It’s Friday, and you know what, Mother Nature? You win.
Uncle, OK? UNCLE. I’m tapping out. I’m done. Snow I can take, when it’s fluffy and white and good for all manner of fun outdoor pursuits in the winter. But freezing rain, so-called “mixed precipitation” and cold that seeps into your bones and refuses to let go?
No. I just can’t.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest. We’re still under a winter storm warning through 5 p.m. with the possibility of us to 7 inches of heavy, disgusting ice-laden snow and sleet and ice. It’s going to be very slippery and hazardous out there this morning, for those of you who will be venturing out.
Please proceed with all due caution – even if you’re just walking the dog (or simply standing on the front lawn in your slippers and your down coat while begging the puppy to for GOD’S SAKE PLEASE POOP OUTSIDE).
Also, be careful when shoveling. I know some people are rolling their eyes at this, but I’m getting up there in years and starting to worry about things like slipping and falling and hurting myself while doing regular stuff. In the gym or while running long distances, I don’t tend to think about that. But when lying in bed and stretching in a bad direction…THEN I get hurt. Weird.
Each year, snow shoveling causes roughly 100 deaths and 11,500 injuries and medical emergencies that require treatment in an emergency room. Those who are 55 and older (most often men, because apparently this gender-based division of chores still exists in many households) are more likely to be hurt while falling or experience heart trouble – even death – while shoveling.
If the snow is really heavy, it makes the shoveling task harder. There are plenty of hale and hearty youngsters about who might want to earn an extra $5 or $20 (what IS the going rate for this these days?) by clearing your driveway or walk. Or maybe you have a nice neighbor who offers to deploy her snowblower on your driveway.
My advice? Swallow your pride and say yes, then go inside and pour another cup of coffee and put your feet up.
If you are going out and about – or maybe even staying home but planning on being on some Zooms, you might consider digging something red out of your closet in honor of National Wear Red Day, which is held during American Heart Month (conveniently in the same month as Valentine’s Day) to raise awareness about cardiovascular disease in women.
Cardiovascular disease causes 1 in 3 deaths in women every year, which means it’s the top cause of death for 51 percent of the population. About 87% of all heart issues are believed to be preventable, which is why raising awareness is so important.
According to recent projections, 45% of the U.S. adult population will live with cardiovascular disease by 2035 at an annual cost of more than $1 trillion. And much of this is preventable….how? By adopting a healthy lifestyle that includes a good diet and moderate exercise, stress management, getting enough sleep, and seeing your doctor regularly to get things like blood pressure checked.
So, maybe some oatmeal this morning? Egg whites? Avocado toast on whole wheat bread?
I start with coffee, copious amount of it, which is not actually recommended, and also the headlines. So, here they are…
President Joe Biden, in remarks from the White House, gave details to the nation about a dramatic U.S. raid overnight in Syria he said took the leader of the Islamic State “off the battlefield.”
The leader of the Islamic State group blew himself up along with members of his family as American forces raided his Syria hideout Thursday, the U.S. said.
Biden watched in real time as U.S. commandos landed in Syria to raid a three-story home, surrounded by olive trees, where the top leader of ISIS was living with his wife and members of his family.
All presidents are forced to balance competing priorities and demands. But rarely do the days leap between the global, ecumenical and domestic in such a short timespan as they did for Biden yesterday.
Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina is mounting an aggressive campaign to persuade Mr. Biden to nominate Judge J Michelle Childs, a district court judge in his home state of South Carolina, to succeed Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is retiring.
The Biden administration has formed a panel of senior administration officials and private-sector experts to investigate major national cybersecurity failures, and it will probe as its first case the recently discovered Log4j internet bug, officials said.
The White House is facing pressure from prominent lawmakers over its pick to lead the FDA, with abortion foes urging Republican senators to reject the nominee, Dr. Robert Califf, and key Democrats withholding support over opioid policies and his industry ties.
Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s nominee to become the Fed’s top bank regulator, said that she wouldn’t use the position to restrict oil-and-gas industry lending, after she had called for more-aggressive regulatory moves away from high-emission investments.
Biden penned an op-ed for the Daily News: “Mayor Adams and I agree: The solution is not to defund our police, it’s to give them the tools, training and funding to be the partners and protectors our communities need.”
Mayor Eric Adams joined Biden, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Merrick Garland on a stop by police headquarters in lower Manhattan, where they attended a meeting on gun violence strategies between local and federal law enforcement.
Biden rolled out a series of new policies designed to crack down on gun violence, like breaking the “Iron Pipeline” that delivers illegal guns to the city from more permissive states down Interstate 95, and more money for local law enforcement.
“Mayor Adams, you say that gun violence is a sea fed by many rivers,” Biden said. “Well, you know, I put forward a plan to dam up some of those streams. You can count on me to be a partner in that effort.”
“Yesterday we gathered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in mourning,” Adams said. “Today, here at 1 Police Plaza…we’re here in solidarity to deal with the issue of violence that has become pervasive, and not only in New York City, but in the cities across America.”
The “Defund the police” movement that garnered support from some Democrats in the aftermath of the 2020 police killing of George Floyd is “dead” in New York City, Bronx Congressman Ritchie Torres declared.
Biden opted not to visit Rikers Island, following calls for him to do so by public defender groups anxious to keep the spotlight on the conditions and staffing crisis there.
Jobless claims trended lower in the latest weekly data, underscoring still-elevated demand for workers even as Omicron-related disruptions continued to exert pressure on the labor market.
Claims for the week ended Jan. 29 were 238,000, a touch lower than the 245,000 Dow Jones estimate, the Labor Department reported. That was also a decline from the previous week’s upwardly revised 261,000.
The decline in initial claims could be a reassuring signal in advance of January’s employment report, which is expected to show job gains slowed or fell last month because of Omicron-related upheavals.
Amazon said profit nearly doubled in the critical holiday period, as the company managed to control labor and supply costs better than expected and saw gains in its cloud-computing and advertising businesses.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, served up a stark sign of how Apple’s new ad-privacy policy is roiling the digital-advertising world.
Stocks on Wall Street tumbled with Meta leading the way with a drop of 26.4 percent, its worst one-day loss ever and one that erased more than $230 billion off its market value.
In a reversal from its earlier position, the Biden administration has announced that people on Medicare will get up to eight free COVID-19 home tests each month, beginning in the spring.
As Covid cases and related hospitalizations fall nationwide, Americans — exhausted by two years of pandemic — are increasingly asking when masks can come off indoors. “Not yet,” says both the CDC and many infectious disease experts.
Hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the U.S. continued to fall, with the seven-day average of patients with confirmed or suspected cases easing to 134,000, down 16% from a Jan. 20 high, according to data from the Department of Health and Human Services.
Research confirms that COVID vaccines can affect menstrual cycles, with one recent study linking vaccination to a slight increase in menstrual-cycle length.
Recent polling indicates that pandemic fatigue is rising among ordinary Americans, a trend that elected officials have noticed.
Ex-Lakers star Shaquille O’Neal has spoken explicitly about the importance of players and athletes getting the COVID-19 vaccination over the last five months. However, the four-time NBA champion expressed a change of heart toward vaccine mandates.
A rare complication to the COVID-19 vaccine turned deadly for the Watts family of Lockwood, NY. Their son, George Watts Jr., died at just 24-years-old after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
With the Beijing Olympics set to begin, a group of international scientists is once more calling for a “comprehensive international investigation” into the origins of COVID-19.
Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he plans to subpoena Anthony Fauci’s records if Republicans retake the Senate in November’s midterm elections and he becomes chairman of a committee.
New York State’s daily coronavirus test positivity rate slipped under 5% yesterday for the first time since Dec. 12, but the virus death toll continued to grow at disturbing rates, according to data released by Gov. Hochul’s office.
Researchers searching for COVID-19 in New York City’s wastewater found a unique constellation of mutations that had never been reported before in human patients — a potential sign of a new, previously undetected variant.
City kids are finally trickling back to class after a rash of widespread absenteeism caused by skyrocketing COVID infections last month, according to Department of Education figures.
Unvaccinated NYC teachers who had their religious exemption bids denied by the Department of Education received their final notices of termination this week.
Hochul signed off on new maps for the state’s congressional districts that give Democrats a heavy political advantage over Republicans, and that have been criticized by some non-partisan groups.
Fourteen plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Hochul and Democratic lawmakers, alleging the new congressional lines approved are unconstitutional because they’re gerrymandered to benefit Democratic incumbents.
New York City will get two additional state senators under a redistricting plan approved by lawmakers who also voted to eliminate two Republican-held districts upstate.
Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris is being called out for a trail of comments he made a decade ago claiming he opposed gerrymandering of legislative maps to benefit a political party — when Republicans were in control.
In an address to business leaders, Hochul left no doubt that she supports halting tax increases and keeping corporations from leaving the Big Apple.
“A lot of people, successful people, high-net worth individuals…had this sense that their success was being denigrated,” Hochul said. “These are not just people creating jobs, they are the ones supporting our arts and culture and out philanthropies. And I can’t have them doing that in Miami.”
Hochul’s budget proposal could lead to zoning changes that some Long Islanders fear could result in the elimination of single-family neighborhoods
Former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s legal team brought up now former CNN President Jeff Zucker’s undisclosed relationship with company executive Allison Golust during discussions related to Cuomo’s severance.
Many journalists and producers at CNN have expressed confusion, even on the air, about why a consensual relationship between two divorced colleagues — one a network president, the other a high-ranking executive — would precipitate the dramatic move.
Chris Cuomo isn’t likely to get much more than half of the $18 million he’s seeking as a settlement in his feud with CNN now that Zucker has resigned.
Some critics of the Cuomos saw the mounting repercussions as the natural result of the family’s penchant for scorched-earth political warfare
Even now, nearly six months after the governor left office, the ripple effect of the scandal continues to persist.
Alphonso David, a former top aide to ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is suing the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s latest LGBTQ+ rights organization, claiming he was underpaid and fired because he is Black, according to a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst died this week by suicide, according to the local medical examiner’s office, and her mother spoke out about how the former pageant winner was struggling with depression.
Adams is considering a controversial former Bronx councilman, Fernando Cabrera, to run the rebranded $1.5 billion mental health initiative that critics say former Mayor Bill de Blasio used to promote his wife Chirlane McCray.
Legendary law enforcement whistleblower Frank Serpico got his proper police Medal of Honor and its accompanying certificate after Adams stepped in and said he’d make sure Serpico got the accolade, ending Serpico’s five-decade fight with the department.
A new generation of graffiti crews are blanketing New York subway trains in spray paint — a trend that some transit workers say resembles the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s.
Court proceedings in Sarah Palin’s lawsuit against the New York Times kicked off yesterday, in a rare defamation trial against a leading news outlet that could have broad ramifications for the future of media law.
The jury heard opening statements after a delay of more than a week due to the plaintiff’s having tested positive for Covid.
“What am I trying to accomplish? Justice, for people who expect the truth in the media,” Palin told reporters as she entered the Manhattan federal courthouse for the trial over a 2017 editorial she claims defamed her.
An NYPD officer close to Trump adviser Roger Stone has been charged with misconduct by the Police Department.
A doctor wounded in a 2017 mass shooting at Bronx Lebanon Hospital can proceed with his federal negligence lawsuit against the medical facility following an unanimous decision by appellate justices in Albany.
Student leaders at ex-State University of New York Chancellor James Malatras’ alma mater are asking the SUNY board of trustees to cut his “golden parachute” cord.
The New York Association of Convenience Stores is getting a new leader as longtime President Jim Calvin prepares to retire.
State legislators and leaders of nonprofit organizations held a press conference to discuss the need for adequate funding for state programs that would allow more state residents with disabilities to find employment.
The Empire State could potentially overtake Nevada when it comes to at least one gambling record – the amount of mobile sports wagering made on a Super Bowl Sunday.
Agents with the FBI, which is continuing to investigate alleged absentee ballot fraud in Rensselaer County, seized the mobile phones of two top local officials.
The state Attorney General’s Office has given Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin’s defense attorney 30,000 pages of records as part of discovery in the criminal case alleging misuse of campaign funds in 2017.
The fatal 2016 shooting of a DWI suspect by a City of Troy police sergeant was legally justified, the city’s outside legal expert said in a report that rejected findings by the department’s internal affairs bureau that blamed the sergeant’s actions for the man’s death.
The Rev. Al Sharpton and other prominent civil rights leaders promised “direct action” at this month’s Super Bowl if the NFL does not immediately address allegations of racism and a lack of diversity highlighted in a blockbuster lawsuit.
As host of the Winter Games, which formally open today, China is now a recognized superpower less interested in global validation and a lot less likely to get it. Unlike in 2008, nobody thinks the Olympics will change China.
NBC’s coverage of the opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics takes place early this morning.
The Biden administration is showing its Team USA spirit by lighting up the White House in red, white and blue ahead of the start of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
With seamless footwork and high-flying quadruple jumps, Nathan Chen, the gold medal favorite in the men’s singles event, easily finished first in the men’s short program of the team event, giving the U.S. team an edge to win a medal.
Happy 128th birthday to painter Norman Rockwell, who was born this week in New York City in 1894.
