THURSDAY, JUNE 23, 2011
SHE LOVES ME, SHE LOVES ME NOT
On first day out of work, sext-crazed Weiner buys flowers
BY KAYLEEN SCHAEFER
Anthony Weiner decided to say it with carnations instead.
Yesterday, on his first day of unemployment, the disgraced ex-congressman found himself with some extra daytime hours. So Weiner did what any husband in the doghouse should: He bought flowers.
Weiner was forced to step down after admitting to sending sexually explicit photos or messages to at least six women, and his resignation took effect after midnight yesterday. In the morning, he ambled to a grocery store about a block from his Queens, N.Y., apartment to pick up the bouquet.
Looking casual in a chambray button-down and jeans — maybe we’ll see an unemployment beard to match his dressed-down duds soon? — the overexposed Democratic pol passed over the long-stemmed red roses and jaunty yellow sunflowers in favor of three bundles of carnations in red, white and blue.
The only telltale sign he’s having a hard time letting go? His BlackBerry was still clipped to his belt.
Weiner’s selection, according to the store, cost $22.97. On his way home, he stopped for bagels and also greeted some friendly former constituents, taking a photo with one and chatting with another.
He took the floral arrangement inside his apartment, but the red, white and blue color combination makes us question whether they were actually for his wife, Huma. Perhaps they’re just an early start on Fourth of July decorating.
Or maybe Nancy Pelosi likes carnations.
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Legendary Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, formerly one of the FBI’s ten most wanted fugitives, was captured Wednesday evening in Santa Monica after more than 16 years on the run. During his time on the lam, Bulger was believed to have traveled in Europe and Mexico, but his love of long walks on the beach may have brought him home and led to his undoing.
The FBI’s description of Bulger noted that “he maintains his physical fitness by walking on beaches and in parks with his female companion, Catherine Elizabeth Greig.” Bulger and Greig were apprehended in an an apartment on 3rd Street that was less than a half-mile from the Pacific where they reportedly lived for over a year. Law enforcement found the pair after receiving a tip two days after the FBI launched a major promotional push to find Greig.
FBI GETS ITS MAN
After 16 years on run, Boston mobster Whitey Bulger and girlfriend arrested in Calif.
BY HUNTER WALKER AND ANDRA VARIN
Notorious Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger, one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives, was nabbed last night in California along with his longtime girlfriend, just days after authorities launched a media blitz aimed at finally snaring them after 16 years on the run.
The FBI confirmed the arrests of the 81-year-old Bulger, who is wanted in connection with 19 murders and had been on the lam since December 1994, and 60-year-old Catherine Elizabeth Greig. They were apprehended in an apartment building on a tree-lined street in Santa Monica.
“FBI agents have arrested Top Ten Fugitive, James J. ‘Whitey’ Bulger, and his companion, Catherine Greig, in California,” said a statement released last night by Richard Deslauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Boston, and Steven Martinez, the FBI’s assistant director in charge in Los Angeles.
“Recent publicity produced a tip which led agents to Santa Monica where they located both Bulger and Greig at a residence,” the statement said.
The agency on Monday launched an aggressive media campaign in 14 cities — including television public service ads focusing on Greig — aimed at bringing the couple to justice. NBC in Los Angeles said that someone who had watched a CNN report on the couple on Tuesday night tipped off the FBI to their location. Bulger had been living in the Santa Monica apartment complex for more than a year, NBC said.
There had been a $2 million reward offered for information leading to the arrest of Bulger.
“The FBI and LAPD task force tracked Mr. Bulger. They tracked him down to the 1000 block of Third Street, to an apartment complex there, where they arrested him,” said Sgt. Richard Lewis, a spokesman for the Santa Monica Police Department.
“He was taken into custody without incident,” Lewis told The Daily. “He is in federal custody right now.”
Bulger and Greig were expected to make initial appearances in federal court in Los Angeles this afternoon.
Bulger has been the subject of numerous books and was the inspiration for the 2006 Martin Scorcese film “The Departed,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.
The son of Irish immigrants, Bulger grew up in South Boston, where he got his nickname from his white-blond hair. He was first arrested, for larceny, at the age of 14, and his criminal activities rapidly escalated after that.
Authorities say Bulger eventually rose to become head of the Winter Hill Gang, an Irish-American crime family that took its name from a neighborhood in Somerville, Mass. By 1979, he was the top figure in Boston’s considerable organized crime world.
In an ironic twist, while Whitey Bulger was the king of the underworld, his younger brother, William “Billy” Bulger, became a powerful politician, lawyer and educator. Billy Bulger, now 77 and retired, served as president of the Massachusetts Senate and was also president of the University of Massachusetts.
In the midst of his criminal activities, Whitey Bulger became an informant for the FBI, providing authorities with details on the Winter Hill Gang’s arch-rival, the New England Mob.
An FBI agent, John Connolly Jr., tipped off Bulger in late 1994 that he was about to be indicted on 19 counts of murder, racketeering and other charges stemming from the Winter Hill Gang’s activities in the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. Connolly was later convicted of racketeering for protecting Bulger and his associate Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, also an FBI informant.
Bulger went on the run in December 1994 with girlfriend Theresa Stanley, but returned briefly to Boston because Stanley missed her family. Bulger then took off again, but with Greig. The two are believed to have been together ever since.
Greig is not accused of taking part in any of Bulger’s alleged mob crimes, but she was charged in federal court in 1997 with harboring a federal fugitive.
The FBI described Bulger on its most wanted list as a hot-tempered man known to carry a knife “at all times.”
He was also said to be a master of disguises who altered his appearance frequently. Greig is believed to have undergone numerous plastic surgeries, the FBI said.
She was also known to frequent beauty salons and had an obsession with caring for her teeth, according to the FBI, which said in its PSAs that it was hoping a dentist might recognize her.
Over the years, there were several reported sightings of the couple from all around the United States and in Europe. Before last night’s arrest, the last credible sighting of Bulger had been in London in 2002, the FBI said.
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MR. BULGER’S NEIGHBORHOOD
By Hunter Walker
He was living two doors down from James “Whitey” Bulger, but never suspected a thing.
“He usually had a hat and sunglasses on. He looks quite different than in the mugshot,” Seth Rosenzweig, who lived two doors down from Bulger at the Santa Monica apartment complex, told The Daily. “He looks much older, he had a very jowly look.”
Though he said he “could count the number of times I’ve seen them on one hand,” the neighbor said that Bulger seemed to be “thin, upright and in good shape.”
But they weren’t party animals, apparently. Rosenzweig said that he “didn’t recall” seeing any visitors at Bulger’s apartment, which was just west of Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.
“Sometimes they’d have a note taped to the door saying ‘do not disturb until 1:30 p.m.,’” Rosenzweig added.
According to Rosenzweig, Bulger’s apartment on the third floor was a “mirror image” of his own — a two bedroom, two bathroom unit of approximately 1,100 square feet.
On the morning after Bulger’s arrest, Rosenzweig said members of law enforcement agencies were still searching through Bulger’s apartment and going through the hallways of the complex. He also said he saw FBI agents searching a “dark colored minivan” parked in Bulger’s space in the building’s garage.
The Associated Press said that Bulger was using the alias Charles Gasko. Catherine Greig, the girlfriend who joined him on the lam for nearly two decades, called herself Carol Gasko.
Earlier reports said that Bulger was living under the alias “Charlie Rosenzweig,” echoing the last name of the neighbor interviewed by The Daily. Asked if there was any connection, Seth Rosenzweig said it was the name of his father, who lives on the East Coast.
A building manager confirmed that the widely-reported alias was false, but refused to provide further details. “I really can’t say,” he said.
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7-Year-Old Boy Drives 20 Miles to See Dad
Michigan cops pull over a 7-year-old driving to see his dad
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Whitey Bulger appeared to suffer from dementia, displayed rage, neighbor says
A woman who lived across the hall from crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, in Santa Monica said the 81-year-old crime boss appeared to be mentally deteriorating.
In an interview with The Times inside her third-floor apartment, Barbara Gluck said Greig told her that Bulger was suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease.
His girlfriend, Gluck said, would accompany him everywhere and she never saw him alone. Gluck would often say hello to the woman, whom she described as glamorous and charming. When the woman smiled and said hello back, Bulger would snap, "Why are you saying hello to her?"
"She was living with hell ... he was a rageaholic," Gluck said. "I worried about her."
Still, Gluck said she was charmed by the pair: "How can I put this? They were a very attractive couple."
When Greig was alone she would reach out to her neighbor, Gluck said. Recently Greig learned that Gluck went to a nearby bargain store every Wednesday for deals on organic produce. Gluck started to go as well.
And Greig would often be seen taking magazines and small packages that were left below the mailboxes because they didn't fit and hand-delivering them to the building's residents.
Beyond that, Gluck said, the couple never socialized, and their only hobby seemed to be strolls through the neighborhood. Gluck said it never struck her they were anything but a normal couple.
RELATED:
Full coverage: Get the latest on 'Whitey' Bulger's arrest
Fugitive pair used aliases, blended in among Santa Monica retirees
Whitey Bulger lured from Santa Monica home with FBI 'ruse,' authorities say
-- Robert Faturechi in Santa Monica
Photos, from top: FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers appears at a news conference in Boston next to a poster featuring captured fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger; Bulger's apartment, sealed with police tape, in Santa Monica. Credits: Michael Dwyer / Associated Press; Robert Faturechi / Los Angeles Times
Full coverage: Get the latest on 'Whitey' Bulger's arrest
Fugitive pair used aliases, blended in among Santa Monica retirees
Whitey Bulger lured from Santa Monica home with FBI 'ruse,' authorities say
-- Robert Faturechi in Santa Monica
Photos, from top: FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers appears at a news conference in Boston next to a poster featuring captured fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger; Bulger's apartment, sealed with police tape, in Santa Monica. Credits: Michael Dwyer / Associated Press; Robert Faturechi / Los Angeles Times
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Robots Shopping and Making Breakfast
BY EDW LYNCH
In a glimpse of a gleaming future where mankind is served by our robot friends, a German team programmed two robots to go shopping and make breakfast. The shopper was a Willow Garage PR2, a robot that can also fetch and open bottles of beer. A TUM-Rosie robot prepared a traditional Bavarian sausage breakfast. The demonstration was put on by researchers at Cognition for Technical Systems, an incubator associated with the Technical University of Münich.
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Schmear-y goodbye
H&H’s flagship New York bagel store, beloved by Seinfeld, is toast
PHOTO: Brian Zak/The Daily
H&H's landmark store at the corner of 80th and Broadway.
BY JOHN WALTERS
Baking the most popular bagel in Manhattan is like producing the best-selling cowboy boot in Texas. On Sunday, H&H Bagels — which for nearly four decades was that bagel-maker — will shut off the ovens for good at its flagship store on New York’s Upper West Side.
In 1972, brothers-in-law Helmer Toro and Hector Hernandez opened the store on the corner of West 80th Streetand Broadway. Until a few days ago, the awning read: “Like No Other Bagel in the World.” H&H reportedly manufactured a combined 80,000 bagels every day at its Broadway location and main bakery located a few miles away on West 46th Street.
But Toro failed to pay $337,261 in employee withholding taxes and $206,261 in unemployment insurance between 2003 and 2009. In May 2010, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny charges, was sentenced to fifty weekends in jail and ordered to pay full restitution.
Whether Toro’s tax troubles or a rent increase killed the landmark store is unknown. Toro did not respond to emails yesterday. A receptionist at William Friedland Associates, LLC — the landlord for the Broadway location — would not say whether a rent increase caused the bagelry to shut off its ovens.
“The company is still open,” an employee said yesterday. “We are not closing the 46th Street bakery.”
H&H epitomized the New York City establishment: privately owned, open 24 hours, and efficient. Customers entered, waited on line and had their order ready by the time their turn came. Veterans knew to order “whatever just came out of the oven.” Night owls stumbling home from the bars one block over on Amsterdam Avenue visited H&H before heading home for some R&R.
Unlike the café in Zabar’s across the street, H&H had no tables or chairs. If you wanted a schmear, you bought cream cheese and/or lox separately and applied it yourself. H&H was not a hangout; it was a dispensary. (An H&H bagel now costs $1.40, a greater than 50 percent increase from the price just a decade earlier.)
“For years I worked at the gym located directly above H&H,” said Susan Bayat, a personal trainer from the neighborhood. “The smell of freshly baked bagels would waft onto the training floor.”
H&H has been a featured prop in films such as “Manhattan Murder Mystery” and “You’ve Got Mail” as well as in Gotham-centric TV shows such as “Friends”, “How I Met Your Mother, “Sex and the City” and of course, “Seinfeld.” H&H is now meeting the same fate as The Shop Around the Corner, the fictitious independent bookstore featured in the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan film. That irony may be more galling to writer-director (and neighborhood resident) Nora Ephron than the prospect of purchasing a bagel from Starbucks.
H&H’s greatest pop culture moment came in an episode of “Seinfeld” called “The Strike.” It’s revealed that Kramer once worked at H&H and was waging a 12-year strike against his former employer due to inhospitable working conditions. The show’s writers — including co-creator and loyal H&H customer Jerry Seinfeld — apparently hit the mark with that portrayal.
Credit: The Daily (www.thedaily.com)
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