New York Post, Thursday, December 3, 2020
nypost.com
A Florida life-insurance salesman
on a quest to prove William Shatner
is his father has learned the hard
truth from a DNA test: He’s not the
offspring of the “Star Trek” star.
Peter Shatner, who legally
changed his name from Peter Sloan
last year, has discovered through
Ancestry.com that his biological fa-
ther was a Canadian man named
Benjamin “Chick” Freedman who
died in 2001, the Tampa Bay Times
reported Wednesday.
Peter, 63 — whose mother, the late
Canadian actress Kathy McNeil,
gave him up for adoption in his in-
fancy — uploaded his DNA to the
site in 2009 in the hopes of finding
genetic matches through relatives
of the actor. But some 11 years later,
the Clearwater man found his link
to Freedman when Freedman’s
daughter agreed to take a DNA test
in October.
“The test came back positive that
she was my half sibling,” Peter told
the newspaper.
McNeil told him in 1984 his father
was either Shatner, now 89, or a man
she remembered solely as “Chick.”
That led Peter, a former radio host,
to urge the actor over the next 36
years to take a DNA test.
Shatner refused.
Joshua Rhett Miller
Capt. Kirk’s
not his dad
Boeing’s troubled 737 MAX re-
turned to US skies Wednesday, 20
months after federal officials
grounded the jet in the wake of two
crashes that claimed 346 lives.
Members of the media took a
chartered American Airlines flight
from Dallas to Tulsa — marking the
first time anyone besides regulators
and industry personnel have flown
on the jet since March 2019.
Federal Aviation Administration
officials cleared the 737 MAX to re-
sume commercial trips last month,
saying Boeing had identified soft-
ware and training changes required
to put the jet back in service.
Airlines across the globe plan to
resume commercial flights in the jet
this month. David Meyer, WiresBoeing’s MAX
flies again
The UN Commission on Narcotic
Drugs voted Wednesday to remove
cannabis and cannabis resin from a
category of the world’s most danger-
ous drugs.
The vote takes marijuana off of the
list of Schedule IV drugs. Experts
say that removing cannabis from the
strictest category could lead to the
loosening of international controls
on medical marijuana. APDoobieous vote
Go time:
Former Wall
Street execu-
tive Ray
McGuire’s can-
didacy for
mayor is an-
nounced in
this Spike
Lee-made
video.Would-be mayor too busy to vote
Democratic mayoral candidate
Ray McGuire has a history of fail-
ing to vote in elections, including
for the office he’s seeking, elec-
tion records reveal.
McGuire, a former Citigroup
executive, did not vote in either
the Democratic primary or gen-
eral election for mayor in 2017.
Four years earlier, McGuire
also was MIA from the general
election for mayor, but cast a bal-
lot in the primary. In 2009, it wasthe other way around.
And in 2005, McGuire missed
the Democratic primary, and
both the primary and general
election for mayor in 2001.
McGuire also skipped races for
governor and president.
He didn’t cast a ballot in the
2018 general election for gover-
nor, the 2014 primary, or either in- As for the presidency,
McGuire voted in the 2020 pri-
mary and general elections, but
he missed the 2008 and 2016 pri-
maries.
“It’s a big negative. There’s no
good excuse. You’re introducing
yourself to the electorate and
you didn’t even engage in civic
participation to vote for the of-
fice you’re running for,” said Ba-
ruch College public affairs pro-
fessor Doug Muzzio.
Muzzio joked that the “mercy
rule” should be invoked when
The Post read off all the votesMcGuire missed. “The question
should be, ‘When did he vote?’ ”
he said.
McGuire responded, “I wish I
had voted in every election, but... I’ve let work or life get in the
way. If the last four years have
taught us anything, it’s that we
can’t ever sit on the sidelines. I
look forward to bringing that
message to every corner of every
borough during this campaign.”
Carl Campanile, Nolan Hicks
Go time:By ThornTon McEnEryLongtime Wall Street execu-
tive Ray McGuire announced
his candidacy for mayor Tues-
day night in a video narrated by
filmmaker Spike Lee.
“Every New Yorker deserves
a chance to get back in the
game, and all of New York de-
serves a mayor who can bring
this city together and solve this
crisis,” says the Harvard Uni-
versity-educated McGuire, 63,
who left his job as a vice chair-
man at Citigroup in October.
“And that’s why I’m running for
mayor.”
Raised by a single mother in
Dayton, Ohio, McGuire re-ceived a full academic scholar-
ship to the elite Hotchkiss
School in Lakeville, Conn., and
Harvard, where he went on to
earn postgraduate degrees in
both law and business.
The timing of the announce-
ment by McGuire — until re-
cently one of the highest rank-
ing black executives in banking
— was hardly random, Wall
Street insiders told The Post.
“He needed Biden to win to
have a chance,” said one finan-
cier active in city politics. “Now
that we know the city is going
to get some bailout funding,
voters might want a guy who
can manage that, instead of a
politician.”McGuire has eschewed the
city’s matching-funds pro-
grams, so he will be able to take
larger donations, and he already
raised more than $1 million in 10
days in October, records show.
On Wednesday, McGuire an-
nounced that he has hired vet-
eran political strategist and ca-
ble TV pundit Basil Smikle as
his campaign manager.
A relative unknown, he’ll
need that money to help distin-
guish himself from the already
large 2021 Democratic field of
city pols vying to take over City
Hall from Bill de Blasio.
As of now, city Comptroller
Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Bor-
ough President Eric Adams,former de Blasio legal counsel
Maya Wiley, ex-Obama Cabinet
member Shaun Donovan and
former de Blasio Sanitation
Commissioner Kathryn Garcia
are seen as the most likely lead-
ers in the race.
But McGuire says he’s ready
for a brawl.
“Some folks say New York
City is done,” McGuire says in
the video. “But to paraphrase
the great Muhammad Ali: If you
ever dreamed of beating New
York City, you better wake up
and apologize.”
To which Lee adds: “And if
you don’t know, now you know.
Dig?”
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