HELLO, IT’S FRIDAY. Good morning.
This is simply too silly not to mention…apparently we are exactly halfway from Christmas – Dec. 25, as you probably are aware – and hence, it’s “Leon” Day. Because “Leon” is “Noel” spelled backwards, get it?
Who the heck thinks of this stuff?
To be fair, I do know one or two people who are uber prepared and are already squirreling away gifts for the 2022 holiday season. No time like the present (we DID just come off Prime Day(s), after all), to shop for bargains. As long as you’re able to 1) keep a secret, and 2) locate a secure hiding spot so the intended recipient of your gifts doesn’t chance upon them too early.
Me? I hate surprises. But I am always at a loss for what to buy a person when I’m under the gun, and I think throughout the year: OH, so-and0-so would really like such-and-such a thing. And then I promptly forget that, and cannot for the life of me recall it when necessary.
If I were a better planner, I would be buying presents now. But I’m not. And so.
It’s also National Take Your Dog to Work Day, which is almost every day here in my house. EXCEPT for Thursdays, when Henry goes to daycare in an attempt to remind him of the existence of other dogs. He, like so many other pandemic pets, has become a little clingy and barky and growly. He definitely needs re-socialization.
I can relate. I have forgotten all manner of niceties – including house to dress like a grown-up with a real job, and how to make small talk. But I was never terribly good at that anyway…
BTW: Today is the 12th anniversary of the death of the King of Pop. (AKA Michael Jackson).
The temperature is steadily rising and we will be looking at temperatures in the 90s again next week. Today, though, we’ll be comfortably in the low 80s, with partly cloudy skies and just a hair over 50 percent humidity.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden said that he has agreed to a deal on infrastructure with a bipartisan group of senators after White House officials and the senators had a massive breakthrough the night before in their infrastructure negotiations.
But while a White House green light marks significant progress, the infrastructure accord still has a long way to go before being enacted into law.
As the Republican senators looked on, Biden told reporters that he expects Democrats to ram through an even larger bill with more spending alongside the bipartisan legislation.
“What we agreed on today is what we could agree on. The physical infrastructure. There’s no agreement on the rest,” said Biden, who said he wouldn’t sign the bipartisan deal into law until a bill containing the rest of his agenda also is on his desk.
The deal does provide funding for public transit, passenger and freight rail, electric buses and charging stations for electric vehicles, all designed to try to reduce pollution from passenger vehicles and trucks.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will establish a select committee to investigate Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, after Senate Republicans blocked an earlier effort to establish a bipartisan independent commission.
Emergency responders combed through twisted shards of metal, the dust of pulverized concrete and furniture fragments for at least 99 people who are unaccounted for after part of a condo tower in the Miami-area beachfront town collapsed early yesterday.
At least 99 people are unaccounted for, triggering a desperate search for survivors. Only one fatality was confirmed as of yesterday evening, but many more were feared dead in the rubble.
A New York lawyer who recently moved to Florida is among the missing in the devastating condo building collapse in South Florida.
“We still have hope to be able to identify additional survivors,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said. He said search-and-rescue teams had “made contact” with some people in the wreckage of the 12-story, 136-unit residential complex.
Biden said that Covid deaths in the United States will continue to rise due to the spread of the “dangerous” delta variant, calling it a “serious concern.”
Conservative state lawmakers are moving to block public and private universities from requiring returning students to have proof of Covid vaccinations or get the vaccine itself, in a push that could complicate Biden’s effort to get shots to young adults.
The president highlighted the importance of getting vaccinated against Covid-19 and kicked off a community canvassing event during a speech in Raleigh, NC as his administration has continued its push to get American vaccinated against the virus.
Biden implored Americans to “knock on doors and talk to friends and neighbors” about getting vaccinated, as the White House opened a campaign-like blitz to persuade people around the country to get their shots.
The U.K. has one of the highest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the world, yet it’s seeing a new surge in coronavirus cases largely attributed to the delta variant that first originated in India.
Israel’s coronavirus czar Dr. Nahman Ash said that the country will reinstate its indoor mask mandate beginning Sunday, in light of the recent rise in coronavirus cases across Israel.
The virus that causes COVID-19 could have started spreading in China as early as October 2019, two months before the first case was identified in the central city of Wuhan, a new study showed.
The U.S. plans to give Afghanistan three million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as the country is facing a surge of coronavirus cases, a senior administration official said.
Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.
Two guests aboard Royal Caribbean Cruises’ Adventure of the Seas ship tested positive for Covid-19 during routine testing and are now returning home, the company said.
Frontier Airlines has stopped charging customers a hard-to-notice COVID recovery fee.
San Francisco leaders are receiving backlash to its latest vaccine mandate for city employees.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said the federal government supports the rights of companies to implement a COVID-19 vaccine passport policy.
A Missouri court has ordered televangelist Jim Bakker and his church to pay $156,000 after viewers purchased a fake COVID-19 cure during the pandemic.
U.S. life expectancy recently suffered its biggest decline since World War II, according to researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Colorado Boulder and the Urban Institute.
In a new study published in the BMJ medical journal, the researchers found the average American’s lifespan decreased by 1.87 years between 2018 and 2020.
The three public library systems — the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Public Library — will open all of their remaining available branch locations in July and begin serving readers and researchers like they did before the lockdown.
The Hollywood star honored as a hometown hero, actor Benicio Del Toro, was awarded a city proclamation for participating in a campaign to debunk myths about COVID vaccines.
As the CDC extended an eviction moratorium for another month – indicating it was for the last time – a national think tank weighed in with what analysts called a long term solution: an expansion of housing vouchers.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed the end of the COVID-19 state of emergency as “the restoration of democracy in New York State.”
As New York City fully reopens, tourism officials are hoping to revive a critical driver of its economy by making an urgent plea – through a $30 million ad campaign – for visitors to start rushing back.
The drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at the University at Albany has closed after 443 days in operation, the university announced.
Here’s another sign that coronavirus is on its way out: Capital Region counties are now reporting their lowest daily caseloads since the first cases were confirmed here 474 days ago.
A financial lifeline for many restaurants during the pandemic, to-go cocktails are no more as of today, after Gov. Andrew Cuomo abruptly ended New York’s coronavirus emergency order, and the state’s liquor authority shut down off-premises rights.
Cuomo’s executive order allowing for expired licenses and permits to remain valid has also come to an end.
Investigators with the state attorney general’s office reportedly have interviewed a senior adviser to Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, and are examining the environment in the governor’s office going back more than a decade.
This could signal an upcoming conclusion of the probe since Azzopardi was expected to be one of the last people interviewed.
New York state Attorney General Letitia James is not offering a timeline for the conclusion of her investigation into an array of allegations made against Cuomo, including multiple accusations of sexual harassment.
Cuomo signed into a law the Gender Recognition Act, which is aimed at reducing discrimination against transgender and nonbinary New Yorkers.
The legislation ensures New Yorkers will be able to have their gender identity on official documents and provides protections to reduce discrimination by allowing name and sex designation changes to be sealed more easily.
Eric Adams used his strong showing in New York City’s still-undecided Democratic primary for mayor to challenge the party’s left wing, calling himself “the face of the new Democratic Party.”
Speaking in the tones of a mayor-elect, Adams laid out a middle road between progressives and conservatives.
Adams, the current Brooklyn borough president, told reporters in a press conference that “no one is going to give more to this city than I am,” adding, “We’re so much better than what we’re seeing.”
Adams said that Republican Curtis Sliwa — his general election opponent if the Democratic Brooklyn borough president’s first-round primary lead holds — is a one-trick pony who only knows how to troll train cars for troublemakers.
Adams promised to lead the Big Apple from the streets instead of City Hall — cycling around town, riding the subway and even doing his own laundry.
Outside special interest groups spent record amounts of cash in the mayoral primary this year — almost triple that spent in the last competitive contest in 2013 — but in most cases the investment was an unqualified dud.
Progressives cheered the results in down-ballot races and in Buffalo, even as the outcome of the New York City mayoral primary appeared less rosy.
James seemed to follow the national Democratic Party playbook on crime as she downplayed the impact of bail reform and instead blamed the state’s surge in shootings on gun trafficking from other parts of the country.
The statue of George Floyd unveiled on Juneteenth in Brooklyn has been vandalized with white supremacist graffiti, police said.
New York City is installing its first curbside electric-vehicle charging stations this year, part of an effort to address the dearth of charging options in the city.
The NYPD said that its officers will be providing protection to several small Pride-related marches this weekend — whether organizers want them there or not.
First responders in a new city program aimed to keep cops from answering 911 mental health calls are repeatedly calling for police assistance, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said.
A new organization opposed to the promotion of critical race theory to kids is launching a TV ad campaign featuring several city private schools.
An 82-year-old preservationist is single-handedly waging war against a 1,645-foot mega-tower that’s set to go up next to Grand Central — claiming the behemoth building would mar the “heart of New York.”
Native son Pete Hamill carried a piece of Brooklyn wherever he went — and now the borough has its own piece of the legendary journalist. The Park Slope street where the son of Irish immigrants grew up was named in his honor.
Appellate justices rejected Christopher Porco’s efforts to sue the Lifetime network over its made-for-television movie about the ax-wielding college student who murdered his father and maimed his mother in their Delmar home in 2004.
A city man faces several charges after Wednesday’s crash that resulted in critical injuries to a 15-year-old on State Street, Schenectady police said.
Nestled below some Albany streets lies an unusual bit of history. Hollow tree trunks. Very, very old hollow tree trunks, remnants of the city’s first public water system.
Small businesses, agricultural cooperatives, non-profits and others in Washington County are eligible for low-interest disaster loans of up to $2 million due to drought in next door Vermont, the U.S. Small Business Administration said.
Former Rep. Anthony Brindisi has decided he won’t run for Congress next year, just months after he narrowly lost one of the closest House elections in the nation.
GOP Rep. John Katko split with his party to help pass legislation he cosponsored that aims to crack down on age discrimination in workplaces.
Starting on June 28th, Crossgates will be expanding its operating hours.
Eli Lilly plans to submit its Alzheimer’s drug for market clearance under an expedited review this year, in a sign that regulators are encouraging development of treatments for the disease after a recent approval.
Leaders of Indigenous groups in Canada said investigators have found more than 600 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school for Indigenous children — a discovery that follows last month’s report of 215 bodies found at another school.
The Teamsters, one of America’s largest labor unions, passed a resolution designed to aid Amazon workers in eventually achieving a union contract, putting further labor pressure on the e-commerce giant following a recent failed unionization effort in Alabama.
Former staffers from Biden’s presidential campaign have sued the supporters of Donald Trump who surrounded their bus on a Texas highway in October of last year.
Former Vice President Mike Pence reiterated at a speech at the Reagan Library that he did not have the constitutional authority to stop the count of the electoral votes on Jan. 6.
Rudy Giuliani did not show up for a court hearing in a $1.3 billion defamation case against him that took place hours after his New York law license was suspended due to his alleged “false and misleading” claims about the 2020 election.
It is unusual for the appellate division to suspend a lawyer’s license before the grievance committee completes its investigation, ethics lawyers said.
A day after begging a judge to end her “abusive” conservatorship, Britney Spears took to Instagram to tell fans she’s sorry she didn’t use her own voice to say #FreeBritney sooner.
Spears said a team led by her father, who is her conservator, prevented her from having her IUD removed because the team did not want her to have more children.
The singer said she had not known she needed to petition the court to be released from her conservatorship, placing a focus on the court-appointed counsel who has represented her for 13 years.
Kanye West is suing Walmart with claims the retail giant is stepping on his “iconic” fashion brand by selling knockoff versions of his Yeezy Foam Runner.
