We made it to another Friday. Well done, all! Good morning!
I feel like ever since my conversion from cat person to dog person, I have spent a lot of time in this spent waxing poetic about the many wonderful attributes of canines. This is certainly unfair to felines, as I used to very much like them, and it’s not their fault that they have fallen out of favor in my heart.
And so, in the interest of fairness and equal time, I bring you….National Hairball Awareness Day.
Wait! Don’t go! It’s Friday, after all. Let’s all lighten up and have a little fun, shall we?
Anyone who has had the pleasure of knowing a cat for an extended length of time is familiar with vagaries of hairballs, which are, for the record the perfectly natural byproduct of your pet’s grooming routine.
When cats lick themselves, tiny barbed structures on their tongues catch loose and dead hair, which they then promptly swallow. This sounds disgusting, but is perfectly normal. Most of the hair passes through the digestive tract, but if some of it gets caught in the stomach, it can form the dreaded hairball.
The typical manner in which a car gets rid of a hairball, is to vomit it up. Also totally disgusting. Also totally normal.
Given the fact that hairballs are, by definition, made of hair, the more hair a cat has, the more prone to hairballs it will be. That’s particularly true for Persians and Maine Coons. Ditto for cats that shed a lot or groom themselves compulsively – they swallow more fur as a result.
You can cut down on hairballs by grooming your cat regularly, and also by feeding it an anti-hairball formula food and/or a laxative that encourages the hairball to, well, pass all the way through the digestive tract rather that come out the way it went in.
Here’s a funny thing: Kittens don’t usually get hairballs. That’s because they’re crummy groomers. Apparently, grooming is a learned skill for a cat. Who knew?
So, as mentioned, hairballs are normal. But if a cat is retching repeatedly and not producing anything, or lethargic and without appetite, it’s time to see the vet. The problem might be more serious than a simple hairball and require medical intervention.
Today’s Google Doodle is worth a click through…it honors Toots Thielemans, the legendary jazz harmonica player whose most widely known contribution to the musical lexicon is to the Sesame Street theme song. He was born on this day in 1922 in Brussels, Belgium and died in August 2016.
It’s going to be a nice day to take your cat – or dog, or iguana, or bird, or just yourself – outside. It will be mostly sunny with temperatures near 60 degrees.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden asked Congress for an additional $33 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine as officials anticipate the conflict stretching on for months.
Biden also announced new sanctions on Russian oligarchs, as part of a number of measures intended to convince the Kremlin that it has little to gain from continuing the occupation of its sovereign neighbor.
Republicans and Democrats warn there are many issues that need to be sorted out over Biden’s Ukraine supplemental funding request, including drafting the language, and the whole process could take weeks until there are final votes in both chambers.
The House overwhelmingly passed legislation that would allow Biden to use a World War II-era law to quickly supply weapons to Ukraine on loan, sending the measure to Biden’s desk hours after he urged Congress for new funding.
The United Nations deputy secretary-general said there will be “lessons learned” from the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky slammed Russia for striking Kyiv on the same day that the U.N. secretary-general was visiting, saying that the attack spoke to Russia’s efforts “to humiliate the U.N. and everything that the Organization represents.”
Ukrainian authorities filed criminal charges against 10 individual Russian soldiers accused of taking civilians hostage and mistreating them in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, the first move by prosecutors investigating possible war crimes by Moscow’s forces.
An American citizen, Willy Joseph Cancel, 22, a former Marine, was killed fighting alongside Ukrainian forces, members of Cancel’s family confirmed.
The British military will send some 8,000 troops to Europe as part of a larger allied deployment to deter further Russian aggression, British officials said.
Biden’s upbeat message that the economy is cruising along hit a troublesome speed bump when the federal government reported that U.S. gross domestic product shrank during the first three months of 2022.
Biden attempted to allay concerns about the performance of the U.S. economy after the Commerce Department announced that the economy shrank over the first quarter of 2022, telling reporters: “I’m not concerned about a recession.”
In the face of a pandemic that appears to be receding and the highest levels of inflation in four decades, Amazon posted its slowest quarterly growth in years and its first quarterly loss since 2015.
Amazon’s losses reflected broad economic trends related to a slump in online shopping, higher costs from inflation and supply-chain woes and market jitters over electric vehicle startups.
Biden said that he’ll have his answer on student loan forgiveness within a couple of weeks, but is not considering $50,000 in debt reduction.
Biden has been under pressure to fulfill a campaign promise to deal with student loan debt. He signaled to lawmakers at a White House meeting this week he would take steps to address the problem.
At the start of his administration, Biden said he wanted to work closely with Vice President Kamala Harris, including having lunch with her once a week, a practice he enjoyed with Barack Obama as his No. 2. So far this year, they’ve only lunched together twice.
The Biden administration unveiled an international “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” with 50 other countries, slamming the policies of “authoritarian” governments — while endorsing efforts to curb online “disinformation” and “harassment.”
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol will be holding eight hearings in June, according to lawmakers on the panel.
New applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell slightly last week as employers held on to their workers in a tight labor market.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, decreased to 180,000 last week from the previous week’s revised level, the Labor Department said.
Claims are near multi-decade lows as demand for workers keeps layoffs low, said Rubeella Farooqi, economist at High Frequency Economics. Any increase in claims would be a leading indicator of a slowing economy, but there are no signs of it now.
Denmark has become the first country to halt its Covid vaccination program, saying it is doing so because the virus is now under control.
Moderna is seeking emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for its Covid-19 vaccine for children 6 months through 5 years of age, the company said.
The development, which was expected, steps up pressure on federal regulators to authorize a vaccine for the nation’s youngest children.
Masks will again be required on Bay Area Rapid Transit, making the largest transit system in the San Francisco area the only one currently enforcing a masking requirement.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said that the pandemic was not yet over, after telling the “PBS NewsHour” that the United States was “out of the pandemic phase.”
The positive COVID-19 infection rate on Long Island is approaching a dubious distinction as New York continues contending with the latest spread of the virus.
The New York State Department of Health ended its COVID-19 virtual contact tracing and case investigation program. This is following the end of contract tracing calls in January 2022 after both statewide efforts began in May 2020.
Governor Kathy Hochul put a happy spin on a massive defeat at the state’s highest court the day before that endangers Democrats’ ability to protect their slim majority in the US House and a supermajority in the state Senate.
When an independent redistricting commission failed to reach consensus, Democratic leaders decided to make their own maps and risk a lawsuit.
Hochul and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins appeared together in Yonkers to voice a united message about education spending included in the state budget.
“Does he care if that could help elect a Republican? Are you kidding me?” says the top Democratic strategist, who knows (ex-Gov. Andrew) Cuomo well, laughing. “This is a chaos agent. If he can’t have power, no one should have power.”
New York City has canceled one of three homeless shelters it planned to open in Chinatown, amid fierce resistance from Chinatown residents who fear that more homeless shelters will mean a further increase in anti-Asian hate crimes.
Retired city government workers could be at risk of losing out on “medically necessary care” if they enroll in a health insurance plan favored by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, according to a federal study released yesterday.
Adams dined with supermodel Naomi Campbell, multiple Grammy-winner Jon Batiste and Hollywood agent Cade Hudson on Wednesday night.
Adams is promising more money for affordable housing, but some are saying the pledge doesn’t go far enough.
The Panel for Educational Policy has blocked the city’s proposed formula for determining how much money each school should receive — a move that will cause the “whole system to blow up,” said the schools chancellor, David C. Banks.
Daniel Auster, a Brooklyn man who had been charged in the death of his 10-month-old daughter from heroin and fentanyl exposure, died after being taken off life support this week following a drug overdose, two law enforcement officials said.
Gun thefts are on the rise in major cities across the U.S., a factor police and criminologists say is helping fuel the growing homicide rate.
Elon Musk sold roughly $4 billion worth of Tesla Inc. stock in the two days after agreeing to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, according to regulatory filings made public late yesterday.
Late-night host James Corden will leave “The Late Late Show” next year, the British comedian announced last night during his telecast.
The British-born host, who was a successful actor and comedian before joining the network’s late-night lineup, has been signaling for some time that he was considering leaving.
