Tag: new york

‘Sect and the city’: Striking photo shows bosses of ‘orgasm cult’ OneTaste leave NYC courthouse with female entourage, after two of them were charged with forcing women into sex acts

It made for a glamorous change to the usual perp walk outside Brooklyn Federal Court.

The founder and the ex-sales boss at ‘orgasmic meditation cult’ OneTaste dressed to impress as they appeared with an entourage of supporters to face charges of forcing women into sex acts and keeping them in ‘residential warehouses‘.

But there were no grimy mugshots for Nicole Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz as they faced down photographers outside the New York courthouse for a procedural hearing on Thursday. 

Their San Francisco based company was making $12million a year from their sexual disfunction treatments for women which included being genitally massaged by a man with a latex glove.

It won praise from celebrities including Gwyneth Paltrow and Khloe Kardashian, and welcomed 35,000 people to its events in 2018.

But the FBI began investigating in November that year after ex-customers came forward saying they were left in debt after paying for expensive classes, and former employees said they were ordered to have sex with potential investors.

Former staffer Ayries Blanck filed a lawsuit against the company in August of 2015, claiming they subjected her to a ‘hostile work environment, sexual harassment, failure to pay minimum wage and intentional infliction of emotional distress’.

But she was counter-sued by the group for breaking a non-disclosure agreement when she contributed to the 2022 Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste in 2022.

Blanck’s sister Autymn repeated allegations that OneTaste ‘condoned violence’ and ‘found strangers to rape her’.

Prosecutors say that Daedone and former head of sales Rachel Cherwitz deployed a series of abusive and manipulative tactics against volunteers, contractors, and employees.

They also claim the duo rendered OneTaste members dependent on the group for their shelter and basic necessities and limited their independence and control.

The company operated in 39 cities including New York, San Francisco, Denver, Las Vegas, Boulder, Los Angeles, Austin and London, but some former customers alleged that they were ‘raped’ after becoming involved in the company, with one telling the BBC she was attacked by a man called ‘Jake’.

The company closed all of their US locations in 2018 halting all in-person classes, and Anjuli Ayer, who became CEO in 2017 is not facing charges.

But she told Dailymail.com last year the allegations are ‘totally false’, and that consent is the ‘first thing’ they teach.

‘I did not anticipate a five-year snowballed media campaign of negative allegations against us,’ she added.

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The US Has Failed to Pass AI Regulation. New York City Is Stepping Up

AS THE US federal government struggles to meaningfully regulate AI—or even function—New York City is stepping into the governance gap.

The city introduced an AI Action Plan this week that mayor Eric Adams calls a first of its kind in the nation. The set of roughly 40 policy initiatives is designed to protect residents against harm like bias or discrimination from AI. It includes development of standards for AI purchased by city agencies and new mechanisms to gauge the risk of AI used by city departments.

New York’s AI regulation could soon expand still further. City council member Jennifer Gutiérrez, chair of the body’s technology committee, today introduced legislation that would create an Office of Algorithmic Data Integrity to oversee AI in New York.

If established, the office would provide a place for citizens to take complaints about automated decisionmaking systems used by public agencies, functioning like an ombudsman for algorithms in the five boroughs. It would also assess AI systems before deployment by the city for bias and discrimination.

Several US senators have suggested creating a new federal agency to regulate AI earlier this year, but Gutiérrez says she’s learned that there’s no point in waiting for action in Washington, DC. “We have a unique responsibility because a lot of innovation lives here,” she says. “It’s really important for us to take the lead.”

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Large Underground Hidden Tunnel Found in New York State

Some of these ‘hidden’ tunnels in New York State were part of the underground railroad or from prohibition and you have to see these pictures.

If there was a hidden tunnel under your house, you would be super surprised. Maybe even scared to know where it goes to, but here in the Buffalo area there are quite a few of these ‘hidden tunnels’. These are pretty crazy. You have to see some of these pictures below.

Bartel Miller, a Buffalonian posted in the Facebook group, Buffalo, A Toast to the town about places where all of these very, very old tunnels in Buffalo could be found. There were quite a few people who have been arrested around town that say they have walked the tunnel to the Holding Center and they say that it is, in fact, creepy.

Where else are there some underground not-so-hidden tunnels?

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Migrant family with two young children camp in the freezing cold outside the NYC offices of billionaire George Soros, 93, who poured at least $47 million into backing loose immigration policies and open border

A migrant family with two young children have camped in the freezing cold outside the New York City offices of billionaire George Soros, 93, who poured at least $47 million into backing loose immigration policies and open borders.

Shocking footage captures the woman and two young children sitting on the busy sidewalk outside the headquarters of the Open Society Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by far-left billionaire Soros in Midtown Manhattan.

Consultant Jason Curtis Anderson, who shared the video on X, formerly Twitter, stated that the mother, an Asian migrant, has been there with her two babies for more than a week.

Anderson, who works nearby, wrote alongside the video: ‘An Asian immigrant and her two small children currently live on the sidewalk in front of the NYC headquarters of Open Society Foundation.’

The family’s presence on the streets of Manhattan came as city officials have struggled to accommodate migrants surging from the U.S.-Mexico border, with thousands sleeping in tents outside the city’s largest migrant shelter.

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Judge orders release of ‘Newburgh Four’ defendant and blasts FBI’s role in terror sting

A man convicted in a post-9/11 terrorism sting was ordered freed from prison by a judge who criticized the FBI for relying on an “unsavory” confidential informant for an agency-invented conspiracy to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down National Guard planes.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Friday granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison six months after she ordered the release of his three co-defendants, known as the Newburgh Four, for similar reasons. The four men from the small river city 60 miles (97 kilometers) north of New York City were convicted of terrorism charges in 2010.

Cromitie has served 15 years of his 25-year minimum sentence. The New York-based judge ordered Cromitie’s sentence to be reduced to time served plus 90 days.

Prosecutors in the high-profile case said the Newburgh defendants spent months scouting targets and securing what they thought were explosives and a surface-to-air missile, aiming to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base in Newburgh and blow up synagogues in the Bronx. They were arrested after allegedly planting “bombs” that were packed with inert explosives supplied by the FBI.

Critics have accused federal agents of entrapping a group men who were down on their luck after doing prison time.

In a scathing ruling, McMahon wrote that the FBI invented the conspiracy and identified the targets. Cromitie and his codefendants, she wrote, “would not have, and could not have, devised on their own” a criminal plot involving missiles.

“The notion that Cromitie was selected as a ‘leader’ by the co-defendants is inconceivable, given his well-documented buffoonery and ineptitude,” she wrote.

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NY unveils first rules for growing marijuana at home: How you can cultivate cannabis

This will take home gardens to new highs.

New York State cannabis regulators on Tuesday unveiled the first rules for budding growers to legally plant pot at home.

Stoners with a green thumb — and over the age of 21 — will be able to cultivate a maximum of six mature marijuana plants and posses up to five pounds of flower or concentrate from those buds per household.

The state Cannabis Control Board was scheduled to discuss the rules Wednesday but postponed the vote for a later date.

Following their approval, there would be a 60 day public comment period before the rules can go into effect.

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Squad member Jamaal Bowman on slave reparations – says he wants ALL 42 MILLION black Americans to get $333,000 and reveals ‘creative ways’ to pay them

A New York lawmaker is calling for every black person in the US to receive $333,000 as reparations for slavery.

Jamaal Bowman is among nine backers of federal bill H.R. 414, which states there is a ‘moral and legal obligation’ to make restitution to the descendants of slaves.

The legislation would force the government to distribute $14 trillion between almost 42 million black Americans.

The figure is based on academics’ estimates of the amount the US benefited from forced labor between 1619 and the end of slavery in 1865, according to the bill.

Yonkers representative Bowman, a member of the so-called ‘Squad’ of young controversial Democrats in Congress, also suggested ‘creative’ ways of paying, including staggering the payments over a number of years.

He also claims the federal government’s response to the pandemic and the space race prove it has the capacity for the program. 

‘When COVID was destroying us, we invested in the American people in a way that kept the economy afloat,’ Bowman told the Journal News. ‘The government can invest the same way in reparations without raising taxes on anyone.’

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Midwife Who Falsified Vaccine Records for More Than 1,000 School Children Fined $300,000

A New York midwife has been fined after falsifying the vaccination records of more than 1,000 school children after administering them and others oral pellets which she falsely claimed were a viable alternative to vaccines.

Jeanette Breen, a licensed midwife who operated a clinic in Nassau County, gave thousands of the pellets to the children since 2019, the New York State Department of Health’s Bureau of Investigations found, per a press release. 

Breen’s “scheme” started in the 2019-2020 school year as she began administering “a series of oral pellets” as an alternative to vaccines. The “homeopathic pellets” she administered are “not authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nor approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the Department as an immunizing agent against any disease,” per the Health Department. 

Among the vaccinations she falsified include tetanus, hepatitis B, measles and polio. 

Breen was determined to have broken the state’s Immunization Registry Law and was fined $300,000 as a penalty by the Health Department.

In a statement, State Education Commissioner Betty A. Rosa said that they are “committed to upholding the highest standards of health and well-being within our educational institutions.”

“By intentionally falsifying immunization records for students, this licensed health care professional not only endangered the health and safety of our school communities but also undermined public trust,” Rosa’s statement continued. “We are pleased to have worked with our partners in government to bring this wrongdoer to justice.”

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FAMILIES OF PEOPLE KILLED BY NYPD BRACE FOR ERIC ADAMS TO VETO CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM BILLS

A SMALL GROUP OF organizers rallied outside of New York City Hall on Wednesday to call on Mayor Eric Adams not to veto a series of bills that would ban the use of solitary confinement in city jails and increase oversight over police stops and searches. 

The push by grassroots reform groups to ban solitary confinement comes in response to a surge in recent years of deaths in city jails, including several cases of people who had been detained in solitary confinement. Families of people killed as a result of stops by New York Police Department officers have also urgedOpens in a new tab the mayor to sign the policing measures into law. 

Advocates and officials working on the reforms expect Adams, who has publicly opposedOpens in a new tab the bills, to vetoOpens in a new tab at least two of the measures this week. He has until Friday to do so, or the measures will pass into law. 

The battle pits a pro-police mayor, an NYPD veteran himself, against a progressive City Council, which approvedOpens in a new tab the three billsOpens in a new tab last month by large marginsOpens in a new tab during its last meetingOpens in a new tab of 2023. The fight is the latest in a well-trod pattern of centrist Democrats or Republicans fighting back against popular and democratically enacted welfare reforms. In New York, City Council leaders and members said they have the votes to override the mayor’s veto.

“We are prepared to override the mayor’s veto,” council member Crystal Hudson, who sponsored a bill to strengthen laws around consenting to a search, told The Intercept. “The City Council is the city’s legislative body. The body has spoken.” The council would have 30 days from a mayoral veto to issue an override. 

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New York Governor Proposes Repealing Marijuana Potency Tax To Reduce Costs And Combat Illicit Market

The governor of New York is calling for the elimination of a THC potency tax as part of her executive budget, aiming to reduce costs for consumers in a way that could make the regulated market more competitive against illicit operators.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) budget proposal for the 2025 fiscal year would repeal the potency tax and replace it with a wholesale excise tax of 9 percent in a way that “simplifies, streamlines, and reduces the tax collection obligations and burden for cultivators, processors, and distributors.”

Cannabis would also still be subject to the existing 9 percent state retail excise tax and four percent local retail excise tax. The changes are estimated to effectively drive down the total tax rate on marijuana from an average 38 percent to 22 percent.

For vertically-integrated medical cannabis operators and microbusinesses, the new wholesale excise tax would accrue on the final retail sale to consumers and be imposed on 75 percent of the final retail sales price, the governor’s proposal says.

The briefing book for the budget says the tax changes would “promote and support the expansion of the legal adult-use cannabis market” and also result in a “net positive impact” of $6.5 million for localities.

But by reducing costs for consumers and businesses, the tax policy reform could also help the administration and regulators address one of their top priorities: driving out the illicit market.

While licensing of legal marijuana businesses has rolled out slowly amid litigation, New York has been dealing with a proliferation of hundreds of unregulated cannabis shops with prices that are generally lower because the operators don’t concern themselves with excise taxes and abiding by other regulations that increase costs.

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