Good Thursday morning.
So, it rained again yesterday. Surprise, surprise. In case it makes you feel any better – and it certainly makes ME feel better, as I’ve been starting to get a little water logged – it’s not supposed to rain again until Sunday, and even then then the forecast only calls for “scattered thunderstorms.”
One of the side effects of all this rain is mushrooms; they’re everywhere. (No, this is not a lead in to National Mushroom Day, though there is one, and it’s on Oct. 15).
Anyway, I’ve noticed them growing all over the place, and they are ENORMOUS. They also often grow in a round configuration that some people call “fairy circles.” I was curious about this, and so went down an internet rabbit hole.
Folks mushrooms are amazing. If you are curious about the fairy ring fungus, which has a technical name – Marasmius oreades – and you have a moment, check this out.
As for what day this is, it’s National Refreshment Day, (among other things). It is meant to celebrate what is usually the hottest time of the year, though today we’re looking at unseasonably low temperatures in the mid-70s. (There will be a nix of sun and clouds, though, so that’s something to look forward to).
This day has only been celebrated since 2015, and it’s the brain child of – what else? – a beer company, which happens to be known for making something called “shandy” – a mixture of beer and something nonalcoholic, often lemonade.
That sounds rather vile at first blush, but I do remember drinking beer mixed with a variety of flavored sweet syrups – including lemon, and also mint – while living in France, and it was very good. I haven’t had a beer in well over a decade, so I won’t be indulging today. But lemonade on its own is good, too, especially if it’s fresh.
In the headlines…
Senate Republicans blocked the start of formal debate on bipartisan infrastructure legislation, a core part of President Joe Biden’s economic plan, because the bill text and cost weren’t available as negotiations continued.
The vote was 49-51, short of the 60 votes needed to advance the measure. But lawmakers said their negotiations will intensify over the next few days with the goal of trying again to advance the measure by early next week.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer switched his vote to no, which he said gave him the option to bring the bill up again.
The failed vote underscored the intense mistrust between the two parties, which has complicated the effort to complete a deal.
House Democrats are moving to gut Immigration and Customs Enforcement — the federal agency responsible for arresting and deporting illegal immigrants — amid a raging southern border crisis that has grown exponentially since Biden took office.
Biden participated in a CNN town hall in Ohio last night, and said he expected the FDA would give final approval “quickly” for Covid-19 vaccines, as he pressed for skeptical Americans to get vaccinated and stop another surge of the pandemic.
The president said that businesses struggling to hire back workers amid the coronavirus pandemic will need to offer higher wages in order to solve their recruitment problems.
Biden offered an absolute guarantee that people who get their COVID-19 vaccines are completely protected from infection, sickness and death from the coronavirus. The reality is not that cut and dried.
Biden essentially rejected the idea of eliminating the filibuster, asserting, that doing so would “throw the entire Congress into chaos, and nothing would get done.”
Biden said there was too much at stake to risk that level of “chaos” that a fight over the filibuster would ignite, including voting rights legislation he still wants to see passed.
Biden supports a bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, and believes anyone who watched the events unfold should, too.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved to bar two of ex-President Trump’s most vociferous Republican defenders in Congress from joining a select committee to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, saying their conduct suggested they couldn’t be trusted to participate.
Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks is vowing not to back down from investigating the security shortcomings that led to the attack on the Capitol despite Pelosi booting him from the select committee.
Republican House Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy unloaded on Pelosi for what he called the “political sham” of rejecting his picks for the select committee on the Capitol riot.
After nearly two years of wrangling, three major drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant have reached a $26 billion deal with states that would release some of the biggest companies in the industry from all legal liability in the opioid epidemic.
The nation’s three largest drug distributors— McKesson Corp. , AmerisourceBergen Corp. , and Cardinal Health Inc. —and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson have been negotiating the deal for more than two years.
COVID-19 cases nearly tripled in the U.S. over two weeks amid an onslaught of vaccine misinformation that is straining hospitals, exhausting doctors and pushing clergy into the fray.
The Biden administration is reportedly weighing whether to formally urge vaccinated Americans to once again mask up as the country experiences an increase in the number of COVID-19 delta variant cases.
The talks are in a preliminary phase and their result could be as simple as new messaging from top White House officials.
YouTube removed videos from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s channel for spreading pandemic misinformation, the tech giant said.
More officials are encouraging people to return to their daily rhythms and transition to a new normal in which Covid is a daily threat. But scientists warn that it may be too soon to design exit strategies for the pandemic
An Alabama doctor said unvaccinated patients beg her for the vaccine as they’re dying from Covid and she tells them “it’s too late.”
Houston Methodist Hospital confirmed its first case of the COVID lambda variant at one of its eight facilities Monday, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed.
Drawing from his own experience — an AstraZeneca shot he called “disastrous” — singer Eric Clapton took exception to English Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision that unvaccinated people would not be allowed inside English clubs and music venues.
The battle between vaccines and the Delta variant of coronavirus is coming to a head in the U.K., closely watched by the rest of the world.
The nation’s largest police force – the NYPD – is still struggling to get its cops vaccinated against COVID-19 — with the latest figures showing just 43 percent have gotten the jab.
The city’s 2.5 million service workers were at the center of the pandemic as it ravaged New York. Some kept the city running, often at risk to their own lives. Others found themselves unemployed indefinitely in one of the most expensive cities in the country.
More than 33,500 New Yorkers have moved to Florida in the last 10 months, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
With nearly 9,000 newly infected New Yorkers in the past 10 days, some officials wonder: Is it time to restore mandatory, or at least recommended, mask policies for people, regardless of their vaccination status, in indoor public settings in New York State?
State Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, on Twitter urged all New Yorkers to voluntarily don masks again, citing a 167% increase in COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population statewide over the past two weeks.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo faces “severe repercussions” over a tweet in which his spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, suggested a sexual harassment probe of his boss was politically motivated, the head of the Assembly’s impeachment investigation warned.
Assemblyman Charles Lavine penned a letter to Cuomo likening remarks made by Azzopardi to a “verbal attack” against James as the attorney general heads up an independent probe into allegations of sexual harassment against the governor.
Cuomo was still lying low yesterday after his apparent weekend grilling over sexual harassment allegations — leading critics to accuse him of ducking the media to avoid being asked what he told investigators.
The state’s ethics agency has launched a probe into top Cuomo confidante Larry Schwartz, who pressed Democratic county officials on whether they remained supportive of the scandal-plagued governor while he led the state’s coronavirus vaccination campaign.
For over a decade, Cuomo has been a fundraising juggernaut, but he’s starting to lose some of his major donors amid multiple investigations into his conduct and handling of the pandemic.
Cuomo raked in nearly $230,000 in campaign cash from donors tied to a medical network that got $62 million worth of emergency state contracts amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Some Democrats who have eyed the Executive Mansion in Albany for the last decade are in something akin to a holding pattern amid the controversies swirling around Cuomo, who has given nearly every indication he will seek a fourth term in 2022.
In an extraordinarily candid discussion, the state elected officials who are Democratic Socialists said they were appalled after seeing for the first time how the Democratic-run Albany legislature operates. Their solution: Elect more DSA members.
Less than two months before schools reopen, GOP state Sen. Dan Stec and seven school superintendents from Warren County called for Cuomo and the state Department of Health to release its COVID-19 guidance for schools.
A group of Bronx parents and city teachers rallied in lower Manhattan for a remote schooling option this fall.
Mayor Bill de Blasio drew blistering criticism from Democratic City Comptroller candidate Brad Lander and other progressives furious with his attempt to move thousands of homeless New Yorkers out of hotels and into congregate-style shelters.
De Blasio said that the city will be “looking at” requiring city workers to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, after he announced that public hospital and other health workers are required to either obtain a coronavirus vaccine or receive a weekly test for the bug.
A hedge fund manager charged with 33 counts of grand larceny and fraud for allegedly stealing millions of dollars in COVID-19 Paycheck Protection Program loans was ordered held on $500,000 bail at his Manhattan Supreme Court arraignment.
The largest public transit agency in North America, the MTA, is on track to be leaderless at the end of the month.
The city has to shell out more than half a million dollars to settle the case of a Queens man who was placed in a chokehold and repeatedly tased by an NYPD detective over a noise complaint.
Despite 18 months of doomsaying and predictions of the City’s decline, New York City is the least affordable housing market in the country, says a new report by RealtyHop.
American Ballet Theater will return to Lincoln Center for indoor performances in October, the company said.
Prominently displayed in Times Square, among the customary ads for Hershey bars and H&M, a new billboard plugging an online program for fitness, weight loss and mindfulness has caused outrage.
Three companies blamed for the pollution of water supplies in and around the village of Hoosick Falls agreed to pay $65.25 million to settle a federal lawsuit to secure cash payments and long-term medical monitoring for thousands of property owners and residents.
At Camp Pontiac, a seven-week coed sleepaway camp in Copake, the Columbia County Department of Health is grappling with 23 campers testing positive for COVID-19.
The City of Cohoes plans to buy 4,500 “recycling carts” in a drive to cut its dumping costs and convince residents to stop tossing bottles, plastic, cardboard and other materials into the trash and instead recycle them.
Schenectady police are considering the concept of using a “peace officer” designation for police officers in the hope it will ease tensions with the public and help restore trust in the force.
A collection of more than two dozen nonprofits and neighborhood groups are asking the City of Albany to focus the discretionary portion of its American Rescue Plan funding on its low-income neighborhoods.
The University at Albany announced it will open all its athletic venues at full capacity this fall in line with updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and New York state.
Advocates are encouraged by the passage of a “good cause eviction” measure by Albany’s Common Council Monday night. The bill caps annual rent increases at 5 percent and lays out other conditions that must be met for a landlord to evict a tenant.
In the latest tumult at Siro’s Restaurant, it was temporarily shuttered on Friday, two days after opening for the racing season, when its new head chef was arrested at the restaurant on warrants from multiple jurisdictions in different states, according to police.
State Environmental Conservation officers recently helped free a bear cub with a plastic chicken feeder stuck on its head in Greene County.
Rochester’s mayor and her estranged husband appeared in court yesterday, pleading not guilty to charges filed against them last week.
Former U.S. National Speed Skater and Advocate Bridie Farrell announced her campaign for the NY-21 seat currently held by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.
A summer of misery stretched across much of the United States this week, with flash floods in the Southeast, deadly monsoons in the desert, a crackling-dry fire season across the Pacific Northwest and hazy skies on the East Coast blotting out a baleful red sun.
The nation’s largest wildfire – the Oregon Bootleg Fire – grew as smoke from dozens of blazes in the West spread across the country.
The Bootleg Fire has burned nearly 400,000 acres across southern Oregon since July 6, when it was sparked by lightning, officials said.
A full “buck” moon will rise in the southeastern sky after sunset on Friday, and smoke from the wildfires blazing across the West could make it appear red or orange in parts of the U.S. It will reach peak illumination at 10:37 p.m. ET.
New Yorkers had another bad air day yesterday as haze from raging wildfires in the Western U.S. blanketed the boroughs and pushed the city’s air quality level to among the worst in the world.
Harvey Weinstein finally made his California courtroom debut and pleaded not guilty to charges he raped three women and sexually assaulted two others during the height of his Hollywood fame.
Hours after Tokyo Olympics organizers announced they fired the director of the Ceremonies for a past anti-Semitic remark, they revealed that only 950 stakeholders will attend and flag-bearers and other athletes in attendance will be required to wear masks.
The U.S. softball team scored its second Olympic win, defeating Canada.
Positive Covid tests at the Olympics raise thorny questions about how to design testing programs — and respond to test results — at this phase of the pandemic.
