The Morning Briefing - July 28, 2015
MAHWAH – There is very little question about the professional future of a guy working for an ATM company, who accidentally left a satchel with $141,000 in small bills sitting on the side of the road yesterday. ABC reports it was less than 15 minutes before someone took off with the bounty, and then stopped off to grab some used tires from an auto business. If you happen to be that guy with the satchel of cash and some used tires, the Mahwah police suggest you to give them a call.
MANCHESTER – It was five long hours in a tree for one hiker, worried she would be attacked by roving, hungry coyotes in the backwoods of South Jersey. Cops found the Quakertown, Pa. woman up in a tree early yesterday, using a piece of her pants to tie herself to a limb. The Asbury Park Press reports the hiker did not have a cell phone for some reason, so she needed to rely on the traditional form of communication in the woods, shouting “Help!, Help!” Firefighters got her out of there.
ON THE RAILS – With all the recent rail delays into Manhattan – and NJ Transit and Amtrak pointing fingers at each other – we desperately need another tunnel under the Hudson. U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx agrees, urging the super duo, Gov. Chris Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to meet with him in the next two weeks and figure out what to do about the crumbling, overused, century-old tunnels. In a letter to the two governors obtained by The Record, Foxx notes how the feds put up $3 billion for a new NJ Transit tunnel that was begun in 2009, and then famously canceled by Christie in October 2010. Amtrak wants two new tubes under the river. The question is: who pays?
BRIDGETON – Perhaps it was a competing “chain-saw artist” who broke into a workshop and made off with 10 saws. WCAU reports this chain-saw artist, who goes by the great name of “Ackmonster,” says he has made a 15-year career out of making stuff out of stumps and fallen trees. On Friday morning, he was shocked to see that someone had broken into his workshop and made off with $6,000 worth of chain saws – just days before he was set to go on his annual “carving tour” at local fairs up and down the East Coast. Sabotage? You decide.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
LONG ISLAND, NY – Tonight, Billy Joel plays his last performance ever at Nassau Coliseum, and there was all this great talk about renaming a stretch of Route 107 as “Billy Joel Boulevard.” But some members of the state Legislature are balking at the idea because the Piano Man is still alive. Apparently, the only way to be honored in Long Island is after you are dead – long after you would know about the honor or would even care. “This nonsense wouldn’t happen in Allentown,” fans say.
BERKELEY, Calif. – It’s being called the worst-smelling flower ever to hit a botanical garden, and somehow that’s causing flocks of people to come experience it. The University of California at Berkeley is reporting that more than 1,000 visitors have come to see the Sumatran titan arum (nicknamed the “corpse flower”), in full bloom over the weekend. One official at the botanical garden described the smell as akin to "dirty socks wrapped around a rotting steak."
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Speaking of meat: It was this day in 1900 that the hamburger was apparently invented by Louis Lassing at his diner, Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut. To mark the event, today is National Hamburger Day. Here are four critical facts about the hamburger in no particular order of importance:
◦ The oldest fast food restaurant in the world is the White Castle franchise, which opened in 1921.
◦ The people of America eat more burgers out at restaurants or on the go than they do at home.
◦ The largest hamburger ever created was over 8,000 pounds and was cooked for a burger festival in Wisconsin.
◦ Hamburgers are made of beef, not ham, and there is much debate if maybe this tasty creation actually came from Hamburg, making this whole American celebration a bit moot.
WORD OF THE DAY
Doodle sack - noun
Definition: Old English word for bagpipe
Example: Gonna go impress the ladies down the shore with my doodle sack.