NSW Police hope facial reconstruction technology will help identify an unknown man found dead in Sydney’s south-west 35 years ago.
Key points:
The man was found dead near Guildford railway station in 1987
New technology has allowed investigators to recreate his face
He has never been formally identified
The digitally-constructed image of the unknown man has been released as part of Missing Persons Week 2022.
Detective Chief Inspector Glen Browne manages the state’s Missing Persons Register and said it was the first time the unit has used forensic facial reconstruction tools to try and identify a deceased person.
“These types of images are produced only when all other means of identification have failed,” he said.
“Yet it’s margin of error for much of the face is relatively small and the end result is quite lifelike.”
The man’s body was found on the railway line at Guildford on March 31, 1987, about 200 meters south of the Hawkesbury Street overpass.
Investigations at the time determined the man’s death was not suspicious but he has never been identified.
Detective Chief Inspector Browne said he hoped the reconstructed image would generate new leads in the case.
“Unfortunately, the man sustained serious facial injuries when he died,” he said.
“This reconstruction was created by examining two monochrome post mortem images taken at the morgue in 1987.
“We believe this is the most accurate depiction of what the man may have looked like prior to his death and hope its release will prompt someone to come forward with information.”
The man was of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean appearance and aged between 50 and 55 years.
He was about 170 centimeters tall, had a medium build and graying brown hair.
He was wearing black trousers, a short sleeve white shirt with red and black squares and brown shoes.
The man also had a silver “Zenith” watch and a silver upper front tooth.
A fire in a Harlem apartment early Wednesday sparked by the lithium-ion battery on an electric scooter killed a 5-year-old girl and a 36-year-old woman, and left the child’s father in critical condition, the police and fire officials said.
Firefighters responded just after 2:30 am to a blaze that broke out in a sixth-floor apartment in the Jackie Robinson Houses, owned and managed by the New York City Housing Authority. The scooter was inside the front door of the apartment, blocking the exit, according to the Fire Department. The fire was contained to one apartment and brought under control about an hour later. A firefighter and at least one other person sustained minor injuries.
Outside the multistory NYCHA building on Wednesday, a charred scooter sat unattended. Former co-workers and neighbors of the father, whom they identified as Erick Williams, 46, said it belonged to him. They described him as fun-loving and said he had previously worked for the Parks Department. His name of him, and that of his daughter of him and the woman, who neighbors said was his girlfriend of him, were not immediately released by the police.
Electronic bikes and scooters have been implicated in numerous fires in recent months, leading the housing authority to propose banning them from its buildings entirely. Experts say the problems are often linked to aging, damaged or malfunctioning batteries and charging devices. The Fire Department has repeatedly warned of the dangers of lithium-ion batteries.
Another fire on Monday on Townsend Avenue in the Bronx was also sparked by lithium-ion batteries from electronic bikes or scooters, fire marshals said. Wednesday’s fire brought the number of fatalities linked to lithium-ion batteries this year to five, according to Fire Department statistics.
Marshals have conducted 121 battery-related investigations so far this year — already exceeding the 104 carried out last year — and have recorded 66 related injuries. For all of 2021, there were 79 injuries and four deaths related to lithium-ion batteries. (While those batteries are also found in cellphones, laptops and electric cars, there have not been widespread reports of those items catching fire.)
According to NYCHA, since 2019, there have been about 10 fires in public housing that have received an official or probable cause related to lithium-ion batteries. In a statement on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the agency said that the public-comment period for the proposed new policy to ban e-bikes and e-bike batteries in its buildings had been extended until Sept. 6, and that the agency would issue a final policy after that date.
The Fire Department distributed pamphlets and fliers about fire safety and advice for using electronic bikes and scooters near the site of the fire on Wednesday. Among the tips: Before buying an e-bike, make sure it has the UL Mark, which means it has been tested and meets safety standards. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for charging and storage, and only use that company’s power cords.
The popularity of e-bikes has grown dramatically in recent years, but many who use them — for both work and pleasure — may struggle with those guidelines. Doing so can be much more costly than buying off-brand or refurbished equipment. And e-bikes are often used by delivery workers who are making very low wages and who have to scrounge to afford the bikes in the first place.
E-bikes were only legalized in New York City in 2020, when many residents were relying on delivery services, though they were a common sight before then. In addition to concerns about fire safety, there has also been growing friction over traffic safety on the city’s crowded streets.
Inside the Harlem building on Wednesday, the walls in the hallway near the apartment were blackened, and the smell of smoke lingered. A woman who lives on the fifth floor said she had escaped with her children from her, including a 3-month-old.
“It’s scary,” she said. “It’s a tragedy that it happened, a little girl’s life was lost.”
Outside, a pair of former co-workers — Stephanie Cardona, 46, and Courtney Story, 52 — discussed setting up a memorial. They had worked with Mr. Williams at the Parks Department, where they said he was a crew chief. The scooter, they said, was “his transportation of him.”
Ms. Cardona recalled that Mr. Williams was always in the local park with his daughter and three Huskies, which they said also perished in the fire.
Ms. Story held back tears as she contemplated the struggle that Mr. Williams had ahead of him.
“I hope to God he pulls through,” she said. “It’s going to be a process to pull through, and then your baby is gone.”
“The world is not playing fair at all,” she added.
Resilience has been a feature throughout Peter Bol’s extraordinary life and the Australian athlete was not going to let an injured ankle derail his Commonwealth Games dreams. The 28-year-old, whose family fled Sudan’s civil war when he was four, has coped with the stress that comes with competing against the best in a grievous event for the past decade.
There have been moments of brilliance, with his fourth-placed finish in the Tokyo Olympics last year an illustration. More recently, a seventh in the world championships was deflating. On Tuesday, when he rolled an ankle ahead of his appearance in a heat of the 800m in Birmingham, Bol would have been forgiven for fearing the worst.
Instead he focused. I iced the ankle. Put your feet up. He iced the joint again. And again. It was a professional approach to a scare. I have planned to fight on, no matter the pain. But it was not until Wednesday morning that he was convinced he would produce his best from him. Walking 800m on a dodgy ankle is painful, let alone running it. But Bol pulled it off with brilliance when clocking a time of 1:47.01 to qualify the fastest for Sunday’s final at Alexander Stadium.
“I rolled my ankle yesterday and I was limping on the way back and today I’m perfectly fine, so it’s a massive thanks to the medical team at Athletics Australia,” he said. “I wasn’t playing basketball, I promise. I just rolled it on the curb at the track. That’s the first time ever. It was getting better by the night and then in the morning, I was like, ‘Bam, I’m ready to go’.”
The ease with which he claimed the heat is testament to this. Bol trailed Kenyan Cornelius Tuwai, who has a faster personal best than the Western Australian, for the first 550m before dispatching with him to cruise to the line.
“To be honest, I did feel at ease and I enjoyed that a lot,” he said. “It was awesome to come back from the world’s, because it was a disappointing end, so to come back here and be in amazing shape and just switch off like that at the end is amazing.”
Meanwhile, five-time Paralympic gold medalist Evan O’Hanlon successfully defended the T37/38 100m title he claimed four years ago on the Gold Coast with a time of 11.23 seconds in the final.
O’Hanlon, who has twice retired from the track during his lengthy and decorated career but returned to win bronze at the Tokyo Paralympics, said he hoped could further add to his medal collection at the Games in 2024. “I would like to keep running . I know if I was training at the same level, I was before London and Rio that I feel like I could win gold again in Paris,” he said.
Rohan Browning was left disappointed after finishing sixth in the men’s 100m final with a time of 10.20 – 0.10s slower than the time he laid down in the heats, which would have been enough for him to take silver in the final. Akani Simbine won silver in 10.13 behind winner Ferdinand Omanyala.
“I’m not happy with it,” Browning said. “It was just an ugly, painful kind of race and it’s one of those tough nights. A month ago there’s no way I saw myself in this ending. I try to take each win and race in my stride but once you’re here you just want to be on that podium. That’s what it’s all about.
“I thought about packing it in after worlds and just getting back home and into some training for next year and I am glad I decided to persist. I think one of the lessons I have learned is persistence is so much more important than patience. You have just got to keep trying things and keep at it.
“Today there were a few things I could have done to be up there but I think I was bested today. I need more training in my legs and I need a big winter off-season.”
Brandon Starc takes a moment with his baby after winning high jump silver. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
And in the high jump, Brandon Starc battled through the pain barrier and narrowly failed to defend his Commonwealth crown, but still claimed silver behind New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr after both men cleared 2.25m.
“That was tough. That was probably the toughest comp I’ve ever had,” Starc said. “I had to withdraw from world champs because of the bruised heel and throughout that comp, besides maybe the first jump, I was feeling every bit of that bruised heel.
“I was taking my shoe off, trying to get some sort of relief, tapping it here and there but really I just had to grit my teeth and jump through it. I don’t know what it was, I don’t know if it was family or if I just wanted something really bad and I kind of just jumped through it and somehow I got a medal.”
Over two weeks in a country New South Wales courtroom, police officers were moved to tears, made apologies, and admitted that their best had not been enough as they tried to explain how a 22-year-old man died while fleeing from them.
Images have been used with the permission of the family.
Family members watching the inquest into his death at times cried, shook their heads, and left the gallery when the evidence became too painful.
Gomeroi man Gordon Copeland drowned in the flood-swollen Gwydir River in Moree last July when he ran from police who had been following him and his two friends in a car.
Gordon Copeland with his son Gordon Junior.(Supplied: Aboriginal Legal Service)
The events of that day, and the evidence heard at the inquest, now have the police wondering how they will move forward with the local community.
“I don’t know how we mend our relationship,” the region’s police commander, Superintendent Steve Laksa, told the coroner.
“The tragedy of Gordon Copeland and the potential failures there by the police are tragic, but I don’t know what we do in terms of moving forward from here.”
Steve Laksa told the inquest he is not sure how to mend the relationship with the community.(ABC New England North West: Kathleen Ferguson)
‘Inhuman’ body cam evidence
Constable Nick Murray was on the scene early that July morning when he saw someone of “Aboriginal appearance” go down an “8-metre cliff” into the Gwydir River.
He had switched on his body cam, and the video from that night was played to the inquest.
While shining his torch through high grass, he can be heard saying, “F*** me they’re young aye, with clothes on too, I’m surprised he hasn’t f****** drowned.”
Mr Copeland had fallen into the river minutes earlier.
Gordon Copeland was last seen disappearing down a bend in the Gwydir River.(ABC New England North West: Kathleen Ferguson)
Constable Murray can be heard laughing, and said, “F*** this little c***.”
About nine minutes after Mr Copeland had entered the river, Constable Murray said, “I don’t know what do you wanna do, keep looking? F*** me.”
At the inquest, he was questioned about his level of concern.
“I was very concerned … we’re there trying my hardest to find the person, and I was very thoughtful in trying to make sure he’s fine,” Constable Murray said.
“What have you learned from this?” asked counsel assisting the coroner Peggy Dwyer.
“Act in a more professional way on body-worn video, I guess. What I said was a coping mechanism, I can’t control that it just blurts out,” Constable Murray said.
“My reactions and what I said was wrong, knowing what happened,” he said.
Mr Copeland’s cousin Lesley Fernando told the court this evidence was “utterly disgusting”.
“It’s inhuman, the actions on that video, that we will now live with forever,” she said.
“We will never unsee that or unhear it.”
Lesley Fernando says police gave her a post-it note with information to continue the search for her cousin.(ABC New England North West: Kemii Maguire)
That was not the last time police were at the river while Mr Copeland was still alive.
Those same officers were sent back to collect evidence an hour later, and what they found was a person in pain and struggling to stay afloat in floodwater.
Officers told the inquest they pleaded with the person to swim towards them.
He tried to swim to them, but the current was too strong, and they watched him drift off around the bend.
It was later agreed that person was Gordon Copeland. It was the last time he was seen alive.
A search kicked off shortly afterwards and lasted about eight hours, after information from detectives led to its termination.
Local police told the family two people were in the car on July 10, and they had been accounted for.
Detective Brad Beddoes got this information from the car’s owner, who was not there that night.
But a third person was in the car, and that person was Gordon Copeland.
Gordon Copeland died before his second son was born.(Supplied: Aboriginal Legal Service)
Detective Beddoes told the inquest he hadn’t spoken to officers on the ground that July morning, hadn’t watched their body-cam videos, and hadn’t spoken to the two other people in the car.
He said he “probably” drew that conclusion too early after being questioned about why he did not properly check his information.
“Clearly now it wasn’t good enough, but I’d done my best. I’m sorry for your loss,” he said while crying in the witness box.
Lesley Fernando told the court she pleaded with officers for any information to allow the family to keep looking after police called off a search for someone missing in the river — and said she was given a post-it note with directions to where the man was last seen.
“This was the resource they gave to look for our loved one,” she said.
Mr Copeland’s cousin Lesley Fernando (third from left) was supported by family when she gave evidence.(ABC New England North West: Kathleen Ferguson)
The family spent thousands of donated dollars on wetsuits, kayaks and go-pros, food and fuel for their own search, which did not end until Mr Copeland was found by police months later.
Josephine Brown, Ms Copeland’s partner, was heavily pregnant at the time of his disappearance, and was trudging up and down the river searching for the father of her sons.
Gordon Copeland’s partner Josephine Brown and their two sons attend the coronial inquest.(ABC New England North West: Lani Oataway)
Police maintain they never stopped looking.
It was not until NSW Coroner Teresa O’Sullivan wrote to them months later, encouraging another wide-scale search, that they would find Mr Copeland.
Mounted police, SES, divers, and helicopter and boat crews were brought in for the final search.(ABC New England North West: Lani Oataway)
He was discovered by police divers, less than 500 meters from where he was seen entering the river.
Superintendent Steve Laksa told the inquest this case had set back efforts to build relations between police and the local Aboriginal community.
Before Gordon Copeland disappeared, he said the district had run an operation which prevented a “significant” number of young Aboriginal people from going to jail. What that operation involved was not clear.
“We are not going to build that trust while ever we continue to put handcuffs on kids and lock them up,” he told the inquest.
Superintendent Laksa addressing the media when police widened the search for Mr Copeland in October 2021.(ABC New England: Kemii Maguire)
Superintendent Laksa also told the coroner most of the officers in Moree were straight from the Police Academy, with little experience.
He said he understood the importance of recognizing the region’s violent past, including massacres and Stolen Generation, and its lasting effects.
“I want to be able to walk down the street and be in Moree, I want my police to be able to be in the street and be in Moree, and I want us to have a positive relationship,” he said.
Gordon Copeland’s mother Narelle Copeland was supported by family on the last day of the inquest.(ABC New England North West: Kathleen Ferguson)
But even he was unsure how to begin that process.
“If there is any chance that we can connect with the family even if that is sitting down and listening to the stuff we don’t want to hear, I would take that opportunity straight away,” he said.
The West Virginia Coal Association and several other state-based coal industry groups on Wednesday blasted the tax and climate deal that Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) agreed to last week, warning it will “severely threaten American coal” and an estimated 381,000 jobs.
“This legislation is so egregious, it leaves those of us that call Sen. Manchin a friend, shocked and disheartened,” the groups wrote in a blistering statement that accused the West Virginia senator of zigzagging in the energy debate.
“Sen. Manchin has seemingly fought against numerous climate measures advanced over the past year by the national democratic establishment,” the groups said. “The current Schumer-Manchin draft agreement on climate and energy frankly leaves us questioning the motivation and sincerity of Manchin’s previous stance and his repeated chant from him: we must ‘innovate not eliminate.’”
The groups warn the deal Manchin crafted with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (DN.Y.) after months of negotiation “will quickly diminish our coal producing operations and all but obviate any need to innovate coal assets.”
The groups argue the bill — which Democrats have dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act and plan to pass this weekend — will do “nothing for coal or coal generation” and won’t reduce inflation or lower household energy costs.
“By turbocharging the lofty incentives that already extend to renewable energy, our nation’s baseload (reliable) coal electric generation assets will continue to be devalued and thrust into rapid decline,” the groups warned.
The statement was signed by Chris Hamilton, the president of the West Virginia Coal Association, as well as the leaders of the Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming mining associations.
Manchin on Tuesday said he didn’t agree with predictions the bill will lead to coal plants closing in his state.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all,” he told reporters. “We have to have a vibrant fossil industry. We have a lot of coal plants that have been pretty old.”
“Coal is going to be needed for the base load that we’re going to have to have,” he said, arguing that coal will continue to generate enough electricity to meet minimum domestic demand.
Manchin also cited permitting reform, an initiative he is pushing in conjunction with the energy and climate provisions in the budget bill, as something that will also help fossil fuel producers.
Word is he has overtaken John Nerurker of Mills Oakley, who is said to be on more than $5 million as part of a deal that ties him to the firm’s highest earner. And that MacLaren is on up to double the pay of CEOs at the big six: MinterEllison, King & Wood Mallesons, Ashurst, Clayton Utz, Herbert Smith Freehills and Allens.
Law firm leaders, who have heard the same numbers, are incredulous at what is an extraordinarily top-heavy remuneration system for a law partnership.
Other top earners at Corrs include Chris Pagent (head of class actions) and Mark McCowan (head of competition). Both are said to be earning around $4 million.
Salary tables
Normally, salary tables are shared with partners. But in another MacLaren initiative, remuneration arrangements are no longer available to the broader partnership.
This has put a lot of noses out of joint, and is a reason why people are getting itchy feet. They fear they will never be part of the “MacLaren’s club” of high earners, and that they are actually subsidizing the pay of those at the top.
Corrs has 145 partners. As one CEO explained, you could take $50,000 off 100 of those partners and have a pretty big pool to redistribute for those at the top. And it’s not as if the regular pay/partner draw isn’t going up, especially in this market.
Those to have left this year include highly regarded infrastructure partners Andrew McCormack (Brisbane) and Chris Campbell (Perth), who both joined Ashurst. Head of intellectual property Kate Hay (Melbourne) moved to King & Wood Mallesons, while another IP partner, Helen Clarke (Brisbane), joined Johnson Winter & Slattery. Litigation partner Spencer Flay (Perth) went to Clifford Chance.
We sought comment from Corrs, but again came up doughnuts. Aside from the comment that it was “transitioning out of personal injury” (for some clients), there’s been nothing.
Who is coming up with this bad communications strategy? Perhaps it’s the same genius who decided the Catholic Church didn’t need a heads-up that they were about to be dumped as a client.
The partners even got an email at 7.21am on July 25 – the day after The Australian Financial Review‘s Street Talk broke the church story – reminding them that unauthorized contact with the media was verboten.
As they say in the classics – aka the media book of cliches – if you leave a vacuum, someone will fill it. And those lining up to do so grow by the day.
Playing together for the first time, Top 30 singles stars Alex de Minaur and Frances Tiafoe scored a big doubles upset on Tuesday at the Citi Open.
The Australian-American pair knocked off top seeds Rajeev Ram and Horacio Zeballos 6-4, 1-6, 10-2 to advance to the quarter-finals at the Washington ATP 500 event. With the defeat, Ram loses out on an opportunity to overtake his full-time partner Joe Salisbury at No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings.
De Minaur/Tiafoe struck late in the opening set but quickly lost the second after failing to convert from 15/40 at 0-2 down on return. But they used runs of four and five straight points to dominate the Match Tie-break.
The new-look pair advances to face Mackenzie McDonald and Botic van de Zandschulp, who advanced past Ilya Ivashka and Andrey Rublev 6-4, 6-7(5), 10-8 on Monday.
Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah also advanced via Match Tie-break on Tuesday evening, edging second seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski 6-4, 3-6, 10-8 by winning the final four points of the contest.
In earlier Tuesday doubles action, Rohan Bopanna and Matwe Middelkoop defeated Denis Kudla and Denis Shapovalov 6-4, 6-4, while Daniel Evans and John Peers downed Hubert Hurkacz and Tommy Paul 7-6(7), 6-4.
Klaasen/Melo Advance In Los Cabos Raven Klaasen and Marcelo Melo began their Abierto de Tenis Mifel campaign with victory on Tuesday, defeating Belgians Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 7-6(4), 6-4 to reach the second round in Los Cabos.
The fourth seeds, who advanced to the final in Newport together last month, saved all three break points they faced to triumph after one hour and 36 minutes. They will next play Treat Huey and Steve Johnson.
Top seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni started their quest for a third tour-level title of the season by overcoming Radu Albot and Ricardas Berankis 2-6, 6-2, 10-6 in 67 minutes.
Santiago Gonzalez/Andres Molteni” style=”width: 100%;” /> Photo Credit: Mextenis The Mexican-Argentine tandem holds a strong record in South America, having lifted trophies in Cordoba and Buenos Aires earlier this year. They will next face Nicolas Barrientos and Miguel Angel Reyes-Varela after the Colombian-Mexican team eliminated Max Jacob Schnur and John-Patrick Smith 6-4, 7-6(5).
Tomas Martin Etcheverry and Chun-Hsin Tseng also advanced, eliminating Fabrice Martin and Franko Skugor 3-6, 6-3, 12-10.
The body of a man has been found in a submerged car near the West Beach boat ramp in Adelaide.
Key points:
Two cars appear to have entered the water at West Beach overnight
A man’s body was found in one of them
Major Crime and other police are investigating
Police had been called at 6am after reports of two cars being in the water.
They had reportedly gone into the water at some stage overnight.
Water police searched the scene and found the body.
Western District detectives, Major Crime and forensics officers are investigating the incident.
The State Emergency Service is assisting with a search along the beach.
Police say they will disclose more information when it is known.
The West Beach boat ramp as seen from the Marine Safety SA webcam at midday.(Marine Safety S.A.)
Police have asked anyone who attended the boat ramp overnight or anyone who has any information that may assist to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
There has been strong winds overnight and this morning in Adelaide, with likes of more than 50kph being recorded at nearby Adelaide Airport at midday.
The boat ramp is operated by West Beach Parks and was recently upgraded by the Department for Infrastructure and Transport.
West Beach is located west of Adelaide Airport and north of Glenelg, in Adelaide’s western suburbs.
ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (WL S) — A Rolling Meadows father hospitalized after a wrong-way I-90 crash that killed seven people, including his wife and four children in Hampshire, has died.
Thomas Dobosz, 32, was hospitalized at Loyola University Medical Center after the crash in McHenry County Sunday. A coach with the Oriole Park Falcons told ABC7 Wednesday that Dobosz died.
Investigators said just after 2 am Sunday, Dobosz was driving westbound on I-90 near Hampshire in a blue Chevy van when the driver of a gray Acura, identified as 22-year-old Jennifer Fernandez of Carpentersville, was driving in the opposite direction and collided with Dobosz’s vehicle head on. Both cars were totally engulfed in flames.
Troopers said they found Fernandez dead on scene, as well as all of Dobosz’s passengers, identified as 31-year-old Lauren Dobosz and five children: two 13-year-old girls, 7- and 6-year-old boys, and a 5-year-old girl.
RELATED: Woman crashes into van on I-90, killing 7, including 5 kids from Rolling Meadows: ISP
Neighbors in Rolling Meadows said four of them were the couple’s kids, Emma, Lucas, Nicky and Ella. The other 13-year-old girl was a friend, relatives said.
The Oriole Park Falcons are a tightly knit community.
The Falcons return to the practice field for the first time Wednesday after that unthinkable crash over the weekend took the entire Dobosz family.
The coach of the team said his faith is what is sustaining him during this hard time.
“The belief in God. That there is a reason for this. That we all are in this together,” said Oriole Park football coach Sam Filpi.
Filpi said the Dobosz family was very involved with the Oriole Park Falcons football and cheer squads, whether it was volunteering, coaching, playing or fundraising.
“I just basically dropped my phone and I just couldn’t believe it,” Filpi said. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t know. You don’t know what to do in that situation.”
RELATED: Community devastated after 7 killed in Hampshire crash
Filpi coached two of their four kids and Lauren was the team mom.
“They were always there. And her as a team mom, they were always there. That’s commitment and love of a program, a love of the people in the program. That’s how we felt about them,” he said.
Even after moving 15 miles northwest to Rolling Meadows, Filpi said the Dobosz’ never missed a practice with their unwavering commitment.
“Lauren and Tom were like, ‘Hey, what do you guys need, we got it?’ Or the shed needs to be fixed up, Tom would go fix the door on the shed,” Filpi recalled.
As the Falcons prepare to take the field again, a small reminder of the Dubosz family legacy remains under the scoreboard.
“We are in this as a family, I mean Oriole Park football and cheerleading is a family,” Filpi added.
Jeff Bezos’ unfinished mega yacht was towed away from a Dutch shipbuilding yard before dawn Tuesday just weeks after Rotterdam residents threatened to pelt the luxury vessel with eggs if the city went through with plans to dismantle a landmark bridge to make way for the $500 million ship .
The 417-foot long, three-masted yacht, which goes by the name Y721, was relocated from the Oceanco shipyard in Alblasserdam to the Greenport yard just 24 miles away in Rotterdam, according to the German-language daily Der Spiegel.
Video of the towing was posted to YouTube by Dutch yacht enthusiast Hanco Bol.
“We never saw a transport going that fast,” Bol writes of what he witnessed. It took less than three hours for the ship to travel southwest along the Noord canal even though it normally requires nearly twice as much time to traverse the route, according to Bol.
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He speculates that Oceanco, the company that was commissioned to build the yacht, chose the timing of the move in order to keep it under wraps given the considerable publicity it has generated.
Rotterdammers who were furious about plans to dismantle “De Hef” bridge, also known as Koningshaven, had threatened to pelt the yacht with eggs if it made the journey.
Bol writes that the yacht’s route was designed to avoid traveling through the Rotterdam city center and underneath “De Hef” — even though it would have saved more time.
Oceanco last month announced that it had dropped its request for the Rotterdam city council to approve the temporary dismantling of the bridge.
The company had indicated that Bezos, the Amazon founder and second-richest person in the world, was willing to foot the bill for the removal of the middle section of the span so that the yacht would be able to sail through the Nieuwe Mass River.
Bol speculates that Oceanco intentionally avoided towing the unfinished yacht underneath “De Hef.”
“I think that was intentional,” he told Der Spiegel.
“When I was standing on one of the bridges, they shined a searchlight on me, so it wasn’t easy for me to take pictures.”
According to Dutch media reports, it will take several more months for the ship to be completed.
The Post has reached out to Amazon and Oceanco seeking comment.
This article was originally published by the New York Post and reproduced with permission
Santiago Gonzalez/Andres Molteni” style=”width: 100%;” />
