Very clever...................................Too bad there's a monster Hurricane sitting just off shore
the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread
- Thread starter wader
- Start date
I definitely agree with that, although straight line speed over handling performance fans may not agree...
Avenger
Well-Known Angler
Chevy Camaro, Ford Bronco, etc. the Tom Brady and Brett Favres of the auto world...
Not a fan of it. I expect to see Magnum PI in every one I see. 🤣. I’ll take the 0 - 60 in 1.5 Tesla.
NPR hit with massive layoffs, cancels 4 podcasts
National Public Radio announced on Thursday it had cut 10% of its workforce, following layoffs at other news organizations like CNN, The Washington Post and Gannett.
www.foxnews.com
Someone finally gave a crap.
pagesix.com
Fan poops in aisle near Hillary and Chelsea Clinton at Broadway show
An insider added, “The house crew dealt with it very appropriately and quickly, and Hillary and Chelsea remained in the theater for the second act.”
pagesix.com
A Shark Discovery ‘Didn’t Look Right.’ It Might Have Been a Plastic Toy.
Scientists have retracted a study that showed a rare goblin shark washed up on a Greek beach after other researchers voiced doubts about the find.
A comparison of the goblin shark specimen found by a citizen scientist on the island of Anafi in Greece, top, and a juvenile female found in waters off Japan.Credit...Giannis Papadakis, top; Nicholas Straube
Goblin sharks are deep-sea fish whose frightening, protrusile jaws served as an inspiration for the terrifying creatures in the “Alien” movie franchise. Little is known about these elusive sharks, and sightings of them are extraordinarily rare. They are known to live in deep coastal waters all over the world but have never been found in the Mediterranean Sea.
But recently, a group of scientists reported the discovery of what they said was a goblin shark that had washed ashore on a Greek beach. Their announcement of the find last year in the journal Mediterranean Marine Science has led to a series of events almost as bizarre as the goblin shark itself, involving competing scientific narratives, a retraction and the possibility that maybe all of the fuss was over a children’s plastic toy.
According to the original scientific paper, the Mediterranean goblin shark was discovered by a man named Giannis Papadakis in August 2020. After finding the specimen, the paper said, Mr. Papadakis propped it on some rocks and snapped a photo. The image ended up in the hands of a group of local scientists, and two years later they published it alongside records of other species found in the Mediterranean for the first time.
The paper seemed like a success of citizen science, in which people with no formal scientific training assist professional scientists in research. But it wasn’t long before shark experts around the world started to express their doubts, in a Facebook group, about the authenticity of the goblin shark.
“It didn’t look right,” said David Ebert, author of the book “Sharks of the World.” Dr. Ebert said several things about the shark found in Greece were unusual. “It’s too small, and its gills don’t look like they’re actually open,” he said. “It doesn’t look natural at all.”
Dr. Ebert and others were also skeptical because there had been no direct examination of the shark. The paper was based solely on a photo and a brief description provided by Mr. Papadakis.
In November, a group of shark researchers published a comment paper questioning whether the goblin shark found in Greece was a real animal. “We have doubts,” they wrote, that the goblin shark in the original paper “is a natural specimen.” They argued that the specimen’s lack of teeth, its overly rounded fins and its low number of gill slits were not characteristic of a goblin shark.
Soon after, another image was shared on social media, one that would cause the skepticism to reach a crescendo. It was a plastic goblin shark toy sold by an Italian toy company, DeAgostini, and it had an uncanny resemblance to the goblin shark found in Greece.
DeAgostini, the toymaker, could not be reached for comment.
This toy “shows a great similarity to the specimen in the published image,” said Jürgen Pollerspöck, an independent shark researcher and an author of the paper that presented the doubts about the Greek goblin shark’s authenticity.
Earlier this month, the authors of the original paper doubled down, standing by their original claims in a reply to the concerns raised by Mr. Pollerspöck and his colleagues. They also amended their size estimate from about 30 inches to about seven inches and suggested that the goblin shark in question could be an embryo.
“Embryos of this size are not viable,” Mr. Pollerspöck replied.
Then this week, the authors of the original paper retracted it, as well as their reply to the critique, conceding that there was too much uncertainty about the find. Reached by email, one of the paper’s authors declined to answer additional questions.
So ended a nearly yearlong saga that had many shark sleuths squinting at their computer screens.
Mr. Pollerspöck said it was possible for goblin sharks to be lurking in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. But he said that none had been found.
Whether the shark in this image is found to be a real fish or just a piece of plastic pollution, critics say that the publication of the image in a scientific journal draws attention to the imperfections of the scientific peer review process.
“In my opinion, the problem and responsibility lies with the editor of the journal and the reviewers,” Mr. Pollerspöck said.
The shark’s unusual appearance wasn’t the only red flag reviewers of the paper should have seen, he said. That the claim in the paper was based on one image provided by a citizen scientist warranted increased scrutiny.
The editor of Mediterranean Marine Science did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether or not the researchers who published the now retracted Greek goblin shark paper ever concede that they published a picture of a toy, Dr. Ebert said he wouldn’t be surprised if something like this happened again, given the problems with peer review and the rates of plastic pollution in the seas.
“Anything’s possible,” he noted.
You mean to say a scientist lied? 😲A Shark Discovery ‘Didn’t Look Right.’ It Might Have Been a Plastic Toy.
Scientists have retracted a study that showed a rare goblin shark washed up on a Greek beach after other researchers voiced doubts about the find.
A comparison of the goblin shark specimen found by a citizen scientist on the island of Anafi in Greece, top, and a juvenile female found in waters off Japan.Credit...Giannis Papadakis, top; Nicholas Straube
Goblin sharks are deep-sea fish whose frightening, protrusile jaws served as an inspiration for the terrifying creatures in the “Alien” movie franchise. Little is known about these elusive sharks, and sightings of them are extraordinarily rare. They are known to live in deep coastal waters all over the world but have never been found in the Mediterranean Sea.
But recently, a group of scientists reported the discovery of what they said was a goblin shark that had washed ashore on a Greek beach. Their announcement of the find last year in the journal Mediterranean Marine Science has led to a series of events almost as bizarre as the goblin shark itself, involving competing scientific narratives, a retraction and the possibility that maybe all of the fuss was over a children’s plastic toy.
According to the original scientific paper, the Mediterranean goblin shark was discovered by a man named Giannis Papadakis in August 2020. After finding the specimen, the paper said, Mr. Papadakis propped it on some rocks and snapped a photo. The image ended up in the hands of a group of local scientists, and two years later they published it alongside records of other species found in the Mediterranean for the first time.
The paper seemed like a success of citizen science, in which people with no formal scientific training assist professional scientists in research. But it wasn’t long before shark experts around the world started to express their doubts, in a Facebook group, about the authenticity of the goblin shark.
“It didn’t look right,” said David Ebert, author of the book “Sharks of the World.” Dr. Ebert said several things about the shark found in Greece were unusual. “It’s too small, and its gills don’t look like they’re actually open,” he said. “It doesn’t look natural at all.”
Dr. Ebert and others were also skeptical because there had been no direct examination of the shark. The paper was based solely on a photo and a brief description provided by Mr. Papadakis.
In November, a group of shark researchers published a comment paper questioning whether the goblin shark found in Greece was a real animal. “We have doubts,” they wrote, that the goblin shark in the original paper “is a natural specimen.” They argued that the specimen’s lack of teeth, its overly rounded fins and its low number of gill slits were not characteristic of a goblin shark.
Soon after, another image was shared on social media, one that would cause the skepticism to reach a crescendo. It was a plastic goblin shark toy sold by an Italian toy company, DeAgostini, and it had an uncanny resemblance to the goblin shark found in Greece.
DeAgostini, the toymaker, could not be reached for comment.
This toy “shows a great similarity to the specimen in the published image,” said Jürgen Pollerspöck, an independent shark researcher and an author of the paper that presented the doubts about the Greek goblin shark’s authenticity.
Earlier this month, the authors of the original paper doubled down, standing by their original claims in a reply to the concerns raised by Mr. Pollerspöck and his colleagues. They also amended their size estimate from about 30 inches to about seven inches and suggested that the goblin shark in question could be an embryo.
“Embryos of this size are not viable,” Mr. Pollerspöck replied.
Then this week, the authors of the original paper retracted it, as well as their reply to the critique, conceding that there was too much uncertainty about the find. Reached by email, one of the paper’s authors declined to answer additional questions.
So ended a nearly yearlong saga that had many shark sleuths squinting at their computer screens.
Mr. Pollerspöck said it was possible for goblin sharks to be lurking in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. But he said that none had been found.
Whether the shark in this image is found to be a real fish or just a piece of plastic pollution, critics say that the publication of the image in a scientific journal draws attention to the imperfections of the scientific peer review process.
“In my opinion, the problem and responsibility lies with the editor of the journal and the reviewers,” Mr. Pollerspöck said.
The shark’s unusual appearance wasn’t the only red flag reviewers of the paper should have seen, he said. That the claim in the paper was based on one image provided by a citizen scientist warranted increased scrutiny.
The editor of Mediterranean Marine Science did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether or not the researchers who published the now retracted Greek goblin shark paper ever concede that they published a picture of a toy, Dr. Ebert said he wouldn’t be surprised if something like this happened again, given the problems with peer review and the rates of plastic pollution in the seas.
“Anything’s possible,” he noted.
3 dead, 4 missing after explosion at chocolate factory - NewsBreak
Three people are dead, four are missing and several others are injured after an explosion at a chocolate factory Friday in West Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Interesting how $$ is usually the root of hypocrisy...
MONTAUK, N.Y. — New York’s Native American tribes fought bitterly with former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over his efforts to tax their tobacco sales and seize a sizable share of their gambling proceeds, and they blamed him for the deterioration of a stretch of interstate that slices through tribal lands.
So when Mr. Cuomo resigned in disgrace in 2021, tribal leaders found reason to hope for more amiable relations with his successor, Kathy Hochul, who was born and raised in western New York, not far from the state’s largest reservation. A less prickly chief executive held out promise for greater accommodation.
Instead, the tensions between the tribes and the governor’s office have only increased, with Ms. Hochul taking a series of actions that have left the tribal and state leaders as far apart as ever.
While seeking to finance a new stadium for the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills, Ms. Hochul, in her words, “started playing hardball” with the Seneca Nation by freezing its bank accounts until it handed over more than $500 million in gambling revenues. The tribe contends it never owed the money, though federal courts have backed the state’s demands.
She also nixed legislation that would have granted long-sought recognition to Long Island’s Montaukett tribe, which was declared extinct over a century ago in racist court rulings that remain in force today.
But perhaps no official action by Ms. Hochul has angered the state’s Native Americans more than her veto last year of a bill that would have made it more difficult for developers to build atop the remains of Indigenous people’s ancestors.
Despite its reputation for being progressive, New York is one of just four states that offer no meaningful protections for unmarked graves discovered on private property. Even deep red states like Alabama and Wyoming offer more safeguards for Native American graves than New York does.
The bill that Ms. Hochul vetoed, known as the Unmarked Burial Protection Act, would have required builders to halt work after discovering ancient graves and associated artifacts, and to notify the local coroner or medical examiner. They would then call the state archaeologist, direct descendants of the dead and a new burial site review committee, who would help determine what to do next.
Powerful business and real estate interests, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns, raised objections about adding new layers of bureaucracy that could slow development. Aides said campaign contributions played no role in her decision to issue the veto.
Ms. Hochul declined to be interviewed for this article. But in a Dec. 30 letter explaining her decision, she echoed some of those concerns, citing the lack of deadlines and saying landowners would be “forced to accept decisions that impact their property.”
She has promised to keep working with tribal leaders and their advocates to find a compromise. Still, Native American groups from Long Island to Niagara Falls said they felt the veto land like a gut punch.
“Now we know clearly how she feels about the Native people in this state,” said Chief Harry Wallace, the leader of Long Island’s Unkechaug Nation and a driving force behind the unmarked graves protection effort. “It turns out that she’s just as much in support of the property developers as the previous governor was.”
In January the state’s largest tribe, the Seneca Nation, adopted a resolution describing Ms. Hochul’s veto of the burial bill as part of an ongoing “pattern of disrespect” for Indigenous New Yorkers.
“For more than two centuries, our governments, our people and our priorities have been greeted with a deafening silence and contempt from New York governors,” said the Seneca president, Rickey L. Armstrong Sr. “We see little hope for change based on recent actions.”
“If they’re on your property, they belong to the landowner,” said Lisa Anderson, curator of bioarcheology for the New York State Museum. “There is no protection. So graves do get disturbed.”
For years, one state legislator, Assemblyman Steve Englebright, a Democrat from Long Island, tried to change that, filing eight burial protection bills from 2005 to 2021. Most of them died in committee. None ever made it to a vote.
Mr. Englebright chalked up the failures to the influence of building interests.
But last year Mr. Englebright filed a ninth bill, and, in a legislature that had become more progressive, nothing emerged to stop it. A companion bill introduced in the State Senate passed both houses unanimously, without debate.
“The bill’s time had finally arrived in part because of the philosophical bent of members of the Assembly and the composition of the Senate basically being more tolerant of bills that might push up against traditional industry powerhouses,” said Mr. Englebright, who lost a bid for re-election not long after the bill passed.
The same month, the Real Estate Board of New York, a group representing an industry that has given millions to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns, brought its concerns to her, cautioning against the possibility of overregulation, records and interview show. A memo written by a real estate board member warned that the legislation had “the potential to create substantial delays” if graves were found on job sites.
Ms. Hochul’s office also reached out to the Partnership for New York City, whose executive committee members, a who’s who of corporate chief executives in Manhattan, have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns. In response, the partnership sent the governor a copy of the real estate board’s memo, the partnership’s chief executive, Kathy Wylde, said.
Neither organization requested a veto, their representatives said.
Another influential group, the New York State Builders Association, raised its own concerns. The organization’s executive vice-president, Mike Fazio, said his group told the governor’s office that it supported the concept but opposed the bill as drafted over worries that it put too many burdens on property owners.
Ms. Hochul attempted to forge a compromise, but changes the bill’s opponents found more palatable — such as setting a timeline for removing or reburying bodies and defining the extent that property owners have a role — were rejected by Mr. Englebright, the bill author, and Mr. Wallace, the Unkechaug chief.
Ms. Hochul vetoed it, though her office has signaled she would sign a bill that sets clearer timelines and builds in protections for property owners.
Two members of the New York State Tribal Courts Committee, a panel that assists in resolving issues between sovereign nations and the courts, are now helping to negotiate a new version of the bill that would balance property rights with protections for human remains. The members, Mark A. Montour of Buffalo and Lizbeth González of the Bronx, who both also serve as New York State appellate judges, say a resolution seems imminent.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul’s office, Hazel Crampton-Hays, said the first version of the bill would have taken New York from one outlier position to another — from a state with no protections on private lands to one that could indefinitely hold up building projects if graves were discovered.
They pointed to several pro-Native moves by the governor, including her role in returning land to the Onondagas and plans to appoint a staff member solely dedicated to Native American affairs. And although she vetoed a hunting and fishing bill the tribes had pushed for, Ms. Hochul directed her administration to protect the rights of Native Americans whose hunting and fishing are protected by treaty law.
Also under the Hochul administration, the State Department of Environmental Conservation created an Office of Indian Nation Affairs to ensure issues that are important to Native Americans were heard by the agency’s leaders.
“I can tell you that this governor has been more supportive of our efforts to strengthen our relationship with the nations than any other governor, really any other governors in memory, not just her predecessor,” said the commissioner of the Environmental Conservation Department, Basil Seggos.
But another veto by Ms. Hochul stirred anger among Native American leaders. This one amounted to a refusal to grant state recognition to the beleaguered Montaukett tribe of Long Island.
The Montauketts — who gave their name to the hamlet on the island’s eastern edge — had lived in that area for centuries by the late 1800s, when a businessman, Arthur Benson, snapped up 10,000 acres in and around Montauk with a vision of creating a playground for the rich, connected to New York City by rail.
The tribe held perpetual leases on some of the land, and a decades-long court battle ensued, culminating in a hearing in which judge Abel Blackmar of Suffolk County State Supreme Court described the Montauketts as a “shiftless” people who served whites and mixed with other races, and, with several Montauketts sitting in the courtroom, declared the tribe to be extinct.
A state appeals court later upheld the decision, with Justice Joseph Burr opining on the Montauketts’ “miscegenation, particularly with the Negro race,” in a ruling that gave the tribal lands to the Long Island Railroad Company and the family of Mr. Benson.
State lawmakers in recent years voted four times to grant state recognition to the Montauketts, with Mr. Cuomo vetoing three of the bills and Ms. Hochul disapproving the fourth last December.
In a letter explaining the decision, Ms. Hochul cited a dispute between different groups over which one truly represented the tribe and noted that neither group had provided New York with all the information the state had requested to process an application for official recognition.
Some state legislators reacted with disappointment.
“I was hoping with the new governor that we would get a fresh look,” said State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, a Long Island Democrat and sponsor of the bill. “It certainly doesn’t appear that way here.”
Clash Over Natives’ Graves Inflames Hochul’s Relationship With Tribes
After battles with previous governors, New York’s Native American leaders were hopeful for a reset with the new administration. Instead, the tensions have increased.MONTAUK, N.Y. — New York’s Native American tribes fought bitterly with former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over his efforts to tax their tobacco sales and seize a sizable share of their gambling proceeds, and they blamed him for the deterioration of a stretch of interstate that slices through tribal lands.
So when Mr. Cuomo resigned in disgrace in 2021, tribal leaders found reason to hope for more amiable relations with his successor, Kathy Hochul, who was born and raised in western New York, not far from the state’s largest reservation. A less prickly chief executive held out promise for greater accommodation.
Instead, the tensions between the tribes and the governor’s office have only increased, with Ms. Hochul taking a series of actions that have left the tribal and state leaders as far apart as ever.
While seeking to finance a new stadium for the billionaire owners of the Buffalo Bills, Ms. Hochul, in her words, “started playing hardball” with the Seneca Nation by freezing its bank accounts until it handed over more than $500 million in gambling revenues. The tribe contends it never owed the money, though federal courts have backed the state’s demands.
She also nixed legislation that would have granted long-sought recognition to Long Island’s Montaukett tribe, which was declared extinct over a century ago in racist court rulings that remain in force today.
But perhaps no official action by Ms. Hochul has angered the state’s Native Americans more than her veto last year of a bill that would have made it more difficult for developers to build atop the remains of Indigenous people’s ancestors.
Despite its reputation for being progressive, New York is one of just four states that offer no meaningful protections for unmarked graves discovered on private property. Even deep red states like Alabama and Wyoming offer more safeguards for Native American graves than New York does.
The bill that Ms. Hochul vetoed, known as the Unmarked Burial Protection Act, would have required builders to halt work after discovering ancient graves and associated artifacts, and to notify the local coroner or medical examiner. They would then call the state archaeologist, direct descendants of the dead and a new burial site review committee, who would help determine what to do next.
Powerful business and real estate interests, who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns, raised objections about adding new layers of bureaucracy that could slow development. Aides said campaign contributions played no role in her decision to issue the veto.
Ms. Hochul declined to be interviewed for this article. But in a Dec. 30 letter explaining her decision, she echoed some of those concerns, citing the lack of deadlines and saying landowners would be “forced to accept decisions that impact their property.”
She has promised to keep working with tribal leaders and their advocates to find a compromise. Still, Native American groups from Long Island to Niagara Falls said they felt the veto land like a gut punch.
“Now we know clearly how she feels about the Native people in this state,” said Chief Harry Wallace, the leader of Long Island’s Unkechaug Nation and a driving force behind the unmarked graves protection effort. “It turns out that she’s just as much in support of the property developers as the previous governor was.”
In January the state’s largest tribe, the Seneca Nation, adopted a resolution describing Ms. Hochul’s veto of the burial bill as part of an ongoing “pattern of disrespect” for Indigenous New Yorkers.
“For more than two centuries, our governments, our people and our priorities have been greeted with a deafening silence and contempt from New York governors,” said the Seneca president, Rickey L. Armstrong Sr. “We see little hope for change based on recent actions.”
‘Graves do get disturbed’
In New York State, developers of privately owned land can build on top of — or even plunder — the ancient graves of Native Americans, enslaved people, Revolutionary War soldiers and European settlers without fear of consequences.“If they’re on your property, they belong to the landowner,” said Lisa Anderson, curator of bioarcheology for the New York State Museum. “There is no protection. So graves do get disturbed.”
For years, one state legislator, Assemblyman Steve Englebright, a Democrat from Long Island, tried to change that, filing eight burial protection bills from 2005 to 2021. Most of them died in committee. None ever made it to a vote.
Mr. Englebright chalked up the failures to the influence of building interests.
But last year Mr. Englebright filed a ninth bill, and, in a legislature that had become more progressive, nothing emerged to stop it. A companion bill introduced in the State Senate passed both houses unanimously, without debate.
“The bill’s time had finally arrived in part because of the philosophical bent of members of the Assembly and the composition of the Senate basically being more tolerant of bills that might push up against traditional industry powerhouses,” said Mr. Englebright, who lost a bid for re-election not long after the bill passed.
The same month, the Real Estate Board of New York, a group representing an industry that has given millions to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns, brought its concerns to her, cautioning against the possibility of overregulation, records and interview show. A memo written by a real estate board member warned that the legislation had “the potential to create substantial delays” if graves were found on job sites.
Ms. Hochul’s office also reached out to the Partnership for New York City, whose executive committee members, a who’s who of corporate chief executives in Manhattan, have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Ms. Hochul’s campaigns. In response, the partnership sent the governor a copy of the real estate board’s memo, the partnership’s chief executive, Kathy Wylde, said.
Neither organization requested a veto, their representatives said.
Another influential group, the New York State Builders Association, raised its own concerns. The organization’s executive vice-president, Mike Fazio, said his group told the governor’s office that it supported the concept but opposed the bill as drafted over worries that it put too many burdens on property owners.
Ms. Hochul attempted to forge a compromise, but changes the bill’s opponents found more palatable — such as setting a timeline for removing or reburying bodies and defining the extent that property owners have a role — were rejected by Mr. Englebright, the bill author, and Mr. Wallace, the Unkechaug chief.
Ms. Hochul vetoed it, though her office has signaled she would sign a bill that sets clearer timelines and builds in protections for property owners.
Two members of the New York State Tribal Courts Committee, a panel that assists in resolving issues between sovereign nations and the courts, are now helping to negotiate a new version of the bill that would balance property rights with protections for human remains. The members, Mark A. Montour of Buffalo and Lizbeth González of the Bronx, who both also serve as New York State appellate judges, say a resolution seems imminent.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Hochul’s office, Hazel Crampton-Hays, said the first version of the bill would have taken New York from one outlier position to another — from a state with no protections on private lands to one that could indefinitely hold up building projects if graves were discovered.
Recognition denied
Ms. Hochul’s aides say she is anything but hostile to Native American groups in New York State.They pointed to several pro-Native moves by the governor, including her role in returning land to the Onondagas and plans to appoint a staff member solely dedicated to Native American affairs. And although she vetoed a hunting and fishing bill the tribes had pushed for, Ms. Hochul directed her administration to protect the rights of Native Americans whose hunting and fishing are protected by treaty law.
Also under the Hochul administration, the State Department of Environmental Conservation created an Office of Indian Nation Affairs to ensure issues that are important to Native Americans were heard by the agency’s leaders.
“I can tell you that this governor has been more supportive of our efforts to strengthen our relationship with the nations than any other governor, really any other governors in memory, not just her predecessor,” said the commissioner of the Environmental Conservation Department, Basil Seggos.
But another veto by Ms. Hochul stirred anger among Native American leaders. This one amounted to a refusal to grant state recognition to the beleaguered Montaukett tribe of Long Island.
The Montauketts — who gave their name to the hamlet on the island’s eastern edge — had lived in that area for centuries by the late 1800s, when a businessman, Arthur Benson, snapped up 10,000 acres in and around Montauk with a vision of creating a playground for the rich, connected to New York City by rail.
The tribe held perpetual leases on some of the land, and a decades-long court battle ensued, culminating in a hearing in which judge Abel Blackmar of Suffolk County State Supreme Court described the Montauketts as a “shiftless” people who served whites and mixed with other races, and, with several Montauketts sitting in the courtroom, declared the tribe to be extinct.
A state appeals court later upheld the decision, with Justice Joseph Burr opining on the Montauketts’ “miscegenation, particularly with the Negro race,” in a ruling that gave the tribal lands to the Long Island Railroad Company and the family of Mr. Benson.
State lawmakers in recent years voted four times to grant state recognition to the Montauketts, with Mr. Cuomo vetoing three of the bills and Ms. Hochul disapproving the fourth last December.
In a letter explaining the decision, Ms. Hochul cited a dispute between different groups over which one truly represented the tribe and noted that neither group had provided New York with all the information the state had requested to process an application for official recognition.
Some state legislators reacted with disappointment.
“I was hoping with the new governor that we would get a fresh look,” said State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, a Long Island Democrat and sponsor of the bill. “It certainly doesn’t appear that way here.”
They died for no reason.
Republican gives Secretary of State Antony Blinken 'BULL***' warning
'I have the subpoena - it's right here,' said Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as he waved a document in the air. 'And I'm prepared to serve this.'
www.dailymail.co.uk
It's amazing the driver of the KIA survived nevermind only incurring minor injuries..............................
www.yahoo.com
video & story at the link
Car goes airborne on Los Angeles freeway after tire pops off pickup truck: video
Car goes airborne on Los Angeles freeway after tire pops off pickup truck: video
Dashcam video captured the heart-pounding moment a car was launched into the air on a Los Angeles-area freeway last week after the vehicle struck a loose tire.
video & story at the link
2 officers killed when police helicopter crashes into sugarcane field - NewsBreak
Two Baton Rouge police officers died in a helicopter accident early Sunday morning, authorities have confirmed.The helicopter , a Robinson R-44 model that belonged to the Baton Rouge Police Department, was dispatched at around 2 a.m. to help with a pursuit and then it crashed, CBS affiliate WAFB...
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Nothing like frivolous law suits, and now they go all the way to SCOTUS???? SMFH...
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a disability rights activist may sue hotels for violating a federal disability law, despite having no intention of staying at the properties.
The activist, Deborah Laufer, combed through websites looking for violations of regulations under the law, the Americans With Disabilities Act, that require hotels to disclose information about their accessibility. According to court papers, Ms. Laufer, who lives in Florida, has filed more than 600 lawsuits across the nation over such infractions, typically seeking a declaration that the hotel had broken the law, an injunction ordering it to comply — and legal fees.
Among the companies she sued was Acheson Hotels, which operates the Coast Village Inn and Cottages in Wells, a small town on the southern coast of Maine. She said its website did not identify accessible rooms, provide an option for booking an accessible room or supply enough information to determine whether the rooms and features of the inn were accessible to her. (Ms. Laufer uses a wheelchair, and has impaired vision and limited use of her hands.)
The hotel moved to dismiss the case, saying that Ms. Laufer had not suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave her standing to sue because she had no intention of visiting. The trial judge agreed.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, reversed, saying the situation was akin to one in a 1982 Supreme Court decision that allowed Black “testers” to sue for race discrimination over being denied access to housing despite not actually looking for a place to live.
“The denial of information to a member of a protected class alone can suffice to make an injury in fact — that person’s intended use of the information is not relevant,” Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the appeals court, noting that other federal appeals courts disagreed.
Recent Supreme Court decisions in other areas, Judge Thompson acknowledged, had taken restrictive views of standing.
In its petition seeking Supreme Court review, the hotel questioned Ms. Laufer’s litigation strategy.
“Laufer’s lawsuits typically target small hotels and bed-and-breakfasts,” the petition said. “For these small businesses, the cost of litigating an A.D.A. case — plus a potential fee award — could push them into bankruptcy. So most of Laufer’s defendants are forced to settle.”
The hotel’s lawyers added: “A five-minute telephone call to Coast Village could have answered all of Laufer’s accessibility questions. But Laufer did not actually want or need this information — the purpose of visiting the website was to lay the groundwork for a lawsuit.”
In an unusual move, Ms. Laufer’s lawyers agreed that the Supreme Court should grant review in the case, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, No. 22-429. But they rejected the hotel’s suggestions that their client’s suits were opportunistic or abusive.
“Although tens of millions of disabled Americans visit places of public accommodation or attempt to book rooms at hotels and all suffer the same discriminatory barriers, the A.D.A. does not provide for any award of damages,” the brief said. “It is for this reason that the A.D.A. is enforced by only a small handful of plaintiff advocates.”
Supreme Court to Hear Dispute Between Maine Hotel and Disability Activist
The hotel argues that the activist, Deborah Laufer, was not entitled to sue it over inadequate disclosures because she did not intend to stay there.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide whether a disability rights activist may sue hotels for violating a federal disability law, despite having no intention of staying at the properties.
The activist, Deborah Laufer, combed through websites looking for violations of regulations under the law, the Americans With Disabilities Act, that require hotels to disclose information about their accessibility. According to court papers, Ms. Laufer, who lives in Florida, has filed more than 600 lawsuits across the nation over such infractions, typically seeking a declaration that the hotel had broken the law, an injunction ordering it to comply — and legal fees.
Among the companies she sued was Acheson Hotels, which operates the Coast Village Inn and Cottages in Wells, a small town on the southern coast of Maine. She said its website did not identify accessible rooms, provide an option for booking an accessible room or supply enough information to determine whether the rooms and features of the inn were accessible to her. (Ms. Laufer uses a wheelchair, and has impaired vision and limited use of her hands.)
The hotel moved to dismiss the case, saying that Ms. Laufer had not suffered the sort of direct and concrete injury that gave her standing to sue because she had no intention of visiting. The trial judge agreed.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in Boston, reversed, saying the situation was akin to one in a 1982 Supreme Court decision that allowed Black “testers” to sue for race discrimination over being denied access to housing despite not actually looking for a place to live.
“The denial of information to a member of a protected class alone can suffice to make an injury in fact — that person’s intended use of the information is not relevant,” Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the appeals court, noting that other federal appeals courts disagreed.
Recent Supreme Court decisions in other areas, Judge Thompson acknowledged, had taken restrictive views of standing.
In its petition seeking Supreme Court review, the hotel questioned Ms. Laufer’s litigation strategy.
“Laufer’s lawsuits typically target small hotels and bed-and-breakfasts,” the petition said. “For these small businesses, the cost of litigating an A.D.A. case — plus a potential fee award — could push them into bankruptcy. So most of Laufer’s defendants are forced to settle.”
The hotel’s lawyers added: “A five-minute telephone call to Coast Village could have answered all of Laufer’s accessibility questions. But Laufer did not actually want or need this information — the purpose of visiting the website was to lay the groundwork for a lawsuit.”
In an unusual move, Ms. Laufer’s lawyers agreed that the Supreme Court should grant review in the case, Acheson Hotels v. Laufer, No. 22-429. But they rejected the hotel’s suggestions that their client’s suits were opportunistic or abusive.
“Although tens of millions of disabled Americans visit places of public accommodation or attempt to book rooms at hotels and all suffer the same discriminatory barriers, the A.D.A. does not provide for any award of damages,” the brief said. “It is for this reason that the A.D.A. is enforced by only a small handful of plaintiff advocates.”
Musk's Twitter travails looking to go down in the annals of "Epic Business Failures"...
pressherald.com/2023/03/27/twitter-celebs-balk-at-paying-elon-musk-for-blue-check-mark-2/
By MATT O'BRIEN March 27, 2023
William Shatner, Monica Lewinsky, and other prolific Twitter commentators – some household names, others little-known journalists – could soon be losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity on the social media platform.
They could get the marks back by paying up to $11 a month. But some longtime users, including 92-year-old Star Trek legend Shatner, have balked at buying the premium service championed by Twitter’s billionaire owner and chief executive Elon Musk.
After months of delay, Musk is gleefully promising that Saturday is the deadline for celebrities, journalists, and others who’d been verified for free to pony up or lose their legacy status.
“It will be glorious,” he tweeted Monday, in response to a Twitter user who noted that Saturday is also April Fools’ Day.
After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities and news reporters.
Along with verifying celebrities, one of Twitter’s main reasons to mark profiles with a free blue check mark starting about 14 years ago was to verify politicians, activists, and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people.
Lewinsky tweeted a screenshot Sunday of all the people impersonating her, including at least one who appears to have paid for a blue check mark. She asked, “what universe is this fair to people who can suffer consequences for being impersonated? a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth even gets out the door.”
Shatner, known for his irreverent humor, also tagged Musk with a complaint about the promised changes.
“I’ve been here for 15 years giving my (clock emoji) & witty thoughts all for bupkis,” he wrote. “Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free?”
Musk responded that there shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities. “It’s more about treating everyone equally,” Musk tweeted.
For now, those who still have the blue check but haven’t paid the premium fee – a group that includes Beyoncé, Stephen King, Barack and Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, Tucker Carlson, Drake, and Musk himself – have messages appended to their profile saying it is a “legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”
But while “the attention is reasonably on celebrities because of our culture,” the bigger concern for open government advocate Alex Howard, director of the Digital Democracy Project, is that impersonators could more easily spread rumors and conspiracies that could move markets or harm democracies around the world.
“The reason verification exists on this platform was not simply to designate people as notable or authorities, but to prevent impersonation,” Howard said.
One of Musk’s first product moves after taking over Twitter was to launch a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. But it was quickly inundated by imposter accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service days after its launch.
The relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone and iPad users. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos, and have their tweets featured more prominently.
Twitter celebs balk at paying Elon Musk for blue check mark
pressherald.com/2023/03/27/twitter-celebs-balk-at-paying-elon-musk-for-blue-check-mark-2/By MATT O'BRIEN March 27, 2023
William Shatner, Monica Lewinsky, and other prolific Twitter commentators – some household names, others little-known journalists – could soon be losing the blue check marks that helped verify their identity on the social media platform.
They could get the marks back by paying up to $11 a month. But some longtime users, including 92-year-old Star Trek legend Shatner, have balked at buying the premium service championed by Twitter’s billionaire owner and chief executive Elon Musk.
After months of delay, Musk is gleefully promising that Saturday is the deadline for celebrities, journalists, and others who’d been verified for free to pony up or lose their legacy status.
“It will be glorious,” he tweeted Monday, in response to a Twitter user who noted that Saturday is also April Fools’ Day.
After buying Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities and news reporters.
Along with verifying celebrities, one of Twitter’s main reasons to mark profiles with a free blue check mark starting about 14 years ago was to verify politicians, activists, and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people.
Lewinsky tweeted a screenshot Sunday of all the people impersonating her, including at least one who appears to have paid for a blue check mark. She asked, “what universe is this fair to people who can suffer consequences for being impersonated? a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth even gets out the door.”
Shatner, known for his irreverent humor, also tagged Musk with a complaint about the promised changes.
“I’ve been here for 15 years giving my (clock emoji) & witty thoughts all for bupkis,” he wrote. “Now you’re telling me that I have to pay for something you gave me for free?”
Musk responded that there shouldn’t be a different standard for celebrities. “It’s more about treating everyone equally,” Musk tweeted.
For now, those who still have the blue check but haven’t paid the premium fee – a group that includes Beyoncé, Stephen King, Barack and Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, Tucker Carlson, Drake, and Musk himself – have messages appended to their profile saying it is a “legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable.”
But while “the attention is reasonably on celebrities because of our culture,” the bigger concern for open government advocate Alex Howard, director of the Digital Democracy Project, is that impersonators could more easily spread rumors and conspiracies that could move markets or harm democracies around the world.
“The reason verification exists on this platform was not simply to designate people as notable or authorities, but to prevent impersonation,” Howard said.
One of Musk’s first product moves after taking over Twitter was to launch a service granting blue checks to anyone willing to pay $8 a month. But it was quickly inundated by imposter accounts, including those impersonating Nintendo, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, so Twitter had to temporarily suspend the service days after its launch.
The relaunched service costs $8 a month for web users and $11 a month for iPhone and iPad users. Subscribers are supposed to see fewer ads, be able to post longer videos, and have their tweets featured more prominently.
Amsterdam, one of my Top 5 World Favs to visit, is a wonderful place to see. I usually need to consider wearing a bib as the Dutch women are really beautiful, but that's not a concern as the Admiral things the Dutch men are also very attractive.
When there on business my dirt bag colleagues and I would spend a pleasant evening finding a bar that was downwind from one of the Weed Cafes, and located at a major bottleneck near a university. Will never forget the excitement of one co-worker going crazy while seeing a young comely coed in a skirt, and bright red thong, riding a bicycle, something I had told him about. "Oh MY GOD!! They do ride bicycles in skirts here!!"
Now Amsterdam is declaring war on British Bachelor parties. Funny how our British "Mates" seem to be getting on everyone's list of bad guys. I know Dublin did the same thing back in the 90s...
A campaign from Amsterdam is aimed at “nuisance tourists” who are planning to “go nuts,” according to the city’s announcement. Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
The next time a British man between 18 and 35 types search terms looking for a cheap trip to Amsterdam for himself and his friends, he may see an unusual advertisement: “Stay away.”
In one such ad, a young man is slumped over a bench before he is taken into an ambulance by medical personnel. Another shows close-ups of a man being handcuffed and fingerprinted by the police. Overlaying text warns those who are “coming to Amsterdam for a messy night” that they could incur fines or hospital stays as well as criminal records or permanent damage to their health.
Those videos, which are prompted by search terms like “pub crawl Amsterdam,” are part of advertising by the city aimed at deterring young British men from coming to the Dutch capital for a rowdy weekend. The warnings come even though Amsterdam is partly known for access to marijuana and legal prostitution in the city’s red-light district.
Tourist destinations seem to view British tourists as at risk of overindulging in alcohol. The British government has even studied the phenomenon. In 2013, research showed that more than half of young people were likely to drink more on vacation than at home. “Some young Brits on holiday are putting themselves at risk of serious harm such as hospitalization, arrest or detention,” the British government said at the time.
The campaign is aimed at “nuisance tourists” who are planning to “go nuts,” according to Amsterdam’s announcement. It started this week and is initially focused on British men between 18 and 35. The city may expand it to other tourists, from the Netherlands and other European Union countries, later this year, according to the announcement.
“The advertisements show the risks and consequences of nuisance and excessive use of alcohol and drugs: fines, getting arrested, a permanent record, hospital admittance and health damage,” the announcement states.
“Visitors will still be welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause a nuisance,” Sofyan Mbarki, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, said in a statement. “Amsterdam is a metropolis and that includes bustle and liveliness, but to keep our city livable, we’re now choosing limitation instead of irresponsible growth.”
In 2021, close to nine million tourists visited the city for a day trip or overnight, according to numbers on the city’s website. The number peaked in 2019, with about 22 million tourists.
In 2021, close to nine million tourists visited the city for a day trip or overnight, according to numbers on the city’s website. The number peaked in 2019, with about 22 million tourists.
The ads are part of a larger effort to crack down on noisy tourists whom locals have long complained about. Last month, Amsterdam introduced rules that banned the smoking of marijuana on the streets of the red-light district and required businesses to shut at 3 a.m., three hours earlier than the previous time. Cafes and restaurants must also close earlier, at 2 a.m.
The city is also aiming to reduce the amount of window prostitution in the red-light district and has been looking for alternatives. One such proposal is to build an “erotic center” outside the city center. The city is still deciding among three locations, but it has been met with opposition from some residents.
Rowdy tourists aren’t a new phenomenon in Amsterdam, and it’s not the first time the city has made a similar plea — even if this campaign seems more blunt.
In 2018, the city introduced on-the-spot fines and increased the presence of city workers in the streets, as well as creating an ad campaign targeting British and Dutch men. Those ads used annotated images to remind visitors that drinking and singing loudly should be contained to bars and not spill into the streets. They also threatened fines for bad behavior.
Alongside the “stay away” videos, the city said it had begun an educational effort for visitors who are already in town called “How to Amsterdam,” which seeks to inform people on appropriate behavior. (Guidance includes warning signs about excessive noise, the illegality of urinating in public and buying drugs from dealers in the street.)
“We’re not a fan of it,” Ian Johnson, a spokesman for Last Night of Freedom, a company that organizes bachelor and bachelorette parties, said of the latest ad campaign. “We think it’s a bit shortsighted.” He added that British tourists didn’t deserve their bad reputation and called the videos alarmist.
Last Night of Freedom organizes bachelor parties for about 100 groups in Amsterdam every year, Mr. Johnson said, expressing skepticism about how successful the ads would be. Amsterdam’s reputation as a party city is entrenched, Mr. Johnson said.
“Business is booming on our end,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to stop it.”
When there on business my dirt bag colleagues and I would spend a pleasant evening finding a bar that was downwind from one of the Weed Cafes, and located at a major bottleneck near a university. Will never forget the excitement of one co-worker going crazy while seeing a young comely coed in a skirt, and bright red thong, riding a bicycle, something I had told him about. "Oh MY GOD!! They do ride bicycles in skirts here!!"
Now Amsterdam is declaring war on British Bachelor parties. Funny how our British "Mates" seem to be getting on everyone's list of bad guys. I know Dublin did the same thing back in the 90s...
Amsterdam Has a Message for Male Tourists From the U.K.: ‘Stay Away’
In an ad campaign aimed at British men between 18 and 35, the Dutch capital threatens fines for visitors who are looking for a “messy night.”
A campaign from Amsterdam is aimed at “nuisance tourists” who are planning to “go nuts,” according to the city’s announcement. Credit...Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times
The next time a British man between 18 and 35 types search terms looking for a cheap trip to Amsterdam for himself and his friends, he may see an unusual advertisement: “Stay away.”
In one such ad, a young man is slumped over a bench before he is taken into an ambulance by medical personnel. Another shows close-ups of a man being handcuffed and fingerprinted by the police. Overlaying text warns those who are “coming to Amsterdam for a messy night” that they could incur fines or hospital stays as well as criminal records or permanent damage to their health.
Those videos, which are prompted by search terms like “pub crawl Amsterdam,” are part of advertising by the city aimed at deterring young British men from coming to the Dutch capital for a rowdy weekend. The warnings come even though Amsterdam is partly known for access to marijuana and legal prostitution in the city’s red-light district.
Tourist destinations seem to view British tourists as at risk of overindulging in alcohol. The British government has even studied the phenomenon. In 2013, research showed that more than half of young people were likely to drink more on vacation than at home. “Some young Brits on holiday are putting themselves at risk of serious harm such as hospitalization, arrest or detention,” the British government said at the time.
The campaign is aimed at “nuisance tourists” who are planning to “go nuts,” according to Amsterdam’s announcement. It started this week and is initially focused on British men between 18 and 35. The city may expand it to other tourists, from the Netherlands and other European Union countries, later this year, according to the announcement.
“The advertisements show the risks and consequences of nuisance and excessive use of alcohol and drugs: fines, getting arrested, a permanent record, hospital admittance and health damage,” the announcement states.
“Visitors will still be welcome, but not if they misbehave and cause a nuisance,” Sofyan Mbarki, Amsterdam’s deputy mayor, said in a statement. “Amsterdam is a metropolis and that includes bustle and liveliness, but to keep our city livable, we’re now choosing limitation instead of irresponsible growth.”
In 2021, close to nine million tourists visited the city for a day trip or overnight, according to numbers on the city’s website. The number peaked in 2019, with about 22 million tourists.
In 2021, close to nine million tourists visited the city for a day trip or overnight, according to numbers on the city’s website. The number peaked in 2019, with about 22 million tourists.
The ads are part of a larger effort to crack down on noisy tourists whom locals have long complained about. Last month, Amsterdam introduced rules that banned the smoking of marijuana on the streets of the red-light district and required businesses to shut at 3 a.m., three hours earlier than the previous time. Cafes and restaurants must also close earlier, at 2 a.m.
The city is also aiming to reduce the amount of window prostitution in the red-light district and has been looking for alternatives. One such proposal is to build an “erotic center” outside the city center. The city is still deciding among three locations, but it has been met with opposition from some residents.
Rowdy tourists aren’t a new phenomenon in Amsterdam, and it’s not the first time the city has made a similar plea — even if this campaign seems more blunt.
In 2018, the city introduced on-the-spot fines and increased the presence of city workers in the streets, as well as creating an ad campaign targeting British and Dutch men. Those ads used annotated images to remind visitors that drinking and singing loudly should be contained to bars and not spill into the streets. They also threatened fines for bad behavior.
Alongside the “stay away” videos, the city said it had begun an educational effort for visitors who are already in town called “How to Amsterdam,” which seeks to inform people on appropriate behavior. (Guidance includes warning signs about excessive noise, the illegality of urinating in public and buying drugs from dealers in the street.)
“We’re not a fan of it,” Ian Johnson, a spokesman for Last Night of Freedom, a company that organizes bachelor and bachelorette parties, said of the latest ad campaign. “We think it’s a bit shortsighted.” He added that British tourists didn’t deserve their bad reputation and called the videos alarmist.
Last Night of Freedom organizes bachelor parties for about 100 groups in Amsterdam every year, Mr. Johnson said, expressing skepticism about how successful the ads would be. Amsterdam’s reputation as a party city is entrenched, Mr. Johnson said.
“Business is booming on our end,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to stop it.”
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