Good Wednesday morning.
I’m starting to feel positively waterlogged. The number of times I’ve gotten caught in the rain – sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes simply unprepared for just how long it would take the dogs to smell every damn blade of grass in the yard before selecting a spot to pee on – is now more than I can count.
It looks like we’re going to dry out temporarily. Today and tomorrow will be partly cloudy with only a “slight” chance of a rain shower. But looking ahead I see a lot of “scattered thunderstorms” in our collective future – including on the glorious 4th, which would be a serious bummer.
Honestly, I’m not sure that there’s anything more pressing to talk about than the weather right now, starting with the quality of the very air we breathe.
Though it’s hardly as bad as what we experienced earlier in the month, New York has an air quality problem again, compliments of the continued Canadian wildfires. As of yesterday, the highest number of current active fires were in Quebec, with113 blazing away. That seems like a lot, but it was actually down from 117 the day before.
Here in New York, the DEC has issued an air quality health advisory for “fine particles” until midnight tonight.
The governor is publicly urging caution – especially for those who have pre-existing conditions (asthma, for example), young children, and the elderly. The Hochul administration is making hundreds of thousands of N95 masks available for free at various locations around the state.
Exercising strenuously outside might be something you think twice about for the moment, unless you really want to reprise the pandemic-era experience of working out while wearing a face mask – not something I ever want to do again thanks very much.
While things are not great here in the Empire State from an air quality standpoint, and likely to deteriorate further throughout the day, it’s been really bad in the midwest.
Chicago and Detroit earlier this week were experiencing what we saw not long ago – the burning smell in the air, hazy and smoky skies. Chicago and Detroit held the top two rankings for worst air quality in the world, according to IQAir’s Air Quality Index.
Meanwhile, the South continues to swelter in a heatwave that has multiple triple-digit temperature days to Texas, straining the state’s already fragile electric grid to the max. All told, more than 100 million people across the nation were dealing with either blistering heat or unhealthy air quality yesterday.
It turns out a contributing factor in both might be the jet stream, a thin ribbon of air encircling the Northern Hemisphere high up in the sky, driving drives pressure changes that impact weather patterns. Of late, these patterns trapped and stalled the Canadian wildfire smoke and also caused the temperature in Texas to soar through the roof.
The jet stream has been acting wonky – actually “wavy” is the term researchers use. And why is that? You guessed it. Climate change.
Sigh.
And on that note, since we’ve already dispensed with the forecast, let’s get to it. In the headlines…
Searching for a solution to Americans’ negative perception of the economy and a vehicle to take credit for an economy that is increasingly trending in the right direction, the White House is embracing the term “Bidenomics.”
As the president hits the campaign trail, the administration is using that term to highlight economic progress to this point as well as plans going forward to help rebuild the economy from the middle out and bottom up.
In a speech in Chicago yesterday that was dedicated to enshrining “Bidenomics” as a credible idea in the public mind, Biden implicitly recognized that comparisons to the “alternative” in 2024 (possibly Donald Trump) may not be enough to win reelection.
Biden made his pitch to a skeptical public that the U.S. economy is thriving under what he now touts as “Bidenomics” — even as a new poll showed that could be a hard sell as the foundation for his 2024 reelection campaign.
Biden angrily denied that he was involved in an alleged shakedown of a Chinese businessman by his son Hunter Biden.
Biden has reportedly made it clear to his closest aides in no uncertain terms that he not only will reject any political advice that he try to limit his son Hunter’s public visibility but that he also doesn’t want to hear such suggestions.
Biden is racing to boost his campaign war chest as the end of the fundraising quarter approaches tomorrow, marking the first major test of his campaign’s ability to generate the cash and enthusiasm needed to compete against Republicans in 2024.
Biden, 80, has begun using a continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, machine to treat longstanding sleep apnea, according to the White House.
The device includes a mask that is strapped to a person’s face while they sleep. Reporters noticed indentation marks on Biden’s face yesterday as he departed the White House for Illinois.
“Since 2008, the president has disclosed his history with sleep apnea in thorough medical reports,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said. “He used a CPAP machine last night, which is common for people with that history.”
While his history with the condition has long been disclosed, it didn’t come up during his most recent physical in February. When he was vice president, doctors noted Biden had an irregular heartbeat probably linked to apnea.
Biden said Vladimir Putin has “absolutely” been weakened by the short-lived mutiny over the weekend – his most definitive comment to date on how the rebellion by Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin affected the Russian leader’s stature.
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan said he believes the 2024 Republican presidential nominee will “for sure” be able to unseat Biden — unless that person is Trump.
Biden’s path to victory in 2024 runs through voters who think he’s been a disappointment in the White House — but say Trump or another Republican would be even worse.
New York is trying to boost its ports and rail commerce with $121.6 million in funding, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
The New York State Bar Association will assess the legal, ethical and public health considerations surrounding what has been a long running and emotional debate.
Operators of four New York nursing homes siphoned more than $83 million in Medicare and Medicaid funding to line their own pockets — all while allowing residents to live under horrific conditions, state Attorney General Letitia James alleges in a new lawsuit.
An audit released this week by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office found many large water systems in New York state outside of New York City have not provided updated assessments of their vulnerability to a variety of potential threats.
New York’s child poverty rate has remained stagnant at 20 percent for years. But big-ticket items in the state’s recently enacted budget could make major headway in slashing that rate in half over the next decade, officials said.
The acting executive director of the Adirondack Council, Raul “Rocci” Aguirre, 51, is now the permanent leader.
Just three of the more than 2,000 people swept up in the Adams administration’s homeless encampment crackdown landed in permanent housing — and nearly 95% didn’t even go to a shelter, according to a scathing new audit.
Between March and November of 2022, the “forcible” removal of 2,308 homeless people resulted in only 90 of them staying in a homeless shelter for more than a day, city Comptroller Brad Lander said in the audit.
New York City passed a woeful milestone this week, spurred by an influx of migrants from the nation’s southern border: For the first time, there are now over 100,000 people in homeless shelters here, city officials said.
Mayor Eric Adams has reportedly agreed to back off a controversial push to cut funding for the city’s public library systems — a reversal that came after City Council negotiators threatened to blow this year’s budget deadline unless the mayor relented.
New York City’s nearly $107 billion budget package is due at midnight tomorrow, as heated negotiations between City Hall and the City Council focus on Adams’ decision to make multiple rounds of cuts to city agencies to help fund the growing migrant crisis.
A majority of New York State voters oppose temporarily housing migrants in dorms on State University of New York campuses, according to the latest poll by Siena College, which found 54% of voters aren’t in favor of the idea, while 33% supported it.
New Yorkers have soured slightly on Adams’ job performance over the past month amid continuing migrant and housing crises in the city, according to a the poll.
Chain businesses with five or more locations will have to put their trash in secure containers under a new anti-rat rule Adams and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch plan to put into effect in the coming months.
What if you held an election and less than 200,000 registered voters showed up? Based on preliminary ballot counts by the New York City Board of Elections, that’s what happened in Tuesday’s primary election.
Most incumbents running in the city’s low-turnout primary elections Tuesday cruised to victory — but there was a notable exception in eastern Brooklyn: City Councilman Charles Barron, who is on track to lose his primary to challenger Chris Banks.
In both Harlem and East New York, voters went from supporting self-described socialists to backing moderate Democrats.
A new alliance has formed to fight New York City’s edict targeting famous pizzerias that bake their pies in pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired ovens.
Developer ASTM North America unveiled its proposal for a $6 billion project to overhaul Penn Station – a plan that has already faced pushback for providing a potential windfall to Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan.
The new plan by ASTM North America involves overhauling Penn Station, the busiest train hub in the United States, and wrapping Madison Square Garden in a towering stone facade.
Prosecutors revealed that they have additional cellphone video from witnesses in Jordan Neely’s subway chokehold death, as ex-Marine Daniel Penny pleaded not guilty to manslaughter charges in the lightning-rod case.
Thomas Kenniff, a lawyer for Penny, said in a news conference after the hearing that he and his partner, Steven Raiser, were confident in their case. “All the evidence we’ve seen is that our client acted reasonably under the circumstances,” he said.
A grand jury voted not to indict a man who stabbed a passenger on a subway train this month in Brooklyn, ending the case, the man’s lawyer said.
Thanks to migrating birds and deer vasectomies, new tick species are settling in New York City, as some experts prepare for the worst.
A nonbinary honor student who was accepted into a sorority at St. Lawrence University was later kicked out by its national headquarters reportedly over their identity in what the student alleged was an act of discrimination.
St. Peter’s Health Partners announced it will restrict anyone who lives within 50 miles of its facilities from being hired as a travel nurse, a position that can be paid more than four times the hourly wage of their St. Peter’s-employed counterparts.
Thomas K. Reilly, a Connecticut-based writer, sued the State Police earlier this month after the agency denied his Freedom of Information requests for records connected to the investigation of Irene Izak’s death June 10, 1968.
When St. Peter’s Health Partners quietly petitioned the state to close its Troy maternity unit last week, it narrowly avoided the start date of a law that would require the hospital to conduct a study on how the closure would affect underserved communities.
National Geographic has laid off all its staff writers, leaving the venerable, award-winning magazine to be pieced together by editors and freelancers.
Debris and presumed human remains from the Titan submersible have been recovered and returned to land, the U.S. Coast Guard announced, nearly a week after an international search-and-rescue operation ended.
Domingo German threw the fourth perfect game in Yankees history and the 24th in MLB history, dazzling as he retired all 27 batters he faced on 99 pitches with nine strikeouts in a 11-0 win over the Athletics that 12,479 witnessed at Oakland Coliseum.
Madonna was hospitalized in an intensive care unit over the weekend for a bacterial infection, her manager announced.
The 64-year-old pop icon was hospitalized for several days and remains under medical care, her agent said. A new start date for her tour, which was postponed as a result of her health, has not been announced.
