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New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 2 Real estate agents affiliated with The Corcoran Group are independent contractors and are not employees of The Corcoran Group. Equal Housing Opportunity. The Corcoran Group is a licensed real estate broker located at 660 Madison Ave, NY, NY 10065. All listing phone numbers indicate listing agent direct line unless otherwise noted. All information furnished regarding property for sale or rent or regarding financing is from sources deemed reliable, but Corcoran makes no warranty or representation as to the accuracy thereof. All property information is presented subject to errors, omissions, price changes, changed property conditions, and withdrawal of the property from the market, without notice. All dimensions provided are approximate. To obtain exact dimensions, Corcoran advises you to hire a qualified architect or engineer. Lic. as Timothy G. Davis. Tim Davis Licensed Associate RE Broker | Regional Brokerage Advisor East End o 631.702.9211 | tgdavis@co rco ran.com Thomas Davis Licensed Real Estate Salesperson m 631.885.5739 | o 631.702.9226 | [email protected] Exclusive Representation Southampton Village Estate Section: This glorious house was designed by world-renowned architect Jaquelin T. Robertson for owners Ahmet and Mica Ertegun in 1990 and positioned on a 5.5-acre west-facing parcel with 450 feet of frontage on Taylor Creek including a boat dock. The house of nearly 11,000 SF is in excellent condition and features grand-proportioned rooms with high ceilings throughout. There are ten bedrooms and thirteen and a half bathrooms including a staff wing. The swimming pool is 20 x 75 and elevated with waterviews. A broad site facing a nature reserve while enjoying direct ocean breezes and early evening sunsets. First time offered and listed Co-Exclusively. Price Upon Request WEB# 910004 THE WATERFRONT ESTATE OF A LIFETIME #1 Hamptons Broker by Sales Volume: 2023 WSJ RealTrends + Tom Ferry The Thousand* Corcoran’s Top Agent by Sales Volume 2022 – Hamptons $1 Billion+ in sales in 36 Months | $5.4 Billion+ Total Career Volume @HamptonsLuxuryMarketLeader
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 3 Getty Images for TAS Rights Management ♥♥♥J’taime! ♥♥♥Taylor Swift feels the love of thousands of jeunes filles françaises in Paris on the first night of the European leg of her record-smashing Eras Tour, which has also seen Americans flying in by the droves for the concerts. By DEIRDRE BARDOLF New York City has a new pizza rat — and this time it’s the two-legged kind. A security camera in a Brooklyn elevator caught a delivery driver red-saucehanded as he plucked toppings from a Papa John’s pie on his way up to a customer’s apartment. He punches the floor number, pops open the box and lets the top flop open, exposing a heavily garnished pie, shows the video (inset). He then picks off some apparent meat and veggie toppings, quickly scarfs them down and then fumbles as he tries to balance the pie while closing it back up. The May 1 clip, shared online by a security guard and picked up by the Instagram page New Yorkers, racked up hundreds of thousands of views and confirmed many people’s worst takeout nightmares. “Precisely why I don’t do delivery,” one TikToker commented. Boxes should be taped shut to prevent tampering, many agreed, and they wouldn’t accept the order otherwise. Some were especially horrified the sticky-fingered driver was grubbing the food with the same hand he was holding his keys in — and letting the dirty chain dangle in the food. The driver was wearing a helmet and didn’t appear to be wearing a Papa John’s uniform, suggesting he was working for a third-party delivery company while delivering for the pizza joint, which the original poster said was in Midwood. The woman who caught the pepperoni plunderer in the act said that she immediately ran to the customer’s door and told her what she saw. “Something told me to watch this man, yes I gave her the video and she didn’t touch the pizza. I got to her before she did,” the guard wrote. Instagram / @bk_niqua_38 LOWER CRUST THIEF Deliverer rips off toppings He’s crying a river. Justin Timberlake may have taken too much of a hiatus in between albums and got too much negative press after the release of Britney Spears’ memoir — causing fans to lose interest. “A six-year break from your mid-thirties to your early forties is a really long time,” music journalist Touré of TheGrio told Paula Froelich of News - Nation. “Most of [Timberlake’s] fans have aged out of caring about him.” Timberlake, 43, released his sixth album “Everything I Thought It Was” on March 15, his first since 2018’s “Man in the Woods.” While it debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, a month later, it had fallen off the Billboard 200 altogether. The singer’s “The Forget Tomorrow” tour, his first in five years, is also experiencing lackluster sales. On Friday, he went so far as to cancel his June 8 show in Columbia, SC. Another cause of his flagging fandom may be the October release of Britney Spears’ “The Woman in Me,” in which his ex reveals that an abortion she had at 19 was Timberlake’s idea. Angela Barbuti Timb’s tough ‘break’ Mona Lisa may be smiling over this. A geologist and Renaissance art historian is claiming to have solved the centuries-old debate on the location of the Italian landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” Ann Pizzorusso, the author of the 2014 book “Tweeting Da Vinci,” is claiming she cracked the case. In her expert opinion, Leonardo portrayed parts of the city of Lecco, on the shore of Lake Como in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, in his 16thcentury masterpiece. Angela Barbuti ‘Mona Lisa’ site to see
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 4 By LAUREN ELKIES SCHRAM and MARY KAY LINGE A defiant French teacher is still in the classroom after being fired by the Department of Education — crowing that the city “can’t touch me” despite the sexually charged accusations that got her sacked, including making nearly 30,000 latenight texts to a schoolgirl. Dulaina Almonte, 33, lost her job at Harry S Truman HS in The Bronx in 2020 after the Special Commissioner of Investigation substantiated claims of her creepy behavior with teens. “I can’t be guilty if I’m still a teacher,” Almonte — who now teaches at a Bronx charter school — boasted to The Post this week. “It’s not a crime, but still got fired, which is honestly why the DOE can suck a big pr--k,” she continued. “Still a teacher! Can’t touch me!” “Still a teacher working elsewhere. Like, you really can’t f--k - ing touch me.” Her audacity comes despite a damning 2022 SCI report which found her “excessive contact and behavior with the students demonstrates that she has no place in the New York City Schools.” Phone records showed Almonte sent a 17-year-old female student a staggering 28,075 late-night texts over 14 months — 66 messages a day — and traded nearly 1,900 texts with a male 12th-grader. The NYPD also investigated a Truman HS student’s claim that she and a former pupil were “involved in a sex act” in a classroom, according to a police report. Almonte denied the accusation — which according to SCI included the allegation that she and a student had “made out and had oral sex all the time in school” — and no arrest was made. But the incident led to a lengthy SCI probe documenting her thousands of late-night and weekend chats with students, along with encrypted WhatsApp and Snapchat calls, and the teens’ multiple visits to her Bronx home. The report, the result of a yearlong investigation, “was completely false,” Almonte insisted. She is now teaching Spanish at the publicly-funded, privatelyrun AECI 2: NYC Charter HS for Engineering and Innovation, where teachers on average earn about $74,000, according to Indeed.com. Her pay in 2019 from the DOE was $71,963. Protecting ‘predators’ Brazen city public school teachers like Almonte are flouting Department of Education rules forbidding sexual and other “inappropriate” contact with their students — because even if they’re caught, their predatory behavior almost always remains hidden within the DOE, critics say. And they’re reaping the benefit of a cumbersome city and state disciplinary process that allows many educational predators to continue working with kids and teens even after SCI investigators have substantiated sexual offenses. While some states maintain public databases exposing proven cases of educator sexual misconduct — in an effort to end so-called “pass the trash” policies that shield problem teachers — New York is not among them, experts said. “No paper trail follows teachers state to state unless they’re convicted and it shows up in a [criminal] background check,” said Billie-Jo Grant, a researcher and consultant for SESAME, a group which targets educator sexual abuse. However, fewer than 5% of school administrators nationwide report sexual misconduct to law BRAZEN ‘PERV’ Lands new gig after DOE ax & boasts to Post By LAUREN ELKIES SCHRAM and MARY KAY LINGE Electronic sexual grooming by educators is an ongoing threat to students in New York City public schools — despite dozens of pleas from school investigators for DOE to stop student-teacher cellphone contact, experts told The Post. Since 2018, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools has filed at least 41 formal recommendations urging city schools to ban teachers and staffers from contacting students’ personal cellphone numbers and social-media accounts — most recently in a case filed April 16, records show. But the DOE has refused to take heed, relying instead on toothless “social media guidelines” that “discourage,” but do not prohibit, such interactions. “There is no reason that teachers should be contacting students privately on their private emails, on their private cell phones, especially on their social media,” said Dr. Elizabeth Jeglic of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who researches institutional sexual abuse. Texting is “part of the grooming process,” Jeglic said, a uniquely intimate form of contact that abusers use to “usurp parental guardianship.” In the last five years, SCI has substantiated at least 89 cases of DOE employees using private texts or personal social-media accounts to have inappropriate, often sexually-charged conversations with students, The Post’s review of the records shows. Top-ranked Townsend Harris HS in Queens was rocked by a scandal in 2021 when student journalists revealed that teacher Joseph Canzoneri (top inset), then 53, had been found by SCI to have engaged in “numerous inappropriate acts” involving teenage female students, including intercourse and oral sex — all starting with flirtatious texts and Instagram posts. His “actions with these students indicates a pattern of ‘grooming’ . . . that threatens the well-being of these and other students,” Special Commissioner of Investigation Anastasia Coleman wrote in her report. The same year, casual texts that Natalie Black (lower inset), 26, a teacher at Hillside Arts and Letters Academy in Queens, exchanged with a 17- year-old male student quickly became sexual, as Black sent at least 15 raunchy photos and videos of herself “in lingerie or nude” to the boy, prompting her firing, The Post reported. In 2022, paraprofessional Aaliyah Paul, then 19, displayed “predatory” behavior toward a 15-year-old male student at the Manhattan School for Career Development, SCI found, texting him 90 times in a 20-day period and calling him her “babyboy” after serving as a substitute in his school for less than a week. She was fired, according to DOE. Sexual abuse of minors is “often a gradual process that involves desensitization,” said Erinn Robinson of RAINN, the national anti-sexual violence organization, who added that texting increasingly plays a central role. “It may start with inappropriate conversation that leads to more sexualized conversation” once the perpetrator “has tested the waters,” she said. Crisis of school ‘sext’ offenders E-grooming on cells & social YOU CAN’T TOUCH ME
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 5 enforcement, Grant has found. “There’s a lot of motivation to not have it on the front page of the paper,” Grant said. Over the last five years, SCI has substantiated 254 allegations of sexual or “inappropriate” misconduct by DOE employees and vendors — but only four cases, less than 2%, resulted in criminal charges, according to a Post review of the watchdog’s annual reports. A criminal conviction on sexabuse charges means instant revocation of an educator’s state license. But in the vast majority of sexual misconduct cases, the UFT’s contractual rules require at least two arbitration hearings before a teacher’s state license can be yanked. Shielding the data Short of that, the DOE shares no incriminating information on a fired teacher with other districts or private, religious or charter schools — and if an offender resigns before he or she can be axed, no trace of the investigation is easily visible to employers outside the city school system. In Almonte’s case, SCI findings were sent to the state Education Department, which can revoke a license if the person is convicted of a crime or found to be of immoral character. But there is no record of any disciplinary hearing, according to a state website. Her state teaching license expired in August 2019, according to the state Education Department. The educator was terminated by the DOE, according to spokesman Nathaniel Styer, who declined to give more details. “I’m not going to get into personnel items beyond she was terminated. If others come to us for background checks, we respond,” he said. It’s unclear what kind of background check AECI 2 did before hiring Almonte in 2022. Derick Spaulding, the CEO of AECI 2, said the school conducts background checks and employees have to pass a “fingerprint authorization.” “All employees have to get fingerprinted. If there was something in a person’s background that was worthy” of not hiring them, “that would show up” there, he said, claiming, “That’s the state’s way of stating this person’s allowed to work” with kids. Spaulding said he wasn’t familiar with the details of Almonte’s hiring and declined to answer further questions about the teacher’s expired license, the school’s background checks, or whether the school reached out to DOE before hiring Almonte. The accusations substantiated by SCI would not have been revealed with a fingerprint check because there were no criminal charges. Some disgraced DOE teachers move out of state. Daniel Schiels began working as a special education teacher in Stamford, Conn., public schools while SCI was probing him for allegedly grooming a female student over three years, starting at age 15. Investigators documented his suggestive Instagram messages to the girl years after she left his classroom, asking “how big her boobs were now” and “Do you have piercings?” Schiels refused to cooperate with the investigation, the report stated. Schiels wasn’t reachable and his mother-in-law hung up on a reporter. Cloonan Middle School in Stamford, where Schiels said in a January social media post he taught a sixth grade special education class, didn’t respond to a request for comment. Additional reporting by Tina Moore and Susan Edelman TEACH TAUNT YOU CAN’T TOUCH ME SACRE BLEU! French teacher Dulaina Almonte is now working at AECI 2: NYC Charter HS in The Bronx (above) after being fired from her job in the borough’s Harry S Truman HS (below) for an alleged inappropriate relationship with a female student. J.C.Rice FaceBook Dulaina Almonte
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Postmaster: Send address changes to The New York Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, NY, NY 10036-8790. Vol. 223, No. 179. Copyright © 2024, NYP Holdings Inc. (USPS-383200) Published daily by NYP Holdings Inc., 1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036-8790. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional offices. The Post uses recycled paper. LOTTERY New Yorkers who’ve racked up late penalties on unpaid traffic tickets could soon catch a big break. City Councilwoman Julie Menin (D-Manhattan) said she’ll be introducing a bill Thursday to create a threemonth amnesty period during which the city Department of Finance would waive late fees, including interest, for anyone who pays the base penalty on unpaid parking and movingviolation tickets. Scofflaws who pay off tickets for illegal dumping and building- and fire-code violations — issued by the city’s Environmental Control Board — would get a bigger break, paying just 75% of the penalties while also having late fees waived. “In our current fiscal situation, we simply cannot afford to leave money on the table — let alone over $1 billion in unpaid fines,” Menin told The Post. The $1 billion figure for parking and traffic-camera tickets comes from an Independent Budget Office report last year, which also found the city had yet to collect on another $940 million in ECB fines. It also noted 29% of people issued parking and traffic-cam summonses in 2022 failed to settle their debts. The extra revenue from scofflaws could offset some of Mayor Adams’ proposed budget cuts, said Menin. “We need to collect every debt owed before making cuts to vital city services,” Menin said. Adams spokesperson Liz Garcia said the Mayor’s Office “will review the legislation.” Rich Calder Waiving late fees is just the ticket: pol By DEIRDRE BARDOLF City schools Chancellor David Banks denied reports of heinous chants of “Death to Israel” and “Kill the Jews” at a Brooklyn high school during a congressional hearing this week — but critics say the Department of Education never investigated. “We have found no evidence that that actually happened,” Banks told House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik of the alleged chants at Origins HS, where Jewish teachers and students say they have been terrorized by antisemitic teens. “Just because something was written on the front page of a tabloid doesn’t it make it true. . . . We have to investigate,” Banks said. The chants were among many disturbing incidents at the embattled Sheepshead Bay school exposed by The Post and now part of a lawsuit on behalf of campus manager Michael Beaudry and former Origins teacher Danielle Kaminsky. Their lawyer, Jim Walden, says his clients haven’t been contacted for any investigation and that Banks is “talking the talk and not walking the walk.” “The whole notion that the Origins allegations were investigated is ridiculous,” Walden told The Post following the House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing. “Banks is not calling anyone to actually get a real understanding of what happened at Origins, or talk about these grandiose solutions that he professed,” he said. Banks told Stefanik that the DOE has discovered “wide ranging, deeply troubling antisemitic things” at the school — but had not found that students chanted the hateful rhetoric at an Oct. 11 march, just four days after the Hamas attacks on Israel. Suspicious finding “[Kaminsky] wasn’t hallucinating,” Walden said. “Why the DOE couldn’t find evidence to corroborate that is highly suspect.” If asked, she could have provided the names of students who participated and who likely filmed the activity, Walden noted. “It’s going to be pretty embarrassing for them when I serve discovery very soon,” he said. The April 3 suit recounts the chronic hostility Kaminsky and other Jews at the school experienced, including her being called a “dirty Jew” and given the Nazi salute, and an email to teachers that said, “All Jews need to be exterminated.” The administration failed to address the complaints and retaliated against Kaminsky and Beaudry, according to the suit. At the hearing on Wednesday, Banks said “a number of students” were suspended but that he couldn’t comment further because of the lawsuit. “I had visited that school after these allegations have come up,” he said. “I’ve met with parents, families, staff, students. I’m deeply troubled by what has happened there and we’re going to get to the bottom of it.” A DOE spokesperson referred questions from The Post back to Wednesday’s hearing. Additional reporting by Susan Edelman DOE hears no evil in ‘hate-chant probe’ chants AP DENIAL: DOE chief David Banks tells Congress the city found no proof of the antisemitic chants at a Brooklyn school (top right) alleged by ex-staff Michael Beaudry and Danielle Kaminsky (lower right).
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 7 Yanks’Volpe salutes mom NICE THROW TO HOME LIFE: Yankee shortstop Anthony Volpe, seen flashing his skills this season, admires his mother’s work ethic and says he inherited his competitiveness from her. AP; Family photos courtesy of Anthony Volpe want to come to a game, they gotta go see my mom. She decides everything. So, she’s the boss. She’s the queen. She’s the head of the family.” Volpe said he inherited his mom’s “competitiveness . . . whether we’re playing card games or playing sports.” Always there Isabelle Volpe, 56, a first-generation Filipina immigrant and an anesthesiologist — would wake up between 4 and 5 a.m. to commute from New Jersey to Manhattan but “she never failed to pick us up from practice or school, whether it was me or my sister [Olivia]. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anybody work harder — while also not really talking about it at all.” Volpe also admires his mother’s magnetism. Even animals gravitate toward her. He recalled how when he was in high school, his mom was the one family member who didn’t want a dog. “Within two weeks, the dog [Jedi] was following her everywhere and absolutely loves her,” Volpe laughed. Asked if his mom — a big Harry Styles fan — ever offered him words to live by, Volpe immediately responded, “Family. How important it is.” [email protected] By DEAN BALSAMINI There was a moment when Yankees star Anthony Volpe’s love of baseball didn’t sit so well with his mom. When he was a kid growing up on the Upper East Side, space was tight for the Volpes, so dad Michael set up “little baby ball” for his 5-year-old son using magazines as bases. It was great, the now-23-year-old shortstop recalled — until it wasn’t. “I hit one and ruined one of her vases,” a piece his parents got on their honeymoon. “I definitely got yelled at for that and had to go back outside — no more playing ball in the house.” Now Volpe is breaking records instead of pottery. Last season he became the first rookie in franchise history to hit at least 20 home runs and steal at least 20 bases, while also becoming the first rookie in team history to win a Gold Glove. Volpe’s work ethic is modeled on his mom’s. He gushed about her support — and chicken parm. “I’m definitely a momma’s boy in so many ways,” he confessed. “She’s my best friend, my first call for anything. She’s the most selfless person I’ve ever been around.” In The Bronx, The Boss was late Yankee owner George Steinbrenner. In the Volpes’ New Jersey household, it’s Anthony’s mom. “She is definitely the boss,” the shortstop told The Post. “I think anybody that knows our family knows everything goes through her. Everyone knows that if they want to come to a game, they gotta You can call Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez “Supermom” after she gave birth to a boy in the passenger seat of her wife’s speeding Maserati, then defended her doctoral dissertation from her hospital bed hours later. In the wee hours of April 25, eight-months-pregnant Brevard-Rodriguez, 40, was putting the finishing touches on the PowerPoint she would use to defend the dissertation in education that afternoon, she realized that baby Enzo would be appearing a month early. Her wife, Alyza BrevardRodriguez, sprung into action: messaging BrevardRodriguez’s academic mentor at Rutgers University to postpone her presentation. While Alyza was hitting 120 mph on the Garden State Parkway, BervardRodriguez took “one big grunt” and warned, “he’s coming.” “I look over, and I see her with this baby in her left hand, and her umbilical cord in the right,” Alyza said with a laugh. Once mom and baby were settled in at a hospital, “I could hear [Alyza] talking to my mentor on the phone about rescheduling the defense. And I was just kind of like, I don’t think I should do that,” Brevard-Rodriguez said. So Alyza made a quick trip home to grab Tamiah’s laptop. At 1 p.m., Brevard-Rodriguez presented her dissertation to 56 people during an hour-long Zoom call, hiding her maternity-ward background until the end. Georgia Worrell ‘Speedy’ delivery of kid – & Ph.D BREVARD-RODRIGUEZ Now she’s Dr. mother. Nick Romanenko/Rutgers University
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 8 ELECTION 2024 Aristide Economopoulos DON LETS LOOSE ted a variety of crimes before, during and after the 2016 and 2020 elections. He blamed Biden for his legal troubles, saying, “You don’t do that to your opponents. “It’s done in third-world countries, it’s done in banana republics, it’s not done in the United States of America.” The crowd — which Wildwood officials estimated between 80,000 and 100,000, a record for a Garden State political rally — cheered wildly throughout the long, but controlled speech. They went wild when Trump implied former New Jersey Gov. and Trump rival Chris Christie was obese, chanted “Bulls--t!” when he talked about his indictments, and booed loudly when he brought up the Biden administration’s decision to withhold an ammo shipment from Israel as it continues its war with Hamas in Gaza. “Shocking to hear that!” Trump said, as the crowd cried There could be 50 contenders on Donald Trump’s vice presidential short list — but there was room for only one of them on his campaign plane Saturday. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum was a surprise addition to Trump’s manifest for a short flight from La Guardia Airport to Atlantic City, NJ. Burgum and wife Kathryn remained behind on the plane to speak privately with the former president before stepping out. They all then motorcaded to a huge oceanside rally at nearby Wildwood. “Another day at the beach,” Burgum told The Post, grinning, after delivering a short but rousing speech to the raucous crowd on the beach. “Donald Trump means strength, Joe Biden means weakness,” Burgum said. “If you want to make America strong again, you know what to do.” Burgum, 67, unsuccessfully vied for the 2024 GOP nod before dropping out late last year — but unlike fellow presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, he then immediately endorsed Trump. Burgum told The Post he “dismissed” chatter he’s a veep prospect. “I think everybody who cares about this country should be out there campaigning for President Trump,” he said. Diana Glebova and Mary Kay Linge ‘ND’ Doug flies into veepstakes GOV. DOUG BURGUM North Dakotan rallies for Don. By DIANA GLEBOVA and STEVE JANOSKI WILDWOOD, NJ — Donald Trump recited all his greatest hits at a massive Sunday evening rally in Wildwood, NJ, but managed to avoid violating his court-imposed gag order by focusing on President Biden, whom he called a “total moron” and blamed for his web of legal troubles. Trump — wearing his typical blue suit, blood-red tie and “Make America Great Again” cap — railed about inflation, offshore windmills, electric cars, the press and Chris Christie. But unsurprisingly, it was Biden who drew his most intense vitriol. “You could take the 10 worst presidents in the history of our country, and add them up . . . and they haven’t done the damage to our country that this total moron has done,” Trump said to a cheering crowd of tens of thousands. “He’s a fool, he’s not a smart man. He never was,” Trump said. “He was considered stupid. I talk about him differently now because now, the gloves are off. He’s a bad guy . . . he’s the worst president ever, of any country. The whole world is laughing at him, he’s a fool.” The former president also alluded to his plethora of indictments, which allege he commitSlams ‘moron’ as worst prez ever GOING WILD IN WILDWOOD: Trump supporters turn out by the tens of thousands on the beach at Wildwood, NJ, Saturday for their political hero, Donald Trump. The ex-president flew on his refurbished “Trump Force One” down the coast for his biggest rally this year.
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 9 ELECTION 2024 ON OLD FOE JOE By DIANA GLEBOVA and MARY KAY LINGE WILDWOOD, N.J. — Donald Trump hit the campaign trail with a vengeance Saturday after another grueling week in a New York courtroom. The Post joined Trump and his campaign staff on “Trump Force One” for his trip to the Jersey Shore, where tens of thousands of supporters crowded the sands of Wildwood to greet him for a rally, the largest of his 2024 White House run so far. Trump was one of the last passengers to board his 757 at La Guardia, greeting staffers and guests along the aisle. The plane, recently refurbished with white leather seats and shiny paneled walls, boasted a huge TV screen that played live footage of the rally site, filled with cheering Trump fans, as the presumptive GOP nominee winged his way toward them. National press secretary Karo line Leavitt explained the logic behind mounting a rally in blue New Jersey, a state Trump lost by double digits in 2016 and 2020. “In 2020, President Trump held a rally in this exact location in Wildwood,” Leavitt said. “There was such great enthusiasm, he wanted to go back.” “We are expecting a massive crowd,” she said, as the TV screen panned over those gathered on the sand. “We understand there are more than 80,000 people already on the ground there,” she said. “Which is something Biden’s campaign could never do.” Trump leaned forward to catch sight of the huge crowd, as TV cameras captured their wild cheers when they caught sight of his distinctive red, white and blue plane. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm in New Jersey and wherever President Trump goes,” Leavitt said. “President Trump believes that New York, New Jersey, we’re going to make a play,” she added. “The great people of New Jersey are fed up with Joe Biden’s regime.” Trump spent the short flight prepping for his appearance with his speechwriter, and close to advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. On the flight were North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and wife Kathryn, whose presence heated up speculation that the GOP dark horse is rising up the short list of running-mate contenders. Also along for the ride: longtime Trump aide Walt Nauta, under indictment in Trump’s classified-documents case in Florida. He stayed close to his boss throughout, exiting the plane right before him. “New Jersey is the highest taxed state in the country because of Biden’s stupid wasteful economic policies,” Leavitt said. “The people of New Jersey realize they need President Trump to make their lives better.” He’s Shore big in NJ Largest rally of ’24 out in agreement. He also hit some local notes, including bringing onstage NFL Giants great Lawrence Taylor. Trump told the crowd his administration oversaw the “greatest economy in the history of our country,” and that New Jersey would benefit heartily if he returned to office. “If Joe Biden wins this election, the middle class loses, New Jersey loses,” Trump said. “But if Trump wins, the middle class wins, the people of low income really start winning again, and you’re all going for the American Dream!” he continued. “New Jersey wins, Pennsylvania wins, America wins.” He also alluded to his looming pick for vice president, and may have hinted at his eventual choice when he referenced North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who flew with Trump to the Jersey Shore rally and spoke briefly. “Just get ready for something — just get ready!” Trump said. [email protected]
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 10 L AST weekend, audiences watched Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt yuk it up in the meh movie “The Fall Guy.” But the crowd, such as it was, looked nothing like the ticket buyers of nearly a year ago when the same A-list duo was part of the cinematic phenomenon known as #Barbenheimer. Remember those three surreal days? When the masses, lemming-like, donned pink skirts and roller skates (and, for a sprinkle of nerds, brown fedoras) and packed theaters to capacity to see films about an old doll and a dead physicist? Domestically, that pair of polar opposites “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” grossed a combined $246 million on their opening weekend in July 2023. They went on to do $2.4 billion in business worldwide. Staggering. That organic explosion of public enthusiasm was a vital life preserver for the movie industry at the time. Like the films or not — I personally enjoyed the #enheimer half — they were were lucrative must-sees for everybody. Whelp, nine months later, the itsy-bitsy “Fall Guy,” an actioncomedy starring Blunt and Gosling, grossed a meager $28 million. Slate expectations “Must-see!” has become “Maybe stream?” Strange to say that about a summer box-office lineup that includes a Marvel movie, “Mad Max” and Will Smith, but, hey, Harry Hamlin has a cooking show now. Up is down, down is up. The best shot at boffo success is “Deadpool & Wolverine” (July 26), the third stand-alone movie for Ryan Reynolds’ curse-spewing antihero and the first to bring Hugh Jackman’s X-Man into the overgrown, barely tolerable Marvel Cinematic Universe. But Logan is returning to a changed world. Not long ago, the media was still insisting that superhero films were the only flicks we’d get to watch for the next several hundred years. At the very least. Not so fast. The once ironclad genre has hit a major snag with megaflops such as Marvel’s “Eternals,” “AntMan and the Wasp: Quantumania” and “The Marvels.” DC’s “The Flash,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and “Black Adam” all tanked, too. So, Disney execs will be sacrificing their firstborns in hopes that “Deadpool” lifts them out of their capes-and-Spandex rut in July. And it might. Reynolds and Jackman are big, likable stars. But its limiting R rating and six years of dead air since the last ’pool picture don’t help matters. Then there’s a pair of big-name science-fiction films that desperately crave to be the next “Dune: Part Two”: the excellent “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” now in theaters, and virtuoso George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” (May 24), starring Anya Taylor-Joy. Best of luck. Too bad neither of them star Timothée Chalamet or Zendaya. Smacktor the savior? Meanwhile, all eyes are on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, who lately is about as welcome in Hollywood as Prince Harry is at Buckingham Palace. Back in 2020, “Bad Boys for Life,” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, grossed $426 million worldwide — stellar numbers for a cop comedy. Then Will “Keep my wife’s name out of your f--king mouth” Smith decided to assault Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars. Mr. “Independence Day” has been a pariah ever since. He tried to make a comeback in 2022 with Apple’s Civil War-era prestige picture “Emancipation,” but it was poorly received and nobody watched it. Next month, Smith will again attempt to recover with “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” which I bet will be a lot of fun despite his idiotic on-camera attack. My question: Can Will Smith still deliver a smash — or just a smack? Season of bad ‘bombs’ HOLDIN’ OUT FOR A HERO: This summer’s badly needed potential blockbusters include “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” and “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” out now. H’wood $ure misses ‘Barbenheimer’ Marvel Entertainment JOHNNY OLEKSINSKI A punk-rock-loving concertgoer is partially paralyzed and can move only her arms after a singer launched himself into the crowd and landed on her head during a show in upstate New York last month. Bird Piché, 24, suffered a “catastrophic spinal cord injury” at the Trophy Eyes concert at the Mohawk Place in Buffalo on April 30th, according to WGRZ TV. Footage posted to the Australian post-punk rock band’s Reddit page shows the moment frontman John Floreani jumps from the stage and is hoisted in the air by the rowdy crowd. Piché’s pink hair can be seen bobbing to the music near the stage with fans in the packed 230-person venue moments before the singer’s jump. Richard Pollina Fan paralyzed in punker ‘surf’ The Miami Beach Police Department’s newest recruitment tool is a $250,000 tricked-out Rolls-Royce patrol car. “We are thrilled to introduce this stunning addition to the MBPD recruitment team — courtesy of Braman Motors,” the department posted Thursday on X with a video showing off the lights-and-sirens-equipped luxury car flanked by two officers on motorcycles. The ride is on loan to the department from the luxe dealer in a bid to help attract law enforcement hopefuls. Deirdre Bardolf Miami ‘Rolls’ out a perk
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 11 Michael Goodwin [email protected] B ARACK Obama’s prescient warning about Joe Biden is so well-known it’s practically a cliche. “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f--k things up,” the former president said of his vice president. The remark, made as Biden closed in on the Democrats’ 2020 nomination, has served as a handy explanation for his otherwise inexplicable habit of seizing defeat from the jaws of victory. The deadly, chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Biden’s decision to throw open the southern border without a plan for handling the millions of illegal crossers are just two of the many headscratching decisions that have turned his tenure into a synonym for failure. A common thread is that his debacles were unforced errors. Doing nothing would have produced far better outcomes than the actions he took. But the incumbent’s latest moves suggest a reconsideration is warranted. It is that Obama himself underestimated Biden’s ability to f--k things up. The evidence is the president’s current and most outrageous folly, which has the potential to be consequential in the worst possible ways. This one could set the world on fire. With his relentless criticism of Israel and now a threat to cut off munition supplies in the midst of a war, Biden is triggering a series of global repercussions. And all because he’s terrified of losing the election to Donald Trump. There are three ways to evaluate Biden’s moves. Who do they hurt, who do they help and what is the payoff for his campaign? Catastrophic timing Israel, of course, suffers the most adverse consequences. Because it is locked in an existential conflict with Hamas, Biden has picked a terrible time to gut his pledge of “ironclad” support for the Jewish state. Coming just days after he used a Holocaust Remembrance event to passionately link the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 to the horrors of Nazi Germany, Biden’s sudden military freeze smacks of a Jekylland-Hyde personality. If the freeze stops Israel’s plan to eliminate Hamas, it will guarantee more Islamic terrorism and another war, which will mean more civilian casualties on both sides. But Biden’s “f--k up” doesn’t end there. It also simultaneously undercuts America’s relationship Reader Allan Tannenbaum offers a similar complaint about other Jewish lawmakers, writing: “Congressmen Jerry Nadler and Dan Goldman have been almost totally silent about the pro-Hamas mobs at colleges and in the streets, and now they’re silent about Biden’s betrayal of Israel.” . . . and nada from Nadler, Goldman Reader John Farrell taps a common emotion, writing: “I find it astounding that Chuck Schumer is nowhere to be found as Joe Biden hangs Israel out to dry. I am an Irish Catholic grandfather with seven grandkids, four of which are being raised within the Jewish faith. I proudly take a public stand in the support of Jews. “That’s the very least our Jewish senator from New York should do. Braveheart he isn’t.” The silent treatment from Schu with other allies who have new reason to worry they could be next on his hit list. Can Saudi Arabia really trust an administration that mercilessly undercut America’s closest ally? Should European allies be worried that they, too, will somehow run afoul of a White House that treats its enemies better than its friends? Then there’s Ukraine, which has another reason to worry, while Russia and China must be delighted to see American weakness in action. Meanwhile, Hamas immediately benefits from the freeze. Biden’s previous efforts to force Israel to protect, feed and care for Gaza’s civilians already rewarded the Hamas strategy of using its fellow Arabs as human shields. No military can simultaneously protect its own soldiers, fight an embedded force of terrorists and also care for the civilian population the enemy hides behind. It is now clear the impossibility of Biden’s straitjacket was the whole point. By putting unreasonable demands on Israel and threatening to abandon it if it doesn’t comply, Biden hopes to end what is for Israel a war of self defense. His monthslong campaign of criticism convinced the terrorist group time was on its side and played a role in its refusal to seriously negotiate the release of Israeli and American hostages in exchange for a cease-fire. And now Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas butchers are being rewarded again by Biden’s withholding of munitions for Israel’s push into Rafah, the group’s last stronghold. Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told reporters that “by declaring open season on Israel,” Biden “created an American diplomatic Iron Dome for Hamas.” Iran, too, benefits big time from the freeze. Flush with cash, thanks to Biden lifting oil sanctions and paying billions to ransom hostages, the murderous mullahs have effectively gotten a green light to continue their campaign of targeting Israel and trying to drive America out of the Mideast. Tehran capitalizes The first evidence of an emboldened Iran comes in the form of Hezbollah stepping up its rocket attacks from Lebanon, which led Israel’s defense minister to warn of a “hot summer” along his country’s northern border. In addition, the Houthis renewed their attacks on international cargo ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, moves they wouldn’t make without Iran’s blessing. Shamefully, Biden is apparently willing to accept the first two consequences of his betrayal of Israel if it brings him increased domestic support for his campaign. Distancing himself from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was aimed at winning over keffiyehwearing, antisemitic college students and Muslim-American voters, especially in the Upper Midwest swing states. So far, the gambit has been a bust. Mostly Democrats, these holdouts know their pressure is changing American policy, but they haven’t rewarded Biden with their support. As The New York Times put it after surveying Muslim activists, the flip-flop on Israel amounts to “too little, too late.” “The president’s announcement is extremely overdue and horribly insufficient,” Abbas Alawieh, an Arab American protest leader in Michigan, told the Times. “He needs to come out against this war. Period. That would be significant.” It would indeed be significant — and tragic for Israel and America. Yet Biden presses on. The one bit of good news is that his war strategy is finally alarming some Democrats, with dissenters correctly accusing the president of endangering Israel. Twenty-six House Dems, led by New Jersey’s Josh Gottheimer, warned the White House that the weapons freeze aids the Iranian terror proxies’ “agenda of chaos, brutality, and hate, and makes a hostage agreement even harder to achieve.” Some Dem megadonors are also unhappy, with Hollywood mogul Haim Saban getting to the bottom line in a note to campaign aides. “Let’s not forget there are more Jewish voters who care about Israel than Muslim voters who care about Hamas,” Saban wrote. “Bad, Bad, Bad decision on all levels,” he added, according to Axios. All true, and plain-as-day obvious. Yet Biden remains unmoved by the evidence that he is playing with fire by appeasing America’s enemies and punishing its friends. What a disaster. Reuters
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 12 CRAZY TOWN ‘Ice Pick Nick’ nabbed By GEORGIA WORRELL A New York City EMT stabbed eight times by an unhinged patient in the back of her ambulance nearly a year ago still hasn’t returned to work — and is plagued by nightmares. “I thought I was going to die,” Julia Fatum told The Post of the July 19, 2023, attack that left her hospitalized for a week and walking with a cane for months afterward. It was a typical night shift for Fatum (pictured above last week, and after being stabbed), 26, until she responded to a 9 p.m. call about a man having heart trouble on the Upper West Side. She and her partner picked up Rudolph “Rudy” Garcia (inset), a 48-year-old Bronx man, and headed to Mt. Sinai Hospital. “We were a couple of blocks from the hospital,” she recalled in her first interview since the horrific attack. “He became agitated.” The bald brute yelled “F--k you!” and pulled a kitchen knife from his sock, prosecutors said at his arraignment. Fatum, who was in the back of the ambulance, shouted to her partner who was driving. The driver skidded to a halt and Fatum attempted to escape through the back doors. “The lock was jammed,” she said. The 6-foot-1 Garcia — an excon whose rap sheet included two felony convictions for assaulting a cop — plunged the blade into Fatum’s left arm. “You stop feeling things physically and you just go into your mind,” Fatum said. “It’s just, like, ‘Wow’ . . . I never thought it would happen to me, and now I think I’m going to die.” Garcia stabbed Fatum seven more times — including in the chest, puncturing a lung. He was charged with attempted murder and assault. He pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail at Rikers Island. Fatum still struggles with nerve damage in her left arm. The severed nerves “may never come back,” Fatum said. She also suffers from psychological trauma. “With something like this, of course you’re going to have lingering PTSD, nightmares. It’s definitely there,” she said. Fatum is going public now to fight for better protections for first responders. In 2023, there were 214 attacks on FDNY EMTs — up a disturbing 20% from the 179 in 2022. “My main goals right now are to continue my recovery and finish school,” Fatum said. “Hopefully, in three years after school finishes I can start a new chapter of my life.” Stabbed EMT’s long nightmare By GEORGETT ROBERTS, MARIE POHL and RICH CALDER An 11-year-old girl slashed in the head by an apparently homeless maniac was left “showered in blood” by the attack and is “lucky to be alive,” her mother fumed to The Post, while demanding the career criminal be put behind bars. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God! She is going to die right now!’ ” Malgorzata Sladek recalled of her daughter, Maxi Park. “Her lips were blue. She was losing color. “The cut was so big,” the mother of two added. “Her clothes, her jacket were covered in blood. It looked like you poured red water on her, like she was showered in blood.” The fiend knifed the youngster in the back of the head and cut her ear as she walked down the street holding her mom’s hand, authorities said. “I turned around and saw her hair on the sidewalk,” said Sladek. “Her head was sliced from top to bottom. Blood was pouring out of her head. I was in shock.” The child required multiple stitches and staples to fix the gash and was “doing a little better” Saturday while still in the hospital, Sladek said. ‘Need to change laws’ Shaquan Cummings, 30, allegedly preyed on the girl outside the 116th Street subway station Friday and fled underground, moments after he’s accused of sucker-punching an unsuspecting 43-year-old woman around the corner, according to sources. “Bitch, get the f--k out of my way!” Cummings allegedly told the woman, prosecutors said. Sladek tried to chase down Cummings, even hailing a conductor to stop a train from departing, but he managed to escape. Cops ultimately tracked him down a block away. Cummings was then cornered by a raging mob of Harlem locals seeking street justice, forcing a group of NYPD officers to protect him. Cummings, a resident of Jerome Avenue Men’s Shelter in The Bronx, was held without bail Saturday after an arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on two counts of assault and acting in a manner injurious to a child. He’s been arrested more than 20 times, including for assault, criminal mischief and fare evasion, sources said. “My daughter could have been dead,” said Sladek. “Why is this person walking the streets of New York? They need to change the laws.” Additional reporting by Khristina Narizhnay REPEAT: Maxi Park recovers after being slashed in the head — allegedly by repeat criminal offender Shaquan Cummings (left), seen cowering behind police on Saturday’s Post Page 1. parting, but he managed to Courtesy of Malgorzata Sladek
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 13 CRAZY TOWN By MATTHEW SEDACCA A wild man known as Ice Pick Nick who has been terrorizing the East Village for years has finally been arrested and jailed. Just before 6:30 p.m. Thursday, neighborhood tormentor Nicholas Babilonia Jr. menaced a person on Avenue C with what appeared to be a firearm, before throwing the victim’s bicycle, according to criminal courts records. The unhinged vagrant, who boasts a rap sheet 37 arrests long, then grabbed a metal pipe and swung at his target, narrowly missing him, the complaint said. He was charged with attempted assault and menacing, and held on $20,000 bail, records show. But the fact that Babilonia has managed to repeatedly assault and harass people along the block for years illustrates just how broken the city’s revolving-door system of dealing with the violent mentally ill is, according to outraged experts and locals. “The system is just broken, they can’t decide what to do with him,” retired NYPD detective and John Jay College adjunct professor Michael Alcazar told The Post. ‘Dropping the ball’ “If he’s violent and emotionally disturbed . . . they should just keep him in the hospital,” he said. “Somebody is dropping the ball.” Residents cried that for years, Babilonia, who camps out on Avenue C near his childhood home, avoided jail despite cops being repeatedly called . “Clearly they do not understand the urgency of a homeless man who’s threatening to kill people,” said 65-year-old Garrett Rosso, who claimed Babilonia tried to stab him with an ice pick in 2021. Rosso said Babilonia attacked him again on May 1, as he left Tompkins Square Park with his 12-week-old German shepherd. The serial attacker sprinted toward him while screaming, “I’ll kill you and your dog,” then violently grabbed him, he claimed. He was taken by cops to Bellevue. He was out three days later and hunkered down two doors from Rosso’s building. “He needs sustained help, and every agency is failing him,” said Rosso. “If he doesn’t get that help, he’s either going to kill someone, or going to kill himself.” ‘No one can control him’ Babilonia’s terror has extended to his own family members, some of whom installed facial recognition security to prevent him from entering their buildings. “I don’t know why the city doesn’t have help for these people and take them out of the street,” Nicholas Babilonia Sr. said of his son. “I can’t control him — no one can control him.” Resident Chris Ryan (inset) claims he saw Babilonia a week later kicking over garbage cans and a Revel scooter on Avenue C and began recording — only to have the loon chase him into a CTown and kick him in the shins. Despite the video evidence, police called to the scene said they were going to send Babilonia “away for evaluation” — and his assailant was back out on Avenue C the next day, said Ryan, 54. Last week, on May 4, Babilonia brandished a knife at customers seated in the outdoor dining shed at Royale, but fled by the time cops arrived, according to the restaurant’s owner. ‘System is failing us’ After spotting him outside the next morning, cops again were called to Royale, but did not arrest Babilonia, said the owner, who requested anonymity for safety concerns. “Anyone who thinks they’re being empathetic or charitable by letting this guy rot out on the street, provoking the next violent encounter, has to examine their own perspectives,” said Ryan, who now carries Mace and a knife for protection. “It’s pretty obvious the system is failing us all, Nick included.” Despite Babilonia clearly needing mental health treatment, it’s unlikely he will enter a program through the courts, warned Lance Fletcher, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor. “Often the defendant is not on board or disagrees that he needs mental health treatment,” and their agreement to participate is required, he said. “If the defendant disagrees, then he’s presumed innocent and the prosecutor has to prove charges against him . . . and penalties are jail or probation, but not mental health treatment.” The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on Babilonia. Additional reporting by Tina Moore on ‘gun attack’ after years of mayhem Helayne Seidman J.C. Rice PEST: Nicholas Babilonia Jr. hangs out Thursday on Avenue C and East 10th Street (top), and nearby the day before (above and right), where residents say he has repeatedly harassed and assaulted passersby.
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 14 By JON LEVINE Presidential candidate and brainworm survivor Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “plans to take part in the presidential debates” this year and “meets every threshold to warrant his participation,” his campaign spokeswoman told The Post. “This week, Mr. Kennedy posted an open letter on X challenging [Donald Trump] to a debate while they are both at the Libertarian Convention later this month,” added campaign press secretary Stephanie Spear. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which has overseen the process since 1988, mandates that any eligible candidate can participate in the process if they are polling at 15% nationally and have won entry to enough state presidential ballots to have “a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College.” Three are scheduled All three presidential debates have been scheduled by the commission. The first is set for Sept. 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, followed by Virginia State University in Petersburg on Oct. 1 and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Oct. 9. Team Kennedy says it will meet the criteria. “We will have ballot access in every state by the end of July,” Kennedy boasted during a recent rally in Des Moines, Iowa. Kennedy is currently on the ballot in Iowa, Utah, Michigan, California and Delaware, and the campaign has collected enough signatures for ballot access in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska and Ohio, a campaign rep said. On the polling front, a CNN survey at the end of April showed Kennedy at 16%. A recent Quinnipiac poll also gave him with 16%. “I offer to eat five more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate. I feel confident of the result even with a six-worm handicap,” Kennedy joked on X Wednesday, in an allusion to recent news that doctors once discovered that a parasitic worm had eaten a portion of his brain. A third-party or independent candidate has not made it to a presidential debate since Ross Perot in 1992. But whether the debates take place at all seems to be, well, open to debate. Team Biden reluctant While Trump has been raring to go, Biden’s campaign has spent months demurring on if the president — now in his ninth decade — would be willing to take on his 2020 rival in a public forum. Biden finally agreed to a debate with Trump in principle during an interview with Howard Stern. But his campaign repeatedly refused to confirm the president’s statement or offer any details. A top Democratic insider said his team was “scared” of a highstakes contest. “I have seen his staff hold him back in ways that holds back the party and forces unpleasant questions to be asked about the White House and its leader,” the insider said. RFK worms way in DOTING I’s AND CROSSING T’s: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he will meet all of the criteria to be eligible to participate in presidential debates with Donald Trump and President Biden next fall. Prez hopeful says he meets qualifications for debates ZumaPress.com Donald Trump on Saturday shot down a report that Nikki Haley, his bitter presidential primary rival, has vaulted into “active consideration” to become his running mate. “Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, signing the post “DJT.” Earlier, the ex-president’s campaign press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, scoffed at Haley’s rumored rise. “Only President Trump will rule a contender for Vice President in or out, and anyone claiming to know who he will choose is lying,” Leavitt posted on X. The responses came hours after Axios reported two unnamed “people familiar with the dynamic” said Haley joined the Trump veepstakes this week due to her strong showing in Indiana’s May 8 GOP primary. Haley has refused to endorse Trump in the two months since she exited the primaries after suffering punishing losses on Super Tuesday. Mary Kay Linge Don nixes Nikki as veep The Justice Department is pushing a 40-year prison sentence for David DePape, convicted of attacking the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seeking a “terrorism enhancement” to bump up his time behind bars. US attorneys, in a Friday filing, argued that the US District Court for the Northern District of California should override the 25-year jail term recommended by the federal Probation Office, even though DePape, 44, was not convicted of terrorism charges. Mary Kay Linge ‘Pelosi kin’ attack twist A former Central Park carriage horse who had been headed to the slaughterhouse must have a lucky horseshoe: He has been saved, animal activists claim. Bernard, at least 14 years old, was dumped at an infamous Pennsylvania livestock auction in February, but is now living the good life at a sanctuary in Dittmer, Mo. Julie Copper, whose Copper Horse Crusade saves and rehabilitates slaughter-bound equines, said she paid $1,400 for Bernard (above with Jay Weiner of The Gentle Barn sanctuary). “He’s a pleasant horse, an attractive horse . . . he stood out amongst the 60 others in the pen,” she said. Recently, Edita Birnkrant, executive director of animal advocacy nonprofit NYCLASS, which has long fought the city’s carriage horse industry, was scrolling through Facebook and happened upon Copper’s post, which sought a permanent home for Bernard. Birnkrant immediately realiz ed Bernard was once a carriage horse, recognizing the identification number etched into hoof. “The carriage horse industry . . . left this horse for dead. They threw him away because he couldn’t make them any more money. I’m so horrified,” Birnkrant said. She contacted Copper, and the two worked together to find Bernard his new home at the Gentle Barn Sanctuary, where he’ll herd with other rescued carriage horses. Chris Harris and Susan Edelman Saved horse’s ‘stable home’
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 15 This Big Apple pol is rallying around a different kind of cut during budget season. Bronx City Councilman Kevin Riley eagerly spread the news of his vasectomy in the hopes of convincing other men there’s no shame in getting snipped. “Me moving through my house after my Vasectomy on [Friday],” the Democratic pol chirped on X, sharing a GIF of a strungout Leonardo DiCaprio crawling on the ground. After Riley and wife Danielle decided their babymaking days were over, the father of three cut to the chase with getting the procedure done, he told The Post. The newly neutered lawmaker said he didn’t have many men in his life with whom to discuss having a vasectomy, where a doctor cuts and seals the tubes that carry sperm. Although the procedure is considered a permanent form of birth control, reversals are possible. Sharing his decision will hopefully help destigmatize getting snipped, particularly in light of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022, Riley noted. “If you’re looking at what’s going on with Roe v. Wade, I think men should do their part with controlling the population,” he said. Matthew Sedacca NY pol: Vas snip a snap The MTA’s payroll reached a record-high $7.8 billion last year, according to fiscal watchdog group Empire Center for Public Policy. The state agency’s total payroll surged $663 million, or 9%, in 2023, while its overtime spending leapt $75 million, or 6%, to a total $1.37 billion. In all, 724 MTA employees each earned more than $100,000 in overtime in 2023, the Empire Center said. MTA rep Joana Flores said the agency’s “overall budget is down in real dollars compared to prior years.” Lauren Elkies Schram $7.8B MTA payroll A program that offers free booze to the homeless alcoholics that roam San Francisco caught flak this week when a tech CEO questioned the logic of feeding the addictions of the city’s street dwellers (right). Adam Nathan, founder and CEO of the small business AI marketing tool Blaze and the chair of the Salvation Army San Francisco Metro Advisory Board, posted a thread on X slamming the program after watching a string of unhoused drunks line up for their shots, stating it “just doesn’t feel right.” “Did you know San Francisco spends $2 million a year on a “Managed Alcohol Program?” It provides free Alcohol to people struggling with chronic alcoholism who are mostly homeless,” Nathan wrote on the site. His estimate was actually just 40% of the total cost — the 4-year-old “managed alcohol program” actually costs the city $5 million a year, The San Francisco Chronicle reported. The city’s health officials retorted that Nathan spread misinformation and that the alcohol on the premises isn’t readily available to anyone who walks in. Angela Barbuti SF tech bro: No hooch for alkies By TINA MOORE Police Bureau Chief and MATTHEW SEDACCA A Bronx man was arrested Saturday in a horrific caught-on-camera rape after his mother convinced him to turn himself in, she told The Post. Kashaan Parks was accused of walking up behind the victim with a belt in hand at about 3 a.m. May 1 as she walked near East 152nd Street and Third Avenue in The Bronx, then tossing the belt around her neck and pulling her to the ground, “causing her to lose consciousness,” police said. Parks then allegedly brought the woman between two parked cars and raped her, authorities said. “I’m his mother that turned him in. I’m the one that facilitated him being arrested,” an exhausted Beverly Parks, 56, told The Post. She claimed her daughter-in-law called her early Friday to tell her Kashaan had choked and raped a woman. “I found out about this yesterday morning at 5:12 a.m., and I’ve been trying to get my son to do the right thing ever since. And I did,” she said Saturday. He was charged with first-degree rape, assault, strangulation, sex abuse, public lewdness and harassment. The victim was rushed to Lincoln Hospital in stable condition. Kashaan Parks, in a white Tyvek suit, held his head low as he was walked by two detectives from the Special Victims’ Division unit to a car and taken to Bronx Criminal Court. He didn’t answer questions from reporters. He has two prior arrests, including for allegedly assaulting a 46-year-old woman in The Bronx and entering the back of an MTA bus without paying, according to police. The latest attack was carried out with such eerie precision, one police source said he believed it wasn’t the perpetrator’s first time. “I definitely think he’s done it before,” said a Bronx detective, who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t cleared to talk to the media. ‘Probably more victims’ “It was too clean. Normally, the first time out they make huge mistakes,” he added. “This was no mistake. This guy was precise.” “There’s probably more victims out there, but what happens is they blackout and don’t remember anything,” the detective said. “How do you get the belt around the neck perfectly like that?” The unemployed, married father of two had recently moved with his wife and infant daughter back to the Big Apple from North Carolina, but has been struggling with drinking and drugs, his mom said. His downward spiral appeared to be sparked after Kashaan learned his father died last month in a hospital in Belize, she added. “He . . . had a 1-year-old baby. It’s not like he was walking the street committing crimes and doing this,” she insisted. “I had my son go be accountable for his actions, no matter that he was drunk, that he was on drugs, that he was grieving,” she added. “He did something wrong and he has to deal with it. Period.” Beverly Parks said she hoped the victim could find a way to forgive her son. “I’m a woman, and I am sorry that this happened to this person. I have to open and close my eyes every day, and ask God to make sure this person is OK and for forgiveness for my son. “Whatever she has to live with, I am going to have to think about that for the rest of my life.” Additional reporting by Georgia Worrell IN CUSTODY: Police on Saturday escort Kashaan Parks, who has been accused of using a belt to choke a woman unconscious and raping her. Tomas E. Gaston
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 16 Sheha and his brother John, who co-own the three-story building, learned about the latest appeal Robberies in New York City are surging, police data show. While most major crimes are down — including shootings and murders — robberies are up 5.6% so far in 2024 over the same period in 2023 — to 5,522 from 5,228 as of May 5. Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said robberies have a low arrest rate, with only about 25% of cases solved because victims typically don’t know their attackers. April saw a spate of robberies in Central Park, three in just 27 hours, contributing to a 350% increase there — to 18 from as of May 5, the most recent data available show. Robberies surged by nearly double in the NYPD’s tourist-heavy Midtown North Precinct, to 67 from 45 so far year-to-date. Tina Moore Robbin’ in the hood By RICH CALDER Celebrity chef Madison Cowan has relied on soft eviction laws to avoid more than $145,000 in rent payments on his Brooklyn apartment the past four and a half years, his landlord claims. The British-born former champ of the Food Network’s “Chopped” and “Iron Chef” owes 53 months in back rent on a onebedroom Boerum Hill pad he and his family have occupied since October 2019, according to landlord Gus Sheha. Cowan hasn’t paid a cent of rent since January 2020, relying on legal loopholes like repeatedly appealing eviction orders to remain in the State Street apartment, the landlord charged. “I’ve never seen anything more absurd in my life,” fumed Sheha. “This is why people are getting out of New York. The system is completely broken and purposely set up to punish the landlord. “I’m out over $140,000 in rent, but I still have to pay for insurance, taxes, water,” he said. A-list events Cowan — whose website notes he’s catered posh events for former President Bill Clinton, actress Scarlett Johansson and other A-listers — initially took advantage of a pandemic-driven state moratorium on evictions from March 2020 through mid-January 2022. Since then, judges have ordered Cowan’s eviction on five separate occasions — but he’s dodged each time by running to court and filing new appeals. Wednesday when, accompanied by city Marshal Robert Renzulli, they arrived to evict Cowan. Cowan boasted he’s been getting advice on how to avoid eviction from state Attorney General Letitia James and then claimed to make a call to the AG’s Office while standing in front of them, recalled Sheha. James’ office said it had no knowledge of being contacted by Cowan. Renzulli did not return messages. Cowan is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Brooklyn Housing Court on the latest eviction bid. He didn’t return phone messages and declined to open the door when The Post knocked Friday. An hour later, two police officers responded to a 911 call for a “crime in progress” in the building but determined no crime occurred, said an NYPD spokesperson. It’s unclear who made the call. [email protected] DISPUTE AT A BOIL TV chef hasn’t paid rent in 4 years: landlord VATICAN CITY — Hizzoner just met hizzoliness. Mayor Adams had an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican Saturday morning, the highlight of Adams’ sojourn to Rome. Adams, 63, and the pope, 87, were pictured smiling and shaking hands in exclusive photos obtained by The Post. “I spoke with him about the conflicts that we are seeing globally playing out . . . in parts of Africa, what we are seeing playing out in Haiti, the Middle East,” Adams said later at a press conference. “I talked about the program and the initiative that is in place with the owner of the Patriots,” he added, referring to Robert Kraft. “What he’s doing around ending antisemitism, I think is so important.” Adams also asked for the pontiff to pray for humanity as it navigates the conflicts happening across the world. “He responded affirmatively and said ‘Eric, pray for me as well.’ That just shows the humanity inside him as a person,” Adams said of the pope’s response. Adams previously clarified that he is not a practicing Catholic, but said that the visit to the Vatican was “a very important moment . . . for a spiritual outlet.” Craig McCarthy and Olivia Land Vatican STUCK: City Marshal Michael Renzulli fails Wednesday to evict Madison Cowan from a Brooklyn apartment where he long hasn’t paid the rent, according to his landlord.
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 17 The Sahlman Team [email protected] • M: 917.523.8200 #+( "$+./$0 #($/ , $ ($/ ) ($. ($( .,&(0(( $) .,$(' ,+ /$ /$ , $ .,&(0(' ($. ($( %-( $0' $%,'( % $. fl,0* 0, .$ ffi &., ( fi,,0* ) /$ $0' *.$ ..,/$0 SAHLMAN SAYS MOVE UPPER EAST SIDE, NY 730 Park Avenue Unit 10/11C $25,250,000 • 7 Bed • 8 Bath • 3 Half Bath ff$ ',0* '.( $ !$- ( ,+ ffi) &(,.,0* %(' $)) ,( ).. ffl +$.) %$+ / )($( &, ,( ,+ ( ( ,.( /,0 * (0 $,0 ,0 $ (/,( +,( *. ( !$- (0(
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 18 NASSAU County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Babylon town officials will be proclaiming a day in honor of West Babylon native and legendary journalist Geraldo Rivera, Page Six has learned. The veteran newsman will be presented with a jersey from his alma mater, West Babylon HS, and we hear that children with special needs and autism from Life’s WORC will present him with crafts made by hand in appreciation of his work. Life’s WORC is a nonprofit on Long Island that supports more than 2,000 people with developmental disabilities and autism. The ceremony will take place tomorrow at Old Westbury Golf and Country Club. Journo has his day FRESH off opening for Kiss during their End of the Road world tour, Amber Wild — the band fronted by Paul Stanley’s 29-year-old son, Evan — released its new single, “Getting Started,” this week. Evan (above) invited The Post’s Desiree Murphy to the band’s electric release show at Los Angeles rocker haunt the Viper Room on the Sunset Strip, where proud papa Paul was spotted supporting his son in the packed house. The band also features Marshall Via on guitar, Jacob Massanari on bass and Thomas Lowrey on drums. Son shines on STEVE Carell — who is winning raves for his turn as “Uncle Vanya” on Broadway — was spotted enjoying a special reading of the Tony-winning play “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The Christopher Durang comedy, which spoofs Anton Chekhov’s works, featured most of the 2013 show’s original cast, including Sigourney Weaver and David Hyde Pierce. Other boldface names at the gala performance included Candice Bergen and Michael R. Jackson. The Post said in a review of ”Uncle Vanya” that in Carell’s Broadway debut, “The Office” star “turns out to be a splendid theater actor who is shrewdly cast.” Vanya vanguard DEBORRA-LEE Furness is embracing change since splitting from husband Hugh Jackman. “This is a year of evolution for me,” she told Page Six exclusively at a screening of her new movie, IFC Films’ “Force of Nature: The Dry 2.” The actress, 68, added that she’s been “learning a lot about myself and I’m embracing evolution and growth.” Furness (above) shared that it’s been “scary” along with “every other adjective” — but she’s “grateful” to have the opportunity to grow. One thing that’s helped the Aussie star navigate the split is friends. “I say this to all women, your girlfriends are a necessity in life,” she said. Last September, Furness and Jackman, 55, announced that they were separating after 27 years of marriage. ‘Nature’ of things THIS divorce battle is so contentious, hundreds of millions is considered a dis. John Paulson offered his ex, Jenny, hundreds of millions in cash in their divorce — but she called the offer “humiliating and demeaning,” Page Six has learned. According to a 2022 email seen by Page Six, Jenny said of being offered that while their two kids would get trusts worth billions: “The idea that I should receive less than the children is humiliating and demeaning because this is the message that it gives to the world and to my own daughters.” Jenny added it “is just disrespectful, shameful and humiliating to me.” She also wrote that Paulson’s offer after 21 years of marriage was “too demeaning” to her. “In my heart and my spirit I feel I deserve a 50/50 split,” or at the very least, “60/40 is OK,” she wrote. Her ex’s offer would continue to make her “one of the one of the richest women in America,” according to his side. Sources said that Paulson’s offer to Jenny involved giving her the hundreds of millions up front, plus many millions more annually over the course of her life — making for an additional sum in the hundreds of millions. They would then split their property and assets in the divorce, a source said, including their vast residential holdings. But Jenny’s side has fired back that Paulson has only offered her an “allowance,” rather than “an ‘equitable’ division of all assets [accrued] during the marriage,” per New York law. And in the 2022 email, she calls their children’s trusts “a gimmick” that he “created to control me”: Paulson would “stay in control of the trusts and the money.” His team said in a new statement to Page Six in the never-ending battle that breaking the trusts would cost the Paulson kids a whopping $1 billion in taxes. In 2022, we reported that Jenny had terminated all private settlement discussions to go back to court so she could fight her ex. The dispute is ongoing. Billionaire in$ults his ex French film’s Hail Mary pass Ian Mohr [email protected] Oli Coleman [email protected] Mara Siegler [email protected] Carlos Greer [email protected] FRENCH comedian Gad Elmaleh says that despite writing and starring in a film with his parents — called “Stay With Us,” it’s about his character’s quest to convert from Judaism to Catholicism — it’s not autobiographical. “It’s not in my plans” to convert, he told The Post’s Nicki Gostin. “But maybe I’ll do a sequel,” he added with a laugh. The comedy sprang from a moment in Elmaleh’s childhood in Morocco when his dad forbade him from entering church. The comic snuck in and was struck by the “serenity” and beauty of an imposing Mary statue. “The marketing is great with the Catholic Church,” he noted wryly. The Netflix “Huge in France” star says he made the movie to understand “my identity. What does it mean to be a Jew?” The stand-up, 53, also did not shy away from discussing the current political climate. He shared he’s “totally devastated by seeing Palestinian civilian deaths,” but is shocked by the rising tide of antisemitism, especially in France. “What really made me sad, they started to explain Oct. 7,” he said. “I don’t want anyone to explain Oct. 7 to me. There is no explanation, there is no logic. It’s not a ‘Yes, but’ . . . What are you talking about?” @Page Six Page SixÆ Splash News Life is “Grand” on the continent for People’s “sexiest man alive” Patrick Dempsey Saturday at the historic Grand Prix of Monaco. THAT former Pussycat Doll Kayla Jones, nightlife vet Noel Ashman and former “Real Housewives” star Jennifer Gilbert have traveled to Israel with Samantha Ettus’ New Voices, a campaign to stop antisemitism . . . THAT Andy Serkis is joining the cast of Oren Moverman’s WWII psychological thriller “The Man With the Miraculous Hands” starring Woody Harrelson. We hear
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 19 AMERICANA MANHASSET . . GLEN COVE . . | WHEATLEY PLAZA . . EAST HAMPTON . . | SOUTHAMPTON . . WESTFIELD WORLD TRADE CENTER . . THE MALL AT SHORT HILLS For Mom,
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 20 2121 North Bayshore Dr. 130 William St. Gimme Shelter JENNIFER GOULD B ROOKLYN Nets star Mikal Bridges (left) has a new home court — in Manhattan. The Nets’ primary offensive threat plunked down $5.99 million for a Tribeca bachelor pad, according to city property records. The handsome co-op at 110 Franklin St. is a 5,228-square-foot, ground-floor duplex that comes with four bedrooms, 3½ baths and 625 square feet of outdoor space. It’s all in a building that dates to 1861 with a cast-iron base and a brownstone facade, crowned with a stone cornice. The loft was last asking $5.99 million, down from its $6.5 million ask in 2020 and $6.29 million last year. It dropped to $3 million in January 2024, according to StreetEasy. The reason, sources said, was a flash sale auction that drove the price back up with multiple bidders. The ceilings are 12½ feet high — a detail sure to be appreciated by Bridges, who is 6-foot-6. Design details in the floorthrough spread also include exposed brick archways, hardwood floors and two window walls on the ground floor. The home’s main entrance opens to a foyer that leads to a large living area. There’s also an eat-in chef’s kitchen and an adjacent dining area that opens to the enclosed outdoor space. The main bedroom suite includes a dressing room with custom storage and an ensuite bath. The listing brokers were Nicole Palermo and Ryan Serhant of Serhant, while the buyer was repped by Aaron Mazor of Compass. 110 Franklin St. Krisztina Crane/Evan Joseph Images (2) A NET GAIN ROOKLYN Nets star Mikal Bridges (left) has a new B ROOKLYN home court — in Manhattan. The Nets’ primary offensive threat plunked down $5.99 million for a Tribeca bachelor pad, according to city property records. The handsome co-op at 110 Franklin St. is a duplex that comes with four bedrooms, 3½ baths and 625 square feet of dates to 1861 with a cast-iron base and a brownstone faprice back up with multiple bidders. The ceilings are 12½ feet high — a detail sure to be appreciated by Bridges, who is 6-foot-6. Design details in the floorthrough spread also include exposed brick archways, hardwood floors and floor. The home’s main entrance opens to a foyer that leads to a large living area. There’s also an eat-in chef’s kitchen and an adjacent dining area that opens to the enclosed outdoor space. The room suite includes a dressing room with custom storage and an ensuite ing brokers were cole Palermo Ryan Serhant hant, while the buyer was repped by Mazor B A NET GAIN ROOKLYN Getty Images A PENTHOUSE in Manhattan’s Financial District — one that played a starring role in a recent episode of this season’s “Law & Order” — can be yours for $20 million. This 65th-floor residence is at 130 William St., a new-construction 805- foot-high tower co-designed by Sir David Adjaye (right), the architect known for his work on Washington DC’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The four-bedroom, 4.5-bath penthouse is 4,665 square feet and comes with 2,312 square feet of outdoor space across three terraces. The May 2 episode, “Castle in the Sky,” investigated the murder of a New York developer in one of his buildings. (In real life, developers David Lichtenstein and Mitchell Hochberg are doing just fine.) Design details inside the dwelling include 27 arched windows that are 9½ feet tall. It’s to die for Binyan Studios; Dave Benett/Getty Images for Noble Panacea EDITION RESIDENCES Miami Edgewater (3) FORMULA 1 race car sensation Charles Leclerc (inset), 26, is buying a waterfront home at the Edition Residences in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood, a milestone that Leclerc announced on Instagram to his 15 million followers. “Miami, feeling at home already … Can’t wait,” he posted in a photo slideshow. However, the price he’s paying for the residence is undisclosed. Homes at the 55-story glass tower start at $2 million. Leclerc, for his part, is buying one of the tower’s “signature” sky residences, which begin at $3.1 million. They range from 2,315 to 2,709 square feet. The tower, at 2121 North Bayshore Dr., will be 649 feet high and will come with 800 feet of Biscayne Bay frontage. Designed by architect Bernardo Fort-Brescia, it’s slated to be move-in ready by 2027. Leclerc may enjoy the fact the development features a “state-of-the-art racing simulator.” Hans Baumgartner of Miami Real Investment repped Leclerc. Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is handling sales. In high gear IMAGINE the dinner parties! A Tribeca loft in a building with serious star power is on the market for $6.75 million. Jay-Z and Beyoncé (both below) live in the penthouse with its landscaped roof terrace. The couple even got married there in 2008. Justin and Hailey Bieber are also there renting in the building at the corner of Hudson and Desbrosses streets, formerly home to “RHONY” alum and Skinnygirl founder Bethenny Frankel. The classic sixth-floor corner loft at 195 Hudson St. that’s currently on the market is 3,168 square feet. It features details like 12-foot ceilings, 8-foot-high casement windows, floor-toceiling windows, concrete columns, a private terrace and a dedicated parking spot. The listing brokers are Aren Ebrahimi and Leonard Steinberg of Compass. Bey views 195 Hudson St. Francisco Rosario, DDreps IN the midst of the New York Knicks’ play-off madness, Lance Thomas (right), a former forward with the NBA team, has put his sprawling Tribeca triplex maisonette back on the market for $3.99 million following a price drop and a broker swap. Thomas first listed the apartment for $5.5 million last year after buying it for $3.56 million in 2016, according to property records. The full-floor home is 2,518 square feet. It’s part of a seven-story, six-unit boutique property at 52-54 Lispenard St. — two landmarked buildings that merged around 10 years ago. The smart-wired home features two bedrooms and 2½ baths. The listing brokers are Nick Gavin and Ugo Russino of Compass. 52-54 Lispenard St. Knicks & bumps Shannon Dupre of DDreps NBAE via Getty Images
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 21
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 22 ‘HATE’ ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK By MATTHEW SEDACCA Hamas on Saturday claimed a hostage kidnapped by the Palestinian terrorists during their murderous Oct. 7 attack on Israel and featured in a recent hostage video has died. Nadav Popplewell, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nirim in southern Israel, died after he was injured during an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, the terrorist group said in a video released Saturday. The news of Popplewell’s death came hours after Hamas released a separate, undated video that showed the 51-year-old man apparently beaten in the latest in a series of hostage propaganda films shared by the group. In the clip, Popplewell was seen in front of a white wall with a large bruise on his right eye. In the Saturday video, Hamas said last month an Israeli missile struck the site where Popplewell, a British citizen, was being held alongside a female hostage. ‘Didn’t receive care’ “He died because he didn’t receive intensive medical care at medical facilities because of the enemy’s destruction of hospitals in Gaza,” said Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Hamas’ armed wing. The Israeli military did not comment on the second video. It has previously denied some of Hamas’ claims that hostages were killed by Israeli attacks. Popplewell was kidnapped along with his mother, Channah Peri, during the Oct. 7 attack, where 1,200 people were killed and another roughly 250 were taken hostage. Popplewell’s brother was killed in the surprise attack. Peri was among 24 hostages freed Nov. 24 as part of a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. On Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces widened evacuation orders for additional parts of Rafah as it prepared to expand its military operation into the city’s heavily populated central areas. With Wires Sick Hamas vid of dead hostage By MATTHEW SEDACCA and TINA MOORE A Park Slope father got an eye-popping preview of James Carlson’s anti-Israel ideology months before the wealthy advertising heir joined the violent protests at Columbia University. Simeon Climo reached out to Carlson — a trust fund baby and the most violent of the Columbia protest leaders, dubbed “Richie Rich” on the front page of The Post — on the neighborhood’s “Buy Nothing” Facebook page, where Carlson posted he was giving away a free baby crib. “I put my name in to be considered, and lucky me, I was chosen to receive the crib,” Climo, who is Jewish, told The Post. But the October exchange, which took place 10 days after Hamas’ violent attack on Israel, quickly went south. “I followed up and soon received a message from Mr. Carlson” that shocked him, Climo recalled. “Hey Simi, sorry if this seems petty but the flag on your profile pic seems to be celebrating the internment and genocide of my people, so I really don’t feel like doing you any favors,” Carlson wrote, a screenshot shows. Climo, who had posted an Israeli flag on his profile page, shot back: “Oh you are an anti-Semite. Got it. Best of luck to you too.” Carlson replied with another surprise. “I’m half-Jewish, don’t speak for me,” Carlson wrote. “Wishing you compassion and understanding.” “Hitler was part Jewish as well,” Climo retorted. “I am compassionate and I understand you are angry/hateful and looking for a place to put that hate and anger. Glad I could help.” “You know who else is Jewish? Rod Stewart,” Carlson bizarrely replied, according to Climo. The rock star isn’t Jewish. Carlson’s Facebook account is now private and he didn’t answer messages there from The Post. About six months after the exchange, Carlson was busted as one of the protesters who broke into Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. Carlson, a k a ‘Crib notes’ for how to be an antisemite Reuters Terrorists blame IDF FORSAKEN: Smoke rises above buildings during an Israeli strike Saturday on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where many Palestinians (inset) have fled fighting elsewhere. A viral video shows a Google Nest assistant refusing to answer basic questions about the Holocaust, but replying to questions about the Nakba. “Hey Google, how many Jews were killed by the Nazis?” Instagram user Michael Apfel asked in the video later posted to X by venture capitalist Josh Wolfe. “Sorry, I don’t understand,” it replied. But the Google device delivered a description of “The Nakba” — an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” used to describe Palestinians being forced from their homes. during the creation of Israel. A Google rep said the response was “not intended.” Jon Levine Google Nest a ‘Holocaust denier’?
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 23 By DEIRDRE BARDOLF A majority of college students support the anti-Israel protests plaguing campuses across the country, and 15% of those surveyed don’t believe Israel has a right to exist, a poll has found. Sixty-five percent of students support the recent protests, according to a survey of 763 fulltime students from Intelligent, an online magazine focused on higher education. The demonstrations have hit more than 80 American campuses, starting with Columbia University’s “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and stretching to the University of California, Los Angeles. Forty-three percent of the supporters have participated in a demonstration for Gaza themselves and more than half of those — 63% — expressed at least some sympathy for Hamas terrorists who slaughtered at least 1,200 Israelis during an Oct. 7 surprise attack, the survey found. The terrorist sympathizers were about split between having “a lot of” or “a little” sympathy for the group. Horrifying chants including, “We are Hamas” rang out on campuses like Columbia while literature found at NYU read, “Death to America.” One in 10 of those polled also admitted to having an “unfavorable” opinion of Jewish people. TikTok was the top source for information on the Israel-Hamas war among the students polled, trumping other social media outlets, news, friends and family and professors. Thirty-six percent of those who support the protests also support using violence, and 35% back using hate speech. Seventy-five percent of supporters give a thumbs-up to encampments and 45% are OK with blocking students from getting to class as a form of protest. By the numbers Thirty-six percent said the protests have increased their support for the Palestinian cause. More than 2,000 arrests have taken place at the anti-Israel protests across the country; only 24% “very much” support consequences for student protesters who break the law while about as many support punishment for those who violate school policy. Thirty-eight percent support graduation ceremonies being canceled due to the protests, the survey, which was conducted online in the beginning of May, also found. Columbia and UCLA have canceled their upcoming main commencement ceremonies after weeks of campus turmoil. Off campus, almost half of Americans support banning antiIsrael protesters from campuses entirely, according to another recent poll. HAS A MAJORITY ISRAEL UNDER ATTACK Cody Tarlow, is “a longtime anarchist,” a high-ranking police source said. He was charged with burglary, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief, conspiracy and criminal trespassing after the Columbia arrest. He struggled with a janitor at the school during the Hamilton Hall takeover and broke a camera inside a cell at One Police Plaza after he was detained. Carlson was also arrested for a hate-crime assault for lighting a counter-protester’s Israeli flag on fire last month at Columbia. The provocateur’s activities go beyond street protests. Carlson wrote a letter to a Wisconsin federal judge in January gushing over his friend Hridindu Roychowdhury, who pleaded guilty to firebombing the office of the pro-life group Wisconsin Family Action on Mother’s Day in 2022. In the letter, Carlson insisted the arsonist “sees the world with nuance and sophistication,” calling Roychowdhury a “compassionate young person with tremendous potential.” Roychowdhury was sentenced to 7¹/2 years in prison. Carlson’s own arrests date back to 2005. His is the son of late advertising executives Richard “Dick” Tarlow and Sandy Carlson Tarlow. A lawyer by trade, Carlson has a baby mama who is a model, and his stepmother dates rocker John Mellencamp. The violent demonstrator has made several campaign donations in recent years totaling $1,525 to far-left Big Apple Democrats, including former Mayor Bill de Blasio, state Sens. Jabari Brisport and Julia Salazar, and Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. RIOT SQUAD: James Carlson, dubbed “Richie Rich” on Page 1 of The Post, is seen occupying Columbia’s Hamilton Hall. His sickening Facebook exchange over a crib is above. Students back protests in poll As Israeli talent contestant Eden Golan was taking the Eurovision stage inside Sweden’s Malmö Arena Saturday, Swedish police and anti-Israel protesters clashed outside, with some demonstrators — including climate activist Greta Thunberg — led away by officers. After Golan, 20, performed her song “Hurricane,” members of the audience both cheered and booed her, according to the BBC’s Eurovision host Graham Norton — who called the reaction “mixed.” Golan has become a lightning rod at the contest. Her very appearance on stage — and advancement to the Eurovision final has stoked anger. Around her neck, Thunberg wore a keffiyeh, an Arabic facial covering that has been adopted by anti-Israel protesters since Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack. Chris Harris, Katherine Donlevy Political rage at talent contest
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 24 THE RESIDENCES AT 400 CENTRAL ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS • NOW UNDER CONSTRUCTION ENJOY 361 DAYS OF SUNSHINE EVERY YEAR! Live where you vacation at The Residences at 400 Central. Soaring 515 feet above downtown St. Petersburg, with 36,000 sq. ft. of amenities, this 46-story, full-service, luxury condominium tower will capture breathtaking views from Tampa Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. St. Petersburg is an eclectic coastal city known for its thriving art scene, top-notch restaurants, vibrant nightlife, boutique shopping, and award-winning white sand beaches. ORAL REPRESENTATIONS CANNOT BE RELIED UPON AS CORRECTLY STATING THE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE DEVELOPER. FOR CORRECT REPRESENTATION, MAKE REFERENCE TO THIS BROCHURE AND TO THE DOCUMENTS REQUIRED BY SECTION 718.503, FLORIDA STATUTES, THE BE FURNISHED BY A DEVELOPER TO A BUYER OR LESSEE. THE COMPLETE OFFERING TERMS ARE IN A CPS-12 APPLICATION AVAILABLE FROM THE OFFEROR. FILE NO. CP22-0096 These materials are not intended to be an offer to sell, or solicitation ot buy a unit in the condominium. Such an offering shall only be made pursuant to the prospectus (offering circular) for the condominium and no statements should be relied upon unless made in the prospectus or in the applicable purchase agreement. In no event shall any solicitation, offer or sale of a unit in the condominium be made in, or to residents of, any state or country in which such activity would be unlawful. Michael Saunders & Company LICENSED REAL ESTATE BROKER 727-205-8517 residences400central.com RED APPLE REAL ESTATE Development | Construction | Investment | Management PARADISE IN THE HEART OF THE SUNSHINE CITY St. Petersburg Ranks #2 in Tripadvisor’s Travelers’ Choice “BEST OF THE BEST DESTINATIONS 2024!”
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com kind to debut in the country and is 25 10 times larger than its predecessor, which opened in 2021. It employs the use of direct air capture technology to suck in air and strip out carbon using chemicals. Rice fields in central Japan that were hit by a powerful earthquake on New Year’s Day are being replanted by a civic group due to a shortage of farmers. The tourist attraction of the Shiroyone Senmaida rice terraces, which consists of 1,000 paddies overlooking the Sea of Japan in Wajima City, was damaged by the quake. People gathered from across the country to rebuild it by planting the rice seeds by hand. After two years of war in Tigray, known for its bicycle culture, cycling teams are competing again. Just three out of the region’s six women’s cycling teams survived the 2020-22 war, where women reported they were subjected to mutilation, rape and sexual slavery by members of Ethiopia’s army. Angela Barbuti, Wires A brown horse rescued from the small tin roof of a house almost fully engulfed by water in Brazil became a national symbol of hope, as the country continued to combat unrelenting rain and deadly floods. The nation’s first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, got involved after a photo of the horse went viral and she helped organize its rescue. Corn farmers are being threatened by an influx of leafhoppers that thrive in the hotter temperatures brought about by global warming. Argentina, the third largest corn exporter in the world, has lost millions of tons of its current harvest due to the infestation. The 4-millimeter insects carry a disease which damages the crop’s cob and kernel. The world’s largest direct air capture plant that “vacuums” out pollution from the air opened in Iceland. Mammoth is the second of its News World® OF THE Rice fields in central Japan that A brown horse rescued from After two years of war in Tigray, Corn farmers The world’s largest direct air By CHRIS HARRIS Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s northeastern province of Kharkiv forced residents to flee Saturday as Russia continued its renewed invasion of the region that was liberated about eight months into the war. Residents evacuated villages in the border region and fled to the city of Kharkiv, about 30 miles south of the border, as Russia claimed it had taken at least five villages, The Kyiv Independent reported. Ukrainian military officials maintained that Russian troops were being “held back” to a half-mile of territory along the border. It’s the most intense offensive waged by either side in two years, CNN reported. Kyiv said it didn’t believe Russia had enough manpower available to claim the city — Ukraine’s second-largest, with about 1.5 million residents before the war — but anticipated Russian troops would move in that direction Saturday as part of a renewed offensive push. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defiantly said Moscow’s decision to return to the front lines in Kharkiv “will give more opportunities to our soldiers.” “We are sending more troops to the Kharkiv sector,” Zelensky said. “Both along our state border and along the entire front line, we will invariably destroy [Russian forces] in such a way as to disrupt any Russian offensive intentions.” Russian forces in total attacked eight areas of Ukraine along the front line since Friday. In a social media post showing video of devastation in several regions, Zelensky called for military aid to be stepped up. 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New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 26 fifffflffi flffi ffffi flff ffiffl fl ff ffiffl fl ffff ff ffl fl High Tide for 1st 2nd 1st 2nd ffffi 54/43 fiffl flffi fi ffl ffi fflfflÅ fiffifflff fflç fi fflè ffêffl ù †ff ffi ffi ffi ffi † ≠ffff †ff fi ÄÇÉ ff ffi ù ffffiêffiff Showers T storms Rain Flurries Snow Ice Cold Warm Stationary Fronts Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. Forecast high/low temperatures are given for selected cities. ÑÖÜffl ÑÜffl Üffl ÖÜffl áÜffl àÜffl âÜffl äÜffl ãÜffl åÜffl éÜffl ëÜffl ÖÜÜffl ÖÖÜffl ê êffi ffi íffê ffê fiffiffiff flffi ìflîï ffl sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, ffl showers, rain, ffi thunder storms, fflí snow flur ries, ffl snow, ice ffiêíff ≠ ffi ffiff ffi ffl 77/56/s 76/61/s 98/78/c 96/65/pc ñ 85/52/s 89/59/s 70/47/s 75/50/s ff 83/64/c 81/63/s ç 65/49/sh 58/47/sh ù 76/54/pc 74/54/s ≠ff Éff 86/78/t 82/73/t Äfflê 73/56/pc 69/56/pc Éç 72/52/s 77/54/s †ff ff 77/55/pc 68/55/c 81/58/pc 80/52/pc Åff ffi 89/62/c 89/61/s ff ffi 60/49/sh 65/52/c fffflff 46/31/c 51/37/c fiffl 75/57/t 71/56/c ff Ä ff 90/75/s 92/76/s ffê 74/53/s 73/56/pc 67/60/r 70/56/sh ffff 76/67/c 72/59/sh ç 57/44/c 70/52/sh ç 56/40/sh 64/49/pc ffl Çffl 56/41/c 64/50/c ffiff 54/40/c 67/50/sh É fflffiff 56/42/sh 65/50/pc †çffi 49/39/sh 62/49/sh ff ffiff 49/39/sh 63/48/sh ç 55/43/sh 65/52/pc fiffffl 56/43/sh 66/50/pc ffiff ffl 57/44/c 65/52/sh ffifffflç 53/40/r 68/49/pc ff ffiff 54/41/c 65/49/pc ffl 62/48/c 67/57/t ff óffl 12:06p 12:14a 1:02p Ç óffl 11:58a 12:28a 12:53p ≠êfflffi 2:55a 3:40p 3:47a 4:39p ≠ ffi ffiff 2:54a 3:32p 3:45a 4:26p Äff ffl ó ffi 11:50a 11:58p 12:46p ff ffi fiff ffi 12:42a 1:11p 1:39a 2:06p fiffffi flffl ffiff 2:56a 3:46p 3:48a 4:49p ≠ffff 12:10p 12:18a 1:06p fifffflffiffflfiffl ffiffl ffi ffffifl fl ffifl ffl ffiff ........................ 5:41 a.m. fflffi ffiff ffi ...................... 8:04 p.m. ffff ffl ffiff .................... 9:13 a.m. ffff fflffi ffiff ..................... 12:26 a.m. High: 59, Low: 47, Mean: 53 Yesterday: 9 degrees Yesterday: 0.00 , Month: 0.77 , Year: 20.63 , Normal year to date: 16.71 ffff ffl fflffi.................0 ffffi íff ffi êff ffi ì ffêî ...........18 (11) ffffi ffl Ä ò Ö ì ffêî ...............37 (25) †fflffi ffiff ffi .......................................49 ≠ffi ó Å (at noon yest.) ..................... 61 ôö Å (for Sun.) ......................... 2 (Low) ≠êffi (at noon) .............................. 39% Forecasts and graphics provided by flffiòffê ©2024 Forecast data is current as of 12 p.m. yesterday. Temperatures are today s highs and tonight s lows. ff ffl fl ffl ffï Cloudy with a couple of showers. High 51 to 57. ff ffiï Mostly cloudy. Low 45 to 51. A few showers. High 70 to 76. õù A few showers. Low 55 to 61. ffêffff ffiï Clouds breaking. Low 52 to 58. ffêffffï Warmer with clouds and sunshine. High 65 to 71. Downpours. High 67 to 73. õù Rain. Low 54 to 60. First May 15 Full May 23 Last May 30 New June 6 ú Öáú áÜáâ 54/45 54/43 53/42 52/44 54/42 53/46 53/44 52/43 52/42 53/40 53/44 55/42 54/46 54/48 52/49 51/47 53/44 54/44 53/46 53/46 55/40 52/41 fiff ï High Predominant pollen: Mulberry, Oak, Birch ûó ffi ï (for Sun.) ...................Moderate ó ûô †ó By ANDREW COURT Prince Harry was reduced to tears after learning King Charles had bestowed a new honor upon sibling Prince William, a royal expert claimed Saturday. On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace announced that William, 41, will be made colonel-in-chief of the Army Air Corps, although Prince Harry, 39, served with the unit as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. The announcement came on the same day Harry returned to London to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Invictus Games, a charity founded by Harry that gives wounded veterans a chance to compete in sports. “King Charles’ announcement . . . is a real kick in the teeth for the son who always felt marginalized and underrated,” royal expert Tom Quinn told The Mirror. “He is said to have been in tears when he heard. “What makes it much worse is that the role is being given to the very man who Harry [above] sees as the cause of so many of his problems: his brother.” Quinn claimed that the announcement was “deliberately” made while Harry was in the UK to show that the king’s younger son “is no longer welcome.” “They [the royal family] have decided the gloves are off and that Harry needs to realize that when you betray the family, you don’t just escape the things you hated doing as a working royal,” the expert asserted. Harry served in the corps during his second tour of Afghanistan up until 2014. William was not involved in active combat, but served as a search-and-rescue and air ambulance pilot. Harry had been expected to spend time with cancer-stricken Charles last week, but the reunion did not eventuate. It’s unclear if William’s new honor is behind the decision. [email protected] Prince of wail Harry ‘tears’ over Will honor There’s a perfect place for your mom or dad. And we’ll help you find it. ASSISTED LIVING MEMORY CARE INDEPENDENT LIVING HOME CARE We know that finding the right senior care for your mom or dad is a big decision. That’s where A Place for Mom comes in. Our senior living advisory service ensures you’ll get a full understanding of all the options in your area based on your loved one’s care needs and budget. You’ll get more than just expert advice and recommendations. You’ll also get peace of mind. Start the conversation with one of our expert Senior Living Advisors today. 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New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 27 Honoring the racing giant From its creation in 1962 until today, Shelby American has been the first name in high-performance auto racing, cutting-edge engineering and sleek style. Now the visionary man and his victorious legacy are the inspiration for a tribute that dominates a different kind of track while honoring Shelby’s rich history and enduring impact. The Carroll Shelby Express, featuring removable sculpts of classic Shelby models, will bring you years of enjoyment. An exceptional value! Don’t delay. Act today! Begin your train collection with the illuminated “Shelby Diesel Locomotive,” yours for just $89.99, payable in 3 easy installments of $23.33 each*, the first billed before shipment. Subsequent train car shipments will be shipped at the same low price, about every other month, backed by our 365-Day Money-Back Guarantee. There’s no obligation, and you may cancel the collection at any time. Shipment Two includes the “Shelby Cobra® Engine,” as well as the free 14-piece track set. To reserve yours, send no money now. Simply complete and mail the Reservation Application or visit us online today. Fine collectible. Not intended for children under 14. NOT AVAILABLE IN ANY STORE! RESERVATION APPLICATION RESPOND PROMPTLY YES! Please reserve the Carroll Shelby Express Train Collection for me beginning with the “Diesel Locomotive” as described in this announcement. SEND NO MONEY NOW. *Plus $14.99 shipping and service (see bradfordexchange.com). All sales subject to acceptance and product availability. Allow 4-6 weeks after initial payment for shipment. The Bradford Exchange 9210 Maryland Street, Niles, IL 60714-1322 Where Passion Becomes Art VISIT US TODAY AT BRADFORDEXCHANGE.COM Signature Mrs. Mr. Ms. Name (Please Print Clearly) Address City State Zip Email 918373-E22201 CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY & 365-DAY GUARANTEE ©Hawthorne Village 14-02326-001-ZINYOQR Shipment 4 “1962 Shelby Cobra® CSX2000” Dome Car Flat cars feature removable sculpted replicas of historic Shelby automobiles! sculpted replicas of historic Shelby automobiles! 14-piece track with adapters—creates a 47” x 38” oval—speed controller & power-pack included with Shipment 2— an over $100 value! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO RUN YOUR TRAIN! Included FREE SPEED IS KING ABOARD THE “CARROLL SHELBY® ” EXPRESS Locomotive Lights Up! ➤Shipment 1 “Shelby Diesel Locomotive” ➤Shipment 2 “Shelby Cobra®” Engine with 14-piece Track Set, PLUS FREE Power Pack & Speed Controller (a $100 value—YOURS FREE!) ➤Shipment 3 “Shelby Mustang GT350®” Flatbed with Removable, Sculpted Model Car Shelby®, 1962 Shelby Cobra CSX2000, 1965 Shelby GT350, 1968 GT500, 1965 Shelby Cobra 289 and Carroll Shelby’s Signature® are registered trademarks and/or intellectual property of Carroll Shelby Licensing, Inc. and are used under license. Ford Motor Company Trademarks and Trade Dress used under license to The Bradford Exchange. Scan Here
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 28 By DANA KENNEDY W HEN Demi Moore glides down the red carpet to the glittering Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc on May 23 to host the 30th annual amFAR gala at the Cannes Film Festival she will probably, in the words of a friend, “make it look as easy as she does everything else.” It will mark a head-turning comeback as “godmother of Cannes” for an actress who has combined box-office triumph with bitter personal tragedy, encompassing addiction, fractured families and two ex-husbands afflicted with dementia — one fatally. At 61, Moore is fresh off a dazzling appearance at the Met Gala, an elegant turn as suspected high society husband-killer Ann Woodward in “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans,” not to mention an Instagram video set to Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love” showing Demi’s hard body in a leopard print bikini. “Can we talk real quick about how that badass mama has a stronger physique at 61 than most 20 year olds?” one of her 5.2 million followers asked. Those who know her say Moore’s strong physique is second to her steely will. That will, they say, catapulted her out of a nightmarish and itinerant childhood across the southern US that included saving her alcoholic mother from repeated suicide attempts and losing her stepfather to suicide as a teenager. Then it helped to unexpectedly launch her into a career that made her, for a time, the highestearning actress in the business. “I listened to her book on Audible and connected with her from that moment on,” said her friend, a political influencer who has become an ally in recent years. “I love her relationship with her daughters and how they’ve made it through their own ordeals. Her own mother kind of sold her out and then she enters this industry that eats people alive. “But she seems to come out ahead no matter what. I especially love seeing her with her little Chihuahua, Pilaf. She seems to have really come into her own.” It’s taken a while, but the journey has had more twists and turns than many of Moore’s biggest films, like “Ghost,” “Indecent Proposal,” “A Few Good Men,” “Striptease” and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.” Now single — her most recent relationship was with NYC restaurateur Daniel Humm, from whom she split in 2022 — she’s left three husbands in her wake. Her first was musician Freddy Moore, whom she married when she was barely 18. He died at age 72 in 2022 from Alzheimer’s. She’s become a nurturer and a caretaker of her second husband, Bruce Willis, 69, who, at their height of his fame, told Demi he wasn’t sure he wanted to be married to her. Willis and his second wife, Emma Hemings, live with their two daughters near Demi in Hailey, Idaho, and have formed a blended family as they deal with Willis’ frontotemporal dementia. Drink and threesomes Demi’s third husband, Ashton Kutcher, who encouraged her to take up drinking again and persuaded her to have threesomes, is now married to Mila Kunis. He resigned in semi-disgrace from the anti-trafficking organization he formed with Moore when he and Kunis were widely criticized for pleading with a judge for a lenient sentence for Ashton’s former co-star, Danny Masterson, who was convicted of rape. What’s striking about Moore, say those who know her, is that she’s only lost her way twice. Early in her career she was abusing alcohol and cocaine until director Joel Schumacher said he wouldn’t hire her for 1985’s “St. Elmo’s Fire” unless she sobered up. She did, for 20 years, and only relapsed when her third marriage to the much younger Kutcher, now 48, collapsed because of his infidelities. Moore was hospitalized in 2012 for a reported overdose and was estranged from her three daughters — Rumer, now 35, Scout, 32, and Tallulah, 30 — for several years, but the four have since reconciled. Moore now seems to dote on her first granddaughter, Louetta, who was born in April 2023 to Rumer and her partner, Derek Richard Thomas. “Life is certainly not a straight line and I think everyone here has dealt with not feeling good enough at some point in their lives,” she said in 2018 when being honored by the Peggy Albrecht Friendly House, a program helping women with substance abuse issues. “I know in a moment of great struggle for me, I’ve reached out to a wise teacher and expressed my fear that I wasn’t good enough and she said, ‘You will never be good enough, but you can know the value of your worth. Put down the measuring stick.’ ” Said her youngest daughter Tallulah Willis, who has been public about her own emotional strugMoore, 61, will be festival’s ‘godmother’ in astonishing comeback from tragedy NOW AND THEN: Demi Moore has build a bond with Bruce Willis, her second husband, and his second wife as they together deal with his dementia, a condition similar to how Moore’s first husband died. She has also overcome her third marriage to Ashton Kutcher (center), who talked her into threesomes, and ended estrangement from her daughters including Rumer (right) to become a loving grandmother to Louetta. Instagram Getty Images Instagram
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 29 SWAN’S SONG: Moore was proclaimed a fashion hit on the Met Gala red carpet this month, after critical acclaim for her role in “Feud: Capote Vs. the Swans.” At Cannes next week she will be the biggest star of all. Getty Images gles, a few years ago: “I don’t think my mom was raised. She was forged. And the strength that comes from that, it’s intimidating. It’s scary.” Moore mentioned in her 2019 memoir, “Inside Out,” that her long-troubled mother, Virginia Guynes, who died in 1998, may have set her up to be raped by their landlord when she was only 15 — one of a number of sobering details revealed in the book that Demi had stayed silent about for years. She still never mentions one of her half-brothers, James Craig Harmon, 50, from her biological father, the late Air Force airman Charles Harmon Sr., whom she never knew. Her half-brother served time in prison after attacking his girlfriend in 2005. After moving out of her mother’s apartment at 16, thethen Demi Guynes met fledgling rocker Freddy Moore at a Hollywood nightclub and married him when she was barely 18, after cowriting a song with him, “It’s Not a Rumour.” She also appeared in an early video for the song. Moore landed a plum role in 1982 in the hottest soap opera at the time, “General Hospital,” when she was just 19, despite almost zero acting experience or industry connections and with a background of considerable emotional trauma. ‘The best revenge’ She has seemingly made a career out of never looking back. Especially at her brief foray into posing for cheesy nude photos. “I remember interviewing her a few years later and she tried to tell me Bruce Willis was her first husband and she denied ever posing nude,” Alan Carter, who specialized in writing about soap operas for many years, told The Post. “She told me, like, four or five stories that weren’t true. I was like, Demi! I saw you on ‘General Hospital.’ “I know you were married before. I saw you on the cover of Oui. Her publicist just said she didn’t remember history. OK, sure,” Carter said. Moore’s triumphant return to Cannes — she helped host the amFAR gala at Cannes in 1997 with the late Elizabeth Taylor — will include a turn as the “godmother” of the Trophée Chopard, which honors two emerging actors. Moore’s next film, French director Coralie Fargeat’s Englishlanguage body horror movie “The Substance,” which co-stars Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid, will also be premiering at the festival. And she’s joined the cast of Taylor Sheridan’s upcoming Paramount series, “Landman,” alongside Billy Bob Thornton. The show is based on the podcast “Boomtown,” and is described as being about “roughnecks and wildcat billionaires in the proverbial boomtowns of West Texas.” “Success is the best revenge,” veteran producer Brian Balthazar told The Post. “As far as I’m concerned, disappearing from the business for a while at times, only to come back looking better than ever and making great work qualifies as just that,” he said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off her making her entrance at the Met Gala. Anyone who ever doubted her need look no further than Demi Moore in 2024 to be proven wrong.” AP “Ghost” (1990) “G.I. Jane” (1997) Columbia/Courtesy Everett Collection “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” (2003) Pari Dukovic/FX “Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans” (2024) MUBI “The Substance” (2024)
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 30 A 14-year-old was stabbed multiple times in The Bronx on Saturday afternoon, hours before a tourist was slashed near Times Square, cops and other sources said. Police responded to a slashing call just before 2:30 p.m. at Hunts Point Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard, where the boy was found conscious and alert with two stab wounds in his back, cops said. The teen was brought to Harlem Hospital, where he was in stable condition, cops said, becoming the latest victim in what has amounted to a bloody week for city teens. Four hours later, a 46- year-old tourist was stabbed in the chest in an unprovoked attack at West 43rd Street and Eighth Avenue, sources told The Post. The woman was rushed to the Bellevue Hospital in stable condition, the NYPD said. A knife was recovered from the busy Midtown intersection, and a suspect was arrested, but no charges have been filed, according to sources.Larry Celona, Matthew Sedacca and Katherine Donlevy Teen, tourist stabs The first living patient to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig has died, two months after the groundbreaking transplant, his family and doctors announced Saturday. Richard “Rick” Slayman, 62, was sent home in March, two weeks after undergoing the transplant at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. “Their enormous efforts leading the xenotransplant gave our family seven more weeks with Rick,” his family said. Nikki Mascali Roarty, Wires 1st pig-kidney op patient dies By DEIRDRE BARDOLF A hidden-in-plain-sight Port Authority Bus Terminal bathroom provides insiders who have its secret code relief from the oftenrepulsive and highly trafficked public restrooms, The Post has learned. A locked door nestled between the men’s and women’s bathrooms on the second floor of the Midtown terminal is labeled “All Gender Restroom” and includes a number to call for entry. But a privileged few have unfettered access, allowing them to bypass the main facilities where the mentally ill loiter in stalls, migrants bathe in sinks, vile odors hover, and debris clogs toilets and urinals. “If Dante had nine circles of hell — this is the sub-basement,” said one New Jersey commuter of the 12-toilet, 12-urinal main bathroom he uses every morning. “It is outrageous that the riding public is subjected to these disgusting conditions while a select few with a secret code get to enjoy a glistening, solitary throne.” The secret bathroom code is shared among Port Authority workers and retail employees who work in the terminal, an insider said. In fact, most workers refer to it as an employee bathroom. The Post witnessed liquor-store and eyebrowthreading kiosk workers use the VIP john. Some punched in the secret code while others had a special key. Spotless When a member of the public calls the number on the door, a PA worker comes to unlock the door — the code is not given out. When The Post tried, a worker showed up to open the door within minutes. The loo is spotless, with a changing table and needle-disposal bin. The terminal in Hell’s Kitchen sees more than 200,000 passengers a day. During the day, the bustling bathrooms — which have seen upgrades in recent years — are regularly staffed by janitors but they can barely keep up with the repulsive remnants of the crush of commuters, homeless people and migrants. The all-gender restroom was mandated in a 2022 settlement over undercover police stings that allegedly targeted gay men suspected of propositioning sex. The PA did not answer questions from The Post. [email protected] Loo for few at PA terminal PUBLIC BE DAMNED: Only people who know the combination or have a key can use this restroom. Helayne Seidman SCAN TO SIGN UP Get Miranda Devine’s free newsletter for her take on the biggest issues of the week, and to share your thoughts on her latest column. GET THIS FREE NEWSLETTER! From the desk of Miranda Devine email.nypost.com/devine-online
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 31 Beloved Rangers great Henrik Lundqvist says fans approach him almost every day in New York City — but don’t crowd him. “It makes me feel comfortable. You know, they give you your space, which is one of the big reasons why I love living in New York City,” the retired goaltender (above) told The Post ahead of the Rangers’ attempt to sweep the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 4 of their secondround series Saturday night. “You want to play in a place where people care, and they’re excited about hockey and the team. But at the same time, they allow you to live a pretty normal life. “They acknowledge you on the street, but they move on,” said the Hall of Fame goalie and subject of the new Neflix documentary “Open Heart.” “You might give them the thumbs up and you keep walking. That’s New York for you and I love it.” The documentary, which debuts May 17, chronicles the Swedish native’s quick rise to fame in the Big Apple, where he played for the Rangers for 15 years. Lundqvist, 42, explained that he was aware that he had a leaky valve in his heart, but didn’t realize its extent until he got a physical after signing with the Washington Capitals. Viewers can listen to the actual audio of the phone call he got from his doctor, who advised him against playing after the surgery to repair his valve and aorta. Angela Barbuti Goalie king still NY hero A federal judge this week tossed a data-privacy lawsuit accusing Madison Square Garden of illegally using facial recognition technology to scare off the arena’s legal opponents. “As objectionable as the defendant’s use of biometric data may be, it does not . . . violate” privacy laws, Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in a five-page ruling. Kaplan rejected a January recommendation by US Magistrate Judge James Cott that the classaction lawsuit accusing MSG Entertainment and owner James Dolan of illegally using biometric data for personal gain should proceed. Instead, Kaplan in Tuesday’s decision said he disagreed with claims that MSG “profited” by collected facial images in part to scare off future lawsuits. Dolan has come under fire for his controversial use of creepy facial-recognition software to bar unwelcome attorneys and other critics from entering the World’s Most Famous Arena — home of the Rangers and the Knicks — and sister venues like Radio City Music Hall. A Garden spokesperson hailed the judge’s decision, saying, “As we’ve always said, our policies and practices are 100% legal, and we’ve always made clear we don’t sell or profit from customer data.” The law is used to prevent entertainment venues and other businesses from selling personal information for profit. Rich Calder Madison Squareveillance Garden By ANGELA BARBUTI When he played for the Knicks, John Starks was known for his endless energy. But these playoffs have made him dog tired. “As a player you know that you have some type of control over the game, and as a fan, you don’t,” the retired guard said with the Knicks enjoying a 2-1 series lead in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. “It’s very, very exhausting. I feel what fans go through . . . because it’s a do-or-die situation. You’re just hanging on every bucket, every loose ball, every steal, every foul. I have to get in a lot of cardio just to keep up with what’s going on.” Fans on X joked that with the injuries the team is facing, Starks, 58, should suit up. The Knicks play the Indiana Pacers in Game 4 Sunday. “Yeah, I got a few of those . . . You get that feeling like you do want to jump out there because obviously I got a front row seat to everything and, you know, you start sweating because you’ve been in those moments,” said Starks, a former All Star who now works as the Knicks’ alumni and fan development adviser. Energetic fan fave Starks, whose hard-nosed style made him a fan favorite during his 1990-98 tenure at Madison Square Garden, sees his team in this season’s squad. “Oh yeah, that’s the way we played. You feel the same type of energy that these guys play with. Because we wasn’t an explosive, offensive team,” he said. The Garden atmosphere is also reminiscent of his glory days. “It brings us all the way back to when we was rolling during the ’90s and how the arena was electric throughout every game,” he said. “There’s no other place like this in the NBA. When that crowd gets going, it feels like the whole arena just shakes. I was just asking some guys, ‘Could you all feel it through the TV?’ And they said, ‘Oh, no question.’ ” The team’s star-studded alumni have been adding to the electricity at the World’s Most Famous Arena, and current Knicks star Jalen Brunson gave them all a shout-out in a news conference this week. “It’s not just one game, they’ve been to a lot of games. They’re not just sitting there drinking and having some popcorn. They’re up yelling,” he said. Starks thinks the former players can be an important sixth man: “Having that extra support from guys like myself and Larry Johnson and [Latrell] Sprewell and [Marcus] Camby. And you know, Stephon [Marbury], Melo [Carmelo Anthony], Tim Thomas, Bernard King, Amar’e [Stoudemire] — I could just go on and on. “And everybody is truly, truly into it and behind these guys, the way they play.” The Oklahoma native, who now lives in Stamford, Conn., even traveled to Philadelphia during the first round — and said the 76ers’ Joel Embiid “probably” should have been kicked out of Game 3, when he tried to trip Mitchell Robinson. [email protected] STARKS REMINDER BUCKET LIST: Former Knicks’ guard John Starks, seen shooting a layup in the 1990s and (inset) courtside with fellow alum Larry Johnson, said they are loving the team’s NBA playoff run. NBAE via Getty Images
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 32 By ERIC SPITZNAGEL O N May 1, 2011, President Barack Obama, his staff and military brass watched the raid to on Osama bin Laden’s Pakistan compound while crowded tightly together in the Situation Room, the sequestered complex in the White House basement. Official White House photographer Pete Souza captured the iconic moment, but it only happened because of technical difficulties. Obama was originally alone as the mission took place, getting updates in a large conference room — despite its singular name, the Situation Room is actually several conference rooms and offices. But the tech crew couldn’t figure out how to patch in a live video feed of the mission to that particular room, so the president watched history unfold with the rest of those assembled. That’s “how you end up with this rather clown-car-like image of everyone trying to cram into the small room — because no one can quite figure out how to move the video over to the big room,” former National Counterterrorism Center director Mike Leiter tells George Stephanopoulos in his fascinating new book “The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis” (Grand Central Publishing), out May 14th. When most people think of the Situation Room, they imagine something full of grandeur and mystique, like the epic war rooms depicted in movies such as “Dr. Strangelove,” but Stephanopoulos reveals it to be paradox. It “has been the crisis center during America’s catastrophes,” where some of the world’s most “sensitive and sometimes scary information” has been shared, he writes. But the 5,500-square foot Situation Room is also, physically, a “mundane place” that’s not above technical issues. A Cold War essential Though the idea for the Situation Room was first suggested to President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, it was John F. Kennedy who acted on it, less than two weeks after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. A location was picked — an old bowling alley below the West Wing — and several names were suggested, from “Nerve Center” to “Executive Coordination Center.” Kennedy ultimately picked a moniker coined by military researchers, who’d filed a report recommending a “National Daily Situation Room” for Cold War matters. Less than a year later, during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, the Situation Room would prove to be integral. When Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to remove the missiles, he announced his plans on Radio Moscow, where the message was intercepted by Situation Room staff and immediately relayed to Kennedy. “If the Sit Room had not yet existed, Khrushchev’s overture would have taken longer to arrive, and the Cuban Missile Crisis might have taken a much darker turn,” writes Stephanopoulos. Twelve administrations have used the Situation Room, and each president’s attitude towards it “reflected his personality,” he notes. Some, like Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald Reagan, “wanted to be in the place where things happened.” Others, such as Richard Nixon and Donald Trump, disliked being in the National Security Council’s domain. Ford preferred the Oval Office to the Sit Room because, as his biographer Richard Norton Smith speculated, it was “a way to establish his legitimacy as president.” Henry Kissinger believed Nixon hated the Situation Room because “Johnson had suffered from the ‘Situation Room syndrome,’ ” Stephanopoulos writes. LBJ, his presidential predecessor, had an unhealthy obsession with the place, often spending sleepless nights getting regular updates on the Vietnam War. Johnson once told his wife, according to her diary, that he wanted “to be called every time somebody dies.” (It didn’t help that both of his sons-in-law were fighting in the war.) But Nixon also avoided the Sit Room room because he was grappling with his own demons. In October 1973, as Kissinger and other White House advisers tried to decide how to respond to the Yom Kippur War, Nixon “was holed up in the residence,” Stephanopoulos writes, “incapacitated by scotch, sleeping pills and depression.” Heroics and hilarity Stories from the Situation Room’s colorful history run the gamut from heroic to silly. During 9/11, just like “the firefighters in New York rushed toward the burning towers, Sit Room staffers raced toward the White House,” writes Stephanopoulos. When the White House was given evacuation orders, because of concerns that terrorists were targeting the building, the staff declined to leave. Frank Miller, the senior director for defense policy, asked everybody to write down their names and Social Security numbers. “We want to know what bodies to look for,” he explained. Even that chilling request wasn’t enough to get staffers to leave their posts. There are also tales that sound like they could be something out of a sitcom. Ford rarely visited the Sit Room for official business, but regularly traipsed through the complex with First Lady Betty “in their bathing suits,” Stephanopoulos writes, “on their way to the White House’s new outdoor swimming pool.” Jimmy Carter, during a Situation Room meeting to discuss CHAMBER OF SECRETS George Stephanopoulos opens the classified door of the White House Situation Room, where high drama, scheming aides and low farce collide in times of crisis
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 33 ROOM WITH A VIEW: President Barack Obama, his staff and military brass crowded together in the Situation Room to watch the raid on Osama bin Laden, after technical issues prevented Obama from taking in the historic moment in a roomier boardroom. Desert One, the ultimately doomed mission to rescue hostages from Iran, recognized that one of the colonels had a distinctive Georgian accent. “You’re my neighbor!” Carter exclaimed, realizing they likely lived in the same town. “Who are your folks?” He also took meetings about using “remote viewers” — better known as psychics — to gather intelligence and help with military operations. During one discussion with US Navy captain Jake Stewart, Carter asked if psychics could be used to locate the hostages. “I don’t know,” Stewart told him. “Do you want me to try?” Carter just nodded. In 2012, Obama attempted to contact a Saudi Arabian prince who was being treated at the Cleveland Clinic, but calls from the Situation Room were repeatedly dismissed as a prank. “They said, ‘Sure, fella!’ and hung up,” former Sit Room duty officer Drew Roberts told Stephanopoulos. “We called five more times with various ‘No, wait! I’m serious!’ ploys and were hung up on five more times.” Historic moments Security in the Situation Room is tight — no cellphones of any kind are allowed, and, to this day, no calls between heads of state are recorded. Instead, three staffers listen in on headsets and write down everything by hand, comparing their versions later. Only a handful of conversations in the room have ever been recorded. One of them was March of 1981, after Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington, DC. National security adviser Richard Allen brought in a small tape recorder to “capture the scene for posterity,” writes Stephanopoulos. It was frenzied, with White House chief of staff Al Haig demanding that before anything was revealed to the world, “we’ll discuss at this table!” The other recording came in 2017, when Trump aide Omarosa became the first person to ever be fired in the Situation Room. She smuggled in a recorder. It happened, as Obama-era Sit Room director Larry Pfeiffer told Stephanopoulos, because “nobody’s being frisked as they come in the door. It’s an honor system . . . Most of the people coming in and out of there tend to be very high-level, very important people. Certain assumptions get made that they’re going to do the right thing.” The shadow of history is hard to ignore in the Situation Room. During planning sessions for the 2011 bin Laden raid, then Secretary of Defense Bob Gates couldn’t help but remember the failed attempt to free hostages during the Carter administration in 1980. A $50M renovation “You felt this ghost come in the room with him saying, ‘I was here for that,’ ” deputy national Ben Rhodes, a security adviser for strategic communications, told Stephanopoulos. Gates voted against the raid, noting too many similarities with Carter’s foiled mission. Obama heard out his concerns, and the raid proceeded anyway, succeeding partly because they leaned on Gates’ experience. “It was like a football team playing together an entire season, then rolling into the Super Bowl at peak performance,” Stephanopoulos writes. A lot has changed since the Situation Room’s debut. It got a $50 million upgrade last year, with faster servers and new tech for detecting unauthorized mobile devices, but it’s also come full circle. “Once again, the United States and Russia are adversaries,” Stephanopoulos writes. “History is, in some ways, repeating itself.” And the Sit Room remains at the center of it all. Except now, young staffers refer to it by its initials — WHSR, pronounced “whizzer.” NSC spokesperson Emily Horne told Stephanopoulos that she’s as surprised as anyone about the change. “I suppose I’m not one of the cool kids,” she told him, “because I still can’t bring myself to call it that.” YOU’RE FIRED: Omarosa (inset), an aide under President Donald Trump, was the first person to ever be fired in the Situation Room. She smuggled in a tape recorder and secretly recorded the moment. CENTRAL COMMAND: President Ronald Reagan “wanted to be in the place where things happened,” George Stephanopolous writes in his new book (far left). HEADSPACE: Lyndon B. Johnson spent an unhealthy amount of time in the Situation Room, wanting near-constant updates on the war in Vietnam. The White House Getty Images; Reuters Getty Images Getty Images
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New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 35 OPINIONS & IDEAS The new science behind making weather P. 38-39 ing costs are 42.9% lower than in the Big Apple, according to Forbes and every other source of comparative urban data. Yet, the word “millionaire” continues to enjoy an oversized mystique in American life. It always sounded impressive but took on exalted status due to the popularity among Boomers of the 1955-1960, prime-time TV drama series “The Millionaire.” (For those too young, a fictious, mysterious benefactor each week chose a deserving stranger to gift with a “cashier’s check” for $1 million.) Few realize that $1 million then and $1 million now have as much in common as an elephant and its supposed close ancestor, the little rock hyrax. The sum actually meant something in the 1950s. Adjusted for 3.7 annual inflation, $1 million at the time would have the buying power of about $10.5 million in today’s dollars. That's a serious number. Conversely, in 1960, one million 2024 bucks would have been bought a puny $95,845 in goods and services, as calculated by the site Dollar Times. Between 1955-1960, as I gleaned from various sources, that sum would buy a modest house (average cost $16,000), a medium-price car ($2,600), a fancy stainless-steel refrigerator freezer ($8,640), and a four-year undergraduate education at a good private college ($48,000) — leaving just $20,000 for fun and games. So don’t believe today’s millionaires have it easy, no matter what looneyleft advocates for “equity” would have us believe. Even if they waste $26 on a hot dog. [email protected] WORKING WEALTHY New York may have the most millionaires in the world, but they’re far more ‘regular’ than billionaire-bling New York City has the most millionaires in the world — but it’s also the most expensive place to live in the United States. NY Post composite A million bucks was a lot in 1955, when “The Millionaire”s Marvin Miller was handing out checks. Today it wouldn’t let you live like NYC pad-swapper Martha Stewart. lion apartments and resell them for $75 million without ever moving in — are too much romanticized. (We’re “blessed” with 60 billionaires, according to the survey). Home-swapping celebrities can be fun to read about, like Martha Stewart, who just unloaded a West Village triplex for a new $12.3 million Upper West Side duplex. Others are merely infuriating, like the unidentified Chinese woman who purchased a unit at One57 in 2013 to save for her daughter after she graduated college. The daughter was 2 years old at the time. But the supertalls enrich only developers who tear down viable older buildings to construct them, not local businesses that supposedly benefit from a “trickle-down” effect. Our 350,000 residents who are mere millionaires are a different story. The word suggests a level of privilege that far exceeds the reality in most cases. (The Henley & Partners survey defined them as residents who have at least a seven-figure net worth in terms of liquid assets — cash and/or stocks, bonds and money-market funds that can easily convert to cash.) A million dollars in the five boroughs doesn’t mean the same as a million dollars in the rest of the country. It costs so much more to live here — for homes to buy or rent, for education, medical care and even for hot dogs like the one that was notoriously priced at $26 — that a million can seem like what families in other parts of the country keep in piggy banks. Even in cosmopolitan Chicago, livN EW York City has more millionaires than any other city in the world, according to immigration consulting firm Henley & Partners — 350,000 of them, or one in 24 New Yorkers and 48% more than a decade ago. Wowee! While the news is sure to feed “tale of two cities” sophistry, we should celebrate the Big Apple’s most under-appreciated class — what I call MiddleClass Millionaires, who are the city’s social and economic lifeblood. Almost everyone I know falls into the category but none think of themselves as rich for a very good reason: They’re not. The story in The Post last week explained a number of phenomena that long puzzled me, such as how restaurant diners barely half my own age of 74 cheerfully blow $1,000 on an ordinary dinner for four, and how some of my friends casually drop tens of thousands of dollars on escorted vacations to the temples of Angkor Wat. They deserve their affluence, although it’s a relative affluence that means less than it seems in the Big Apple, the priciest place to live in the United States. Many made their money through honest, hard work — not by mugging people on subway trains or by mugging whole companies and their employees with merger-and-acquisition ploys on Wall Street. Their ranks include every kind of striving New Yorker not born with silver spoons in their mouths — not only stockbrokers who live on Manhattan’s Third Avenue, but plumbers and accountants on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway who manage their dough wisely. New York City’s legions of poor residents have more “advocates'' than are good for them. But impoverished New York City public housing residents need more decent jobs and stable families, not bleeding-heart essays about their plight in left-wing media and burn-the-public-dough social welfare programs. The “equity”-obsessed New York Times reported in December, for example, that many lower- and what it called “middle-income” residents were “heading for the exits,” a trend that could “jeopardize the city’s uneven recovery.” At the other extreme, excesses of the super-rich — who buy $50 milSTEVE CUOZZO
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 36 of life.” However, mandating a shorter work week could, in reality, add stress to employees attempting to complete their entire jobs in significantly less time. And this, in turn, could increase business staffing costs, and result in lost full-time jobs and greater inflation. Mandating employers to shorten the work week is not the cure for the crisis of despair and depression plaguing Americans. More than 11 million US adults have reported serious thoughts of suicide, nearly 30 million are abusing alcohol, more than 37 million regularly take antidepressants, and upward of 700,000 have died from drug overdoses since 2000. Sanders’ low opinion of work — paired with a worldview centered on entitlement (canceling student debt as one example) — is entirely off base. Not only does his thinking further the existing economic and societal crises, but it has negative personal implications, as well. Approaching work as a burden instead of an opportunity to serve leads only to despair rather than a vehicle for increased purpose and satisfaction. Work is not merely transactional — put in the time and get a paycheck. There is inherent value, meaning, and purpose in work. We were created to be productive as contributors. As author and financier David Bahnsen explains, the skewed modern-day definition of work is “what you do so that eventually you won’t have to do it anymore.” The contrary, rather, is more apt: Work is an avenue for individuals to exercise their gifts and skills, employing sacrifice, exertion, and resilience while contributing to a larger goal. Bahnsen warns that the work less — or not at all — position espoused by folks like Sanders is “killing the heart and soul of our country . . . It has put downward pressure on productivity, intensified social alienation and anxiety . . . and ultimately, exacerbated societal divide.” Instead, he explains, “we must stop enabling a far greater epidemic in society — not of overreaching, but of hating achievement. Not of workaholism, but of “no-aholism”—no passion, no purpose and no plan.” Today’s labor market participation rate is a mere 62.5%, down 5% over the past two decades. This downturn translates to more than 13 million working age people — predominantly “prime working age men” — who have simply opted out of employment. This must change. K-12 education is the place to start cultivating a new mindset that helps students discover vocational passions while encouraging them to identify their unique purpose. This would benefit not only individuals, but their communities — and ultimately our country — as well. A short workweek is far from the solution to societal ills and personal despair. Instead, we should encourage people to pursue greater service and higher aspirations — both at work and at home. Not only would this lead to increased purpose and meaning, but able-bodied Americans would ultimately contribute more, not less. Dr. Keri D. Ingraham is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. Getty Images (2) jobs (not a mere reallocation of jobs). Sanders’ mission is clear. He seeks to imperil America’s longstanding successful freemarket model and begin to replace it with socialism. Under a false guise, Sanders asserts, "It is time to reduce the stress level in our country and allow Americans to enjoy a better quality S ELF-described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) introduced the “Thirty-Two Hour Work Week Act” recently that would mandate the standard workweek be reduced from 40 to 32 hours. Under the law, employees would not receive a reduction in pay despite the 20% drop in labor. Additionally, employers would be forced to pay overtime at the rate of time and a half for shifts exceeding eight hours per day, and double pay for time more than 12 hours daily. According to Sanders, “Moving to a 32-hour workweek with no loss of pay is not a radical idea.” He argues that the “financial gains from the major advancements in artificial intelligence, automation, and new technology must benefit the working class, not just corporate CEOs and wealthy stockholders on Wall Street.” While Sanders may sound like he’s rooting for the little guy, he’s actually attempting to redistribute wealth by forcing employers to pay for duties they don’t actually have to perform. Imagine the implications for small business owners, the backbone of the American economy, whose businesses account for 44% of the nation's economic activity and create two-thirds of new DR. KERI D. INGRAHAM POSTSCRIPT Culture Club Bernie Sanders says Americans should work less for the same pay — despite the impact on productivity and the bottom line Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call for a government-mandated 32- hour workweek could backfire on small businesses and the average worker, who’d have to do more labor in less time. “I lost my graduation four years ago because of COVID, but then I told myself, at least I’ll be able to graduate from dental school at Columbia.” — Ari Rosen, on the Ivy cancelling its 2024 commencement ceremony following weeks of campus unrest “Give Joe Biden a hot summer.” — Anti-Israel activist Manolo De Los Santos, rallying a group that went on to raid Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall summer.” Anti-Israel activist Manolo De Los SanCAMPUS PROTESTS “This is one of the biggest elections in this country’s history.” — Elizabeth Pipko, the Manhattan model newly appointed as RNC spokeswoman country’s history.” Chatter “A worm . . . got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s surprising statement in his divorce proceedings
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 37 “I took it and turned him around and swatted him.” — Stormy Daniels, testifying of allegedly spanking former President Donald Trump with a magazine “That’s bulls--t.” — Trump, reportedly mouthing to his lawyers in response COURTING TROUBLE — Gallup Top reasons cited by college students who’ve considered dropping out. I’M DONE WITH U. Emotional stress Mental health Cost Hard coursework 54% 43% 31% 24% Crime concerns among Democrats and Republicans have risen since 2021. FEAR FACTOR 2021 2024 Republicans — Pew 55% 68% 39% 47% Democrats fire where chants such as “kill the Jews” were hear.. We would never accept a “multicultural” potluck over Ramadan — or maps that erase Palestine — so why is this OK for Israel and Jews? The answers are actually not that difficult to decipher. A quick look at the BUSD’s dedicated “ethnic studies” website makes clear that Jews — despite comprising a mere 2.4% of the US population and upwards of 60% of current hate crimes — are not considered minorities. “Indigenous, Black, Pacific Islander, Asian/Desi/Arab, and Chicanx/Latine/Latinx” — yes. Jews, no. In fact there’s an entire section of the site dedicated to why not: “Ethnic Studies is the only field that actively centers communities of color.” In other words, according to the BUSD, Jews are white. Such thinking is not only outdated — it denies the existence of my black/Jewish son, while perpetuating the nefarious “Jews are white” myth that powers so much of the antisemitism and anti-zionism now coursing through the world. In-school anti-zionism doesn’t come cheap: Last year, BUSD spent $111,000 to work with the DEI consultancy Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC), a for-profit group whose leaders have described their work as “Anti-Capitalist, Anti-Imperialist, and Anti-Zionist.” ,LESMCC content has been so problematic, that even progressive California Gov. Gavin Newsom hes said that their proposed curricula “will never see the light of day” due to itsbias and antisemitism. LESMCC also promoted an Oct. 8 anti-Israel walkout to celebrate the Hamas atrocities. In response to the rising campus hate, Berkeley Jews in School, our grassroots Jewish parent-led organization, launched in October to take action against antisemitic incidents. We believe that Jewish students in Berkeley have the right to study free from bias, anti-semitism and anti-zionism. Our tagline is “Believe Jewish Students” and we believe it has never been more resonant — in Berkeley and nationwide. Because rather than study free from fear, our kids now endure chants such as “Kill the Jews.” They must study in classrooms with posters asking, “How’s the school/work/ life/genocide balance going for you today?” There’s been graffiti at the bus stop in front of Berkeley HS stating “Kill all Zionists.” Jewish students share stories of being told to pick up pennies or having their yarmulkes pushed off of their heads. School administrators are well aware of this abuse, but to no avail. “I just stopped reporting things because . . . all it did was make the bullying worse,” one student told me. This is the failed “restorative justice” process BUSD Superintendent Morthey praised, bafflingly, before Congress this past week. Spurred by the indifference to our kids, Berkeley Jews in School has created an internal antisemitism tracker, which now includes over 70 documented incidents. We filed an Office of Civil Rights complaint with the Federal Department of Education in February 2024 and the Department of Education formally opened an investigation against BUSD on May 7. Most crucially, I traveled to Washington this week to personally witness Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel’s Congressional grilling. She, of course, vehemently denied that BUSD has an antisemitism problem. But we know better – we know to believe Jewish students. Ilana Pealrman is one of the leaders of Berkeley Jews in School I AM the mother of three children in the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD). My family moved to this California college town 10 years ago to raise our son, who is mixed black and Jewish, in a progressive area where I naively thought all of his identities would be embraced equally. But as I quickly learned, the only way to be an acceptable Jew here is to hate Israel. Last Oct. 13 — barely a week after the Hamas attack on Israel — the terror group infamously declared a “Global Day of Jihad” against Israel. Despite the violent anti-Israel protests then raging, my kids’ Berkeley schools stood strategy-less in the face of the threat against its Jewish students. My younger child’s school had zero security plans in place. When I asked my high-schooler if he felt safe going to class, he deadpanned, “Yeah, I’m black, so nobody thinks I’m Jewish.” What does it say when my son feels safer as a black man in Berkeley than he does as a Jew? As was reported in The New York Times this past week, antisemitism has been on a collision course with multiculturalism in Berkeley schools for years. There are minor incidents, such as cakes served to students during Arab Heritage month — despite overlapping with Passover. Or a “multicultural night” potluck also held, guess when, during Passover. Then there are more serious incidents such as giant classroom maps of the Middle East that intentionally exclude Israel (the type New York Public school chancellor David Banks conceded on Wednesday during testimony before Congress that can be found in New York). And, of course, the mid-October student walk-out in support of a Gaza ceaseILANA PEARLMAN Antisemitism is clashing with multiculturalism at schools in AP; Getty Images Berkeley as its leader is called to Congress to explain why Berkeley School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel testified in Washington, DC this week about concerns that her schools are not protecting Jewish students. “When there are multiple victims of sexual assault, their voices should be heard together and collectively.” — Tarale Wulff, who testified at Harvey Weinstein’s trial despite his not being charged with assaulting her
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 38 POSTSCRIPT Meteorology T HE world was shocked by the record-breaking rainfall in Dubai last month. The desert city was inundated with more rain in a few days than typically falls in an entire year, killing at least 20 people across the United Arab Emirates and neighboring Oman. It was also surprising that many blamed the downpour on something other than Mother Nature. “The cause is actually from the use of weather modification,” filmmaker Robby Starbuck tweeted. “Play God, find out,” another person echoed. Johan Jaques, a meteorologist for environmental tech firm Kisters, claimed the storm was brought on by cloud seeding, a method long used by the UAE for inducing rain by injecting clouds with silver iodide. But the growing consensus is that cloud seeding had little or nothing to do with it. “Highly, highly, highly improbable,” said Steven Siems, cochair of an expert team on weather modification at the World Meteorological Organization. The UAE has “been cloud seeding for more than 10 years and never encountered such a storm,” he told The Post, adding that UAE’s meteorology agency revealed that no seeding missions had been conducted prior to the storm. Even if cloud seeding hadn’t caused flooding in the desert, it brought to light just how invested the Middle Eastern nation is in weather manipulation. The UAE has spent millions over the last few decades in “rain enhancement” projects, with 300 seeding missions planned this year alone. They don’t use traditional cloud seeding, in which planes fly into clouds to release the chemicals. Instead, they employ drones to shoot clouds with electrical charges. Scientists in the UAE reveal that seeding clouds can boost rainfall by up to 25%. Playing God with the weather is not just happening in the Middle East. More than 15 years ago, for instance, China spent billions to keep the 2008 Beijing Olympics rain free, while more recently Beijing — which has also toyed with cloudseeding rockets — announced plans to develop a weather modification system by 2025 that could provide rain (or lack of it) on command. Drought-prone Iran, meanwhile, has long dabbled in cloud seeding, and Bangkok has used it to combat smog. In 2021, the U.K. launched the Advanced Research & Invention Agency (with a $997 million investment from taxpayers) to conduct research on weather control. E LEVEN US states — California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, North Dakota, Utah, and Idaho — have cloud-seeding programs, which everyone from farmers to politicians fiercely defend. In Wyoming, former state Rep. Evan Simpson insisted that the state’s $1.1 million investment in the practice is “not voodoo.” And the science backs him up, with research indicating that cloud-seeding can produce up to 10% more precipitation than would have occurred naturally. “It’s easy to see the impact cloud seeding can have, and the trust and faith local farmers and ranchers have in the program,” said Jonathan Jennings, project meteorologist for the West Texas Weather Modification Association. And cloud seeding is just the beginning. If researchers are to be believed, we’ll soon be able to control our weather in ways that once seemed like science fiction. A Norwegian startup called OceanTherm is developing perforated pipes called “bubble curtains” that can cool the ocean and slow down hurricanes. Paris researchers reported last year that they’d successfully used lasers to control lightning strikes. And in Japan, the Moonshot Research and Development Program, launched in 2019 (at a cost of about $1.3 billion in seed money), is developing giant wind turbines designed to “suppress heavy rainfall by about 20%,” said Kosei Yamaguchi, a professor at Kyoto University's Disaster Prevention Research Institute involved in the research. Just how realistic is any of it? Jeroen Oomen, a Utrecht University professor and author of “Imagining Climate Engineering” (Routledge, 2021), calls full weather control “a pipe dream” and “nearly impossible.” At least not in any great measure at this current moment. B UT Karen Bradshaw, an environmental law professor at Arizona State University, claimed “there’s no doubt (weather manipulation) exists. Normal people are just unaware. It sounds like something from a James Bond movie, but it’s very real.” The timeline is also open to debate. Siems thinks we’re still “decades away” from meaningful weather manipulation, while Yamaguchi expects that their typhoonsquashing wind turbines will be ready for indoor model testing “within the year, and then outdoor testing in the next five years.” In addition to turbines — each about 720 feet high, roughly the size of Times Square Tower — Yamaguchi and his team are also working on a “giant curtain,” pulled by a kite attached to a boat, that would “directly suppress wind velocity, which in turn reduces water vapor flux, thereby suppressing heavy rainfall,” he said. “We are also considering using the curtain to . . . create rain at sea and preventing heavy rain on land.” Florida International University professor Hugh Willoughby doesn’t buy it — “My Japanese colleagues are usually much better than that,” he told The Post — and his cynicism is earned. During the 1960s, he was a head scientist on Project Stormfury, the US government’s failed attempt to weaken tropical cyclones with silver iodide. Today’s weather manipulation scientists are just “dressing up and recycling discredited mid-20thcentury ideas with 21st-century gizmos,” Willoughby said. To his point, there are more examples of weather manipulation failing than succeeding. Israel ended their cloud seeding experiments last year NY Post after decades of disappointing reA worker aims a cloud-seeding cannon to the sky in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang. Similar aerial weather modification science is taking flight in the United Arab Emirates (inset). VCG via Getty Images; Business Wire/AP ERIC SPITZNAGEL From drones and lasers to lightning rods and bubble curtains, scientists worldwide are working on ways to manipulate the weather
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 39 sults. There have been a myriad of weather manipulation ideas that never quite worked, from “Dyn-OGel,” a powder peddled by a Jupiter Beach, Fla.-company in the early 2000s that allegedly stopped hurricanes by turning moisture into a gooey gel, to an anti-hail cannon that fired shock waves into thunderclouds. And in 2008, the Russian Air Force, en route to disrupt a rainstorm with silver iodine, liquid nitrogen and cement powder, accidentally dropped their cargo on a suburban Moscow home instead of a cloud. A NOTHER problem, said Oomen, is that historically weather control science has “always been connected to nationalistic and military ideas.” This was certainly true during the Vietnam War, when Operation Popeye attempted to use cloud-seeding to slow down the enemy. (The practice was outlawed by the UN in 1976.) In recent years, it’s mostly been the stuff of conspiracy theories, whether it’s Iran accusing neighboring nations of stealing rain with its cloud seeding experiments, or rumors that circulated online last January that snow had been manufactured by devious forces “to rig the Iowa Caucus.” Although weather manipulation remains unproven, companies are still pushing forward with new inventions. Olav Hollingsaeter, a retired submarine officer in the Norwegian Navy who now serves as CEO for OceanTherm, said he was inspired by the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, which was fueled by warmer water temperatures. “Bubble curtains,” the company’s still-unproven tech, involves perforated pipes submerged into deep ocean waters that release compressed air. “Bubbles will rise towards the surface and entrain the surrounding water on their way up,” Hollingsæter tells the Post. “Done correctly, this will create a well-mixed upper layer with colder water.” D URING hurricane season, OceanTherm hopes to deploy “a fleet of vessels” carrying “about 60 miles of bubble curtains,” said Hollingsæter. Although they’re still in the experimental phase, their simulations have shown that just a 2-degree celsius reduction can reduce hurricane intensity “by about 15%,” said Hollingsæter. Real world results, beyond just simulations, are now happening in the realm of lightning control. A classical Franklin lightning rod can only offer so much protection from lightning strikes — which cause billions of dollars of damage every year in the US — and is virtually useless for airports or other large structures, said Aurélien Houard, a research scientist at Ecole Polytechnique in France. So in January of 2023, he and other researchers tested a terawatt laser, roughly the size of a car, on Säntis Mountain in northeastern Switzerland, a hot spot for lightning activity. The laser fired picosecond pulses that “ionized the air, creating very long channels of plasma over 50 to 100 meters,” said Houard. “These plasma channels can guide lightning very efficiently.” In layman’s terms, the layers push lightning in a different direction. The experiments worked, with lighting strikes on Säntis guided safely away by over 65 yards. But Houard and his team are working on improvements, capable of sending lightning miles in the other direction. But that, Houard said, would take “a bigger laser,” which could take decades to build and test. How many of these big ideas become a reality remains to be seen. Some critics, like Oomen, worry that bold claims by scientists could lull the public into a false sense of security. “We should make sure we don’t over-promise what it can do,” he said. “People will start to think it is a technological solution to a systemic problem, [and] we have to be less concerned about climate change. It really doesn’t.” But Bradshaw believes we should be paying closer attention to the science, not less. When discussing her work recently, she noticed that friends and colleagues were uncomfortable with weather manipulation. “People associate any discussion of cloud seeding with chemtrails. They’re automatically skeptical.” But they should be more curious and even concerned, Bradshaw said, before the technology reaches a tipping point and “private actors can unilaterally affect the weather than affects millions of lives.” AFP via Getty Images Paris researchers have tested laser lightning rods like this (see that little green glow?) to tame electrical storms. TRUMPF Norwegian startup OceanTherm (above) aims to slow hurricanes with “bubble curtains,” while the UAE (Abu Dhabi weather HQ, below) has been cloudseeding for more than a decade. OceanTherm; Reuters Disaster-prevention researcher Kosei Yamaguchi is eyeing wind turbines that could suppress up to 20% of heavy rainfall. “Play God, find out,” as one observer said of shocking flood scenes like this in Dubai last month, with the deadly deluge blamed on rain-inducing cloud seeding. Courtesy of Kosei Yamaguchi
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 40 that all this happened with zero knowledge from Joe? The man who put fave lapdog Merrick Garland atop the DOJ and turned the FBI into a rent-a-thug outfit for scaring parents who dare to speak up at schoolboard meetings? Note as well the Biden administration’s ties to Trump’s other trials. One of the lead prosecutors on the absurd case he faces in Manhattan, where District Attorney Alvin Bragg has inflated a business-law misdemeanor into a fake felony, is former Justice biggie and paid Dem political hack Matthew Colangelo. And disgraced Fulton County DA Fani Willis, prosecuting Trump’s Georgia election case, spent an evening at the vice president’s manor for a TV gala. Sure, it may have been innocent. But given what we know about the backroom buddy-ups so popular among Biden and his cronies (to say nothing of Willis’ own predilection for corruption), the appearance of coordination is strong. And don’t forget: Biden himself is guilty of stealing classified documents during his time in the Senate and as veep and stashing them all over the place, including a Delaware garage next to his beloved Corvette. Funny how all these defenders of democracy let that one slide. So chalk up one more Biden mega-falsehood — one happily endorsed by a media eager to see Trump in prison — as the Democrats keep on chip, chip, chipping away at the rule of law. President Biden has always insisted he had nothing to do with the Justice Department’s move against ex-prez Donald Trump for his alleged theft of classified documents — but new information gathered by RealClearInvestigations suggests that (as so often with Biden) this is likely a lie. “I don’t want to get myself in the middle of whether or not the Justice Department should move or not move on certain actions they could take. I agreed I would not tell them what to do and not, in fact, engage in telling them how to prosecute or not” were Biden’s precise words to lapdog journo Scott Pelley in September. A set of newly unredacted documents seem to tell a different tale. As early as August 2021, National Archives officials had gone whinging to Justice about the missing documents (including lobbing unfounded accusations that Trump had destroyed them — who is he, Hillary Clinton?). In September, Archives muckamucks were meeting with top Biden lackeys like White House Counsel Dana Remus and possibly even then-Chief of Staff (and ultimate DC swamp reptile) Ron Klain. Deputy White House Counsel Jonathan Su looks to have played an even bigger role on the WH end of the operation: He’s the one who, in January 2022, told an Archives official to get Justice started on a criminal referral over the docs. Is the American public really expected to believe There’s a clear and obvious answer to the humanitarian worries President Biden is trying to blackmail Israel with as a full-scale Rafah invasion looms: Simply let Israel fully evacuate civilians from the Palestinian city and leave behind Hamas and its battalions. So why on earth isn’t the president demanding that of Hamas leadership, instead of threatening to cut off arms to Israel? Yes, there are logistical problems. If Israel were to oversee such an evacuation, Hamas might well engage in one of its ugly trademarks: firing on and attempting to kill or otherwise interfere with those trying to leave. We saw the monstrous philosophy in action this week, with Hamas firing on the Kerem Shalom crossing once it was opened to aid flows. Then there’s Egypt’s refusal to take any Palestinian refugees. But if Biden were not busily courting the pro-Hamas vote, he could well crack the whip over Cairo on that issue. Don’t forget that the line between Hamas and the Gaza civilian population is blurry; like most terrorist groups, it hides among civilians and counts some civilians as semi-members and supporters. As for the canard that a mass evacuation of Rafah would lead to permanent displacement of its citizens at the hands of Israel, it’s transparent nonsense. It is in Israel’s best and immediate interest to have a settled population of Palestinian civilians free from Hamas; why would its government stand in the way of that happening? At least 110,000 civilians have already fled since Monday, per UN estimates, which is around 10% of the estimated population of refugees. It’s time to let the rest go as well. The usual global suspects are, of course, screeching that even the merest thought of evacuating Rafah amounts to a war crime on Israel’s part. And this is, of course, exactly backward. The danger to Palestinian civilians here comes from Hamas’ tactical playbook, which sees them as no more than bullet shields. The situation in Rafah points out, yet again, that the world’s only Jewish state is held to a different and much higher standard when it comes to warfighting. One that, in this case, will cause unthinkable suffering among the very people Weepy Joe claims to be so concerned about. AMERICA’S OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY PUBLISHED DAILY NEWSPAPER Just Evacuate Rafah It’s White House ‘Lawfare’ The New York Post is published by N.Y.P. Holdings Inc. 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036 Chair Lachlan Murdoch Publisher Sean M. Giancola Print Editor-in-Chief Stephen Lynch POSTSCRIPT Editorial Chairman Emeritus Rupert Murdoch Editor-in-Chief Keith Poole Editorial Page Editor Mark Cunningham Decades after Hiroshima — and centuries after historic conquests — the greatest threat to humanity remains humans themselves Romans finally annihilated the city of 500,000, killed all but an enslaved 50,000, and left the majestic metropolis a junk heap. In 1453, the Ottomans finally overran the 1,100 year-old city of Constantinople, the hub of Hellenism, Christianity and the Byzantine Empire for over a millennium. They killed, enslaved, or relegated to inferior status the entire population, and turned the majestic Hagia Sophia cathedral into the mosque that it remains today. The conquerors appropriated the shell of the once greatest city in Christendom as their new capital of an Islamic Ottoman Empire. So ended the ancient Christian Hellenic civilization of Asia. In 1520, Hernán Cortés led a tiny army of about 1,500 conquistadors to attack the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. In less than two years, the Spanish destroyed the four-million-person Aztec empire with the help of indigenous allies who hated the mass sacrifices of the Aztecs. What do these examples of annihilation have in common? The doomed are never really aware of the fate that awaits them. Often their glorious past deludes them into assuming that their once formidable defenses — the seven gates of Thebes, the massive fortifications of Carthage, the 35- R ECENTLY, some Russian political leaders and generals, an occasional Chinese Communist Party insider, Turkish President Recep Erdogan, unhinged North Korean Kim Jong-un and, of course, the Iranian theocracy, have threatened to annihilate their enemies. Sometimes the saber-rattlers boast of using nuclear weapons, surprise invasions, or rocket barrages, such as we saw against Israel last month. Or as Erdogan recently warned Greece of Turkey’s new missile arsenal, “We can come down suddenly one night when the time comes.” Taiwan is told it will be absorbed. North Korea warned recently it would “annihilate” South Korea. When we dismiss these lunatic threats, are we really assured they’re truly crazy? The aim of wars, of course, is to defeat the enemy. But usually in history the victors do not annihilate the losers — wiping out their people, civilization, language and physical space. Even the devastated powers of World War II, Germany, Japan and Italy, survived and rebooted their nations into responsible democracies. Modern democratic Israel is a testament to the courage and resilience of the postwar Jewish people. Yet occasionally in the past war became existential and final, erasing permanently the defeated civilization, and under a variety of gruesome circumstances that offer important warnings today. Alexander the Great in 335 B.C. besieged and wiped out the 1,000-year-old iconic city of Thebes. He slaughtered the adult males, enslaved the women and children and razed the fabled Greek city-state to the ground. In just one day, Alexander finished off the mythical home of Cadmus, Oedipus and Antigone, and the great democratic liberator Epameinondas. The empire of the North African city of Carthage once was larger than Rome. But after defeats in two Punic Wars, Carthage over a century was reduced to a coastal corridor in modernday Tunisia. Yet by 149 B.C., the city was again thriving. It wished peace with Rome — at least until a huge Roman fleet unexpectedly arrived on African shores determined to obliterate their once powerful rival. Cato the Elder, the aged archenemy of Carthage, finished each of his Roman senate harangues with “Carthago delenda est: Carthage must be destroyed!” That proved not just rhetoric. Without cause, Rome prompted the Third Punic War (149-6 B.C.), more a siege than a real war. The VICTOR DAVIS HANSON
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 41 foot-high Theodosian walls of Constantinople and the vast lake surrounding Tenochtitlán would ensure their safety. False hopes always arose that help was on the way. Surely allies — like the Athenians — will save Thebes. Or the enemies of Rome would rescue Carthage in its eleventh hour. Would not the Western Europeans sail up the Dardanelles in time to break the Ottoman siege of Constantinople? Would not the subjects of the Aztec Empire finally turn on the Spaniards? As for the destroyers of entire civilizations, they prove not always just the stereotypical mass murderers of history like Attila the Hun, Tamerlane, or Genghis Khan. Often the annihilators were the well-educated, such as Alexander the Great, student of Aristotle and companion of philosophers. The annihilator of Carthage, Scipio Aemilianus, was an intellectual who befriended the brilliant historian Polybius and was a patron of literature. Mehmet II, who wiped away Christian Constantinople, was proud of his enormous library. And the more such conquerors feigned no intention of erasing their enemies, the more they methodically did so — and in the aftermath shed crocodile tears over the extinction. We live today with far easier tools of civilizational destruction — nuclear, bioweaponry, cyberwar and perhaps soon artificial intelligence. And from Israel to Greece to Taiwan, there are plenty of vulnerable peoples and nations threatened by their historically hostile neighbors. It would be a grave mistake to assume in 2024 that such annihilation cannot happen again — even in our globalized and supposedly civilized world. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. This piece has been adapted from his new book “The End of Everything. How Wars Descend Into Annihilation (Basic Books).” Post your comments on stories at www.nypost.com E-mail [email protected], or write to: The Editor, The New York Post, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, NY 10036. Include name, address and daytime phone number. No unverifiable letter will be published. The Post reserves the right to edit all letters. CHATTER Going south, fast I can’t understand why people are abusing boarding instructions (“Shady Southwest passengers are abusing the preboarding process — and fellow flyers are furious,” May 8). They shouldn’t — when they do, they should be told to stop. If they continue, then Southwest should put in its policies that if you abuse the rules then there should be an upfront cash charge. Airlines should enforce where passengers sit. If you paid for the seat, then that is your seat. Families with children should know how to book a trip. In the case of seat-changing, the person who is requesting a change should pay the individual who is changing with them. The airlines should also give cash immediately to the person who is inconvenienced. Christine Blasucci, Manhattan Dream healthcare President Biden is making DACA recipients eligible for federally-funded health care, which could cost up to $300 million (“$300M/yr. JoeCare boost for ‘Dreamers’,” May 4). $300 million? Wanna bet? Let’s assume that we are only talking about 100,000 “dreamers”; $300 million comes out to $3,000 per dreamer per year. However, there are already a whole lot more than 100,000 recipients of DACA benefits at the moment. But why bother counting the pennies? Migrants who crossed into the country illegally are already receiving free health care in some instances. Charlie Honadel, Venice, Fla. More McCarthyism To allow Chancellor David C. Banks to respond in his classic self-righteous manner was a mistake (“How NYC Schools Fight Jew-Hatred,” Post Opinion, David C. Banks, May 8). What I saw during the House hearing on antisemitism in K-12 schools was at best a token hearing, and at worst an acceptance of the chancellor’s coverup. Ken Karcinell, Hewlett DEI is DOA at MIT I was proud to see that MIT canceled the DEI-statement requirement, the first prestigious school in the nation to do so (“No more DEI oath for MIT,” May 7). Recently I heard Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University and a fellow undergraduate of MIT, speak. In response to a question about what he thinks is necessary in the public realm today, he responded with JFK’s quote asking “not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” This step by MIT was in the right direction. Jack Preschlack, Vero Beach, Fla. Clean energy “Still Paying for Indian Point Shutdown” (Editorial, May 5) presents a grossly distorted picture. The editorial cites a report that ignores expensive repairs that would have been necessary to keep Indian Point operating. It questions the energy source for powering a chip factory in central NY, despite upstate’s power mix approaching 90% emission-free. It states that New Yorkers pay nearly the highest electric bills in the country, when the average residential electric price is nearly half of Hawaii’s. From $500 million a year in state subsidies to $6 billion in federal support, nuclear plants cost the public. The editorial fails to mention this, along with the plant no longer killing 1 billion fish each year. We have the technology to produce renewable energy at a lower cost than nuclear. It’s time to look forward to achieve New York’s climate goals together. Victoria Leung, Staff Attorney, Riverkeeper Mankind today has more ways to destroy itself than ever, from disease (Wuhan battling COVID, inset) to nuclear missiles (North Korea counterattack drill). KCNA/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock Alexander the Great was a highly educated student of Aristotle — and the man responsible for the annihilation of Thebes. Getty Images
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 42 POSTSCRIPT Books The Ministry of Time Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader Press) This spy romance thriller comedy is already set to be a six-part BBC series from top indie entertainment company A24. In the near future, a millennial civil servant takes on a new job that has her helping with a government time travel experiment — and falling in love with a Victorian explorer who initially died in 1845. Think Twice Harlan Coben (Grand Central Publishing) The latest Myron Bolitar novel finds the temperamental-but-lovable sports agent investigating a longtime client — a star basketball coach-turned-murder suspect who may have faked his own death. Wives Like Us Plum Sykes (Harper) The “Bergdorf Blondes” author sets her shrewd eyes on the wealthy set in the English countryside. An American divorcee, three wealthy wives and two tycoons mix and mingle in a sprawling Cotswold estate. Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health Casey Means (Avery) Means, a medical doctor and the co-founder of the buzzy glucose-monitoring service Levels, posits that metabolic health is the key to feeling better and preventing disease. The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation Victor David Hanson (Basic Books) The bestselling military historian and author of “The Case for Trump” looks at conquests through the ages — from Thebes to Tenochtitlán —that have ended in utter obliteration. Very Bad Company: A Novel Emma Rosenblum In this satire of corporate culture from the bestselling author of “Bad Summer People,” a group of employees from a buzzy startup head to Miami for a fancy retreat. But, after the first night, a high-level executive vanishes, and everyone scrambles to pretend it’s all OK. REQUIRED READING by Hailey Eber servant takes on a new job that has her POSTSCRIPT der suspect who may have faked his own metabolic health is the key to feeling betages — from Thebes to Tenochtitlán —that fancy retreat. But, after the first night, a corded for a Shuttle launch. On the evening of Jan. 27, engineers from Morton Thiokol, including Boisjoly, gave an emergency presentation to NASA revealing concerns about the effect cold weather had on the rocket joints and, in particular, a rubber component, the “O-ring,” critical to preventing gases escaping during liftoff. “Many of the Thiokol team recognized that the data they had about the behavior of the joints in cold weather was scant; some was contradictory,” writes Higginbotham. “Even so, it was one that they believed raised enough concerns about the flight safety of the Challenger mission to advocate a drastic course of action. ‘Do not launch.’ ” Initially, Boisjoly’s insistence to err on the side of caution found favor. The countdown to launch would stop, pending further assessments, and the crew would be stood down until it was safe to proceed. But when Larry Mulloy, NASA’s project AP; AFP/Getty Images by GAVIN NEWSHAM A T 8.15 a.m. on Jan. 28, 1986, New Hampshire social-studies teacher Christa McAuliffe sat with her six fellow astronauts ahead of the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger from Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Fla., when she was approached by support crew member Jonny Corlew. As a kid growing up in Indiana, Corlew often picked an apple from the tree in his yard and gave it to his teacher, and now he wanted to do the same for McAuliffe, the first teacher to go into space, as Adam Higginbotham recounts in “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism & Disaster on the Edge of Space” (Avid Reader Press). “McAuliffe raised the fruit to her face with a smile, but then immediately returned it,” writes Higginbotham. “Save it for me,” she said. “And I’ll eat it when I get back.” Less than three hours later, McAuliffe and her six crewmates on mission STS-51-L were dead, after Challenger exploded 73 seconds into the flight. “Challenger” follows the key players in a tragedy forever etched on the nation’s consciousness. From the astronauts to the engineers, designers and investigators, it details how the Space Shuttle program not only came about, but also how political cynicism and commercial concerns made a disaster almost inevitable. SIX months prior to the Challenger disaster, booster rocket engineer Roger Boisjoly had written to his managers at NASA contractor and Utah-based rocket manufacturer Morton Thiokol, warning of the dangers of winter launches like Challenger’s, explaining how the joints of the boosters could stiffen and unseal in cold weather, increasing the chances of pressure leaks. “It is my honest and very real fear that if we do not take immediate action . . . we stand in jeopardy of losing a flight,” he wrote, warning that “the result would be a catastrophe of the highest order — loss of human life.” On the day before Challenger’s scheduled departure, the forecast for the launch time temperature predicted record cold, with temperatures at the Cape predicted to fall to 23°F overnight — 9 degrees below freezing. NASA had never launched a Space Shuttle at such a low temperature. Indeed, a year earlier, on Jan. 23, 1985, the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was delayed because of freezing weather and when it finally took off, it did so in temperatures of 53°F — the coldest temperature ever reFinal flight Nearly 40 years after the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, new research sheds light on a disaster that didn’t have to happen If we do not take immediate action . . . the result would be a catastrophe of the highest order — loss of human life. — Rocket engineer Roger Boisjoly, six months before the disaster.
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 43 director at the Marshall Space Flight Center, was notified, pressure was brought to bear on Thiokol’s management to reconsider. F EARING Thiokol might lose lucrative NASA contracts, General Manager and Senior Vice President Jerry Mason urged his executive team to reconsider, instructing senior engineer Bob Lund to “take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat.” Eventually, a signed document recommending the launch should proceed was faxed to NASA — the first time a contractor had ever been asked to provide written confirmation of a launch decision. Nobody was happy. “If anything happens, I wouldn’t want to be the person that has to stand in front of a board of inquiry to explain why we launched,” said Al McDonald, Thiokol’s senior manager at the Kennedy Space Center. After several delays and with icicles on the gantry, Challenger finally left launchpad 39B at 11.38 a.m. on Jan. 28, 1986. On board were seven astronauts; Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Mike there is any hope for the crew.” A FTER witnessing the explosion on TV in Utah, Roger Boisjoly sat in his office and cried. An entry in his log book read: “I feel real sick about this but I did everything possible to convince them not to fly,” he wrote. The tragedy dominated Boisjoly’s life. Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, he was plagued by sleeplessness and took Xanax for anxiety. On the first anniversary of the disaster, he launched an unsuccessful lawsuit against Morton Thiokol, accusing them of fraud, negligence and manslaughter. Boisjoly, who died in 2012, aged 73, never worked in the aerospace industry again. On the evening of the disaster, meanwhile, President Ronald Reagan was due to deliver his State of the Union address but postponed it to speak about the tragedy. His four-minute speech, written by White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan, drew on the poem “High Flight” by World War II pilot John Gillespie Magee. “The crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives,” the president said. “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.” Smith, mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnick and Ron McNair and payload specialists Greg Jarvis and McAuliffe, the successful teacher out of over 11,000 educators who applied to the Teacher in Space Project. On the ground, crowds gathered in bleachers three miles from the launch site while the crew’s families and friends, along with VIPs, watched from the roof of Launch Control Center. Meanwhile, in Concord, NH, seniors at McAuliffe’s school had packed the main auditorium to witness the launch live on the NASA TV feed. A LTHOUGH it initially appeared successful, suddenly, at 58 seconds into the flight, a flame appeared on the right booster which rapidly reached the fuel tank, incinerating its insulation and rupturing the tank’s membrane. In seconds, 300,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen was ignited by flames burning at 6,000 degrees as the booster rockets tore free from their mounts and Challenger, still hurtling toward space at 1,500 miles per hour, tumbled from its planned supersonic trajectory. “The most complicated machine in history began to come apart in flight: its stubby wings ripped away, the cargo bay bursting like a paper bag, the inrushing air pulling the fuselage asunder from the inside,” writes Higginbotham. The last communication from the cockpit data recorder was from Mike Smith. “Uh-oh,” he said before the system shut down. Back at Launch Control Center, the families begged NASA for reassurance. Erin Smith, Mike Smith’s 8-year-old daughter, screamed for her daddy while June Scobee, wife of commander Dick Scobee, went to her husband’s room, only to find an unsigned Valentine’s Day card bearing the words “For My Wife.” It was an hour before NASA’s Director of Flight Operations George Abbey confirmed their fears. “It looks like there has been an explosion,” he told them. “ I don’t believe Space Shuttle Challenger appeared to have a smooth liftoff on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, before it exploded just 73 seconds into the flight. A new history unpacks months of safety fears beforehand. A memorial honoring the Challenger crew has been erected in their honor at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va. Arlington National Cemetery; AP President Ronald Reagan delayed his planned State of the Union Address to eulogize the astronauts in a Peggy Noonan-penned speech. Getty Images NASA engineers had voiced concerns about the dangers of a coldweather launch and how it would effect pressure-sealing joints on the Space Shuttle’s massive booster rockets like here in Utah. NASA
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 44 POSTSCRIPT Books As a mom of three, Nicole Saphier, MD, a medical contributor on Fox News and a radiologist and director of Breast Imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, knows no one can write the book on motherhood. That’s why she gathered her momcolleagues and fans to create a collection of essays, memories and musings in the new book “Love, Mom: Inspiring Stories Celebrating Motherhood” (Fox News Books, out now). Saphier opens the book with her story of having her son, Nick, as a teen. Undeterred, Saphier went to medical school, Nick in tow. Her first day of residency was Nick’s first day of first grade. Now that Nick is in college (and she has two additional sons) Saphier has some takeaways for other parents (and her younger self) including not trying to be everything at once. “When I’m in the hospital, I try not to think about my son’s upcoming soccer game; that’s not fair to my patients. When I’m at my son’s instrumental concert, I try not to look at biopsy results on my phone, because that’s also not fair. Everything has a time and a place.” Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary and current Fox News political commentator, writes about having her children after a preventive mastectomy in 2018 due to a positive BRCA 2 mutation. McEnany went through two pregnancies while living with the prospect of a cancer diagnosis and today has a son and daughter. She also writes about juggling the 2020 presidential campaign trail with a newborn, and how she handles her new role as a working mom. Her takeaway: “There will always be another task, another impossible deadline. My children are my biggest blessing and gift, and time slips away too fast. I don’t want to miss a minute of it,” she writes. Interspersed with entries by other Fox-moms are vignettes from Fox fans, who also share views on singular-yet-universal musings. “Mom doesn’t see herself as anything important,” writes Fox viewer Sandra Champlain about her mother, Marion. “But I know — and everyone who meets her knows, too — that she is a uniquely intuitive, insightful, caring, generous, loving person. She’s amazing, and she is my best friend.” Because, while motherhood is hard/frustrating/exasperating/fill in the blank, one thing is for sure: Sometimes moms need to be reminded that they’re never alone. — Anna Davies BUZZ BOOK: Toasting Mom sons) Saphier has some takeaways for other parents (and her younger self) intrying to be everything at once. “When I’m in the hospital, I try not to think about my son’s upcoming soccer game; that’s not fair to my patients. When I’m at my son’s instrumental concert, I try not to look at biopsy results on my phone, writes about having her children after a preventive mastectomy in 2018 due to a positive BRCA 2 mutation. McEnany went through two pregnancies while living with the prospect of a cancer diagnosis and a son and daughter. writes about juggling the 2020 presidential campaign trail with a newborn, and how she BUZZ BOOK: Toasting Mom by GLENN C. LOURY I N 2013, Brown University, where I am a professor of economics, invited New York City’s then -Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to give a lecture. Kelly had presided over a massive expansion of stop-andfrisk police tactics during his tenure, along with a host of other surveillance measures. At the time, I was a vociferous critic of America’s criminal-justice system and I was skeptical of stop-and-frisk. Under Kelly’s leadership, black New Yorkers were being stopped on the street and searched under the thinnest of pretexts. I had actually been detained by the NYPD in Harlem in 2010 while working as a visiting professor at Columbia, for the pretextual offense of “riding a bicycle on the sidewalk.” Regardless of my feelings about his policies, I wanted to hear what Kelly had to say. He was an extremely powerful figure at the forefront of a controversial development in policing and I wanted to hear his justification for these tactics. There was plenty I wanted to say back to him, too. And I had a prime spot near the front of the stage to ask questions during the Q&A. Kelly took the stage, but before he could get a word out, students in the audience began shouting him down. “Racism is not up for debate!” “No Justice! No Peace! No Racist Police!” “We’re asking you to stop frisking people!” The interruptions were met with scattered cheers. Marion Orr, the political-science professor who’d invited Kelly, asked the crowd to settle down and to wait for the Q&A, but the disruptions continued. After 15 minutes, it was clear that Kelly wouldn’t be allowed to speak, so he turned around and returned to New York. I was stunned. I’d attended plenty of raucous, contentious lectures, where members of the audience were clearly unhappy with the speaker. Hell, I’d even been the guy they were mad at! But whoever the speaker was, he needed to be heard out. Then, when the time came, whoever had the microphone could tell him just how wrong he was — and why. To shout down the speaker, to prevent him from presenting his argument, and to replace reasoned discourse with mob tactics was not what we did in the university. I had always prized academia as a place where even unpopular thinking could be examined and debated without fear of repression. Even abominable ideas needed to be analyzed and subjected to examination rather than passed over in silence or repressed entirely. How else could we be sure that we could understand these ideas? How could we know they were so bad unless we engaged with them ourselves? The free exchange of ideas is one of the foundations of the modern university, indeed of modern democratic society. Without that exchange, it seemed doubtful that we could have either. Brown’s president, Christina Paxson, immediately issued a statement condemning the protesters’ actions and reaffirming the university’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas. But when the university investigated the protesters, they were given a slap on the wrist and sent on their way. And worse, the university Getty Images produced a navel-gazing report which concluded that, while the protesters should not have disrupted Kelly’s lecture, the university should have taken into consideration Kelly’s presence at Brown. The commissioner, it seems, had the potential to “harm” students who had experienced trauma, possibly triggered by ideas like stop-and-frisk. In essence, the university was apologizing for doing exactly what it was supposed to do: expose its students to ideas and teach them how to formulate ideas of their own in response! A precedent was set. At universities around the country, when a controversial, almost always conservative figure was invited to give a lecture, they could find themselves met by protesters who saw it as their mission to make sure the event never took place. Activists and some members of the media refer to these tactics with the rather genteel term deplatforming. A more honest term would be censorship. In one sense, the students protesting Kelly’s appearance at Brown achieved their goal: he was silenced, and he left. But in another, more important sense, they missed the mark entirely: The reason for their protests — opposition to racially biased stop-and-frisk policing — was lost amid the controversy over their methods. The same pattern repeats itself today in the pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses across the nation. There are many reasons to oppose Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza and its dealings with the Palestinians. Yet the encampments and building occupations have once again turned the public’s attention to the protesters and their methods rather than the righteous cause the best of them represent. If these students, like those who opposed stop-and-frisk in 2013, want to bring about change in the way America goes about its business, they need to get out of their own way. Otherwise, 10 years hence, the public may remember the tents and the arrests while struggling to recall what all that sound and fury signified. That would be a shame. Glenn C. Loury is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of economics at Brown University, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of “Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative,” published by Norton next week, from which this essay is adapted. HISTORY LESSON How today’s college protesters are taking a page from the agitators of the past The most disruptive of Columbia University’s pro-Palestine activists are repeating the mistakes of past movements, by bringing more attention to their tactics than the actual cause.
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 45 fiffffflffifl 3 91 89 15 2 5 39 5132 978 3694 42 7 9 29 63 78 2 8 4563 8 9 45 1 2 76 952 42 1 2 89 3 5 5729 3 541 9 6 1 5 8 3 1 7 3 6 2 9 7 3 2 5 9 54 2 flfl ff “To the Contrary” By Dennis Nullet Across 1 Letters and such 5 S. Korean gaming spot 11 Boxing __ 15 Manager 19 Patron saint of sailors 20 Responsible (for) 21 Pay (up) 22 Doozy 23 Toys that may improve dexterity 24 Zombie armada? 27 Make grooves in 29 Baby’s noise 30 Winged figure in Christian art 31 Bad press? 38 Marsh plant 40 Salivation stimuli 41 Book after Joel 42 Rhubarb dessert 43 Object of veneration 44 New York Dolls genre 45 Dog’s bane 49 Scary place? 55 Ultradevoted fans 57 Fetch 58 Like a fashionable arrival 60 Shred 61 Grandmother, affectionately 62 Elk 65 Get in the way of 66 Mandible 69 Square dance halls? 72 Lounging spot 73 Good for growing 76 Elite groups 77 Disney queen whose powers are similar to Jack Frost’s 80 Traveler’s annoyance 81 Actress Jessica 82 Stay active 86 Implore 88 Faulty method? 92 Discombobulate 93 Bryn __: first U.S. college to offer graduate degrees to women 95 Lhasa __ 96 Many a noir hero 97 Top spot in Formula One 98 Says “hi” to 100 Word with rock or space 102 Instruction for putting away fishing tackle? 108 Tres plus cuatro 109 Irish actor Stephen 110 Color of corroded iron 113 Wash gardening clothes? 120 Capital of Fiji 121 “Bridgerton” actor __-Jean Page 122 Like a class presentation 123 Evening affair 124 Place to tie up 125 C in C 126 Yard border, perhaps 127 Hit on the green 128 Sister of King Charles III Down 1 Squad whose colors match the New York City flag 2 Scads 3 Like jumping without looking 4 On the wrong end of the score 5 Subject of a 2006 demotion 6 Movie theater 7 “Totally gnarly!” 8 Honor for David and Victoria Beckham: Abbr. 9 Iberian “Hello” 10 Rx order 11 Monopolized a conversation 12 With everything counted 13 Higher power? 14 “Golly!” 15 Mel who voiced Bugs Bunny 16 Intake opposite 17 Idle computer state 18 Belligerent 25 Finishes with buttercream, perhaps 26 __ and means 28 Hotshot 32 Exchange value 33 Miner’s dream 34 “Break a leg!” preceder 35 Milk sweetener 36 Elicit an “OMG!” 37 “Gladiator” setting 38 Prod 39 German “a” 44 Free 45 Resell quickly 46 Ran with ease 47 Many a musical composition by Czerny 48 Colorado town near Snowmass 50 Bald eagle, e.g. 51 Coastal inlet 52 Happening place? 53 Actor Peters of the “X-Men” franchise 54 “Silas Marner” author 56 Humerus locale 59 Malleable metal 62 Wright brother 63 Like many drones 64 Sleepover duds, for short 65 British __ 66 Sour from experience 67 Big 52-Down 68 Strauss piece 70 Actor Holbrook 71 Got ready to drive 74 Minimal 75 Strong alkaline solution 78 Job for many an action hero 79 Situp muscles 81 In the least 82 Elements in live edge wood slabs 83 Complete devastation 84 Soothsayer 85 Village People song covered by the Minions 87 Wild and crazy 89 First name in the freezer aisle 90 Perform first 91 Not new 94 “Straight Outta Lynwood” singer 97 Ballad penner 98 Gym closet contents 99 “Yes __!” 100 Gives the goahead 101 Poodle pampering place 102 Grab power 103 NFLer supported by Sourdough Sam 104 Yard border, perhaps 105 Natives of the Central Plains 106 Sam of “Jurassic Park” 107 Microwaved 111 “I can’t __” 112 Show gumption 114 “Please explain” 115 Time often named for a leader 116 Baking soda amt. 117 “__ do __” 118 Bon mot deliverer 119 Morsel Post SU DOKU You must put a number, from 1 to 9, in each empty box. Each number must appear once in each horizontal row, as well as in each vertical column and in each of the 3-by-3 grids. Super Su Doku, inside, multiplies the challenge — and your enjoyment. For that one, put a number from 1 to 12 in each empty box, making sure each number appears once in each horizontal row, as well as in each vertical column and in each of the 3- by-4 grids. Tips and in-depth strategies at www.SudokuWiki.org. For more Su Doku puzzles, see tomorrow’s New York Post. © Syndicated Puzzles Inc. All Sunday puzzle answers on Page 54 © 2020 Tribune Media Services Celebrity Pics of the Week / TV / Horoscope / Puzzles Sunday Break
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 46 fifffflffifl ffi ffl fifffflffiflff fi ff ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Åç ffiffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ç è è ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff êù ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff † † ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff† ç Åèffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ≠≠ Ä ≠≠ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff Çffi É èffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffÄ Ñ ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffiç èffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffê† Çê† ffffffffffffffffffffffÇè êÇè ffffffffffffffffffff ffiÇê† è ÖêÜffffffffffffffffffffffff Öêç ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffêÄ † ffffffffffffffffffffffff êÄ ç ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffÅffiÉ Ä ê ffffffffffffffffffffffffÇ É Ç ffffffffffffffffffffffÇ Ñ ÖÇffffffffffffffffffffffffff Åç Öffffffffffffffffffffffffff † †ffffffffffffffffffffffff ÖÇ Çê† ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffiè è ffi ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffi Åèffffffffffffffffffffffffffff ffiè † êÄ ffffffffffffffffffffffffff Ö ç ÖÅffffffffffffffffffffffffffffêÉ flffl flÅ çè ê fiùffièflÅ Next to “stalemate” and “endgame,” no technical chess term gets misused as much as “gambit.” A gambit is an opening that offers to sacrifice a pawn. When Beth Harmon played 1 d4 d5 2 c4 in “The Queen’s Gambit” TV series it was not a real gambit. Black could not safely hold onto the extra pawn for long after 2...dxc4. Yet a delayed …dxc4 is a genuine sacrifice in other openings -- none of them called a gambit. For example, the Catalan Opening in this week’s game shows how White would have had compensation for the lost pawn after 13 Ne5 followed by Rb1. But he allowed Black’s extra c-pawn to grow in power as it marched up the board to become a queen, e.g. 26 Bxd1 cxd1(Q). From the word or phrase above, form at least 35 five-letter words, without using more than one form of the same word. For example, drink or drank, not both. Sunday RELUCTANT Word Force War of words By Andy Soltis Chess fi fffflffifl fl fflffiffi fi 11 24 16 28 9 10 5 7 17 12 3 35 11 7 13 17 3 13 9 18 18 8 20 9 29 6 15 6 3 9 19 3 15 11 17 12 4 16 Place 1 to 9 in each white cell. To choose the right number, you need to work from the clues in around the edge. The numbers below the diagonal lines are the sums of the solutions in the white cells immediately beneath. The numbers above the divide are the sums of the solutions immediately to the right. Rows and columns do NOT have to be unique. All Sunday puzzle answers are on Page 54 Kakuro “I bought a microwave oven online,” Cy the Cynic told me, “and I messed up the transaction. They wanted a credit-card number, and I gave them the one on my organ-donor card by mistake.” “Did your oven come?” “I got it, but I’m afraid it’ll cost me an arm and a leg.” In a penny game, Cy was today’s South. He speculated by bidding a grand slam, hoping North held KQ5,8763,K2,9852 to jump to six spades. But when West led the queen of clubs, North put down a dummy with one more diamond and one fewer trump. The Cynic still had a chance. He ruffed and peeled off six rounds of trumps, pitching the remaining clubs and a diamond from dummy. West kept his three diamonds, and East saved all four hearts. Cy then cashed his A-K-Q of hearts and the K-A of diamonds, but he lost the 13th trick to West’s queen of diamonds. Cy’s play was costly -- to the tune of 2310 points. Cy must lead a trump to dummy at Trick Two, ruff a club, lead a trump to dummy and ruff a club. Then only West can guard against dummy’s last club. Cy next takes his high hearts and his last two trumps. With four tricks to go, dummy has a heart, a club and the K-4 of diamonds; Cy has a trump and A-9-5 of diamonds. When he leads his last trump, West must pitch a diamond, saving a high club. Dummy discards the club. Then East must pitch a diamond to save his high heart, and Cy takes the K-A of diamonds and wins the 13th trick with his nine. Any lead but a club or the queen of diamonds beats seven spades. fifffflffifl fi ffl fifffflffifl ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ ffi ffi ♠ ♠ ♥ ♥ ♦ ♦ ♣ ♣ ff ffifl ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ fi fi ♣ Å fiffi Å ♠ Å ♠ Å ♦ Å ♠ Å ♠ çç Å ffèêù ç† ≠ ♣ ffl ffffiffi Bridge Each row and each column must contain the numbers 1 through 4 (easy) or 1 through 6 (challenging) without repeating. The numbers within the heavily outlined boxes, called cages, must combine using the given operation (in any order) to produce the target numbers in the top-left corners. Freebies: Fill in single-box cages with the number in the top-left corner. KENKEN
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 47 fifffflffiflffififfffl Å ç è ê ç ù Å Å ç fl èfl †≠≠ÄÇ flÉffififf≠ fl †≠≠ÄÇ ùfiffffi fflÉÄÇ fi ff ffl ffi fl ff †≠≠ÄÇ Å Ñ fiç ÖÜÖá Ñ fiç à ffi É ÄÄç É fl fl âç † àâ Äç Ñ äÅÅ ã fl åéÖÖá fl éåéë í éÜééåÜ í Çê ìé éÜÜ í ù îé ìÜ í ≠ Öé îÜ í fl éé ÖÜ í É Ü éÜ í ffi î í é á í Ö å í î ì í á ï í ì ñ í éÜ óë í éå † † † † ò ôô ç Å ö fl Éffi ÄÇÉfflffi fflÇõÇff fiõÇÄÇffiffiÇfl úÉúúÉÄffl Å ç ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû ûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûûû fifffflffifl ôô Ñ ç ò ôô â †fffflç àâ Äç Ñ fifffflffifl ff ffi fi fl fl fl fl fl éç ú Öç ìç ffl îç ä ûûûû ä ñç Ñ áç à ééç fi ïç † óç Ñ åç ff ffl éÖç ûûûû éÜç Ç õ ffl Ç É fl Ä ff ffl Ç Ç Ä à ffl à ff Ç Ç ffl fl fl Ä É Ç ff Ç ú ffl Ç fl Ç Ä õ Ñ fi fl fl à É ff É Ñ Ä fl É ffl Ä à Ç É Ñ ü Ç fl Ç † É à ú ú Ñ ÖÜÖá ffi É ÄÄç ° Ñ àç É fl fl â fiff fi ff ffl ffi fifl fifi fi fl ffi ûûûû ûûûû Å éé ç All Sunday puzzle answers are on Page 54 MATHEMATICS SOLUTION: 7 LETTERS fi fffflffffi fl BMCMU M I N I MH T I R OG L A T T AEYAS Z EROY T I L I BABORP ST LRA E XRYMS E PAHS T A I D EH I GA C R E O V A L UE OP NRGN LONUN R CU L E B B OL E S E ROU CD DMG A B U S P H A UC F T U E NO R I E E L E I E R AMT NON L S COP I M R N E Q O R G A E O R E E I U T MM CE AT S U I MT L CMCN F NB A EO ONNOD A TME E A Y LOD E T N TC MS GT D L A E X T F R RC E A RGRO P I EAO X RP I SRMCVCRA L YN UOS L I A ROR NU Y ES ROC E ND T N MM U E N E O L S N S S E T T V O I AS UQS S BMA EM I RP A C I E I T TMSS YMME T R I C EA S AO L T I I S I SUOSROTCE VCE FNN I O OO TN C A L C U L U S NE E RGE DN NE CN E R E FMUCR I COUN T DA MA RGO L E L L A R A P L A T E R A L First read the list of words, then look at the puzzle. The words are in all directions - vertically, horizontally, diagonally, backward. Circle each letter of a word found and strike it off the list. The letters are often used more than once, so do not cross them out. It’s best to find the big words first. When you find all the words listed in the clues, you’ll have a number of letters left over that spell out the Wonderword. Absolute, Accuracy, Addition, Algebra, Algorithm, Angles, Arc Second, Argument, Base, Calculus, Center, Circle, Circumference, Common, Complex, Compound, Computation, Concept, Conditional, Cone, Count, Cylinder, Decrease, Degree, Dimensions, Equal, Even, Expression, Factor, Formula, Geometry, Inverse, Lateral, Level, Linear, Maximum, Measure, Method, Minimum, Numbers, Odds, Parallelogram, Prime, Probability, Range, Ratio, Rectangle, Rule, Shapes, Space, Square, Subtraction, Sums, Surface, Symmetric, System, Table, Theorem, Total, Transformations, Triangle, Trigonometry, Value, Vectors, Zero Wonderword 6 5 4 9 7 1 11 10 6 11 8 12 12 3 5 4 9 1 6 10 12 7 3 9 5 11 4 2 7 10 3 4 8 11 2 8 6 9 11 7 12 5 4 8 4 5 11 7 12 10 3 9 2 5 6 12 8 Super Su Doku
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 48 Snaps By Maude Campbell, Tori Schneebaum & Donna Grace madonna/Instagram Christopher Peterson / SplashNews.com Charles Wenzelberg / New York Post rainnwilson/Instagram
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 49 Sunday Break SplashNews.com marthastewarrt48/InstagramJojo Korsh/BFA.com/Shutterstock Getty Images for Orebella
New York Post, Sunday, May 12, 2024 nypost.com 50 REUTERS GC Images GC Images officiallymcconaughey/Instagram Snaps