Good morning, it’s Monday, and the time seems to be accelerating as summer speeds by.
To take the edge off the fact that the start of the workweek is again upon us – as is August – I am happy to inform you that today is National Bagelfest Day – a whole day to celebrate what one website called “the kosher carbohydrate.”
Now, we could debate whether the bagel or the bialy deserves that penultimate title. Personally, as some of you may recall, I’m firmly in the latter camp.
But since you cannot for the life of you find a decent bialy anywhere north of say, Orange County, I guess I’ll have to content myself with bagels…and if you know of a hidden secret spot that makes swoon-worthy bialys, then by all means, prove me wrong.
Anyway, bagels….their origin is hotly debated.
Some insist that originated in the 16th century in Krakow, Poland, but apparently a similar-looking Polish bread called obwarzanek dates back even earlier – to 1394. And ring-shaped breads have long been found in other countries, including both Italy and China.
In the U.S., bagels arrived along with with influx of Eastern European immigrants in the late 19th-century, but they were mostly a Jewish food and didn’t emerge into the mainstream until the 1970s.
Lenders began marketing frozen bagels and calling them the “Jewish English muffin.” (Oh, the indignity of that; the two are NOTHING alike. Nothing). By the mid-90s, despite the carbs-are-the-devil craze, bagels had become a multibillion-dollar industry.
You can, if you so desire, procure a low-carb bagel, made of cauliflower of some other such bastardization. But nothing beats a freshly made bagel, preferably from H&H Bagels in NYC, which has a website that boasts its product is “like no other bagel in the world.”
Agreed.
The secret, scientifically speaking, is the same thing that makes NYC pizza so amazing: The water. #truth.
Whether you prefer your bagels toasted with butter, or with a schmear of cream cheese topped with lox, or with my favorite, PB&J, today is a good day to give your carb counting a rest and live a little.
We’re in for a glorious summer day with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-80s.
Oh, and if you happen to run into Mick Jagger, as one might, wish him a happy 78th birthday.
In the headlines…
With President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump taking a few jabs at each other while they were both headlining campaign style events this weekend, Americans were witness to what could be considered a little taste of a potential 2024 rematch.
On July 31, a set of pandemic-relief measures for renters and homeowners enacted under Trump will end — and the Biden administration doesn’t appear interested in renewing them.
The lack of a topsy turvy first few months has translated to Biden’s approval rating. It’s been the most stable for any president since the end of World War II.
Lawmakers pushed to finalize an infrastructure agreement yesterday, but were still struggling to resolve a dispute over how much to increase public-transit funding, a snag that could delay their goal of advancing the bill in a Senate vote early this week.
Republican Sen. Rob Portman said the bipartisan infrastructure package is “about 90 percent of the way there,” pointing to mass transit as the issue that’s holding up the negotiations.
Details on broadband funding, as well as whether to tap into leftover COVID relief funds previously passed by Congress, continue to be discussed, too.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician-turned-congressman, says he’s “terrified for our country” in the wake of Biden’s town hall, and that he doubts whether the commander in chief has the cognitive ability to make it through a full term.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy blasted Speaker Nancy Pelosi for her choice in nominees to the select committee probing the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, claiming that the picks “share her pre-conceived narrative.”
Pelosi announced she has appointed GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger to the House select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, bolstering the Republican presence on the panel after GOP leadership pulled its appointees last week.
The Delta variant is changing calculations of world governments, raising doubts about how quickly they can leave the pandemic behind, widening the gulf between highly vaccinated places and the rest, and infiltrating countries that previously kept the virus at bay.
Facing deep mistrust stoked by rampant conspiracy theories, local health officials are fighting for influence when the only sure strategy for beating back the virus is getting more people vaccinated.
There are almost as many reasons for vaccine hesitancy and refusal as there are unvaccinated Americans. But this problem, not the variant, lies at the root of rising infection rates.
For anyone who loves freedom and hates mask mandates or remote learning, Dr. Jerome Adams, the Trump administration surgeon general, has a blunt message: Get vaccinated.
Unvaccinated Americans are helping propel the nation in “the wrong direction,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
Fauci said recommending that vaccinated people wear masks is “under active consideration’’ by the government’s leading public health officials. Also, booster shots may be suggested for people with suppressed immune systems who have been vaccinated.
Fauci defended the U.S. giving hundreds of thousands of dollars for research at a Wuhan lab studying whether bat coronaviruses could be transmitted to humans — saying that it would have been “negligent” not to do so.
A Japanese company has started human trials of the first once-a-day pill for Covid-19 patients, joining Pfizer and Merck in the race to find treatments for the disease.
The United Kingdom’s health secretary apologized after saying in a since-deleted tweet that the public shouldn’t “cower” from COVID-19.
Florida is recording more Covid-19 cases than any other U.S. state, as hospitalizations in some areas increase at the fastest rate since the start of the pandemic.
Americans – notorious for not taking time off – appear to be getting away and even unplugging this summer.
A man who mocked Covid-19 vaccinations died this week at a Los Angeles-area hospital after contracting the virus. Stephen Harmon was 34.
A conservative radio host in Tennessee who had expressed unwillingness to be vaccinated is now hospitalized with Covid pneumonia and urging his listeners to get the shots.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged that she was inoculated against COVID-19 “months ago” — with the “Trump vaccine” – and urged others to do the same.
Several high-profile M.B.A. programs have decided not to offer hybrid learning this fall – Columbia University, Boston University, Stanford University, New York University and University of California, Berkeley, among others.
America’s weak population growth, already held back by a decade-long fertility slump, is dropping closer to zero because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Schools are struggling to secure food for student meals ahead of classrooms’ planned reopening in the fall. Some cafeterias are cutting menu choices as suppliers face labor shortages and transportation challenges that are adding costs and limiting supplies.
The U.S. economy likely returned to its late-2019 size during the three months through June, helping to lift global output above its pre-pandemic level for the first time.
New York could lose out on $2.4 billion in federal relief funds for tenants and landlords due to administrative delays, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned in a letter to the head of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.
New York families are struggling to stay in their homes due to delays by the Cuomo administration in doling out federal rent relief, Schumer stressed.
New York’s COVID-19 rent program is offering little relief to tenants and landlords.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) will not be opening a civil rights investigation into nursing home deaths in four states – including New York – rejecting calls from Republicans earlier this year for a probe.
The decision ends nearly a year of inquiry by the department started under then-President Trump into how COVID-19 deaths and infections swept through the vulnerable populations in nursing homes.
Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, of Louisiana, blasted Biden’s Justice Department after the DOJ announced it was dropping a civil rights probe into Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes.
Across the country, many nursing homes have continued to violate infection-control procedures, including basic measures intended to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Cuomo is facing growing pressure to take action against Ben and Jerry’s and parent company Unilever after the ice cream provider announced they would no longer do business in parts of Israel.
About a sixth of the criminal cases that went before a judge in New York in 2020 led to the person being rearrested before the case concluded, according to new data from the state’s court system.
There are two competing bills in New York: One would punish pimps and customers, while the other would decriminalize the entire trade.
Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams indicated that he would weigh stricter measures to contain COVID in New York City if the numbers keep going in the wrong direction.
Adams has been the nominee for less than three weeks. Already, many national Democrats appear eager to elevate him, as gun violence shatters parts of major American cities and Republicans seek to caricature their opponents as naïve about crime.
Adams claims he won’t automatically clean house at City Hall if he wins — noting that the current homeless-services chief, Steven Banks, has done “amazing things” in his job.
Citizen, a controversial neighborhood watch app, is quietly hiring New Yorkers to livestream crime scenes and other public emergencies in an apparent effort to encourage more ordinary citizens to do the same.
New Yorkers would be free to openly drink their cares away in public areas under a new proposal by the city’s Nightlife Advisory Board — but residents near booze-soaked Washington Square Park are already feeling green around the gills at the thought.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is in for an old-fashioned Bronx cheer when he tours the borough this week, with many business owners and residents demanding he do more to combat rising crime and declining quality of life.
New Yorkers turned up in droves Saturday to adopt cats and kittens at Animal Care Centers of NYC’s first in-person adoption event since the pandemic forced their suspension more than a year ago.
Republican mayoral nominee Curtis Sliwa is proposing that the city cover $1,000 in pet expenses for anyone who saves a dog or cat from being euthanized at a city shelter.
Thousands of well-paying gigs — with great benefits to boot — are on the horizon in New York, thanks to the recent legalization of recreational marijuana, labor leaders say.
“We are pissed and frustrated” over Cuomo’s inaction over pot, Sen. Diane Savino said. “For the life of me, I can’t understand it. They should be able to walk and roll a joint at the same time.”
At least 50 CUNY professors have resigned in protest from their faculty union after it passed a resolution condemning Israel for recent attacks on Palestinians and threatening to support the movement to boycott and divest from the Jewish state.
Arnold Gumowitz, a 92-year-old real estate mogul, wants to block Cuomo’s billion-dollar Penn State-area renovation plan.
A group of friends were traveling on a two-lane highway in the Hamptons over the weekend when a speeding driver veered across the dividing line and hit them head-on, killing four people and himself, the police said.
The FBI in Albany will have a female special agent in charge for the first time: Special Agent in Charge Janeen DiGuiseppi.
A boat parked off a swanky swath of the Long Island shore prompted a candidate for Nassau County executive, Bruce Blakeman, to explode in an obscenity-filled rage, according to the local official targeted by his fit of anger.
An Orthodox synagogue is seeking permission to install an 8-foot fence around its property on Whitehall Road, Albany in response to an increase in anti-Semitic attacks across the country in the past few years.
After almost two months without a deadly shooting in the City of Albany, gunfire has once again left two dead on city streets in little more than a 24-hour period.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan has declared a state of emergency after recent gun violence. The city is also ordering the closure of Cafe Hollywood on Lark Street after a number of police calls.
The mayor of Mechanicville said he is not happy after the city was required to pay a portion of the unemployment costs for city workers who were never laid off.
Some are concerned a planned merger between Ellis Medicine and St. Peter’s Health Partners will result in the loss of reproductive health services under a Catholic hospital system — including the practice of cutting or tying fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy.
Many towns in rural New York are bustling with city visitors, pushing up rental costs and pushing out workers.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, whose district includes the Highlands, was appointed by Pelosi to a one-year term on the United States Military Academy Board of Visitors.
Rodney Alcala, who was known as the “Dating Game Killer” and was convicted in the murders of six women and one girl in the 1970s, died on Saturday at a hospital in Kings County, Calif. He was 77.
Four days after announcing her 2022 candidacy for the NY-1 House seat, Republican Karoline Leavitt said she believes her former boss, Donald Trump, won the 2020 presidential election.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced co-sponsorship of the Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act that would ban discrimination of hairstyles and textures.
The kickoff of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo drew about 17 million viewers in the U.S. on Friday on NBC, a roughly 36% decline from the opening ceremony for the Games in 2016, according to preliminary figures from the network.
Rare errors from Simone Biles and Team USA knocked them out of first place in Olympic qualifying round.
The heavily favored U.S. team finished their qualifying round behind Russian athletes showing that they could possibly slip from the sky-high pedestal built for them by the decade-long dominance of the American gymnastics program.
Former President Trump says “woke politics” contributed to the U.S. Women’s soccer team’s dismal opening performance in the Tokyo Olympics.
Former Siena soccer player J.C. Obregon scored the tying goal in the 78th minute for Honduras, which went on to beat New Zealand 3-2 in group play at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Jon Rahm withdrew from the Olympics after he tested positive for COVID-19, Spain’s Olympic committee announced.
Australia’s Ariarne Titmus chased down defending Olympic champion and world record holder Katie Ledecky to win one of the most anticipated races of the Summer Games, capturing the gold medal with the second-fastest time in history.
Bennifer is Instagram official.
If you read nothing else today, read this and be inspired.
