World

Last call for dry towns? New York weighs lifting post-Prohibition law that let towns keep booze bans

Published

4 weeks ago

April 10, 2024

Last call for dry towns? New York weighs lifting post-Prohibition law that let towns keep booze bans

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York towns and villages that have post-Prohibition bans on alcohol sales would be forced to lift such restrictions under a bill moving through the Legislature.

The bill, which is up for a state Senate vote after advancing out of a committee last week, would strike down a 1934 law passed right after Prohibition that allowed towns and cities to opt to stay dry.

Many U.S. communities fully or partially ban alcohol sales. Pennsylvania, for example, has about 675 that have some sort of restriction.

In the Empire State, only seven communities have complete booze bans, according to the New York State Liquor Authority. The largest, the western New York town of Caneadea, is home to about 2,000 people.

The bill’s sponsor argues that lifting restrictions will spur business growth and save those who live in such places from having to buy their booze elsewhere, allowing them to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner at local restaurants.

“This ain’t the Prohibition era any longer. We live in New York in 2024, and this thing is kind of silly,” said state Sen. James Skoufis, a Democrat who chairs a legislative committee that most of the state alcohol laws pass through.

That sentiment resonates with Brittany Gerould, a general manager at the Dutch Village Restaurant in Clymer, a southwestern New York town of about 1,700 near the Pennsylvania border. If the bill becomes law, it would bring in “big profits” for the business, Gerould said.

“We definitely lose some business because of it,” she said of the alcohol sales ban. “We try to do wing nights, but of course we can’t have alcohol. We aren’t even open on Saturday nights because they were such a miss.”

Not everyone is on board.

Philip G. Stockin, Caneadea’s deputy town supervisor, said he’s fine with the status quo, citing alcohol abuse as a major concern.

“It gets frustrating when the state hands down mandates, it takes more and more control away from the locals,” Stockin said.

Caneadea last voted on its booze restrictions in 1986.

In Lapeer, a town of roughly 800 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Syracuse, most people buy their alcohol in the nearest town, according to Cindy Butler McFarland, Lapeer’s town clerk.

McFarland, who grew up in Lapeer, said that even if the bill becomes law, she doesn’t think anyone would open a bar, restaurant or store in Lapeer that could sell alcohol because there’s a grocery store in the next town.

But Desiree Brown, the bar manager at the Olde School Pub in Sandy Creek, a village of about 700 roughly 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Syracuse, said she thinks there is a market for a watering hole in the nearby dry town of Orwell.

“I can tell you just because the town is dry, the people in there are not,” said Brown. “A lot of people have talked about how they wish Orwell wasn’t a dry town because it would be one more spot to put a little pub or bar.”

Argyle, a town of about 3,500 roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Albany, voted to remove its dry status in 2019. Before then, some residents would spend their Friday nights drinking at a restaurant in a neighboring town, said Renee Montero-Kober, Argyle’s deputy town clerk.

“I just think people got tired of driving out of town, and we were losing revenue by not selling it here. People were obviously going somewhere to buy it,” said Montero-Kober, who voted to end Argyle’s dry era. “I do think it’s better now.”

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Maysoon Khan is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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World

Emily Blunt Says She’s ‘Absolutely’ Wanted to Throw Up After Kissing Certain Actors During Filming: ‘I’ve Definitely Not Enjoyed Some of It.”

Published

1 hour ago

May 6, 2024

Press Room

Emily Blunt Says She’s ‘Absolutely’ Wanted to Throw Up After Kissing Certain Actors During Filming: ‘I’ve Definitely Not Enjoyed Some of It.”

Emily Blunt got candid during a recent appearance on “The Howard Stern Show” (via People) about how she’s had to fake chemistry over the years with certain co-stars she just struggled to connect with on set. Blunt has acted opposite many high-profile leading men throughout her career, from Matt Damon (“The Adjustment Bureau”) to Tom Cruise (“Edge of Tomorrow”), Dwayne Johnson (“Jungle Cruise”), Ryan Gosling (“The Fall Guy”) and Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”).

“Have you wanted to throw up?” Stern asked Blunt about kissing some of her male co-stars during filming. The Oscar-nominated actor responded: “Absolutely. Absolutely.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s sort of extreme loathing, but I’ve definitely not enjoyed some of it,” Blunt added.

Blunt declined to name any co-star she couldn’t generate chemistry with, but she did say: “I have had chemistry with people who… I have not had a good time working with them.”

“Sometimes it’s a strange thing. Sometimes you could have a rapport that’s really effortless, but it doesn’t translate onscreen,” Blunt continued. “Chemistry is this strange thing. It’s an ethereal thing that you can’t really bottle up and buy or sell. It’s like there or it’s not…It’s just easier when you have a natural rapport with someone.”

Blunt has been acting for so long that at this point she has a formula down for how to build chemistry, saying: “I’ve got to find something I love about everybody. I have to find something … Even if it’s one thing.”

“It might be that they have a nice laugh or I like how they speak to people. They’re polite. I mean, it might be something random,” Blunt explained. “But find something you love about that person or something you love about them as the character and then kind of lean into that.”

Blunt earned an Oscar nomination earlier this year for her supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” which took home the Academy Award for best picture. She’s currently on the big screen in Universal Pictures’ action romance “The Fall Guy,” co-starring Ryan Gosling.

World

Holocaust survivors visit Auschwitz for annual March of the Living, reflect on Oct. 7 attacks

Published

2 hours ago

May 6, 2024

Press Room

Holocaust survivors visit Auschwitz for annual March of the Living, reflect on Oct. 7 attacks

Several thousand Jews, including Holocaust survivors personally affected by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, walked through the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp on Monday for the annual March of the Living ceremony in Poland.

Walking along the 1.8 mile path towards the crematoria of Birkenau, they paid tribute to the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War Two.

This year’s ceremony was overshadowed by the events last year when 1,200 people were killed in a Hamas-led rampage through Israeli towns and 253 hostages were taken, according to Israeli tallies.

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS CONFRONT RISING DENIAL, ANTISEMITISM IN NEW DIGITAL CAMPAIGN

Daniel Louz, a 90-year-old whose hometown Kibbutz Beeri lost a tenth of its residents to the Palestinian attackers, came to the Auschwitz camp on Monday for the first time since his mother’s family was killed there in 1942.

A wooden guard tower stands at the site of former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz II-Birkenau during ceremonies marking the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the camp and International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day, in Brzezinka near Oswiecim, Poland, on January 27, 2022. (Jakub Porzycki/Agencja Wyborcza.pl via Reuters/File Photo)

“I am convinced that on October 7 in Beeri the good souls (of the Holocaust dead) protected me and did not let the Hamas criminals shoot at our home,” Louz told Reuters. “So that I might be able to tell the story. I am really thankful to you all.”

More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease at Auschwitz, which Germans set up in occupied Poland during World War Two.

More than three million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust.

“Prior to October 7 it is my belief … that the worst event in human history happened on these grounds. That this place, the very word Auschwitz, speaks volumes in one word about fear, death, destruction, annihilation,” Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President of the International March of the Living, said during Monday’s event.

“And then came October 7, and perhaps we have to come as a people to the realization that perhaps in some ways the Shoah (Holocaust) isn’t over for us. It’s not a competition, certainly not a comparison, it’s a continuum.”

World

Tech compliance reports, Newsletter

Published

3 hours ago

May 6, 2024

Press Room

This week’s key events presented by senior tech and industry reporter Cynthia Kroet

Key diary dates

Monday 6- Wednesday 8 May: High-Level Conference on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) organised by the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU.

Monday 6 May: Deadline for online platforms regulated under the Digital Services Act to submit transparency reports.

Tuesday 7 May: NGO Seas at Risk to publish report on under-sea mining.

In spotlight

EU platform rules return to the spotlight this week, since today (6 May) is the deadline for the largest online platforms – those with more than 45 million users per month – to hand in their transparency reports under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

It’s the second batch of reports after the stringent rules started applying to the likes of Facebook, Amazon and TikTok last August.

With the submission of the first reports in October, platforms were scrutinised over the low number of content moderators they had in some of the smaller EU member states. Facebook has a single employee looking at Maltese content, and three in Estonia, claiming that much of the process is automated. In comparison, TikTok, which has fewer users per month, has six people looking at Estonian content and none for Maltese.

In light of the latest DSA probes started by the European Commission last week: into Facebook’s and Instagram’s handling of disinformation and ability to stop Russian fake news, all eyes will be on platforms’ election preparedness. And it remains to be seen if the social media platforms have taken more action compared to half a year ago.

With just about a month to go to the European Parliament election, the Commission is trying to ramp up platform preparedness for the poll. Stress-tests last month (24 April) were designed to help mitigate risks that may impact the integrity of elections and their services, for example.

However, as the latest Facebook and Instagram probes show, the Commission largely counting on the willingness of mother company Meta to comply; since there is no deadline for when the probes might end.

Policy newsmakers

@Kergueno @Uspaskich

MEPs interests

MEPs collectively earn more than €8.6 million a year from outside jobs – including from private companies that also actively lobby on EU policy, according to a report published by Transparency International EU today (6 May). Topping the list is Lithuanian MEP Viktor Uspaskich, who declares €3,000,000 per year working for a company called Edvervita UAB. The group, including Raphaël Kergueno, senior policy officer at Transparency, has called for EU lawmakers to be banned from moonlighting, as figures show over two thirds of the 705 deputies disclose activities in addition to their core role.

Policy Poll

Should MEPs elected to the next European Parliament be permitted remuneration:

From MEP salary alone

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