We made it to the end of the week. Good morning, it’s Friday.
I’m going out on a limb and stretching things a bit with today’s post in the interest of keeping up the Halloween lead-up. Pickings are a bit slim, but since it’s Friday, I assume you’re willing to cut me some creative slack.
If not, well, you know where to find me and lodge your cyber-complaints.
The English novelist Marry Shelley, is perhaps best known for authoring – putting pen to paper first at the tender age of 18, and finishing at 19 – the Gothic novel Frankenstein, (AKA The Modern Prometheus), which is considered an early example of science fiction.
She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley, who she met when she was just 15. He was 20 years old and married with a pregnant wife at the time.
The couple eloped to France when Mary was 16 and didn’t marry until two years later after Shelley’s first wife committed suicide by drowning, which is ironic because her wayward husband later died – a mere six years after marrying Mary – in a drowning.
In fact, people at first thought Percy Shelley, not Mary, wrote the Frankenstein. They just couldn’t believe someone so young and female and without much in the way of formal education could have penned something so dark about am ambitious doctor who sets out to create the perfect human and fails spectacularly.
But Mary truly had her own twisted side. She reportedly kept her dead husband’s heart in a desk after it reportedly failed to burn when his body was cremated.
Frankenstein, of course, remains widely read and has inspired countless theatrical and film adaptations, many of which departed quite significantly from the original book.
Mary Shelley was born on Aug. 30, 1797, and that day is celebrated as Frankenstein Day, though technically speaking, the monster she birthed in her book was “born” on Jan. 1, 1818. For some reason, though, the Friday before Halloween is NATIONAL Frankenstein Day. (He was a very large monster, after all; why shouldn’t he have more than one day to celebrate his existence?)
I never saw any of the Frankenstein movies. I’m not a big monster movie fan, nor do I like horror movies. I did see “The Blair Witch Project,” which was a very big mistake for someone who enjoys spending a lot of time in the woods but is very afraid of the dark.
We are back to more fall-like weather, with temperatures in the mid-50s and partly cloudy skies. I’ve heard mixed reports about what Halloween holds next Monday…it looks right now like it will be warm, but wet, which isn’t ideal. But hey, this is upstate New York, where the weather changes on a dime. There’s always hope.
In the headlines…
President Biden pointed to a major investment in Onondaga County to sharpen the contrast between his economic record and proposals by Republicans, who he said appeared to be hoping for a recession.
Biden made his second trip in 21 days to upstate New York when he visited Syracuse yesterday afternoon, less than two weeks before the midterm elections.
Biden blasted Republicans’ economic proposals, defending his efforts to protect Americans’ pocketbooks in the face of raging global inflation and declaring that a red wave in the November midterm elections would send prices even higher.
The president didn’t stop in his former Syracuse neighborhood, nor drive by the school where his first wife taught. His motorcade did get a glimpse of Syracuse University’s JMA Wireless Dome, where he has given speeches and watched football over the years.
Biden said China’s leader had expressed worries about the US strengthening its domestic production of semiconductor chips as his administration moves to reduce reliance on Asian suppliers and restrict Chinese access to chipmaking technology.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she does not see signs of a recession after the Commerce Department released data showing the economy rebounded in the third quarter of the year.
The U.S. economy grew slowly over the summer, adding to fears of a looming recession — but also keeping alive the hope that one might be avoided.
Mortgage rates topped 7% for the first time in 20 years, the latest milestone in a rapid climb that has all but paralyzed the housing market.
The president predicted that student loan borrowers will start receiving relief – which is currently on hold over a court challenge – within weeks, projecting confidence that his administration will win the challenge.
“We’re gonna win that case. I think in the next two weeks you’re gonna see those checks going out,” Biden told Nexstar’s Reshad Hudson in an exclusive interview in Syracuse, N.Y.
A hot mic in Syracuse caught Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer chatting election strategy with Biden, and saying that the Pennsylvania Senate debate “didn’t hurt“ Democrats “too much,” but “the state where we’re going downhill is Georgia.”
“”It’s hard to believe that they will go for Herschel Walker,” Schumer told the president, later assuring him that “”We’re picking up steam in Nevada.”
Democrats are betting that Biden and Vice President Harris can put Democratic Senate hopeful John Fetterman over the top in Pennsylvania despite a faltering debate performance that has operatives more worried than ever they could lose the pivotal race.
A new series of House polls by The New York Times and Siena College across four archetypal swing districts offers fresh evidence that Republicans are poised to retake Congress this fall as the party dominated among voters who care most about the economy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied having any intentions of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine but described the conflict there as part of alleged efforts by the West to secure its global domination, which he insisted are doomed to fail.
Biden expressed skepticism about Putin’s comment that he had no intention of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
A federal court cleared the way for a Democratic-led House committee to review former President Trump’s tax returns, although the Supreme Court could still block the action.
The decision by the full appeals court, which had no noted dissents, sets the stage for Trump to make an expected request to the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. However, the court is not obligated to grant that request.
The National Archives is denying Republican accusations that its decision to refer Trump’s handling of classified records to the Justice Department had anything to do with an inquiry from a top House Democrat.
Trump’s legal defense team and federal prosecutors appeared at a sealed hearing that was related at least in part to the Justice Department’s ongoing demands to make sure all documents marked classified have been returned to the federal government.
Trump picked sides in the PGA Tour/LIV Golf divide long ago with two of his courses hosting LIV events this year, including this week’s team finale at Doral. Yesterday, he doubled down on his allegiance to the Saudi-backed circuit.
Trump will rally Florida Republicans just days before the midterm elections. But Ron DeSantis, the state’s Republican governor, won’t be there.
A growing number of prominent Republicans are warning that Trump should not run again in 2024 or that he will lose if he does, previewing rifts in the GOP that are likely to come into full view after the midterms.
A Saratoga County woman who has served as a Christian missionary in Haiti was charged with illegally participating in the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
A Tennessee man received a 7-1/2-year prison sentence for dragging a police officer into a mob of rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, the second-most severe punishment handed down for a defendant linked to that day’s attack on the Capitol.
U.S. worker filings for jobless benefits edged higher last week, but remained near historically low levels.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased slightly to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 last week from 214,000 the week before, the Labor Department said.
While the jobless numbers were a bit higher than the previous week, they are still near historically low levels seen before the COVID-19 pandemic and lower than the 220,000 economists expected.
Dozens of cities across China, including Wuhan where the coronavirus was first recorded, have gone into lockdown as the country pursues leader Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy.
The restrictions on business and social activity affected 9.2% of China’s gross domestic product as of yesterday, up from 7% on Oct. 16, according to Nomura’s model.
Nearly twice as many U.S. companies cut their investment in China this year versus last year, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai found in its latest survey.
The White House’s top COVID-19 official says he still expects the protection against the Omicron BA.5 variant offered by the new COVID vaccine boosters will be better than their predecessors, despite two studies that appear to question that assumption.
Scientists at Columbia University in New York City found the new boosters did not produce a better antibody response in humans against BA.5 than the first-generation vaccines. A separate study by scientists at Harvard essentially came to the same conclusion.
The top Republican on the Senate health committee said in a report that the coronavirus pandemic was most likely caused by a laboratory incident in China, but offered little new evidence to back up that claim.
The report, while not a formal scientific document, represents a possible template for a future investigatory hearing in Congress if Republicans gain control of the House or Senate — or both — following the midterm elections.
New York lawmakers who introduced a bill last year to require the COVID-19 vaccine for school children weren’t successful in advancing that proposal. But they’re not giving up.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, hoping to be the first woman to be elected governor in New York state history, is looking for a boost from the woman who’s gotten closest to the presidency – Hillary Clinton.
Hochul supporters are concerned her ground game in the nation’s largest city, which should be a layup for any Democrat to carry with comfortable margins, is faltering as Republican Lee Zeldin makes polling gains across the state.
New York’s top elections watchdog is investigating whether the Zeldin’s campaign violated state law by coordinating with a pair of super PACs supporting his candidacy, according to two people familiar with the inquiry.
Democrats and their allies are pouring millions of dollars into late-stage ads and get-out-the-vote efforts to help Hochul as she fends off Zeldin in a tightening race.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is speculated to be considering a 2024 presidential bid, heading to New York on Monday, Oct. 31 to campaign for Zeldin.
Zeldin’s promise – if elected – to remove Alvin Bragg, the first Black Manhattan district attorney, is representative of a dynamic informing races all over the country.
Zeldin told New York City parents he supports arming school safety agents and also outfitting them with bulletproof vests as statistics showed an uptick in school crimes and weapons confiscations this year.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams appointed acting FDNY Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh to lead the department on a permanent basis, making her the first female commissioner in the 157-year history of the Fire Department of New York.
Kavanagh, 40, will oversee 17,000 employees, including firefighters and emergency medical workers, and units such as 911 dispatch operations. As of August, there were 141 female firefighters, the most in the history of the department.
The New York City Council passed four anti-rat bills, taking aim from multiple directions at the worsening vermin scourge menacing the five boroughs.
A key City Council committee approved a last-minute change to a proposed rezoning of a block in Gowanus, Brooklyn, that will slash new buildings’ maximum size to half of the original proposal, at the request of local Councilmember Shahana Hanif.
Across New York, thousands of students, most often children with disabilities, have been physically restrained by staff members in K-12 schools in recent years, which can cause trauma, injuries and, in rare cases, death.
Undocumented workers make up 7% of overall jobs in New York City. They help fuel an underground economy in a city that depends on immigrants to keep its construction sites, restaurant kitchens, delivery services and child-care services running.
The city demolished an elaborately decorated $25,000 outdoor dining shed belonging to an artsy Manhattan hotspot, and the owners are torn up about it.
Just four days after the New York City Correction Department certified to a federal judge that all heating systems at Rikers Island were fully functioning, a main steam line ruptured, knocking out service to two entire jails and a third facility.
A former United Nations employee who raped at least 13 women was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Manhattan federal judge who said the defendant had given his victims drugs to cloud their memories of the assaults.
Former “Saturday Night Live” star Chris Redd was taken to a local New York City hospital on Oct. 26 after he was allegedly attacked by a stranger.
A hacker who hammered the New York Post with at least a half-dozen racist, misogynist and extremist headlines under the paper’s red banner yesterday actually worked at the tabloid.
A Post spokeswoman said an employee was responsible for the unauthorized activity, adding that the employee has been terminated. “We’ve since taken down the vile and reprehensible content posted,” she said in an emailed statement.
Investigators are making progress in their probe of a man who placed anti-Semitic and racist stickers on the UAlbany campus earlier this week — then called the media to draw attention to the incident, police said.
Elon Musk officially owns Twitter after closing the deal by a court-imposed deadline today, according to multiple outlets, ending a six-month journey over his controversial $44 billion acquisition.
Musk also began cleaning house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the chief executive and chief financial officer — getting fired yesterday.
