Good Wednesday morning. Some nice symmetry in our date today.
T-minus two days and counting until vacation. I know this is probably getting tiresome, but I’m just trying to prepare you for my prolonged absence from this space. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find something less anxious and self-effacing to replace it.
Let me know if you do. I can always use another good link to peruse in the mornings.
I was not the sort of kid who was interested in teen idols or heart throbs. I had friends who cut pinup photos out of Teen Beat and hung them on the inside doors of their lockers, or pasted them onto their paper bag book covers surrounding by sticker hearts.
I watched Silver Spoons and thought Ricky Schroder was cute. (This was long before he converted to Mormonism and became very religious). But I never obsessed over it.
To this day, I don’t really understand celebrity or influencer culture. But I do know enough to be aware that this sort of idolization is hardly a new phenomenon. Back in the 1920s, for example, women – and probably not a few men – swooned over Italian silent movie star Rudolph Valentino, who was nicknamed “The Latin Lover.”
Valentino was a sex symbol, but his persona was largely invested on his behalf by Hollywood moguls. He died at an early age (31, after undergoing surgery for a perforated ulcer), which caused mass hysteria among his many fans and cemented his role as cultural icon – because what’s better than a sex symbol who never ages and gets a paunch and gray hair?
Exhibit A (or, I guess B, in this case): James Dean. I rest my case.
I had to admit that before I started writing this post, I knew very little about Valentino, other than his name and his movie star looks. It turns out that he packed a lot of living into his 31 years – especially when it came to his love life. He was once jailed for bigamy and also speculated to be bisexual.
He was more popular with women fans than with men – in the U.S. anyway – who found him to be too effeminate to be a hero. They went in for the all-American type, like Douglas Fairbanks.
Valentino died of peritonitis, which is the technical term for inflammation of the lining of the abdomen (AKA, the peritoneum). It is often caused by an infection from a hole in the bowel or a burst appendix. It’s treatable – if it’s caught in time. But that was also a different era when emergency medicine wasn’t even close to what it is today.
Valentino died on this day in 1926. His funeral, which was held in New York City, was a SCENE. An estimated 100,000 people showed up to pay their respects, and as is not uncommon with a crowd of that size, violence broke out. Actually, it was an all-day riot that reportedly required more than 100 mounted NYPD officers to restore order.
A few despondent (female) fans reportedly were so upset by the news of his death that they committed suicide.
Today, in case you hadn’t already guessed, is Valentino Day, in honor of his passing.
Today will be beautiful again – mostly sunny with temperatures in the high 70s-to-low-80s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden has tapped Ed Siskel, the former White House attorney who helped manage the Obama White House’s response to the Benghazi and Solyndra investigations, to serve as his next White House counsel.
Siskel’s attention will be focused on new initiatives Biden hopes to enact as well as staying on top of the president’s efforts to get more judges confirmed in the federal courts.
Biden will urge reforms to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank that will better serve developing country needs at the G20 summit in Delhi next month, the White House said.
Biden will travel to New Delhi, the site of this year’s gathering, from Sept. 7 to 10, according to the White House.
The White House has not said which leaders the president will hold individual meetings with but China’s President Xi Jinping and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, are among officials from leading global economies who have been invited.
The Biden administration’s new income-driven repayment plan, known as SAVE, opened for enrollment yesterday, providing millions of borrowers with a more affordable way to pay their monthly student loan bills.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy is endorsing Donald Trump, giving the former president the support of a governor whose state is expected to hold its nominating contest on the all-important “Super Tuesday” primary date.
A Trump employee changed his grand jury testimony in the documents case after the Justice Department raised questions about whether his lawyer had a conflict of interest in representing both the employee and a defendant in the case, prosecutors said.
Some of Trump’s co-defendants in the election interference case in Georgia began turning themselves in yesterday, while others tried to get the sprawling criminal case moved out of state court and into federal court.
Trump’s plan to have prominent surrogates make his case in Milwaukee without attending the debate himself may already be hitting a snag as he clashes with Fox News. His allies may be kept out of the post-event spin room.
An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe the recent influx of migrants in the state is a serious problem, and that Gov. Kathy Hochul and Biden are doing a poor job addressing the crisis, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll.
A new poll from Siena College found that 82% of New Yorkers are concerned about the state’s migrant crisis, which they view as a “serious” problem. It also showed record-low approval ratings for Hochul.
Her favorability rating stands at 40-46%, down from June when it stood at 44%-43%. Hochul’s job approval is evenly split at 56-36%, down from its all-time high in January of 56-36%.
Hochul announced that she is allocating $36 million to support migrant case management programs in upstate New York.
Mayor Eric Adams, on his second day in Israel, pointed to the country’’s policies of granting work authorizations to new immigrants as an example of what Biden should be doing when it comes to the migrant crisis in the U.S., now acutely felt in New York City.
Using artificial intelligence in policing is one of several high-tech tools Adams said he’s exploring during his trip to Israel.
Adams thrust himself into Israel’s political turmoil by meeting with both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders protesting the PM’s controversial judicial changes.
People traveling with the mayor argued that a face-to-face with the prime minister is not a tacit endorsement of his nationalist policies. Netanyahu’s efforts to curtail Supreme Court influence have been slammed as attacks on democracy.
Adams is ordering all city agencies to promote a positive portrayal of his administration’s response to the migrant crisis in a highly coordinated social media blitz as he faces mounting criticism over his handling of the issue.
Advocates want Adams to extend housing vouchers to undocumented immigrants living in New York City — an unprecedented move they say will help alleviate pressure on the city’s homeless shelter system while saving taxpayers $3 billion annually.
Rep. George Santos expressed outrage and indignation over New York’s migrant crisis and mocked Democrats for fumbling the issue.
“With Dining Out NYC, we are building on the best of outdoor dining and throwing the worst in the trash,” Adams wrote in an op-ed.
Moody’s rating service has upgraded part of NYPA’s bond status, pointing to successful construction of two transmission lines designed to carry electricity from western and northern New York to downstate as one of the reasons for the improvement.
A local public school for students who are deaf relies on audio alerts over the school’s PA system to notify children of emergencies, according to a lawsuit filed by teachers and parents in Manhattan federal court.
Already-disgraced ex-Suffolk County police chief James Burke was arrested yesterday morning for soliciting a sex worker inside a Brookhaven park, Long Island officials announced.
Burke, 59, was picked up in the Suffolk County Vietnam Veterans Memorial Park by park rangers at about 10:15 a.m. and charged with offering a sex act, public lewdness, indecent exposure and criminal solicitation.
Two Capital Region school districts are welcoming a total of 110 migrant students who were moved to the area from New York City, and both said the influx is well within their capacity.
The City Council is moving quickly to issue new subpoenas for its investigation of the emergency evacuation of the Harbour Point Gardens apartments in South Troy after the city declared buildings owned by 182 Delaware LLC with 58 apartments unsafe in June.
The NYPD says there is no active complaint on file after City Councilmember Inna Vernikov was forcibly kissed in a Brighton Beach subway station in an act that was caught on video by a television reporter.
A 33-year-old Rikers Island inmate arrested for back-to-back stabbings in Queens last year was found dead in his cell early yesterday — the eighth city Correction Department detainee to die in custody or shortly after release in 2023, officials said.
A black bear attacked a young boy outside his home in Bedford yesterday morning, but his parents were able to scare the animal away and save their son, officials said.
Emergency medical services treated the child and transported him to an area hospital. A preliminary evaluation of the boy’s condition did not indicate his injuries were life-threatening, officials said. The bear was shot and will be tested for rabies.
An outbreak of salmonella cases across 11 states has been linked to small turtles, prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue safety instructions for people who have the reptiles as pets.
A golfer at the Putnam County Golf Course has been charged with animal cruelty for reportedly killing a goose with a golf club at the 14th hole last week.
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point will soon open and unveil the contents of a nearly 200-year-old time capsule discovered in the base of the Thaddeus Kosciuszko monument during recent renovations, according to a release from the military academy.
Pretty much everyone agrees that New York has to stop producing so much garbage. But how? State regulators are coming around to a familiar idea: Put a price on it.
Noting that they are crucial to New York’s thoroughbred racing industry, organizers with the IBEW Local 1430 union said they launched an effort to organize the hundreds of backstretch workers who care for horses at Saratoga Race Course.
