Good end-of-the-week morning, AKA Friday.
If this morning missive has any foundational purpose at all – other than to entertain and provide you with news you can use on your way out the door – it is to bust some commonly-held perceptions and shed light on murky topics.
Often – most frequently when delving into the origin story of various foodstuffs – I probably end up making things even more confusing than they were before. But sometimes I do manage to get to the bottom of a thing.
Like this one, for example: I’m sure you have heard the adage about how it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, which is supposed to encourage you to put on a happy expression, because (if nothing else) it takes less work to do so.
Turns out that the whole “43 muscles to frown, versus 17 to smile” thing is NOT, in fact, the case. MYTH BUSTED.
That’s in part because of the vagaries of individual facial expressions. One person’s frown might be another’s (cover the kids’ eyes here) resting bitch face, for example. And, by definition, resting anything should take little to no energy to achieve at all.
Another problem: The number of facial muscles differs from one person to another. Wild, but true.
But don’t give up on smiling just yet, because even if it takes a little more effort than you might have previously thought, there is ample research about the benefits of smiling – both for yourself and the world around you.
First of all, let us consider the origin of the smile, which scientists think developed out of an act of submission. If you bare your teeth in a snarl – lips tight and pulled back – that is a gesture of dominance and aggression. But relax those lips and close the mouth and you turn that nastiness into something nice. Even babies smile. It’s innate.
Smiling has a wide variety of positive benefits – aside from demonstrating to others than you are friendly and not a threat.
Research has shown that the expression you wear can impact your mood, and also relieve stress and tension. It can even, reportedly, make you a better runner. (I need to keep that in mind when I’m toiling away on the dreadmill in the dead of winter).
Yep, it’s true. Scientists have determined that smiling can improve your endurance, and also has some other physical benefits, like helping to lower your blood pressure, reduce pain, and even strengthen your immune system.
Of course, there are a wide variety of smiles, and they all mean something different, which complicates matters considerably.
The pandemic, with its mask mandates that covered our mouths and made it difficult to decode expressions, normalized yet one more: Smizing (smiling with the eyes, which is apparently a term coined by model Tyra Banks long before Covid-19 was even a blip on the radar screen).
Wether you do it with your eyes or your lips, full face or just a little side-mouth twitch, today offers a perfect opportunity to start getting into the habit of smiling – I mean, it’s Friday! Isn’t that something to smile about?
It’s also World Smile Day, the brainchild of graphic artist Harvey Ball, of Worcester, Massachusetts, who is also credited with creating the first-ever smiley face (you know, the round yellow one that is now featured in so many emojis?) in 1963 while working for a client of his ad agency.
Ball reportedly never trademarked his smiley face, depriving himself of a hefty chunk of change. But, according to his son, he didn’t regret that decision, because he wasn’t a money-driven individual, and infamously said: “I can only eat one steak at a time, drive one car at a time.”
Words to live by.
We’ll have another pleasant day, temperature-wise, with the mercury topping out in the mid-to-high-60s, but you better dig those sweaters out for the weekend, because things are taking a rather chilly turn, heading down into the 50s tomorrow. A good tiem for flannels, and bonfires, and hot cider with doughnuts straight from the fryer.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden is taking his first major steps toward decriminalizing marijuana, fulfilling a campaign pledge to erase prior federal possession convictions and beginning the process of potentially loosening federal classification of the drug.
The president pardoned all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession, a move that senior administration officials said would affect thousands of Americans charged with that crime.
He also called on state and local governments to free prisoners locked up for weed possession.
Biden championed his administration’s push to subsidize U.S. semiconductor chip manufacturing and boost blue-collar jobs at a visit to an IBM Corp facility in Poughkeepsie.
“It was here in Poughkeepsie where the rifles for World War I were made, where the first electric typewriters, calculators, even cough drops were made,” Biden said. “And it’s here now where the Hudson Valley could become the epicenter of the future of quantum computing.”
IBM announced a $20 billion initiative for its Hudson Valley sites over the next decade to make and develop semiconductors, mainframe technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
Biden stopped by Gov. Phil Murphy’s Middletown house yesterday for an intimate, high-dollar fundraiser as Democrats seek to retain control of Congress and several governorships in next month’s midterm elections.
Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was “not joking” in his references to using nuclear weapons, warning that the world was facing its greatest nuclear threat since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
“We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Biden told a crowd at the second of two fund-raisers he attended yesterday.
More than 60 abortion clinics across the U.S. have stopped providing the procedure since the Supreme Court eliminated federal constitutional protections in June, according to a new study.
White women without college degrees turned away from Democrats in recent years. Abortion politics could reel some of them back in.
Barnard College will offer abortion pills on campus beginning next year, in a move that shows how some colleges and universities may handle the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The decision, to take effect in September, signals how the nation’s colleges and universities are becoming another front in the nation’s pitched battle over abortion after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Kentucky’s sweeping abortion ban was challenged by three Jewish women who brought a lawsuit arguing that it violates their religious rights under the state’s constitution.
New abortion restrictions are changing where future obstetrician-gynecologists are trained.
A senior Justice Department official recently told Donald Trump’s legal team that law-enforcement officials don’t believe the former president returned all of the government documents he took with him when he left the White House.
It is not clear what steps the Justice Department might take to retrieve any material it thinks Trump still holds.
Whether the FBI rounded up all of the sensitive federal records in Trump’s possession during its August 8 search of his Florida residence and resort is a question that has loomed over the situation in recent weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 250 points yesterday after the Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims data. Meanwhile, the pivotal September payroll report is due out this morning.
The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a sign the labor market is starting to cool as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates at the fastest pace in decades.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased to a seasonally adjusted 219,000 last week from a revised 190,000 the week before, the Labor Department said. That was the highest level since late August but close to the 2019 average of 218,000.
Amazon plans to hire 150,000 people in its regular annual hiring spree to meet demand during the holiday shopping season.
Average excess death rates in Florida and Ohio were 76% higher among Republicans than Democrats between March 2020 and December 2021, according to a working paper released last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
After more than two years of publishing data on COVID-19 cases and deaths on a daily basis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it would shift to weekly updates to its nationwide tracking of the virus.
A new COVID-19 wave appears to be brewing in Europe as cooler weather arrives, with public health experts warning that vaccine fatigue and confusion over types of available vaccines will likely limit booster uptake.
NIAID director Anthony Fauci said that “we should not be surprised” if a new COVID-19 variant emerges this winter.
Fauci believes that he should’ve been “much more careful” in his messaging during the initial U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, saying that his early statements should’ve repeated “the uncertainty of what we’re going through.”
Experts fear the politicized backlash to the Covid-19 vaccines is already fostering skepticism about routine vaccinations generally, from childhood immunizations to flu shots.
Australia is coming off a short but brutal flu season—its worst of the COVID pandemic era. The U.S. could be next, experts say.
Only 49% of U.S. adults plan to get their flu shot this flu season, according to a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Even 1 in 5 of those who are at higher risk for influenza-related complications say they won’t get vaccinated.
With school in full swing and winter viruses returning to seasonal patterns, hospitals across the country are beginning to fill up with sick kids.
New York state health officials sounded a new alarm, warning that flu is already widespread across the Big Apple and saying it likely will only intensify, thanks to the compounding factor of the COVID pandemic.
There have already been 596 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza for the week ending Oct. 1. Last year there were only 150 cases by Oct. 9th.
A federal judge blocked large portions of a new New York gun law, jeopardizing a measure that passed just three months earlier and underscoring the difficulty that states may face in restricting the public carrying of firearms after a June Supreme Court ruling.
In a 53-page order, the judge, Glenn T. Suddaby of the Northern District, said he would block the state from enforcing several provisions, writing that New York’s attempts to bar guns in a number of places deemed “sensitive”.
Critics correctly predicted that the Supreme Court decision – the widest expansion of gun rights in a decade – would trigger new challenges to gun regulations across the country. The temporary restraining order will become effective in three business days.
While permitting takes time, one immediate effect in New York City, if it is upheld, is that the state cannot ban guns from Times Square, where signs are already up saying no guns allowed.
The judge let stand provisions restricting guns from property that is owned or temporarily restricted by the government; polling places; houses of worship, with some exceptions; schools; and public assemblies.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office filed an appeal, saying: “While the decision preserves portions of the law, we believe the entire law must be preserved as enacted.”
“While this decision leaves aspects of the law in place, it is deeply disappointing that the judge wants to limit my ability to keep New Yorkers safe and to prevent more senseless gun violence,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
Hochul was caught on a hot mic telling Biden that Democrats ought to try to score partisan points with the bipartisan $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act.
Hochul leads Republican rival Rep. Lee Zeldin of Suffolk County by just under two points — 44.5% to 42.6% — according to a new poll by the Trafalgar Group released yesterday.
A spokesperson for Hochul said the governor is committed to “keep New Yorkers safe,” after a Marist College student’s father was killed in a shooting Sunday at a hotel near campus, as Zeldin hammers the state’s “pro-criminal policies.”
Hochul said that before her staff authorized $637 million in payments to a major campaign donor, she was never asked to give final approval to the taxpayer-funded deal for COVID-19 tests.
Some family members of those killed in a racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo are asking the governor of New York to sign a bill that will overhaul the state’s 150-year-old wrongful death statute they say devalues the lives of their lost loved ones.
A trio of bills approved by Hochul are meant to strengthen minority and women-owned businesses in New York, her office announced.
Municipalities in New York will be able to receive $9 million in federal funding to boost public safety and preparedness, Hochul announced.
Hochul said the state’s plan to have 20 conditional adult-use retail dispensaries open by the end of this year is “still on track” – and to expect “another 20″ to open every month or so thereafter.
New York’s cultivation program has made some sacrifices to the look and quality of the bud being produced in the name of equity and environmental sustainability.
Unions and labor advocates are urging action on legislation that would provide nurses critical support and protection against what they have described as widespread employer abuses of mandatory overtime laws.
New York’s ethics and lobbying commission is rolling over all pending investigations inherited from its predecessor, a move that increases the odds those inquiries will reach conclusions.
Democrat Josh Riley holds a narrow lead over Republican Marc Molinaro as the two men head into the final month of a campaign that will decide which one represents the 19th Congressional District, according to a poll from the Siena Research Institute.
Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is leading her Democratic challenger, former Rep. Max Rose, by 6 percentage points in New York City’s only swing House district, according to an exclusive Spectrum News/Siena College poll released yesterday.
Abortion rights have emerged as a clash point for many Congressional races. That’s true in NY-17, where the differences are stark between GOP state Assemblyman Mike Lawler and Democratic incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.
A new report says the gap between wages and housing costs across New York City is the widest since 2008.
Wall Street’s deep slump is a growing problem for New York City, which is still struggling to ramp up its pandemic recovery.
Mayor Eric Adams said the ongoing influx of asylum seekers is threatening the city’s already fragile economy, and hinted at legal action against Republican-led Southern states.
The mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships issued an appeal to houses of worship this week for donations of pants, long-sleeved shirts, socks and underwear in all sizes for men, women and children.
A Democratic mayor in Texas has bused more than twice as many migrants to the Big Apple as the state’s Republican governor — without a peep of outrage from Adams
Adams’ administration has failed to fill key positions at housing agencies, leaving its response to skyrocketing rents and the Big Apple’s worsening housing crisis hamstrung, insiders, activists and city officials said.
Adams and top city officials rolled out a new $9 million initiative to support students in public schools trying to rein in higher-than-average absentee rates and suspensions.
Project Pivot will provide students with access to resources and additional support to ensure improved academic success and social and emotional well being.
The commission tasked to update the city’s legislative boundaries unanimously voted to release its latest set of draft maps two weeks after it had initially rejected them. The maps will now be reviewed by the New York City Council.
A Police Department vehicle crashed into another car in the Bronx and careened onto a sidewalk, striking a crowd of pedestrians and sending 10 people to the hospital, including a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old, a department official said at a news conference.
Harrowing video of the crash shows the marked patrol car swerving into oncoming traffic and then careening into a group of people waiting for the bus on Westchester Avenue just after 3:15 p.m.
A homeless man who was on supervised release was charged the murder of a subway commuter who was fatally stabbed last week while riding a train in Brooklyn, according to prosecutors from the Brooklyn district attorney’s office.
A proposal to curb traffic on Manhattan’s busiest streets by adding new tolls has stirred broad opposition from the city’s taxi industry and drivers who live outside the area. But its biggest threat now seems to be coming from farther afield: New Jersey.
The founders of Second City, the storied comedy theater, took its name from essays by The New Yorker writer A.J. Liebling, who skewered Chicago as inferior to his hometown. Now, more than 60 years later, Second City has found a home in New York.
A New York City jury was asked not to underestimate decades-old sexual assault allegations against actor Kevin Spacey because he and his accuser are gay.
Former Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro is willing to put up more than $2 million of his property to bail out his grandson, who’s locked up on federal gun charges in the shooting of his ex-girlfriend.
The MTA’s internal projections forecasting a $2.5 billion deficit in 2025 may actually underestimate the agency’s dire financial future, according to a new analysis by the state comptroller.
Two longtime restaurateurs who have been out of the business in recent years are returning to the industry with their first venture as business partners by taking over Troy Beer Garden and its upstairs cocktail lounge, The Berlin.
The state’s watchdog panel for the judiciary has disciplined a longtime Rensselaer City Court judge for invoking her judicial status while representing her niece’s boyfriend in seven courts in three counties.
An apparently unprovoked stabbing attack outside a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, the glittering beacon for tourists from around the world, left two people dead and six others injured, the authorities said.
An incendiary new post on Eater pleading with pizzaiolos to “stop burning” pricey pies has char-loving New York pizza geeks wondering what the website is smoking.
It’s Fat Bear Week!
