Good morning, it’s Thursday. I had to check that a few times, but it’s true. Short weeks are great.
July is National Blueberry Month, and today, according to some accounts on the interwebs, is National Blueberry Day. Even if it’s not, you should eat this fabulous fruit anyway, because not only does it taste fantastic – quintessentially summer in a concentrated bite of blue deliciousness – but it’s very good for you.
Some actually argue that blueberries are the healthiest of all fruits. They are high in antioxidants and fiber, reduce your risk of cancer, help lower your cholesterol, preserve your vision and improve your brain health – or so various experts claim.
At 80 calories per cup – mostly carbs, in case you’re counting those, but the GOOD kind – that’s a lot of bang for your buck.
I, as you know, am not a doctor and did not even play one on TV. But I think it’s safe to say that increasing your daily intake of fruits – including blueberries – and vegetables is a good thing. Full stop.
Apparently, growing blueberries is a bit of a trick, as they grow best in soils with high acidity levels. They also like a lot of sun…hence, the summer growing season.
Blueberries weren’t domesticated until the early 1900s, thanks to the observations of Elizabeth Coleman White, a New Jersey horticulturalist who was known as the “Blueberry Queen” as a result of her work, and research of Dr. Frederick V. Coville.
According to one site, they need at least two different types of bushes in the same patch in order to properly pollinate and bear fruit.
Speaking of bears…(See what I did there?)
Blueberries are a favorite snack of bears. I have run into a lot of blueberry grazing bears in the woods. That is disconcerting to say the least. (Ahem, I rest my case).
Anyway, I feel like there’s enough here to convince you to add some blueberries to your morning smoothie, or yogurt, or lunch salad…or maybe just pop a handful for a healthy snack.
We’re looking at more thunderstorms today…with highs in the mid-to-high 70s. It will again be very humid…like 92 percent humidity, which is basically like breathing water in the air.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden met with Chicago’s mayor yesterday, in the wake of an extremely violent holiday weekend in the nation’s third most populous city.
Biden reiterated his commitment to working with city leaders to counter gun violence and said the Department of Justice would soon be in touch about a strike force meant to crack down on gun trafficking in Chicago and four other cities — including New York.
The president pitched the bipartisan infrastructure deal along with his plan to boost spending on education, child care and health care during a trip to Crystal Lake, Ill., a conservative area in a liberal state.
“I’m going to be making the case to the American people until the job is done, until we bring this bipartisan deal home, until we meet the needs of the families of today and the economy of tomorrow,” Biden said from the podium.
The White House’s long sought-after bipartisan infrastructure deal could hit the Senate floor as early as the week of July 19, according to multiple House and Senate Democratic sources with knowledge of the conversations.
The Senate is in the middle of the two-week July 4 recess, though senators have been holding a flurry of calls both amongst themselves and with the White House as they try to lock down text of the bipartisan agreement.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell vowed that Republicans would wage a “hell of a fight” over attempts by Democrats to pass a sweeping multitrillion-dollar infrastructure plan along party lines.
Nearly six months into Biden’s administration, Wall Street remains divided over the likelihood, and impact of, one of the Democrat’s key campaign promises: higher taxes.
Biden declared that he “will deliver” a response to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the wave of ransomware attacks hitting American companies, after hearing a series of options about how he could disrupt the extortion efforts.
Haitian first lady Martine Moïse, whose husband, President Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated by a group of gunmen, was airlifted to South Florida to receive treatment for gunshot wounds sustained during the attack at the couple’s home.
Four people suspected of assassinating Haiti’s president were killed and two others had been arrested by nightfall, authorities said.
Haiti’s ambassador to the United States said that the murder of the country’s president had been carried out “by well-trained professionals, killers, commandos.”
The nation’s interim prime minister, Claude Joseph, appealed for calm and presented himself as the new head of the government, announcing that he and his fellow ministers had declared a “state of siege” and placed Haiti under a form of martial law.
The Florida condo collapse operation is no longer a search and rescue. Officials said that first responders would now treat the collapse of a 12-story building in Surfside as a recovery operation.
Nobody had been found alive since immediately after the Florida building crumbled almost two weeks ago, killing at least 54. Still, officials had resisted abandoning the search-and-rescue effort.
The global death toll from COVID-19 eclipsed 4 million yesterday as the crisis increasingly becomes a race between the vaccine and the highly contagious delta variant.
The toll is three times the number of people killed in traffic accidents around the globe every year. It is about equal to the population of Los Angeles or the nation of Georgia.
Among countries with both high vaccination rates and high rates of Covid-19 infection, most rely on vaccines made in China.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus criticized the vaccine response from richer countries, who pre-purchased many shots and have vaccinated significant portions of their populations.
The delta variant, a highly-transmissible mutation of COVID-19 initially detected in India earlier this year, is now the dominant strain in the United States.
Utah has become one of the top COVID-19 hot spots in the nation as cases of the highly transmissible delta variant continue spreading among unvaccinated people.
Rapper Juvenile has adapted his 1999 hit song “Back That Thang Up” into a pro-vaccine anthem called ‘Vax That Thang Up’ that was released this week.
The Biden administration will not mandate vaccine passports, but it will encourage private businesses to use them as they see fit.
Starting today, Hawaii will allow US travelers who have been fully vaccinated anywhere in the United States to skip quarantine without getting a COVID test.
The real toll of Covid deaths at prisons might be considerably higher than reported.
New York is closing three mass COVID vaccination sites as they downscale vaccination operations throughout the state.
Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Center mass vaccination site will close for good tomorrow, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the state is turning its focus to boosting inoculations in communities with lower rates.
Cuomo signed a bill into law that allows restaurants and bars statewide to use sidewalks, parking spots and other municipal spaces for outdoor food and beverage service for another year.
Cuomo is looking for a spot in Battery Park City to erect a concrete coronavirus memorial to honor essential workers — despite fierce resistance from local residents who slammed the project as a debacle.
Despite recent statements appearing to confirm that information was illegally leaked to Cuomo, the state inspector general’s office is declining a request by commissioners on a state ethics panel to reopen an investigation into the matter.
The governor announced that he is declaring a disaster emergency for gun violence – treating it as a public health crisis – but critics from both sides of the aisle are skeptical about the strategy and his true motives.
The $139 million the state plans to expeditiously spend to help curb a gun violence “epidemic,” which Cuomo declared as a state of emergency, has been in the state’s budget and set aside for these issues since New York’s spending plan was approved in April.
Sen. Liz Krueger said Cuomo’s office recently called to reassure her it was interested in moving as quickly as possible to nominate the new chairs of the new Office of Cannabis Management and the new Cannabis Control Board.
The city’s unsung pandemic heroes swapped the darkness of COVID-19 for the sunshine along the Canyon of Heroes at a rousing ticker-tape parade where New Yorkers cheered the selfless workers’ inspiring courage and commitment.
Blue, white and orange confetti showered nurses, grocery-store workers, food-delivery workers, UPS and FedEx drivers and subway and bus operators as they walked and rode in floats up lower Manhattan’s Broadway.
The union that represents FDNY firefighters boycotted the parade, saying it’s too soon to celebrate the end of the pandemic.
Some public health experts and elected officials worry that the de Blasio administration may be pulling back on its surveillance measures too soon, potentially leaving the city ill prepared should more contagious forms of the virus cause new outbreaks.
A day after winning the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams vowed to stem rising crime, improve policing and expand education funding if he prevails in the general election in the fall.
Maya Wiley, the progressive standard bearer in the city’s Democratic mayoral race, pulled the plug on her campaign after landing in third place with all but a few thousand votes counted, sealing Adams’ victory in the heated primary.
Fresh off of winning the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, the Brooklyn borough president got an ear piercing to make good on a promise he made to some potential supporters on the campaign trail.
Adams fired back at left-wing activist Touré for scoffing at his law enforcement background — and ripped Cuomo for belatedly announcing a bland blueprint aimed at stopping shootings.
Arguably, the narrowness of Adams’s victory over the second-place Kathryn Garcia, who also conceded yesterday — he won by 8,400 votes, or one percentage point — underscored the centrist mood of the electorate.
Adams still faces a general election campaign against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, but is expected to win easily because of the city’s overwhelming Democratic tilt — allowing him to talk of an early transition as he moves toward assembling a government.
The teenage boy accused of shooting a Marine tourist in Times Square last week was taken from a Midtown police precinct house to court to face attempted murder charges.
More criticism of city policing spilled over into Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, prompting Saratoga Springs Mayor Meg Kelly to threaten to remove the public if they made noises of agreement in response to those who were speaking.
The Troy City Council’s first in-person meeting in 16 months will be greeted by opponents to a proposed 240-unit apartment complex when the council members convene tonight.
An internal probe commissioned by the Town of Niskayuna found the former police chief violated a workplace violence policy when she allegedly claimed she would kill an employee if a firm the Board hired to conduct a racial equity audit “comes after my police officers.”
Signaling no drift from the leftward tack of her primary win, India Walton seized on what she called the Buffalo Police Department’s “hypermilitarized” response to the latest shootings and homicides as a main target for change if she is elected mayor.
A protracted search for a new Schenectady school leader exacerbated by a pandemic and other setbacks ended with the unanimous appointment by the Board of Education of Anibal Soler Jr. as the district’s new leader.
Walton appeared at a press conference with New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, who supports her and also labels himself as a Democratic socialist.
A research project kicking off on Lake George and two other New York lakes could help the United States further its renewable energy goals.
The famed free Washington Park performances are back for the summer after the pandemic shuttered them.
A criminal syndicate has developed a sophisticated scheme to steal used cooking oil set aside by local restaurants for sale to a third-party refiner and unload the cargo on the black market.
Though Harvey Weinstein claims he’s about to go blind, Los Angeles County is promising he’ll receive “continuity of care” for his ailing eyes once transferred from New York to California to face sex crime charges.
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals suspended Rudy Giuliani’s D.C. law license pending the disposition of his New York suspension.
A new book alleges that former president Donald Trump frustrated four-star general and then-White House chief of staff John Kelly by praising Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Trump has sued Facebook, Twitter and Google, seeking to restore his online profile after he was suspended from most social-media platforms following the Jan. 6 riots in the U.S. Capitol.
One of Trump’s golf clubs in New Jersey has agreed to pay $400,000 as part of a settlement with the state’s Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control following a drunk driving incident by a guest that occurred in 2015.
Robert Downey Sr., iconic filmmaker of breakthrough anti-establishment classic films such as “Putney Swope” and“Greaser’s Palace,” died early yesterday morning in his sleep at his home in New York City at the age of 85.
Britney Spears’ harsh rebuke of her conservatorship last month unleashed a wave of “alarming” threats against her court-appointed guardian Jodi Montgomery, a lawyer for Montgomery said.
Spears’ mom is lending her voice in support of the pop star’s plight to “handpick” a new lawyer and end her “abusive” conservatorship.
According to a Pew Research study, about 65% of people said they think there is intelligent alien life on other planets.
