Good morning. It’s Tuesday, and we are already midway through October, which means that we are deep in the heart of football season.
Those who are not fans of gridiron might want to jump down a paragraph, but this won’t take long…I personally wasn’t really into American football until I attended by first Big Ten game a few weeks ago at the OSU and saw 100,000+ people all dressed in red and cheering their brains out. I was impressed. Also, the Best Damn Band in the Land is really something else.
Even if you’re not really into what’s happening on the field, pretty much anyone can get down with the traditional football fare, which includes pizza.
Little Caesars, the Detroit-based takeout chain known for its “Hot-N-Ready” carryout pizzas, is the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. But really any brand from any chain – even frozen or homemade – or even better, purchased from an independently-owned small business, will do on game day.
The hallmark of any good football food is that it doesn’t require the use of utensils to consume, and so does not get in the way of your cheering – or your beer consumption. This goes for chicken wings, hot dogs, and, arguably, nachos, though those might be a bridge too far. It takes me two hands to eat those – one to steady the plate, the other to shovel them from plate to mouth.
Surprisingly, pizza is not No. 1 in the hearts of Americans when it comes to fast food. That honor goes to – you guessed it – McDonald’s, even though their fries are arguably not the greatest IMHO.
This is also tough because there are SO MANY pizza chains, and independent joints where you can get a good pie. But according to at least one online ranking, the top chain, coming in at No. 9 on the fast food favorites list, is Domino’s, which, FWIW, does $8.6 BILLION in system-wide sales annually.
That’s a lot, until you compare it to McDonald’s annual take of $46 billion, then it seems a little paltry.
Pizza is definitely big business any way you slice it (see what I did there?) Across the U.S., 93 percent of individuals eat pizza every month, and as a country we collectively consume an average of 46 slices per year each.
Just under half of all Americans – 40 percent – say they eat pizza on a weekly basis. (I am definitely skewering these results downward, as I can’t even remember the last time I ate pizza).
When it comes to ranking the most popular pizza toppings and styles, we get into even more difficult territory, since this is not only a matter of taste, but also regional preference. Cracker crust, deep dish, brick oven, square, round, slices as big as your head. Lots of varieties to choose from out there.
New York, which has the distinction of having the most pizza places open after 9 p.m. – perfect for last-night noshing – apparently is partial to a thick, Sicilian-style or “grandma” crust. (I, personally, think the crust is the best part of the pizza, and the dessert version of a pie, too, so I’m wholeheartedly on the team here).
Online surveys seem to agree that America’s most preferred pizza topping is pepperoni, followed by, depending on who you believe, extra cheese, and mushroom?! Fungus is more popular than sausage? I can’t fathom it.
As to the origin of pizza, now we’re getting into some very treacherous territory, because many cultures across the globe have a history of eating flatbreads – you know, dough cooked with stuff on top of it. The trend caught on in Italy rather quickly, though, because these flatbreads were fast and tasty and inexpensive, basically something everyone could enjoy.
There’s really no accounting for taste when it comes to the cult-like following certain types of pizza – like the cold cheese variety, which I must profess that I do not understand, but I know a lot of people swear by.
Tomato pie, though, THAT is something I can get behind; no visit to Utica is complete without it. Also, the COB (cheese on the bottom) pizza with cheese UNDER the sauce, as featured at Red Front in Troy, is really good.
Wow. This post is getting long, which is a testament to the fact that everyone – even someone who can’t remember her last slice – has something to say about pizza. So, it’s a good thing that this ENTIRE MONTH is dedicated to it, right?
It will be another day on the cooler side, with temperatures in the low-to-mid-50s. (An early-season cold snap is underway in parts of the U.S.) The rain will end, though, and there will be intervals of clouds and sun. I’ll take it.
In the headlines…
The Biden administration plans to sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to dampen fuel prices before next month’s congressional elections, three sources familiar with the matter said.
President Joe Biden’s announcement is expected this week as part of the response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, one of the sources said.
Global internet freedom decreased for the 12th consecutive year, driven largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a Freedom House report released today.
Russia launched a fresh wave of Iranian-made drones to attack central Kyiv in the early hours of yesterday, Ukrainian officials said, as Moscow presses a campaign targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure before the onset of winter.
At least 13 people, including three children, were killed in southern Russia after a Russian military jet crashed into the courtyard of a large apartment building during a training mission, emergency officials said.
The European Union has been severing economic ties with Moscow to support Ukraine, but some countries have lobbied to protect key sectors.
The federal government yesterday began accepting applications for Biden’s promised student debt cancellation of up to $20,000 per borrower.
Those who meet the program’s annual income limits — up to $125,000 per individual or $250,000 per household — can apply online at https://studentaid.gov/debt-relief/application.
“This is a game changer for millions of Americans…and it took an incredible amount of effort to get this website done in such a short time,” Biden said.
The launch follows a short beta test, during which time the Department of Education offered on and off access to the form while it tested the site. Borrowers could apply for forgiveness in those windows when the portal was open. More than 8 million people did.
A Fox News poll has found that, ahead of crucial midterm elections, Biden’s approval rating is the highest it’s been in nine months, based on the poll’s previous surveys.
Former President Trump leads Biden by 1 point in a hypothetical rematch, according to a New York Times-Siena College poll published yesterday.
Trump leads Biden, 45 to 44 percent, when likely voters were asked whom they would support if the 2024 presidential election were held today.
Republicans are growing more and more optimistic that they will seize majorities in the House and Senate as a series of polls provides momentum for the party, while stubborn inflation numbers hurt Biden and Democrats.
House Republicans are increasingly confident they can make unexpected inroads into some solidly Democratic congressional districts, including in some of the bluest states in the country: California, Connecticut, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, said GOP lawmakers could move to impeach Biden after investigating his family’s foreign consulting businesses and his “illegal” request that Saudi Arabia delay oil production cuts until after the midterm elections.
Biden’s political travel schedule is lighter than his two immediate predecessors at the same point in the midterm campaign, highlighting the challenge unpopular presidents face trying to stave off congressional losses.
Some 21 months into his term, Biden has made 55 visits to Delaware, totaling some or all of 174 days as of Sunday, according to a CNN analysis of his schedules and a tally kept by Mark Knoller, the longtime unofficial statistician of the White House press corps.
Trump’s administration prevented health officials from providing accurate information about Covid-19 in a bid to back up his overly optimistic view of the outbreak, according to a congressional report.
Former CDC director Robert Redfield and others described how the White House and its allies repeatedly “bullied” staff, tried to rewrite their publications and threatened their jobs in an attempt to align the CDC with a more optimistic view of the pandemic.
A senior CDC communications officer told the subcommittee Michael Caputo, a close Trump ally who was assistant secretary for public affairs at the Health and Human Services Department, used “bully-ish behavior” that made CDC officials “feel threatened.”
The U.S. government’s top public health expert on migration told Congress he refused to approve a policy allowing mass expulsions at the U.S.-Mexico border because he believed the measure unfairly stigmatized migrants as spreaders of COVID-19.
A former executive at Trump’s media company claims the former President retaliated against a board member who refused to give Melania Trump shares of the company.
Trump’s company charged the Secret Service as much as five times more than the government rate for agents to stay overnight at Trump hotels while protecting him and his family, according to expense records newly obtained by Congress.
Dr. Ashish Jha, head of the White House Covid task force, said everyone older than 50 and senior citizens in particular need to get an omicron booster as soon as possible, adding: “It’s a difference between life and death.”
The Biden administration is launching a new ad campaign to promote the updated bivalent COVID-19 vaccines, in hopes of accelerating a booster campaign that has begun to stall nationwide.
As winter inches closer, Dr. Fauci is sounding the alarm about a pair of “pretty troublesome” Covid variants.
California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state’s long-running, Covid-related State of Emergency will end on February 28, 2023. That’s basically three years after it began on March 4, 2020.
According to the governor’s office, this date allows the state to be prepared to handle possible surges during the winter and it provides local governments time to make any necessary changes.
The COVID-19 booster market is starting to look more like an annual flu season than it did in the first two years of the pandemic, according to Moderna’s CEO.
More than half of New York elementary school students are ineligible for the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, which is designed to target both the original coronavirus strains and newer omicron variants, data compiled by the CDC shows.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Lee Zeldin downplayed his endorsement from Trump, while Democrats aimed to use it to their advantage in the blue state.
“It shouldn’t have been news,” Zeldin said following a press conference in the Bronx. “He supported me before this weekend.”
At the start at this campaign I was asked are you a Charlie Baker Republican or a Ron DeSantis Republican? I’m my own man,” he said. “This race is about Lee Zeldin against Kathy Hochul deciding the future of New York State. It’s not about the former president.”
Shortly before endorsing Zeldin, Trump criticized American Jews, claiming they are insufficiently loyal to Israel. Zeldin’s campaign said in a statement that the congressman is “honored to have the support of New Yorkers from all walks of life.”
Hochul’s campaign hit Zeldin hard for text messages he sent to a Trump administration official nearly three years ago regarding plans to discredit the 2020 presidential election.
As abortion rights loom large in races across the nation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Zeldin is vowing to leave abortion laws untouched if he’s elected governor Nov. 8.
Zeldin blasted Hochul for supporting the MTA’s controversial congestion pricing toll plan — and said the best way to get drivers out of their cars would be to make the subways safer.
Stefanik said that House Republicans will have to investigate Hochul and the actions of her administration next year if the Empire State’s Democrat-led state Legislature won’t do it.
Small landlords protested the failure of the state’s rent relief program and said they’re turning to Zeldin in hopes of getting relief.
New York voters are increasingly anxious about the state of the nation’s democracy and its preservation in the wake of a months-long hearing on the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol highlighting Trump’s efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 election.
Hochul signed a bill to expand a program for older New Yorkers to provide funding and services based on “greatest social need” like barriers or isolation created by racial and ethnic status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression and HIV status.
Overdose deaths in New York state rose 14% in 2021 compared to the previous year, a report released Monday by the state Department of Health found.
Hochul is sitting on legislation that would limit how she can leverage public dollars for her own political benefit – despite the ongoing concerns about alleged pay-to-play schemes with donors to her campaign for governor.
The governor signed legislation and announced new funding and steps being taken by state police aimed at curbing the growing black market for the exhaust components coveted by crooks for their resale value.
Mayor Eric Adams said that his “heart goes out” to the family of the armed man fatally shot by cops over the weekend, as well as to the officers who were involved in the shooting.
Adams warned the latest batch of new city cops that the system is working against them, but vowed: “We are going to take out city back.”
Many New Yorkers will have to wait until 8 p.m. to put their trash out on the street under a new proposal from the Adams administration, in a bid to reduce the amount of time the city’s mountains of garbage bags languish on the street before pickup.
The proposal has been in the works for months but only came to fruition after City Hall struck a deal with a prominent union that supported Adams’ election last year but opposed his trash plan.
Adams rolled out a new set of garbage collection rules that he vowed will deliver death to New York City’s rat population — but local building superintendents argued the effort is a weak response to the city’s ballooning rodent crisis.
Adams has proposed three sprawling amendments to the city’s zoning code that he says would transform the Big Apple from a mess of red tape to a “City of Yes.”
Adams pointed the finger at gun violence for driving the surge in city subway homicides — despite firearms only being used in a fraction of underground murders during their historic rise in the past two years.
Adams’ chief tech honcho, Matt Fraser, is being squired around town by an NYPD security detail — prompting political and law enforcement observers to question why he needs one and why taxpayers are footing the bill for it.
The Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs has been a frequent impediment to new street improvements in the first year of Adams’s tenure, stalling bus lanes and bike and pedestrian infrastructure at the behest of the mayor’s political allies or other critics.
Newly arrived asylum seekers are finding that their job options in New York City are limited by federal rules on work permits.
New York City public schools are forming “borough response teams” — leaning heavily on parent volunteers — to address the migrant student crisis.
A fourth woman has been arrested for her role in a bizarre caught-on-video attack by a group clad in green body suits on a Times Square subway train earlier this month.
A man was fatally struck by an oncoming subway train in Queens after he fell onto the tracks during a fight on the platform at rush hour, the police said.
Subway conductors have been directed to alert riders when police officers are aboard trains or on platforms, according to an internal MTA memo.
Ryder, the New York City carriage horse whose collapse in Midtown Manhattan in August was recorded in bystander video that went viral, has died at the farm where he had been retired after his accident.
Bill de Blasio, who long ago plastered the lyrics to Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” on the wall of his NYU dorm room and later served as New York City’s 109th mayor, will return to his alma mater to teach this winter and spring, the school said.
Former NXIVM president Nancy Salzman is no longer part of a civil lawsuit filed by scores of victims of the cult-like organization that she co-founded with Keith Raniere.
Two WNY Black church pastors have sued in federal court to block enforcement of New York’s ban on the carrying of firearms inside houses of worship, citing the need to defend themselves and their congregations against the possibility of attacks.
Votes cast in the unionization effort at an Amazon warehouse in Schodack are set to be tallied today.
A federal judge granted class-action status for Hoosick Falls in a legal battle with DuPont Co., putting the community and one of the world’s largest corporations on a path toward trial over the pollution of public and private water supplies in and around the village.
Schenectady County has agreed to pay $562,500 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a man who suffered severe injuries, including broken bones and a collapsed lung, when he was allegedly beaten by a jail officer nearly two years ago, according to court records.
The grandparents of children found with their dying mother in a McClellan Street home are suing state and local child welfare agencies, as well as the schools the children attended, alleging the organizations ignored obvious signs of abuse and neglect.
The City of Saratoga Springs will soon have a year-round shelter to help people who need emergency housing.
Almost a year and a half after Uncommon Grounds said it would open a cafe in a Stuyvesant Plaza space occupied for nearly four decades by Bruegger’s Bagels, the debut of its fourth location remains a month or more away.
The Sri Lankan writer Shehan Karunatilaka received the Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world, for his second novel, which examines the trauma of his country’s decades-long civil war.
Parler says Kanye West has agreed to buy the libertarian-leaning social network popular with conservatives, the rapper’s latest foray into the debate around free speech.
Embattled actor Kevin Spacey took the witness stand at his Manhattan trial, where he launched into his testimony by revealing his rocky relationship with a “neo-Nazi” father who verbally abused him because he suspected his son was gay.
