News

It's officially out with the old, and in with the new for NYC ... cause the Big Apple's last public payphone booth is unplugged.

Officials removed the historic gem Monday morning -- located on 7th Ave. and 50th St. in Midtown Manhattan -- and it was truly the last of its kind.

And, just like that, no one will be asking for a dime to make a phone call anymore. This marks the end of the New York City public payphone era.

There are still 4 full-length so-called "Superman booths" in Manhattan's Upper West Side -- and, as you might expect, they're essentially museum pieces ... where kids use 'em for Instagram photoshoots.

The city started taking thousands of payphones off the streets, across all five boroughs back in 2015 ... and switched them out for public Wi-Fi hotspots.

The Wi-Fi hotspots allow folks to have free Wi-Fi, along with free phone calls within the U.S., access to social services directory, transit and weather alerts ... and folks can also charge many of their devices.

The eagle has landed for desperate parents, and it couldn't have come at a more needed time ... replenished baby formula is here, even though it's far from a permanent fix.

An emergency shipment of specialty formula arrived in the States Sunday via military plane -- which carried with it around 78,000 pounds of Nestle Health Science Alfamino Infant and Alfamino Junior formula ... able to fill upwards of half a million bottles, with more coming.

The touchdown of this new load was brought in from Europe on President Biden's orders -- and while there are another 114 pallets of Gerber Good Start Extensive HA formula scheduled to arrive soon ... it's still not quite enough to replenish shelves across the country.

As you know ... there's a massive shortage going on right now at supermarkets just about everywhere -- with parents reporting having to drive hours, in some cases, to find formula.

There's a variety of reasons for the shortage -- including plants having to either shut down and/or stall production -- but the government's working on getting those up and running again ... including Nestle, which'll do a standard quality check of this shipment ASAP.

After that, they'll be sent to doctor's offices, pharmacies and hospitals -- at least first -- and presumably, to grocery stores thereafter. It appears these shipments coming in are allergy-sensitive ... as it seems parents have struggled mightily to find such products for their kids.

In another gut punch for the family of the Buffalo security guard killed in the mass shooting, a scammer allegedly tried to steal thousands of dollars from their crowdfunding account.

Here's the deal ... there's an official GoFundMe for the family of Aaron Salter Jr., the retired police officer who was working security at the supermarket where the tragic shooting happened, and it's raised about $40,000.

But, Aaron's son says the fund was targeted by a scammer this week, who he says tried to steal his personal information and bank account numbers.

Aaron Salter III tells TMZ ... he was combing through a sea of messages on the GoFundMe when he came across a message from a user who claimed they wanted to donate $4k. But, when he clicked on the message, he says his personal info was instantly switched with someone in Mississippi.

Aaron's son says he was able to get in touch with the good folks at GoFundMe, and they got the account back in his family's hands.

A spokesperson for GoFundMe tells TMZ ... they responded to a phishing attempt against the Salter family, and quickly secured the account. We're told the funds are safe and are being delivered directly to the fam.

Aaron's son says they would have been devastated if the scammer had succeeded -- because he says, obviously, the last thing they need while grieving is someone trying to rob them blind.

Taylor Swift gave the commencement address Wednesday at New York University ... and there was an undercurrent to her talk that very subtly takes a shot at cancel culture.

Yankee Stadium was packed to the gills as Taylor took the stage and mused she's now a doctor ... after receiving an honorary degree ... she cautioned folks not to make her the go-to in an emergency.

Then she launched into her speech, which was all about her and her life. You could pass it off as somewhat self-indulgent, but there's a theme that seems to challenge cancel culture.

She talks about her cringeworthy moments over the years, and then drops undeniable knowledge on the grads ... that everyone has cringe moments in their life. It could be as superficial as the clothes you once wore -- something she talks about -- but it can go deeper -- much deeper.

Taylor says everyone makes mistakes, and she's always grown from hers and made her life better.

One way to look at this ... we have to tolerate mistakes and allow people to grow, not shelve them. As she said, there were reporters who suggested to her she might end up in pop star jail ... pop star jail is a form of cancel culture.

In any event, the crowd ate it up. BTW ... there's a class at NYU specifically on T.S.'s music.

The China Eastern plane that went up in flames in March after nosediving out of the sky and right into a mountain may have, in fact, been a deliberate act ... this per a new report.

Black box data from the downed Boeing 737-800 -- crashing somewhere in the mountains between Kunming and Guangzhou -- indicates no mechanical malfunction ... but rather, points to someone torpedoing the plane themselves, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The outlet, citing U.S. officials with knowledge of the investigation, says it'd been relayed to them that the plane "did what it was told to do by someone in the cockpit" -- at least that's what the preliminary assessment of this tragedy suggests thus far.

The fact that there's no indication something was wrong with the machinery has led regulators to look to the actions of the pilot manning the aircraft ... and although it seems likely they may have caused the "near-vertical" descent, WSJ notes officials aren't ruling out the possibility of somebody storming the cockpit and taking over the controls themselves.

With that said, China Eastern seems to have suggested no such storming took place -- their own investigation revealed an emergency alert to that effect was NOT sent as the passenger jet went down.

While all signs seem to point to the pilot, the airline said premature speculation could be detrimental to the investigation and to the air travel industry at large. Still, it appears this may be the most plausible explanation ... there've been ZERO bulletins issued addressing any structural problem from Boeing, so there's nothing wrong with their product.

As we reported ... the plane went into a complete freefall pitch from 29,000 feet in the air and went straight down for nearly 2 minutes -- pulling up briefly -- before ultimately slamming against a mountain range and killing all 132 people onboard.

A Lyft driver wasn't about to allow a racist couple into his vehicle -- getting in a nasty back and forth with the two -- before ultimately giving them the boot.

According to the driver, the whole thing went down outside a bar called Fossils Last Stand in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. He says the ride was for a woman named "Jackie" who allegedly owns the bar.

The video is intense, you first see "Jackie" enter the vehicle, shocking the driver when she says, "You're like a white guy. You're like a normal guy, you speak English." The driver then let her know he was canceling the ride, telling her how inappropriate the comment was.

That's when the woman's male friend enters the picture, escalating things, and telling the driver he should punch him in the face.

The driver calls the couple racist, and in turn, the man calls the driver a "n*****-lover."

T-Mobile caused one of its customers to lose 3/4 of a million bucks, and the guy who's out the money is now suing the phone company, claiming its security sucked so bad, someone just up and stole his money.

Calvin Cheng claims T-Mobile violated Federal laws that impose security regulations to ensure against hacking and outright stealing.

Cheng claims he's a customer of a company called Iterative ... a hybrid investment fund focused on crypto trading. He says in 2018 T-Mobile was the victim of a SIM-swap -- where a criminal third party convinces a wireless carrier to transfer access from one of its legitimate customers to a SIM-card controlled by the criminal.

Cheng alleges in 2020 ... T-Mobile allowed one of these criminal third parties access to Iterative's founder. The criminal third party, posing as the Iterative founder, convinced Cheng to send 15 Bitcoins to a digital wallet ... which he believed was controlled by Iterative. He was expected to cash it in for U.S. dollars but never received them.

He seems to be pegging the price of Bitcoin at the time of the fraud at $50,000 a pop -- hence the $750k in damages -- although now its value has plummeted to just under $30,000 a coin.

Cheng says T-Mobile's security lapses were a direct cause of his loss.

In addition to the $750,000, Cheng wants punitive damages and other costs.

The passenger who landed a plane after the pilot lost consciousness says he was "calm and collected" ... in no small part because he was about to become a father.

Darren Harrison spoke to Savannah Guthrie on "Today" ... and explained with all the buttons and gadgets on the control panel, it all came down to common sense.

The emergency was even more harrowing than first reported. The 39-year-old said after the pilot became incapacitated, the Cessna began to nose-dive at a high rate of speed.

Harrison was cool as a cucumber, saying, “I knew if I didn’t react, then we would die."

As he put it ... “I was pretty calm and collected the whole time because I knew it was a life or death situation. Either you do what you have to do to control the situation or you’re gonna die.”

Harrison, who works at a flooring company, said his wife, Britney, who was 7-months pregnant with their unborn daughter, was his inspiration. He also said there was an element of divine intervention, telling Guthrie “the hand of God was on that plane."

As he said, “I was climbing to the front and that plane was in a dive. I was just looking going, ‘I can’t die today. Britney’s pregnant, I’ve got a baby on the way — not today. Today’s not my day."

As we reported, Harrison contacted the tower operator who help guide him down to the runway, where he made a perfect landing ... just incredible.

There was a scary situation Saturday night in Vegas, when a stampede erupted after people thought they heard gunshots, and several people were trampled.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department tells TMZ ... "Shortly after 10 PM, gunfire was reportedly heard near the site of the Lovers & Friends Festival, causing a large group of attendees to exit the venue. At this time, there is no evidence of a shooting and the initial report has been deemed unfounded. Three people were transported to a local hospital with minor injuries. The show has since resumed."

The show was part of the Lovers & Friends Festival, a weekend event courtesy of Live Nation. It went down at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds. Performers included Lauryn Hill, Ludacris, Lil Jon, Mario, Monica, and TLC.

It was bedlam at around 10:30 PM, after people thought they heard gunshots. Thousands of fans beelined it for an exit, and some ended up on the ground getting stomped.

Security paused the concert and it resumed a short time later.

A tragic end to what was supposed to be an exciting stunt -- after a father miscalculated his cliff jump -- leading to his death as his family watched in horror.

The video is tough to watch, you see the man take a leap from the 100-foot cliff in Spain. Clearly, he knows something is wrong quickly, letting out a scream before clipping the jagged rock and hitting the water ... you hear the woman recording yell, "Oh my God!"

According to the Majorca Daily Bulletin, the woman recording was the man's wife -- his son was also present -- and they had rented a boat for the day to tour the rocks on one of the Malgrats Isles by Santa Ponsa.

The report says authorities were called to the scene shortly after the accident, and they were able to locate the man's body.

This is incredible ... a black hole smack in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy that is 4.3 MILLION times the mass of the sun!!!

The image was captured by The Event Horizon Telescope Group. Now get this -- it's located 27,000 light-years from planet Earth. Put another way ... as enormous as this hole is ... when you look up in the sky with a naked eye, it looks about as big as a donut on the moon. Wrap your head around that!!!

The hole is at the center of our galaxy and near the constellation Sagittarius. It is, indeed, supermassive. You want your mind blown again ... its mass is equal to 4 million suns!!!

It's being described as "the glue that holds the galaxy together."  As for how black holes are created ... it's when a gravitational pull is so intense nothing -- even light -- can escape.

This image was released days after NASA showed off super clear images of stars ... courtesy of the James Webb Space Telescope.

The $10 billion telescope is just beginning its work, which should unlock some of the mysteries of our universe.

Foot meet mouth.

Golf legend Greg Norman, when confronted about the heinous murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018 ... said, "we've all made mistakes.".

Norman, a 2x majors winner who spent over 300 weeks as the world's number 1 ranked player in the '80s and '90s, is the CEO of LIV Golf, the new Saudi Arabian-backed golf organization.

GN met with reporters at media day this week and was asked about the killing of the Washington Post journalist at the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul, Turkey.

“Everybody has owned up to it, right? It has been spoken about, from what I’ve read, going on what you guys reported," the 67-year-old said.

"Take ownership, no matter what it is. Look, we’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”

Of course, there was immediate backlash to the comments ... because that "mistake" was the brutal killing of an innocent man.

Norman also attempted to highlight the good things happening in the middle eastern country.

“This whole thing about Saudi Arabia and Khashoggi and human rights, talk about it, but also talk about the good the country is doing to change its culture," Norman said.

"There’s not many countries that can stand up and be proud of that. They can’t be proud of their past — there’s a lot of countries in this world that have a cross to bear too — but they are looking after the younger generation.”

Sully's got nothing on this guy ... a passenger in a small plane took the controls midair after the pilot became incapacitated ... and by a miracle he was able to land the aircraft safely.

It went down Tuesday at the Palm Beach International Airport. WPBF-TV in Palm Beach obtained video of the emergency after air traffic control received an alarming radio call ... not from the pilot, but from the passenger ... "I've got a serious situation here. My pilot has gone incoherent. I have no idea how to fly the airplane."

A serious situation is a gross understatement ... but the dude stayed calm as the tower operator jumped to the ready -- "Roger. What's your position?" The passenger responded with this chilling message ... "I can see the coast of Florida in front of me. And I have no idea."

The tower operator said, "Maintain wings level and just try to follow the coast, either north or southbound. We're trying to locate you."

Locate him they did -- 25 miles from the airport. Somehow the tower operator gently gave instructions to the passenger and the plane not only landed safely, but it was also a respectable landing even for a licensed pilot!!!

NASA is giving us a gleaming look at the stars ... releasing shockingly sharp images courtesy of the James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA officials breathed a sigh of relief Monday, saying the telescope's optical alignment was "perfect" ... allowing them to capture a crystal clear view of our galaxy and beyond.

Michael McElwain, a scientist at NASA, gushed ... "I'm delighted to report that the telescope alignment has been completed with performance even better than we had anticipated".

The images were a test, to make sure the $10 billion telescope was working properly.

NASA's goal is to study how stars were created and investigate other objects in the solar system ... in hopes of figuring out how the first stars and galaxies formed.

The image on the left shows a view of the now-retired Spitzer Space telescope and the image on the right displays the improved images from the Webb Space Telescope.

Scientists say, this is only the beginning of what Webb will do in the coming years.

Abortion rights were top of mind for many this past week -- and, for a moment, it seemed to be on the New York Times' mind as well ... because a buzzword was worked into Wordle.

Here's the deal ... some Wordle users on Monday reported that the word of the day turned out to be "fetus," which sparked a lot of outrage and speculation that perhaps the Times had purposely plugged that in to make a point about the recent Roe v Wade news.

As you might imagine ... folks didn't think it was funny, and couldn't quite fathom why the NYT would jam that word in amid a very high-tension time in the country. Obviously, reproductive rights are no laughing matter -- especially when they're at risk of being repealed at the federal level.

Lo and behold, the Times didn't do this to provoke the masses -- the paper came out Monday and clarified what exactly had happened ... and it sounds like a case of pre-loaded 5-letter answers that they weren't able to scrub before some players discovered it.

As editor Everdeen Mason notes, "But because of the current Wordle technology, it can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game.

She adds, "When we discovered last week that this particular word would be featured today, we switched it for as many solvers as possible" ... going to explain that the point of Wordle is to escape and entertain, not to focus on the news. EM also seemed to apologize to users.

This is terrifying ... a transatlantic flight packed with passengers was 40 minutes into the flight, when one of the pilots revealed he was unqualified to fly.

The Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet had taken off from London -- headed to New York -- when the co-pilot somehow made it known he had not taken his final flying test qualifying him to take a seat in the cockpit.

The Civil Aviation Authority in the UK tried to downplay the incident, saying, "Virgin Atlantic has made us aware of the incident. Both pilots were suitably licensed and qualified to undertake the flight." It begs the question ... if they were qualified, why did the plane have to turn around?

Eventually, Virgin found a replacement pilot, and after a 3-hour delay, the plane was off again.

This comes as airlines in the U.S. are experiencing drastic shortages in pilots, resulting in numerous flight cancelations. There's now a push by some airlines to reduce the number of training hours for pilots to qualify in smaller jets. Currently, there's a 1500-hour rule, requiring pilots to train that long before taking the helm in the cockpit. Some airline execs say the 1500-hour rule is too high a hurdle, and want the number of training hours reduced. It used to be 250 hours, but after a recent crash, the number was raised to 1500.

And, while this is pretty shocking ... this is likely part of a larger problem 'cause the U.S. is reportedly experiencing a huge pilot shortage ... and training delays due to the pandemic hasn't helped either.

Airlines are scrambling to recruit more pilots and get them trained and flying, ASAP. As millions take to the skies each day, the shortage will likely become responsible for higher airline prices, cancelations, burnout of current staff and smaller airlines cutting their schedules.