Northeast
Complete mastodon jaw found in New York homeowner's backyard: 'Remarkable discovery'
A homeowner in New York uncovered a complete mastodon jaw in their backyard in what officials are calling a “remarkable discovery.”
The jaw of the extinct mammal, which was similar to an elephant, and several bone fragments were excavated from a property in Scotchtown by researchers from the New York State Museum and SUNY Orange.
“The fossils – discovered by a curious homeowner – will undergo carbon dating and extensive scientific analysis to determine the mastodon’s age, diet, and habitat,” the New York State Museum said in a statement. “Once preserved and studied, the jaw and related findings will be showcased in public programming in 2025, offering visitors a glimpse into New York’s rich Ice Age history.”
The Albany-based Museum said the homeowner first noticed the jaw when they spotted “two unusual teeth concealed by plant fronds and, intrigued, dug a bit deeper to uncover two more teeth just inches beneath the surface.”
ARCHAEOLOGISTS UNEARTH 13,000-YEAR-OLD MASTODON SKULL IN IOWA
New York State Museum and SUNY Orange staff excavate a mastodon jaw found on a property in Scotchtown, N.Y. (New York State Museum)
“When I found the teeth and examined them in my hands, I knew they were something special and decided to call in the experts,” the museum quoted the homeowner as saying. “I’m thrilled that our property has yielded such an important find for the scientific community.”
The discovery is also being described by the museum as the first of its kind in New York in 11 years, and a “prehistoric treasure.”
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A mastodon tooth that was still embedded in the jaw found in New York’s Orange County. (New York State Museum)
“Excavation efforts by the New York State Museum and SUNY Orange unearthed a full, well-preserved mastodon jaw belonging to an adult individual,” it said. “Alongside the jaw, researchers also recovered a piece of a toe bone and a rib fragment, offering valuable additional clues about the mastodon’s life and environment.”
Museum officials said 150 mastodon fossils have been found across New York, but a third of them have come from Orange County, where the jaw was discovered.
A printed illustration of a mastodon from the book Animals of the Prehistoric World. (Florilegius/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“While the jaw is the star of the show, the additional toe and rib fragments offer valuable context and the potential for additional research,” Cory Harris, Chair of SUNY Orange’s Behavioral Sciences Department, said in a statement. “We are also hoping to further explore the immediate area for more bones that may have been preserved.”
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Northeast
Maine Rep Laurel Libby appeals Biden-appointed judge's verdict on controversial trans athlete censure
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Maine GOP state Rep. Laurel Libby filed an emergency appeal with the First Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday over a recent ruling that upheld her censure in the legislature.
The state’s Democrat majority voted to censure her for writing a social media post that identified a trans athlete who won a girls’ state pole vault competition in February. Libby filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Ryan Fecteau to have it overturned, but Rhode Island U.S. District Court Judge Melissa DuBose ruled against Libby on Friday.
DuBose was appointed by former President Joe Biden just before he left office in January.
Libby previously told Fox News Digital that she would appeal the ruling once it was announced, and now she has, and she is willing to take her case to the Supreme Court.
“Our appeal asks the court to correct this abuse of power and reaffirm that legislative leadership cannot use procedural maneuvers and sweeping assertions of immunity to sideline dissenting voices and disenfranchise entire communities,” Libby told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“I remain optimistic that the court will recognize what is plainly at stake: the integrity of representative government and the foundational principle that no elected official, no legislative leader, and no partisan majority is above the Constitution. The people of House District 90 deserve full representation, and we intend to see that right restored.”
Libby represents 9,000 constituents in Maine’s 90th District and has not been able to speak or vote on their behalf in the state legislature for two months.
“This appeal is about far more than one legislator’s seat – it’s about defending the constitutional rights of 9,000 Mainers who currently have no voice and no vote in the Maine House of Representatives,” Libby said.
“I’m grateful for the support of my constituents and so many others across Maine who understand the importance of speaking truth and standing firm. I will continue to press forward until the voices of the people I was elected to represent are heard once again in Augusta.”
DuBose presided over the case after every district judge in Maine refused to take it.
Judges John C. Nivison, John A. Woodcock, Lance E. Walker, Karen F. Wolf, Stacey D. Neumann and Nancy Torresen signed recusal orders shortly after the case was initially filed. No reason was given.
So the case went to DuBose in Rhode Island.
MAINE GIRL INVOLVED IN TRANS ATHLETE BATTLE REVEALS HOW STATE’S POLICIES HURT HER CHILDHOOD AND SPORTS CAREER
The censure so far has cost her a chance to vote on the state’s biannual budget and propose a bill to expand access to mental health resources for residents. It also prevents Libby from voting on or speaking on the House floor about a bill that would add trans inclusion in girls’ sports to the state constitution.
Her colleagues will vote on the Democrat majority’s bill after it passed with a slim simple majority in the House on Thursday, but it needs a two-thirds majority in both chambers before it can go before voters. If passed, it would codify in the state’s constitution the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects the rights of transgender athletes to compete for sports teams of the opposite sex.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state for its ongoing defiance of Trump’s Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports executive order. Maine has faced federal pressure in the last two months over its refusal to comply, including two federal investigations, a funding freeze by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and now a lawsuit.
The Democrat leadership in the state, led by Gov. Janet Mills, has fought back by filing its own lawsuit against Trump over the funding freeze. Another federal judge has already ruled the USDA must unfreeze the funding.
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Miriam Haley, a former television production assistant, on Tuesday afternoon took the stand in a Manhattan courtroom for a second time to begin recounting how she said Harvey Weinstein overpowered and sexually assaulted her in his apartment nearly 20 years ago.
Ms. Haley said she initially met Mr. Weinstein, then a powerful Hollywood producer, at a film premiere in London in 2004. She has said she reconnected with him years later at the Cannes Film Festival as she was looking for an opportunity as a production assistant in New York.
Defense lawyers carefully listened on Tuesday as Ms. Haley spoke, a transcript of what she said during Mr. Weinstein’s first trial five years ago on hand, waiting to pounce on any differences in her retelling.
Ms. Haley’s testimony was one of the most highly anticipated and closely watched moments of Mr. Weinstein’s retrial, which began this month.
In 2020, Mr. Weinstein was convicted in New York of rape and a criminal sexual act based on the complaints of two women, one of them Ms. Haley. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison, but his conviction was overturned last year and a new trial was ordered. In the interim, prosecutors added a new indictment.
On Tuesday, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, watched as Ms. Haley testified. She was not the first witness to testify for a second time. Ms. Haley’s former roommate told jurors last week about how a “very shaken and distraught and frightened” Ms. Haley hovered around her bedroom door while telling her that Mr. Weinstein had “forcibly put his mouth on her vagina without her consent.”
“I said, ‘Miriam, that sounds like rape,’” the woman, Elizabeth Entin, told the jurors. “‘I think you should call a lawyer.’”
As Ms. Haley began her testimony, a prosecutor, Nicole Blumberg, asked her to identify Mr. Weinstein. In response, she pointed to Mr. Weinstein sitting at the defense table. As she pointed, Mr. Weinstein, facing her with his arm over the back of his wheelchair, looked down at his left lapel.
Ms. Haley began telling her story publicly before the initial trial five years ago. Her accusations surfaced at the dawn of the #MeToo movement, as dozens of women came forward to recount what they said was Mr. Weinstein’s pattern of using his power to coerce women in Hollywood into sexual encounters, propelling the movement and his downfall.
Mr. Weinstein was known throughout his decades-long reign as a producer who could make careers. He was behind award-winning movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “Good Will Hunting,” as well as the reality show “Project Runway,” where Ms. Haley worked briefly as a production assistant.
Mr. Weinstein is also charged with raping Jessica Mann, an aspiring actress who said Mr. Weinstein attacked her in 2013, and Kaja Sokola, a model whom prosecutors say he assaulted in a Manhattan hotel in 2006.
Mr. Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers have said that his interactions with all of the women were consensual.
The producer offered his victims scripts and the promise of fame, Shannon Lucey, an assistant district attorney, said in her opening statements — and he “used those dream opportunities as weapons.”
In their opening statements to the jury, Mr. Weinstein’s lawyers said that the women whom prosecutors called victims had entered consensual relationships, because Mr. Weinstein had the key to the doors of fame. Arthur L. Aidala, a defense lawyer, told the jurors that he would help them “watch the whole movie.”
The specifics of the encounters between Ms. Haley and Mr. Weinstein have been laid out in her previous testimony and in prosecutors’ statements.
Ms. Haley, who was raised in Sweden, met Mr. Weinstein at a movie premiere in London in 2004. About two years later, as she was looking for a new position, she saw him at Cannes and asked him if there were any opportunities at the Weinstein Company, his production firm in New York.
While in France, Mr. Weinstein invited her to a hotel for what Ms. Haley believed was a business meeting, she has said. There he commented on her legs, she said, and asked her for a massage.
On Tuesday, Ms. Haley said the interaction had made her feel embarrassed. As she left the hotel, she said, she burst into tears.
“I felt taken aback, I felt humiliated,” she told the jury. “It was a sinking feeling, realizing that he wasn’t taking me seriously at all.”
After Ms. Haley got her post working on “Project Runway,” which was produced by Mr. Weinstein’s company, his advances continued, she has said. She said she had worked on the tail end of a season, about two to three weeks, and had been paid in cash. She did not have authorization to work in the United States, which Mr. Weinstein knew and used against her, according to prosecutors.
Throughout the summer of 2006, as Ms. Haley worked for his company, Mr. Weinstein tried to “elevate” their relationship, Ms. Lucey said, even showing up unannounced on one occasion and aggressively making his way into her apartment to demand that she travel with him to Paris.
Ms. Haley refused, she said on Tuesday, eventually telling him, “I heard about your reputation with women,” in an attempt to get him to leave. Mr. Weinstein departed, she said, seeming “offended” and upset.
After these episodes, Ms. Haley still agreed to travel to a film premiere in Los Angeles. On the day in July 2006 that Mr. Weinstein bought her ticket, he invited her to his apartment in Lower Manhattan, she said.
There, after offering her a drink, he lunged at her, holding her down and pushing her until she fell backward onto a bed, she said. Ms. Haley recalled that she was on her period, which she told Mr. Weinstein, but he pulled the tampon from her body and put his mouth on her genitals.
Ms. Haley’s testimony was scheduled to continue on Wednesday morning.
Copley Square Park was once a green space, but after a multi-year remodel, it was partially reopened with a new design that many Bostonians aren’t loving. The grass has been replaced with cement pathways meant to make gathering easier.
‘Brick and concrete’
Bostonians are voicing their displeasure over the new concrete jungle.”There’s … seems to be just kind of brick and concrete … something,” said Tedd York, who eats his lunch in the park.
“Before, it was a beautiful field, lots of space to gather and have picnics, and people are sad that we lost it,” said Rosa Bestmann, another neighbor who had her lunch in the plaza.
People have a slew of adjectives and analogies to describe the new space. One person called it “sterile and soulless.” He said Copley went from a park to a skatepark.
“When I visited as a kid, my Dad lived here, and we’d always sit in the plaza on the grass,” said Bestmann. “I’m happy that it’s back. I think that a community space is a space.”
Green spaces coming
The park has been closed since July 2023. Since then, it has been undergoing an $18.9 million overhaul. Mayor Michelle Wu announced a partial reopening of the park before the Boston Marathon, and now she is hearing the critiques.
“This is the result of months and months of community conversations, and so I am excited for what this will mean – a more walkable, vibrant space for everyone,” said Wu.
Renderings of the design do show smaller lawn spaces in the back of the park. However, those are currently under construction. There is a yellow tulip feature at one end of the park that is drawing plenty of onlookers. Right now, it is the only green space in the park.
Beyond the aesthetics, the long completion time has some folks cracking Big Dig jokes. The expectation is that the city will continue its remodel through the spring by finishing the fountains and lawn areas. By then, it may show shades of its old self.
“There’s a tortoise and a hare (statue). I don’t know if that’s a joke because it took so long,” laughed York.
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