Virtual art experience debuts in US at Powerhouse Arts
Powerhouse Arts will debut a new virtual reality art experience this fall, developed by ACCIONA Cultura in exclusive collaboration with the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, Spain. “Masterpieces: A Virtual Experience of the Museo del Prado” will take visitors through the museum from the perspective of a security guard on his final night shift before retirement, offering a personal, unique look at works such as Goya’s “Witches’ Sabbath.” Pictured above is “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch. Triptych, 1490-1500. Grisaille, Oil on oak panel. Image: Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado
Happy Friday in NYC, where the most anticipated trial of the year is weeks away, and this last-minute guilty plea could derail it before it begins.
The man who captured the world’s attention after allegedly killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan and then fleeing on an e-bike is set to go to trial on state second-degree murder charges in just a few weeks. Luigi Mangione, now 28, was discovered after a five-day manhunt in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, with a handgun and a collection of writings in his backpack decrying the American health insurance industry.
Since then, as Mangione waits out his trial in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, he has become a cultural icon, in no small part for his good looks, sense of fashion and unusual story as an Ivy League student and the son of wealthy parents. At the time of his arrest in December 2024, Mangione drew an avid following and set off a nationwide debate about predatory health insurance practices. He even inspired a wave of Halloween costumes last year.
Today, Mangione pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges. Each charge carries a sentence of up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to the state murder charges.
The impact of the federal guilty plea on Mangione’s murder case remains unknown. If he pleads guilty, his lawyers are expected to seek dismissal of the state charges under New York’s double-jeopardy law, which bars someone from being tried twice for the same crime. The Manhattan district attorney’s office will probably fight the motion on the grounds that the state murder charge is legally distinct from the federal stalking charges.
“He’s trying to cut his losses,” Gary Galperin, an adjunct professor at Cardozo Law School, told Gothamist. “When you put aside all the high-profile attention to the case and all the innuendos and concerns about the healthcare insurance industry, at its most basic, this is a cold-blooded execution on the streets of Manhattan where there's no justification, absolutely no legal justification.”
If convicted on the second-degree murder charge, Mangione faces 25 years to life in prison.
Brooklyn is an “open-air gallery,” and summer is a great time to tour the borough’s famous murals, which appear on walls from Williamsburg and Bushwick to Brownsville, Sunset Park and Coney Island!
The city will pay all childcare expenses for families receiving assistance.
Rally urges holdout Congressmember to sign discharge petition for veterans benefit bill.
NY AG Letitia James announced the fifth delivery of eggs — more than 280K — to the Food Bank For New York City as part of a bipartisan, multi-state settlement.
People who bought something from an overseas vendor last year may receive a surprise tariff refund.
NYC high schoolers will have the opportunity to receive thousands of free and low-cost tickets to Broadway and off-Broadway shows into the fall.
The Brooklyn Child Abuse Squad is asking other potential victims to come forward after arresting a man who allegedly molested a 12-year-old girl within the 70th Precinct, which includes sections of Flatbush and Midwood.
Police are asking for the public’s help in finding a 13-year-old girl who has been missing for almost two weeks.
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Our World In Photos
Photo: Nava Jamshidi/AP
KABUL — Strong statement from the ‘mouths of babes’ … Four young girls dressed in matching outfits hold Taliban flags on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal and the start of Taliban rule in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026.
For more pictures like this, see Our World in Photos.
Sounding Board:
Concierges, adjunct professors, potato chip tasters: US employers are relying more and more on ‘disposable’ workers
In this image from video, Amazon workers line up outside the company's facility, in Staten Island borough of New York, March 25, 2022. Amazon has suspended at least 50 workers who refused to work their shifts following a trash compactor fire at the warehouse, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022, according to union organizers. Photo: Robert Bumsted/AP
When I leave my Boston condo every day, I say good morning to the concierge, who works for a contracting company providing staff to residential buildings. When I conduct an interview in a nearby building, the people who clean that office at night are contractors. The person who serves me my lunch sandwich is a part-timer with no career prospects in that job.
When my best intentions to eat well are for naught and I gorge on Doritos, I remember that the tasters PepsiCo hires to test the chips’ addictiveness are contractors.
These are all examples of what I call “disposable jobs.” People who have them work at an employer’s site, but their employer makes no commitment to them regarding career prospects or job security. My research shows that employers treat more than 1 in 3 U.S. workers as disposable. That comes to just under 57 million full- or part-time workers out of the nation’s workforce of 162 million.
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Cartoon Sketchbook
By Bill Day
For the Road
Happy Birthday romance novelist Danielle Steel!
On this day in 1951, the Eagle reported, “Everything, they say, happens in Brooklyn, and in Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field last night happened ‘Music Appreciation Night,’ a phenomenon previously unknown to history. In the upper left-field stands, 2,426 musicians, or at least Dodger fans, each armed with a musical instrument, gathered and played, constituting what was no doubt the world’s largest orchestra.”
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