Celia
@celiayoung.bsky.social
Reporting for Newsday Words at @hellgatenyc.com @nytimes.com Brick Underground @nygroove.nyc @commercialobserver.bsky.social @w42st.bsky.social @madison_mag @MKEBizJournal Opinions are few and mine (s/h)
Bruce Blakeman’s ex-wife — who left him and then married! Paul! McCartney! — donated $18k to Kathy Hochul’s reelection campaign www.newsday.com/long-island/...
Bruce Blakeman's ex, Nancy Shevell, married to Paul McCartney, contributed $18G to Gov. Kathy Hochul's reelection bid
The donation came before he had officially jumped into the governor's race, though there were published reports about his interest at the time.
newsday.com
One of the worst parts of this story—Their AI slop factories stole real reporting and published it as their own work.
Maggie Harrison Dupré@mharrisondupre.bsky.social · last wk.NEW: Brown Brothers Media is the most successful media company you've never heard of. For years, its success was fueled by AI, fake writers, and fake reporting. When we started asking questions, BBM started mass-deleting content. Somehow, what came next was even worse. futurism.com/artificial-i...
NEW: Brown Brothers Media is the most successful media company you've never heard of. For years, its success was fueled by AI, fake writers, and fake reporting. When we started asking questions, BBM started mass-deleting content. Somehow, what came next was even worse. futurism.com/artificial-i...
How Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per Month
Brown Brothers Media is a media empire raking in millions of clicks with AI, fake writers, and plagiarism.
futurism.com
I thought this said infancy and that the speaker was Benjamin Button
lil jon lovitz@liljonlovitz.bsky.social · last wk.job interviewer: where do you see yourself in 5 years? me: living in infamy interviewer: can you elaborate on that? me: absolutely not
Journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias has spent more than 300 days behind bars, the longest known time a journalist has been in U.S. custody. In October 2025, he was shot in the arm and arrested by federal agents who boxed in his car for an immigration stop in LA.
Journalist shot by federal agents in LA, taken into ICE custody
Independent journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias was shot in the arm and arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles, California, on …
pressfreedomtracker.us
Linda Wolff, 72, said she's been protesting at the ICE detention center Delaney Hall almost every day since May. Now, she's suing after an ICE agent maced her on video. "I've been maced three times. I was shot with a rubber bullet in the chest," she said. "But it's sort of part of the job."
ICE Maced the Wrong Septuagenarian
And more news for your Friday morning.
hellgatenyc.com
Minecraft Mamdani, sewer socialism, I love the summer of our collective alliteration
Adam Bumas@bumas.bsky.social · 2mo agoFans of this might be interested to see the Minecraft Mamdani which was on display this past spring at the NYC Video Game Festival.
The actual scandal is he won't do an interview on a bike ride with me
The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 2mo agoNew York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Who benefits from a shortage of affordable apartments on Long Island? Online scammers targeting renters desperate for a home -- www.newsday.com/business/wal...
Scam rental listings exploit Long Island's affordable-housing shortage
Fake listings, bogus fees and stolen data target renters squeezed by Long Island's high housing costs.
newsday.com
As locals block data centers on Long Island, one lab is developing a tool that could expand these facilities nationwide: www.newsday.com/business/ai-...
Brookhaven National Lab research could help data centers expand nationwide
They're developing a tool that could help developers build new data centers faster and cheaper nationally, even as communities oppose local projects.
newsday.com
Just gutting: “In fact, when faced with aggressive enforcement, a common response by nursing homes is to threaten to close, and leave their patients with nowhere to go, multiple experts told New York Focus.”
New York Focus@nysfocus.com · 2mo agoIn 2024, a New York nursing home chain agreed to pay $45M, increase staff, and hire independent monitors in a landmark settlement with the state. New York Focus has uncovered multiple violations since the settlement, as residents continued to suffer.
In middle school I would prank local businesses by mailing them letters with insane pitches. One pitch was for a robot teacher with a TV head that could replace human teachers and play VCRs. The principal politely told me to go fuck myself straight off — no backlash needed.
New York Focus@nysfocus.com · 2mo agoA Western New York school district has halted its plans to place a humanoid robot in a classroom after a New York Focus report on the plan sparked fierce debate over the use of artificial intelligence in schools and backlash from local parents.
“While he no longer treats women like sex dolls, he instead treats them like goddesses. He’s swapping one kind of object for another. As a culture, we have not outgrown the Madonna-whore complex.”
Defector@defector.com · 2mo agoCan men stop hating women? defector.com/can-men-stop...
New: Apple says it has fixed a vulnerability that was revealing the real email addresses of Hide My Email users. Apple knew about this vulnerability for more than a year, but only actually fixed it after 404 Media covered the issue this month www.404media.co/apple-fixes-...
Apple Fixes Hide My Email Vulnerability After 404 Media Coverage
For a year, Apple knew that an issue in its Hide My Email feature was exposing customers’ real email addresses. Apple only fixed the issue after 404 Media covered it.
404media.co
!!!! “They’ll be able to say, ‘Hey, I’m student number 1234,’ and then the robot will be like, ‘Hey, we were talking about this yesterday, do you want to continue that conversation?”
The cooling safety net that provides free air conditioners to New Yorkers across the state ran out of funding in June, before summer officially started and ahead of the state’s hottest months. It’s the earliest the money has ever run out.
Extreme Heat Is Rising. New York’s Cooling Aid Isn’t.
New York’s free air conditioner program ran out of funding before summer, even as extreme heat becomes a deadlier threat.
nysfocus.com
Not even the combined powers of god and taylor swift could keep me from the Coney Island hot dog contest
Rachel Holliday Smith@rachelholliday.bsky.social · 3mo agohey so did yall realize that in addition to July 4, Sail250 AND the World Cup this weekend, it’s also going to be FLEET WEEK????? and Taylor Swift’s wedding. and a billion degrees
The following is an official statement from respected journalist Dave Colon on @bsky.app’s outrageous violation of his First Amendment rights
The RGB is ushering in an historic 2-year rent freeze. How did tenants react? "I'm on cloud nine right now, I'm so serious,” Daryl Randall, a rent stabilized tenant, told our reporter post-vote. “And I'm really trying to say to myself, like, am I dreaming?" hellgatenyc.com/morning-spew...
Tenant Hell Has Frozen Over
And more news for your "pools are open tomorrow" Friday.
hellgatenyc.com
In Tuesday's New York primary elections, candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America racked up victories despite an enormous wave of super PAC spending. The DSA is now poised to pick up at least six seats in the state legislature in November.
NY Primary Results: DSA Set to Pick Up 6+ Seats in Albany
The DSA made gains in New York despite super PACs spending $9.6 million in state legislative races — nearly five times the total from 2024.
nysfocus.com
had a lovely chat with john early about "maddie's secret," which is great and also if he makes the sequel we discussed you will need to internalize the lore
Hell Gate *subscribe today!*@hellgatenyc.com · 3mo ago"I thought I was doing this fun, kind of melodramatic tone for me and my friends to live in," Early said, "but I immediately gave over to the emotion in it, and before I knew it I was like, 'Is this funny at all? I just fully bought in and was like, 'I love Maddie, I want to protect her.'"
I cut Connor O’Malley’s Slugs video to “Going Shopping” by The Strokes because a sick little part of my mind knew it would work and it does m.youtube.com/watch?v=l9vs...
slugs, happier ending
YouTube video by Celia
m.youtube.com
Perennial reminder that it’s sketchy as hell for an NYC apartment broker to ask you for a “good faith deposit” to hold an apartment. www.brickunderground.com/rent/do-i-ha...
Forget what you’ve heard: You don’t have to pay a ‘good faith’ deposit for a rental
No, you don't have to pay a good faith deposit.
brickunderground.com
One NYC man apparently scammed more than a dozen people out of thousands by not returning “good faith deposits” — money meant to secure an apartment. These deposits aren’t legal (even though people pay them anyway).
Gothamist@gothamist.com · 3mo agoHow an alleged NYC real estate scammer stayed in business despite years of complaints gothamist.com/news/how-an-...
Vicki Schneps-Yunis and Josh Schneps have built a NYC-metro local news empire on the backs of journalists making $40,000 a year. Today, those journalists announced they're forming a union and demanding fair salaries. hellgatenyc.com/schneps-edit...
The Journalists at NYC's Largest Local News Print Chain Are Unionizing
Reporters at Schneps Media, which includes amNew York, Queens Courier, and the Brooklyn Paper, say they can’t afford to live on their salaries.
hellgatenyc.com