I had no idea there was such a long and complicated debate over who owns Liberty Island and its crown jewel, the Statue of Liberty. Thank goodness CGP Grey is here to explain it all to us! Get a beverage and have a seat, it's quite a story. Read the rest

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS STORY, AND WILL BE UPDATED. Authorities in New York are holding a press conference on 7 or more suspicious packages, some of which contained pipe bombs, sent to political targets, mostly in New York state. On the face of it, the coordinated attack appears to be an attempt to assassinate up to 7 different perceived political enemies of President Donald Trump. Read the rest

The FCC justified its Net Neutrality-killing order by claiming that comments it received showed strong public support for dismantling the rules that stop your ISP from deciding which parts of the internet you get to use; but it was widely reported that the comments in the Net Neutrality docket were flooded by bots that opposed Net Neutrality, using names and personal information from stolen identities of dead people, sitting US senators, journalists and millions of others. Read the rest

New York is a great city that has been hollowed out by real-estate speculation, where the conversion of housing to safe-deposit boxes in the sky has pushed out the city's people and the city's businesses, who can't compete with financiers and oligarchs who value property as an investment, rather than as part of the fabric of a city. Read the rest

This summer, Charter Communications was ordered to leave New York State, reversing its acquisition of Time Warner Cable and selling off the assets; the move came after the cable company broke its promises to expand broadband access in the state to less-profitable markets and then repeatedly lied to state authorities about. Read the rest

"Today is kind of a sucky day," Village Voice owner Peter Barbey told newspaper staff in a phone call Friday. "Due to, basically, business realities, we're going to stop publishing Village Voice new material.” Read the rest

There is no Santa Claus, Lassie was played by nine different dogs over the years and, according to a recent lawsuit filed in New York, there isn’t any ginger in Canada Dry Ginger Ale.

From USA Today:

In the federal lawsuit filed July 10 in Buffalo, Julie Fletcher contends that Canada Dry and its parent company, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc. are misleading customers. "In truth, DPSG’s soft drink is not made from real ginger," reads the lawsuit filed by Fletcher, who lives in Bolivar, Allegany County.

"Instead, Canada Dry Ginger Ale is made from carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, preservatives and 'natural flavors,' i.e., a flavor compound comprised predominately of flavor extracts not derived from ginger, and a minuscule amount of a ginger flavor extract."

Nothing is sacred.

Apparently, Fletcher’s beef with the beverage is that she’d been buying it for her kids to drink whenever they got sick, assuming that the ginger in the drink’s name meant there was ginger in its bottle. The vendetta she swore against Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc began when she learned that “…he products that she purchased were not made from real ginger, but were instead made from a minuscule amount of a ginger flavor extract, which does not contain any of the health benefits of real ginger."

Oh, the rage.

Look, Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine and 7-Up came spiked with lithium citrate up until 1948 (it was originally called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. They, along with ginger ales, were served up as tonics at the soda shops baked into pharmacies back in the late 19th and early 20th century. Read the rest

After NYPD Sgt. Richard Blake shot Thavone Santana in the face during a confrontation, we were told a terrifying story of being threatened and mugged early Thursday on the mean streets of Brooklyn. Unfortunately for Blake, a nearby video camera captured him drawing his gun, shooting someone who was trying to move away from him, then dropping a knife near his unconscious body.

Blake paces back and forth, then appears to pat down Santana’s pockets. He then appears to take a sheathed knife from his own back pocket, the New York Times reported, slides it from its sheath and drops it next to Santana’s crumpled body. He then pauses for a moment and retrieves the knife, the video shows.

The New York Police Department said Thursday that Santana was in stable condition.

“The video captures actions that raise serious questions and require further investigation,” Detective Sophia Mason, a department spokeswoman, told The Washington Post in a statement. Blake was placed on administrative duty, the department said. The Times reported that he was stripped of his badge and service weapon.

Santana is in intensive care. Locals say the men were in an ongoing dispute over a woman. Blake, the New York Daily News reports, was recently suspended from the force after "punching his girlfriend in the face." What a charmer. Read the rest

Zephyr Teachout (previously) isn't just an expert on antitrust law and corruption, and isn't merely a netroots pioneer who has been on the right side of every technology policy fight since the Gore years -- she's also running to be the Attorney General of the State of New York, from which position she plans on gutting Trump on his corrupt business practices, targeting him using the dread emoluments clause. Read the rest

Spoiler alert: to steal from prisoners and their families. Read the rest

Update: New York State has revoked its approval of the Charter/Time-Warner merger and has ordered the company to finalize plans to sell off the Time-Warner assets within 60 days.

When Charter merged with Time Warner Cable, it promised the state of New York that it would expand its broadband network. It didn't actually do that, though it continued to report great progress on the project, which was a lot cheaper than actually making progress. Read the rest

Through a mix of archival and current footage, this lovely documentary puts Milton Glaser's iconic I ❤ NY logo in historical context. Read the rest

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a community organizer from the Bronx who is challenging New York Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley for the party nomination; she's a Bernie Sanders-affiliated left-wing Democrat who raised $200,000 to challenge Crowley's $1.6m war-chest. Read the rest

Next year, high schools in Lockport New York will use the "Aegis" CCTV and facial recognition system to track and record the interactions of students suspected of code of conduct violations, keeping a ledger of who speaks to whom, where, and for how long. Read the rest

Fact: The only thing that smells worse than your poop is tons of other people's poop. If you don't believe me, take a road trip to the town of Parrish, Alabama. They'll back me up on this one: According to the Associated Press, the citizens of Parrish were forced to endure the stench pouring off a train full of  sewer sludge from New York and New Jersey for close to two months.

It's not unusual for trains full of human waste to pass through the town of 982 people: there's a landfill complex that treats and disposes of the excrement another 20 miles further down the track. Having the train stop in town to share its intoxicating perfume for two months? That's both unreasonable and unusual. It seems that another county in Alabama blocked the train's passage, making it impossible for it to reach its final destination. So, there it sat in Parrish: like a man in the bathroom after a large, questionable meal, full of poop, making everything terrible for everyone. NPR states that the train was stopped near a local park. The odor coming off of it was so bad that little league games had to be cancelled.

After two months of having to put up with the stench ruining the lives of everyone in the town, in mid-April, the Mayor of Parrish was finally able to tell her constituents that it was finally moving on. The town's administration will be looking into passing a series of by-laws to keep similar incidents from happening again. Read the rest

Suffolk County District Judge Robert Cicale is facing up to 15 years in prison after he was caught breaking into the home of a neighbor and stealing a 23-year-old woman's dirty underwear; the judge says he was gripped by an "urge," and his lawyer assured the press that his client's "reputation throughout the court is stellar. Every judge, every lawyer respects him." Read the rest

Donald Trump's budget sought to punish blue states by removing income tax deductions for mortgage interest on high-ticket real estate; this was enough to prick the Manhattan property bubble, with co-op and condo sales volume dropping 25% year-on-year for Q1/18; the majority of red ink is in the luxury property market, where Q1 prices fell 15% year-on-year. Read the rest