Early Addition: Do you order your bodega sandwich the Ocky way?

Sept. 6, 2022, 10:22 a.m.

Because a Red Hook bodega owner has made himself TikTok famous by serving sandwiches on honey buns topped with Hot Cheetos, here are your early links: return to office kinda, dining shed mayhem, human poop should be composted, moms love fall, playgrounds are too damn hot, and more.

under the Brooklyn Bridge

Good Tuesday morning in New York City, where most offices are going to remain mostly empty for a while. Here's what else is happening:

  • The New York Times has a good photo spread of the twilight of the anything-goes era of outdoor dining sheds.
  • Bishop Lamor Whitehead, the flashy Brooklyn pastor whose church was allegedly robbed during a live-streamed service earlier this year, is suing two different internet personalities for $20 million each, claiming they've defamed him by calling him a scammer.
  • Meet Rahim Mohamed, a.k.a. General Ock, the 33-year-old Yemeni Red Hook bodega owner who has become a TikTok meme by making classic sandwiches (bacon egg and cheese, Philly cheesesteak, etc.) "the Ocky way" by incorporating junk food from the shelves (Flamin' Hot Cheetos, honey buns, chocolate, etc.).
  • National data shows that voter registration among young women has recently shot up in states with stricter abortion laws.
  • Health advocates and food industry groups are fighting over whether processed foods and sodas should have warning labels on the front broadcasting that they have a lot of sugar in them.
  • As part of a defamation suit filed by a voting machine company against Fox News, an email surfaced showing that producers at the network wanted Jeanine Pirro taken off the air for spreading lies about fraud in the 2020 election.
  • More and more, sanitation experts are singing the virtues of public bathrooms that compost human poop.
  • Moms: They love fall!
  • One reason moms (and others) love fall is that playgrounds get hot as hell during the summer.
  • Liz Truss has now assumed the role of British prime minister after meeting with Queen Elizabeth in an after-dinner-mint-themed room.
  • Here are some nice watercolors of the public pool in Sunset Park.
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  • And finally, some dogs: