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AMES, NY. -- In upstate New York sits a tiny village nestled in a quilt of green patches dusted with snow in the winter.“When you’re in a small town, everyone knows everyone,” homeowner Nick Drummond said.The village is called Ames. Population: 150 people – give or take a few.“We’re one of the smallest incorporated villages in New York state,” village historian Stacy Ward said.The villagers say rural life has a peaceful charm.“I love it here," village blacksmith Michael McCarthy said. "I think it’s a quiet little village.”It attracts people looking for a getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life.“In Ames, you'll find very friendly people, very rural landscape, beautiful old houses and the Ames museum,” public historian Alicia Jettner said.The rich history and quaint lifestyle are what eventually drew Nick Drummond and Patrick Bakker to the area.“We sort of have our growing little flock of chickens and they’re the best and they are a constant source of entertainment,” Drummond said.“The history is still so visible and alive,” Drummond's partner Patrick Bakker said.Little did they know the house they moved into would have evidence of its history left behind.“Every building has a story to tell," Drummond said. "And it’s really a matter of peeling back all the different parts and pieces and sort of analyzing them. You’d be surprised by what you can find.”What they found took them back to an era when American life was very different.“It came with some crazy local urban legend that it was built by a bootlegger,” Drummond said.It was a legend that seemed too fantastical to be true. But then, Drummond and Bakker started the process of renovation and one of the first spots they wanted to tackle was the mudroom.“I started pulling these rotten wood boards kind of where the foundation would have been under the mudroom and that’s when the first package came out,” Drummond said.The Grand DiscoveryDrummond and Bakker are the owners of the Bootlegger Bungalow.Before it got its infamous name, Drummond and Bakker moved into the century-old house knowing it would need a face-lift. One of their first projects was to transform the mudroom into a powder room.“Throughout the house’s whole life, the mudroom has just been an unfinished room," Drummond said. "There was never any wall sheathing or anything like that. It was basically just a shack added to the back of the house at some time around 1920.”It didn’t take much prying and pulling at decaying walls and floorboards for the house’s mysterious history to begin spilling out.“I was in the process of removing this rotted wood skirting that went around the mudroom sort of where the foundation would be if it was a truly finished structure, and as I’m peeling back the boards on one of the sides, all of the sudden all this hay falls out and I was very confused," Drummond said. "And at first, I was like ‘oh this must be insulation’ – of course all this is taking place within a few seconds in my head -- and then I look and I’m like ‘well wait a second, what’s that glass thing? And then I pull it up and I’m looking at this old liquor bottle. And then I’m looking at the other package and there’s these other little tops poking out of the hay. And then I look back at the wall and there’s like the edge of this other package tied up with string and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, this is like a stash of booze.’”Brown paper packages tied up with string filled with an alcohol lover’s favorite thing.“I was totally excited and we ended up finding the rest of the mudroom was lined with these packages,” Drummond said.“At the end of the day we were just sitting, and we were like, ‘We really like the house so much more now,'” Bakker said.Drummond and Bakker figured there had to be more. A little trap door called them to venture under the floor. Drummond crawled into the two-foot space filled with gravel and cobwebs and came across a bunch of boards sealed with flathead screws.“No one would have gone through the trouble of using a bunch of flathead screws for something like that," Drummond said. "Unless they wanted to remove it in the future. So I saw that and I was like, ‘Oh my God, we have to look inside the floors.'”All it took was a pry bar to peel back the century-old wood. Peeking into the space like a treasure box, Drummond encountered bottles upon bottles of different sizes. Most of them were empty.The empty bottles were a slight let-down compared to those still full of whiskey. So Drummond continued his search to other parts under the mudroom floor that hadn’t seen the light of day since the 1920s. He discovered more bottles of Gaelic Whiskey bringing the count up to 72. Seven bundles were found in the wall. Five more were found in the floor.“All the booze that we found is actually a brand that’s still around today," Drummond said. "It’s called Old Smuggler; it is a whiskey blend. It would have been imported from Scotland. More likely than not, it went from Scotland to Canada, and then was smuggled from Canada to New York. And so even though it seems like we’re in the middle of nowhere… we would have been relatively well connected in terms of the Erie Canal and other transport methods. So if you were a bootlegger in this area, it would have been a good location to sort of get booze into the city – into New York.”So who was the person who hid all this booze?“He was a barren baron who smuggled old smuggler – of course he was.”The Infamous BootleggerThe Bootlegger Bungalow and the man who left bundles of Gaelic Whiskey stashed in the house piqued the interest of more than just the homeowners.The 100+ newspaper articles written about him prove he was the talk of the town during his time.“He was known as the count… Count Humpfner," Drummond said. "That was totally a self-proclaimed title. They found out after this death that he made the entire thing up. I love that; I’m just going to start calling myself the Countess of Ames.”Count Adolf Humpfner plays leading role amongst a cast of supporting characters whose names are almost too wild to be taken seriously.“Luscious Beers, Harry Berry, Count Humpfner, the missing widow. It’s like all these parts are to a dramatic screenplay or something," Drummond said.There are no photos to be found of the notorious Count Humpfner, but a newspaper clipping from the 1930s makes it easier to picture what type of man he was.“This was after his death," Drummond said. "They were auctioning off the contents of his house. And it’s kind of amazing reading through this crazy list of auction items because it gave you such a good sense of who Count Humpfner was. I mean… the guy had a buffalo robe. I don’t even know what that was. But I’m just imagining this tall heavy-set German guy walking around in a Buffalo robe surrounded by dozens of cash registers. It’s fantastic. I love it. I love thinking about that.”Dr. Richard Hamm is a professor of history at the University at Albany and an expert on the Prohibition era.“What do you need to do this? Basically, you needed to have the desire to break the law, make some money, a car, and a boat,” Dr. Hamm said. “This was a product of the Anti-Saloon League. The tremendous standard encyclopedia of the alcohol problem in six volumes.”Starting in the 1830s and 40s, Dr. Hamm says there was a growing temperance movement to make abstinence from liquor the moral and legal standard in the U.S.“We were a drunken society," Dr. Hamm said. "And there was a reaction to this. There was first a reaction to this isn’t healthy because after all these are the people who vote and create the government.”At the same time, he says there was a religious impulse to drive out sin and Christian women started forming unions and leagues to dry out the nation state by state. By 1920, they were successful on a national scale.“In 1920, the United States adopts a policy that it would be illegal to transport, and sell, and store for sale alcohol for beverage purposes.”However, the criminalization didn’t cut back the desire to drink. The dangerous yet profitable bootlegger market was born.Dr. Hamm says it wasn’t so difficult to smuggle in alcohol from other countries. Especially on the northern border considering Canada was a country that allowed alcohol imports.“It was hard not to pass it up when it was so easy,” Dr. Hamm said.The border patrol – created in the 1920s – only had 450 agents.“That’s 450 agents for 7,500 miles of border," Dr. Hamm said.If you were suspected of carrying spirits you were in trouble.“The prohibition laws both state and national gave very expansive search and seizure powers to government officials,” Dr. Hamm said.That is likely why Count Humpfner hid his Gaelic Whisky so well.“Finding this many bottles is just extraordinary," Dr. Hamm said.Humpfner died mysteriously in 1932, a year before the end of national prohibition.“He suddenly said something like ‘something’s not right’ and then he collapsed,” Drummond said.He was rushed to the hospital, but didn't make it.“They come back to the house. They end up finding a bunch of papers and things all over the house. They find 45 grand in cash – which is like finding 500-thousand bucks in someone’s living room – they find multiple aliases, foreign bank accounts, multiple deeds, like 23 deeds to properties in New York City," Dr. Hamm said. Many tried to claim his fortune, but it ended up going to his wife who had run away after an unsuccessful divorce.“She would send him letters and found send ‘a thousand kisses’ at the end of every letter," Drummond said. "So in typical 1906 fashion, if you send a letter to someone telling them you love them, you can’t possibly be beaten. So basically they threw the case out, and they said, 'Look, she loves him, she sent a thousand kisses, we won’t grant the divorce.' And she ran away. And it’s funny because he actually sabotaged the divorce proceedings, they never actually were divorced, and she ended up getting the fortune.”Drummond said Bakker say they don’t know if she had any kids. However, they do believe he was the man she described because the only written word from him was the biggest lie of his life.“He published an article in the paper written by him and it was this thing basically saying, ‘Any suggestion that I am associated with this still is blasphemous and if you say anything I will stick my lawyers on you. And how dare you attack my good character; I have nothing to do with it.' And so it’s great – the one thing we have from him is him denying he was a bootlegger,” Drummond said.A Special VisitorThanks to the incredible tale of the Bootlegger Bungalow, a man who was once the talk of the town is back in the spotlight with the gossip-mill churning at the museum, the flower shop down the road, the Blacksmith’s forge and within the historic homes that line the one intersection of the village.“I thought it was really interesting. I was like ‘oh wow!’ Ya know it’s not something I expected,” public historian Alicia Jettner said.“It’s amazing to me that they were able to hide it for almost 100 years,” village blacksmith Michael Mcarthy said.“Course it was during Prohibition and so it was a dry place, but clearly not that dry,” village historian Stacy Ward said.“To find a case of alcohol in Ames, New York in the middle of the state is a little surprising. To find it at all is kind of amazing,” Richard Hamm said."I mean we lived there a year and we walked on top of that floor everyday not knowing what was underneath there," Bakker said. "That’s such a crazy thought.”Actually, two other families had lived in the house not knowing they were sitting on a gold mine. A young woman who lived in the house only a decade after Count Humpfner’s death found out about the discovery through social media and paid Drummond and Bakker a visit.Now 96-years-old, Frances Skoda moved into the house with her family back in 1941. Skoda's parents bought the house only eight years after national prohibition ended, and owned it for nearly three decades, but she says they never knew about the dozens of whisky bottles hidden around the house.“I was flabbergasted," Skoda said. "I had no idea. I don’t think even mom or dad knew it.”Skoda and her niece Gail got a tour of the latest home-in-progress. Along with them, black-and-white photo proof of what it used to look like. Flooded with memories from her young-adult life, she took over the role of tour guide, filling in historical gaps that connect the home’s prohibition past to its modern renovations.“I was glad to come. I haven’t been here in a long time. It’s good to be back," Skoda said. The Bootlegger Bungalow is leaving a lasting impression on many people from one generation to the next.“It made us think about things through a different lens and all of the sudden preservation of certain parts of the house we had never thought of before became important to us," Drummond said. "I mean the mudroom which we had never really thought much of, it was just a shack. And now all of the sudden it’s at the center of all this craziness and now the question is sort of ‘how do we restore this in a sensitive way, how do we pay homage to this incredible history.’”“If it was up to me, we probably would have ripped up the floor as soon as we found the first thing but Nick is very good in realizing how something that historic is only historic and original once,” Bakker said.They are laying a sturdy foundation for new memories and being careful not to paint over a house that has become a character itself.“After finding the booze, we sort of initially thought that might be the end of the story, but in a lot of ways it was the beginning,” Drummond said.“I’m sure we’ll move in the future, but I don’t think we’ll sell the house," Bakker said. "I think we’ll keep it just because of the story it has now.”As for the booze, they’ve already heard from many interested collectors.“Value is hard because it’s very much bottle-by-bottle and depends on the condition and fill level, but for most of the full bottles, we were told to expect values between 500 to 1,200,” Drummond said.If you’ve been wondering all this time whether or not the whiskey's drinkable, Drummond and Bakker did a tasting of their own.“I mean, I’m not really a whiskey drinker, but it’s drinkable!” Drummond said. 14302
As a 58-year-old woman on disability, Robin Short of Wallingford, Connecticut, relies on her tax refund to catch up on bills. She filed her return electronically in February, opting for direct deposit so she could get her 3 refund quickly.She’s still waiting, as are millions of others. The IRS is slowly resuming operations after pandemic-related lockdowns, but delayed refunds are devastating some people’s finances.Tax refunds have become a lifelineTax refunds, which last year averaged ,979, are the largest single infusion of cash for about 30% of U.S. families, says Fiona Greig, consumer research director at the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which researches economic issues. While many Americans use refunds to save or to pay down debt, significant numbers rely on the money to cover bills or to get needed medical care — and that was true even before millions lost jobs and income during the COVID-19 pandemic.Delayed refunds can lead to evictions, hunger, creditor lawsuits and health problems from postponed medical care, among other ill effects. Many households live so close to the edge that they can experience hardship when a refund is delayed by two or three weeks, let alone several months, says John Thompson, chief program officer for the Financial Health Network, which researches financial challenges facing low- and moderate-income households.“Not everybody has got the kind of flexibility or resilience to just be able to hold on,” Thompson says.Pandemic shutters most IRS operationsThe IRS started shutting down tax return processing centers in March, along with its taxpayer help line, local offices and volunteer assistance programs. Soon after, it focused on sending out more than 159 million payments as authorized by the coronavirus relief package. By mid-May, the agency faced a backlog of 10 million pieces of unopened mail, including paper tax returns.People who filed electronically generally got their refunds unless those returns were flagged, commonly because of identity theft concerns or a mismatch between the information on the return and what was provided by employers or financial institutions.In Short’s case, the TurboTax software she used counted a ,800 annual pension payment twice, as both 1099 income and as W-2 income. The IRS sent her a letter about the error and advised her not to contact the agency for 60 days while the issue was resolved. Then, the lockdowns happened.Short says her pension and monthly Social Security disability checks don’t cover her expenses. She makes arrangements to pay overdue bills, such as her power bill, when her refund arrives. Otherwise, she says, the math of living on a low fixed income gets grim.“Either you miss a payment on the electric bill, or you don’t get your medicine,” says Short, a former facilities manager and insulin-dependent diabetic who was severely injured when her car was hit by a drunk driver.Using refunds to catch upPutting off bills, then using tax refunds to catch up, is a common practice among strapped households, Thompson says. A survey of people who used free filing methods for lower- and moderate-income taxpayers last year found roughly half said they needed their refunds for bills, rent, groceries and other everyday expenses, according to Prosperity Now, a nonprofit that promotes financial security.People also increase their health care spending significantly after refund checks arrive. A 2018 study of 1.2 million checking account holders found health care spending rose 60% in the week after people received refunds, indicating many were catching up on care, Greig says.It’s not clear how long it will take the IRS to address the backlog or when taxpayers can expect their money. People can try using the “Where’s My Refund?” tool on the IRS site or call the taxpayer help line, but getting through to a human is difficult even in normal times. Congress has cut the IRS’ budget by 20% since 2010, leading to a 22% reduction in staff, according to acting National Taxpayer Advocate Bridget Roberts. Without adequate staff, the agency answered less than one-third of its calls last year. Another option is to contact the Taxpayer Advocate Service, which has representatives in each state.Rather than wait for the IRS to return their money each year, taxpayers can adjust their withholding so they get more money in their paychecks. But many don’t feel comfortable changing their withholding in case they wind up owing big sums, Thompson says.“You’d have to predict how the year is going to go,” Thompson says. “And what could we possibly predict about this year?”This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press.Liz Weston is a writer at NerdWallet. Email: lweston@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @lizweston. 4782

An unpublished report that was obtained by the nonprofit newsroom Center for Public Integrity, prepared for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, recommends that 18 states consider rolling back reopening.The 359-page document detailed the states as a "red zone" because they had more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population last week. The report recommends that states should have citizens wear a mask at all times, practice social distancing, states should close all bars and gyms, and limit social gatherings to 10 people.The following states should consider scaling back reopening plans, according to CPI:AlabamaArkansasArizonaCaliforniaFloridaGeorgiaIowaIdahoKansasLouisianaMississippiNorth CarolinaNevadaOklahomaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasUtahTo read more of the report obtained by the Center for Public Integrity, click here. 844
Aretha Franklin, whose gospel-rooted singing and bluesy yet expansive delivery earned her the title "the Queen of Soul," has died, a family statement said Thursday. She was 76.Franklin died at 9:50 a.m. at her home in Detroit, surrounded by family and friends, according to a statement on behalf of Franklin's family from her longtime publicist Gwendolyn Quinn.The "official cause of death was due to advanced pancreatic cancer of the neuroendocrine type, which was confirmed by Franklin's oncologist, Dr. Philip Phillips of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit," the family statement said.PHOTOS: REMEMBERING ARETHA FRANKLINTributes and tears flooded in Thursday after news of her death broke."Aretha helped define the American experience," former President Barack Obama said in a statement. "In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade -- our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace."READ MORE CELEBRITY TRIBUTES HERELegendary soul singer and Franklin's friend of more than sixty years, Sam Moore, had words of sorrow and comfort to offer."I adored her and I know the feelings were mutual. While I'm heartbroken that she's gone I know she's in the Lord's arms and she's not in pain or suffering anymore from the damn cancer that took her away from us," he said in a statement. "I'm going to hope, pray and count on the fact that I will see her again sometime. Rest in the Lord's arms in love, Re."Franklin's fans paid tribute with flowers and a crown left on her Hollywood Walk of Fame star in Los Angeles.Her death comes three days after a source close to Franklin told CNN's Don Lemon that the singer was in hospice care."In one of the darkest moments of our lives, we are not able to find the appropriate words to express the pain in our heart. We have lost the matriarch and rock of our family. The love she had for her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and cousins knew no bounds," Franklin's family said."We have been deeply touched by the incredible outpouring of love and support we have received from close friends, supporters and fans all around the world. Thank you for your compassion and prayers. We have felt your love for Aretha and it brings us comfort to know that her legacy will live on. As we grieve, we ask that you respect our privacy during this difficult time."Funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days, the statement said.The singer had been reported to be in failing health for years and appeared frail in recent photos, but she kept her struggles private.In February 2017, Franklin announced she would stop touring, but she continued to book concerts. Earlier this year, she canceled a pair of performances, including at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, on doctor's orders, according to Rolling Stone.The singer's final public performance was last November, when she sang at an Elton John AIDS Foundation gala in New York. 3006
As a thank you to veterans and active duty of the U.S. armed forces, dozens of restaurants are offering free meals on Wednesday, Nov. 11 for Veterans Day. Check out our list below of different offers. Beverages and gratuity are not included, unless noted.Due to the pandemic, a number of restaurants have altered their normal offerings for veterans.Offers are good for Wednesday only unless noted. Offers are at participating locations only, and most offers require proof of service.Applebee’s: Applebee’s generally has had a special menu of free meals for veterans. This year, Applebee’s says that its offers will vary because of the coronavirus pandemic as some of its dining rooms are closed. Applebee’s encourages you to check your neighborhood restaurant for details.BJ’s Brewhouse and Restaurants: Veterans and active duty can get a free entrée of up to .95 and a Dr. Pepper beverage for both dine-in and take out. The offer can be obtained online by using the promo code “VETERAN.”Buffalo Wild Wings: The wing joint is serving 10 free boneless wings with fries to all active duty and veterans. The offer is good for both dine-in and carry out.California Pizza Kitchen: With proof of service, veterans and active duty are able to select from a limited menu, which includes six pizzas, four full-size salads or three pasta dishes. The offer also comes with a free beverage. The offer is dine-in or walk-in take out only.Chili’s: With proof of service, veterans and active duty can enjoy a free entrée from a menu of seven entrees, including the Just Bacon Burger and Chicken Crispers. The offer is dine-in only.Cracker Barrel: Veterans can enjoy a free double chocolate fudge Coca-Cola cake or a pumpkin pie latte.Dunkin: Vets and active duty can get a free doughnut of their choice at participating locations on Wednesday.Golden Corral: The buffet joint is offering current and active duty military and reservists a free meal at the buffet that can be redeemed from now through the end of May. The offer can be redeemed Mondays through Thursdays.Little Caesars: The pizza joint will offer its typical lunch of four slices and a 20-ounce beverage for free to veterans and active military from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday.Quaker Steak and Lube: The restaurant is offering free meals for veterans and active duty.Red Lobster: Red Lobster is serving a free appetizer or dessert with proof of service for dine-in only. Veterans and active duty can choose from seven appetizers or four desserts.Red Robin: This burger joint is giving veterans and active duty a free Red’s Tavern Double Burger and bottomless fries. In an effort to alleviate crowds on Veterans Day, Red Robin is extending the offer from November 12 through 30, and the offer is good for both dine-in and carry out. 2794
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