Good morning. It’s Friday and I am more than grateful for that.
It’s also a holiday: Veterans Day, which is held each year on the anniversary of the end of WW I to honor those who have served in the U.S. armed forces.
Fighting in the war ended on 11 a.m., Nov. 11, 1918 (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month). The day became known as “Armistice Day.” In November 1919, then-President Wilson proclaimed the first commemoration of Armistice Day with the following words:
“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”
It wasn’t until 1938 that Congress passed legislation to make the day a legal holiday, which was also supposed to be dedicated to the cause of world peace (didn’t quite work out that way, unfortunately). In 1954, at the urging of veterans service organizations, Congress struck the word “Armistice” and replaced it with “Veterans” to honor ALL those who served in ALL conflicts, not just WW I.
I’m going to try to do less work today, though I will be working. This week took a lot out of me. It started with the elections, and stretched on endlessly – it seemed – into election fallout. And then there was yesterday, which hit a new low in terms of things going wrong for me. I got lost, left my wallet at a Thruway rest stop, and came within mere inches of running out of gas.
First world problems, I know. But you try holding meetings for four hours in a Roy Rogers with dodgy WiFi and tell me how you feel – if and when you manage to get the stake french fry grease smell out of your clothes.
Anyway. I survived. I am home. The dogs are fed and chewing happily on their respective supposedly destructible chew toys. The house is a disaster because it’s being painted. But on the whole, things are starting to look a lot better.
Let’s talk about something more interesting, shall we? Something like Pocky.
I was first introduced to this unique snack, which is basically a skinny, unsalted breadstick dipped in a sweet candy coating, when I was living in Japan. This combination is, for some reason, irresistibly delicious.
And also, the fact that the treat comes in a neat box that opens on a sort of hinge makes it even more fun to eat. (Actually, it looks like they changed the box to a more standard version, which is sad).
The Japanese have a strong love of dessert, including both a traditional version of sweets known as wagashi, made using ingredients like red bean paste and mochi, and also their own unique take on more Western-style desserts. (The Japanese are also known for their obsession with very expensive, high-end fruit, some of which is packaged like jewels…but that’s a topic for a different post).
Buying Pocky at the corner store after school is one of my favorite memories of living in Japan, which, granted, was a very long time ago. I was only about seven years old, and so all the shrines and art and probably even some sushi was lost on me.
But the Pocky? Oh yeah, that I remember. I also remember the Baskin Robbins that was around the corner from our apartment.
The true magic of Pocky is that the candy coating doesn’t come all the way up the breadstick, so the candy has a built-in handle for consuming, mess-free.
Chocolate and strawberry are the most common flavors, but you can also find cookies & cream, salty vanilla, Matcha green tea, and chocolate banana. I have also seen nutty almond, honey butter, mango, chocolate mint, cherry and double berry, though some of these are limited edition.
Today, for no particular reason I can determine, is Pocky Day. Though this used to be a delicacy, I understand you can now find it pretty much anywhere – even Walmart. So seek some out and treat yourself. It was a tough week. You deserve it.
You probably could do with a little pick-me-up today, since it’s going to rain. (Also tomorrow, which is a bummer). But it will be fairly warm, with temperatures in the mid-60s. Enjoy it while you can, because looking ahead I see the dreaded word “snow” in the forecast – just showers, but still, yuck – and also temperatures dipping into the 40s. Brrrr.
In the headlines…
A U.S. judge in Texas blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to provide millions of borrowers with up to $20,000 apiece in federal student-loan forgiveness — a program that was already on hold as a federal appeals court in St. Louis considers a separate lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, a Trump appointee, ruled that Biden’s debt relief program is “an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power and must be vacated.”
The Biden administration maintains Congress gives secretary of education the power to broadly discharge student loan debt though the 2003 HEROES Act. But Pittman says the law does not provide the executive branch clear congressional authorization.
The enduring expense of higher education has reached Olympian heights. Nonprofit agencies are trying to offer some modest forms of relief.
Biden will discuss a range of geopolitical challenges next week in his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping since he ascended to the White House two years ago.
Biden hopes his stops at a climate meeting, a gathering of Southeast Asian nations in Cambodia and a high-stakes Group of 20 summit on the island of Bali will assert American leadership in areas former President Trump either ignored or actively shunned.
The White House will propose a rule requiring large federal contractors to develop carbon reduction targets and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, leveraging the federal government’s purchasing power to combat climate change in the private sector.
Democrats grew increasingly optimistic that they would hold on to their control of the Senate as votes were counted in Arizona and Nevada, after chalking up vital victories in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and watching the race in Georgia head to a runoff.
The elections chief in Las Vegas, NV defended the pace of vote-counting in the city and surrounding county of 1.3 million registered voters, saying the state legislature had laid out a methodical process that takes time.
Republicans remained on track to take the House majority, helped by pickups in New York. But with dozens of races still outstanding and successful defenses by Democrats in some districts, their expected gains had narrowed significantly.
Republicans’ weaker-than-expected performance in the midterms has complicated House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s path to becoming the next speaker of the House and created potential headaches if he does get the top job.
Unlike the Tea Party movement in 2010, the pro-Trump grass roots proved to be more liability than asset when it came to winning elections in 2022.
The narrative that voters had largely rejected candidates aligned with Trump and his rejection of the 2020 election was shattered in New York, a solidly liberal state where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans.
Trump released a statement slamming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for being an “average” governor and “playing games” amid a wave of positive press for DeSantis following the midterm elections.
A longtime Trump Organization senior executive painted himself as a lowly accountant who followed the boss’s orders and kept his head down, unaware he was engaging in rampant tax fraud.
A federal judge in Florida imposed sanctions against a group of lawyers for Trump who handled a sprawling lawsuit that accused Hillary Clinton and a range of Trump’s perceived enemies of a vast conspiracy against him.
U.S. worker filings for unemployment benefits rose last week but remained near historically low levels, in a sign many employers continue to hold on to their employees.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 225,000 last week, the Labor Department said. That is close to the pre-pandemic 2019 weekly average of 218,000, when the labor market was also strong.
Meanwhile, continuing claims, a measurement of the number of unemployed individuals who qualify for unemployment benefits, unexpectedly moved up to 1.493 million from 1.487M in the prior week.
Repeat COVID-19 infections could lead to severe health consequences, including organ failure and even death.
A study from Washington University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care system found people who were infected numerous times were twice as likely to die and three times more likely to be hospitalized than those who had it once.
In a so-called natural experiment, two Boston school districts maintained masking after mandates were lifted in others, enabling a unique comparison. The bottom line: Masking mandates were linked with significantly reduced numbers of Covid cases in schools.
Mayor Eric Adams blamed progressive activists for his party’s spotty performance in New York’s midterm elections, infuriating fellow Democrats who say his finger-pointing is factually dubious and plays into the hands of Republicans.
Democratic Congressional Campaign chairman Sean Patrick Maloney blamed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s poor performance at the top of the ticket for the loss of four House seats in New York.
Maloney said that he and other New York Democrats were unable to overcome suburban fears of crime. He also had some harsh words for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Ocasio-Cortez said Democrats should not have adopted “Republican narratives on crime and safety,” and need to abandon “pure moderate” approaches. She also blamed ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo for helping set the stage for Democratic losses this year.
Maloney was not supposed to lose. Instead, he has come out of the race as the first chair of either party’s congressional campaign arm to lose a re-election in roughly 30 years.
The face of a red mini-wave in New York on Election Day, Rep.-elect Mike Lawler, who defeated Maloney, says it’s time for the Republican Party to ditch Trump and back another candidate for the White House in 2024.
Cuomo, meanwhile,, said Republican gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin’s strong, yet unsuccessful performance in Tuesday’s election is a “wake-up call” for Democrats.
Hochul offered support for the chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, Jay Jacobs, who was re-appointed to the post by Cuomo and has come under fire after Republicans flipped four House seats statewide in the midterm elections.
Hochul says she is in no rush to change controversial bail laws, despite suggesting she would address the issue early next year during her race against Zeldin.
With Election Day now behind us, there are a host of outstanding issues facing New York’s state government, its economy and its political leadership in Albany.
Millions of dollars in political giving during the governor’s race came from one man who hoped to sway the election. Now good-government advocates are worried this could undermine a key change about to take effect for how campaigns are funded.
A federal judge temporarily blocked New York state cannabis regulators from issuing retail licenses amid a lawsuit by a company that had been denied approval to operate in the state.
The regions impacted by the 29-page injunction are the Finger Lakes, Central New York, Western New York, the Mid Hudson and Brooklyn.
An LLC from Michigan named Variscite NY One Inc. filed a lawsuit that claimed the application process for a CAURD license is in breach of an old commerce clause that blocks states from discriminating against out-of-state residents.
The Seneca Nation of Indians announced plans to open its first nation-operated marijuana shop, or dispensary, just a few blocks from its casino and other properties in downtown Niagara Falls.
Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates NY (EANY), has announced he will be stepping down from the organization at the end of the year.
The city’s controversial migrant tent camp on Randalls Island will soon shut down after standing largely empty since opening less than a month ago, Adams announced.
The decision to close the sprawling structure – dubbed a “Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center” (HERRC) – was outlined in an email to lawmakers. The residents will be moved to the 600-room Watson Hotel on West 57th St.
Three city corrections officers allegedly faked ailments and took sick leave for over a year — in which they raked in their full salaries while actually doing things like traveling, partying, and even writing a comic book, federal prosecutors said.
As New York City’s jails faced a staffing crisis, federal prosecutors said the officers used falsified sick notes and lied about trips to the doctor to avoid going to work.
Paul Haggis, the producer behind films like “Crash” and “Million Dollar Baby,” raped and sexually abused a publicist at his Soho apartment in 2013, according to a jury.
The jury ordered Haggis to pay at least $7.5 million to the woman who accused him of rape, one of several #MeToo-era legal cases that have put Hollywood notables’ behavior on trial. Jurors plan to award additional punitive damages.
Albany’s Hackett Boulevard was temporarily closed yesterday evening due to a structure fire that severely damaged a single-family home, public safety officials said.
An Albany County comptroller’s audit says Sheriff Craig Apple’s use of money seized through criminal investigations violated a state comptroller’s opinion guiding how that money should be spent.
The unopposed Republican candidate for city Commissioner of Public Works appears to have lost to a write-in candidate — who is a DPW employee.
Kingston’s rent guidelines board voted to enact a historic 15 percent rent reduction for tenants who sign one- or two-year leases between Aug. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023, at certain protected properties.
A Connecticut judge ordered internet broadcaster Alex Jones to pay an additional $473 million in punitive damages for making defamatory claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, bringing the total judgment against him in the case to $1.4 billion.
Elon Musk warned employees that the “economic picture” at Twitter is looking “dire,” adding that the social media platform may suffer bankruptcy as it is running on a negative cash flow of several billion dollars.
Musk’s latest attempt to stamp out bots on Twitter backfired spectacularly when the new verification system led to a wave of users impersonating household names.
The White House declined to explain Biden’s call for a federal investigation Musk’s purchase of Twitter on national security grounds after Musk vowed to end partisan censorship on the platform.
In his first communications with Twitter’s staff, the company’s new owner painted a bleak financial picture as more executives resigned.
The divers for a TV documentary plunged deep into the Atlantic Ocean on Feb. 26, hoping to find a search-and-rescue aircraft that had been lost since 1945. Instead, they found a piece of the Challenger, 36 years after the shuttle exploded over the Atlantic Ocean.
Why is the meal between breakfast and lunch so divisive? Contempt for brunch is persistent, but a new show on HBO Max approaches the meal with ambition and optimism.
