Good morning. It’s Friday. I’m sure you knew that. But it bears repeating.
I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on spending some quality time this weekend with my Mom, which is something I don’t do nearly enough of. I call, of course, but that’s not the same as face-to-face engagement.
We don’t have anything special planned. We’re just going to hang out, maybe go for a walk or have a meal. Sometimes just being in one another’s presence – and being fully present (sans phones, etc.) is a gift in and of itself.
While I welcome the opportunity to celebrate and recognize my Mom, I’ve always been a little cynical about Mother’s Day, thinking that it was a little bit of a Hallmark-type holiday, pushed by the greeting card, floral, candy, etc. industries and another opportunity to part us all from our hard-earned cash.
Americans are reporting planning to spend some $36 billion on Mother’s Day this. According to the NFIB’s annual survey on this subject, that breaks down to about $274.02 a person. Apparently, the guilt quotient is highest – or maybe it’s the available disposable income – among individuals in the 35 to 44 age bracket, who will spend the most: $382.26 per person.
It turns out, though, that there’s a long-standing tradition of setting aside a day specifically to recognize mothers across the globe, dating all the way back to Greek and Roman times, when pagan celebrations were held in honor of the mother of all gods and/or goddesses – Rhea and Cybele, respectively.
In the U.K., there was a Christian tradition called Mothering Sunday, which fell on the fourth Sunday during Lent, and called for the faithful to return home to their “mother” church – the biggest one closest to their home – for a service. Over time, this morphed into a less religious observance, during which children presented their moms with tokens of affection, like flowers.
Here in the U.S., a West Virginia woman named Ann Reeves Jarvis founded what she called “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” in the years leading up to the Civil War, which were intended to instruct woman on how to appropriately care for their kids.
The idea of a formal Mother’s Day was first broached in 1873 by abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She wanted the day to be dedicated to world peace.
After her mother died, Ann Reeves Jarvis’ daughter, Anna Jarvis, was struck by the realization that children don’t really appreciate all their mothers do for them until it’s too late, and so in 1907, she launched an effort for an officially recognized Mother’s Day.
She eventually convinced her mother’s West Virginia church to celebrate Mother’s Day on the second anniversary of her own mother’s death – the second Sunday in May.
Anna Jarvis teamed up with a guy named John Wanamaker, who happened to own a chain of department stores that bore his name. People showed up at his stores in Philadelphia in 1908 for Mother’s Day events, at which carnations were provided because they were Anna Jarvis’ favorite flowers. Carnations continue to be synonymous with Mother’s Day in modern times.
Jarvis and her supporters wanted to see this tradition expanded on a national level. They lobbied elected officials in a letter-writing campaign. By 1911, almost every state was on board, and in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially establishing the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
Ironically, Anna Jarvis herself eventually became disgusted by the commercialization of the day she helped create – so much so that she launched a number of lawsuits against groups that co-opted – in her eyes – the name “Mother’s Day” and spent much of her wealth funding those legal battles. She publicly denounced Mother’s Day and even lobbied to have it removed from the calendar.
Anna Jarvis died in 1948, having never realized her effort to undo the damage she believed she had done.
Kind of a bummer of an origin story. Don’t let it spoil your day, but maybe don’t lean in so heavily on the gift thing. All Mom really wants is to see your face or hear your voice.
It’s another taste of summer in spring! Temperatures will be soaring into the low 80s again today, and skies will be partly cloudy. The weekend looks not bad, but cooler, with the mercury falling into the 70s tomorrow and the 60s on Sunday. Partly cloudy skies are on tap for both days.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden’s anticipated meeting originally scheduled for today with congressional leaders aimed at discussing a deal to avert a default on the national debt has been postponed, a White House spokesperson said.
Leaders instead agreed to meet early next week. The White House painted the delay as a positive development. They say it means meetings are progressing.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that all parties agreed to the postponement and that it should not be read as a sign that talks are falling apart.
The postponement comes as the White House and GOP leaders have just weeks before a June 1 deadline to strike a deal that raises the nation’s borrowing limit.
Biden and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez are set to hold talks today as their countries are collaborating along with Canada to establish migration hubs in Latin America where asylum seekers fleeing their home countries can go to apply for protection.
Biden predicted this week that the U.S.-Mexico border would be “chaotic for a while” when pandemic-related restrictions end, as 550 active-duty troops began arriving and migrants weighed whether or when to cross.
The House passed a GOP-backed bill to address immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border yesterday, the day Covid restrictions at the border were set to be lifted.
There was relative calm and a sense of uncertainty along the United States-Mexico border early this morning, shortly after the expiration of a federal policy that had limited illegal immigration into the United States for more than three years.
Some people attempted last-minute crossings, but most of the border was quiet as U.S. officials prepared for the days ahead.
Donald Trump, in his appearance on CNN, misstated the law governing presidential records, saying he was allowed to take the material now at the heart of a Justice Department investigation.
The Justice Department is seeking to stop a deposition with Trump this month in lawsuits filed by two former FBI officials who have been frequent targets of criticism by the former president.
Trump is appealing the $5 million judgment awarded by the Manhattan federal jury that found he sexually abused and defamed former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Carroll is threatening to sue Trump again over personal attacks he made against her during the CNN town hall this week.
A day after Representative George Santos was charged in a 13-count federal indictment, the embattled first-term Republican from New York appeared in court again yesterday for a hearing that had a far different outcome.
Santos and Brazilian prosecutors agreed to resolve a criminal charge that involved a pair of shoes and a stolen checkbook. In exchange for Santos’ confession, prosecutors dropped the case against him, according to his lawyer.
Former Democratic state Sen. Anna Kaplan launched a bid to take back Santos’ congressional seat with a video highlighting her Jewish heritage — and reminding voters of his lies about having a Jewish background.
The Supreme Court voided a 2018 fraud conviction against Joseph Percoco, a one-time top aide and confidant to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a unanimous decision that reduced federal prosecutors’ power to pursue public corruption cases in state government.
The court determined Percoco’s case should be tossed based on faulty instructions provided to the jury given his role as a top campaign official for Cuomo’s re-election in 2014 – a key time period in the case.
Percoco’s lawyers had argued that the honest-services law applies only to people who exercise the authority of the government, a power they said he had lacked when he received the payments. Prosecutors said that distinction was artificial.
The decision in the Percoco case marks the latest high-profile corruption case involving a political official to get overturned on appeal, and the most recent of former US Attorney Preet Bharara’s convictions specifically to get overturned.
The Supreme Court decision also vacated convictions for three upstate development executives connected to the Alain Kaloyeros case.
The court’s opinion continues a recent trend of narrowing the government’s ability to prosecute defendants under certain public corruption statutes.
In a separate case, he court also ruled in favor of a prominent Buffalo developer, Louis Ciminelli, who was awarded a $750 million project to improve the city as part of an initiative put forward by Cuomo.
A rally was held yesterday urging Gov. Kathy Hochul and the MTA to ditch congestion pricing for commuters.
Attorney General Letitia James is seeking to bar a company that sells an accessory for semiautomatic rifles from doing business in New York, arguing that its product makes it too easy for an individual to transform their firearm into an illegal weapon.
The device was used by the shooter in last year’s Tops supermarket massacre in Buffalo.
Regulators approved new rules allowing existing medical cannabis stores to sell pot to the public sooner than originally planned, as upstate farmers fumed about a rocky rollout of the legal weed program.
New York’s 10 medical cannabis licensees, commonly referred to as registered organizations (ROs), may be given the green light to expand to adult-use dispensing operations sooner than expected.
The union representing State Police investigators said the surging number of cases involving “extreme risk protection orders” is pulling them away from other investigations and leaving them “overwhelmed.”
While the federal action lifts the vaccine mandate for government-funded hospitals and nursing homes, New York health care workers are not off the hook due to state-level COVID-19 regulations still in place.
Two New York legislators are proposing a new bill that would alleviate some of the financial burdens for the children who lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19.
Daniel Penny, the Marine veteran whose chokehold killed Jordan Neely on a Manhattan subway train, is reportedly to be charged with second-degree manslaughter and will turn himself in to police today.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed in a statement that it planned to charge Penny on a charge of manslaughter in the second degree, and will be arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Penny’s attorneys said they are confident he will be “fully absolved of any wrongdoing” and said he risked his life for others on the subway on May 1.
A spokeswoman for Civilian Complaint Review Board confirmed that a formal probe was under way to see if there was any wrongdoing in the decision not to charge Penny, 24, after he was questioned by cops following Neely’s death on May 1.
Mayor Eric Adams attempted to explain his reticence on Penny, saying any remarks he makes could come back to haunt a potential prosecution.
Adams said he wants the state to strengthen Kendra’s Law so the city can commit people suffering from severe mental illness for longer.
Adams said at a closed-door meeting that 10,000 migrants could arrive in New York City this week after the expiration of a border policy known as Title 42.
Two buses carrying migrants sent by Adams arrived yesterday at the Crossroads Hotel amid an ongoing clash between Republican Hudson Valley officials and the New York City mayor, a Democrat.
Adams ripped critics on the left as “hypocritical” for questioning his weakening of a local shelter law, while vowing to wage legal war against upstate Republicans who are refusing to help house asylum seekers.
“When you look at the County Exec (Ed) Day, I mean this guy has a record of being anti-Semitic, his racist comments,” Adams said as he lashed out at the Rockland county executive, without offering up examples of such remarks.
Adams said he would consider housing migrants in a closed Hudson Valley prison as New York City struggles to find accommodations for thousands more asylum-seekers expected to arrive following the expiration of the federal border policy.
Adams said Biden is “my guy” and that their relationship is a “good one”, one day after the New York leader was excluded from the president’s finalized squad of reelection campaign surrogates.
Adams signed Intro. 273-B, which will require the New York City Police Department (NYPD) to provide training to officers on how to recognize and interact with people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
New York City is set to become the largest American city to ban discrimination based on a person’s weight. City Councilman Shaun Abreu said that weight discrimination is “a silent burden people have had to carry”.
Yesterday, the New York City Council approved a bill that adds a person’s weight to the list of characteristics that are protected from discrimination, along with race, gender, age, religion and sexual orientation.
NYC is home to the first known cases of antifungal-resistant ringworm in the US, according to a report published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
ll three occupants of a small plane that crashed after takeoff from South Albany Airport yesterday afternoon were taken to a hospital with unknown injuries, town police said.
Chick-fil-A plans to open its restaurant at the Thruway’s New Baltimore travel stop on May 22.
A motel formerly known for housing sex offenders off Route 9 may soon be razed to make way for a Stewart’s Shops location.
