Gene Hackman, Wayne Gretzky, a $25 Gift Card, and Hotel Breakfasts
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
Gene Hackman, Hollywood’s Consummate Everyman, Dies at 95
The winner of two Oscars, he was hailed for his nuanced performances in films like “The French Connection,” “Unforgiven” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
Gene Hackman, who never fit the mold of a Hollywood movie star but became one all the same, playing seemingly ordinary characters with deceptive subtlety, intensity and often charm in some of the most noted films of the 1970s and ’80s, has died, the authorities in New Mexico said on Thursday. He was 95.
Mr. Hackman and his wife were found dead on Wednesday afternoon at the home in Santa Fe., N.M., where they had been living, according to a statement from the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department. The cause of death was unclear and under investigation. Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies of Mr. Hackman; his wife, Betsy Arakawa; and a dog, according to the statement, which said that foul play was not suspected.
Mr. Hackman was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two during a 40-year career in which he appeared in films seen and remembered by millions, among them “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The French Connection,” “The Poseidon Adventure,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Unforgiven,” “Superman,” “Hoosiers” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
Neo-Nazis Targeted a Majority-Black Town. Locals Launched an Armed Watch
For weeks, men carrying rifles have guarded the roads leading into Lincoln Heights, Ohio, stopping and questioning those who approach the Cincinnati suburb.
The men, some of whom wear masks and body armor, are residents of this small, majority-Black town. They say they’re protecting their own. And they’re on edge.
In early February, a truck of neo-Nazis came to Lincoln Heights’s doorstep. Masked demonstrators — some carrying rifles — hurled racist slurs and waved flags with red swastikas on a highway overpass leading into town.
Two weeks later, on Sunday, another agitator struck, spreading racist pamphlets from the Ku Klux Klan across Lincoln Heights.
“You get punched,” said Alandes Powell, 62, a nonprofit director who lives near the town. “And someone comes and punches you again.”
Why Wayne Gretzky's Legacy Is Suddenly a Lot More Complicated in Canada
Some criticizing Gretzky for not openly supporting Canada; petition in Edmonton seeks street name change.
Heather Jeffares, sporting an Edmonton Oilers cap and jacket, recalls using her paper route money to pay for Oilers tickets to watch Wayne Gretzky play and standing outside the church during his wedding.
But she is among the many Edmontonians whose view of Gretzky — an almost saintly figure in this city — has become complicated, amid political tension between Canada and the U.S. and increasing rhetoric from U.S. President Donald Trump that he wants to make Canada its 51st state.
"It's just confusing what side he's on," Jeffares said. "He's such an icon for Canada, you would think that people like that would rally behind the country right now. We need that."
A SWAT Team Shot Up SEPTA’s New Protective Cockpit for Bus Drivers. It Passed the Test
SEPTA will be the first U.S. transit agency to install bullet-resistant glass to protect bus operators.
This just blows me away -- no pun intended -- but in Philadelphia, they are apparently working to build bulletproof cockpits to protect bus drivers. I don't begrudge the drivers who want these. It's more that I can't believe we're at this point as a society.
A rising number of assaults by irate passengers over the past 15 years has made operating a bus ever more dangerous; attacks skyrocketed in 2020 and continued.
“We’re all by ourselves and wait for the police to come. Sometimes the police don’t come until all of the blood has been shed,” said Fidel Minor, a 29-year bus operator from Houston who is now a vice president of TWU Local 260, representing members with formal grievances.
For SEPTA and its frontline workers, the search for greater safety gained urgency in late October 2023 when bus operator Bernard N. Gribbin was shot to death while driving his morning route in Philadelphia’s Germantown section.
The Missing $25 Gift Card That’s Rocking the Hamptons
Mystery has prompted a disciplinary trial with 1,400 pages of testimony and derailed a school principal’s career; 38 surveillance cameras.
On this, the townfolk of Amagansett agree: On Friday, Dec. 15, 2023, at 8:37 a.m., principal Maria Dorr emerged from the mailroom at the local elementary school with a red envelope in hand.
Whether it was rightfully hers is a question that has convulsed the small town on the eastern edge of New York’s Long Island ever since.
By some measures, the stakes could not be lower. A red envelope that went missing—or was stolen—from the school’s mailroom on that day was said to contain a $25 Amazon gift card, a Christmas-season expression of gratitude from a parent to one of the school’s occupational therapists.
Yet the missing card has prompted a police report, accusations of foul play and bullying and a disciplinary trial that has generated some 1,400 pages in testimony from more than a dozen witnesses. Passages read like an Agatha Christie mystery, except there is no antique revolver or pearl-handled dagger.
Meanwhile, based on his published rates, the fees for the arbitrator overseeing the hearing have already exceeded $24,800—or nearly a thousand-times the value of the missing card—and are sure to rise further.
Not a Coder? With A.I., Just Having an Idea Can Be Enough
I’m not a programmer. But I’ve been creating my own software tools with help from artificial intelligence.
I am not a coder. I can’t write a single line of Python, JavaScript or C++. Except for a brief period in my teenage years when I built websites and tinkered with Flash animations, I’ve never been a software engineer, nor do I harbor ambitions of giving up journalism for a career in the tech industry.
And yet, for the past several months, I’ve been coding up a storm.
Among my creations: a tool that transcribes and summarizes long podcasts, a tool to organize my social media bookmarks into a searchable database, a website that tells me whether a piece of furniture will fit in my car’s trunk and an app called LunchBox Buddy, which analyzes the contents of my fridge and helps me decide what to pack for my son’s school lunch.
These creations are all possible thanks to artificial intelligence, and a new A.I. trend known as “vibecoding.”
But building software this way — describing a problem in a sentence or two, then watching a powerful A.I. model go to work building a custom tool to solve it — is a mind-blowing experience. It produces a feeling of A.I. vertigo, similar to what I felt after using ChatGPT for the first time. And it’s the best way I’ve found to demonstrate to skeptics the abilities of today’s A.I. models, which can now automate big chunks of basic computer programming, and may soon be capable of similar feats in other fields.
Our 22 Favorite Hotel Breakfasts Right Now
My daughter isn't really old enough to read this newsletter regularly, but this article is for her nonetheless -- because if there's one thing she likes in a hotel, it's a pool, and if there's a second things she likes, it's a really good hotel breakfast. Seriously, we could spend the weekend in Gary, Indiana (no offense), and as long as the hotel had a pool and a great breakfast we'd be just fine.
There’s something magical about waking up in a new city or country and starting the day with an unforgettable—and ideally unfamiliar—breakfast. Whether buffet-style and casual with a cornucopia of local dishes to choose from or served à la carte on gleaming china by bowtied waiters, the best hotel breakfasts elevate the entire travel experience. Our far-reaching network of staff and contributors knows that better than anyone, so we asked them to share their most memorable morning meals at hotels around the globe. Next time you’re planning a trip to Istanbul, Dublin, Hong Kong, or elsewhere, let this list light the way to breakfasts that are well worth plodding downstairs for.
Among the top ranked:
Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong – Hong Kong, China
Hotel Pacai – Vilnius, Lithuania
The Shelbourne – Dublin, Ireland
Enchantment Resort – Sedona, Arizona
The Chanler at Cliff Walk – Newport, Rhode Island
Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi – Hanoi, Vietnam
Passalacqua – Lake Como, Italy
Forgive me I don't remember the name of the hotel. The ultimate breakfast I had was in Germany deep in the black forest they had smoked trout caught locally, and many other fixings.
I’m going to chime in here because this morning when I finally arose, it was 87° and my specialty oatmeal awaited me in my refrigerator. That’s just me though. The last time I was in a Hyatt in Panama City the hotel breakfast was nothing to write home about and rolled out to us by a robot. What’s so stupid about the whole thing though was a waiter had to take our order and walk out with the robot to put the plates on the table. My own preference is to have a good lunch or dinner trying something new then.
The Hackman story is under investigation. Seems like only one of their three dogs was affected with both of its owners. Gene was marvelous and I had no clue about his concert pianist wife. She was as talented in her musical field as he was in his.