Good Wednesday morning.
Now that the weather is trending toward nicer (assuming it ever stops raining for longer than a hot second), I’m engaging in more outdoor pursuits, which, when I can carve out the time, includes riding my bike.
I don’t do leisurely bike riding. When I ride, it’s all about trying to get from one point to another and then home again as fast as humanly possible.
This is a vestige from the triathlon days. Though, to be perfectly honestl, I haven’t really been doing a whole hell of a lot of that, either. One last year, maybe another this year, if I can bribe myself to get into the water.
All of this is to say that I bike for fitness. Sometimes, for ease and safety – not to mention time, because outdoor riding is really unpredictable – I just throw the bike on the trainer and spin mindlessly for an hour or two.
Much of the rest of the world, however, rides for either pleasure or as a primary mode of transportation. A lot of people ride – and that number is growing.
According to the World Economic Forum, more than half of the global population knew how to ride a bike in 2015. The Covid crisis caused that number to rise exponentially – remember the pandemic bike craze/shortage?
By 2050, it’s estimated that some 5 billion bikes will be in use around the world.
That’s a number that would probably shock and awe the Italian engineer credited with creating the very first bicycle-type contraption. It had four wheels, not two. Apparently the history here is a little fraught, so if you want to go down that rabbit hole, click here.
Bike sharing programs are on the rise, and electric bikes are also becoming very popular. Personally, I consider this cheating. But I get that not everyone wants to arrive at their destination covered with sweat – especially if they’re using the bike to commute to work or a date.
It turns out that over half the world’s bikes are in China, which makes sense, since it has the world’s largest population (1.426 billion), though India was expected to exceed that number – if it hasn’t already done so.
Riding a bike isn’t a terribly difficult skill to master. I remember the first moment I managed to wobble away from my dad on my baby blue banana seat bike – sans training wheels – with the glitter handlebar streamers merrily fluttering in the wind. That was a proud moment.
Oddly, though, only about two thirds – 68 percent – of adults across 28 countries say that they know how to ride a bike. Bike riding is more prevalent among kids, though, as noted above, it’s getting to be a more popular adult pastime. Just look at the number of miles people are racking up on Strava every year, and you’ll know that’s true.
If you’ve been meaning to dust off your old bike, or maybe invest in a new one, here’s your excuse to do it: May is National Bike Month. And while you might have some strong opinions – good or bad – about our former governor, you’ve got to admit that his Empire State Trail initiative was a very good thing.
At least I think so. Big fan right here.
You’re lucky that the entire month of May is dedicated to bike riding, which means you’ll have ample time to get on your two wheels and hit the road, or the path. Today, however, might not be the best day to do that. It’s going to cloudy with occasional showers, and temperatures will again be in the mid-50s.
The weekend is looking promising, though. I’ll keep you posted.
In the headlines…
The Biden administration will send 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border starting next week, ahead of an expected migrant surge following the end of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions.
The deployment comes as the Title 42 restrictions, which allow US authorities to rapidly expel non-Mexican migrants to Mexico without the chance to seek asylum, are set to to end on May 11.
This deployment of active-duty troops will supplement the work of the US Border Patrol. They won’t carry out law enforcement duties, only ground-based monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support.
Congressional leaders are digging in ahead of next week’s White House meeting on the debt limit, with House Democrats prepping a Hail Mary while Republicans wait on President Joe Biden to meet them at the table.
The White House slammed Republican-backed legislation to raise the debt ceiling for not explicitly protecting veterans’ health benefits from massive spending cuts, warning of proposed historic slashes to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
It’s a long shot, but House Democrats have been quietly planning for months to create a possible emergency option to force a vote on the debt ceiling in order to prevent the US government from defaulting.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), in a “dear colleague” letter, wrote that Democrats plan to file a discharge petition – which, if signed by 218 House members, would force a vote on a clean debt ceiling increase.
The White House insisted that Biden will not use a meeting he set up with congressional leaders for May 9 to negotiate over the debt ceiling.
Faced with an impasse over raising or suspending the nation’s debt limit, some White House officials are looking to a clause in the 14th Amendment to ensure the United States does not default on its debt.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are reportedly planning their first 2024 re-election campaign fundraisers as the country nears a June 1 deadline to raise the debt ceiling or face a possible default.
Biden is heading to New York City next week for a potentially lucrative campaign fundraising swing as he amasses an early cash pile for his reelection bid.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Russia must pull out of Ukraine, blistering Russia’s “killing of the children” and distancing himself from some in his Republican party who oppose additional major U.S. aid to Ukraine to stave off the Russian invasion.
McCarthy offered to host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for high-level bipartisan meetings in Congress — issuing an implicit challenge to Biden, who has refrained from welcoming the Israeli leader to the White House to protest his domestic agenda.
Attorney General Merrick Garland gave his first public response to an IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower who claimed to have information for Congress about potential mishandling of the yearslong federal investigation into Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Former President Donald Trump will not testify in his civil trial over writer E. Jean Carroll’s accusations of sexual battery and defamation.
Trump’s attorney reportedly made it definitive to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the courtroom yesterday, which came after recent signaling that the former president would not attend.
During her testimony in the civil trial against Trump, Carroll told the jury that she had called a friend immediately after leaving the department store where she said he had raped her in the mid-1990s. Yesterday, that friend took the witness stand.
Another woman testified that Trump molested her with what seemed like “40 zillion hands” on an airline flight in the late 1970s — years before Carroll says the former president sexually assaulted her at a Manhattan department store.
Jessica Leeds, 81 years old, said that while on a plane in either 1978 or 1979, Trump pulled her toward him and tried to kiss her, then grabbed her breast.
Trump has opened up a 36% lead on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a new 2024 Republican presidential poll even as he fends off growing legal problems.
Disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are probing a new outbreak: the roughly three-dozen coronavirus cases linked to their own annual conference last week.
Wisconsin’s conservative-controlled Supreme Court ruled that a hospital could not be forced to give a deworming drug to a patient with COVID-19, saying a county judge did not cite a legal basis for ordering the facility to administer ivermectin.
Pfizer’s latest quarterly results underscored the pressure the drugmaker is facing to sustain sales growth by hitting on drugs in development and recent acquisitions as demand wanes for its leading Covid-19 products.
Fang Bin, who documented the initial Covid outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has reportedly been freed from jail after three years.
The man sought in the killing of five people in Texas has been taken into custody, according to law-enforcement officials, ending a dayslong manhunt.
Officials said they captured Francisco Oropesa yesterday near Cut and Shoot, TX, about 16 miles west of where the shooting took place. He was found hiding in a closet underneath some laundry, according to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
A tip called into an FBI line at 5:15 p.m. led to Oropesa’s arrest at 6:30 p.m., Jimmy Paul, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston field office, said at a news conference.
New York state lawmakers finalized the passage of a $229 billion budget last night, a month after it was initially due.
The budget contains a handful of contentious policy changes on issues like bail, minimum wage and a ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new construction.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie signaled possible action in his chamber on the Clean Slate Act before the session ends next month.
Additional money to help maintain public higher education campuses, as well as make renovations, will head to schools in the SUNY and CUNY systems as part of the state budget agreement.
The state budget gives the NYRA the go-ahead to use a $455 million loan to renovate and upgrade Belmont Park, a move supporters have argued will aid the thoroughbred horse racing industry statewide.
A pair of bills signed into law by Hochul are geared toward expanding access to abortion in New York amid a renewed fight over the issue in states across the country.
New Yorkers next year won’t have to go through their doctors to get prescription contraceptives under a bill that the governor signed as part of her administration’s efforts to expand reproductive rights in the state.
State judges are about to get even more leeway in restricting criminal defendants before trial thanks to an unexpected budget compromise revealed.
New York State is set to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid from local counties, raising concerns that taxes will go up locally to make up the difference.
Hochul succeeded in eliminating the requirement that judges impose the “least restrictive means” to ensure defendants’ return to court when setting bail.
Hochul denied that she had any idea her ex-political guru Adam Sullivan was an “egomaniac” who belittled staff from past campaigns as former aides have alleged.
For years, New York law permitted developers to build atop Native American burial sites without taking steps to preserve the ancient remains, making the state one of only four with no meaningful protection for graves on private lands. That is set to change.
A program to make some of the MTA’s buses fare-free won’t last as long as Hochul previously promised, according to budget bills published by lawmakers in Albany this week.
Mayor Eric Adams criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending buses of migrants to the nation’s largest city, while also urging Biden to get a handle on the southern border.
Adams initially accused Abbott of targeting “Black-run cities”, suggesting a racial animus behind the policy. He now denies that he ever called Abbott’s policy “racist,” but suggests Americans should “look at the facts.”
Adams did not, in fact, use the term “racist” to describe Abbot, but he also didn’t deny that’s what he was suggesting.
Adams, whose city has dealt with an influx of migrants over the past few months, slammed the White House and congressional Republicans for their “irresponsibility” on addressing immigration.
“All of us came from somewhere to pursue the American Dream,” he said. “It is the irresponsibility of the Republican Party in Washington for refusing to do real immigration reform, and it’s the irresponsibility of the White House for not addressing this problem.”
Adams has said the arrival of more than 59,000 asylum seekers has “destroyed” the city, but financial problems loomed before their arrival.
Adams didn’t challenge the notion of creating a blacklist of people who are “bad mouthing” the NYPD during a talk show appearance that touched on ongoing criticism of the department.
Adams took a swipe at anti-cop Queens Councilmember Tiffany Cabán, saying her rhetoric is “harmful to our children” and “wrong.”
Adams threw cold water on the idea that he could back off some of his proposed city budget cuts in light of his administration securing $1 billion in migrant crisis aid from the state.
The New York City panel charged with regulating rents across nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments gave preliminary approval to some of the largest increases in years.
Tenants at rent-regulated apartments would face hikes of up to 7%, under terms that the city’s Rent Guidelines Board approved at a preliminary vote last night amid loud protests.
The panel that sets the rent for New York City’s 1 million stabilized apartments is weighing an increase of 2% to 5% on new one-year leases, with a final, binding decision coming in June. It is the second year in a row the board has endorsed significant hikes.
In an extraordinary move, late yesterday, Adams — who has the power to appoint all nine members — issued a statement rebuking the board for considering rent increases of potentially 7%.
A bid to put a casino in Queens near Citi Field has support from a majority of the borough’s residents, according to a poll commissioned by the group pushing the plan.
New York City, where sidewalks have long been overrun by foul-smelling heaps of garbage bags that force passers-by to yield to oncoming rat traffic, is about to try a not-so-novel idea to solve the problem: Containerization.
In a highly anticipated new report, city sanitation officials estimate that it would be possible to move trash to containers on 89 percent of the city’s residential streets. However, it will require removing 150,000 parking spots.
A 30-year-old man who was screaming on a subway train died on Monday afternoon after another rider grabbed him and placed him in a chokehold, according to the police and video of the encounter.
Six corrupt Manhattan construction companies and eight executives were charged in a lucrative scheme in which city and state contracts were diverted from deserving businesses owned by minorities and women.
New York City’s summer camp operators are bracing for another summer without swimming pool access, a cut partly caused by the city’s ongoing lifeguard shortage.
A mechanic was charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of an apprentice who was crushed when an elevator car plunged six stories during a maintenance operation.
Major late-night shows including ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and CBS’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” went dark yesterday after the union representing movie and television writers announced it would go on strike.
The union is seeking better pay and working conditions, which it argued have eroded in the era of streaming services. In a statement, the union said the companies’ behaviors have created a “gig economy” that devalues the profession.
New York consumers would be able to purchase alcohol from liquor stores before noon on Sundays for the first time in nearly a century, but wine and spirits still could not be sold in supermarkets, according to recommendations by a panel created last year.
Five jurors, including the foreman, were picked yesterday at the trial of limousine company operator Nauman Hussain, who is on trial on manslaughter charges in the Oct. 6, 2018 crash that killed 20 people.
In an effort to acknowledge a history of systemic racism, Saratoga Springs Mayor Ron Kim is seeking to pass a resolution that would apologize for past injustices and form a Restorative Justice Panel to begin a community-wide dialogue on racism in the city.
The Town of Niskayuna police department is the latest law enforcement agency in Schenectady County to put body cameras on its officers.
GlobalFoundries has completed the purchase of approximately 800 acres adjacent to its chip manufacturing plant in Malta, giving the company enough land to eventually build a second chip fab.
The fire and brimstone preached by some will have a different meaning in July at Grace Baptist Church’s annual revival meeting in Troy when someone can take home a flamethrower as a prize if they decide not to pick an offered AR-15 rifle.
The controversial NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown, who just expanded his ownership stake in the Albany Empire, was in contract negotiations to purchase the $12 million Palazzo Riggi estate in Saratoga Springs.
