Good morning, it’s Friday.
Also, it’s Black Cow Day, which is not what you think.
Or maybe you’re a person of a certain age, in which case it’s exactly what you think.
I’m being unnecessarily cryptic. So allow me to explain.
Depending on where you live, a “black cow” is another name for an ice cream soda made with cola instead of root beer.
A root beer float, according to purists, ALWAYS features vanilla ice cream, while a combination of root beer with chocolate ice cream is more appropriately named a “brown cow”, or a “chocolate cow.”
There’s also a Coke float (cola and vanilla ice cream), a Boston cooler (ginger ale and vanilla ice cream), a Purple cow (grape soda and vanilla ice cream), and, along the same lines, an Orange float (orange soda and vanilla ice cream).
Got all that?
Apparently, however, legend has it that the original creator of the root beer float – a guy named Frank J. Wisner, owner of the Cripple Creek Cow Mountain Gold Mining Company in Colorado – called his 1893 creation the “black cow mountain”, which was eventually shortened to “black cow.”
As these things tend to go, there are a lot of competing origin stories out there.
Also, to be clear, I’ve never been an ice cream soda girl. My roots are really with the egg cream, which, actually has no egg in it.
“Egg” reportedly is a bastardization of “echt”, which means “genuine” or “real” in Yiddish, underscoring the origins of this drink – a combination of milk (or half-and-half), seltzer, and chocolate syrup – with Eastern European Jewish immigrants in New York City.
Whatever side you come down on – ice cream soda, egg cream, malt, Fribble, shake, what have you – summer is a great time to indulge in a cold, sweet treat.
It will be mostly sunny today with temperatures flirting with 80 degrees. The weekend looks mixed, with mostly cloudy skies on Saturday and a mix of sun and clouds on Sunday with showers early on and the threat of scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the mid-to-high 70s.
In the headlines…
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot began its first in a series of long-awaited public hearings by revealing new footage and testimony to make the case that the deadly attack was the direct result of then-President Trump’s attempts to cling to power.
The committee aired sober, never-seen-before testimony from ally after ally, including Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, admitting they knew Trump’s stolen election claims were unfounded.
The committee played excerpts from videotaped interviews of former Attorney General William P. Barr, who said he had told Trump that the talk of widespread fraud in the 2020 election was “bullshit.”
Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards testified that she was “slipping in people’s blood” as she battled rioters.
The committee suggested it had evidence that multiple House Republicans, including Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, had sought presidential pardons after the Jan. 6 riot for their efforts to challenge and overturn the 2020 election.
As the first prime-time hearing of the committee gaveled in, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his show by bragging about his network not carrying the proceedings live on its main cable channel.
Ryan Kelley, a Republican running for governor in Michigan who was at the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack, was arrested at his home in Allendale, Mich., yesterday morning, according to Mara R. Schneider, a special agent with the F.B.I.
As U.S. gasoline prices approach a record average of $5 a gallon, fuel costs are rippling through almost every corner of business, with signs emerging that the rising expenses are beginning to alter consumer behavior.
Initial jobless claims spiked to their highest level since mid-January last week despite signs of an otherwise strong employment picture, the Labor Department reported.
First-time filings for the week ended June 4 totaled 229,000, an increase of 27,000 from the upwardly revised level in the prior period and well ahead of the 210,000 Dow Jones estimate.
Applications for US state unemployment insurance rose by the most in nearly a year during the week that included the Memorial Day holiday.
Heavily armed officers delayed confronting the Uvalde gunman for more than an hour even though supervisors at the scene were told that some trapped with him needed medical treatment. They waited for protective equipment to lower the risk to officers.
A Texas House Investigative Committee began its search for answers in the Robb Elementary School shooting and could produce a preliminary report on its fact-finding mission by the end of the month.
Criticized for slowness in taking out the shooter, Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo described an agonizing wait for a key that would work. He said he hadn’t spoken out sooner because he didn’t want to compound his hometown’s grief or point blame.
“Not a single responding officer ever hesitated, even for a moment, to put themselves at risk to save the children,” Arredondo said. “We responded to the information that we had and had to adjust to whatever we faced.”
The House voted nearly along party lines to pass legislation that would allow guns to be temporarily confiscated from people deemed by a federal court to be dangerous. The bill got only five GOP votes and has little chance of enactment in its current form.
Staten Island Rep. Nicole Malliotakis bucked her party to vote in favor of four Democratic gun-control measures to show support for the NYPD — even while opposing the overall package of legislation that narrowly passed the House.
The legislation would allow family members to request a federal court order that would remove access to firearms for someone who is deemed a danger to themselves or others by the court.
An employee opened fire at a manufacturing plant in Maryland yesterday afternoon, killing three co-workers and critically injuring another before he was shot by a state trooper in an exchange of gunfire that left both wounded, the authorities said.
In its first report, a team of international scientists assembled by the WHO to advise on the origins of the coronavirus said that bats likely carried an ancestor of the coronavirus that may have then spilled over into a mammal sold at a wildlife market.
But the team said that more Chinese data was needed to study how the virus spread to people, including the possibility that a lab leak played a role.
Federal health officials warned of potentially dire consequences to the U.S. coronavirus testing supply later this year if lawmakers do not replenish funding for the federal pandemic response, leaving the nation at risk of shortages.
The White House outlined the early stages of its plan for making coronavirus vaccines available this month to roughly 18 million children younger than 5, should the doses be cleared by federal regulators for the last group of Americans yet to be eligible.
In place of COVID-19, a series of viruses behaving in new and peculiar ways have emerged.
A New Jersey man admitted in federal court to illegally selling $2.7 million worth of pesticides that he falsely claimed had been registered with the Environmental Protection Agency as effective safeguards against the coronavirus.
Mask-wearing will soon be optional for New York City toddlers in schools and day care facilities, Mayor Eric Adams announced yesterday – about two weeks before the last scheduled day of classes.
Citing data regarding the most recent wave of COVID-19, Adams stated the mask optional mandate would be in effect because New Yorkers have been diligent in protecting themselves and their families from the virus. The change takes effect Monday, June 13.
New York City is still strongly recommending that masks be worn indoors for people of all ages, however, as new, confirmed coronavirus cases still remain at a high level despite recent declines.
Gov. Kathy Hochul indicated that New Yorkers shouldn’t hold their breaths about her lifting the mask mandate for public transit — saying vaguely that a “conversation” on the move would happen “soon.”
Shanghai will briefly lock down almost everyone in the city this weekend for mass testing as Covid-19 cases continue to emerge, causing more disruption and triggering a renewed run on groceries days after exiting a grueling two-month shutdown.
Carl Paladino, a Republican running for a House seat in Western New York, praised Adolf Hitler last year for inspiring his followers, describing the fascist dictator as “the kind of leader we need today.”
Paladino did not specifically condone Hitler’s actions in his 2021 remarks, but said he was impressed by how the head of the Nazi Party “aroused the crowd” in his speeches and suggested that New York and D.C. Republicans ought to emulate his approach.
Paladino said in a statement to the Associated Press that he was wrong to mention Hitler last year and that any implication that his comments meant he supported Hitler would be “a new low for the media.”
New York’s GOP party boss Nick Langworthy is officially running for the newly redistricted 23nd congressional district – the same seat Hochul once held, and the one Paladino is seeking to represent.
New York state is now accepting applications from firms to design its controversial multibillion-dollar revamp of Penn Station and its surrounding area, Hochul said.
The plan has drawn pushback from government watchdog groups as it stands to benefit one of Hochul’s biggest campaign donors.
“This Penn Station development is crucial for us,” Adams said. “It’s our Empire State Building moment. Because no matter who we are or what we do, transportation is at the heart of our ability to live a prosperous life.”
Hochul threw President Biden under the bus when pressed on her revelation during this week’s gubernatorial debate that congestion pricing cannot be implemented in the Big Apple this year to help fund billions in subway repairs.
Pandemic-weary New Yorkers who fled the five boroughs at the height of the coronavirus crisis are returning to a city where the median Manhattan rent reached $4,000 for the first time ever, a new report says.
Democrats and police departments need to do better at forging alliances when it comes to gun violence, Adams said, a day after testifying before Congress about the impact of guns on New York City.
The Queens teenager who was shot in the leg while doing her homework after a stray bullet whizzed through her front door said that Adams’ handling of crime is laughable.
Adams said that the Big Apple is littered with unique crystals that give out a “special energy.”
Adams took aim at the “extremes” of both sides of the ideological spectrum for not backing crackdowns on shootings — as he declared that New Yorkers and Americans should “take heed” of fed-up San Francisco residents removing their district attorney.
Republican lawmakers are taking aim at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg with a proposed constitutional change giving voters the power to remove prosecutors from office.
Lawyers at public defender services across New York are leaving their jobs, saying they are overworked and are facing a hard choice between making a living and making sure justice is served.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has recommended three high-powered lawyers, including a current U.S. magistrate judge, to fill openings on New York’s federal district court bench, his office said.
A debate over who and how the city should handle litigation exploded at the Saratoga Springs City Council table after Mayor Ron Kim called out city Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran for his role as a witness in a federal lawsuit against the city.
A Michigan police officer has been charged with one count of second-degree murder in a shooting death that followed a traffic stop, prosecutors said.
The Washington Post has cut ties with reporter Felicia Sonmez after she became involved in a public spat with her colleagues after politics reporter Dave Weigel retweeted a joke stating that all women are either bipolar or bisexual.
U.F.O.s almost certainly are not alien visitors buzzing Earth’s skies, but NASA is nonetheless financing a study that will look at unexplained sightings with an open mind.
