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A search for a biological father, and the surprise of a lifetime
Matt Katz is a lifelong Mets fan. Playing ball with his son, Reuben, is what Father’s Day memories are made of. But growing up, Matt’s experience of Father’s Day was about as complicated as a triple play. “Did my birth father like baseball? Does he like baseball?” Katz asked. “And because I had for many years no contact with my birth father, I would wonder about little things like that.”
Matt was raised by his Jewish mother, Roberta, and Richard, his Jewish stepfather, who said, “As far as I’m concerned, he is my son.”
“His father was out of the picture, and he felt rejected,” said Roberta. “He tried to see him, but it didn’t work out.”
Richard said, “No matter how much of a dad I am, he still needed to know where he came from.”
But as a boy, Matt rarely got any answers to that question: “Why isn’t he interested in hanging out with me? Why isn’t he interested in knowing me? Where is he?”
When he was about the age his daughter Sadie is now, Matt noticed something: “I looked different from other people in my family, and also a little bit different from other people at Hebrew school. I had lighter features, redder hair.”
Family Photo
Matt’s wife, Deborah, is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent; so is Matt’s mom, and so was his presumed biological father.
Deborah recalled, “My elderly grandmother was like, No, he’s not Jewish.”
So, where in the world did those fair features come from?
“I took a DNA test, as did my wife, just to see if we could, you know, figure out a little bit more about our people,” Matt said. “I was expecting to find out I was a hundred percent Jewish. Instead, I found out I was just half-Ashkenazi, Eastern European Jewish, and I was half-Irish.”
It seemed inconceivable, and yet it sort of made sense. “I would look at myself in the mirror and I’d be like, Wow, you know, holy crap, you DO look like a half-Jewish, half-Irish guy!” he laughed.
Just like a four-leaf clover, Matt’s family tree started to blossom. He found out he had three half-siblings as well. Deborah said, “It’s, like, wild to be, like, middle-aged and all of a sudden have sisters-in-law and cousins that never existed before.”
But here’s the thing: none of them knew their dad, either. But one of them knew something the others didn’t: “She tells me that she was conceived via sperm donor,” Matt said. Which likely meant he was, too.
And yes, that led to an awkward conversation with his mom. “I was very nervous about it,” he said.
We should preface what follows by saying Matt is a Peabody Award-winning journalist at WNYC Public Radio in New York City. He’s used to tracking down answers and asking tough questions … but not of his own mother.
Roberta said, “I remember sitting on the couch, and he prefaced the conversation with how much he loves me and how much he loves Richard. And then, he threw the bombshell!”
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“I said, ‘Did you ever get fertility assistance when you were trying to have me?'” Matt recalled. “She says yes, they tried to get pregnant for many years, and it was hard.”
She said they had indeed gone to a doctor, who discovered the problem wasn’t hers, but his. “I wasn’t hiding anything from anyone,” Roberta said. “The only thing I was hiding was the fact that I had artificial insemination. But I thought it was with my former husband.”
“I told her, ‘That’s not what happened – it was donor sperm that you were inseminated with,'” Matt said. “And she put her hand over her mouth, and she might have used the S-word!”
What Roberta didn’t know is that back then, doctors treating male infertility would sometimes mix a husband’s genetic material with an anonymous donor’s, ostensibly to help improve the couple’s chances.
Matt was born happy and healthy, but the secrecy of it all left him in the dark about his true dad, and his mom wondering with whom she had had a child: “I could have walked down the street, and he could have been there and, you know, I wouldn’t have known,” she said.
He was a shadow from 1970s Manhattan – a ghost who, it seemed, didn’t want to be found.
Some of Matt’s friends even questioned if Matt should keep trying.
Cowan said, “The devil you know might be better than the devil you don’t, right? You had no idea where this was going?”
“No, there’s a risk there,” said Matt. “You don’t know what you’re gonna find. You don’t know if there’s more hurt.”
But Matt and his half-siblings doubled down. A professional DNA sleuth was brought in, and eventually, a picture turned up of a man with the same long face, same eyes, same hairline, as all of them. His name was Vincent McNally.
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But Matt needed more proof. “He had to have been in New York City on the day I was conceived,” Matt said.
Sure enough, in an old 1976 New York City phone book, a Vincent McNally was listed with an address on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. It was just brick and mortar, but to Matt it was gold. Standing outside the building, Matt said, “I feel it in my body, I do, I feel like a sensation; he was here, and he was in my presence in some way.”
Turns out Vincent McNally was a professional stage actor; he donated sperm as a way to earn extra money. Matt found pictures of him, theater reviews, and Playbills, including an eerie description of one of his final performances, in “A Sea of White Horses.” “One of those plays, his estranged children, adult children, come back and find him,” Matt said.
But the ghost Matt has been chasing all his life eluded him one final time. Just before Matt was going to call him to tell him the news, he found a death notice. Vincent McNally had passed away just four years prior.
“Maybe we were never supposed to meet in person,” he said.
Just yesterday, Matt celebrated his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Two of his three half-siblings were there, too – a blending of a now-extended family, long overdue.
Family photo
His smile makes clear Matt has finally made peace with his past, in part, he believes, because talking about it has been healthy. He turned his journey into a podcast, “Inconceivable Truth,” that has found an audience of other people whose ancestry search is still ongoing.
For Matt, he’s just thankful for the stepdad that he’s celebrating on this Father’s Day – the only man in Matt’s life, it turns out, truly worthy of the title Dad.
Cowan said, “You don’t need to keep searching anymore.”
“I don’t,” Matt said, “but I can keep telling the story, because it’s a cool story!”
For more info:
Story produced by Wonbo Woo. Editor: Steven Tyler.
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Former Israeli hostages released in truce 1 year ago call for action to release those still held
Former Israeli hostages who were freed from Hamas captivity during a week-long humanitarian pause in fighting exactly one year ago Sunday called for immediate action to secure a deal for the release of those still held.
The only truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war on Nov. 24, 2023 – fewer than two months after fighting began – led to the release of 80 Israelis held by militants in Gaza. They were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians detained in Israeli jails.
Repeated efforts since then by mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the United States to secure another truce and hostage release have failed. Qatar early this month said it was suspending its mediation role until the warring sides show “seriousness.”
Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images
Gabriella Leimberg was kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack and was released along with her daughter, Mia, and sister Clara.
“For 53 days, the one thing that kept me going is that we, the people of Israel, the Jewish people, sanctify life — we don’t leave anyone behind,” she said.
Leimberg added: “Everything has already been said and now action is required. We don’t have any more time.”
Around 100 hostages are still in Gaza, and at least a third are believed to be dead.
“I survived and I was fortunate to get my entire family back,” Leimberg said. “I want and demand this for all the families of the hostages.”
Hamas wants Israel to end the war and withdraw all troops from Gaza. Israel has offered only to pause its offensive.
The Palestinian death toll from the war surpassed 44,000 this week, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Maya Alleruzzo / AP
Danielle Aloni, who was kidnapped with her five-year-old daughter, Emelia, and freed after 49 days, spoke at the ceremony of the “increasing danger” those still being held face every day.
She said those still in captivity “suffer physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, their identity and dignity crushed anew each day”.
“It took the Israeli government about two months to secure a deal for me and 80 other Israeli hostages. Why is it taking over a year to reach another deal to free them from this hell?” asked Aloni, whose brother-in-law, David Cunio, and his brother, Ariel Cunio, are still being held.
She emphasized that, even though she and the other hostages gained their freedom a year ago, “we haven’t really left the tunnels,” — referring to Hamas’ underground tunnels where many of the hostages were held.
“The feeling of suffocation, the terrible humidity, the stench — these sensations still envelop us,” Aloni said.
“If people could truly understand what it means to be held in subhuman conditions in tunnels, surrounded by terrorists for 54 days — there’s no way they would allow hostages to remain there for 415 days!” said Raz Ben Ami, who was released in the deal a year ago.
Her husband, Ohad, is still among those being held.
Ben Ami called for a ceasefire to “bring back all the hostages as quickly as possible”.
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Couple charged for allegedly stealing $1 million from Lululemon in convoluted retail theft scheme
A couple from Connecticut faces charges for allegedly taking part in an intricate retail theft operation targeting the apparel company Lululemon that may have amounted to $1 million worth of stolen items, according to a criminal complaint.
The couple, Jadion Anthony Richards, 44, and Akwele Nickeisha Lawes-Richards, 45, were arrested Nov. 14 in Woodbury, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Richards and Lawes-Richards have been charged with one count each of organized retail theft, which is a felony, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office said. They are from Danbury, Connecticut.
The alleged operation impacted Lululemon stores in multiple states, including Minnesota.
“Because of the outstanding work of the Roseville Police investigators — including their new Retail Crime Unit — as well as other law enforcement agencies, these individuals accused of this massive retail theft operation have been caught,” a spokesperson for the attorney’s office said in a statement on Nov. 18. “We will do everything in our power to hold these defendants accountable and continue to work with our law enforcement partners and retail merchants to put a stop to retail theft in our community.”
Both Richards and Lawes-Richards have posted bond as of Sunday and agreed to the terms of a court-ordered conditional release, according to the county attorney. For Richards, the court had set bail at $100,000 with conditional release, including weekly check-ins, or $600,000 with unconditional release. For Lawes-Richards, bail was set at $30,000 with conditional release and weekly check-ins or $200,000 with unconditional release. They are scheduled to appear again in court Dec. 16.
Prosecutors had asked for $1 million bond to be placed on each half of the couple, the attorney’s office said.
Richards and Lawes-Richards are accused by authorities of orchestrating a convoluted retail theft scheme that dates back to at least September. Their joint arrests came one day after the couple allegedly set off store alarms while trying to leave a Lululemon in Roseville, Minnesota, and an organized retail crime investigator, identified in charging documents by the initials R.P., recognized them.
The couple were allowed to leave the Roseville store. But the investigator later told an officer who responded to the incident that Richards and Lawes-Richards were seasoned shoplifters, who apparently stole close to $5,000 worth of Lululemon items just that day and were potentially “responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss to the store across the country,” according to the complaint. That number was eventually estimated by an investigator for the brand to be even higher, with the criminal complaint placing it at as much as $1 million.
Richards and Lawes-Richards allegedly involved other individuals in their shoplifting pursuits, but none were identified by name in the complaint. Authorities said they were able to successfully pull off the thefts by distracting store employees and later committing fraudulent returns with the stolen items at different Lululemon stores.
“Between October 29, 2024 and October 30, 2024, RP documented eight theft incidents in Colorado involving Richards and Lawes-Richards and an unidentified woman,” authorities wrote in the complaint, describing an example of how the operation would allegedly unfold.
“The group worked together using specific organized retail crime tactics such as blocking and distraction of associates to commit large thefts,” the complaint said. “They selected coats and jackets and held them up as if they were looking at them in a manner that blocked the view of staff and other guests while they selected and concealed items. They removed security sensors using a tool of some sort at multiple stores.”
CBS News contacted Lululemon for comment but did not receive an immediate reply.
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Former Trump national security adviser says next couple months are “really critical” for Ukraine
Washington — Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to Donald Trump, said Sunday that the upcoming months will be “really critical” in determining the “next phase” of the war in Ukraine as the president-elect is expected to work to force a negotiated settlement when he enters office.
McMaster, a CBS News contributor, said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that Russia and Ukraine are both incentivized to make “as many gains on the battlefield as they can before the new Trump administration comes in” as the two countries seek leverage in negotiations.
With an eye toward strengthening Ukraine’s standing before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office in the new year, the Biden administration agreed in recent days to provide anti-personnel land mines for use, while lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-made longer range missiles to strike within Russian territory. The moves come as Ukraine marked more than 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Meanwhile, many of Trump’s key selection for top posts in his administration — Rep. Mike Waltz for national security adviser and Sens. Marco Rubio for secretary of state and JD Vance for Vice President — haven’t been supportive of providing continued assistance to Ukraine, or have advocated for a negotiated end to the war.
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McMaster said the dynamic is “a real problem” and delivers a “psychological blow to the Ukrainians.”
“Ukrainians are struggling to generate the manpower that they need and to sustain their defensive efforts, and it’s important that they get the weapons they need and the training that they need, but also they have to have the confidence that they can prevail,” he said. “And any sort of messages that we might reduce our aid are quite damaging to them from a moral perspective.”
McMaster said he’s hopeful that Trump’s picks, and the president-elect himself, will “begin to see the quite obvious connections between the war in Ukraine and this axis of aggressors that are doing everything they can to tear down the existing international order.” He cited the North Korean soldiers fighting on European soil in the first major war in Europe since World War II, the efforts China is taking to “sustain Russia’s war-making machine,” and the drones and missiles Iran has provided as part of the broader picture.
“So I think what’s happened is so many people have taken such a myopic view of Ukraine, and they’ve misunderstood Putin’s intentions and how consequential the war is to our interests across the world,” McMaster said.
On Trump’s selections for top national security and defense posts, McMaster stressed the importance of the Senate’s advice and consent role in making sure “the best people are in those positions.”
McMaster outlined that based on his experience, Trump listens to advice and learns from those around him. And he argued that the nominees for director of national intelligence and defense secretary should be asked key questions like how they will “reconcile peace through strength,” and what they think “motivates, drives and constrains” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Trump has tapped former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence, who has been criticized for her views on Russia and other U.S. adversaries. McMaster said Sunday that Gabbard has a “fundamental misunderstanding” about what motivates Putin.
More broadly, McMaster said he “can’t understand” the Republicans who “tend to parrot Vladimir Putin’s talking points,” saying “they’ve got to disabuse themselves of this strange affection for Vladimir Putin.”
Meanwhile, when asked about Trump’s recent selection of Sebastian Gorka as senior director for counterterrorism and deputy assistant to the president, McMaster said he doesn’t think Gorka is a good person to advise the president-elect on national security. But he noted that “the president, others who are working with him, will probably determine that pretty quickly.”
