Good Tuesday morning.
I know we’re in full holiday countdown mode now, but in some parts of the world they’re already celebrating.
Today, is St. Lucia’s Day – the festival of lights observed in Sweden, Norway and Swedish-speaking parts of Finland that honors one of the earliest Christian martyrs, (also sometimes known as St. Lucy), who was killed by the Romans in 304 CE in Syracuse, as a result of her religious beliefs.
St. Lucy/Lucia gained a fast following as the patron saint of virgins, (she had vowed never to marry and to remain a virgin in the tradition of St. Agatha, which caused a pissed off suitor to report her to the Roman authorities, or so the story goes), and also of the city in which she was killed.
Later, she became known as the patron saint of sight and/or the blind, and was often depicted by medieval artists carrying a dish containing her own eyes.
She reportedly either plucked out her own beautiful eyes to avoid being married to a pagan OR had them removed by force as part of her martyrdom. God reportedly then gave her new eyes.
Legend has it that St. Lucy/Lucia brought food to Christians who were hiding in the Roman catacombs, and wore a candle-lit wreath on her head to light her way, which, naturally, left her hands free to carry more provisions.
In Scandinavia, St. Lucy is known as Santa/Sankta Lucia, (starting to see a bit of a theme here?), and wears a white dress with a red sash, symbolizing, alternately, a baptismal robe and the blood of her martyrdom. She also wears that signature candle wreath atop her head, or, in a bit of a more sane and safe approach, carries a lit candle.
It’s traditional for girls (usually the eldest female member of the household) to dress up as St. Lucia and process while bearing coffee and baked goods like saffron buns known as “lussekatter” and ginger biscuits to other members of the family and visitors.
In some communities, boys also take part in the procession, wearing white pajama-like garments. Everyone sings traditional songs.
This marks the start of the Christmas season and is meant to bring light and hope at the darkest time of the year. (Ancient people used to celebrate by lighting big bonfires to keep the darkness at bay).
Winter Solstice, by the way, which will be the shortest day of the year, is right around the corner – 4:47 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 21.
It is starting to feel truly like winter. Gone are those balmy 50-something degree days, replaced by 30-something degrees. At least we’ll have sunny skies…for several days, it looks like, before the next round of yucky precipitation heads our way.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden has a tough task ahead of him when he convenes African leaders in Washington, D.C. today: woo them away from China.
The family of former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan yesterday met with Biden administration officials amid renewed calls to release the detained American from Russian custody.
WNBA player Napheesa Collier said that she doesn’t plan to play overseas for the foreseeable future in the aftermath of WNBA star Griner’s recent detention in Russia.
The House and Senate are expected to pass a short-term extension to avert a government shutdown at the end of the week, which would give negotiators more time to try to secure a broader full-year funding deal.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that senators should be prepared to take “quick action” on a one-week extension to give lawmakers more time to negotiate.
The government will partially shut down starting Saturday if Congress doesn’t act to extend funding. Government departments are funded through a so-called continuing resolution, or a CR, that runs through Dec. 16.
Lawmakers are struggling to reach bipartisan agreement on a year-end tax deal, and businesses and antipoverty advocates both look unlikely to get what they want.
U.S. stocks jumped yesterday, with investors anticipating softer inflation and a smaller interest-rate increase from the Federal Reserve this week.
When inflation was hitting 40-year highs, Fed officials were unanimous that rates needed to rise aggressively. Now cracks are beginning to emerge among them over how stubborn inflation has become and what they should do about it.
The founder and former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested in the Bahamas and will be indicted in the U.S. as soon as this morning, according to U.S. and Bahamian authorities.
The attorney general for the Bahamas said in a statement that the Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested Bankman-Fried after notification from the U.S. of pending criminal charges against the ex-billionaire, noting that the U.S. is “likely” to request extradition.
Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, who teach at Stanford Law School, are under scrutiny for their connections to their son’s crypto business.
The Justice Department won’t seek the death penalty against a Libyan explosives expert charged with assembling the device that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, a federal prosecutor told a judge.
Two organizations quietly spent $32 million in last month’s midterm elections on organizing meant to combat election denialism and promote voting access, according to a progressive strategist behind the effort.
A Florida federal judge who sided with former President Donald Trump officially withdrew from the Mar-a-Lago documents case, clearing the way for prosecutors to proceed with the explosive probe.
Judge Aileen Cannon formally dismissed the case, which Trump brought to challenge the evidence collection and in which she appointed special master Raymond Dearie to make recommendations on whether prosecutors could access evidence.
The judge’s order came four days after Trump declined to appeal a higher-court ruling that canceled the appointment of a special master to review the thousands of items taken by federal agents during an Aug. 8 raid of Trump’s Florida residence.
Special counsel Jack Smith has sent grand jury subpoenas to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and to Nevada authorities bringing to six the number of 2020 battleground states where state or local election officials have received requests.
The subpoena asks Raffensperger to provide documents; it is not a request for him to appear or testify in person, said a source familiar with the matter. His lawyers are “weighing options” about a timeline to respond, the source said.
Trump has suggested that Democrats “wanted” the January 6 riot to happen, ahead of the select committee ruling on possible criminal referrals.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was only joking when she boasted that extremists would have been armed and would have “won” the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol if she had led the attempted insurrection.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy is being dragged into a new row set off by Greene as Democrats seek to tie the would-be GOP Speaker to the firebrand lawmaker’s remarks that Jan. 6 rioters would have been armed if she had been their organizer.
Trump is planning to release a book next year showcasing his private correspondence with past and present celebrities and international icons.
Chinese hospitals scrambled to contain emerging outbreaks across the country as authorities rolled back more than two years of coronavirus controls.
Hong Kong is ending some of its last pandemic restrictions on people arriving in the city, in a further rolling back of virus controls as China rapidly unwinds its zero-Covid policy.
The infectious disease climate in the U.S. right now is not a picture of Covid’s going away, but of its falling in line alongside other endemic respiratory illnesses in the fall and winter.
The 9/11 Commission prompted a national reckoning over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But some experts fear the chance to create an independent panel to investigate the pandemic response is slipping away.
The Covid-19 vaccines have kept more than 18.5 million people in the US out of the hospital and saved more than 3.2 million lives, a new study says – and that estimate is most likely a conservative one, the researchers say.
The US is nearing the second anniversary of its first Covid-19 vaccinations, and although the coronavirus is still causing thousands of illnesses and deaths, the vaccines have made living with the virus more manageable.
SAG-AFTRA is surveying members about the industry’s Covid vaccination mandate in advance of the Jan. 31 expiration of the Covid protocols, per an oft-extended agreement between the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers and Hollywood’s unions.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” director James Cameron wasn’t in attendance yesterday’s premiere for the film in Los Angeles after testing positive for Covid-19.
The Department of Health and State Education Department issued a joint letter to New York schools urging them to take necessary precautions to stop the spread of COVID, the flu and RSV.
Purchase College said in a statement that “We are currently in an area of high transmission. Masks are mandatory indoors.”
Drug stores across New York City are struggling to keep Children’s Tylenol and other medicines on their shelves as a tripledemic of RSV, COVID and influenza surge across the five boroughs.
The New York State Department of Health says a state of emergency is “no longer necessary” to battle polio following its unexpected reappearance in New York this year.
New York’s new gun law remains intact, at least temporarily, after a federal appeals court paused a lower court’s ruling blocking a key section that bans firearms in parks, in public transit systems and on private property, without the property owner’s permission.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a new statewide Hate and Bias Prevention Unit, nested within the state Division of Human Rights, that will educate people across New York on how to spot behavior that could lead to hate crimes.
Local and national leaders, including Hochul and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, gathered at Lincoln Square Synagogue on the Upper West Side to address recent anti-Semitic attacks and how to achieve safety and security in Jewish communities.
“New York State will use every tool at its disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our communities,” Hochul said. “We will not let the rise in hate incidents that we see happening online, across the country and across the world, take root here at home.”
Victims of hate crimes no longer have to fear retaliation from their insurance companies under a new law in New York.
State education officials called for increasing spending for schools by $3.4 billion as state lawmakers and Hochul prepare to negotiate the state budget in the coming weeks.
Hochul has signed legislation into law that replaces the word “alien” in state statutes with the politically correct term “noncitizen,” which was proposed by Democratic lawmakers.
New York state is launching a multi-agency effort to boost the agriculture sector, with an eye toward reviewing how farms are dealing with transportation, labor and housing issues.
Another man who worked for state Attorney General Letitia James was quietly bounced for allegedly harassing women in the office.
Assemblyman-elect Lester Chang insists Brooklyn has always been his home borough despite residency questions raised by Democrats running the chamber.
Sen. Zellnor Myrie wants to make it easier for New Yorkers to sue oil and gas companies and collect civil damages based on the damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions. And to do it, he’s proposed a bill that is modeled after an anti-abortion law in Texas.
A bill introduced in the state Legislature would ban New York employees and contractors from downloading TikTok onto government-issued electronics out of fear of Chinese espionage.
Long Island gang members who love to boast they’re “Everybody Killers’’ unleashed a reign of terror that included the shooting outside Rep. Lee Zeldin’s home — and even the theft of French bulldogs to fund their crimes, authorities said.
Deadly fentanyl is being found in illicit drugs like heroin, cocaine and illegally manufactured pills, public health officials in New York warned this month.
The Adult Survivors Act, which sought to provide the same window for people aged 18 or older when their abuse occurred, has seen less than two dozen cases filed in the first two weeks, according to the state Office of Court Administration.
Adams has lost roughly 53 percent, 60 percent, and 57 percent on his first three paychecks by receiving them in bitcoin.
Adams was among several dozen city officials who recently took a proprietary personality test created by global consulting firm Deloitte.
New York City’s public libraries may have to cut staff, hours, branches and programming as they face potential multi-million-dollar budget cuts in Adams’ plan to curtail city spending.
Nearly 20 months after allegations of unwanted sexual advances derailed his campaign for New York City mayor, Scott Stringer sued one of his accusers for defamation, arguing that she smeared his reputation with falsehoods and misrepresentations.
Stringer, a former NYC comptroller, said allegations of unwanted sexual advances from onetime associate Jean Kim had done “irreparable harm to him and his political future.”
An entrance to Central Park will be named the Gate of the Exonerated, for the teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of a crime that triggered a national conversation on racial injustice.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is shelling out $1 million per month on private security guards who are posted at subway station turnstiles to deter fare evasion, an agency honcho said.
The New York City Housing Authority finalized a voting plan to allow developments to opt into a source of funding for much-needed fixes, slightly revising the rules after receiving public comments in the fall.
A group of Brooklyn hospitals that serves patients in some of New York’s poorest neighborhoods has been battling the consequences of a cyberattack that forced some critical services offline.
Police investigators were seeking an 18-year-old man after a 16-year-old girl was found with a fatal stab wound to her neck inside an apartment building in Harlem just after 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, the police said.
James Cahill, the former head of a powerful construction trade union association, and 10 others pleaded guilty to a bribery scheme that involved clandestine cash payoffs in restaurant bathrooms, federal prosecutors said.
Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani closed the book on his third divorce without ending up behind bars.
Judith Giuliani’s claims that her former husband owes her $260,000 under a divorce agreement is “faulty,” a Manhattan judge found as he attempted to wrangle the feuding exes during a chaotic court hearing.
Employees at the swanky Starbucks Reserve Roastery flagship on Manhattan’s 9th Avenue ended a seven-week strike and returned to work, after securing an agreement that commits the coffee chain to regularly scrub equipment at outposts nationwide.
The Board of Regents showed no sign of relenting on a proposed ban of mascots and nicknames that refer to indigenous people, but agreed that school district names could remain.
Opponents to the proposed Saratoga Biochar Solutions’ facility in the town’s industrial park say the company’s public participation meeting, which is required by the DEC, “doesn’t pass the laugh test” because it will not reach all who may be impacted by the plant.
Syracuse men’s soccer won the program’s first ever National Championship 7-6 in penalty kicks over Indiana last night.
Weeks before a trial to determine whether Taylor Swift stole lyrics in her hit song “Shake It Off,” a judge dismissed the case after a joint request by lawyers for Swift and the songwriters who accused her of copyright infringement.
Swift fans who are registered as “verified” may have a second shot at tickets to her “Eras Tour” as Ticketmaster tries to make things right after its website crashed last month amid an onslaught of orders.
Twitter Inc. said it reintroduced a new version of its paid subscription service, the second attempt in recent weeks by owner Elon Musk to launch the feature central to his goal of reducing the platform’s reliance on advertising dollars.
The remains of soccer journalist Grant Wahl arrived back in the United States yesterday after he died last week while covering the World Cup in Qatar. This past weekend, a second journalist collapsed and died covering the competition.
Did you know that it’s illegal to take a selfie with a tiger in the Empire State? As they say: Only in New York, kids; only in New York.
