Today is Monday. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. (Unless you’ve gotten a very early jump on your holiday vacationing, in which case, please take your warm and sandy joy somewhere else. Bah humbug).

If you have a serious case of the Mondays already, and feel like you might well be driven to drink later on – Heck, even if you’re planning to get started with a little hair of the dog, after all, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere, as they say – let me give you something to toast to….

On this day in 1933, the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, which repealed the 18th Amendment, and ended the national prohibition of alcohol in this country.

When President Roosevelt issued a proclamation declaring the official end of prohibition, he called on the country to drink responsibly and not abuse “this return of individual freedom,” adding:

“I trust in the good sense of the American people, that they will not bring upon themselves the curse of excessive use of intoxicating liquors, to the detriment of health, morals and social integrity.”

(That hasn’t worked out terribly well, given that alcohol is the leading cause of traffic fatalities and alcoholism is on the rise. I wonder what Roosevelt would have to say about the legalization of cannabis – or, better yet, psychedelics, heroin, and mushrooms).

Interestingly, Utah was the 36th state to ratify the amendment – yes, the same state that has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the country, though that has been slowly changing.

Utah’s 3.2 percent cap on alcohol sold in retail establishments was raised to 4 percent after 86 years in 2019, and also boosted the allowable alcohol content of draft beer sold on tap. If you want something stronger in the Beehive State, you’ve got to buy it from liquor stores operated by the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

This was a big deal for Utah, but 4 percent is still far below the national average of 12.4 percent ABV.

But, I digress. And no, I have NOT been drinking. Where were we again? Oh, yes, prohibition.

The 18th Amendment was ratified on Jan. 16, 1919, and the country went dry (officially speaking) at midnight on Jan. 17, 1920. Thirteen years is a very long time for a so-called “noble” experiment that turned out to be a complete failure – not to mention very violent.

Not only did prohibition do very little to curb the sale, production and consumption of alcohol, it enabled organized crime to flourish and robbed the government of tax revenue, which became a really big problem by the time the Great Depression set in.

Prohibition was initially undertaken in a misguided effort to reduce violence, improve public health, ease the tax burden of prisons and poorhouses, and address various other societal ills. It was spurred by the temperance movement, as a number of states started passing local laws designed to cut alcohol consumption.

Other factors: Religious fervor, a desire to stave off accidents on the job as industrial production increased, and finally, in 1917, a temporary ban on the production of alcohol during WW I in order to preserve grain for food.

That also happened to be the year that Congress submitted the 18th Amendment, which banned the manufacture, transportation and sale of “intoxicating liquors”, for state ratification.

And thus launched the Roaring Twenties, with speakeasies, bootlegging, bathtub gin, flappers, moonshine, and gang violence.

Toward the end of the decade, support for prohibition was waning, in part because extremists took control of the temperance movement and alienated more moderate supporters. But also because, well, as mentioned above, the country really needed the tax revenue and jobs that legal alcohol sales produced.

Despite passage of the 21st Amendment, some states kept their prohibition laws on the books. The last state to repeal its local laws was Mississippi, which remained legally dry until 1966.

The U.S. alcohol market is today worth about $261 billion, and it’s expected to grow at a health rate of 10 percent a year for the foreseeable future. The largest segment of the market is, not surprisingly, beer, at about $111.5 billion. And while that total seems like a lot, it’s nothing compared to the $319.8 billion worth of booze sold in China in 2022.

‘Tis the season when a lot of alcohol consumption takes place. In fact, the average American doubles his, her, or their drinking between Thanksgiving and New Years.

I know it’s kind of annoying for a teetotaler like myself to remind you…but please drink responsibly. And if anyone has any experience with adaptogenic drinks that claim to make you feel drunk but without the hangover, let me know.

We’ll start out with sunny skies this morning, with clouds moving in during the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the mid-40s.

In the headlines…

President Joe Biden welcomed the 2022 Kennedy Center honorees at the White House as he highlighted the importance of protecting democracy.  This year’s honorees are George Clooney, Amy Grant, Gladys Knight, composer Tania Leon, and U2.

Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, made his first public appearance at the Kennedy Center Honors after being brutally attacked in late October.

The November midterms broadened the party’s bench for potential presidential contenders, though none have said they would challenge Biden if he runs.

After more than a year of high inflation, many consumers are finally starting to catch a break. Even apartment rents and car prices, two items that hammered millions of household budgets this year, are no longer spiraling out of control.

Iowa’s prominence in the Democratic presidential nomination process appears almost certain to be diminished following a decision by a powerful DNC panel to take away its leadoff role in the party’s presidential nominating process, a slot it has held since 1972.

New proposed changes to the Democratic presidential primary calendar effectively give the Midwest “the middle finger,” Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said.

Elon Musk is stoking controversy on a new front, this time revealing sensitive internal deliberations at Twitter around Hunter Biden’s personal computer files in the fall of 2020.

By the time the dust settled Saturday, even some conservatives were grumbling that it was a dud. Musk’s Twitter Files produced no smoking gun showing that the tech giant had bent to the will of Democrats.

A release of internal documents from Twitter set off intense debates in the intersecting worlds of media, politics and tech.

Musk said Apple Inc. has “fully resumed” advertising on Twitter Inc., further de-escalating a brewing war between two of the world’s most influential tech companies. 

Twitter Inc. again suspended Kanye West’s account after the musician and designer posted a swastika in a tweet that the social-media platform’s owner, Musk, said violated its rules.

Biden on Friday denounced antisemitism and urged other political leaders to do the same.

“I just want to make a few things clear: The Holocaust happened,” Biden tweeted. “Hitler was a demonic figure. And instead of giving it a platform, our political leaders should be calling out and rejecting antisemitism wherever it hides.”

Dov Hikind, a prominent Jewish leader in Brooklyn, endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2020. After Trump’s recent dinner with two prominent promoters of anti-Semitic rhetoric, Hikind said he won’t support Trump again. He’s not alone.

Democrats condemned the call by Trump to throw out the Constitution, saying it was a “dangerous” effort by the former president to make himself “dictator.”

Nick Fuentes, the far-right agitator whose recent dinner with Trump and West stirred up controversy, got into a food fight early Saturday morning with patrons at an In-N-Out Burger in LA.

Trump approved a key aspect of a tax fraud scheme orchestrated by several top executives at his family business, prosecutors said on Friday in their closing arguments at the company’s trial, an explosive claim as the jury prepares to deliberate next week.

Lara Trump’s tenure with Fox News has come to an end. The wife of Eric Trump will no longer be a paid contributor for the network as her father-in-law, Donald Trump, runs again for president.

Moscow insisted it would not sell oil subject to a price limit agreed upon by the Group of 7 nations, even if it means cutting production, adding to questions over whether the plan, which goes into effect today, will succeed in slowing its Ukraine war effort.

A senior Iranian official said this that Iran had abolished the morality police, the state media reported, after months of protests set off by the death of a young woman who was detained by the force for supposedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress laws.

Iran’s attorney general also said the country is considering altering the requirement that women cover their heads in public, a move that analysts said was aimed at peeling away support for antigovernment protests.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has tested positive for Covid-19 after a routine PCR test.

Biden’s administration is mulling a proposal from Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to repeal the U.S. military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, the White House said.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he wants to keep the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place to protect the health of the troops, as Republican governors and lawmakers press to rescind it.

A post-Thanksgiving uptick in Covid-19 patients at U.S. hospitals is arriving even as health systems contend with waves of feverish, coughing people stricken with RSV and influenza infections.

When Covid-19 struck, the U.S. government gave hospitals tens of billions of dollars to help them cope with the strains of the pandemic. Many of the hospitals didn’t need it.

Local authorities across China are paring back some of their strictest Covid-19 control measures, just days after public anger spilled over into rare protests against a zero-tolerance approach that has kept the country largely isolated for three years.

The world’s harshest Covid restrictions exemplify how Xi Jinping’s authoritarian excesses have rewritten Beijing’s longstanding social contract with its people.

State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett unexpectedly announced Friday she will leave her job after just over one year running the state responses to COVID-19 and monkeypox under Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Bassett, whose resignation is effective Jan. 1, said she plans to return to her previous work at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health as Hochul begins her first four-year term as governor. 

Former New York Gov. David Paterson said that he’s changed his mind, and now believes the Empire State should consider bringing back its “three strikes” law to help combat crime in the Big Apple.

The three most liberal judges on the Court of Appeals all applied for the vacant position of chief judge but were excluded from the shortlist by the state panel that reviews applications, according to multiple sources. 

Many school leaders statewide are envisioning a brighter future without mandatory Regents exams, now that the state Board of Regents has said it is willing to consider changing high school graduation requirements.

Ibrahim Khan, the longtime chief of staff to state AG Letitia James, has resigned amid an investigation into misconduct, and three people with knowledge of the matter said it involved at least two sexual harassment allegations.

James is facing calls to provide more details about an internal sexual harassment investigation that led to Khan’s resignation.

Republican Assemblyman Colin Schmitt called for a formal State Assembly investigation into James’ handling of allegations of sexual misconduct involving her longtime chief of staff.

The two allegations were brought to the attention of James’ re-election campaign one month prior to this year’s Nov. 8 general election. 

James covered up sexual harassment allegations against her own chief of staff for political purposes rather than pursuing the claims with the same zest she put into her probe of now ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, charged.

Speaker Carl Heastie is directing the Assembly’s judiciary committee to determine whether Republican Assembly Member-elect Lester Chang established residency in Brooklyn for at least a year prior to last month’s election, as, required by law.

Advocates for low-paid workers and business groups are poised for a major clash over a proposal that would significantly boost the minimum wage throughout the state.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ first extended foreign trip since assuming office seemed as much of a vacation as an official trip for city business — and, to his credit, he had made no pretense about that.

Adams says his twin friends, Johnny and Robert Petrosyants, who run his favorite restaurant, have put their troubled pasts behind them. Some of their former business partners disagree.

The Big Apple’s priorities when co-hosting the next World Cup must include figuring out how best to transport fans from all over the globe and entertain them, Adams said.

The United States saw its weaknesses exploited in a 3-1 loss to the Netherlands. But after a solid showing and with a young team brimming with promise, the best may be yet to come.

Adams, who’s made no secret of his hatred for rodents and is actively seeking a rat czar to eradicate New York City’s growing problem, has an unpaid summons since May for a rat infestation at the Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, rowhouse he owns.

More than 10,000 Airbnb listings for short-term rentals in New York City are likely to disappear when tight new housing rules take effect next year, says the Adams administration official tasked with enforcing the forthcoming regulations.

The skepticism was swift and citywide, from police precincts to emergency rooms and EMS ambulances, when Adams rolled out his new plan to force the mentally-ill into medical treatment.

Adams’ push to remove from the streets people who have untreated mental illness may trigger legislation to increase available hospital beds and provide for lengthier stays, officials said.

Brooklyn Councilman Ari Kagan is expected to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican today, and announce a general election challenge against one of his Democratic colleagues, Justin Brannan.

Bank of America is demanding a judge force Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to pay up on the more than $600,000 he owes on a Brooklyn rental property, or put the property on the auction block, according to the latest filings in a years-long foreclosure battle.

Three of the nonprofits awarded state licenses to legally sell cannabis ironically offer substance abuse services — or mandate sobriety for participants.

NYPD top cop Keechant Sewell suggested she’s faced belittling sexism and second-guessing by those who “don’t know any better” in a fiery speech last month to the Policewomen’s Endowment Association.

Police brass have ordered cops to attach stickers emblazoned with the letters “NYPD” to their work phones to try to curb personal calls and texting on duty, but some officers are saying where they can stick it.

A New York judge on Friday sharply criticized the Manhattan district attorney for declining to move forward with the murder trial of a woman who was arrested in 2020 after her estranged husband died of a stab wound, while reluctantly dismissing the case.

A former Queens man who served more than 25 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in one of New York City’s most notorious murders will receive nearly $18 million in settlements with the city and the state, his lawyer said on Friday.

Kew Gardens is turning into Weed Gardens, with another unlicensed cannabis shop brazenly opening up in the tidy Queens neighborhood.

Apparently, the Hudson Valley is where aging rockers go to reinvent themselves.

Officials with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating mail theft associated with a package sent by the campaign of U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, which said it lost nearly $20,000 in the theft of four packages during the course of the recent campaign cycle. 

Five months after ending their partnership with Greyhound bus lines, Trailways of New York and the affiliated Peter Pan line have moved their Albany stop from the bus terminal at 34 Hamilton St. to 66 Green St., about a two-minute walk away.

Quality assurance workers at Blizzard Albany, formerly Vicarious Visions, won their bid to unionize Friday after the video game development company tried to delay the vote.

The Capital Region’s largest insurance provider and the St. Peter’s network of hospitals on Saturday said they reached a contract “agreement in principal” as a key date for coming to terms approached.

Baseball’s 16-person Contemporary Eras Committee unanimously voted the slugging first baseman Fred McGriff into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens each received less than four votes in their first appearance in front of the committee.