Good Tuesday morning, CivMixers.
As I looked at the weather report for the next week, I had to rub my eyes, which aren’t the most reliable – especially not at 3 a.m. – to make sure that what I was seeing was right.
Temperatures in the 40s – the 40s!!!
OK, yes, so there’s some precipitation in the cards as well. Today, for example, there will be a mix of rain and show, developing in the afternoon (maybe; there’s a 50 percent chance that something wet will fall from the sky), and we’re going to flirt with 40, with temperatures in the high 30s.
AND, for good measure, there might be some patches of black ice around this morning….so be aware of that if you’re driving, or even out running or walking the dog.
Tomorrow, though? Tomorrow, we’re going to see a mix of clouds and sun and 45 degree weather. I, for one, will be breaking out my shorts.
I know a lot of folks out there got a pandemic pet, which might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but as it turns out, pets are work. They are worth it, of course, but also work.
Today is World Spay Day, an annual campaign launched in 1995 that aims to encourage people to save animal lives by spaying and neutering companion animals and feral cats. Though some people might balk at the thought of this, the failure to spay animals results in millions of strays suffering on the streets.
Each year, more than 6 million dogs and cats wind up in animal shelters in the U.S. and approximately half of them must be euthanized because there aren’t enough good homes for them.
(Actually, all of February is National Spay/Neuter Awareness Month, but really, you don’t need an excuse to do the right thing here and get your companion animal fixed – unless you’re planning on going into the breeding business, which is a whole other conversation for a different day).
It’s also National Banana Bread Day. I dimly remember writing about this before…and yes, I guess we’re coming up to that point in time on the blog when all things repeat themselves.
Anyway, I probably said at the time how much I LOVE banana bread, with BOTH chocolate chips AND walnuts, please and thank you. I am a bit of an overindulgent sort of person.
I’ll take any kind of quick loaf-like baked good masquerading as bread that’s actually cake, including, but not limited to: Pumpkin, zucchini, lemon, blueberry and apple. Sorry, if I left out your favorite.
Apparently, recipes for banana bread date bake to the 1800s. A new restaurant/bakery chain owned by Gaff, Fleischmann & Company, The Viena Model Bakery, advertised the product in 1893. It was made with banana flour, likely from fruit grown in the West Indies.
In 1927, Unifruit (a wholesale produce company) offered a free cookbook called From the Tropics to Your Table, which offered recipes full of bananas as ingredients, including banana muffins and breads.
And, now I am succeeded in giving myself a craving, but since I have no overripe bananas handy, I’ll have to live with it.
In the headlines….
President Joe Biden honored the 500,000 American lives lost to coronavirus, speaking of the collective grief of a nation and in personal terms.
“The people we lost were extraordinary. They spanned generations,” Biden said. “Just like that, they took their final breath alone, in America.”
The president said he keeps a card in his pocket every day with the tally of those who have died from Covid-19. “The people we lost were extraordinary,” he said. “We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow.”
Biden announced changes to target more federal pandemic assistance to the nation’s smallest businesses and ventures owned by women and people of color.
Attorney general nominee Merrick Garland said that, if confirmed, his first order of business will be the sprawling investigation into the U.S. Capitol riot, and he more broadly vowed to stamp out the rising threat of domestic terrorism and restore public faith in the Justice Department.
Garland promised that the Department of Justice would pursue any evidence of fraud in a federal investigation he may soon supervise of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic.
Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, suffered a significant setback yesterday as two moderate Republicans said they would not support her nomination, potentially dooming her chances for confirmation.
Confirmation duels over Biden’s Cabinet picks have suddenly turned nasty, ringing alarm bells about the cliffhanger nature of a 50-50 Senate and bitter fights to come over the President’s ambitious agenda.
Women’s rights activists and allied Democrats are growing increasingly vocal about what they call the unfair targeting of women and people of color nominated by Biden to top posts in his administration.
Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation lawsuit against MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, accusing him of seeking to boost pillow sales by promoting false claims that Dominion’s voting machines were manipulated to rig the 2020 election against President Donald Trump.
Rudy Giuliani reportedly spent a week dodging service of a $1.3 billion lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems after publicly declaring he was ready for the legal fight.
A joint hearing of two Senate committees today will question officials who were in charge of securing the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack – part of a series of investigative hearings to scrutinize the security breakdowns that failed to prevent the deadly pro-Trump rampage.
The United States Supreme Court cleared the way for the Manhattan DA to obtain eight years of Trump’s federal income tax returns and other records from his accountants, capping a long-running legal battle over prosecutors’ access to the information.
A brief, unsigned order issued by the court ended Trump’s bitter 18-month battle to stop prosecutors in Manhattan from poring over his tax returns as they investigate possible financial crimes.
When New York prosecutors finally get Trump’s returns, they will discover a veritable how-to guide for getting rich while losing millions of dollars and paying little to no income taxes. Whether there’s evidence of crimes will depend on information not in the returns.
The Supreme Court announced that it would not hear an appeal from Pennsylvania Republicans who sought to disqualify mailed ballots in the 2020 presidential election that arrived after Election Day.
Biden’s 1.9 trillion stimulus package advanced out of the House Budget Committee yesterday and is now set for a full House vote later this week.
A successful economic recovery is being thwarted by snarled supply chains, a labor shortage and manufacturers’ general inability to keep up with consumer demand.
Workers at America’s hotels, restaurants, bars and convention centers have been among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many are trying to launch new careers.
The FDA said that vaccine developers would not need to conduct lengthy randomized controlled trials for vaccines that have been adapted to protect against concerning coronavirus variants.
The U.K.’s rapid vaccine rollout contributed to a substantial drop in infections, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19, according to data that add to a growing body of evidence that the shots provide significant protection against the disease.
Some pharmacists say a simple solution could get thousands more people vaccinated against COVID-19 each week, but the Food and Drug Administration is standing in the way. It’s called “pooling.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but you won’t likely find him dining in at any restaurants or catching a movie in theaters just yet.
Frustrated over not knowing when she can get vaccinated and what she called “inconsistent messaging,” talk show host Meghan McCain called on Biden to fire Fauci.
People who wear glasses could be up to three times less likely to get coronavirus, according to a new study conducted in India.
Doses of the coronavirus vaccine at a New York state-run site were not stored at the correct temperature before being administered to people last week – but state officials say those impacted are not at any health risk.
Engine failure caused a Boeing 757 passenger jet carrying 128 people to make an emergency landing in Salt Lake City yesterday — just two days after a Boeing 777 engine’s burst into flames in midair en route from Colorado to Hawaii.
Heightened scrutiny is now being cast on a recurrent theme of Cuomo’s decade-long tenure: his penchant for verbal attacks and attempted intimidation.
Former City & State Morgan Pehme editor recalled being threatened by Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, that she would destroy his career over a story criticizing the governor. It ran anyway.
Cuomo should be impeached over the nursing home scandal that saw state officials intentionally obscure the extent of the coronavirus’ death toll on the facilities, frequent critic and state Assemblyman Ron Kim wrote in an opinion piece for Newsweek.
Cuomo refused to say whether he or his top officials have received or responded to subpoenas as federal prosecutors probe New York’s handling of nursing homes during the COVID crisis.
Cuomo’s cover-up of nursing home deaths from COVID-19 could lead to federal criminal charges, a former assistant attorney general has warned.
Eleven members of the state Democratic Committee offered a resolution to have their organization formally censure Cuomo for what they claim was his attempt to deceive the public and the Legislature about the number of COVID nursing home fatalities.
Democrats in the state Senate approved a slate of bills that could bring sweeping overhauls to nursing homes in the Empire State.
New York City movie theaters can reopen at limited capacity on March 5, Cuomo said, after being closed for nearly a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The governor announced new nursing home visitation guidelines and looser COVID-19 restrictions for various industries, including billiards halls and New York City movie theaters.
Cuomo said that he will require state municipalities to gather and release teacher vaccination data.
It has been nearly a month since the governor announced guidelines that would allow up to 150 wedding guests at receptions statewide. Since then, wedding planners and parties have learned little about what needs to happen to make that a reality.
One of former state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s sex accusers has written a memoir about their nightmare relationship — claiming he even threatened to kill her if she ever left him.
NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has named Lorraine Grillo as the Senior Advisor for Recovery — a position that will call for Grillo to coordinate the mayor’s recovery agenda in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
An ex-dean of the Fashion Institute of Technology claims that she was made to be a scapegoat in a school scandal after a black model came forward with accusations that a school runway show was racist, new court papers show.
When fans head to the Barclays Center today, they will be entering a space where everyone around them, from NBA players to security guards, has tested negative for Covid-19.
Developers negotiating deals for a $15 billion modernization of John F. Kennedy International Airport were thrown a lifeline when New York City extended the airport’s lease to 2060.
Two lawyers accused of tossing a Molotov cocktail into an empty NYPD car during the George Floyd protests last year were quietly offered a plea deal by federal prosecutors, according to court papers filed Saturday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the Seneca Nation is obligated to pay New York State $450 million in casino compact funding that has been the subject of dispute since 2013.
An elderly protester who was shoved to the ground by Buffalo cops during a George Floyd demonstration has filed a lawsuit against the city and three of the officers involved.
After years of false starts and failed attempts, Gov. Philip D. Murphy signed into law three bills that effectively permit and regulate the use of recreational marijuana in New Jersey, making it the most populous state in the Northeast to fully legalize the drug.
Legal sales likely remain months away at the earliest, as the Garden State takes on its next task of creating a heavily regulated industry large enough to support public demand, with licenses still to be doled out to dispensaries.
A man who was expecting his first child was killed on Sunday and his brother was injured when a device they were preparing for a gender-reveal party exploded in a garage in the Catskills in New York, the authorities said.
State lawmakers yesterday concluded two days of interviews with a slew of candidates for four available seats on the state Board of Regents.
Alicia Purdy, a conservative radio host on Alive Radio Network, will announce a run for mayor of Albany on Thursday.
Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs said a recently concluded fundraising effort that spanned seven years has raised $229.4 million.
Albany County has rescheduled a second-dose vaccination clinic to tomorrow following its cancelation last week now that 2,900 doses of coronavirus vaccine arrived in the county Monday morning, officials announced.
Rensselaer County will host a second-dose vaccination clinic at Hudson Valley Community College this week now that a shipment of delayed coronavirus vaccines has arrived, officials announced.
Former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen are liberal icons, vacationing friends and rhapsodists about the dreams and travails of everyday Americans. Now they are also podcast hosts.
NASA released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.
