Good morning, and welcome to this date-symmetrical Tuesday.
I recently had the pleasure of spending time with a neighbor – a term I use loosely here, because in the country that can mean anyone who is within close driving distance – who owns a significant number of acres and a small-ish farm.
(She’s probably reading this right now…Hi, neighbor! I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’ve gotten any of the details wrong here. Sorry in advance if that’s the case)
Among her animal entourage are a slew of baby chickens, which I believe are of the heirloom/heritage variety?? – more on this in a minute. On the day I visited, they all looked pretty much the same, just a giant ball of fluff, peeping and running around in a semi-frenzied manner under their heat lamp.
Eventually, though, they’ll start to grow and differentiate from one another. Some will have elaborate plumage on their heads. Others on their feet (if I understood that right). Then they’ll move from their current iron washtub home into the coop and start producing eggs for the family’s consumption.
I’ve never actually had a farm fresh egg, but I hear that they’re amazing. Another side bonus: Chickens eat bugs, including ticks, which is a nice natural way to keep Lyme disease and other horrors at bay.
This all sounded very attractive to me, and I was actually thinking to myself – Hey, I have an acre of property now; that’s more than enough room for chickens. And then my friend mentioned that the previous flock had fallen prey to …Coyotes? Foxes? Something awful that killed them all. A big chicken massacre.
That king of carnage might be more than I could take.
I do, however, remain interested in the topic of heritage/heirloom breeds (these terms are more or less interchangeable here in the U.S., though I think they mean something more specific in the U.K.) Basically, the rise of large-scale industrial farming has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of breeds of flora and fauna humans raise for food.
By at least one account, nearly 75% of the genetic diversity in the food supply has been lost over the past century. This isn’t helpful because it puts the food supply at risk. Diversity is good because it increases the chances that at least some species survive should there (G-d forbid) be some sort of mass infection. (Exhibit A: Bird flu).
Monoculture (relying on just one breed of plant or animal) is what was largely responsible for the Irish Potato Famine, which killed an estimated 1 million people and caused another 1 million (about a quarter of the population) to leave the country.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this, click here or here. It’s food for thought – quite literally. And what better time to consider this thorny moral issue, which could very well factor into the ability of humans to continue living on the planet (among many other things), than International Heritage Breeds Week?
This week was established by The Livestock Conservancy, which aims to, as its website plainly states, “protect America’s endangered livestock and poultry breeds from extinction.”
It’s looking like another fantastic day – a good day for visiting a farm, or doing your husbandry-related chores, should that be something in which you regularly engage – with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he had a “productive” and “professional” meeting with President Joe Biden on how to raise the debt ceiling, but that the two did not reach a deal yesterday.
“I think the tone tonight was better than any other night we’ve had discussions,” McCarthy said outside the West Wing following the hourlong meeting.
McCarthy said both he and Biden directed their negotiators — who already met for several hours earlier yesterday — to “work through the night” as they race toward a deal before U.S. borrowing power runs out in as soon as 10 days.
At the top of their meeting, the president said he and the speaker agree default isn’t an option, and they agree on the need to reduce the federal deficit. But the president said Congress needs to look at tax loopholes.
As the US inches closer and closer to a projected default deadline, progressives in Congress have an increasingly pointed message for Biden: Don’t write off tackling the debt ceiling alone.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said that he’s open to the idea of freezing spending at current levels in order to secure a debt ceiling deal — an idea supported by Biden but is sure to infuriate liberals in Jeffries’ own Democratic Caucus.
There’s still more than a year to go before U.S. voters head to the polls, but at the heart of the European Union, officials are already racing to get as much as possible done before any potential change of leadership in the White House.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, 75, admitted over the weekend that Biden’s advanced age is an issue for his electability in 2024, but urged voters to support him regardless.
Clinton said even though Biden has a “good record” as president, “people still have the right to consider” his age as a factor to re-elect him to another term in office — something she said she supports.
A box truck barreled into an area near the White House last night in what the Secret Service said may have been an intentional act.
E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who won a $5 million case against Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation, is reupping her defamation claim after the former president again called her a liar and a “whack job,” according to a new filing.
Carroll’s filing yesterday in Manhattan federal court seeks to intensify the financial pain for Trump. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, revealed with little elaboration that Trump has threatened to sue Carroll “in retaliation and possibly to seek sanctions.”
Sen. Tim Scott is running for president. Trump, the Republican he’s taking on, couldn’t be more pleased.
The judge in Trump’s criminal case is holding a hybrid hearing today to make doubly sure the former president is aware of new rules barring him from using evidence to attack witnesses.
Federal prosecutors with the special counsel’s office issued a subpoena to the Trump Organization for information regarding business deals in foreign countries, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.
It remains unclear precisely what the prosecutors were hoping to find by sending the subpoena or when it was issued. But it suggests that investigators have cast a wider net than previously understood.
State lawmakers say teaching Asian-American history could be the antidote for curing New York of anti-Asian violence over the long term.
A bill regulating the use of certain pesticides on wheat, soybean or corn crops passed through a key Senate committee yesterday and is expected to be voted on by the full Legislature in the coming days.
The State Public Service Commission (PSC) announced that customers can expect to see lower prices for electricity this summer as they prepare for high demand.
Cover-ups of abuse by guards against prisoners are commonplace across New York State’s prison system, according to a Marshall Project review of thousands of pages of court documents, arbitration records and officer disciplinary data.
The law for requiring ignition interlock devices could be strengthened in New York under a measure being pushed by advocates who hope the provision will reduce drunken driving in the state.
Mayor Eric Adams would crush potential lefty challengers Jumaane Williams and Brad Landers if they sought to challenge his re-election bid in a 2025 Democratic primary, according to a new poll released yesterday.
Gov. Kathy is imploring suburban county executives to welcome asylum seekers and reject was she called “bigoted policies” that are not what New York stands for.
Hochul joined Adams yesterday – for the first time since the start of New York’s migrant crisis — to beg the Biden administration to expedite work permits for asylum seekers and provide more immigration judges to speed up the process.
At a joint news conference in Brooklyn, Adams and Hochul presented a united front as they pleaded with the Biden Administration to bypass a divided Congress and take executive action to make it easier for asylum seekers to legally seek work in New York.
Hochul cast the crisis as an opportunity to fill gaps in the state’s workforce, including the agriculture, food-service and hospitality sectors.
Adams faces a watershed crisis following this month’s lifting of Title 42, the pandemic-era border policy that allowed for the swift expulsion of migrants to Mexico.
City universities and colleges should open their student dorms and apartments to asylum seekers this summer, two of the state’s congressional representatives said as the city continues to struggle to find room for the migrants who’ve arrived since last year.
Republican state senators demanded that state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli examine the use of state taxpayer dollars to help migrants coming from the U.S. Southern Border.
Senate Republicans want transparency of the public dollars spent on the ongoing migrant crisis — a figure officials say they won’t have until New York City files for reimbursement of expenses next quarter.
New York City’s new migrant “welcome center” at the former four-star Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan was already slammed yesterday with fresh arrivals.
For now, there are thousands of unoccupied hotel rooms in New York City, the largest hotel market in the country, reflecting the reality that the industry has not yet fully rebounded from the pandemic.
Adams’ budget proposal includes a nearly $1 billion cut to the city’s Education Department, but funding for individuals schools won’t go down next year, city Schools Chancellor David Banks said.
The City Council’s latest budget forecast estimates the city will take in $1.8 billion more in revenue than what Adams’ has projected over the next two fiscal years — an updated prediction Council leaders intend to use as leverage as the July 1 deadline approaches.
A nonpartisan ethics watchdog hailed the Federal Election Commission’s earlier decision to impose a $53,100 fine on committees tied to former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s failed 2020 presidential campaign.
More than 150 trainee doctors went on strike yesterday at Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, the first physician strike at a hospital in New York City in more than 30 years.
A bid to build a casino in the Citi Field parking lots has struck out for now in Albany, as a competing plan to bring casino gambling to the Nassau Coliseum site has its hand strengthened by Long Island lawmakers.
Bally’s is reportedly running out of time to take over Trump Links in the Bronx in order to bid for a prized casino license at the site.
Retired New York City police officer Alison Esposito, Lee Zeldin’s Republican running mate for lieutenant governor last year, is eyeing a run for Congress in the Hudson Valley in 2024 against Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is set to increase the cost of swiping or tapping into the Big Apple’s subways and buses by 15 cents, hiking the price of a ride from $2.75 to $2.90 by Labor Day, officials said.
The proposal would raise the cost of a seven-day MetroCard 3 percent, to $34 from $33, and the cost of a 30-day MetroCard would go up 4 percent, to $132 from $127, their first increases since 2019.
A fiery red sun rose over New York yesterday morning — thanks to the hazy smoke of wildfires some 3,000 miles away.
Rensselaer County is rushing toward a new annual record in drug overdose deaths as five fatalities potentially from overdoses of cocaine and fentanyl occurred this past weekend, county and law enforcement officials said.
California is one step closer to enacting a law that would ban chemicals found in Skittles, Hot Tamales, and a host of other food items that have been linked to a number of health issues.
Jeff Bezos, founder of the e-retail giant Amazon, is reportedly engaged to Lauren Sánchez.
