News

Dan Halloran Convicted of Fraud and Bribery

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Former New York City Councilman Dan Halloran was convicted Tuesday on corruption and bribery charges. The jury deliberated for just under an hour and a half to return a guilty verdict on all five counts. Halloran was the highest elected official in the US who is openly an adherent of a Pagan or Heathen religion. In September 2012, Halloran, along with state Democratic Senate majority leader Malcolm Smith and ex-Queens Republican Party leader Vincent Tabone, was the focus of an FBI sting operation. He was recorded taking payoffs to facilitate a plot to get Smith, a Democrat, on the GOP line for the 2013 New York City mayoral race.

Paganism

Column: Pagans Fight LNG Port Construction in NYC

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[The following is a guest post by Courtney Weber. Courtney Weber is a Wiccan Priestess, writer, Tarot Adviser, and teacher living in New York City. She runs open events in Manhattan and teaches workshops on Witchcraft from coast to coast. Photography in this article is courtesy of George Courtney.]

Warning: This Post Contains a Scary Movie, a Scary Monster, and New Yorkers. (But also cupcakes.)

Six months ago, I organized an event that ended with weepy Witches fleeing the room. I showed a film, which should have come with a trigger warning: “Empaths beware: This film will break your heart chakras.”

The film was Gasland, the documentary exposing the dangers of hydraulic fracturing (“Fracking”) for natural gas extraction.

Paganism

Column: Visiting a Sacred Void, the 9/11 Memorial

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This past week I had the opportunity to visit the 9/11 Memorial site in Manhattan. After a short ride on a commuter rail, I jumped on the downtown A train to the Fulton Street station, stopped at a Starbucks for a tall iced-coffee, and began weaving my way eastward. This was not the first time that I had been to the area. As a child, I remember standing under the draping shadows of the twin towers – the two monolithic structures that symbolized New York City. Later, as an adult, I recall dining at Windows on the World, the restaurant that operated on the 106th floor of the North Tower.