Good morning. It’s Monday. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
At least we’re all in this together. Sort of like penguins, which are aquatic, flightless birds that live in colonies and are among the most social of all birds.
And today is THEIR day!
So, happy worldwide day of recognition to penguins everywhere! Actually, to penguins in the southern hemisphere since that’s where the bulk of them are located. Only one species – the Galápagos penguin – is found north of the Equator.
Penguins all look more or less the same in terms of coloring; most of them have the iconic black-and-white tuxedo thing going on. Apparently, that helps protect them against predators.
Once in a great while, an all-black Emperor Penguin might appear. That’s due to a genetic mutation known as melanism – the same condition spotted in an African black panther in Kenya, but even rarer.
Also, some of them have some yellow accents, and there’s others with elaborate ear feathers that make them look like mad scientists – they’re called Macaroni Penguins! And there’s also a blue penguin. Yup. True story.
There are about 18 different kinds of penguins, and they all have different characteristics. Their height ranges from 15 inches to 3.5 feet, and they can weigh anywhere from 2 pounds to 88 pounds. Emperor penguins are the largest species, with an average height of about 45 inches.
A group of penguins on the water is called a raft, but on land, they’re a waddle (makes a lot of sense, if you’ve ever seen them in action). They don’t “fly”, per se, like in the air because unlike other birds, they don’t have hollow bones. They adapted to have dense, solid bones, which reduces buoyancy and helps them “fly” through the water.
Penguins have a gland at the base of their bodies that produces oil and helps them stay warm. They spend a number of hours each day moving that oil around themselves to make sure it’s evenly distributed.
Some species of penguins can walk up to 60 miles across sea ice to get to their breeding grounds. Their feet are especially adapted to both help them sustain these distances AND also steer while swimming – they use them like rudders.
OH, and kinda like humans, penguins gift their chosen mate with rocks (not the diamond sort, but close enough for metaphorical standards) to demonstrate affection. The lady penguins apparently use these to build their nests.
It’s a good thing penguins don’t live in the Albany area, because today is definitely NOT going to be penguin weather. We’ll have temperatures climbing up close to 70 degrees, with cloudy skies.
In the headlines…
In a risky and secret visit to Ukraine, the United States’ top diplomat and defense officials arrived in Kyiv yesterday, with announcements of sweeping diplomatic changes and new military aid for the embattled country.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during the trip that US diplomats would return to Ukraine this week, a senior State Department official said, characterizing the move as a strong message of solidarity from the United States.
Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with Volodymyr Zelensky, an adviser to the Ukrainian president said, in the highest-level visit by U.S. officials to Ukraine since the start of the war.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials discussed the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin expanding his invasion from the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine into neighboring Moldova, another former Soviet state and non-NATO member in Eastern Europe.
Russian forces bombed steelworks in the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where soldiers were holed up along with civilians, including children, as the besieged country marked Orthodox Easter on Sunday.
Several weeks have passed since the U.S. and its allies first imposed sanctions on Russia’s biggest companies and its business and political leaders, all the way up to Putin. Yet one person has been spared, his reported girlfriend: Alina Kabaeva.
The war is poisoning Ukraine’s air, water and soil, with environmental-health experts saying pollutants released by the assault could take years to clean up while raising the risk of cancer and respiratory ailments as well as developmental delays in children.
President Joe Biden accepted an invitation from Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to visit Israel and will travel there in the coming months, the White House said in a statement.
Biden commemorated the 107th anniversary of the “Armenian genocide,” issuing a statement in memory of the 1.5 million Armenians “who were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination” by the Ottoman Empire.
Former Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the longest-serving Republican senator in US history, died in Salt Lake City on Saturday at the age of 88.
Hatch, the former Senate president pro tempore, served in the chamber for 42 years from 1977 to 2019. The Hatch Foundation confirmed his death in a release, which did not include a cause.
Biden said in a statement: “Orrin Hatch once shared in an interview that he had a soft side, and he had a tough side. To serve with Orrin, as I did for over three decades, was to see—and appreciate—both.”
Emmanuel Macron won a second term as president of France, triumphing on Sunday over Marine Le Pen, his far-right challenger, after a campaign where his promise of stability prevailed over the temptation of an extremist lurch.
When Congress returns this week, a pandemic-era immigration policy could complicate efforts to pass more COVID relief legislation and another Ukraine aid measure if centrist Democrats side with Republicans in opposing the repeal of border rules.
The Biden administration is preparing to renew its push to secure Covid-19 funding, a White House official said, after a $10 billion bipartisan deal stalled in the Senate before lawmakers left for recess.
Beijing is racing to track a Covid-19 outbreak that may have been spreading in the capital for a week, city authorities said over the weekend, raising the prospect more stringent restrictions could soon be implemented in line with other Chinese cities.
A fresh coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing could become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant.
The latest color-coded map from federal health officials detailing Covid-19 spread across the United States has sobering news for this part of the country: Upstate New York is an apparent hot spot for transmission of the virus.
In the middle of 2021, the WHO began promoting an ambitious goal, one it said was essential for ending the pandemic: fully vaccinate 70 percent of the population in every country against Covid-19 by June 2022. The world will fall far short of that target.
Ninety percent of New York residents have received one dose of the COVID vaccine and 76.8% have been fully vaccinated against the virus, according to CDC data.
A Bronx Assemblyman, Kenny Burgos, distributed free COVID-19 tests that came with a prohibited request for money
With only 19 legislative session days left and a budget approved- lawmakers are reporting to Albany today without a Lt. Governor.
New York’s political calendar is colliding with the challenge to the state’s newly drawn congressional district maps that could come to a head in the state Court of Appeals this week.
State Democratic leaders said that they won’t pursue efforts to score a third-party line for Gov. Kathy Hochul on the November ballot after the progressive Working Families Party insisted it would not play spoiler in the race.
“I now have full confidence that the Working Families Party will stand with and offer their general election line to Governor Kathy Hochul, when she wins the Democratic Primary, as I believe she will,” state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs said.
Hochul was in Syracuse yesterday for a brief campaign event with union workers at Ironworkers Local 60 Union.
The Governor spoke about her family’s history in ironwork, saying “I have union blooding running through my veins.”
Paid radio advertisements prominently mentioning Hochul and promoting her “nation-leading effort” to advance green energy were released to the airwaves after being approved by the New York Power Authority, a state authority.
Hochul committed to at least two debates in the Democratic primary for governor following calls from her challengers, Rep. Thomas Suozzi and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
Hochul announced the appointment of David Anderson as president of the New York Center for Research, Economic Advancement, Technology, Engineering and Science.
New Yorkers who receive support from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will be able to qualify for the maximum level of benefits this month after the state received $232 million in federal funding.
Apple recently lost a court case in which it sought to avoid paying New York State sales taxes associated with a back-to-school gift card promotion the company ran in 2011 and 2012. As a result, the company has to pay back $995,197 in taxes and interest.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez rallied around Amazon Labor Union members and warehouse workers on Staten Island as the union prepares for the start of a second vote today at a distribution center known as LDJ5.
“Working people are sick and tired of falling further and further behind while billionaires like (Amazon owner Jeff) Bezos become much richer,” Sanders said.
After union victories by workers at some of America’s most prominent companies, Apple retail employees in Atlanta and New York are mobilizing in hopes of their own organizing success.
Two state Labor Department workers allegedly conducted a massive identity fraud scheme to steal more than $1.6 million in unemployment benefits during the pandemic using co-conspirators enlisted on Craigslist as well as “friends and acquaintances.”
The city’s proposed budget includes more than $170 million for homeless services, Mayor Eric Adams said – including a chunk to provide temporary housing for those rousted in the recent crackdown on street encampments.
New York City Council leaders are calling on Adams to do more to help homeless New Yorkers, after criticizing his administration’s work to clear encampments.
The city will spend more than $900 million over the next five years on expanding bike lanes and other safety measures to help New Yorkers “reclaim” their streets from dangerous drivers, Adams announced amid soaring traffic deaths across the Big Apple.
Adams’s plan would expand on a program begun under the previous mayor, Bill de Blasio, that provides temporary specialized shelter beds for New Yorkers coming off the street.
Adams has been promising to cut the red tape of city government since his campaign last year, but a new policy from his administration has government watchdogs saying he could be creating more bureaucratic gridlock instead.
Big companies are buying enormous amounts of office space in Manhattan.
With Americans suffering pain at the pump, the government needs to crack down on big oil companies suspected of price gouging, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said.
A high-ranking New York City special education official who’s Black accuses the Department of Education of racial bias for paying her tens of thousands of dollars a year less than colleagues with identical jobs.
The teachers union is planning to sue the NYC Department of Education after dozens of staffers were placed on unpaid leave for allegedly submitting fake vaccination cards.
The New York City Council is so concerned about the sluggish recovery of the Big Apple’s $100 billion tourism market from COVID-19 that it’s considering dramatically slashing the local hotel tax to spur a faster rebound.
A firefighter was killed after a ceiling gave way in a fire at a home in Brooklyn yesterday afternoon and another person inside the home was also killed, city officials said.
Felony assaults on the New York City transit system spiked more than 50 percent between February and March — reaching the highest total since the NYPD began increasing subway patrols 11 months ago, new data shows.
New York State is mapping out plans to license venues for on-site recreational marijuana use, but some places have already figured out how to get the ball rolling.
New York State officials are weighing whether to allow pizzerias and other eateries to sell fresh cannabis-infused grub and packaged pot edibles.
State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi’s quest to become a member of Congress next year is sputtering, with the aspiring Squad member’s campaign being rocked by staff departures and former employees who claim she’s a nightmare.
A Democrat running for state Senate in The Bronx was pictured carrying a sign with “ACAB,” the acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards,” during a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 — drawing ire from neighborhood activists and an opponent.
Incumbent Manhattan Rep. Carolyn Maloney is facing a primary challenge for the third time in a row this summer, but this year she has a more crowded field to contend with, along with the one challenger who inched closer to defeating her in the last go-round.
This year’s Tony Award nominations will be delayed by nearly a week, administrators of the awards said Friday, because enough actors have been out with coronavirus cases that it has become difficult for awards nominators to see all the eligible performances.
A neighbor who is also a structural engineer is cautioning the Saratoga Springs planning board to address potential problems with drilling and excavation below the city’s groundwater level before approving plans for a six-story building on Broadway.
St. Peter’s Health Partners will begin limiting visitors to its hospitals today, citing rising COVID-19 numbers.
A City of Albany-commissioned pay study found that many of the city’s non-union employees are paid less than their peers in comparable markets.
Twitter may be moving closer to a deal with Elon Musk.
A Colorado man who set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court on Friday in an apparent Earth Day protest against climate change has died, police said.
RIP Jim Hartz, the low-key, folksy newsman who hosted the “Today” show with Barbara Walters in the mid-1970s, less than halfway through his three-decade television career, who died on April 17 in Fairfax County, Va. He was 82.
Georgina Bloomberg, daughter of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, is engaged.
