Good morning. Today is Thursday. We will review the orders Governor Kathy Hochul issued to crack down on extremist violence. We’ll also look at why a computer from the 1980s is predicted to sell for $300,000 at an auction today.
“The truth is that the most serious threat we face as a nation is from within,” Governor Kathy Hochul said as she ordered a crackdown on extremist violence in New York. “It is not Russian. It’s not from other people. That is white supremacy. It’s white nationalism.”
Hochul’s orders Expanding efforts to control gun violence by trying to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have access to them and by creating a new state police unit to monitor violent extremism online. Hochul says her action is intended to strengthen the state’s laws, which are already considered the strictest in the country.
As with other mass shootings, the Buffalo massacre has stirred national debate about gun access, mental health, and white supremacy. One of the orders Hochul issued would strengthen the state’s “red flag” law, which the 18-year-old Buffalo suspect was able to circumvent.
He was successful in purchasing an assault-style weapon even though he was assessed by a mental health organization last year after he threatened to kill himself. Hochul also ordered the state police to seek an emergency order banning those deemed a threat to themselves or others from possessing firearms.
That could add to the workload for state police, as hundreds of school threats are called in every year.
But red flag laws were not invoked against the Buffalo suspect, who told authorities that the “murder-suicide” comment was a joke. He then posted on Discord that he lied about it.
Christian Heyne, vice president of policy for gun control group Brady, says red flag provisions can prevent not only mass shootings but suicides as well. He called Hochul’s approach “an effort to make sure that law enforcement across the state really gets going.”
Hochul, a first-term Democrat who wants to run for re-election in November, also urged the Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, to pass additional gun safety measures. She specifically called for legislation requiring so-called micro-stamping of semi-automatic pistols to help law enforcement officers tie up cartridge cases found at crime scenes with the gun that discharged them. . Such legislation has long been discussed in Albany, with bills introduce since at least 2009.
From comments: Buffalo shooting
Comment from the Times Opinion on the massacre at a grocery store in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo.
“This has the potential to revolutionize ballistic missile forensics in the same way that DNA testing could revolutionize forensics in general,” Heyne said. “We’re talking about eradicating prejudice and leading with science to pinpoint the origins of guns.”
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The mayor, a close ally and a new police tool
When policy-making tools come into play, it’s not unusual. It fires a Kevlar tether that is said to wrap around someone trying to run away. Its manufacturer says it can subdue “non-compliant individuals” without causing serious injury.
The New York Police Department tested and refuted it. But it has a champion in Eric Adams. As president of Brooklyn and later as a mayoral candidate, he arranged demonstrations of a handheld device called BolaWrap – a spokesman said, unaware that one of the advisers His closest friends have invested nearly $1 million in the company. make it.
The consultant, Frank Carone, is now Adams’ chief of staff. A spokesperson for Adams and Carone said that Adams endorsing BolaWrap was coincidental. “I never spoke to Eric about it once,” Carone said.
[As Adams Praised a New Police Tool, a Close Ally Had a Stake in the Maker]
Adams may have violated city rules when he was Brooklyn district president by using his government office to advance personal gain. According to city regulations, officials can only advertise commercial products with a “provable connection” to their agencies, such as when the police commissioner wrote an introduction to a book has benefited the nonprofit NYPD Museum.
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Gun control and mass shootings included
Arts & Culture
A floppy disk by Andy Warhol. (Remember the floppy?)
Today, a 37-year-old computer is expected to sell for between $200,000 and $300,000. It comes with a floppy disk.
Floppy disks make it valuable.
The disc contains nine Andy Warhols viewable only on that machine, a Commodore Amiga A1000. Among the images are familiar Warhols – a Marilyn Monroe, a can of Campbell’s soup and a self-portrait – which he modified with an original graphics program.
The machine was consigned by Donald Greenbaum, treasurer of Commodore International, to Bonhams auction house when the Amiga A1000 was unveiled at Lincoln Center. Peter H. Lewisa personal technology columnist for The New York Times, marvel at the computer – and “rented suits and hired celebrities” are present, “including Andy Warhol, who was there to create the first 15 minutes of fame on the machine.”
Greenbaum spent more than 15 minutes in Warhol’s studio a few days before the event. This week, he said he delivered the software that had just been shipped from California and spent “part of the afternoon” watching Warhol try it out.
“When I was leaving, he said, ‘Here, take the plate,’ Greenbaum recalls. He put it in his desk and brought it home when he left Commodore in 1986.
The next time he saw it was 22 years later, when he was looking for something else.
He wondered what Warhol had saved on the disc.
But the world went on. Extracting – mining – files on disk is not possible with Windows and Apple operating systems. “Basically, I had to build the Commodore Amiga with the operating software that existed when Andy Warhol used it,” he said.
He found an Amiga A1000 and eventually located the right software. “Seeing a computer running this software on a CRT” — a screen with a picture tube, like in an old-fashioned television set — “is eye-catching. It was a trip back in time because everything is now very disinfected on the flat screen.”
A few years later, he noticed that the filenames on his disk were slightly different from the ones released by Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and Andy Warhol Museum, did a similar but separate Amiga restoration. Last year Christie’s sold 5 NFTs made from Amiga files for $3.38 million. Bonhams said its sale is the first time an Amiga painting with Warhol artwork has hit the market.
Greenbaum realized that the filenames on his disc meant that Warhol had animated eight images (Bonhams says the NFTs sold last year were not animated). After a few more clicks, he said, the little gold seal on the Campbell’s soup can was spinning.
“He said, ‘I’ve always wanted to be Walt Disney, and now I can be an animator,’” Greenbaum said. “But no one knows what he means.”
METROPOLITAN . Diary
Honoring her wishes
Dear Diary:
“When I die,” my mother always told us, “I want my ashes sprinkled down Fifth Avenue, from Bergdorf’s to Bonwit Teller.”
We always laugh at this idea. But after her death, my father and I decided we should try to respect her wishes and somehow get her ashes on Fifth Avenue.
I remember there were potted plants in front of Saks 5th Avenue and suggested we try to put her ashes in one of them.
Realizing that what we thought might be illegal, we waited until about 11 o’clock one night. My father drove down Fifth Avenue and we arrived in front of Saks.
I got out of the backseat with some trowel, dug into one of the potted plants and put the ashes in. I returned to the car, and we tore the body unnoticed, content with our little caper.
When we passed Saks for Christmas the following years, we would stop and say, “Hi, Mom.”
– Tony Fradkin
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
So glad we can get together here. Anne Barnard will write tomorrow. – JB
PS This is for today Small crosswords and Spell Bee. You can find all our quizzes here.
Melissa GuerreroDavid Moll and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
