Tag: new york

The girl who never came back: New York socialite who vanished in 1910 is America’s oldest missing persons case – here are the top theories about her disappearance

Dorothy Arnold was 25 when she disappeared from her Upper East Side mansion with today’s equivalent of $1,000 on an icy Monday morning in December 1910. 

The eldest daughter of perfume importer Francis R Arnold left her jewelry and passport at home and strolled towards Central Park, never to be seen again, according to The Charley Project which tracks missing persons cases. 

Her disappearance has stumped detectives for more than 100 years, making her case the oldest recorded missing persons case in American history and what the Times has called ‘one of New York’s greatest mysteries’. 

‘A hundred years later, I don’t expect any kind of resolution,’ Jane Vollmer, Dorothy’s great-niece told the National Geographic last month. 

Full name Dorothy Harriet Camille Arnold, the socialite’s last words to her mother were ‘I’ll telephone you’ as she stepped out of their Manhattan mansion on East 79th Street. 

Arnold gave different accounts of her plans for the day to different people – telling one friend she was shopping with her mother, and her mother that she wanted to go by herself. 

She set off toward Fifth Avenue and stopped at the Park and Tilford’s candy store where she paid for some chocolates using her father’s credit card at 1.45pm. The clerk told investigators at the time that she had appeared to be in high spirits. 

Arnold went on to purchase a book at Brentano’s on 27th and Fifth, before bumping into a friend who she chatted with for a few minutes, telling them she was headed for Central Park. 

Her mother waited to meet her for lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel that day, but she never turned up. 

When she didn’t return home that night, the family grew concerned. Fearing bad publicity from contacting the police, they hired a private investigator.   

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Fight Erupts When City Takes Private Property for ‘Park’

A fight has erupted over a decision by the Long Island town of Southold to take private property that the owners of a chain of hardware stores bought for a new location.

The problem is that the town took the land against the wishes of the owners using eminent domain, but it had no legitimate reason for doing that.

According to officials at the Institute for Justice, that’s known because the city insisted it needed the land for a “park,” but that turned out to be a “passive park” with no cleanup, no improvements, and the remnants of an old home and greenhouse left there.

The IJ explained, ‘When every legal effort to stop someone from using their property has failed, can the government simply take the land using eminent domain? That is the question at the heart of a new U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by a family-owned hardware store business whose property was taken by a small Long Island town.”

It is the Brinkmann family whose members already have five Long Island stores and obtained the Southold property for another.

“The town did everything it could to stop construction. After failing to drive the Brinkmanns away by attempting to interfere with the Brinkmanns’ land purchase, then imposing an exorbitant fee for a market impact study that the town never performed after being paid, and even deploying a selectively enforced moratorium on building permits to stifle the Brinkmanns’ permit application; the town voted to take the land by eminent domain for a park,” the IJ said.

At the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the judges said, “the government can take your property for almost any reason at all—including because it just doesn’t like you—so long as the government lies about why it is using eminent domain,” explained IJ lawyer Jeff Redfern.

“This is a dangerous precedent, and the Supreme Court should take this opportunity to clarify that it is unconstitutional to use eminent domain in bad faith, simply to stop someone from making a lawful use of their property.”

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New York governor proposes face-mask ban to combat anti-Semitism

New York state’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed a legislative ban on face masks on the NYC subway system to combat acts of anti-Semitism, claiming criminals are concealing their identities using the face coverings.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, New York had a law banning face masks in public. However, that rule was suspended in 2020 in light of the pandemic and the city’s authorities made face coverings mandatory for all subway riders until September 2022.

Speaking to reporters during a news conference in Albany on Thursday, Hochul stated that she was in talks with lawmakers over details of a bill once again banning masks, noting that the policy has to be clearly defined to include “common-sense exemptions” for the use of face masks for health, cultural or religious purposes. 

“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul said, adding that her team is “working on a solution.”

The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, had also mentioned reviving some version of a mask ban and returning to the way things were before the pandemic, insisting that people should not be able to wear masks at protests.

Hochul explained that she was moved to propose the ban after receiving a report earlier this week about a group of people donning face masks that “took over a subway car, scaring riders and chanting things about Hitler and wiping out Jews.”

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New York Senators Call For Investigation Of State’s Marijuana Social Equity Fund After Exposé Of ‘Predatory Deals’

Citing an investigation by THE CITY, two state senators have called for New York’s social equity cannabis fund to cease issuing loans to dispensary operators and for any “trapped in these predatory deals to be made whole.”

“What this story describes is not a social equity fund. We must get to the bottom of this,” State Sens. Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) and Gustavo Rivera (D-The Bronx) asserted in a joint statement that pointed to the high interest rates and start-up costs highlighted in the article.

They called for an investigation by the state’s inspector general of the public–private fund, which was designed to finance a form of reparation for people whose lives had been disrupted by decades of racially discriminatory drug laws.

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The office has repeatedly refused to answer detailed questions from THE CITY seeking greater clarity about the fund’s operations.

THE CITY’s investigation found that officials of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, or OCM, had repeatedly warned the governor’s office for months about how the cannabis investment fund was being managed. They raised red flags about how dispensary operators were being loaded with steep costs and trapped in loans with strict terms that they believed were likely to lead to defaults. And OCM’s own counsel warned in an email that the licensees would likely default on their loans under the proposed terms.

The story was based on more than 500 internal agency emails, memos and presentations from July 2022 to July 2023 when the state was having trouble opening more than just a handful of dispensaries.

Calling the fund’s practices “unscrupulous,” the legislators said, “We must take action to redress these loan agreements.”

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New York Rolls Out Digital IDs Following New Online Digital ID Law

It’s surely just a coincidence that New York has passed its online digital ID law, just as the state has joined the ranks of states adopting mobile ID technology, enabling residents to convert their traditional driver’s licenses or non-driver IDs into digital formats.

As of this week, New Yorkers can download the New Longyear Mobile ID app from both the Apple App Store and Google Play. This digital version allows users to verify their identity at airports and other locations requiring ID. To set up their mobile ID, users must initially scan both sides of their existing physical ID card using their smartphone.

The launch was unveiled at a media event at LaGuardia Airport, where Robert Duffy, the federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration, and other officials were present. During the briefing, it was stated that the introduction of mobile IDs is a significant step towards modernizing identity security and airport screening processes. Officials highlighted the optional nature of the digital IDs, noting they offer greater convenience without being mandatory.

Currently, there is no mandatory requirement for businesses or law enforcement to accept mobile IDs, and acceptance is entirely voluntary. Businesses, including bars, may begin accepting mobile IDs immediately, provided they install a state-sanctioned verifier application.

According to a press release from Governor Kathy Hochul’s office, the New York Mobile ID app is operational in nearly 30 airports nationwide, including all terminals at LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports. New York is now among a growing list of states such as Arizona, Colorado, and Utah that have embraced mobile driver’s licenses.

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New York Passes Online Age Verification Digital ID Law

Lawmakers in New York have passed the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act and the Child Data Protection Act.

Assembly Bill A8148A and Senate Bill S7694A (that became the SAFE Act) were introduced as aiming to prevent social platforms from showing minors “addictive” (i.e., algorithmically manipulated) feeds, among a host of other provisions.

Parental consent is now required for children to have access to the latter versions of the feeds – which in turn means that the controversial age verification for adults must be introduced into the mix.

The new rules will not prohibit children from searching for particular keywords but social platforms will not be able to send notifications to their phones “regarding addictive feeds” from midnight to 6 am – again, this will be possible, but only with parental consent.

Could this be the true impetus behind the two bills – to usher in age verification and digital ID, some skeptics might wonder.

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Judge Alerts Trump, Manhattan DA of Possible Jury Confidentiality Breach

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on June 7 alerted counsel for former President Donald Trump and the Manhattan District Attorney of a potential juror confidentiality breach.

“Today, the Court became aware of a comment that was posted on the Unified Court System’s public Facebook page and which I now bring to your attention,” Justice Merchan wrote in a letter.

“In the comment, the user, ‘Michael Anderson,’ states: ‘My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted  Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!!’”

The post was made on May 29, the day the jury began deliberations, one day before the guilty verdict on May 30.

The comment had been made on a post unrelated to Justice Merchan’s courtroom, for the appellate division in the New York Supreme Court.

The comment, and others made by the user on the New York Courts Facebook page, have since been deleted. They came from an account describing itself as a “professional [expletive] poster,” raising questions about the validity of the comment.

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NY Dem Suggests Trump Supporters Need ‘Re-education Camps’ Following ‘MAGA Nightmare’

A Democrat running for Congress in New York suggested that supporters of Donald Trump might need to be subjected to “re-education camps.”

Paula Collins argued during a heated Zoom Townhall meeting that these camps would “put it all together again” after enduring what she described as a “MAGA nightmare.”

Her remarks came while discussing the aftermath of the 2024 election.

“Even if we were to have a resounding blue wave come through, as many of us would like, putting it all back together again after we’ve gone through this MAGA nightmare and re-educating basically, which, that sounds like a rather, a re-education camp,” Collins said.

“I don’t think we really want to call it that,” she added. “I’m sure we can find another way to phrase it.”

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New York’s “SAFE” Digital ID Act For Kids Threatens Online Free Speech and Privacy

Legislators in the state of New York are pushing two new bills to regulate the internet, specifically as it pertains to the way minors use social media – Assembly Bill A8148A and Senate Bill S7694A.

If it succeeds, the law would be the first of its kind in the US, and likely represent a blueprint for other states.

But both acts, dubbed Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids, have drawn criticism for bringing up constitutional issues tied to First Amendment rights.

Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers are said to be close on agreeing on the text of the bills, which are presented as designed to prohibit tech platforms from providing addictive feeds to minors (replacing them with content shown in chronological order), and monetizing their data, among other things.

But how would these platforms ascertain if somebody’s a minor? By requiring that their parents go through the digital ID age verification before they can provide consent on behalf of their children to use a particular social network in a particular way.

And this is where the legislative intent goes against the First Amendment, critics say, as having all online activity tied to a government-issued ID chills free speech and opens data privacy issues.

Somewhat ironically, given their open disregard of the First Amendment in other scenarios, those critics include some of the biggest tech companies.

Constitution and freedom of expression aside – their bottom lines would suffer if the bills pass, and so they find themselves as (no doubt, for both parties) uneasy bedfellows with those who consistently campaign against age verification, manipulated feeds, and data harvesting.

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Gilgo Beach serial killer suspect studied ‘Mindhunter’ book like ‘homework’, typed planning notes on Microsoft Word, and murdered woman as far back as 1993: Docs

Prosecutors in the Suffolk County, New York, confirmed Thursday that the suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer has been formally accused of two more murders, but the bail application to make extra certain that Rex Heuermann remains behind bars also provided details that are chilling in their implications.

Heuermann, now 60, was infamously arrested last summer on the strength of discarded pizza crust and DNA evidence that allegedly linked him to male hairs found on the victims, of whom there are now six.

The Manhattan architect, already accused of murdering Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, Amber Costello, 27, and Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, in the late 2000s and 2010 on Long Island, has since been indicted in the 2003 slaying of Jessica Taylor, 20, and the 1993 murder of Sandra Costilla, 28.

Simply put, the link between Heuermann and a murder from the early 1990s, when he would have been around 30 years old, raises the distinct possibility that, if he really is who prosecutors say he is, there’s no telling how far back the serial killings largely targeting sex workers may go or how many victims there might be.

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