Will Jussie’s backers admit they were wrong? Police sources believe that, as many had suspected, “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett perpetrated an enormous hoax on the American public by staging a phony hate crime. Now we’re waiting for apologies from the celebrities and top Democrats who not only expressed sympathy for the supposed victim of violent Read More…
It’s the line from scripture that stayed with Cait Finnegan for nearly half a century as she tried to suppress the painful memories of the sexual abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her Catholic clergy educator. “God is Love,” Sister Mary Juanita Barto told Finnegan as she repeatedly raped her in classrooms Read More…
Dear John: I moved into a townhouse complex in July 2017. As FiOS was not yet available, I asked Verizon to install Wi-Fi and phone. The technician came out and installed a box, but he could not make the service connect. He said a Verizon team would come in the afternoon. No one came. He Read More…
Dear John: I’m a tax preparer, not a CPA, so I only do individual returns. Many of my tax clients are city workers and typical middle-class W2 employees. Out of the 23 tax returns I have done so far this year, only two returns caused a higher net tax rate compared with 2017. So even Read More…
So Amazon’s Jeff Bezos divorced NYC on Valentine’s Day and certainly broke a lot of hearts, but he received no love in return for the greatest gift a company can give a city — jobs, 25,000 of them. You can blame progressive Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and NY state Sen. Michael Gianaris, whose combined résumés Read More…
Talk about dirty money. According to a recent report, the typical Manhattan ATM is more bacteria-ridden than a wide range of other heavily used objects, including a subway pole, an NYC Wi-Fi hub and the handle of a public toilet at Penn Station. Mike Brown of financial product marketplace LendEDU left the comfort of his Read More…
House Democrats are laying the legal groundwork to force the White House to cough up notes on President Trump’s one-on-one meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Politico reported. Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) are leading the charge, according to the news site, and could demand testimony from Trump’s interpreter or issue subpoenas Read More…
Liberals and lawyers have launched a full-court press to fight President Trump’s emergency declaration at the southern border. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shared a list of projects that allegedly stand to lose funding if Trump follows through on vows to divert billions in federal dollars toward construction of a wall, The Hill reported. Her Read More…
Next Sunday’s Oscars marks two awards cycles since the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements, yet so much change in Hollywood seems not just cosmetic but self-serving. Take Elisabeth Moss, who last year won a Golden Globe for her work in the feminist dystopian drama “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Moss used her acceptance speech to thank the Read More…
There were no shiny happy people after this Twitter spat. Left-leaning 90s alt-rock band REM was so offended by a video mocking Democrats to the tune of their hit “Everybody Hurts” that they got it yanked from social media Friday. The satirical clip, showing top Dems’ sour reactions to President Trump’s State of the Union Read More…
The US military airlifted 180 tons of aid to a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border Saturday as part of an effort meant to undermine socialist President Nicolas Maduro. Three Air Force C-17 cargo planes from Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida carried food and other aid to Cucuta. The border city, which is swollen Read More…
Lee Radziwill, 85, the younger sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, has died. Radziwill, a beauty who worked as a public-relations executive and special events coordinator for fashion icon Giorgio Armani, passed away Friday in New York, Women’s Wear Daily reported. She had been suffering from “age related” diseases, the trade journal said. Read More…
It was his first day of work, a chance for the strapping young college intern to learn how companies deal with their employees. Trevor Wehner, 21, a student at Northern Illinois University, showed up Friday and got pulled into a meeting with supervisors at a warehouse of the Henry Pratt Co. in Aurora, Illinois, which Read More…
She truly is an inspiration — that’s the long and short of it. A kindergarten teacher cut her hair after one of her students was bullied for having a shorter ‘do. Shannon Grimm, who teaches at Meador Elementary School, in Willis, Texas decided over winter break to change her style, according to Today. “So, I did something Read More…
What has the greatest influence on air pollution since sliced bread? Toast. A new study from the University of Texas at Austin warns that toasters, candles, and other household smoke makers expose people to more air pollution than standing in a busy intersection does, the Times of London reported. The most dangerous of these is Read More…
Get ready for a sequel to “Feel the Bern” — maybe. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has recorded, but not yet released, a video to announce he’s running for president in 2020, Politico reported, citing unnamed sources. The independent’s team has also been holding interviews to fill top staff positions, according to the news site. They’ve Read More…
Sioux County is probably the most Christian county in all of Iowa. “In a town of 7,000 people — 19 churches,” Jordan Helming, a local resident, tells me. The county has the highest portion of evangelicals in the state and an even higher rate of mainline Protestants, according to the Association of Religious Data Archives. Read More…
LONDON — Thousands of British children marched out of lessons on Friday to demand action on climate change, earning a mild rebuke from the prime minister’s office for disrupting classes, but praise from the energy minister and activists. Youngsters marched on Parliament Square in London and gathered in other cities carrying banners marked with “Climate Read More…
Congratulations, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez! You just killed 25,000 jobs for urban Democrats in one of the most racially and ethnically diverse areas in the entire world! Congresswoman AOC, the thought leader of the Democratic party, was the loudest and feistiest political opponent when Amazon announced it would build (half of) its second headquarters in Long Island Read More…
The gunman who killed five people inside an Illinois factory Friday began shooting in the meeting in which he was fired, authorities said Saturday. Gary Martin, 45, had at least six prior arrests and used an illegal firearm, police said. Martin was a 15-year employee of the Henry Pratt Co. warehouse in Aurora. It’s not Read More…
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A computer forensics expert says the cellphone of a Connecticut mother charged with murdering her children included searches for overdoses, suicide and the effects of natural gas. The New Haven Register reports that Mark Newth, who works for the state Forensic Science Laboratory, testified Friday in the murder trial of LaRoya Read More…
A man whose naked body was found on an island off Connecticut nearly 23 years ago was finally identified this week through a new search of an updated national fingerprint database. But the man, Landberto Quintero, remains a mystery to authorities. Norwalk police on Friday released Quintero’s name and hoped the move would prompt relatives Read More…
ASHTABULA, OHIO — Bart Strickler drank his first beer at 9, smoked his first joint at 10. By the time he was in middle school he’d already done acid, cocaine, LSD, Quaaludes and anything else he could get his hands on. “I shouldn’t be here,” he says numbly. He takes a deep breath as the Read More…
NEAR BAGHOUZ, Syria — U.S.-backed fighters in Syria are poised to capture Islamic State’s last, tiny enclave on the Euphrates, the battle commander said on Saturday, bringing its self-declared caliphate to the brink of total defeat. Jiya Furat said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had cornered the remaining militants in a neighborhood of Baghouz village Read More…
Dramatic video of a deadly 47-car pile-up showed pure chaos on a snow-covered Missouri highway Friday. One person was killed and at least seven others injured in the mayhem, according to police. Images posted to Twitter showed multiple vehicles speeding into one another on I-70 outside Kansas City. A person in the video can be Read More…
A few years ago, a college sophomore in upstate New York learned that his father was in the ICU after suffering a heart attack. During a “gavel session,” a fraternity ritual during which members took turns sharing personal matters, he told his chapter the news. “Things weren’t looking good. At 19 and especially around a Read More…
MUNICH – Vice President Mike Pence rebuked European powers over Iran and Venezuela on Saturday in a renewed attack on Washington’s traditional allies, rejecting a call by Germany’s chancellor to include Russia in global cooperation efforts. Describing the results of Donald Trump’s presidency as “remarkable” and “extraordinary”, Pence told senior European and Asian officials the Read More…
NEW DELHI – India’s first locally built semi high-speed train broke down early on Saturday on its way back to New Delhi from Varanasi in northern Uttar Pradesh, a day after its inauguration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Vande Bharat Express can run up to a maximum speed of 160 km/hour. “There seems to Read More…
ROME — The Vatican says Pope Francis has defrocked former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after Vatican officials found him guilty of soliciting for sex while hearing Confession. The punishment announced on Saturday for the once-powerful prelate and Archbishop of Washington comes a few days before Pope Francis is to lead an extraordinary gathering of bishops Read More…
Mattel shares had their worst day in 20 years, plunging as much as 23 percent after management warned it expects ho-hum sales and margins this year. The news — revealed at a closed-door meeting with analysts on Friday — was whiplash for Wall Street. Investors had still been digesting surprisingly strong fourth-quarter results last week, Read More…
Looks like Ken Griffin can afford his penchant for buying homes at record-setting prices after all. The billionaire investor behind Chicago trading firm Citadel — who last month purchased the priciest home ever in the US — pocketed a whopping $870 million in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s an hourly wage of Read More…
Donald Trump has a lot of things going for him, a sense of humor, a willingness to say whatever is on his mind, but his best asset is his ability to turn his opponents into absolute idiots. There used to be something called the Monster Raving Loony Party in Britain, and that’s what the Democrats Read More…
The New York Mets are gearing up for the golden anniversary of their 1969 World Series win — with a marketing push that’s aimed at social media-obsessed millennials. In a little-noticed filing last week with the US Patent and Trademark Office, the Amazins submitted a second request to trademark “LGM” — the popular hashtag on Read More…
Payless ShoeSource is shuttering all of its 2,100 remaining stores in the US and Puerto Rico, joining a list of iconic names like Toys R Us and Bon-Ton that have closed down in the last year. The Topeka, Kansas-based chain said Friday it will hold liquidation sales starting Sunday and wind down its e-commerce operations. Read More…
The story of capitalism since the 1980s has been that of a kind of cold war between capital and politics. Politics and capital have a relationship that is both adversarial and symbiotic. There are not very many anarcho-capitalists in America’s (or the world’s) boardrooms; access to such public goods as independent judiciaries and reliable infrastructure Read More…
The House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Trump administration’s policy toward Venezuela this week descended into farce when controversial freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) attempted to steer debate toward 30-year-old events elsewhere in Latin America. In a cheap attempt to discredit special envoy Elliott Abrams, a long-time foreign-policy practitioner who served in the Reagan Read More…
Sen. Cory Booker wants to wage war on . . . meat and dairy. The longtime vegan told VegNews, “We’ve seen this massive increase in consumption of meat produced by the industrial animal agriculture industry. The tragic reality is this planet simply can’t sustain billions of people consuming industrially produced animal agriculture.” Bull. When they Read More…
Amazon’s pullout Thursday wasn’t even the worst economic development news for Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week: Just two days earlier, his economic development czar basically admitted that the gov’s signature Buffalo Billion is a . . . Buffalo Bust. In testimony Tuesday, Empire State Development boss Howard Zemsky tried to put a positive spin on it, but Read More…
All the noise about President Trump triggering a “constitutional crisis” with Friday’s declaration of a national emergency on the border is beyond absurd: The move is completely legal, even if it is a grim sign of how dysfunctional America’s democracy has gotten. Presidents have declared about six “national emergencies” a term, going back to Jimmy Read More…
Conservative: Trump Taking a Huge Risk on the Wall Declaring a national emergency to get the money for his border wall is “a huge gamble” for President Trump, declares Henry Olsen at The Washington Post. Though it will “surely delight his base,” it also risks “reinforcing negative views of him among the voters he needs Read More…