Well. THAT was crummy. Technology is not all it’s cracked up to be, let me tell you.
It’s Wednesday, good morning. Nice to be back with you again.
While it was nice to have a bit of a break, I still woke up at around 2 a.m. every day. Nothing can help insomnia, sadly. I also felt a little at loose end. What do people DO with all their free time?
I wish I could say I was super productive and accomplished that list of things I keep meaning to do but never get around to actually doing – like switching out the rug in the living room and hanging the final pictures in the study.
We’ve only lived in the “new” house for nine months now, and yes, there are still a few boxes hanging around. Maybe I should just not open them and throw them away? Clearly, I don’t need their contents as I’ve been living without them for three-quarters of a year already.
I had a lot of other equally meandering and potentially useless thoughts I wanted to share and nowhere to write them. Of course, they’re all gone now. Such is the lot of the person with a short attention span. SQUIRREL!
I missed a lot of good day content – like World Arak Day, (June 27), which celebrates an alcoholic drink that is popular in the Middle East and made by extracting anise seeds in grape brandy. It may well be one of the first-ever flavored spirits. (I’ve never tried it, but it sounds sort of like some other anise-type drinks like ouzo and pastis, which took some getting used to.
I also missed National Chocolate Pudding Day, (June 26), which is a serious bummer.
It would have given me a chance to delve deeply into the two kinds of pudding – boiled and chilled (more or less a custard, sometimes thickened with starch or gelatin, popular in the U.S. and Asia) and steamed or baked, which is the sort of thing you more often find in the UK, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere).
I guess there’s always next year.
I’m not thrilled about my options today. National Logistics Day? Hard pass. National Insurance Awareness Day? Snooze, though I know it’s important and one of those things you never entirely appreciate until you find yourself needing it. I am now insured up to my ears, thanks to buying property in Florida. They do not, however, sell gator coverage. And yes, I checked.
By default, I have to go with National Paul Bunyan Day, though for the life of me I cannot figure out why it’s observed today (June 28). Paul Bunyan is one of the most popular North American folklore heroes, and, along with his companion, Babe the Big Blue Ox, has been the subject of many a tall tale, song, theatrical production and more.
Paul Bunyan’s origin story is a little murky because it is rooted in the oral tradition of North American loggers. The character first appeared in print in the early 1900s, but is widely accepted to have been popularized by a freelance writer named William B. Laughead, who featured Bunyan in a promotional pamphlet for the Red River Lumber Company in 1916.
There are lots of Bunyan tales, but all of them center around how big and strong he was and detail various supposed feats of strength, such as scooping out the hole that became Lake Superior, or overturning a water tank to create the Mississippi River. (Or maybe that was Babe’s fault?)
Anyway, whatever your favorite tall tale – literally, in this case – let’s all raise a glass to fiction. Life would be a whole lot duller without it.
The weather. I’m not even sure where to begin. Are we going to get a summer this year, you think? So. Much. Rain. My yard is a veritable jungle. Today will be more of the same, though a little on the chilly side, with temperatures only in the mid-70s. Thunderstorms are likely, and they may contain gusty winds and/or small hail. Fantastic.
In the headlines…
The US will send another $500 million in military aid , including weapons and equipment, and dozens more armored vehicles, to Ukraine as Kyiv works to reclaim Russian-occupied territory in its ongoing counteroffensive, the White House announced.
The package, which comes a little under a month after Ukraine began its military effort to reclaim territory from Russian forces, includes 30 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 25 Stryker armored personnel carriers.
Biden is tying his political fate to the U.S. economy — recessionary risks be damned.
Biden hits Chicago today for fundraisers, adding a second one in addition to the event hosted by Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his wife, MK.
After hitting its lowest point in April, Biden’s approval rating is at its highest in months, according to a new Gallup poll, which comes just as the president’s reelection efforts are coming into full-force.
Most people around the world in a new survey have largely positive views of the U.S. and Biden, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
Biden said that he is not big on abortion as a practicing Catholic but defended the reproductive rights that were previously granted under Roe v. Wade.
Proponents of student debt relief hope that Biden could still forgive loan amounts if his proposed plan is halted by the Supreme Court.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court rejected a bid to give state legislatures broad authority to draw congressional maps and regulate federal elections.
John Eastman, the lawyer who acted on behalf of the Trump campaign in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election, said the Supreme Court’s decision in this major elections case makes the arguments he made “murkier” in 2024.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy expressed some doubt that former President Donald Trump is the best GOP candidate to defeat President Joe Biden and win back the White House next year.
“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can, [but] the question is: Is he the strongest to win the election,” McCarthy said on CNBC. “I don’t know that answer.”
Just hours later, McCarthy rushed to make clear his loyalty to the former president, underscoring his fear of alienating Trump as he struggles to keep together his fractious House majority.
Trump filed a counterclaim in his latest legal battle with author E. Jean Carroll, accusing her of defamation just a month after a jury found him liable for sexual abusing and defaming her by denying her allegations.
A judge indicated that he was likely to deny a request from lawyers for Trump to move a New York State criminal case against the former president to federal court.
The inquiry into Trump’s handling of classified material revolved largely around his Florida club and residence, but investigators were also quietly focused on his New Jersey property.
Hours after the release of an audio tape in which Trump discusses a classified document that he kept after leaving office, the former president intensified his attacks on the special counsel who oversees the probe that led to Trump’s historic indictment.
A New York appeals court dismissed the New York attorney general’s civil case against Ivanka Trump and potentially limited the case against Donald Trump and his business, which is set to go to trial in October.
The five-judge appellate panel ruled that James’ claims against Ivanka Trump fell outside the state’s statute of limitations, while more recent allegations occurred after she stepped back from the family business to work with her father in the White House.
Licensed cannabis growers in New York would be temporarily allowed to sell their product to dispensaries with Tribal Nation licenses operating in the state under pending legislation that will soon head to Hochul.
A bipartisan group of town leaders in Westchester and Putnam counties is urging Hochul to veto a measure that would in the coming years shift local-level elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years.
Hochul praised the federal government’s decision to green-light New York’s congestion pricing plan, saying the policy would dramatically improve quality of life in the city — though many details of the plan remain unclear.
The MTA received final approval to move forward on Monday, part of an effort to reduce traffic, improve air quality and raise funds for the city’s public transit system.
The tolls will mostly be collected electronically through the E-ZPass system, and drivers should expect penalties for late payments.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has lawyered up — putting Hochul and Biden on notice that he’s itching to file a lawsuit to block the MTA’s controversial plan to impose the nation’s first congestion pricing toll system through Manhattan’s central business district.
Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance Commissioner Daniel Tietz announced he will resign from the role he’s held over the last year and a half, citing personal reasons.
Back-room deals are common in Albany, but few have involved issues as contentious as the location of a new casino. Sen. Liz Krueger, a sponsor of the bill for a new Seneca casino in Rochester said: “We sort of got hoodwinked” by the administration.
Legislators fast-tracked a bill to Hochul’s desk that aims to ban noncompete agreements, putting the state in line not only to prohibit the contentious contracts, but have the broadest ban yet and fuel momentum for passing similar bills in other states.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie kicked off his annual summer tour of New York with a stop in Huntington on Long Island.
The best indication that inflation is hitting the green energy field may be filings in recent weeks with the state’s Public Service Commission, the body that regulates utilities.
All NYC public schools will be required to offer daily “mindful breathing” practices to students, Mayor Adams, an outspoken proponent of mindfulness, announced.
“There’s a science to breathing,” Adams said when announcing the initiative, which will begin next year as a way to improve student well-being.
The city will open a 12th migrant relief center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Adams said in a statement.
The Adams administration is zeroing in on a replacement for outgoing NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell ahead of her last day Friday — with First Deputy Commissioner Edward Caban and Department of Sanitation head Jessica Tisch on the shortlist.
The primary election that will define the New York City Council for the next two years offered up at least three contests that signify a shift in the make-up of the city’s lawmaking body — with one sending shockwaves through the city’s political establishment.
New York City’s primary election had an anemic turnout – less than 5% – and yet produced upsets. In Brooklyn, one of the Council’s firebrands, Charles Barron was fighting for his political life, while a longtime Democratic operative held a commanding lead.
Yusef Salaam, a defendant exonerated in the infamous Central Park rape case, will likely be the next councilman for central Harlem, effectively upending one of the city’s most powerful political machines.
With more than 97% of votes counted, Salaam was leading his top contender, Assemblywoman Inez Dickens, by more than 2,500 ballots in the Democratic primary for the 9th Council District, according to unofficial tallies released by the city Board of Elections.
It was not clear if Salaam had drawn more than 50 percent of the votes; if he fell short of that threshold, voters’ ranked choices would be tabulated next week.
The Bronx’s incumbent District Attorney Darcel Clark easily fended off a challenge from lefty criminal defense attorney Tess Cohen in the Democratic primary contest, preliminary vote tallies showed last night.
Incumbent Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz easily won a second term as the borough’s top prosecutor based on unofficial results from NYC’s Board of Elections.
Susan Zhuang, who slammed antisemitism and hostility toward Israel at CUNY, won the three-way Democratic primary in the newly drawn Asian-majority 43rd District in southern Brooklyn.
Chronically homeless New Yorkers in several Manhattan neighborhoods will get help from $6 million seized from banks in criminal probes, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.
Jeffrey Epstein died in 2019 while incarcerated by suicide, not foul play — after a cascade of negligence and mismanagement at the now-shuttered federal jail in Manhattan where he was housed, according to the Justice Department’s inspector general.
An appellate court cleared the way for a 123-apartment development for lower-income people over the age of 62 and their families at the site of the Elizabeth Street Garden, overturning a lower-court ruling that had stopped the project after opponents sued.
Women who have come to New York City seeking asylum are entering the male-dominated construction industry, despite dangerous conditions, exploitation and sexism on the job.
The Big Apple is bracing for more pollution and air quality is predicted to take a dive as smoke from raging wildfires in Canada will drift to the Big Apple as soon tonight, say meteorologists.
The forecast was well within the healthy range for much of New York yesterday. But with a cold front entering the western part of the state from the northwest today, winds from the front are expected to bring in near-surface smoke from the Canadian wildfires.
The city Department of Correction, which this month eliminated $17 million in job training and social services for detainees due to budget cuts, is buying more than $90,000 in high-powered submachine guns.
As New Yorkers head to pools and beaches this summer, one group is conspicuously absent from a task force formed to address a dire lifeguard shortage: the lifeguard unions.
Scores of residents displaced from the Harbour Point Gardens in Troy were moved from the Red Roof Inn on Wolf Road about two miles away to the Travelodge Inn & Suites across from Colonie Center as repairs are made to the buildings where they live.
