Latest news with #Gristedes
New York Post
10 hours ago
- Business
- New York Post
Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatens to close Gristedes chain if socialist Zohran Mamdani elected NYC mayor
Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatened to close or sell his Manhattan-based grocery chain Gristedes if Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is elected the next mayor of New York City. 'We can't compete with Mamdani opening city run supermarkets for free,' Catsimatidis told The Post on Wednesday, referring to the mayoral hopeful's plans to open grocery stores owned and operated by the government in the five boroughs. 3 John Catsimatidis threatened to close or sell his Manhattan-based grocery chain Gristedes if Zohran Mamdani is elected the next mayor of New York City. Stefan Jeremiah for New York Post Advertisement 3 'Will Mamdani run the supermarkets with union help? When people start shoplifting, will he even have cops arrest them,' Catsimatidis pondered. Robert Miller 3 Catsimatidis, 76, has run the mainstay supermarket for decades on top of his slew of other businesses. Robert Miller 'Will Mamdani run the supermarkets with union help? When people start shoplifting, will he even have cops arrest them,' Catsimatidis pondered. Advertisement The 76-year-old supermarket mogul also suggested that if corporate taxes are hiked in the Big Apple – another lofty ambition included in Mamdani's campaign's progressive agenda – that he would need to relocate his company's headquarters. 'We'd probably move our corporate headquarters to New Jersey,' Catsimatidis said. Catsimatidis, 76, has run the mainstay supermarket for decades on top of his slew of other businesses. A spokesperson for Mamdani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
New York Post
25-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
RFK Jr. teams up to ‘save the ostriches' with NYC's own animal-loving billionaire John Catsimatidis
Birds of a feather … Animal-loving New York City supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis has joined forces with emu-owning federal health Commissioner Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in urging Canadian officials to take their heads out of the sand to save ostriches at a north-of-the-border bird farm. Catsimatidis told The Post on Sunday he is grateful the head of Health and Human Services is also now sticking his neck out for the cause, which he has been pushing since last month, as first reported by The Post's Page Six. 'Let's save the ostriches! They have a right to live if they are healthy,' said the Gristedes supermarket founder, who also owns 770 WABC radio. 4 New York City supermarket billionaire John Catsimatidis is working with federal health Commissioner Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to urge Canadian officials to save ostriches at a north-of-the-border bird farm. LP Media 4 'Let's save the ostriches! They have a right to live if they are healthy,' Catsimatidis, the Gristedes supermarket founder, said. í¡íµíâ¬í³íµí¹ í¡íâíµí»íÅíâ¡íµí½í°í¾ – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has said it needs to kill nearly 400 of the birds at the Universal Ostrich Farm in British Columbia to curb the spread of the avian flu. Catsimatidis, who also owns oil and bio-fuel businesses, said he raised the alarm after animal-rights activists alerted him to the situation. 'I love animals. Let's save the whales, too,' he said — noting his next project is protect whales from being imperiled by offshore wind-power set-ups. The mogul also has been known to love pandas, once trying to convince the Chinese government to loan out the bears to the Big Apple's Central Park Zoo. As for the ostriches, Kennedy, along with the heads of the US Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, sent a May 23 letter to the Canadian agency urging it to reconsider its plan. The birds don't need to be killed to thwart the flu, wrote RFK Jr., who famously owns a pet emu, in the letter first reported by Rebel News. 4 Kennedy sent a May 23 letter to the Canadian agency urging it to reconsider its plan to kill nearly 400 of the birds at the Universal Ostrich Farm in British Columbia to curb the spread of the avian flu. Getty Images The ostriches should be preserved for long-term scientific study instead of culling or killing them, he said, echoing Catsimatidis' stance. 'Ostriches can live up to 50 years, providing the opportunity for future insights into immune longevity associated with the H5N1 virus,' Kennedy said in the letter co-signed by NIH Director Jay Bhattachary and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary. 'The indiscriminate destruction of entire flocks without up-to-date testing and evaluation can have significant consequences, including the loss of valuable genetic stock that may help explain risk factors for H5N1 mortality,' the letter said. 'This may be important for future agricultural resilience.' 4 The ostriches should be preserved for long-term scientific study instead of culling or killing them, Kennedy said in the letter, co-signed by NIH Director Jay Bhattachary and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary. Maik Boenig – The missive added that avian influenza has been endemic in birds for thousands of years and that culling birds would be 'fruitless unless we are willing to exterminate every wild bird in North America.' 'We're dealing with a bunch of bureaucrats in Canada. They're mean-spirited,' Catstimatidis said. 'Test the ostriches. They are not sick!' He added that the ostriches may have 'herd immunity' whose antibodies can be studied to save human lives.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Yahoo
Sean Combs' jury is mostly male and has a few hip-hop fans. Here's what we know about the 12 who will decide his fate.
A jury has been seated for Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex-trafficking trial in New York City. The jurors include eight men and four women. Only four of them have said they listen to R&B or hip-hop. A scientist. A massage therapist. A deli clerk. These New Yorkers are among the eight-man, four-woman panel of jurors who will determine Sean "Diddy" Combs' fate in his criminal sex-trafficking case. Combs, a hip-hop mogul and businessman who was once on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial of all charges against him. The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, were seated on Monday following a jury selection process that unfolded over a week in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Four of the jurors selected for the trial — which is expected to run about two months — said during the jury selection process, known as voir dire that they favored hip-hop or R&B music. One of them, a 30-year-old woman from the Bronx who works the deli counter at the grocery chain Gristedes, had revealed that her mother was once arrested and convicted over 20 years ago for stealing money from a bank. "She worked in the bank and they caught her and she got arrested," the woman previously told the court. Another juror, a retired 68-year-old man from Westchester, wrote in his jury questionnaire that he has viewed the infamous security-camera footage where Combs is seen beating his ex, R&B singer Cassie Ventura. Ventura is the prosecution's key witness, and jurors are expected to be shown that footage at trial, among other graphic videos. That juror also said he has a problem viewing graphic videos showing violence, but would force himself to watch if he had to. "I wouldn't be biased. And, to be honest, I'd have to make myself look at it," said the man who worked for Verizon for 40 years. At the end of the jury selection, Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said prosecutors had used their preemptory strikes to unfairly keep Black members out of the jury. He's previously argued that the Justice Department has targeted Combs because of his race. "By our count, the government struck seven Black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern," Agnifilo told the judge. Prosecutor Maurene Comey detailed the reasons she struck each juror, making the case for each one. One attended the same high school as Combs, making him susceptible to unconscious bias, she said. Another talked about how some accusers will jump on a "bandwagon" to accuse famous people of abuse, making it possible she'd be biased against victims, Comey argued. The judge ultimately ruled that Combs' legal team couldn't prove prosecutors tried to exclude jurors based on race. Meanwhile, Combs' family members, including his children and mother, filled two rows of benches in the courtroom on Monday. They were seated behind the defense table where Combs sat wearing a light-colored sweater and eyeglasses. At times, he blew kisses to his family. Combs was arrested and indicted last September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has strongly denied all charges and all allegations of sexual abuse. Prosecutors allege, however, that for decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe. Combs, 55, is also accused of coercing those women, plus another two, into sex through a pattern of threats and violence. At the core of the Combs' indictment are allegations that the "I'll Be Missing You" rapper organized elaborate sex encounters that he called "freak offs." In court papers, prosecutors described the events as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances that Combs directed and often recorded. Over the course of the trial, jurors will be shown hours of graphic sex videos that prosecutors say Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent. Some of the footage will depict Combs' freak offs. Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
12-05-2025
- Business Insider
Sean Combs' jury is mostly male and has a few hip-hop fans. Here's what we know about the 12 who will decide his fate.
A scientist. A massage therapist. A deli clerk. These New Yorkers are among the eight-man, four-woman panel of jurors who will determine Sean "Diddy" Combs' fate in his criminal sex-trafficking case. Combs, a hip-hop mogul and businessman who was once on the cusp of becoming a billionaire, faces up to life in prison if convicted at trial of all charges against him. The 12 jurors, plus six alternates, were seated on Monday following a jury selection process that unfolded over a week in a Manhattan federal courtroom. Four of the jurors selected for the trial — which is expected to run about two months — said during the jury selection process, known as voir dire that they favored hip-hop or R&B music. One of them, a 30-year-old woman from the Bronx who works the deli counter at the grocery chain Gristedes, had revealed that her mother was once arrested and convicted over 20 years ago for stealing money from a bank. "She worked in the bank and they caught her and she got arrested," the woman previously told the court. Another juror, a retired 68-year-old man from Westchester, wrote in his jury questionnaire that he has viewed the infamous security-camera footage where Combs is seen beating his ex, R&B singer Cassie Ventura. Ventura is the prosecution's key witness, and jurors are expected to be shown that footage at trial, among other graphic videos. That juror also said he has a problem viewing graphic videos showing violence, but would force himself to watch if he had to. "I wouldn't be biased. And, to be honest, I'd have to make myself look at it," said the man who worked for Verizon for 40 years. At the end of the jury selection, Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo said prosecutors had used their preemptory strikes to unfairly keep Black members out of the jury. He's previously argued that the Justice Department has targeted Combs because of his race. "By our count, the government struck seven Black people, which we believe amounts to a pattern," Agnifilo told the judge. Prosecutor Maurene Comey detailed the reasons she struck each juror, making the case for each one. One attended the same high school as Combs, making him susceptible to unconscious bias, she said. Another talked about how some accusers will jump on a "bandwagon" to accuse famous people of abuse, making it possible she'd be biased against victims, Comey argued. The judge ultimately ruled that Combs' legal team couldn't prove prosecutors tried to exclude jurors based on race. Meanwhile, Combs' family members, including his children and mother, filled two rows of benches in the courtroom on Monday. They were seated behind the defense table where Combs sat wearing a light-colored sweater and eyeglasses. At times, he blew kisses to his family. Combs was arrested and indicted last September on federal charges of racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He has strongly denied all charges and all allegations of sexual abuse. Prosecutors allege, however, that for decades, Combs led a "criminal enterprise" that involved the sex trafficking of two women, Ventura and an anonymous Jane Doe. Combs, 55, is also accused of coercing those women, plus another two, into sex through a pattern of threats and violence. At the core of the Combs' indictment are allegations that the "I'll Be Missing You" rapper organized elaborate sex encounters that he called "freak offs." In court papers, prosecutors described the events as dayslong, drug-fueled sex performances that Combs directed and often recorded. Over the course of the trial, jurors will be shown hours of graphic sex videos that prosecutors say Combs recorded over the years, including footage prosecutors allege was taken without his accusers' consent. Some of the footage will depict Combs' freak offs.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Gristedes owner offers to test socialist NYC candidate's ‘Soviet' style plan for city-run grocery stores — but there's a catch
The owner of Gristedes said he'd lend a supermarket to City Hall to test one liberal candidate's 'Soviet'-style plan for government-run grocery stores – if he'll pay for shoplifting losses. John Catsimatidis, the billionaire mogul behind the Gristedes and D'Agostino food chains, pledged he would be 'helpful' after Democratic socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani unveiled a plan to create a network of city-run supermarkets. 'If they want to try an experiment, I will be helpful — as long as the city makes up the shortfall for shoplifting,' Catsimatidis told The Post. 'Will they allow people to shoplift? What will the policy on shoplifting be? I just want to know,' said Catsimatidis, who has previously grabbed headlines for encouraging his in-store staff to tackle shoplifters to hold them until police arrive. Mamdani, who is currently polling second behind frontrunner Andrew Cuomo ahead of the June Democratic Party primary, has said he'd launch city-owned grocery stores to drive down grocery prices for New Yorkers. 'These stores will operate without profit motive, or having to pay property taxes or rent, and will pass those savings onto you,' Mamdani, who is now serving in the state Assembly, said in a TikTok video. His plan, which calls for one store in each borough, would cost an estimated $60 million. It has drawn condemnation from local grocery owners such as Jason Ferraira, a board member of the National Supermarket Association, who said it would create 'Soviet' markets where customers would have limited selection for items like bread and milk. Catsimatidis, an ally and insider of President Trump, was open to the idea of negotiating with the unabashedly liberal candidate if he were to end up in City Hall. 'It could help the city feed the hungry. There's a deal to be made. We'll help make it happen,' Catsimatidis said, though he will not be voting for Mamdani for mayor. Mamdani's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
