Good Thursday morning and happy Christmas Eve, CivMixers!
We have some housekeeping matters to attend to before we do anything else. I will be taking a bit of a break for the holidays.
There definitely won’t be a Rise and Shine tomorrow, Christmas Day, (which we are hosting via Face Time – for the very first time – with Grandma). As for next week, we will have to see how things go.
So, don’t be surprised if there’s limited posting and arrivals in your in-box – if you’re even monitoring said in-box during the holidays – though I might weigh in to bid 2020 a not-so-fond farewell.
Christmas Eve is a very big deal for some people – for many Europeans, it’s the big celebration moment of the holiday, while tomorrow is a much quieter affair. There are a lot of interesting traditions around the world worth checking out if you have a moment.
One of my favorites is the Feast of Seven Fishes.
President Donald Trump earlier this month issued an executive order declaring today a federal holiday, and giving most federal employees the whole day off.
This was the third year in a row Trump has decided to give the bulk of the federal workforce an extra day off for Christmas. He closed federal agencies last year – the first president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to grant the day off on Dec. 24 when Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday.
Christmas Day is a federal holiday, but Dec. 24 isn’t. The decision on whether to provide a full or half day off (as former President Obama did), or no day off at all rests with the president. Each has handled it differently.
Today is National Eggnog Day. While culinary historians debate its exact lineage, most agree eggnog originated from the early medieval Britain “posset,” a hot, milky, ale-like drink. I know some people swear by the stuff, but raw eggs, sugar and heavy cream – not cooked? – hard pass for me, thanks.
We’re in for some weird Christmas weather, with temperatures in the 50s and rain, lots of rain. Parts of the Capital Region and surrounding areas are under a flood watch. Tomorrow, we’ll be flirting with 60 degrees – SIXTY! But don’t get used to it, because the weekend is right back down to the 20s and 30s.
Whether you’re going to wear a bikini and rain boots or a snow parka, I hope you enjoy the holiday season and get some time to rest and reflect. Thank you for your support of this site during what has been a most unusual year. We appreciate you more than you know.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump issued another round of pardons, 26 in all – including one to his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and longtime ally Roger Stone — in an aggressive pre-Christmas effort to undo prosecutions that shadowed his entire time in office.
Trump also granted a pardon to Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
Of the 65 pardons and commutations that Trump granted before yesterday, 60 have gone to petitioners who had a personal tie to Mr. Trump or who helped his political aims.
Trump commuted Stone’s sentence in July days before he was set to report to prison. The full pardon came with a note from press secretary Kayleigh McEnany that stated Stone “was treated very unfairly.”
Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pardoned the parents of the so-called “balloon boy” hoax in 2009 in which they claimed their 6-year-old son had floated away in a homemade helium balloon.
Threatening to tank Congress’ massive COVID relief and government funding package, Trump’s demand for bigger aid checks for Americans is forcing Republicans traditionally wary of such spending into an uncomfortable test of allegiance.
Democrats rallied around Trump’s call for Congress to amend the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill to increase direct payments to eligible Americans from $600 to $2,000, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested he could call Republican leaders and have them on board as soon as today.
But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, told fellow GOP lawmakers that Pelosi won’t succeed in her bid for unanimous consent to pass $2,000 COVID-19 stimulus checks.
Passage of the coronavirus relief bill would mean passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, sponsored by Capital Region Rep. Paul Tonko.
Trump vetoed the annual defense policy bill, following through on threats to veto a measure that has broad bipartisan support in Congress and potentially setting up the first override vote of his presidency.
“Unfortunately, the Act fails to include critical national security measures, includes provisions that fail to respect our veterans and our military’s history, and contradicts efforts by my administration to put America first in our national security and foreign policy actions,” Trump wrote in a lengthy statement to Congress.
Bill Barr concluded his final day as U.S. attorney general, writing in a farewell note that “it has been a great honor” to serve.
Pfizer and BioNTech will sell an additional 100 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to the United States, doubling the previously agreed upon sale, the pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration announced.
Nearly 4 in 10 Americans say they would “definitely” or “probably” not get a vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services plans to spend $250 million on a national education campaign to build public trust in the vaccine.
Only one of the 30,000 people who have so far received the Covid-19 vaccine in New York City had a severe adverse reaction to the shot, city officials said Wednesday. A health-care worker in the city suffered anaphylaxis after getting the Pfizer injection.
Health officials have downplayed the possibility that the coronavirus vaccines won’t work against the UK strain, but some scientists think it’s a possibility – and it’s just a possibility – that this new variant might, to a small extent, outsmart the vaccines.
Democratic Washington State Rep. Rick Larson tested positive for COVID-19.
Louisiana Congressman-elect Luke Letlow has been transferred to the intensive care unit at Ochsner LSU Health in Shreveport to continue treatment for COVID-19.
With only nine days to go, it’s unlikely the U.S. will meet the original goal of having 20 million people vaccinated by the end of the year, members of Operation Warp Speed said.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits dipped by 89,000 last week to a still-elevated 803,000, evidence that the job market remains under stress. Before the virus struck, jobless claims typically numbered around 225,000 a week.
Continuing jobless claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits via regular state programs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 5.3 million in the week ended Dec. 12 from 5.5 million a week earlier, according to the Labor Department.
Household spending dropped for the first time in seven months and layoffs remained elevated as a surge in virus cases weighed on economic recovery.
President-elect Joe Biden’s historic choice for secretary of defense is running into hurdles on Capitol Hill, as key Democrats express concerns publicly and privately about whether installing a retired four-star general at the helm of the Pentagon further erodes civilian oversight of the military.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the next ten days will be critical for determining the next steps of the state’s COVID-19 response.
Up to 6,700 lucky fans could be allowed into the Buffalo Bills stadium for upcoming games under a plan that requires COVID-19 tests and contact-tracing to limit the spread of coronavirus, Cuomo said.
Erie County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz was taken by surprise by Cuomo’s announcement that the state is studying a way to allow fans into the Bills home playoff game through a combination of pre-game Covid-19 testing and postgame contact tracing.
New York City started requiring visitors from abroad to quarantine to ward off against the new coronavirus variant found in the UK.
…The order comes with the threat of a $1,000 fine for violators and the possibility of getting a knock on the door from a sheriff’s deputy.
“There’s going to be a follow-up direct home visit or hotel visit from the sheriff’s deputy to confirm they are following the quarantine,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “Or if they do not, they will be penalized.”
De Blasio unveiled the details of a new citywide campaign called “NYC Vaccine for All.”
County officials who have for years been planning for a mass vaccination said they are seeing that training and preparation — much of it funded by millions of dollars in federal grants — pushed aside by the Cuomo administration.
The COVID-19 vaccine has made its way to many hospitals and emergency rooms, however, not every doctor fighting on the frontline of this pandemic has received the vaccine. Some healthcare workers still have no idea when they will get vaccinated.
Tenants in New York will be granted another reprieve in the new year, Cuomo said, with an extension of an executive order that prevents landlords from evicting tenants who’ve faced financial hardship both during and before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Housing activists in New York have spent much of the year preparing for the end of it. Tenant evictions have been halted or delayed by coronavirus relief measures, for the most part, until January 2021.
NYC restaurants received a temporary reprieve over the weekend when Cuomo postponed the sales tax deadline.
When the NYC school system shut down yesterday afternoon for winter break, hundreds of buildings were already temporarily closed because of multiple COVID-19 cases, according to Education Department data.
De Blasio said the pandemic has been a “very reflective time” that taught him “sleep really matters.”
The mayor offered those remarks in response to a question from a reporter about what he has learned about himself and how he leads in the city through the 10 months of turmoil following the outbreak of COVID-19.
Andrew Yang, who rose to prominence during a long-shot presidential run, is throwing his hat into next year’s NYC mayoral race.
Yang has filed paperwork with New York City’s campaign finance board – the first official step in beginning a campaign.
Next year, the progressive movement may face its sternest test in the New York City mayoral race, a wide-open contest that will be the city’s most momentous in decades.
The MTA is “highly likely” to cut service and take on more debt to close its COVID-19 budget hole — even if it receives $4 billion from the latest pandemic relief bill, according to Moody’s credit agency.
Increasingly under consideration in the Legislature are alternative means of generating more cash for the state, including a legalization of mobile sports betting.
Ex-Sen. Jeff Klein tried unsuccessfully to have a judge seal the records of a court case that he filed Monday seeking to block the state JCOPE from conducting a hearing on whether he violated the law by allegedly forcibly kissing a female staff member outside an Albany bar in 2015.
The Big Apple’s staggering surge in shootings amid the COVID-19 pandemic has led nearly 9,000 terrified New Yorkers to apply for gun permits — but the NYPD has signed off on fewer than 1,100.
The Albany International Airport, which two weeks ago began offering free saliva tests for COVID-19 to airport employees, began rolling out the voluntary tests to passengers who arrived at Albany International Airport at least four days earlier.
Cuomo recently issued an executive citation to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s First Vision, which led to the birth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A veteran NYC EMT has succumbed to the coronavirus, becoming the 12th FDNY hero claimed by the pandemic, officials announced.
The FDNY launched a massive effort to vaccinate city EMS workers against the coronavirus, with the contagion again bearing down.
Jeanenne Holt, 50, a longtime trusted legal aide to Albany County District Attorney David Soares — one of five members of his staff to recently contract COVID-19 — has died.
All the shopping and shipping Americans have done in the last few weeks has inundated the system with what the USPS says is a “historic volume” of mail and packages.
An estate with a horse farm on West Wind Road in Knox – owned by Seagrams’ heiress and longtime NXIVM executive Clare Bronfman – is on sale for $4,995,000, according to a Zillow listing.
The trustee for the bankrupt Saratoga and North Creek railroad line is negotiating with two potential buyers and the two might join forces to purchase and re-start the service together.
The Capital Region crossed a grim milestone yesterday, as four more resident deaths due to COVID-19 brought the region’s known death toll from the disease to 500.
The New York Giants donated $10,000 to Albany High School’s football program.
Four teenage best buddies died in a gruesome Yonkers wreck when an ex-con fleeing a traffic stop plowed his speeding car into their Nissan — splitting the vehicle in half, with the young “rising stars” catapulted to their deaths, officials said.
A former upstate New York politician, William Jones, once the supervisor for the town of Mentz in Cayuga County, who fled before his 1997 jail sentencing was found by police limping on the side of an Ohio road this week.
NY1 host Pat Kiernan doesn’t have to disclose his salary to five veteran female reporters suing the network for age and gender discrimination, a federal judge ruled.
A white woman caught on video accosting a Black healthcare worker in a Manhattan park has been cleared of wrongdoing.
A cheating scandal involving dozens of West Point cadets has ignited a fierce backlash over the academy’s decision to allow many of those involved to enter a rehabilitation program.
