Good Tuesday morning.
Or maybe it would be more effective for me to say: Good evening? Have a crummy day?
Yeah, you may have guessed it already, but it’s National Opposite Day.
Prior to hitting the interwebs for my daily cyber stroll in search of a topic for this post, my experience with Opposite Day was limited to vague memories of grade school pranks and the movie “Freaky Friday.”
If you haven’t seen/don’t recall this gem, there were actually THREE different versions of it, the most recent of which was released in 2003 and features Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis playing a daughter and a mother who don’t get along and then somehow switch bodies and find out exactly how the other one lives.
Jodie Foster, at the age of 13, starred in the original, which was released in 1976.
I thought Opposite Day was a made-up, kitschy sort of thing, but actually it does have some historical roots.
According to various sites on the interwebs, which for all I know, might be all referencing one another in a sort of cyber echo chamber, President Calvin Coolidge might have gotten things started with his infamous “I do not choose to run for president again in 1928″ declaration to the media a full one-and-a-half years before his term ended.
This left everyone scratching their heads as to whether he actually meant the opposite – like, maybe he really meant, “I do not choose to run, but I do so anyway?” WTF?
Spoiler alert: He didn’t actually run. The Democrats nominated former New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith to run, who was the first Roman Catholic to run for the White House; he lost in the general election to Republican Herbert Hoover.
Fast forward to August 17th, 1959, when President Dwight E. Eisenhower declared Opposite Day – just that one time – reportedly doing so to please his granddaughter. That Dwight, what a kidder he was.
And here’s an interesting little piece of opposite trivia, which also may or may not be true, while we’re at it: An “op-ed” – a commentary that appears in the newspaper opinion pages but is not written by the paper’s own staff (editorial board members etc.) is called such because it traditionally appeared physically opposite to the editorial page. Go figure.
Today will be warm and sunny with highs in the 80s. HAPPY OPPOSITE DAY! Actually, there will be more of the same: Cold and mostly gray, with snow showers or flurries possible.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden held a video call with European allies as Western nations warned the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine remained high and the United States put thousands of troops on alert to be sent to the region if needed.
As many as 8,500 US troops have been put on heightened alert for a possible deployment to Eastern Europe as Russian troops mass on Ukraine’s border, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
NATO allies are acting in response to Russia’s military buildup around Ukraine, as the EU made plans for loans and grants for Kyiv worth more than $1.3 billion and the Pentagon ordered thousands of troops to prepare for possible deployment.
There are still diplomatic options — “offramps” in the lingo of the negotiators — and in the next several days the Biden administration and NATO are expected to respond, in writing, to Vladimir Putin’s far-reaching demands.
Biden is confronting a series of distinct but interlocking global crises and hotspots with US foes lining up to test the mettle of an under-pressure leader and their own sense that the United States is a retreating global power.
Biden called Fox News White House reporter Peter Doocy “a stupid son of a bitch” on a live microphone, after Doocy asked the president whether inflation was a political asset to him.
Later on, Biden called to “clear the air” according to Doocy. Biden reportedly told Doocy that his comments were “nothing personal” and encouraged the Fox News reporter to continue asking about different topics than the rest of the press corps.
Doocy is a reliable needler of Biden, although the president often appears more amused than angered by their jousts. Their sometimes spiky exchanges have become a regular feature of Biden’s public appearances.
In recent days, at least four other Republican members of Congress have praised initiatives made possible by the infrastructure law they opposed. Political analysts say they are not likely to be the last.
Pandemic-fueled restrictions at federal records centers, located in limestone caves, have kept many citizenship applications from being processed.
Major U.S. stock indexes registered a comeback for the ages yesterday, storming to a higher close after the Dow industrials were down more than 1,100 points at midday.
The session was the first time since the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008 that the Nasdaq Composite had been down more than 4% on the session and closed up.
The Supreme Court said it would decide whether to prohibit the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education, agreeing to consider challenges to policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
An Atlanta-area district attorney investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia will be allowed to seat a special grand jury this spring.
The special grand jury will begin May 2 and will work for no longer than 12 months, according to an order issued by Fulton County Chief Judge Christopher Brasher, who approved the panel after a majority of county judges endorsed the request.
The third federal trial of Michael Avenatti began yesterday, with prosecutors arguing the disgraced celebrity lawyer stole nearly $300,000 from his former client Stormy Daniels and Avenatti’s defense team portraying the case as a fee dispute.
Healthcare workers treating the Omicron-driven wave of Covid-19 patients say they want employers to do more to improve working conditions in an industry that has slipped in and out of crisis mode for two years.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s day in court over defamation claims against the New York Times was put on hold after she tested positive for the coronavirus.
Federal Judge Jed Rakoff said the trial, which had been set to start today, can begin Feb. 3 if Palin has recovered. “She is, of course, unvaccinated,” Rakoff said in announcing three Palin tests came back positive for the virus.
Last month, Palin said that she will get a Covid-19 vaccine “over my dead body.” She also disclosed last March that she had tested positive for the virus.
Palin, who is not vaccinated against the coronavirus, dined indoors Saturday night at Elio’s, an Italian restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper East Side that regularly draws celebrities, despite the city’s requirement that all indoor guests show proof of vaccination.
Musician Eric Clapton said he had been duped into getting the COVID-19 jab by subliminal messaging in pharmaceutical advertising — and urged others not to fall for it.
Singer-songwriter Neil Young wrote to his management and label to get his music removed from Spotify over the streamer’s hosting of vaccine misinformation.
Just as free Covid-19 tests are landing in the mailboxes of people who ordered them, the first free N95 masks for the public have started to arrive at US pharmacies, with more on the way in the coming days.
The FDA is expected to significantly restrict the use of a pair of monoclonal antibody treatments for COVID-19 because they are ineffective against the omicron variant, a senior administration health official confirmed.
Federal agents executed a search warrant at the Chicago-area headquarters of a national pop-up testing chain called the Center for COVID Control, a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Inspector General said.
The company and its main lab in Michigan, which has been reimbursed more than $124 million from the federal government for coronavirus testing, are under investigation by state and federal officials.
Flyers touting conspiracy theories linking Jewish government officials to the COVID-19 pandemic and advertising a white supremacist website were left on the doorsteps of hundreds of homes in Miami Beach over the weekend.
There is no “endgame” to the pandemic, but there could be an end to the acute phase – if the world meets some key public health targets, the WHO director-general said.
A New York State judge ruled that the state’s mask mandate was enacted unlawfully and is now void, according to court documents.
Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Thomas Rademaker argued that because New York was no longer under a state of emergency at the time of the mask mandate was announced, the governor and health commissioner lacked authority to order it.
Rademaker wrote that the regulations needed to be “tailored, necessarily related, and attached to a law that the State Legislature has passed.” He struck down the regulations and barred the state from enforcing them.
In a statement, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the mask requirements helped curb the spread of Covid-19. “We strongly disagree with this ruling, and we are pursuing every option to reverse this immediately,” she said. Both the DOH and the state AG will appeal.
The New York State Department of Education issued a statement that schools must continue to follow the mask rule until the case is resolved. (The judge’s decision does not apply to local mask mandates).
New York reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 193,918 new cases. That’s down about 46% from the previous week’s tally of cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.
As New Yorkers scrambled to get COVID tests during the spike in cases through the holidays, one lab failed to deliver on promises of next-day results to “dozens” of people, says Manhattan Councilwoman Julie Menin.
Sheldon “Shelly” Silver, the once-indomitable leader of the state Assembly whose career and reputation were undone by a 2015 corruption conviction, died at the age of 77.
Silver died while serving out a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence — most recently at a federal medical center in Middlesex, Massachusetts — after he was convicted for accepting nearly $4 million in bribes, his former chief of staff Judy Rapfogel confirmed.
“I served 25 years with this man and I knew his heart,” former Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg said. “Here was a man who had a death sentence after spending more than half his lifetime in public service …. He made a mistake and he paid his price.”
Silver was known in Albany as an able negotiator on the state budget and numerous other issues. He helped in 2005 to block Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plans for a stadium on the west side of Manhattan on what is now the site of Hudson Yards.
Retiring Buffalo News Capitol Bureau Chief Tom Precious recalls his dealings with Silver, who was an avid New York Rangers fan.
Lashawn McNeil, 47, the man who the New York City police said shot and killed one officer and critically wounded another in Harlem last week, died yesterday, two police officials said.
The grieving widow of slain NYPD officer Jason Rivera revealed the two were high school sweethearts who’d been in love since they were kids.
Mayor Eric Adams, at a pivotal moment in his first weeks in office, announced an ambitious public safety plan to address a growing crisis of gun violence in New York City.
Adams’s plan included the restoration of a new modified plainclothes police unit, and called on state lawmakers to make a number of changes, including to New York’s bail law and to a law that altered how the state handles teenage defendants.
He also said police would implement new tactics such as spot checks for weapons at points of entry like the city’s bus terminal and new units of plainclothes officers to replace anticrime patrols that were disbanded in 2020.
“We are going to do a lot more than pray — we are going to turn our pain into purpose,” Adams said. “This is not a plan for the future — it is a plan for right now.”
Adams said that it “makes no sense” that the nearly 35,000 uniformed police officers aren’t required to live in the Big Apple.
The NY Post’s Bob McManus called Adams’ plan “dauntingly complicated, it’s over-stuffed with concessions to grasping social activists and…impossibly dependent on actors far beyond the mayor’s control,” adding: “But it just might make a difference.”
Sumit Sulan, the hero rookie cop who shot a Harlem gunman — who had just killed one of the officer’s partners and left another fighting for his life — has been emotionally overwhelmed since the explosion of violence, his sister said.
Gun busts have dropped over the last few weeks as the Big Apple reels from recent deadly violence against NYPD cops and a pandemic-era surge in shootings, new data shows.
A mentally ill man armed with a hammer and a hatchet was tasered and arrested after attempting to enter City Hall in Lower Manhattan.
Straphangers can expect to see more cops on subway trains and platforms in an effort to make “riders feel safer,” the NYPD’s new Transit Bureau Chief Jason Wilcox said.
New Yorkers can keep on swiping MetroCards until at least 2024. The magnetic stripe cards previously scheduled to be phased out run by the end of 2023 will be available for an additional year due to delays with the MTA’s new tap-to-pay OMNY system.
New York doctors can now prescribe pot for any ailment they see fit. The State Office of Cannabis Management launched a new certification and registration system for New York’s medical marijuana program, expanding patient access and eligibility.
The bipartisan state commission tasked with redrawing legislative and congressional lines called it quits yesterday without submitting any new maps to lawmakers.
Activist and Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout is set to join New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office as a special advisor and senior counsel for economic justice.
Hochul has big plans for New York’s public college and university system, putting her stamp on the system that has been used as a vehicle for job creation and economic expansion.
Schumer was at Albany Nanotech, taking a tour of the facilities with Hochul and Don Graves, the deputy secretary at the U.S. Commerce Department, which will decide which state gets a federal chip lab, the National Semiconductor Technology Center.
The use of “baghouse dust” in making aggregate stone has become the latest flashpoint between activists and operators of the Norlite plant.
Seven months after his Kentucky Derby drug violation, a hearing to suspend horse trainer Bob Baffert from racing at NYRA tracks began with fiery opening statements in which each party accused the other of seeking to destroy its business.
Tim Dunn, a Malta town councilman and former board member of Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership, was awarded a $7,000-a-month no-bid contract with the Partnership, the county’s economic development arm.
Saratoga Springs City Judge Francine Vero dismissed charges against Black social justice advocate Jamaica Miles after Miles’ attorney argued she was falsely accused and targeted by city police because of her race.
After traveling nearly one million miles, the James Webb Space Telescope arrived at its new home, checking off another tricky step as scientists on Earth prepare to spend at least a decade using the observatory to study distant light from the beginning of time.
Twitter decided to act quickly to ban an account that was harming many of its users: @wordlinator, a bot that was spoiling the next day’s Wordle answer to people who posted their scores.
If you’ve made it all the way to the end, here’s your bonus gift for the day: Biologists in Texas recently discovered a new species of wasp that is just a millimeter long.
