Hello Friday, where have you been all my life?
In case you’re keeping count, there are less than 100 days remaining in 2021. I will not be sorry to leave this year behind, and am looking forward to turning the page, though I said that at the end of 2020, too, and fat lot of good THAT did me.
Well, better to err on the optimistic side, I guess.
Today, if you can stand it, is National Punctuation Day – a day that not only celebrates and promote the proper use of periods, commas, exclamation points, quotation marks and more, but also has its very own commemorative meatloaf recipe.
This day was founded by someone named Jeff Rubin, who apparently writes newsletters for a living. When you write for other people for your daily bread (and coffee, mostly for coffee), you do pay more attention to details like comma placement than when you’re just writing for yourself.
The rise of email and texting and Twitter and other forms of online communication have pretty much caused us to throw all writing standards out the window. In 2011, a nationwide test found that only 24 percent of students in eighth and 12th grades were proficient in writing, and just 3 percent were advanced.
That’s pretty damn pathetic, and I’m fairly confident in predicting that things have only gone downhill from there.
Also worth noting, as a country, we are split almost down the middle as a country on the Oxford comma.
I mean, we can’t agree on anything these days – not abortion rights, or whether chocolate or vanilla is better, or the fact that dogs are clearly far superior to cats. So obviously, we were NEVER going to see eye-to-eye on something as divisive as a comma. Never.
It is also, FWIW, National Cherries Jubilee Day. Basically, this is a dessert that calls for setting fruit on fire. What could be better than that?
Auguste Escoffier is credited for coming up with the Cherries Jubilee recipe in honor of one of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations. His original method didn’t include ice cream. He merely poached the cherries in simple syrup and poured warm brandy over them, setting them aflame just before serving – to great dramatic effect.
I personally think ice cream is gilding the lily, (and also, melted ice cream is basically just cream, so why not cut to the chase and just pour cream over the whole mess?) But you do you.
There will be more rain early this morning giving way to clear skies in the afternoon. Temperatures will be cooler – hovering around 70 degrees.
In the headlines…
A senior State Department official overseeing the Biden administration’s Haiti policy has resigned, citing what he calls the United States’ “inhumane, counterproductive” response to the recent Haitian migrant surge along the Southern border.
The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was killed in his bedroom during a nighttime raid on his residence.
Border agents are making life-altering decisions for thousands of Haitian families on the border on whether they can stay in the U.S. or be deported.
The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas to four Trump administration officials, seeking to compel them to turn over records and sit for depositions in connection with the events surrounding the attack.
The Biden administration will have a big say in whether the government releases information to Congress on the actions of former President Donald Trump and his aides on Jan. 6. But there could be a lengthy court battle before any details come out.
A key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group voted to recommend distributing Pfizer and BioNTech’s Covid-19 booster shots to older Americans, nursing home residents and other vulnerable people.
CDC advisors said boosters should be offered to people 65 and older, nursing home residents and those ages 50 to 64 who have risky underlying health problems. The extra dose would be given once they are at least six months past their last Pfizer shot.
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky signed off early this morning on the recommendations for a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine after advisers approved them.
Moderna, Inc. CEO Stephane Bancel said that he believes the COVID-19 pandemic could be over in a year as vaccine production continues.
A series of studies found that the Moderna vaccine seemed to be more protective as the months passed than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.
The CDC quietly removed guidance for phasing out masks and other COVID-19 mitigation efforts in schools, cached versions of the agency’s website show.
Alaska, once a leader in vaccinating its citizens, is now in the throes of its worst coronavirus surge of the pandemic, as the Delta variant rips through the state, swamping hospitals with patients.
Costco’s chief financial officer said the company wants to make sure it has essential items at stores, even as shipping delays and truck driver shortages make it hard to keep them on shelves.
Congressional Democrats put forward a new stop-gap spending plan to avert a government shutdown next week, but they effectively punted for now on fixing the debt ceiling.
Democrats in Congress scrambled to beat a string of deadlines that hold massive stakes for both the health of the U.S. economy and Biden’s sweeping economic agenda.
Democrats are facing agonizing choices over what to keep and what to drop from their expansive $3.5 trillion social safety net package, as they labor to pacify the most conservative lawmakers in their ranks who have balked at its cost and scope.
House and Senate Democratic leaders say they’ve reached a deal with the Biden administration on options for paying for the Democrats’ massive plan to expand the social safety net. But it quickly became clear that the deal lacked many specifics.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress wouldn’t let government funding expire next week on the same day that the Biden administration began preparing for a possible partial shutdown.
Republicans say a new non-partisan report indicates Biden improperly avoided paying Medicare taxes before he took office — raising eyebrows and the possibility that he owes the IRS as much as $500,000 in back taxes.
A five-month-long Republican-ordered review of Maricopa County’s 2020 presidential vote confirms that Biden defeated Republican former President Donald Trump.
The “draft report from the Florida-based company Cyber Ninjas confirms the county’s canvass of the 2020 General Election was accurate and the candidates certified as the winners did, in fact, win,” Maricopa County tweeted.
Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,500 votes, making his victory of about 45,000 votes in Maricopa County crucial to his win. Under intense pressure from Trump loyalists, the GOP state Senate majority had ordered an autopsy of the county’s votes for president.
After Trump publicly demanded that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott back legislation to create a “forensic audit of the 2020 election,” the secretary of state’s office announced a “comprehensive forensic audit” from results in four of the state’s largest counties.
First-time filings for unemployment benefits jumped last week, hitting the highest level in a month, the Labor Department reported.
Initial claims for the week ended Sept. 18 on a seasonally adjusted basis totaled 351,000, an increase from the previous week’s upwardly revised 335,000 and well ahead of the 320,000 Dow Jones estimate.
After a summer that saw new jobless claims settle at nearly double pre-pandemic levels, new claims appear to be steadily falling — despite the setback presented by the last two weeks of data. The country was averaging about 200,000 new claims a week in 2019.
Auto makers, technology companies and semiconductor producers met with Biden administration officials amid a global chip shortage, as the federal government pitched a program for companies to reveal more information about their supply chains.
The union that represents 9,000 NYC school food workers is bracing for big shortages Monday from members who decide to go on unpaid leave rather than comply with the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Hospitals and nursing homes in New York are bracing for the possibility that a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers could lead to staff shortages when it takes effect.
The state Civil Service Employees Association has filed a petition on behalf of roughly 5,600 members who work in the state’s court system seeking an injunction to halt the vaccine mandate that is scheduled to go into effect on Monday.
NYC teacher and principal unions are pushing back against the deadline for Department of Education employees to comply with the vaccination mandate, saying it could lead to a staffing crisis with thousands of unvaccinated teachers and staff leaving.
New York State’s Health Commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker has submitted his resignation, Gov.Kathy Hochul announced.
In his letter, which can be read in full here, Zucker said it was a “true privilege ” to serve in the role, and said he will work to provide a “smooth” transition.
Hochul said she accepted Zucker’s resignation request, though he will stay on until a replacement is hired.
“I thank Dr. Zucker for his willingness to stay on board so we don’t have a gap in leadership until a person is identified,” Hochul said. “…There will be other changes forthcoming. But I do respect everyone who has been a public servant, I thank them for their service.”
His departure comes while the state is still contending with the highly contagious Delta variant, as health officials grapple with a safe return to school and increasing vaccination rates among health care workers and children.
Although new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have started to plateau in New York, Hochul is not ready to declare victory over the pandemic.
“We had this sense of comfort in May this year,” Hochul said during a press conference in New York City. “I’m not saying it’s heading in the right direction. We know what’s coming.
The five-person board that will oversee New York’s cannabis industry was finalized this week, nearly six months after the state legalized recreational use of the drug.
With New York state officials slow to establish regulations, members of the St. Regis Mohawks have raced ahead, opening a number of dispensaries for recreational marijuana.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the duke and duchess of Sussex, joined Mayor Bill de Blasio and Hochul for a tour of the One World Observatory, and they all went maskless at one point despite strict coronavirus protocols inside the Manhattan skyscraper.
It was the former royal couple’s first in-person appearance since before the birth of their daughter, Lili Mountbatten-Windsor.
Several measures to protect delivery workers were approved in the NYC Council, paving the way for almost certain signoff from de Blasio.
NYC became the first in the nation to take aggressive steps to improve those employees’ working conditions, setting minimum pay and addressing the plight of couriers employed by app-based food delivery services.
New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson wouldn’t say how much time he spent on Cape Cod over the summer as he defended his job performance amid findings that lawmakers posted their least productive summer in two decades.
A Rikers inmate threw a clear liquid on a Brooklyn city councilman, Stephen Levin, as he toured the island amid the ongoing jails crisis.
The city’s DAs express worry about the Rikers Island crisis that includes 12 detainee deaths since December — but that hasn’t stopped their offices from seeking bail high enough to send more suspects to the island’s understaffed and mismanaged jails.
The Queens Republican Party recently scrubbed its social media profiles of photos featuring its most prominent City Council candidate rubbing shoulders with a man who allegedly participated in January’s far-right attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Google’s plans to purchase the St. John Terminal for $2.1 billion underscore a real estate trend that has been well under way for years—the tech industry’s takeover of Manhattan office space.
The condo board at the supertall tower 432 Park Avenue is suing the developers for $125 million in damages, citing multiple floods, faulty elevators, “intolerable” noise caused by building sway, and an electrical explosion in June that knocked out power.
Philip Caruso, a former patrolman who as president of the union representing New York City police officers for 15 years fiercely defended them as crime peaked and cops were accused of brutality and corruption, died on Aug. 8 in Sayville, N.Y. He was 86.
Advocates want de Blasio to use his final 100 days to push through long-debated reforms to reduce racial segregation in city schools — including eliminating separate “Gifted and Talented” classes and altering admissions rules for middle and high schools.
De Blasio shied away from pushing back against a recent stream of criticism from Eric Adams, insisting that the Democratic mayoral candidate is merely practicing run-of-the-mill politics by taking thinly veiled jabs at his administration.
During a fiery closing argument to a Brooklyn Federal Court jury, R. Kelly’s lawyer conflated the R&B superstar’s alleged sex trafficking and sex with teenage women with Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for civil rights.
An outside ethics group filed ethics complaints against seven U.S. House lawmakers — four Democrats and three Republicans — over failing to report stock trades. Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi failed to file required reports on approximately 300 transactions.
Barney the runaway Long Island bull, who went on the lam more than two months ago, was captured on the same farm where he escaped, officials announced.
New York’s top lawmakers have gotten behind growing support to protect small and mid-sized dairy in the Northeast, following Horizon Organic’s announced departure from 89 dairy farms, with more than half of them in upstate New York.
A 19-year-old was arrested in connection with the death of a Ballston Spa man on July 4 during a boating outing on Saratoga Lake, Saratoga County sheriff’s investigators said Thursday.
Black Lives Matter activists, who surrendered to Schenectady police after warrants were issued on low level charges, promised to fight the “false charges” lodged against them by a system they called based on “white supremacy” and lacking accountability.
It could be years until GlobalFoundries moves forward with recently announced plans to build a second computer chip factory at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga Country.
A little over a year after a fire destroyed her Warren County home, celebrity chef Rachel Ray tells said that New York City apartment she shares with husband John Cusimano was flooded when the remnants of Hurricane Ida hit earlier this month.
A federal arrest warrant was unsealed in Wyoming for Brian Laundrie, the elusive fiancé of Gabby Petito, charging him with debit card fraud as the authorities continued to search for him as a “person of interest” in the investigation into the killing of Petito.
Laundrie has also been charged with bank-card fraud in Wyoming.
A second woman has emerged to claim she picked up Laundrie while he was hitchhiking in Wyoming last month — and left him at the campground where his girlfriend Petito’s body was eventually found.
Linda Evangelista, the supermodel made famous in the 1990s, said she had become “brutally disfigured” and “unrecognizable” after a cosmetic body-sculpting procedure that had turned her into a recluse, and filed a lawsuit against Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc.
