Extra Extra: E-cigarette sales are up, and so are calls to poison control

It’s Friday in New York City, the start of a rainy weekend, and here’s a reminder to move your car for alternate side parking, especially because fines for not doing so might soon go up.

A bill introduced by Councilmember Lincoln Restler would keep the initial $65 charge the first violation in a 12-month period, but then go up to $100 each time after. And with three strikes, you’re out (your car will be towed).

Here’s what else happening:

• People can’t get enough of their e-cigarettes. Vape sales have gone up by almost 50% in the past three years, and poison control reports have, too. From April 2022 to March 2023, poison control centers heard over 7,000 e-cigarette-related poison concerns, a majority of them regarding children under 5.
• “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” has been a box office hit, but it was hell to make, according to four artists who were involved in the production.
• R.I.P. to the world’s oldest African penguin, ET. At 43-years-old, ET took her last breath in the arms of one of her zookeepers at the Richmond Metro Zoo in Virginia.
• Macon Bacon is such a good name for a Georgia baseball team, but not everyone agrees. A doctor’s group is urging the summer collegiate team to stop glorifying the processed meat.
• West 22nd Street in Chelsea is part of the city’s temporary open streets program but permanent changes like traffic-calming infrastructure will soon be implemented.
• Okay so we don’t have In-N-Out in NYC, but we do have Halal-N-Out where you’re better off getting the chicken sandwich instead of the burger.
• Someone keeps tagging “Anna!” on the front of Anna Delvey’s (the fake German heiress) building. An investigation by Page Six revealed the mysterious graffiti writer is an artist unironically called Anna!.
• And finally, the fastest pig in the world: