Good morning, it’s Thursday. This is the last full Rise and Shine post you’ll be reading for a while. Better make the most of it.
I’m actually going to keep this rather short and sweet, because my brain is a swirl and there are a million last-minute details to attend to.
I don’t disconnect well, as we’ve discussed. This is the longest time I’ve disconnected in quite a while – years, really.
And so this will be something of an experiment for all of us. I have no idea what to expect. Will you come back when I do? I guess that remains to be seen.
I did get a text the other day from someone I used to talk with quite a lot, but haven’t seen or heard from in a long time. Not a friend, mind you, but someone I knew through work who was a pretty constant part of my life for a bit and then moved on, as people do.
This person, who I’m sure knows who they are by now, took a minute to say how much they’ve been enjoying these posts, and that really brought me up short.
I know that people get these missives emailed to them – a lot of “out of office” replies have been bouncing back of late, by the way, which means a good number have also been taking their end-of-summer vacations, so I’m not alone there.
It is easy, though, to forget there are actually people reading this. It has become an outlet for me, a sort of brain dump for my disconnected musings. That anyone might find all this interesting or even useful is kind of mind-boggling, and also very humbling.
So, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll take this moment to thank you for your time and, in the case of a few of you who have been here since the beginning – or darn well close to it – your loyalty. It’s nice to feel useful and liked in spite or – or even because of? – one’s off-kilter worldview and eccentricities.
I’ll “see” you all on the other side of the mountains, and as I used to say in another lifetime: Be well.
The weather has taken a decidedly fall-like turn, with temperatures in the low-70s expected today. It will be cloudy with a chance of occasional rain showers in the afternoon.
In the headlines…
As Republican presidential candidates traded fire at their first debate last night, they mostly left their party’s dominant front-runner unscathed. Political newcomer Vivek Ramaswamy emerged at the epicenter of the first Donald Trump-free showdown.
The GOP candidates feuded bitterly over the ex-president, with former Gov. Chris Christie attacking Trump as upstart candidate Ramaswamy vowing to pardon him.
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is unwilling to commit to debating Trump next fall before the 2024 presidential election if the indicted former president is the Republican nominee in a Biden-Trump rematch.
Trump is the most important figure in the Republican Party, but he merited only 10 minutes of questions from the debate moderators, Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum.
The strong desire of Trump’s advisers to see him debate Biden in the event of a rematch could lead to a clash with the Republican National Committee.
Biden’s communications team is under pressure after the president made a number of apparent gaffes during his visit to Maui.
Lucrative new tax breaks and other incentives for advanced manufacturing that Biden signed into law appear to be reshaping direct foreign investment in the American economy, according to a White House analysis.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said that the House could move forward with an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden if his administration doesn’t provide documents Republicans say they want to review.
“If (the Bidens) withhold the documents and fight like they have now to not provide to the American public what they deserve to know, we will move forward with impeachment inquiry when we come back into session,” McCarthy said.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian dissident Vladimir Putin labeled a “traitor,” is believed to have been killed when a private jet crashed outside Moscow, less than two months after he led a mutiny against the Kremlin’s military top brass.
“I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” Biden said of Prigozhin’s potential death. There’s not much that happens in Russia that (President Vladimir) Putin is not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak said the plane crash – exactly two months after Wagner forces marched on Moscow – was “a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty equals death’.”
Biden will host Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves next week at the White House, as the US seeks to deepen ties with a key Latin American partner.
US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s imminent visit to China will set the stage for top-level leadership meetings and serve as a “reality check” on American business in China’s struggling economy, according to Chinese analysts.
South Carolina’s new all-male Supreme Court reversed course on abortion, upholding one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who made a career prosecuting criminals before his two-term, law-and-order-focused mayoralty, surrendered to Georgia authorities yesterday on 2020 election interference charges.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows lost his bid to avoid being arrested and booked as a co-defendant in former President Donald Trump’s sprawling election interference case.
Trump will headline a $100,000-per-person fundraiser for Giuliani, to help his financially struggling former lawyer pay his staggering legal fees.
The fundraiser will take place on Sept. 7 at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and is sorely needed by the exceedingly broke former mayor. The event is being organized by the Giuliani Defense political action committee.
Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a ribbon-cutting and planned tour for the first day of The Great New York State Fair. Day one has traditionally been “Governor’s Day.”
As Hochul approached the Basilio’s stand at the New York State fair to continue the gubernatorial sausage-eating tradition, she made an announcement – the cramped structure from which staff have been serving fairgoers for decades will be replaced.
In addition to repeating what governors do every year by coming to the New York State Fair, Hochul made some history yesterday by visiting the Onondaga Nation, becoming the first governor to do so in at least half a century.
The governor said there were “productive” talks with Nation leaders about new collaborations on education and healthcare.
Hochul signed an executive order to increase state agency purchases of New York-sourced food.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik asked Hochul to delay the implementation of a new Empire State law that would tax and create a state-level purchase database of gun owners.
In an email to employees, state Gaming Commission Chairman Brian O’Dwyer denied the state agency operated a hostile work environment and insisted a TU article about workplace issues there “aired complaints designed to paint our agency in a bad light.”
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he’s giving Hochul some leeway over her handling of the ongoing migrant situation, saying: “I just think, in the midst of a crisis, I think the governor is doing the best she can.”
Hochul’s administration dragged its feet on green-lighting a migrant housing facility in Queens, delaying its opening at a time dozens of asylum seekers resorted to sleeping on a Manhattan sidewalk, according to a new court filing from Adams’ office.
Adams wants Hochul to use an executive order to force communities outside of New York City to take in migrants and give the Big Apple $6.5 billion, according to the bombshell legal filing in Manhattan Supreme Court.
More than 3,000 migrants poured into the Big Apple in just the last week alone — a sign the surge of asylum seekers isn’t slowing down, officials said.
New York City could save nearly $3 billion by placing migrants in permanent housing with vouchers instead of makeshift emergency shelters, according to a new report.
The jointly-issued study from the New York Immigration Coalition and Win says the city would only pay $72 for a two-bed apartment per night for an asylum-seeking family with vouchers.
Staten Island’s elected officials presented a rare united front yesterday, with Democrats and Republicans opposing the use of the former Fort Wadsworth military base as a migrant shelter.
Adams, on his third day in Israel, suggested that NYPD officers would be more effective in responding to crime scenes and emergencies if they could use “motorcycles and drones together” in a coordinated fashion.
Adams vowed to bring Israeli tech to the New York Police Department despite concerns from human rights organizations.
Also while in Israel, Adams met with two organizers of the ongoing mass protest movement against the government’s judicial overhaul.
Adams this week ordered up a major propaganda campaign seeking to tout his handling of the humanitarian crisis, by making nearly two dozen city agencies run a one-minute clip praising the work his administration has done.
Adams awarded the late Harry Belafonte with a Key to the City to honor his impact on the entertainment industry and national civil rights issues.
Columbia University outlined a series of steps to review its admissions policies in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in higher education.
The embattled City University of New York is facing another backlash as being hostile to Israel and condoning antisemitism for hiring controversial professor Marc Lamont Hill.
Universal curbside composting came to Queens. Now it’s Brooklyn’s turn.
The crazed fan who gave Drew Barrymore a scare when he rushed the stage during an event she was hosting in Manhattan earlier this week was reportedly arrested outside the actress’ Long Island home yesterday.
A woman pleaded guilty yesterday to first-degree manslaughter for fatally shoving a beloved, 87-year-old Broadway singing coach last March in a bizarre act of random violence that shocked New Yorkers.
A 43-year-old woman was dead and her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter were in critical condition yesterday after they were bludgeoned with a hammer in their Brooklyn apartment by a man who also lived there, officials said.
New York law enforcement yesterday viewed Verizon prototypes available to them for emergencies in connectivity-challenged areas, along with an upgraded police cruiser.
The New York State Writers Institute announced children’s author Jacqueline Woodson and acclaimed poet Patricia Spears Jones have been named the new State Author and State Poet, respectively.
Kristie Bowers, raised in Rochester and educated in Binghamton, has returned to upstate New York to become the first female athletic director in RPI history.
For the first time in its history, the Olympic Regional Development Authority will turn to a woman to handle all the operations of the skiing, skating, sliding and world event planning at New York’s premier winter competition and recreation sites in the Adirondacks.
Representatives from Community Resource Federal Credit Union and Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins handed out book bags filled with school supplies to Albany PAL Kids at their summer camp.
The 144-year-old Beman Park is in the middle of a $1.1 million makeover as the city spends $4.12 million to improve parks around the city.
The construction work to put the community center and people in an underserved Schenectady neighborhood back into the former Carver Community Center is a step closer to becoming a reality.
Fresh off his May convictions for manslaughter in the 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people, Nauman Hussain is asking to be released on bail while he appeals the outcome of his trial.
You can still listen in on the shows if you couldn’t get tickets for Phish’s Friday and Saturday charity concerts at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Live webcasts for both concerts will be available on LivePhish.com and the band’s YouTube channel.
Two robot visitors from India landed in the southern polar region of the moon, making it the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon.
