‘Homecoming of Heroes' ticker-tape parade honoring post-9/11 war veterans coming to NYC this summer
Dubbed the 'Homecoming of Heroes' and slated for July 6, the parade down the 'Canyon of Heroes' from the Battery to City Hall formally recognizes more than 2.9 million Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan following the September 11 terror attacks.
4 The parade will formally recognize more than 2.9 million Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan following the deadly September 11 attacks.
Getty Images
The ticker-tape parade, set to be the first of its kind in a major US city, will offer 'a powerful opportunity to highlight the contributions that service members continue to make,' Mayor Eric Adams said during a fleet week event Thursday.
'It would pay tribute to the extraordinary service, sacrifice and resilience of the post 9/11 combat veterans who did so much to protect our city and our nation in the wake of the deadliest attack on our homeland since Pearl Harbor,' he added.
4 The ticker-tape parade is set to be the first of its kind in a major US city.
Getty Images
More than 7,000 American troops died in the wars and contingency operations, and another 53,436 were injured, according to New York City Department of Veterans' Services James Hendon.
Another 31,177 veterans died by suicide, he said.
'We're doing what we can to remember and never forget our people and their loved ones,' Hendon said.
4 Ticker tape raining down on vehicles during the Operation Welcome Home parade in 1991.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The last ticker-tape parade was held in October for the New York Liberty, which celebrated the WNBA team's first championship win.
While actual ticker-tape from 'ticker' machines was originally used as confetti in the early days of the parades, the Downtown Alliance now provides bags of crinkled packing paper for the event.
Roughly 2,000 pounds of the paper – costing the alliance about $5,000 – was dropped on the seafoam-green party, which drew an estimated 80,000 attendees to lower Manhattan.
Scores of bags of confetti were doled out the day before the parade to about two dozen buildings along Broadway that requested them.
If the 'Homecoming of Heroes' is anything like the Downtown Alliance's other ticker-tape parades, the combat veterans will be memorialized in stone with one of over 200 of the alliance's granite sidewalk plaques along the 'Canyon of Heroes' sometime after the parade.
4 Iraqi Army Soldiers from the 4th Iraqi Army Division in Brassfield Mora, Iraq.
Getty Images
The plaques are designed by Pentagram, who also designed One World Trade Center's engraved cornerstone, and are manufactured by a New York City-based architect.
'The whole process of ordering, lettering, shipping and installation takes about two to three months total,' a Downtown Alliance rep told The Post.
'This will be more than just a parade,' Adams said Thursday. 'It will serve as a symbol of belonging, of closure and of collective pride.
'It will be a sign that our veterans and their families matter to us – not just during the wartime they fight, but in the peacetime they help achieve.
'It marks a small seed of our gratitude and our commitment to them: the seed that allows us all to water the tree of liberty so that we can sit under its shade.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
3 hours ago
- Forbes
Artificial Authenticity And The Humblebrag Industrial Complex
Andy Warhol poses with his beloved dachshund Archie in November 1973. (Photo by Jack Mitchell/Getty ... More Images) Getty Images A now-viral screenshot (below) of a satirical LinkedIn post from four years ago has been shared thousands of times—mocking the platform's ecosystem of manufactured inspiration, where every mundane encounter becomes a profound lesson in leadership. Yet scroll through your feed today, and you'll find posts nearly indistinguishable from the parody. We've reached peak professional performance theater, where the line between genuine insight and algorithmic optimization has dissolved entirely. And what's notable is that more and more people are now using AI to draft their LinkedIn posts, outsourcing their inner monologue to machines that have never had an inner anything. Posts today are more than twice as long as they used to be, and a 2024 study by Originality found that over half of these long-form English language posts on the platform were AI generated. LinkedIn hasn't just digitized networking—it has industrialized authenticity, outsourcing even emotional labor to algorithms and turning professional identity into a content genre. This goes beyond LinkedIn's occasional awkwardness or self-indulgence. It's about how professional identity itself is evolving in an AI-saturated world, and the economic stakes are higher than we realize. Screenshot of LinkedIn post by Lumko Solwandle Nathan Pettijohn Before LinkedIn digitized professional networking in 2003, career advancement relied on physical proximity and institutional gatekeepers. Professional relationships were built through alumni networks, industry conferences, golf courses, and corner office introductions—spaces that inherently favored those with existing social and economic capital. LinkedIn democratized access to professional networks while simultaneously industrializing the performance itself, making visible what was once private and measurable what was once intuitive. Today, LinkedIn has over 1 billion global members, with only 1% posting content weekly, yet generating 9 billion impressions weekly. This platform has industrialized what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls "emotional labor"—the management of feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display. Except now, we're outsourcing even that labor to artificial intelligence. The platform's ecosystem of " broetry "—those distinctive LinkedIn posts formatted with short, dramatic line breaks for maximum impact—represents something deeper than mere narcissism. The typography itself performs sincerity, mimicking the cadence of spoken vulnerability. When someone writes: "I made a mistake. And it changed everything. Here's what I learned..." They're not just sharing a professional insight. They're using visual formatting to simulate the pauses and emphasis of authentic emotional revelation, turning genuine human moments into content optimized for algorithmic consumption. LinkedIn's algorithm can identify robotic responses but remains surprisingly vulnerable to AI-generated thought leadership. When machines can successfully impersonate human professional insight, what does that say about the original insight? We've reached a point where artificial authenticity reflects back on itself so thoroughly that it's difficult to recall what unmediated professional wisdom even sounded like. The Humblebrag Industrial Complex LinkedIn has transformed what was once a social faux pas into a legitimate digital marketing strategy. The platform rewards what sociologists might recognize as ritualized vulnerability—a scripted performance of authenticity that has crystallized into genre: "I'm humbled to announce..." (success disguised as modesty, the linguistic equivalent of covering a Ferrari with a tarp) "A stranger did something kind and restored my faith in humanity..." (virtue signaling through anecdote, usually involving coffee shops or airport encounters) "I was rejected from my dream job, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me..." (destiny disguised as disappointment, the professional equivalent of "everything happens for a reason") These posts function as modern parables, teaching us how to navigate professional success while maintaining the illusion of humility. But the economic implications are worth noting. Research by Edelman found that thought leadership influences decision-makers' purchasing behaviors, with their B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study showing that strong thought leadership content not only strengthens a company's reputation but also positively impacts RFP invitations and pricing. LinkedIn's audience has twice the buying power of the average online user, and four out of five people on the platform drive business decisions. This creates what amounts to the Instagramification of the cubicle, where every career move becomes content, every professional insight becomes engagement bait, every human moment becomes a potential case study in leadership. The performance actually matters—posts with 50 comments from engaged users prove far more impactful than those with 1,000 likes and no conversations, suggesting that authentic dialogue (however performed) still carries economic weight. Unlike other social media platforms where influence might translate to brand deals or Patreon subscriptions, LinkedIn performance has direct B2B economic consequences. Consider the case of Justin Welsh, who reports building "$10.3M+ in business revenue at ~86% profit margins" largely through LinkedIn content. His posts about entrepreneurship routinely generate hundreds of thousands of impressions and directly drive sales for his courses and consulting services. Welsh's success illustrates how LinkedIn has flattened traditional professional hierarchies—you don't need a corner office or MBA to influence industry conversations. The Shadow Audience Effect Erving Goffman once described everyday life as a kind of stage, where individuals perform identity for an audience. LinkedIn crystallizes this theory in digital form. What makes LinkedIn's artificial authenticity particularly powerful is what we might call the "shadow audience effect." For every person who reads and engages with your post, there are dozens more who scroll past, absorbing your message without leaving any digital trace. You're influencing people you'll never know you influenced, creating ripple effects of professional persona that extend far beyond the platform's ability to track. This invisible influence explains why LinkedIn content often feels like performance art masquerading as professional insight. The poster knows they're being watched by potential clients, employers, and industry peers, even if those watchers never engage. The result is calculated transparency—being selectively vulnerable through frosted glass. For younger professionals or those without traditional credentials, this can create a pressure to perform vulnerability as a career strategy, not as a path to connection. What LinkedIn has accomplished is the digitization of what Pierre Bourdieu called ' cultural capital '—the knowledge, skills, and tastes that signal social status. Professional networking was always about displaying and accumulating this capital, but LinkedIn made the process explicit, quantified, and globally accessible. Your post engagement isn't just social validation; it's the real-time measurement of your professional cultural capital in the marketplace. This is why so many users report career opportunities or new clients from posts that received little visible engagement—because the real influence lies in who's watching, not who's commenting. When Machines Learn Professional Authenticity The integration of AI into LinkedIn content creation represents an evolution in professional identity performance. AI writing tools now offer LinkedIn-specific templates—some trained on large datasets of high-performing posts—designed to replicate the cadence of professional inspiration. The AI learns the cadence of professional inspiration, the rhythm of humble bragging, the precise vulnerability-to-insight ratio that drives engagement. MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle observes : "Technology doesn't just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are." This shift is particularly evident in professional contexts, where AI-assisted content creation is reshaping how we construct and perform our professional identities. This shift in how we perform professional identity online doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's emerging in parallel with broader workplace transformations—remote work, pandemic-era burnout, the so-called ' Great Resignation ,' and the rise of solo entrepreneurship. As traditional career ladders collapse or morph into lattices, platforms like LinkedIn have become a kind of stage where we rehearse relevance. In a world where your job title might be in flux and your office is your kitchen table, broadcasting a coherent professional persona isn't just branding—it's survival. The implications extend beyond LinkedIn. As AI becomes more sophisticated at mimicking human professional communication, the premium on genuinely human insights—the kind that can't be replicated by algorithms—may actually increase. We might be witnessing the last gasps of performed authenticity before authenticity becomes the only viable differentiator. The Algorithm Made Me Do It Andy Warhol famously predicted everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. LinkedIn offers something more unsettling: the chance to remain professionally relevant indefinitely—as long as we never stop performing. The platform has created a new form of professional purgatory where authenticity becomes a competitive advantage precisely because it's so rare. In a feed flooded with AI-generated inspiration and algorithmic optimization, the genuinely human voice doesn't just stand out—it becomes economically valuable. We've reached the point where being authentically yourself is the ultimate professional hack. But here's the deeper paradox: LinkedIn didn't create performed professionalism—it simply made it visible, measurable, and unavoidable. The platform exposed what was always true about professional identity: it has always been performative, from the firm handshake to the power lunch to the carefully curated resume. LinkedIn merely provided the stage and sold tickets to the show. The real question isn't whether artificial authenticity is corrupting professional discourse—it's whether we'll develop the literacy to distinguish between human insight and algorithmic mimicry. As AI becomes more sophisticated at replicating professional wisdom, the ability to offer genuinely original thinking may become the ultimate career differentiator. The humblebrag industrial complex will endure, but so will our fundamentally human need for genuine connection and meaningful work. The challenge is learning to sound like ourselves—even while writing on a platform (and perhaps with tools) designed to make us all sound the same. Just perhaps, the most human thing we can do is think thoughts worth writing ourselves.
New York Post
9 hours ago
- New York Post
Jessie Murph sparks outrage over controversial music video depicting domestic violence, pornography
Jessie Murph has fans in an uproar. The 20-year-old singer, who has been compared to Amy Winehouse, sparked a social media firestorm over the music video to her risqué new song '1965.' The video, which came out July 18, has been accused of glorifying pornography and domestic violence due to its graphic nature. 11 Jessie Murph in her '1965' music video. Jessie Murph/YouTube 11 Jessie Murph puts a gun in a man's mouth in the '1965' music video. Jessie Murph/YouTube 11 Jessie Murph lounging on a bed in her '1965' music video. Jessie Murph/YouTube Fans are particularly upset over a shocking sex scene that takes place in the middle of the video. In addition, a woman who appears to be Murph is depicted tied up while face down on a couch in the video. 11 Jessie Murph's '1965' music video has sparked intense backlash with fans. Jessie Murph/YouTube 11 Jessie Murph has been accused of glorifying violence and porn. Jessie Murph/YouTube Fans flooded the comments section of the song's YouTube upload — which has over 7 million views — to express their displeasure. 'The way my jaw dropped the floor, there's still time to unrelease this,' one fan wrote. 'The fact it's been 5days or whatever since the video had been uploaded and youtube still hasn't blurred that out is crazy work,' a different comment read. 11 Jessie Murph released '1965' on July 18. Jessie Murph/YouTube A third person said, 'I didnt think it would be this bad. I am forever traumatized this is diabolical.' 'Since when is pornography allowed on youtube?' someone else asked. More fans slammed Murph for including a child in the video right before the sex scene. 'So so messed up,' a fan said. 11 Jessie Murph with a young child in her '1965' music video. Jessie Murph/YouTube 'Not only is this song ahh, putting a child before such a explicit scene is crazy,' a different fan noted. '1965,' which is from Murph's newly released second studio album 'Sex Hysteria,' is filled with raunchy lyrics. 'We'd go to church on a Sunday, wake up on Monday/You'd go to work and I'd stay home and sing and do fun things/I might get a little slap-slap, but you wouldn't hit me on Snapchat,' Murph sings. 11 Jessie Murph attends Spotify's 2025 Songs of Summer Celebration in Los Angeles on July 23. Getty Images for Spotify 'I think I'd give up a few rights/If you would just love me like it's 1965,' she also sings. An insider told the Daily Mail that Murph's song and music video sparked outrage in the country music scene, with some comparing her to Kanye West. 'If she continues this and goes completely off the rails like Kanye, then people should have more conversations about the person she is rather than the artist she is,' the insider told the outlet. 11 Jessie Murph performing during The ACM Country Kickoff at Tostitos Championship Plaza in Frisco, Texas. Getty Images The Post has reached out to Murph's reps for comment. In a recent interview with Teen Vogue, Murph spoke about the intense reactions her music evokes from fans. 'I'm glad that I make people have some sort of reaction. I'd rather them be like, 'I hate you,' or 'I love you,' rather than, 'I feel indifferently,' I guess,' the Alabama native stated. 11 Jessie Murph seen in New York City on July 21. GC Images 'But still, I just find it f—ing weird… I don't have any hate in my heart… That's been something that I've been trying to figure out how to navigate and not react and get mad because it totally makes me be like, 'F–k you, b-tch,'' she added. Days after releasing her new album, Murph's performance to '1965' on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' was similarly bashed by fans online. 'how dare anybody be comparing this to Amy… you should all be ashamed smh,' one fan wrote. 11 Jessie Murph performs during Spotify's 2025 Songs of Summer Celebration. Getty Images for Spotify 'everything about this feels like an SNL skit. how is this real,' another fan said. Murph was discovered by uploading vlogs and covers on TikTok and YouTube. She had her breakthrough with her 2021 single 'Always Been You,' three years before releasing her debut studio album, 'That Ain't No Man That's the Devil.'
New York Post
10 hours ago
- New York Post
Billy Joel speaks out about rumors he's had DUIs in new documentary
The Piano Man is defending his reputation. In the newly released second part of the HBO documentary 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes,' the 76-year-old music icon responded to the longstanding rumor that he's gotten multiple DUIs over the years. 'You know, along with fame comes a lot of gossip, rumors. I didn't like the tabloid kind of press,' Joel said in the doc. 'For example, there's this rumor that I have all these DUIs. That never happened, but people keep repeating the myth: 'Oh, he's got so many DUIs.'' Advertisement 6 Billy Joel performs at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in Nov. 2024. Getty Images 'I never had a DUI,' he added, 'so f–k you.' Joel was first accused of drinking behind the wheel when he crashed a Mercedes-Benz in East Hampton, New York in June 2002. Less than a year later, he drove into a tree in Sag Harbor and had to be airlifted to a hospital. Advertisement 6 Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden in NYC in June 2023. Getty Images The 'Uptown Girl' singer suffered another accident in April 2004 when he crashed into a house in Long Island. The rumors about Joel led to 'Saturday Night Live' referencing his alleged drunk driving in a 2004 sketch that featured Horatio Sanz, who played the singer, chugging a bottle of pineapple schnapps and crashing into several walls and mailboxes while driving a group of girls to a party. However, Joel has repeatedly denied that he's ever gotten a DUI. Advertisement 6 Billy Joel performs in Melbourne, Australia in Dec. 2022. WireImage 'I had gone through a breakup and was really broken up about it, and I decided, 'I'm drinking too much. I should go to rehab,'' Joel told The New York Times Magazine in 2013. 'But people made a connection, like, 'Oh, he went there because he was in a car accident from drinking.' No.' 'I never had a DUI in my life,' he stated. 'That's another fallacy. Look at the police records.' 6 Billy Joel on Father's Day 2025. billyjoel/Instagram Advertisement In his documentary, Joel called the press 'mean' and admitted that he doesn't always enjoy being in the spotlight. 'Having that much attention paid to you is not easy,' he said. In 2005, Joel entered rehab following what he called an 'ultimatum' from his then-wife, Katie Lee. He entered the Betty Ford Center for a stint, then temporarily stopped touring once his time at the center was over. 6 Billy Joel attends MSG Entertainment and Billy Joel special franchise announcement at Chase Square at Madison Square Garden. Getty Images The 'Honesty' singer has been sober for several years now. 'I stopped [drinking] a couple of years ago,' Joel told the Los Angeles Times in 2023. 'It wasn't a big AA kick. I just got to a point where I'd had enough.' 6 Billy Joel at SiriusXM Studios in Los Angeles in Oct. 2024. Getty Images for SiriusXM Advertisement 'I didn't enjoy being completely inebriated, and it probably created more problems in my life than I needed,' he added. Both parts of 'Billy Joel: And So It Goes' are now streaming on HBO Max.
