Friday, hello. I’ve missed you. It took you so long to get here – a whole week, it feels like.
And now for something completely different…
I don’t know about you, but I didn’t think a heck a lot about llamas for most of my life. I mean, I might have seen one or two at the Catskill Game Farm (RIP), but didn’t get too close out of a concern that I might get spit on. (Apparently, it’s a dominance thing, and they do it mostly to one another).
My life was largely llama-less, and that was completely OK. I didn’t know what I was missing. Then, a few years back, we took a trip to Peru, and llamas were quite literally EVERYWHERE – including on the five-day trek we took into the middle of the mountains.
That experience gave me a whole new appreciation for llamas. They not only carried my bags, but looked good doing it, wearing all manner of colorful yarn tassels and earbobs.
When one is hiking at 15,000+ feet and struggling just to keep enough breath in the body to carry a measly daypack, one really comes to love the pack animal that is hauling one’s sleeping bag and toiletries and other necessities over the mountains with nary a complaint…basically doing it just for pets and pellets.
Granted, they don’t smell all that great, but not ONCE did I get spit on. Not once.
Not even when I was almost forced to share my banana with a too-friendly llama while on the Inca trail, or while scratching a curiously friendly one under the chin at Machu Pichu. (This is unusual, but these llamas see a lot of people, who probably break the rules and feed them, so they aren’t as skittish as would normally be be natural, and good, for them).
It was during the Covid crisis that I really came to appreciate llamas, because, as you might have heard, llamas turned out to be the producers of tiny antibodies that were believed to be effective at diagnosing and combatting the virus (at least one version of it). More on that can be found here.
So, all hail the not-so-humble and potentially life-saving llama, which is celebrating its very own – and much deserved – national day today.
South American camelids – llamas, alpacas, guanacos, and vicuñas- are all relatives of camels. Specifically, llamas are descendants of the Camelop – the first camels that wandered around North America about 40 million years ago and became extinct due in part to the Ice Age, and also the arrival of humans, about 13,000 years ago.
Llamas migrated to South America about 3 million years ago. Early peoples used them for hunting, and also for food. Today, many llamas are domesticated and live largely in high pastures in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.
If you see any llamas today, make sure you thank them for just being on the planet.
I hope you haven’t gotten too used to this unusually un-December-like weather, because it is OVER. The whole weekend will be bringing us temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s, with some snow showers in the forecast on Sunday.
In the headlines…
Russia freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in a high-profile prisoner exchange as the U.S. released notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. But the U.S. failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan, who has been jailed for nearly four years.
President Joe Biden made the “very painful decision” to release a man charged with conspiring to kill Americans to secure the basketball star’s release, a senior administration official said.
In conversations across an array of government channels, Russian officials were clear with their American counterparts: they would release Griner – and only Griner – in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer nicknamed the “merchant of death.”
Biden and his administration faced criticism over the agreement that secured the celebrity basketball player’s freedom but left behind a former U.S. Marine who has been detained in Russia for four years.
Biden announced a near $36 billion federal injection to revive pensions for 350,000 union workers and retirees, money that came from a new program in the sweeping COVID-19 relief bill passed last year.
“It’s about everything you worked for,” Biden said, with union officials standing behind him. “It’s about finding a dignified retirement.”
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would presumably take “a hard look” at launching a 2024 White House bid if President Biden decides not to seek reelection, a top adviser to the 81-year-old socialist said.
The House gave final approval to legislation to mandate federal recognition for same-sex marriages, with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voting in favor of the measure in the waning days of the Democratic-led Congress.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection is considering making criminal referrals to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for former President Trump and at least four other individuals.
The committee is considering criminal referrals against Trump’s former his chief of staff Mark Meadows and at least three other key allies involved in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a person familiar with the matter said.
A federal appeals court brought to an end a special master’s review of sensitive documents the F.B.I. seized from Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, concluding a court fight that delayed the Justice Department’s investigation for nearly three months.
Trump reportedly does not plan to appeal to the Supreme Court a lower court order that put an end to the special master review of documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The main fundraising committee powering Trump’s campaign raised more than $4.1 million online in the two weeks after he launched his 2024 bid. While significant, that sum lags well behind the eye-popping fundraising numbers he has posted in the past.
Biden and Trump are neck and neck among likely voters asked who they would back in the 2024 election, according to polling carried out for Newsweek.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York will make one of his first, most consequential decisions as the incoming Democratic leader: hand-picking who will lead House Democrats’ campaign operation next cycle to try to win back the majority in two short years.
The House overwhelmingly passed an $858 billion defense policy bill that would rescind the Pentagon’s Covid vaccine mandate, pushing past the White House’s objections as lawmakers in both parties united behind another huge increase in military spending.
Military officials and experts are warning it’s a change that could have adverse ripple-effects on military readiness and the ability of service members to deploy around the world.
The Food and Drug Administration expanded eligibility for the updated coronavirus shots to children as young as 6 months old, the latest step to make the retooled doses available to more Americans.
The eligibility rules vary depending on whether children received Moderna’s or Pfizer’s original vaccines as their primary series.
A key partner in Covax, the organization that has led the effort to bring Covid vaccines to poor and middle-income countries, will stop supplying the shots to a huge part of the global population in 2023, and provide them only to the lowest-income nations.
The Florida state legislator who sponsored the bill that became known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill has resigned after he was indicted for pandemic-era loan fraud.
Hospitals are more full than they’ve been throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. But as respiratory virus season surges across the US, it’s much more than Covid that’s filling beds this year.
The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits increased moderately last week, pointing to a still-tight and strong labor market despite growing fears of a recession as the Federal Reserve fights to dampen demand.
Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, rose by 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 230,000 last week, the Labor Department said. That was near the 2019 weekly average of around 218,000 when the labor market was also robust.
The S&P 500 ended higher yesterday, snapping a five-session losing streak, as investors interpreted data showing a rise in weekly jobless claims as a sign the pace of interest rate hikes could soon slow.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver her State of the State address — her first as an elected governor — on Tuesday, Jan. 10.
A federal appeals court panel said New York can continue enforcing a new state law banning guns from “sensitive” places like parks and theaters while the judges consider a legal challenge.
Staffers in the state Senate have started to lock up support from their lawmaker bosses for their unionization efforts as they move closer to filing for recognition.
Hochul signed a bill into law that requires electric space heaters sold in the state to have thermostats, automatic shut-offs, and be certified by a testing and certification body recognized and approved by the DOL’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Hochul signed a bill into law that allows homeowners leasing liquified petroleum gas tanks to receive emergency deliveries from any supplier, helping homeowners keep the heat on during severe weather emergencies and other critical periods.
Sources say Albany lawmakers are discussing voting for a pay raise this month.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie did not rule out calling legislators back to Albany in December to approve a legislative pay raise after he and other Democrats deflected calls for months for a special session over rising crime.
While questions remain about how New York Attorney General Letitia James handled the sexual harassment scandal involving her former chief of staff, there doesn’t seem to be much appetite to order an independent investigation.
Heastie is not calling for an investigation into how James and her office handled investigating allegations against her former chief of staff Ibrahim Khan, who resigned Nov. 22.
“I don’t think I know a better advocate fighting on behalf of women than Tish James,” NYC Mayor Eric Adams said during a press conference. “Tish James is, you know, a real voice in women in leadership, and I think she’s extremely capable of investigating.”
Ibrahim Khan, James’ chief of staff, who resigned after sexual harassment allegations, received a $30,000 salary hike this year — and he’s still on the payroll through year’s end.
Adams announced a plan to combat New York City’s affordable housing crisis by streamlining some of the city’s many rules and requirements that he said have slowed the construction of new homes at a moment when they are desperately needed.
The plan calls for a number of changes focused mainly on reducing bureaucratic obstacles for builders, including eliminating environmental reviews for some residential buildings and simplifying the approval process for many new projects.
Adams announced a “moonshot” goal of creating 500,000 homes over the next decade, though previously declined to set unit-based housing goals, which was a hallmark of the de Blasio and Bloomberg administrations.
Adams expressed support for an effort in Albany to lay the groundwork for Black New Yorkers to receive reparations for slavery — saying specific attention should be paid to still-existing companies that benefitted from slave labor.
Adams is no longer on the hook for a $330 unpaid summons for a rodent infestation at his Brooklyn home, a review of city records shows.
The mayor, who has made his hatred of vermin a political asset, convinced a hearing officer that he had taken sufficient steps to rid his building on Lafayette Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of pests. The case was dismissed.
New York City’s new plan to take more mentally ill homeless people to hospitals against their will if they are deemed a danger to themselves has met its first legal challenge.
The group, which included New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, filed a request for a temporary restraining order that would block the rollout of the policy in an existing Manhattan federal class-action lawsuit.
The Bronx has the highest level of poverty in the state and minorities are twice as likely than white New Yorkers to struggle financially, according to a new report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli.
The state has identified the first location in New York for an officially licensed cannabis shop — at 248 W. 125th Street, across from Harlem’s famous Apollo Theater.
Reporters and editors at The New York Times began a one-day strike yesterday, saying talks between their union and the company had dragged on and showed limited progress.
Kyle Bragg, the president since 2019 of 32BJ-SEIU, a powerful union representing more than 175,000 airport, building and service workers, announced his retirement effective this week after nearly 40 years in the labor movement.
More than 8 acres of land that include the former site of the Armory Garage showroom on Central Avenue in Albany sold for $6 million, the latest step in a planned redevelopment of the property.
The former New World Bistro Bar building in Albany will be getting new life, this time with the Old Daley group as the owner and operator.
Black Lives Matter founder Lexis Figuereo is the subject of a new documentary that chronicles his journey to Saratoga Springs, his road to activism and the often unchronicled moments of what happens when the crowds clear and he grapples with the aftermath.
California-based startup Bleximo is entering into a research and development partnership at the Albany NanoTech Complex.
Albany County wants to hire a consultant to determine how nearly 38 acres of land across from Albany International Airport can be redeveloped.
It took six years for the Albany Housing Coalition to close on a loan for $1.36 million to rehab two row houses along Clinton Avenue in Albany into affordable housing for homeless veterans.
The region’s largest private school by enrollment, Albany Academies, is planning a two-phase capital campaign that will change where it places students on its Albany campus — and begin preparing to raise money for a newly renovated science center.
Doctors at St. Peter’s Health Partners are raising awareness of the hazards of firefighting that they say last long after the blaze has been extinguished.
A former town supervisor in Greene County who tried to scam the state out of nearly $25,000 for work performed on his family business following the devastation of Tropical Storm Irene will not face any time in prison.
Harry and Meghan focused their ire in their Netflix documentary on the tabloids they say have hounded them out of remorseless greed and scarcely concealed racism.
