Good Tuesday morning.
If you’ve been here for a bit you know by now that I am a big fan of animals. I am most partial to dogs, and very afraid of snakes.
Actually, to be completely honest, I don’t feel all that warm and cuddly about anything in the reptile family, though I do understand their importance in the ecosystem. I just prefer that they stay very far away from me…and my dogs.
Keeping this in mind, you probably won’t be terribly surprised to learn that I never watched a lot of Australian zookeeper and environmentalist Steve Irwin’s TV series, “The Crocodile Hunter.”
But I was definitely in the minority. That wildlife documentary series, which Irwin hosted with his wife, Terri, was Animal Planet’s highest-rated series at the time. It also spawned a number of spinoffs and a feature film.
The series ran over 11 years, with 65 episodes over five seasons, ending two years before Irwin’s death, which, even if you were not a big fan, I’m sure you heard something about.
Irwin died as a result of a freak accident that occurred while he was filming a documentary in the Great Barrier Reef in September 2006. He was pierced in the chest by a stingray barb, which poked a hole in his heart and caused him to bleed to death.
He was snorkeling in shallow water at the time, trying to capture footage for a TV program that featured his daughter, Bindi Sue, called “Bindi the Jungle Girl.”
Irwin’s death was one of the few human fatalities caused by a stingray barb. It was apparently caught on video, though that footage has never been released publicly. The documentary in question, Ocean’s Deadliest, was finished without Irwin and aired about four months after his death. It didn’t mention his untimely demise, but did feature a tribute to him at the end.
Irwin’s death caused an international sensation. As a final tribute to their fallen boss, the staff at the Australia Zoo spelled out his signature catchphrase – “Crikey” – in yellow flowers as his truck was driven from the Crocoseum one final time.
Irwin left behind two young children – the aforementioned Bindi, who was eight at the time of her father’s death and named after her father’s favorite female crocodile at Australia Zoo; and her brother, Robert, who was just 2 when Steve Irwin died. The family continues to run the Australia Zoo, and Bindi – like her parents before her – married young.
Her husband, Chandler Powell, was a professional wakeboarder from the U.S. The couple gave birth to their first daughter, Grace Warrior Irwin Powell, in 2021.
Today is Steve Irwin Day, which, true to form, is not held on his birthday or the anniversary of his death, but rather on the birthday of one of his favorite animals – a tortoise from the Galapagos Islands. The Irwin family uses this day to raise money – and awareness – for the Zoo and their conservationist efforts.
As an aside, while I didn’t really follow the Irwin family’s wildlife exploits, I was a BIG ban of Bindi during her appearance on Season 21 of “Dancing With the Stars” in 2015, which she rightfully won.
Another chilly day – not one that crocodiles would likely enjoy – is on tap, with temperatures in the low-to-mid-40s and sunny skies.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden raised objections to China’s actions toward Taiwan in a three-hour meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The face-to-face meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping was a powerful signal to the rest of the world that both leaders can manage ties, according to US trade chief Katherine Tai.
The annual Group of 20 summit began under the shadow of the war in Ukraine and concerns about a possible global recession, as leaders of some of the world’s wealthiest nations and biggest emerging markets push for a coordinated response to the threats.
Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia said that he had tested positive for the coronavirus and that his delegation would cut short its trip to Bali for the Group of 20 summit.
Biden tested negative for Covid-19 ahead of the Group of 20 meetings in Bali, laying to rest concerns of an infection after meeting with Sen, who said he got a positive result.
Biden said that he did not expect Democrats to have enough votes in Congress to be able to pass legislation codifying Roe v. Wade.
Biden’s blunt comments reflected how Democrats’ euphoria over their strength in the midterms will soon collide with the likely reality of divided government in Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer filed for cloture on the Respect for Marriage Act, setting up an initial vote for later this week. Any legislation would require at least 60 votes in the Senate, which is split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
Schumer doesn’t want to mess with what brought Democrats their stunning midterm success. That means more deals — and maybe more House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Biden’s plan to forgive student loan debt for millions of borrowers was handed another legal loss when a federal appeals court panel agreed to a preliminary injunction halting the program while an appeal plays out.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction barring the U.S. Department of Education from erasing student loan debt based on Biden’s executive order in August.
The six-page ruling wasn’t a decision on the legal merits of the Biden plan and turned for now on the preliminary issue of whether any of the six states had legal standing to challenge it.
Republicans are on the precipice of claiming control of the House of Representatives — one seat shy of the 218 seats needed to take power back from the Democrats – thanks in part to a victory in Syracuse.
Brandon Williams, a conservative Republican and an avid Trump supporter, has defended an open Republican seat held by retiring Rep. John Katko, defeating a centrist Democrat, Francis Conole.
The president feels buoyant after the better-than-expected midterms. But as he nears his 80th birthday, he confronts a decision on whether to run in 2024 that has some Democrats uncomfortable.
Katie Hobbs, who as Arizona’s secretary of state stood up to efforts by allies of former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election, has clinched a victory in the state’s race for governor.
A suspect was in custody after three football players were fatally shot on the University of Virginia campus Sunday night, university officials said during a news conference.
The suspected gunman, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr., allegedly shot his classmates, killing three and injuring two, onboard a charter bus Sunday night in a university parking garage, UVA officials said at a news briefing.
Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis and D’Sean Perry died after the gunman opened fire on a bus filled with students returning from a field trip around 10:30 p.m., the school’s president, Jim Ryan, said during a news conference.
Four students at the University of Idaho were found dead near campus in what a local official described as a “crime of passion.”
Moscow police said they are investigating the deaths as homicides, but did not provide any other information about what happened. As of midday, no suspect was in custody. Anyone with information about the case has been asked to contact police.
The Moscow Police does not believe there is an ongoing community risk based on information gathered during the preliminary investigation,” the department said in a release.
The Supreme Court paved the way for the House committee investigating the Capitol attack to obtain phone records of Kelli Ward, the chairwoman of the Arizona Republican Party.
As is its custom in ruling on emergency applications, the court’s brief order gave no reasons in denying Ward’s request that it block a subpoena. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. noted dissents, also without giving reasons.
The F.B.I. had as many as eight informants inside the Proud Boys in the months surrounding the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 raising questions about how much investigators were able to learn from them about the attack both before and after it took place.
Officials from six nations spent more than $750,000 at Trump’s Washington hotel while seeking to influence his administration, renting rooms for more than $10,000 per night, according to documents his former accounting firm gave to Congress.
The Trump family struck a deal with a Saudi-based real estate company to license its name to a housing and golf complex that will be built in Oman, renewing questions about Trump’s mixing of politics and business as he appears poised to announce for 2024.
Lawyers representing Trump and the Justice Department presented dueling views over whether he can shield certain records from his time in office from federal investigators doing a criminal investigation into the potential mishandling of classified documents.
Many House and Senate Republicans recoiled at the idea of Trump launching a third run for the presidency, a sign of his waning support on Capitol Hill after years of controversy and scandal and following their party’s disappointing midterm performance.
Federal prosecutors investigating Rudy Giuliani’s activities in Ukraine have closed their investigation after more than two years and said no criminal charges will be brought.
In a brief letter to the judge overseeing a review of materials seized during a search of Giuliani’s home and office last year, the prosecutors wrote that “based on information currently available to the government, criminal charges are not forthcoming.”
Most Americans want to get back to normalcy and are unwilling to let Covid rule their lives any longer.
A new study by Moderna suggests that its updated coronavirus booster strengthens a key component of the immune system’s defense against the Omicron subvariant that accounted for most infections in the United States in recent months.
The news echoes a similar announcement made earlier this month by American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, about their own bivalent booster shot.
Australian health authorities have recommended against getting a fifth COVID-19 vaccine shot, even as they urged those eligible to sign up for their remaining booster doses as the country’s latest COVID wave grows rapidly.
Whoopi Goldberg was missing from yesterday’s episode of The View after testing positive for COVID for the second time.
Government watchdogs say a new state ethics panel should hold ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo accountable over his $5.1 million payday for a COVID-19 memoir written while he was still on the job and potentially using government staffers and resources.
Gov. Kathy Hochul continued to defend embattled state Democratic Committee Chairman Jay Jacobs amid calls for him to step down after disappointing election results in a handful of key U.S. House races in New York.
Progressives are intensifying their calls for Jacobs to resign as state GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy is expected to step down from his position after his election to Congress.
Hochul did concede that that there is room for rebuilding the party from the ground up to make it the “powerhouse” that it should be.
Housing will be one of if not the most important issue the newly elected governor and state Legislature will confront when the new session opens in January.
GOP leaders say Rep. Lee Zeldin’s breakthrough performance in the New York governor’s race could propel him to the national stage — or least another run for office. He’s being mentioned as a potential RNC chair.
A Central New York judge heard last-minute arguments pushing for delaying the opening of more than 1,200 affidavit ballots that could sway a state Senate race and impact the 22nd Congressional District race.
In New York’s competitive contest for the House of Representatives, only one Democrat managed to break through the Republican wave that washed over the state this election cycle: Pat Ryan in NY-18.
New York state Attorney General Letitia James is backing an effort with 17 state attorneys general to support a bid by a transgender student athlete in Indiana to participate in girls’ K-12 sports.
Dozens of online ammunition dealers are making illegal shipments to New York residents and not keeping records of the transactions, James said.
New York City has lost more than 19,000 full-time employees over the past two years – a high level of municipal staffing decline not seen in more than a decade, according to a new report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office.
New York City had to shutter the Randall’s Island facility built to house the migrants less than a month after it opened, yet Mayor Eric Adams was “baffled” that it wasn’t deemed a success.
Neither Biden nor Hochul have offered to pick up New York City’s $600 million tab for housing the migrants who’ve flooded in from the southern border — because “no one wanted to talk about” it during “campaign season,” Adams said.
Adams was joined by hip-hop luminaries at City Hall to announce a yearlong series of events celebrating 50 years of hip-hop culture.
The mayor, wearing a Run-DMC-style tracksuit, stood with Grandmaster Flash, Slick Rick, the Sugarhill Gang’s Master Gee, Run-DMC founding member Darryl McDaniels and others, as part of a fundraising effort in partnership with the Universal Hip Hop Museum.
One of Adams’ new picks for the city judiciary is a cosplayer who dons shining armor to do battle as a historical re-enactor.
Some building owners, mainly in New York City, are clamping down on electric bicycles after a recent spate of damaging and deadly battery fires.
As inflation has surged, other cities have vaulted past New York’s $15 minimum wage, considered a trailblazer only a few years ago.
Lawyers for people detained on Rikers Island intend to ask a federal judge to take control of the jail complex away from New York City, according to a letter filed with the court, setting the stage for a potentially pivotal hearing this week.
The Legal Aid Society intends to formally ask Manhattan federal Judge Laura Swain to order a receivership of Rikers Island and other city Department of Correction facilities on Dec. 15, arguing it was clear from a recent monitor report the feds need to step in.
The New York City Department of Correction has watered down disciplinary rules against officers accused of misconduct.
A program aimed at improving the city’s response to mental health emergencies has slid backward since its initial launch, with response times getting slower, more people sent to hospitals and stepped-up police involvement in cases.
Members of the Board of Regents debated the value of the Regents exams as part of an overall planned examination of the state testing system and graduation requirements that had been delayed due to the pandemic.
Despite reporting record earnings last week, Saratoga County chipmaker GlobalFoundries is planning company-wide job cuts and a hiring freeze, contributing to uncertainty over if and when it will build a second factory in Malta.
A former Coeymans police officer has been indicted on felony charges alleging he submitted false paperwork to a state agency claiming that four police recruits had undergone the proper field training.
Amazon plans to lay off approximately 10,000 people in corporate and technology jobs starting as soon as this week, people with knowledge of the matter said, in what would be the largest job cuts in the company’s history.
The tech company’s layoffs, which could begin as soon as this week, are targeted for corporate employees and could primarily affect Amazon’s devices business, which includes its hit Alexa products, as well as human resources and retail.
Former “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno suffered “serious burns” to his face over the weekend when a car in his garage reportedly caught fire, but says he’s going to be OK.
John Aniston, a longtime star of the soap opera “Days of Our Lives” and the father of actress Jennifer Aniston, died Friday at age 89, his daughter announced.
