plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuits are part of what their lawyers say is a group of more than 100 accusers who are in the process of taking legal action against Combs.
In their letter Tuesday to Judge Arun Subramanian, lawyers for Combs said the case against their client is unique in part because of the number of accusers. They attributed the quantity to “his celebrity status, wealth and the publicity of his previously settled lawsuit.”
That reference appeared to cite a November lawsuit filed by his former girlfriend, Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura. Combs settled the lawsuit the next day, but its allegations of sexual and physical abuse have followed him since.
The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Ventura did.
Combs’ lawyers said the settlement of Cassie’s lawsuit, along with “false inflammatory statements” by federal agents and Combs’ fame have “had a pervasive ripple effect, resulting in a torrent of allegations by unidentified complainants, spanning from the false to outright absurd.”
They said the lawsuits filed Monday, along with other lawsuits, and their “swirling allegations have created a hysterical media circus that, if left unchecked, will irreparably deprive Mr. Combs of a fair trial, if they haven’t already.”
The lawyers wrote that the government should identify alleged victims because Combs has no way of knowing which allegations prosecutors are relying on in their accusations in an indictment.
“To the extent Mr. Combs is forced to mount a defense against criminal allegations that the government does not seek to prove at trial, he is entitled to know that,” the lawyers said.
The indictment alleges Combs coerced and abused women for years, with the help of a network of associates and employees, while using blackmail and violent acts including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings to keep victims from speaking out.
NEW YORK (AP) — Hunter Biden has revived a lawsuit that accuses Fox News of illegally publishing explicit images of him as part of a streaming series.
The president’s son first sued Fox in New York in July over images used in the Fox Nation series “The Trial of Hunter Biden,” a “mock trial” of Hunter Biden on charges he has not faced. He dropped the suit without explanation three weeks later, the same day President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race.
On Tuesday, Hunter Biden filed a largely identical suit in state court in Manhattan, again arguing that the dissemination of intimate images without his consent violates New York’s so-called revenge porn law. The new suit adds one current Fox executive one former executive as named defendants.
Biden’s attorney, Tina Glandian, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on why the suit was revived.
In a filing Tuesday, Fox asked that the case be moved to federal court. The company issued a statement describing the second suit as “once again devoid of any merit.”
“The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024,” the statement said. “The program was removed within days of that letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.”
Biden was convicted in July of three felony firearms charges related to the purchase of a revolver in 2018. The six-part Fox Nation series depicted a dramatized court proceeding on different, fictional charges.
NEW YORK – Sean “Diddy” Combs is accused of raping women, sexually assaulting men and molesting a 16-year-old boy in a new wave of lawsuits filed in New York.
At least six lawsuits were filed against the hip-hop mogul in federal court in Manhattan on Monday. They were filed anonymously, two by women identified as Jane Does and four by men identified as John Does.
One of the John Does, a man living in North Carolina, alleges that Combs fondled his genitals when he was 16 at one of the rapper’s famous white parties in Long Island’s Hamptons in 1998.
The man alleges that during a conversation about possibly breaking into the music industry, Combs abruptly ordered the then-teen to drop his pants.
According to the man’s lawsuit, Combs explained to him that it was a rite of passage to becoming a music star, at one point asking the then-teen: “Don’t you want to break into the business?”
The man said he complied out of fear, anxiety and power imbalance he felt with Combs, only realizing later that what had happened was sexual assault.
Until Monday’s lawsuit, Combs had only been accused in civil cases and his criminal indictment of sexual activity with adults.
Combs’ lawyers released a statement Monday evening calling the recent filings “clear attempts to garner publicity.”
“Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman,” the statement said.
Combs has pleaded not guilty
Combs, 54, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges alleging he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings.
Two judges have concluded that Combs would be a danger to the community if he is released from the Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility that has been plagued by violence and dysfunction for years. At a bail hearing three weeks ago, a judge rejected a $50 million bail package, including home detention and electronic monitoring, after concluding that Combs was a threat to tamper with witnesses and obstruct a continuing investigation.
On Friday, an appeals court judge denied Combs’ immediate release from jail while a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighs his bail request.
“You better not tell anyone about this”
The other lawsuits filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan include allegations of rape, forced oral sex and drugging to incapacitate victims.
One of the Jane Does suing Combs alleges he raped her in a locked hotel room in 2004 after he invited her and a friend there for a party, gave them drinks and told them to snort cocaine.
The woman, a college freshman at the time, alleges Combs also forced her friend to perform oral sex on him and said he would have them both killed if they didn’t comply with his demands.
The other Jane Doe alleges Combs violently attacked and raped her in a bathroom in 2005 at a party for the late rapper Biggie Smalls’ music video, “One More Chance.”
According to the woman, Combs brought her into the bathroom to talk privately and then started kissing her unexpectedly. When she tried to pull away, she alleges, he slammed her head against the wall, causing her to fall to the floor. The woman said she tried to escape, but Combs hit her again and raped her.
Afterward, according to the woman, Combs nonchalantly adjusted his clothing and told her: “You better not tell anyone about this, or you will disappear.”
In another John Doe lawsuit, a man working as a security guard at Combs’ Hamptons white party in 2006 alleges the star gave him an alcoholic beverage that he came to believe was laced with a drug that made him feel extremely ill. The man alleges that Combs then pushed him into a van, held him down and sexually assaulted him.
In the other lawsuits filed Monday, Combs is accused of forcing a man to perform oral sex on him in the stockroom of Macy’s flagship store in Manhattan’s Herald Square in 2008 and sexually assaulting a man at a party in October 2021. The latter man, who suspects a drugged beverage left him unable to fight back, recalls multiple men assaulting him and distinctly recalls seeing Combs above him, naked, at one point during the assault, his lawsuit said.
“The press conference and 1-800 number that preceded today’s barrage of filings were clear attempts to garner publicity. Mr. Combs and his legal team have full confidence in the facts, their legal defenses, and the integrity of the judicial process. In court, the truth will prevail: that Mr. Combs has never sexually assaulted anyone—adult or minor, man or woman,” Combs’ attorneys said in a statement.
UPPER WEST SIDE, Manhattan (WABC) — More than a year after the October 7 attacks on Israel, the family of one hostage is reminding community members about their son, who is having his second birthday in captivity.
Friends and family members came to show their support for Long Island native Omer Neutra at a community basketball game on Sunday.
“We’re exhausted, absolutely. This has been a roller coaster of a year between hope and despair, and right now, negotiations are at a standstill,” said Omer’s mother, Orna Neutra.
The family last spoke to their son, who is in the Israeli military, just a day before Hamas attacked, claiming 1,200 lives and taking 240 hostages, including Omer.
“We’re hoping he’s okay, and I mean, there’s a good chance he doesn’t even know what day it is. He doesn’t know that it’s his birthday or if it is his birthday,” said Daniel Neutra, Omer’s brother.
Omer’s family refuses to give up hope and continues to cling to their belief in miracles.
They have been working tirelessly to get their son released, talking to officials in Washington and Israel, and also leaders in the Middle East.
“He was 21 when he was taken captive. Right, it’s heartbreaking, it’s devastating. And it’s unfathomable that a 22-year-old is spending his time in the tunnels underneath Gaza for such a long time,” Orna said.
According to his family, Omer loves basketball and wore the number “24” because he idolized Kobe Bryant and was a big Knicks fan. Despite living in Israel, Omer rarely missed watching a Knicks game.
“And we were four years ago and we watched the NBA Finals always together. Whether we were together physically or apart across the ocean, we always watched NBA finals together,” said Ronen Nuetra, Omer’s father.
Omer’s basketball teammates here at home say they are in disbelief as they wait for updates about him. One teammate, Ari Kantorowitz, says Omer was always the joyous spirit of their group, even when they were bad.
“He was our heart. He was the guy that was fighting for all of us that maybe weren’t as tough. He always brought like the hope that we could win,” Kantorowitz said.
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After years of living with a shared rooftop garden in lower Manhattan, designer Julie Weiss decided to let the plants win.
“I love the wild, overgrown feel,” says Weiss, who was Vanity Fair’s art director from 2004 to 2014. “It’s a contrast to the city.”
Weiss, an LA native, lets the garden take on a life of its own. Wavy grasses and lavender look billowy and soft against the city backdrop, with all those sharp right angles on the Woolworth Building and the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance.
During an early autumn visit, we enjoyed the panoramic views that stretch to both the Hudson and East rivers:
Above: Weiss anchors the garden with hardy herbaceous perennials that bloom deep into October. Purple agastaches and lavenders mix with wild grasses, hydrangeas, and roses. And there’s the white nicotiana (at left) that she plants by the door for its “beautiful, tropical scent.” Above: Divided into four outdoor “rooms,” the space has lent itself to countless dinners, intimate drinks and summer soirées. Above: Weiss likes how each of the four outdoor “rooms” can accommodate several of the building’s occupants simultaneously but privately. Above: Water tower as rooftop sculpture; a common New York City sight. Above: Keen on planting abundant and “tough” perennials, Weiss anchors the space with roses, lavenders, and late-flowering tardiva hydrangeas. Annuals including zinnias, cosmos, and dahlias (Shown) add color and late-season interest. Above: Weiss lines the perimeter with lacy tardiva hydrangeas, “a great white hydrangea that does well with the wind on the roof.” Above: Secret garden: a pergola and chairs.
Broadcasting and Cable inducted George Stephanopoulos, Dick Vitale and Debra O’Connell into its hall of fame on Thursday.
NEW YORK CITY — It was a special night Thursday in Manhattan, where some of the leaders in the broadcasting industry were honored.
Broadcasting and Cable inducted new members into its hall of fame.
ABC’s Deborah Roberts was one of the hosts.
Among the honorees were ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, ESPN’s Dick Vitale and Debra O’Connell, the president of news group and networks for the Walt Disney Company.
O’Connell has risen up through the company, and was also the general manager at WABC for a time.
Broadcasting and Cable has inducted more than 400 honorees into its hall of fame over the years.
NEW YORK (AP) — Caroline Ellison, a former top executive in Sam Bankman-Fried ’s fallen FTX cryptocurrency empire, was sentenced to two years in prison on Tuesday after she apologized to everyone hurt by a fraud that stole billions of dollars from investors, lenders and customers.
Ellison, 29, could have faced a much tougher sentence, but both the judge and prosecutors said she deserved credit for talking extensively with federal investigators, pleading guilty and ultimately testifying against Bankman-Fried for three days at his trial last November.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said Ellison’s cooperation was “very, very substantial” and “remarkable.”
But he said a prison sentence was necessary because she had participated in what might be the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country and probably anywhere else” or at least close to it.
Ellison was ordered to report to prison Nov. 7.
FTX was one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, known for its Superbowl TV ad and its extensive lobbying campaign in Washington, before it collapsed in 2022.
U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried and other top executives of looting customer accounts on the exchange to make risky investments, make millions of dollars of illegal political donations, bribe Chinese officials and buy luxury real estate in the Caribbean.
Ellison was chief executive at Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund controlled by Bankman-Fried.
“I’m deeply ashamed with what I’ve done,” she said at the sentencing hearing, fighting through tears to say she was “so so sorry” to everyone she had harmed directly or indirectly.
She did not speak as she left Manhattan federal court, surrounded by lawyers.
In court Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon called for leniency, saying Ellison’s testimony was “devastating and powerful proof” against Bankman-Fried, 32, who was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Attorney Anjan Sahni asked the judge to spare his client from prison, citing “unusual circumstances,” including her off-and-on romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried and the damage caused when her “whole professional and personal life came to revolve” around him.
Judge Kaplan agreed that Ellison’s willingness to work with prosecutors was extraordinary.
“I’ve seen a lot of cooperators in 30 years here. I’ve never seen one quite like Ms. Ellison,” he said.
But he said that in such a serious case, he could not let cooperation be a get-out-of-jail-free card, even when it was clear that Bankman-Fried had become “your kryptonite.”
Bankman-Fried also testified at the trial, portraying himself to the jury as inexperienced and bumbling but not a criminal. He acknowledged making mistakes, but said he didn’t defraud anyone and wasn’t aware that Alameda Research had amassed billions of dollars in debt.
Sassoon, the prosecutor, described that testimony in court Tuesday as “evasive, even contemptuous.”
As the business began to falter, Ellison divulged the massive fraud to employees who worked for her even before FTX filed for bankruptcy, trial evidence showed.
Ultimately, she also spoke extensively with criminal and civil U.S. investigators.
Sassoon said prosecutors were impressed that Ellison did not “jump into the lifeboat” to escape her crimes but instead spent nearly two years fully cooperating.
Since testifying at Bankman-Fried’s trial, Ellison has engaged in extensive charity work, written a novel and worked with her parents on a math enrichment textbook for advanced high school students, according to her lawyers.
They said she also now has a healthy romantic relationship and has reconnected with high school friends she had lost touch with while she worked for and sometimes dated Bankman-Fried from 2017 until late 2022.
VENICE, Italy (AP) — “ Joker ” is a hard act to follow. Todd Phillips’ dark, Scorsese-inspired character study about the Batman villain made over a billion dollars at the box office, won Joaquin Phoenix his first Oscar, dominated the cultural discourse for months and created a new movie landmark.
It wasn’t for everyone, but it got under people’s skin.
Knowing that it was a fool’s errand to try to do it again, Phillips and Phoenix pivoted, or rather, pirouetted into what would become “ Joker: Folie à Deux.” The dark and fantastical musical journey goes deeper into the mind of Arthur Fleck as he awaits trial for murder and falls in love with a fellow Arkham inmate, Lee, played by Lady Gaga. There is singing, dancing and mayhem.
If Phillips and Phoenix have learned anything over the years, it’s that the scarier something is, the better. So once again they rebelled against expectations and went for broke with something that’s already sharply divided critics.
As with the first, audiences will get to decide for themselves when it opens in theaters on Oct. 4.
“HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET JOAQUIN PHOENIX TO DO A SEQUEL?”
Any comic book movie that makes a billion dollars is going to have the sequel talk. But with “Joker” it was never a given that it would go anywhere: Joaquin Phoenix doesn’t do sequels. Yet it turned out, Phoenix wasn’t quite done with Arthur Fleck yet either.
During the first, the actor wondered what this character would look like in different situations. He and the on-set photographer mocked up classic movie posters, like “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Yentl” with the Joker in them and showed them to Phillips.
“Sometimes you’re just done with something and other times you have an ongoing interest,” Phoenix said. “There was just more to explore. … I just felt like we weren’t done.”
So Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver got to work on a new script, one that leaned into the music in Arthur Fleck’s head. Then his dreary Arkham life turns to Technicolor when he meets and falls for Lee, a Joker superfan.
“Joaquin Phoenix is not going to do a line drive. He’s not going to do something that’s fan service,” Phillips said. “He wanted to be as scared as he was with the first movie. So, we tried to make something that is as audacious and out there and hopefully people get it.”
LADY GAGA FINDS LEE’S VOICE, AND LOSES HER OWN
One decision that’s already sparking debate is casting someone with a voice like Lady Gaga’s and not using that instrument to its full power. Phillips, who was a producer on “A Star is Born,” wanted someone who “brought music with them.” But Lee isn’t a singer.
Actor Lady Gaga and director Todd Phillips delight in returning to Venice Film Festival with “Joker: Folie à Deux,” as Gaga reveals why she sings differently in the eagerly anticipated sequel. (Sept. 5)
“Singing is so second nature to me, and making music and performing on stage is so inside of me. Especially this music,” Gaga said. “I worked extensively on untraining myself for this movie and throwing away as much as I could all the time to make sure I was never locking into what I do. I had to really kind of erase it all.”
Phoenix, who wasn’t quite sure what it would be like working with someone who has such a larger-than-life superstar persona, found Gaga to be refreshingly unpretentious and available. And as an actor, he admired her commitment to the character.
“Her power is in singing and singing a particular way,” he said. “For her to sacrifice that through character, to do something that people would call a musical, but to not be performing it in the way that would sound best as a singer but to approach it from the character was a very difficult process. I was really impressed with her willingness to do that.”
In addition to writing a “waltz that falls apart” for the film, Gaga is releasing a companion album, “Harlequin” on Friday with song titles including “Oh, When the Saints,” “World on a String,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now” and “That’s Life.”
Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)
SORRY PUDDIN’, THIS AIN’T MARGOT ROBBIE’S HARLEY QUINN
“We’re never going to outdo what Margot Robbie did,” Phillips said. “You have to do something 180 degrees in the other direction.”
Sure, Lee will still casually light something on fire to get some time alone with Joker, but the tumult is more internal. And Gaga threw herself into making Lee something new: A real person, grounded in a reality that came before her.
“I spent a lot of my time on developing her inner life (which) for me had a lot to do with her storm and what thing was always making her about to explode,” Gaga said. “There’s a particular kind of danger that she carries with her, but it’s inside and it’s kind of explosive.”
“DO YOU JUST WANT A BRUTE?”
Phoenix and Brendan Gleeson, background center, in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Brendan Gleeson didn’t have much hesitation about joining the ensemble. He’d worked with Phoenix before on “The Village” and was in awe of what he’d done on the first movie.
“He has an absolute relentless integrity and curiosity and drive,” Gleeson said. “He won’t just plough the same furrow for its own sake.”
But he also didn’t want to play the simple version of an Arkham prison guard.
“I said, look, do you just want a brute? Because I’m not sure I just want to do a brute,” Gleeson said. “He wanted something more. We tried to find layers in this guy.”
CREATING MAYHEM
Anyone who has worked with Phoenix knows that he likes to keep things fresh. That may mean something as small as changing the location of a prop or as big as throwing out choreography that you’ve been rehearsing for months at the last minute.
“I think we both love mayhem and not just in movies but on the set,” Phillips said. “It had to feel like anything can happen.”
Gaga, director Todd Phillips, and Joaquin Phoenix at the Venice Film Festival. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP, File)
With the crew 95% the same as the first, everyone was ready to be flexible. Gaga, too, dove right in, suggesting that they sing live on camera.
“It changed the whole making of the film,” Phillips said. “We were not only singing live, we were singing live differently every take.”
THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT?
Since Arthur killed Robert De Niro’s talk show host Murray Franklin on live television in the first film, he’s become a kind of icon and curiosity thanks in no small part to an oft referenced, but never seen, television movie that was made about him. Now, the trial is going to be televised as well.
“Underneath it all, there’s this idea of corruption and how everything is corrupt in the system, from the prison system to the judicial system to the idea of entertainment, quite frankly,” Phillips said. “This idea that in the States at least, everything is entertainment. A court trial could be entertainment, and a presidential election can be entertainment. So, if that’s true, what is entertainment?”
NO LONGER A COMPLETE WILD CARD
It’s easier to be to the insurgent, not the incumbent, Phillips said. Although a Joker film is never going to fly completely under the radar, the spotlight is undoubtedly more intense this time around.
“You do feel like you have a larger target on your back,” Phillips said.
While much of the film was made on Warner Bros. soundstages in Los Angeles, the production did go back to New York to film again on the Bronx staircase (which now come up on Google Maps as the Joker Stairs) and outside a Manhattan courthouse. The production staged a massive protest scene, with Gaga, almost concurrently with the media frenzy around the Donald Trump hush money trial as if there weren’t enough eyes on them already.
Some are also handwringing about the sequel’s bigger budget and whether it can match the success of the first. But Phillips has learned to take it in stride.
“There’s a different amount of pressure, but that just comes with making movies,” he said. “You can’t please everybody and you just kind of go for it.”
Gleeson has an even sunnier outlook.
“It has kind of arthouse movie integrity on a blockbuster scale. It’s great news for cinema, is the way I look on it,” Gleeson said. “If these event movies can continue to have depth and can be so conflicting like this one, is we needn’t worry about the future of cinema.”
SO, IS IT A MUSICAL?
Phoenix and Lady Gaga in a scene from “Joker: Folie à Deux.” (Niko Tavernise/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
One thing Phillips didn’t mean to do was ignite a discourse about what is and isn’t a musical. He’s just trying to manage expectations.
“People go, ‘what do you mean it’s not a musical?’ And it is a musical. It has all the elements of a musical. But I guess what I mean by it is all the musicals I’ve seen leave me happy at the end for the most part, ‘Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ not being one of them. This has so much sadness in it that I just didn’t want to be misleading to people.”
MIDTOWN EAST, Manhattan — President Joe Biden declared the U.S. must not retreat from the world, as he delivered his final address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday as Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon edged toward all-out war and Israel’s bloody operation against Hamas in Gaza neared the one-year mark.
Biden used his wide-ranging address to speak to a need to end the Middle East conflict and the 17-month-old civil war in Sudan and to highlight U.S. and Western allies’ support for Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
His appearance before the international body also offered Biden one of his last high-profile opportunities as president to make the case to keep up robust support for Ukraine, which could be in doubt if former President Donald Trump, who has scoffed at the cost of the war, defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in November. Still, Biden insisted that despite global conflicts, he remains hopeful for the future.
CeFaan Kim reports the Lower East Side.
“I’ve seen a remarkable sweep of history,” Biden said. “I know many look at the world today and see difficulties and react with despair but I do not.”
“We are stronger than we think” when the world acts together, he added.
Biden came to office promising to rejuvenate U.S. relations around the world and to extract the U.S. from “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq that consumed American foreign policy over the last 20 years.
“I was determined to end it, and I did,” Biden said of the Afghanistan exit, calling it a “hard decision but the right decision.” He acknowledged that it was “accompanied by tragedy” with the deaths of 13 American troops and hundreds of Afghans in a suicide bombing during the chaotic withdrawal.
Biden in farewell U.N. address says peace still possible in conflicts in Mideast and Ukraine
But his foreign policy legacy may ultimately be shaped by his administration’s response to two of the biggest conflicts in Europe and the Middle East since World War II.
“There will always be forces that pull our countries apart,” Biden said, rejecting “a desire to retreat from the world and go it alone.” He said, “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than the forces pulling us apart.”
The Pentagon announced Monday that it was sending a small number of additional U.S. troops to the Middle East to supplement the roughly 40,000 already in the region. All the while, the White House insists Israel and Hezbollah still have time to step back and de-escalate.
“Full scale war is not in anyone’s interest,” Biden said, and despite escalating violence, a diplomatic solution is the only path to peace.
Biden had a hopeful outlook for the Middle East when he addressed the U.N. just a year ago. In that speech, Biden spoke of a “sustainable, integrated Middle East” coming into view.
At the time, economic relations between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors were improving with implementation of the Abraham Accords that Israel signed with Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates during the Trump administration.
Biden’s team helped resolve a long-running Israel-Lebanon maritime dispute that had held back gas exploration in the region. And Israel-Saudi normalization talks were progressing, a game-changing alignment for the region if a deal could be landed.
“I suffer from an oxymoron: Irish optimism,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they met on the sidelines of last year’s U.N. gathering. He added, “If you and I, 10 years ago, were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia … I think we’d look at each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?’”
Eighteen days later, Biden’s Middle East hopes came crashing down. Hamas militants stormed into Israel killing 1,200, taking some 250 hostage, and spurring a bloody war that has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians in Gaza and led the region into a complicated downward spiral.
Now, the conflict is threatening to metastasize into a multi-front war and leave a lasting scar on Biden’s presidential legacy.
Israel and Hezbollah traded strikes again Tuesday as the death toll from a massive Israeli bombardment climbed to nearly 560 people and thousands fled from southern Lebanon. It’s the deadliest barrage since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Israel has urged residents of southern Lebanon to evacuate from homes and other buildings where it claimed Hezbollah has stored weapons, saying the military would conduct “extensive strikes” against the militant group.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, has launched dozens of rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in retaliation for strikes last week that killed a top commander and dozens of fighters. Dozens were also killed last week and hundreds more wounded after hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploded, a sophisticated attack that was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
Israel’s leadership launched its counterattacks at a time of growing impatience with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s persistent launching of missiles and drones across the Israel-Lebanon border after Hamas started the war with its brazen attack on Oct. 7.
Biden has seemed more subdued in recent days about the prospects of Israel and Hamas agreeing to a temporary cease-fire and hostage deal. But he insists that he hasn’t given up.
Biden used his remarks to condemn the “horrors” of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and said hostages taken by the group are “are going through hell.” He added, “Innocent civilians in Gaza are also going through hell.” Biden also condemned settler violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.
Biden reiterated his call on the parties to agree to a cease-fire and hostage release deal, saying it’s time to “end this war” – even as hopes for such a deal are fading as the conflict drags on.
Biden, in his address, called for the sustainment of Western support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Biden helped galvanize an international coalition to back Ukraine with weapons and economic aid in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 assault on Ukraine.
Biden has managed to keep up American support in the face of rising skepticism from some Republican lawmakers – and Trump – about the cost of the conflict.
At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pressing Biden to loosen restrictions on the use of Western-supplied long-range missiles so that Ukrainian forces can hit deeper in Russia.
So far Zelenskyy has not persuaded the Pentagon or White House to loosen those restrictions. The Defense Department has emphasized that Ukraine can already hit Moscow with Ukrainian-produced drones, and there is hesitation on the strategic implications of a U.S.-made missile potentially striking the Russian capital.
Putin has warned that Russia would be “at war” with the United States and its NATO allies if they allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons.
Biden and Harris are scheduled to hold separate meetings with Zelenskyy in Washington on Thursday. Ukrainian officials were also trying to arrange a meeting for Zelenskyy with Trump this week.
In Sudan, where a humanitarian disaster has been created by a brutal civil war, Biden said “the world needs to stop arming the generals” and to tell them to “stop tearing this country apart.”
The entirety of Midtown East in Manhattan is expected to be snarled as numerous streets have been closed in anticipation of the week-long session.
Several protests are slated to take place, which will add to the congestion and heightened security in the area of the United Nations.
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More than 110 pounds of crystal meth was recovered from a vehicle during a stop in lower Manhattan in a $600,000 bust that is being called one of the biggest in New York history, according to prosecutors.
The DEA’s New York Drug Enforcement Task Force (NYDETF) was conducting surveillance around 9 a.m. Monday and stopped a black Chevrolet Tahoe with Pennsylvania license plates near West Street and Battery Place. In the back seat of the SUV, agents and officers spotted two large black duffel bags in the rear seat, prosecutors said.
The driver and the passenger, Fernando Penaloza-Reyes and Raul Cruz-Torres, were detained as they got a search warrant. Hours later, law enforcement took the bags out and found about 50 vacuum sealed packages of a white rocky substance, which law enforcement believed to be crystal meth.
In all, the weight of the packages was just over 110 pounds with a street value of more than a half-million dollars, making it one of the largest meth seizures by the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor. DEA lab analysis results of the contents of the packages was still pending.
The two men, both from Reading, Pennsylvania, were charged with possession of a controlled substance and were arraigned Tuesday afternoon.
“Methamphetamine, sometimes mixed with fentanyl, is claiming an increasing number of lives in our state and nation. Preventing more than 100 pounds of the drug from reaching our streets will save precious lives and prevent vulnerable communities from experiencing its destructive impact,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan.
In his first news conference since Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, former President Donald Trump said he would debate her on Sept. 10 and pushed for two more debates. The Republican presidential nominee spoke for more than an hour, discussing a number of issues facing the country and then taking questions from reporters. He made a number of false and misleading claims. Many of them have been made before.
Here’s a look at some of those claims.
CROWD SIZES
FILE – Crowds are shown in front of the Washington Monument during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Aug. 28, 1963, in Washington. (AP Photo, File)
CLAIM: “The biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken — I’ve spoken to the biggest crowds. Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me. If you look at Martin Luther King when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours, same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not we had more. And they said he had a million people, but I had 25,000 people.”
THE FACTS: Trump was comparing the crowd at his speech in front of the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, to the crowd that attended Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial.
But far more people are estimated to have been at the latter than the former.
Approximately 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King gave his speech, according to the National Park Service. The Associated Press reported in 2021 that there were at least 10,000 people at Trump’s address.
Moreover, Trump and King did not speak in the same location. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, which looks east toward the Washington Monument. Trump spoke at the Ellipse, a grassy area just south of the White House.
___
JAN. 6
CLAIM: “Nobody was killed on Jan. 6.”
THE FACTS: That’s false. Five people died in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and its immediate aftermath. Pro-Trump rioters breached the U.S. Capitol that day amid Congress’ effort to certify Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Among the deceased are Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter shot and killed by police, and Brian Sicknick, a police officer who died the day after battling the mob. Four additional officers who responded to the riot killed themselves in the following weeks and months.
Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was shot and killed by a police officer as she climbed through a broken part of a Capitol door during the violent riot. Trump has often cited Babbitt’s death while lamenting the treatment of those who attended a rally outside the White House that day and then marched to the Capitol, many of whom fought with police.
___
DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
CLAIM: “The presidency was taken away from Joe Biden, and I’m no Biden fan, but I tell you what, from a constitutional standpoint, from any standpoint you look at, they took the presidency away.”
THE FACTS: There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents the Democratic Party from making Vice President Kamala Harris its nominee. That process is determined by the Democratic National Committee.
Harris officially claimed the nomination Monday following a five-day online voting process, receiving 4,563 delegate votes out of 4,615 cast, or about 99% of participating delegates. A total of 52 delegates in 18 states cast their votes for “present,” the only other option on the ballot.
The vice president was the only candidate eligible to receive votes after no other candidate qualified by the party’s deadline following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race on July 21.
What to know about the 2024 Election
___
THE ECONOMY
CLAIM: Suggesting things would be different if he had been in office rather than Biden: “You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had any inflation because inflation was caused by their bad energy problems. Now they’ve gone back to the Trump thing because they need the votes. They’re drilling now because they had to go back because gasoline was going up to 7, 8, 9 dollars a barrel.”
THE FACTS: There would have been at least some inflation if Trump had been reelected in 2020 because many of the factors causing inflation were outside a president’s control. Prices spiked in 2021 after cooped-up Americans ramped up their spending on goods such as exercise bikes and home office furniture, overwhelming disrupted supply chains. U.S. auto companies, for example, couldn’t get enough semiconductors and had to sharply reduce production, causing new and used car prices to shoot higher. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022 also sent gas and food prices soaring around the world, as Ukraine’s wheat exports were disrupted and many nations boycotted Russian oil and gas.
Still, under Biden, U.S. oil production reached a worldwide record level earlier this year.
Many economists, including some Democrats, say Biden’s $1.9 trillion financial support package, approved in March 2021, which provided a $1,400 stimulus check to most Americans, helped fuel inflation by ramping up demand. But it didn’t cause inflation all by itself. And Trump supported $2,000 stimulus checks in December 2020, rather than the $600 checks included in a package he signed into law in December 2020.
Prices still spiked in countries with different policies than Biden’s, such as France, Germany and the U.K., though mostly because of the sharp increase in energy costs stemming from Russia’s invasion.
___
IMMIGRATION
Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
CLAIM: “Twenty million people came over the border during the Biden-Harris administration — 20 million people — and it could be very much higher than that. Nobody really knows.”
THE FACTS: Trump’s 20 million figure is unsubstantiated at best, and he didn’t provide sources.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024. That’s arrests, not people. Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people crossed more than once until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico. So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
In addition, CBP says it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico from January 2021 through June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.
U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.
All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.
There are an unknown number of people who eluded capture, known as “got-aways” in Border Patrol parlance. The Border Patrol estimates how many but doesn’t publish that number.
___
CLAIM: Vice President Kamala Harris “was the border czar 100% and all of a sudden for the last few weeks she’s not the border czar anymore.”
THE FACTS: Harris was appointed to address “root causes” of migration in Central America. That migration manifests itself in illegal crossings to the U.S., but she was not assigned to the border.
___
NEW YORK CASES
CLAIM: “The New York cases are totally controlled out of the Department of Justice.”
THE FACTS: Trump was referring to two cases brought against him in New York — one civil and the other criminal.
Neither has anything to do with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The civil case was initiated by a lawsuit from New York Attorney General Letitia James. In that case, Trump was ordered in February to pay a $454 million penalty for lying about his wealth for years as he built the real estate empire that vaulted him to stardom and the White House.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a state-level prosecutor, brought the criminal case. In May, a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
___ Associated Press writers Melissa Goldin and Elliot Spagat and economics writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this article. ___
An earlier version of this story mixed up “latter” and “former” in the third paragraph. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, 1963, drew a far larger crowd than Donald Trump’s speech near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021.
The election is near and the chatter is non – stop. Need a break? Try one of these strong cocktails and unwind.
Local and national politics seem to be sucking up all the energy in the room. Unity seems to be a bit short and everyone is on edge. What the people need is a little break and maybe a drink and these strong cocktails will help forget politics and perhaps aid in making a few friends, or at least common ground with the bartender!
This drink has been the introduction of hangovers to many a college student. Slow and go is perfect for the Long Island Iced Tea. There are competing thoughts on the invention of the drink, but what is clear – it was invented in Long Island. Flavor rich, this drink is best served with a snack.
Ingredients
½fluid ouncevodka
½fluid ouncerum
½fluid ouncegin
½fluid ouncetequila
½fluid ouncetriple sec (orange-flavored liqueur)
1fluid ouncesweet and sour mix
1fluid ouncecola, or to taste
1lemon slice
Create
Fill cocktail shaker with ice
Add vodka, rum, gin, tequila, triple sec, and sour mix over ice
Cover and shake.
Pour cocktail into a tall glass
Top with splash of cola or tea for color
Garnish with a lemon slice
Manhattan
A classic drink with a nod to the days of back room political deals, the Manhattan is a classic – the brown water version of the martini. The legend of this drink is it was born in an election. Said to be developed at the Manhattan Club by Ian Marshall for a dinner hosted for presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden. The host, Winston Churchhill’s mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, the former American Jennie Jerome.
Ingredients
2fluid ouncesrye whiskey
½fluid ouncesweet vermouth
1dashAngostura bitters
1cupice cubes
1maraschino cherry
Create
Combine whiskey, vermouth, and bitters in a cocktail mixing glass
Another gift from New Orleans, the best drinking city in the US. It was a house cocktail of the late restaurant La Louisiane. The eatery was famous for their bouillabaisse, strong drinks and sad demise. But this cocktail is a toast to good times.
Ingredients
2ounces rye whiskey
3/4ouncesweet vermouth
1/2ounceBenedictine
3dashesabsinthe
3dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1 maraschino cherry
Create
Add the rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, Benedictine, absinthe and Peychaud’s bitters into a mixing glass with ice
The history of this cocktail is unknown with early versions showing up in London, Chicago and the South of France. What is clear, Chicago has a long history with politics, so what not imbibe in a drink to make you leave it behind.
Ingredients
1.5 oz brandy
1 dash of Grand Marnier
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Splash of sparkling bubbles
Create
Combine all ingredients in pitcher
Add ice and stir well
Strain into cocktail glass rimmed with superfine sugar
Top up with sparkling wine
May you muddle through through the rest of the election season with the cocktails.
NEW YORK (AP) — A mural honoring ancient and modern figures in medicine that has hung in the lobby of Pfizer’s original New York City headquarters for more than 60 years could soon end up in pieces if conservationists can’t find a new home for it in the next few weeks.
“Medical Research Through the Ages,” a massive metal and tile mosaic depicting scientists and lab equipment, has been visible through the high glass-windowed lobby of the pharmaceutical giant’s midtown Manhattan office since the 1960s.
But the building is being gutted and converted into residential apartments, and the new owners have given the mural a move-out date of as soon as Sept. 10.
Art conservationists and the late artist’s daughters are now scrambling to find a patron who is able to cover the tens of thousands of dollars they estimate it will take to move and remount it, as well as an institution that can display it.
“I would ideally like to see it as part of an educational future, whether it’s on a hospital campus as part of a school or a college. Or part of a larger public art program for the citizens of New York City,” said art historian and urban planner Andrew Cronson, one of the people trying to find a new home for the piece.
The 40-foot-wide and 18-foot-high (12 meters by 5.5 meters) mural by Greek American artist Nikos Bel-Jon was the main showpiece of Pfizer’s world headquarters when the building opened a few blocks from Grand Central Terminal in 1961, at a time when flashy buildings and grand corporate art projects were a symbol of business success. He died in 1966, leaving behind dozens of large brushed-metal works commissioned by companies and private institutions, many of which have now been lost or destroyed.
In recent years, Pfizer sold the building — and last year moved its headquarters to a shared office space in a newer property. The company said in an emailed statement that it decided the money needed to deconstruct, relocate and reinstall the mural elsewhere would be better spent on “patient-related priorities.”
The developer now turning the building into apartments, Metro Loft, doesn’t want to keep the artwork either, though it has been working with those trying to save the piece with help like letting art appraisers in. The company declined to comment further, but Jack Berman, its director of operations, confirmed in an email that it needs to get the mural out.
Bel-Jon’s youngest daughter, Rhea Bel-Jon Calkins, said they’ve gotten some interest from universities who could take the piece, and a Greek cultural organization that could help fundraise for the move. But the removal alone could cost between $20,00 and $50,000, according to estimates cited by Cronson.
If they can’t immediately find a taker, the mural won’t end up in landfill, Bel-Jon Calkins said. But it would have to be broken up into pieces — nine metal sections and eight mosaic sections — and moved into storage, likely with some of her relatives.
Time is ticking away. Workers gutting the building have been carrying out ripped-up carpeting, drab office chairs and piles of scrap wood and loading them into garbage trucks.
For the past few decades, the artwork’s metal — brushed tin and aluminum panels in the shape of laboratory beakers, funnels and flasks, surrounded by symbols, alchemists and scientists — has been a dull gray and white. But Bel-Jon Calkins remembers its original, multicolored lighting scheme.
“As you moved, the color moved with you and changed. So there was a constant dynamic to the mural that no one really has ever been able to achieve,” she said.
Richard McCoy, director of the Indiana nonprofit Landmark Columbus Foundation, which cares for local buildings and landscapes, said the piece might lack commercial value, describing Bel-Jon as “extraordinary, but not super well-known.”
“But then you realize 20 or 30 years from then how great it was,” he said, adding that it might merit preservation for its historical value.
Bel-Jon Calkins tracks her father’s 42 large-scale metal murals in a spreadsheet and on the artist’s website. She said only about a dozen are confirmed to exist.
A 12-foot (3.6-meter) metal mosaic depicting saints and commissioned by a Greek Orthodox church in San Francisco was destroyed in the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. General Motors commissioned a hubcap-shaped metal mural that was larger than a car for a trade show, but she confirmed it was later melted down into scrap.
“It’s the corporations that have lost them,” she said in a phone conversation from her home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. “They valued them enough to commission them but not enough to preserve them.”
