Good Thursday morning.
It’s National Chicken Wing Day! This, of course, means something extra special here in New York – especially in the Western part of the state. But this year, you should be prepared to shell out a bit more if you want to indulge and observe this important “holiday.”
What? You haven’t heard about the chicken wing shortage?
Apparently, it’s global, and like so many other things, the pandemic is reportedly to blame. This is my favorite paragraph from that link:
“Chickens only have two wings and if these are consumed more than the rest of the pieces, there will quickly be a shortage of wings and a greater supply of other parts of the chicken, which will cause an increase in the price of the most sought-after product.”
Chickens only have two wings?! Color me flabbergasted. Also, the he National Chicken Council dubbed chicken “The Nation’s #1 Quarantine Protein.” (This is some very clever marketing, I’ve got to hand it to them).
But it’s not just as simple as more people craving more wings than the chickens can produce during the Covid lockdown periods. Extreme weather is also to blame – especially that crazy storm in Texas that knocked out power and resulted in the untimely death of millions of chickens.
Adding insult to injury, so to speak, that storm took place around the same time as the wing industry’s biggest event of the year: Super Bowl Sunday. This year, Americans ate an estimated 1.42 billion wings, according to the National Chicken Council, which was a record.
Chicken prices rose considerably during the pandemic. The cost per pound for a whole chicken averaged $2.80 in April 2020, the lowest price since at least 2016, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After hovering around $3.30 for the rest of 2020, the daily price went from $3.99 per pound in January to $5.22 in May.
That’s an increase of 87%.
I don’t want to wade into the “who invented the chicken wing” controversy, nor the “who does wings best in Buffalo” debate. So, if you do have the (ahem) stomach for that this morning, click here.
If you were hoping to have yourself a chicken wing picnic, well, you might want to bring an umbrella, because there’s rain in the forecast, again. Showers will be developing in the afternoon, with the possibility of a thunderstorm. Temperatures will be in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
The Senate voted last night to begin work on a nearly $1 trillion national infrastructure plan, acting with sudden speed after weeks of fits and starts once the White House and a bipartisan group of senators agreed on major provisions of the package.
The procedural motion was approved 67-32, with 17 Republicans joining all Democrats to begin legislative action. The top Senate GOP leader, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, was among those voting to move ahead with the proposal.
The full bill text has not yet been released, but in total, the deal includes $550 billion in new federal investments in America’s infrastructure. However, it is far short of the $2.25 trillion proposal that President Joe Biden unveiled in March.
The plan would direct billions towards renewing America’s physical infrastructure needs, such as roads, bridges, railways, as well as broadband internet.
This budget is expected to contain some of the pieces that were left out of the bipartisan infrastructure agreement — including investments in housing and education; child care; research and development; manufacturing; and clean energy.
Former President Donald Trump is reportedly miffed that he didn’t get an infrastructure deal when he was in office and tried to tank this one.
Biden visited a mack truck plant in the Lehigh Valley, PA yesterday, calling for more American manufacturing and jobs.
Biden will formally announce today that all civilian federal employees must be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be forced to submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.
The effectiveness of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine steadily declines over time, dropping to about 84% for vaccinated people about four to six months after getting their second dose, according to CEO Albert Bourla.
The data posted online suggest that levels of antibodies that can target the Delta variant grow fivefold in people 18 to 55 who get a third dose of the vaccine.
The data could add to the debate around if and when people may need booster doses of the vaccines, which the Biden administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other experts have been deliberating on for the past few months.
The influential American Postal Workers Union said, at this point, it opposes a coronavirus vaccine mandate from the Biden administration but encouraged workers to voluntarily take the jabs.
Emergent Biosolutions said it would resume production of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine at its troubled Baltimore facility, where operations were stopped in April after millions of doses were found to be contaminated.
The U.S. has reported the highest number of new COVID-19 cases in the world over the last seven days, according to the World Health Organization.
Nearly 3% of medical workers in a new Israeli study contracted COVID-19 even though they were vaccinated, and 19% of them still had symptoms six weeks later.
The highly contagious delta variant is proving a dangerous mix with Florida’s bustling tourism industry – especially for young adults.
A California restaurant that garnered attention for it’s no-mask policy inside its dining room last year has now said that they will only serve unvaccinated customers.
Silicon Valley’s tech giants are starting to require vaccinations for employees returning to the office and pushing back campus reopening dates as the highly contagious delta variant continues to spread across the United States and around the world.
Actors and some crew members working on Netflix productions in the U.S. will be required to be vaccinated, the streaming company said.
Four Washington Nationals’ players and eight staffers have tested positive for COVID-19, forcing Major League Baseball to postpone their game against the Phillies last night.
Arkansas Children’s hospitals report a record number of children are hospitalized with Covid-19 as the illness continues to prey upon the state’s unvaccinated population.
The California Department of Public Health said that even people vaccinated against COVID-19 should wear masks indoors in public places, a shift from its guidance in mid-June that the immunized were protected enough to forgo masks.
Like measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox, California State University will now require all students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as well.
The most comprehensive study yet of the federal response to the pandemic shows huge but temporary benefits for the poor — and helps frame a larger debate over the role of government.
The Federal Reserve offered the most direct signal yet that it will begin to dial back its emergency support for the economy in the near future, as its chair, Jerome H. Powell, made it clear that policymakers will do so deliberatively and with plenty of warning.
New York will require all state employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus by Labor Day or undergo weekly tests for COVID-19, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
All patient-facing health care workers in state-run hospitals must get vaccinated, with no testing option, Cuomo said.
Cuomo encouraged local governments to take similar steps in New York, as well as school districts in areas where there are high COVID-19 positivity rates.
Cuomo is pushing private employers to bring workers back to the office by Labor Day — and calling on restaurants and others to deny unvaccinated patrons.
“Everyone has to be back to the office,” Cuomo said. “I understand remote learning, I understand the trepidation, but the numbers are down, we know how to do it safely. We need private sector companies to say to their employees, ‘I need you back in the office.’”
The Civil Service Employees Association in a subsequent statement announced it would support the policy outlined by Cuomo. The labor union represents 60,000 state workers and is the largest public-sector union in New York.
The city will soon start paying New Yorkers $100 to get vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced while fending off a call from the federal government to immediately reinstate an indoor mask mandate amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections.
Both de Blasio and Cuomo said they were not yet prepared to adopt federal guidance that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in areas with high coronavirus transmission.
All of New York City currently exceeds the threshold for coronavirus transmission outlined by the CDC in its guidance recommending that vaccinated people resume wearing masks in public indoor spaces in areas where the virus is raging.
Greene County, located in the Hudson Valley region, is among those with “substantial” transmission of the coronavirus over the past week. The county currently has a 5% positivity rate.
The city is grappling with a new surge in cases and questions. The only shared emotion is uncertainty.
While rates in city schools have remained low during the summer, the spread of the more contagious Delta variant has left many parents worried about what will happen when all of the nearly 1 million students in the public system return to class in the fall.
Bronx state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi is considering a potential primary challenge against fellow Democrat Cuomo next year, according to key Democratic Party sources in and around Albany. (She used to work for him).
One of Cuomo’s top lawyers, Judith Mogul, a central figure in the state attorney general’s investigation of the governor, will resign from her post next week just as the sexual harassment inquiry may be nearing an end.
New York senators will hold a hearing next week about voting rights and elections in Central New York.
Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams met with members of New York’s congressional delegation on Capitol Hill as he portrayed himself as a moderate mayor-in-waiting who will hit the ground running following the general election in November.
At a closed-door meeting of New York Democratic elected officials, Rep. Nydia Velázquez advised Adams, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, to avoid any appearance of criticizing members of the delegation.
Adams downplayed his recent criticism of the party’s left-wing and said it would not be a hindrance to working with members of New York City’s congressional delegation during a meeting with the group Wednesday in Washington, D.C.
Adams insisted that a campaign speech in which he blasted left-wing politics wasn’t aimed specifically at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, after he was dressed down during the meeting with the city’s congressional delegation.
Three hundred NYPD officers who are usually on desk duty will be deployed to parts of the city that are seeing increases in gun violence, police officials said, courting praise from Adams, who has long pushed for reducing the department’s administrative staff.
GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa denounced challenger Adams’ flip-flopped stance on refunding the NYPD.
Actress Susan Sarandon appeared at a protest against Ocasio-Cortez and her “Squad” of progressive lawmakers outside the congresswoman’s Bronx office.
The New York City Board of Elections was raked over the coals as lawmakers heard from frustrated poll workers, voters and advocates at an hourslong hearing focused on election reforms.
Lauren Salzman, a former high-ranking member of Nxivm who pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges and testified against founder Keith Raniere at his 2019 trial, will avoid prison time.
Salzman was sentenced by a federal judge to five years of probation and 300 hours of community service, following her “extraordinary” assistance to prosecutors.
A day after police officers told a House panel in riveting detail about the vicious assaults they faced during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, federal authorities charged a Brooklyn plumber — himself a former candidate for office — with being in the angry mob.
Two NYPD officers were fired this year after a disciplinary trial judge wrote they had engaged in “shocking professional and sexual misconduct” with a teenage girl who was a member of one of the department’s youth programs, departmental records show.
New Amtrak tunnels under the Hudson River have nowhere to go until Penn Station is expanded a block south, the governor said.
State utility regulators are investigating a Con Ed transformer that blew up twice beneath a Queens sidewalk last week — including a horrifying blast that engulfed a pedestrian in flames.
Caleb Ganzer, a former Food & Wine magazine sommelier of the year and a partner in a well-regarded Manhattan wine bar, is now facing arson charges.
State Police have launched an investigation into what authorities describe as a “bias-related incident” after park staff discovered defaced trees at Grafton Lakes State Park.
HASY Properties, a real estate firm used by the Hussain family of Wilton, has been named a defendant in the civil lawsuits brought against the Hussains and others by families of the victims of the 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people.
More than 120 organizations delivered a letter to state DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos urging the agency to deny renewing pollution permits for the Norlite aggregate plant in Cohoes they say is contaminating the community with dangerous pollutants.
GlobalFoundries and the University at Albany have created a new educational program that will allow GlobalFoundries employees to take classes and earn degrees with lower fees and priority application reviews.
When it comes to political and social demonstrations during the Tokyo Olympics, 2021 is the year of women.
Simone Biles, the superstar gymnast who pulled out of both the individual and team all-around competitions at the Tokyo Games, addressed her fans on Twitter late yesterday to thank them for the support.
A Katie Ledecky-led U.S. relay broke the world record in the 4×200-meter freestyle yesterday…and lost.
Caeleb Dressel, the American swimmer, won his first Olympic gold medal for an individual race, setting an Olympic record of 47.02 seconds in the 100-meter freestyle and beating out Kyle Chalmers of Australia by six-hundredths of a second.
Kelsey Plum opened the first-ever 3×3 basketball tournament at the Olympics with a wave to the First Lady of the United States, and she ended it last night with a brilliant performance in the final to lead Team USA to gold.
If all of the publicly out LGBTQ athletes at the Olympics represented a country under a single rainbow flag they’d be coming in 14th in the world for their medal count.
Sam Kendricks, the reigning world champion in the men’s pole vault, was ruled out of the Tokyo Games after he tested positive for the coronavirus, U.S. Olympic officials announced.
A shallow earthquake of magnitude 8.2 struck the Alaska Peninsula late yesterday, prompting tsunami warnings in the region, authorities said.
Remington Arms Co. has offered to pay nearly $33 million to settle claims that its marketing practices were in part responsible for the Sandy Hook school massacre that left 20 first-graders and six faculty dead, according to court documents.
Dusty Hill, the quiet, bearded bass player who made up one third of ZZ Top, among the best-selling rock bands of the 1980s, has died at his home in Houston. He was 72.
Joey Jordison, the founding drummer for the ghoulishly theatrical metal band Slipknot, who helped write many of the group’s best-known songs and often performed wearing a crown of thorns and a silver mask streaked with black paint, died Monday. He was 46.
