Good Friday morning. Welcome to the final Rise and Shine of 2022.
Yes, programming note: We’ll be going dark for the next week, taking some time to reflect and recharge and get ready for the new year.
These past 12 months – the past few weeks, in particular – have been very challenging on a number of levels, personal and professional. I’m looking forward to gearing down a little.
I won’t unplug entirely. I haven’t really done that for any extended period of time since I went trekking in the mountains of Peru, where there was ZERO cell service and I had no choice but to stop checking my phone every five minutes. Once I detoxed, which took a few days, I’ll be honest, it was really quite refreshing.
But I don’t really have the willpower to do that on my own. If there’s connectivity available, I’m going to avail myself of it. But I’ll give it the old college try – at least for a few days.
Since I won’t be checking in with you until 2023, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for indulging me my eccentricities and foibles and odd flights of fancy.
For some reason, unbeknownst to be, people find my early morning musings amusing – or at the very least, diverting. I appreciate the support and the interest and the opportunity to have a platform from which to sound off on whatever happens to strike my fancy that day.
I’m grateful to you – readers and lurkers, alike. And I’d like to give a special shoutout to those of you who take the time to reach out and write an email or a tweet when something I write really strikes your fancy, or really pisses you off. Either way, it’s nice to know that there are folks out there who are reading my silly missives.
I wish you and yours a very happy and healthy holiday season. Stay safe in the Bomb Cyclone. Bundle up. Drive a little slower.
We’re in for some very wild weather. It’s going to be unusually warm (mid50s!), and then unusually cold (high teens!) – all in a span of 24 hours. There’s a wind advisory in effect through 6 p.m. tonight, with gusts of up to 50 miles per hour possible That is VERY windy. There could be power outages, and also things blowing around…be on the lookout.
There’s also a flood watch in effect through early Saturday morning, thanks to an expected combination of heavy rain and snowmelt.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden delivered what the White House called a “Christmas address” yesterday afternoon where he emphasized unity, reflection and kindness as 2022 comes to end.
Biden said he hopes the holidays “will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another” and mark “a fresh start for our nation, because there’s so much that unites us as Americans, so much more that unites us than divides us.”
Early in the new year Biden will deliver a State of the Union speech and roll out his agenda covering the second half of his term, building toward a campaign announcement that could come as early as February.
The Senate approved a $1.7 trillion government funding bill yesterday, sending the legislation to the House, where it is expected to pass in time to beat tonight’s deadline to avert a partial federal government shutdown.
The bill includes across-the-board increases for every federal entity, including the legislative branch, which would see a 16.5% funding boost if the bill becomes law.
Approval of the sprawling package came less than three days after it was unveiled, as lawmakers raced to avert a government shutdown and codify dozens of fiscal and legislative priorities.
The House Jan. 6 committee released its full report on the Capitol attack yesterday, capping 18 months of investigative work.
The report expanded on this summer’s televised hearings, describing in detail what it called former President Donald Trump’s “multipart plan” to overturn the 2020 election.
The voluminous final report from the Capitol attack committee dug deep into the unspoken alliance between Trump allies and far-right groups that showed up to riot.
The Jan. 6 select committee released a transcript of oral testimony from former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson pointing to efforts by lawyers and others in Trump’s orbit to urge her to protect him in her testimony before the committee.
A “shadow committee” of the five House Republicans who were originally nominated to sit on the House Jan. 6 select committee released a counter-report about security failures this week, ahead of the official select committee’s final report.
Trump slammed the final report released by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack last night, calling the it “highly partisan” and accusing the panel of engaging in a “WITCH HUNT.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer delivered his final speech from the House floor as majority leader, reflecting on victories — both bipartisan and Democratic-led — that Congress has notched in his 40-plus years as a member of the lower chamber.
Fresh from presiding over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s joint address to Congress and flanked by a vintage photo of Winston Churchill’s 1941 speech to the chamber, Nancy Pelosi delivered her last news conference as House speaker.
Before the violent attack on her husband in late October, the security of Pelosi’s California home had not been assessed by United States Capitol Police since 2018, Police Chief Thomas Manger said.
Congress voted to expand the U.S. government’s power to prosecute international war crimes suspects in the US, allowing them to be tried in a federal court regardless of the nationality of the victim or the perpetrator, or where the crime was committed.
Life expectancy in the United States has fallen to the lowest levels seen in 26 years, new federal data shows.
Two new reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, found the death rate increased 5.3%, from 835.4 per 100,000 people to 879.7 per 100,000 in 2021.
Biden was wrong to declare the coronavirus pandemic over in the US, one of the country’s leading experts on the virus said.
The Florida Supreme Court will convene a grand jury at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ request to investigate any wrongdoing with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines, the court announced.
The Supreme Court issued an order that impaneled a grand jury for a year and appointed Hillsborough County Circuit Judge Ronald Ficarrotta to preside over it. Grand jury members will be drawn from five judicial circuits.
In addition to the petition for a grand jury, DeSantis announced the creation of a new health advisory committee in the state, called the Public Health Integrity Committee.
As an unprecedented wave of infections rips through China, its state media is deliberately ignoring scenes of crowded hospital wards and packed crematoriums, while officials insist that by the government’s own count, few people are dying of Covid.
Several members of a QAnon group in Japan were sentenced by a Tokyo court for breaking into multiple Covid vaccination centers.
An antiviral drug tested by more than 25,000 vaccinated Covid patients has been found to reduce recovery time from the disease.
At the Post-COVID Care Clinic at Albany Medical Center, which has seen more than 900 patients in the last two years, doctors have been collecting data on long COVID to better understand its causes and develop potential treatments.
Schools across the country are bracing for a spike in Covid-19 and seasonal flu infections heading into winter break, in some cases reinstating mask requirements or canceling classes where cases have risen.
Some of the most widely used decongestants don’t work, several studies have found, prompting doctors and researchers to call for ending sales of the drugs.
Biden warned Americans traveling ahead of the Christmas holiday weekend to be careful and leave early if possible to avoid the massive storm expected to hit several states last night.
“This is not like a snow day when you were a kid,” Biden said. “This is serious stuff.”
Nearly 177 million Americans – or more than half the US population – will await Christmas weekend under wind chill alerts as a major arctic blast plunges temperatures to dangerous levels in much of the country, according to the National Weather Service.
After 2,544 flight cancellations in the US yesterday, another 2,651 flights scheduled for today were already canceled as of 1:45 a.m. ET, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.
That period includes what airlines expected to be the busiest travel times before Christmas Day. More than 16,000 U.S. flights were delayed.
Parts of New Jersey, Maine and Long Island are expected to be swamped by 1 to 3 feet of flooding followed by freezing during peak holiday travel times.
Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for the entirety of New York in preparation for the massive storm that’s forecast to wallop the northeast over the holiday weekend.
In Buffalo, meteorologists warned of a “once-in-a-generation storm.” Lake effect snow is expected to impact areas along Lakes Erie and Ontario beginning tonight and continuing into Monday with total snow accumulations forecast to reach up to three feet.
Commercial vehicles are banned from the Thruway between Exit 46 and the Pennsylvania state line starting at 6 a.m. today.
Hochul nominated a judge considered a centrist moderate, Hector D. LaSalle, to New York’s highest judicial post, triggering opposition from progressives.
If confirmed by the State Senate to a 14-year term, Justice LaSalle would be the first Latino chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, the governor’s office said, and also the first non-white individual to hold the post.
Manhattan Democratic Sen. Brad Hoylman, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said he’s currently undecided on whether LaSalle should be confirmed. A number of his colleagues already indicated they plan to vote “no”.
“LaSalle’s deeply conservative judicial record includes decisions that are anti-abortion, anti-union, and anti-due process,” said Peter Martin of the Center for Community Alternatives. “His decisions make clear that his judicial philosophy is wrong for New York.”
“This is potentially good news. Having a person with a law enforcement background could benefit New York,” said Richard Wells, president of the Police Conference of New York.
Hochul also announced she’s backing LaSalle’s intention to appoint Edwina Richardson-Mendelson as the next chief administrative judge as a replacement for Lawrence Marks, who resigned from his post last month.
Hochul pardoned nine people and commuted the sentences of four others on Wednesday — a year after she last granted several New Yorkers clemency — and pledged to continue to do so “on an ongoing basis,” despite having not done so for a year.
Hochul has named an acting commissioner – Dr. James McDonald, brother of Assemblyman John McDonald – to lead the state Department of Health after current Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett steps down at the end of the month.
State lawmakers returned to Albany for a one-day special session to approve $32,000 annual raises for themselves that will make them the highest-paid state legislators in the nation.
The bill comfortably passed both houses, but the 81-52 vote in the Assembly was closer than expected. The final decision on pay lies with Hochul, who has not officially said she will sign off, though she has previously suggested that a raise was merited.
Critics, including most Republicans, blasted the pay hike as unconscionable and tone deaf amid spiking inflation and recessionary concerns for most New Yorkers. The measure was approved in a largely party-line vote in both chambers.
A law enforcement union blasted the veto of a bill meant to provide stronger pensions for their members, a rejection its leadership stung only more so as state lawmakers returned for a special session to raise their pay by $32,000.
None of the lawmakers gave voice during their debates on the measure to the simmering discontent that has emerged among legislative staffers, who say they work in often grueling conditions.
New York continues to lead the country in population loss and outmigration, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
As the nation ages, immigration emerges as a key driver of population growth. And Texas and Florida continue to gain residents, while New York and California continue to lose them.
Hochul’s administration is trying to weigh what to do with a dozen former prison sites scattered around New York that remain vacant.
Insurance companies will be required to cover pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis as a means to preventing HIV infection under a law signed into law by Hochul.
Representative-elect George Santos broke his silence yesterday, vowing that he would come forward next week to address questions surrounding his background, as House GOP leadership continues to be silent about the issue.
“To the people of #NY03 I have my story to tell and it will be told next week. I want to assure to everyone that I will address your questions and that I remain committed to deliver the results I campaigned on; Public safety, Education & more,” Santos tweeted.
Even some Santos allies are calling on the politician to step forward and either verify or explain the misleading aspects of the biography he ran on.
Santos appears to be the subject of a previously unacknowledged Sept. 2019 divorce with a woman in Queens County, New York. The divorce—which Santos has not discussed publicly—adds new uncertainty to his already shaky biographical and political claims.
Nassau County Republican Committee Chairman Joseph Cairo suggested his patience with Santos was wearing thin.
The administration of Mayor Eric Adams has hired two more Brooklyn political allies of the mayor — part of a trend that’s seen his friends and supporters awarded top posts this year.
A clash over discretionary funding for nonprofits has become the latest sign of a growing rift between Adams and members of the City Council who will vote whether to approve proposed budget cuts next month.
Adams received a giant painting of himself as an early Christmas gift.
While he’s going out of his way to forge a close relationship with Hochul, Adams teed off on state legislative leaders this week, expressing frustration that they rebuffed some of his top requests during bare-knuckle state budget negotiations this year.
MSG Entertainment, the owner of the arena and Radio City Music Hall, has put lawyers who represent people suing it on an “exclusion list” to keep them out of concerts and sporting events and used facial recognition technology to ID them.
A lawyer who’s suing Madison Square Garden for barring him from entering the venues it owns got to see Jerry Seinfeld at the Beacon Theater — by disguising himself with a scruffy beard and a baseball cap.
Bling bishop Lamor Whitehead is embroiled in a nasty real estate battle with another church, and booted its congregation out of a house of worship just days before Christmas.
The Central Warehouse has a new owner. Albany County signed over the hulking warehouse to one of the two developers – Redburn and Columbia Development- planning a $100 million overhaul of the region’s biggest eyesore.
“No one’s done it and it needs to be done, it’s just sitting here,” Jeff Buell, Principal of Redburn Development, said. “It’s decaying and I don’t know how we can grow as a region when you look at this every day.”
Buell promises to eventually transform the derelict warehouse into a mixed-use residential-commercial space and a rooftop restaurant.
In an effort to keep up with surging shopping demands, Crossgates Mall is ringing in the new year with expanded hours.
An engineering review of the Troy Atrium Redevelopment project will determine what impact the proposal to build 100 apartment units will have on the city-owned portion of the atrium, where the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market currently has its winter home.
A longtime PR executive, Todd Shapiro, is opening a new memorabilia-filled restaurant that he hopes will deliver Albany out of its “sleepy” post-pandemic slump by attracting the Capitol’s power-hungry movers and shakers.
The Revolution Rail Co. and Open Space Institute have entered into an agreement that in the long haul could create a recreational trail on the old Saratoga and North Creek Railway line that connects North Creek with the Town of Newcomb.
Egg prices are hitting records, driven by an avian-influenza outbreak that has killed tens of millions of chickens and turkeys this year across nearly all 50 states.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former cryptocurrency executive, was granted release from federal custody in a Manhattan court under highly restrictive bail conditions, including a $250 million bond secured by his parents’ interest in their California home.
Barry Feinstein, who led a New York City Teamsters local, rose to labor and political power in the city and the state representing municipal workers over 25 years, but was toppled by corruption charges and banished from his union for life, died at 87.
