Good morning.
We made it to the end of another week. Although these days, it’s hard for me to feel terribly enthusiastic about that, since it brings us one week closer to winter, which I am dreading a little bit more with each passing year. Aging makes snow and cold a little less palatable.
Thoughts of everything being blanketed in white (snow, that is) is a workable, though not very elegant, segue into the topic of today’s mental meanderings: White chocolate.
Hardcore purist chocolate fans will likely tell you that white chocolate is not REALLY chocolate, whereas white chocolate lovers will insist that it is. The truth is actually not (ahem) not so black and white.
White chocolate IS indeed chocolate, but only if it meets Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards, which means it must contain the following:
- No less than 20% cocoa butter
- No less than 14% total milk solids
- No less than 3.5% milkfat
- No more than 55% sugar
This wasn’t always the case. It wasn’t until 2002 (effective 2004) that the FDA finally heeded the call of white chocolate makers and amended what’s known as a the “Standard of identity” to include “white chocolate” as an approved term, establishing the standards referenced above.
Prior to the reclassification there was litigation challenging the use of the phrase “white chocolate” to described certain products, and the FDA mandated that any product labeled “chocolate” must contain chocolate liquor, which gives the brown color and intense flavor of milk and dark varieties.
As an side, if you haven’t read the New Yorker article about the Long Island lawyer, Spencer Sheehan, who has made a whole career out of challenging food label claims, it’s worth a few minutes of your time. He was subsequently profiled in a much shorter NY Post piece, if long-form journalism isn’t your speed.
White chocolate is created by separating the dark solids from the fat of the bean known as cocoa butter – a natural part of the manufacturing process – and then leaving the cocoa butter to stand on its own.
White chocolate first hit the commercial market in earnest in the 1930s when Nestle introduced the Milkybar, which seems to be very big in the UK, though you can get anything on the interwebs these days.
White chocolate is usually higher in calories, sugar, and fat than its darker cousins and lacks their purported health benefits. It does, however, contain some calcium, which is good for you. And if you like it, well, everything in moderation, as they say.
Today is National White Chocolate Day, so eat up.
We’ll have partly cloudy skies today, with temperatures in the low 70s. The weekend is shaping up to be sort of meh, with clouds and showers on Saturday and periods of rain on Sunday. Temperatures will be in the low-to-mid 60s on both days.
In the headlines…
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worked to shore up U.S. support for Ukraine on a whirlwind visit to Washington, delivering an upbeat message on the war’s progress while facing new questions about the flow of American dollars that has funded his troops.
President Biden and Zelensky sought to project their unified front at the White House as the two leaders made the case for continued U.S. aid to Ukraine in its war against Russia amid a backdrop of GOP infighting on the matter on Capitol Hill.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said Biden would announce a new aid package for Ukraine containing “significant air defense capabilities”. Earlier in the day, Russia launched a wave of missile attacks on energy plants and equipment.
Biden indeed announced a new military aid package for Ukraine worth hundreds of millions of dollars as the Eastern European country fights to recapture territory from invading Russian forces.
The additional $325 million in military aid includes air defense capabilities, cluster munitions, anti-tank weapons and other equipment.
Rupert Murdoch, longtime head of News Corp. and Fox, will step down as chair and take on the role of chair emeritus, capping a seven-decade career that built a media dynasty that turned him into one of the world’s most influential media executives.
Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son, will be the sole chair of News Corp. and continue as executive and CEO of Fox Corp. Rupert Murdoch will take on his new role at the companies’ next shareholder meetings, scheduled for mid-November.
Rupert Murdoch, 92, had shown no intention of stepping down or even slowing down — including after he named Lachlan as the operating heir to his business empire in 2019, when he sold his vast entertainment holdings to the Walt Disney Company.
As he kicks off a new campaign to use his wealth to block the construction of petrochemical plants, Mike Bloomberg outlined the fate of his company Bloomberg L.P. after he dies.
Right-wing House Republicans dealt another stunning rebuke to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, blocking a Pentagon funding bill for the second time this week in a vivid display of GOP disunity on federal spending that threatens to lead to a government shutdown.
For the second time this week, House Republicans failed to start debate on a key military funding bill after five conservative rebels blocked the measure over demands for additional spending cuts.
The defeat marked yet another public embarrassment for McCarthy and House Republicans as Washington barrels toward a government shutdown. Then, they left town for the week.
Whatever the reason, seven months after entering hospice care, Jimmy Carter is still hanging on, thank you very much, and is in fact heading toward his 99th birthday in just over a week.
The Biden administration’s granting of special status to Venezuelan migrants will have no greater impact than in New York City, where thousands of immigrants will soon be able to begin legally applying for work and eventually leave taxpayer-funded shelters.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said she supports nixing New York City’s “right to shelter” law – as the relentless influx of migrants pouring in only continues to cripple an already “at capacity” Big Apple.
Hochul seemingly changed her tune on the migrant crisis yesterday, remarking during a CNN appearance, “If you’re going to leave your country, go somewhere else.”
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged his former lieutenant governor, Hochul, to sue Biden to recover the billions of dollars absorbed while grappling with the migrant “fiasco.”
City officials describe the Roosevelt Hotel, the city’s main intake center for homeless migrants, as the “new Ellis Island.” But local political leaders are also hoping to restrict who comes.
Executives at companies contracted to help manage New York City’s migrant crisis were invited to testify at a City Council hearing — but they didn’t show up after Mayor Eric Adams’ office told them to stay away, a directive that drew outrage from lawmakers.
New York City Council members grilled Adams administration officials in a heated probe, asking whether the city is doing enough to vet the contractors slated to rake in more than $5 billion to shelter and care for newly arrived migrants.
A senior Adams administration official said that the city is preparing to ask a judge to exempt newly arrived migrants from its right-to-shelter mandate, which requires the city to provide a bed to anyone who asks for one.
A City Council committee renewed its commitments to overhauling the child care economy in New York City at a time when Adams has called for billions in budget cuts to confront an ongoing migrant crisis.
New York City continues to bear the brunt of the nation’s migrant crisis and has admitted 95,000 migrants so far in 2023. The city has taken in more than twice as many migrants as locations in Texas, California and Florida since Title 42 was lifted in May.
Migrant families could soon be housed in a former Manhattan College dorm in the Bronx as the Big Apple’s shelter system buckles under the surge of asylum seekers arriving in the city.
Adams proposed a major overhaul of New York City’s approach to development that his administration says could make way for as many as 100,000 additional homes in the coming years and ease the city’s severe housing crisis.
As part of his plan, Adams unveiled the largest overhaul of the Big Apple’s cumbersome zoning regulations in decades, as part of an effort to reshape development across the five boroughs.
Days after a 1-year-old died and three children exposed to drugs at a Bronx day care site were hospitalized, investigators uncovered a trap door under a play area that was concealing fentanyl, other narcotics and drug paraphernalia.
One person died and dozens of others were injured, at least five critically, after a bus carrying a high school marching band from Long Island crashed on a New York highway and went down an embankment yesterday afternoon, the authorities said.
The state attorney general’s office sent a letter to a grassroots voter-integrity group warning its officials to “cease and desist any ongoing or contemplated voter deception and intimidation efforts.
New York’s largest utility has revised its forecast of climate change impacts on its electric system — forecasting a quicker increase in extreme temperatures and heavy rainfall events.
New York state agencies are being ordered to freeze spending in their budget proposals for the next fiscal year as the state faces major budget gaps in the years ahead.
Hochul signed legislation aimed at making it easier to access geothermal heating and cooling systems in order to help reach the goals of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
Starting in 2025, concrete suppliers to New York will have to provide accountings of how much carbon is being used in making their product as part of a new set of rules unveiled this week by Hochul.
GlobalFoundries was awarded a new 10-year contract by the Department of Defense to make computer chips for military applications with a total possible value of up to $3.1 billion.
The New York State Public Employees Federation held a rally to bring attention to “toxic” environments that many state workers face, the union alleges.
Hundreds of state workers say they’ve had enough of perpetual bullying and abuse from their managers, and started an early legislative push to change state law and provoke a culture shift they say is decades overdue.
The owner of some of the most notable and iconic buildings in downtown Troy is selling all of them.
An Olympic bobsledder has filed a lawsuit against a team chiropractor, alleging a decade of sexual abuse.
The Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, D.C., is preparing to say goodbye to its beloved giant pandas, who will return to China after calling the zoo home for more than two decades.
