Good morning, it’s Friday, and if the weather forecast is to be believed – it’s a little bit of an eye-popped, I’ll admit – it’s going to be almost 80 (!) degrees today.
Yes, you read that right. It’s almost November and we’re flirting with the sort of temperatures that we typically see in early to mid-summer.
You can insert all the climate change rhetoric you’d like here, and while I am just as upset as the next person about climate change, I have to admit – somewhat sheepishly – that I am not at all sad about being able to run in shorts for just a little longer.
For a person without a lot of vices, I’ve got to take my little thrills where I can get them. I don’t drink, smoke, gamble, or do drugs. I don’t watch porn or engage in unsafe sex. I go to bed early. I don’t frequent unlit, unpopulated areas at night. I don’t eat a lot of fried food or red meat.
Maybe I shop online a little too much now and again, but since it doesn’t impact my ability to pay my bills, I consider that a fairly harmless indulgence. I also probably drive faster than I should, and I sometimes text while driving. (What’s the statute of limitations on that one these days?)
All in all, I’m a pretty boring person.
So, you might be surprised to learn that I am a big fan of Las Vegas.
To be clear, I like the spectacle of Vegas, and the improbability of it, and the people watching. I don’t go there to party or try my luck. Actually, I don’t go there much at all, but when I find myself there, I enjoy it.
Apparently, I’m not alone among my fellow Jews when it comes to feeling the pull of the desert and the City of Sin, which is home to the fastest-growing Jewish population in the United States. No joke. (It was also, back in a day, a big favorite of Jewish mobsters).
Love it or hate it, you’ve got to admit that Vegas is a one-of-a-kind sort of place. It also happens to be within easy driving distance of some serious worthwhile wonders, including the Hoover Dam, Zion National Park (across the border in Utah), and the Grand Canyon (130 miles away in Arizona), Lake Tahoe, and Red Rock Canyon – just to name a few.
Nevada is, all in all, a very cool state – one well worth celebrating, which, as it happens, is something that is taking place on this very day. Happy Nevada Day, a little known (outside of The Silver State, anyway) holiday that commemorates Nevada’s admission to the Union on October 31, 1864.
Yes, if you checked your calendar to make sure, you are not mistaken. Halloween, while just around the corner, is not quite here yet. Nevada Day was established as a state holiday by the Nevada Legislature in 1933, but to make the party last through a three-day weekend, it was moved to the last Friday in October in 2000.
All public buildings; along with city, county, and state governments; schools; and libraries, are closed across Nevada in observance of this day. Most of the big events take place in the state’s capital, Carson City. (I had to look that one up; I’m not great on my capitals, sad to say).
The official Nevada Day website bills it as “the largest celebration of statehood in the nation,” which got me thinking: Why doesn’t EVERY state do this? New York ratified the U.S. Constitution on July 26, 1788, becoming the 11th of the 13 original Union States. Since that’s one day after my birthday, I am all for tacking on Day 2 of an annual personal coming-of-age celebration.
Now I just need to find a lawmaker willing to introduce some legislation and make this thing official. Or maybe launch a Change.org petition? Too bad we don’t have initiative and referendum in this state.
Since we already dispensed with the weather, let’s get right down to business.
In the headlines…
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips will challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. “I am, I have to,” Phillips told CBS News. “I think (Biden) has done a spectacular job for our country. But it’s not about the past, this is an election about the future.”
The moderate third-term congressman, who left his Democratic leadership post earlier this month, said he plans to hold an official launch rally today in New Hampshire, where he will file to appear on the state’s primary ballot.
Biden’s job approval rating among Democrats tumbled 11 percentage points in the past month to 75%, the worst reading of his presidency from his own party, a new Gallup poll found.
This drop has pushed Biden’s overall approval rating down to 37%, matching his personal low.
Biden is at risk of alienating members of his own party with his unequivocal support for Israel, which has carried out a weeks-long bombardment and total siege of Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.
Biden and his team have markedly shifted their tone on the Israel-Hamas crisis in recent days, moving from unfettered support of Israel to emphasizing the need to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza ahead of a looming Israeli ground invasion.
Its troops are massed on the Gaza border and described as ready to move, but Israel’s political and military leaders are divided about how, when and even whether to invade, according to seven senior military officers and three Israeli officials.
The Israeli military said ground forces raided inside Gaza, striking dozens of militant targets. In a statement it said that IDF ground forces, accompanied by fighter jets and UAVs, carried out a “targeted raid in the central Gaza Strip.”
The United States carried out airstrikes on targets linked to Iran in eastern Syria early today, striking facilities used by Iran’s own forces, U.S. officials said, in an effort to ward off more attacks on American forces in the region.
“The United States does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement last night.
One of the art world’s top magazine editors was fired last night after the publishers of Artforum said that the staff’s decision to post an open letter about the Israel-Hamas War failed to meet the organization’s standards
Some UPenn alumni want the president to resign over a Palestinian conference and the university’s response to the Hamas attacks — as well as D.E.I. and transgender rights.
Conservatives who spent months worrying that their drive to impeach Biden would go nowhere under Kevin McCarthy hope it’s just a matter of time before Republicans vote to remove the president under Speaker Mike Johnson.
Johnson is confronting a multitude of crises during his first days in office, chief among them a deadline just weeks away to avert a government shutdown and an urgent request from Biden for a behemoth $105 billion aid bill for Israel and Ukraine.
The Louisiana Republican played a pivotal role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his elevation to the top post in the House does not give him special powers in the certification process if he tries again.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is requesting that the White House provide documentation of a $200,000 loan that President Joe Biden made to his brother James Biden in 2018.
The US Congressional Budget Office has raised fresh concerns about Aukus, just one day after Biden assured the visiting Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, that the deal would ultimately be approved by congress.
Biden said the nation is mourning after “another senseless and tragic mass shooting” in which 18 people were shot to death in Lewiston, Maine, and urged Republicans in Congress to help enact stronger gun laws.
As communities in Maine grieve 18 people killed in a shooting at a bowling alley and restaurant two days ago, officials still are imploring thousands of residents to shelter in place while a massive search continues for a suspect.
Investigators found a note at the home of mass shooting suspect Robert Card, according to law enforcement sources, and a gun was recovered from his abandoned car.
Despite the wide array of technological tools and manpower at their disposal, officials involved with the manhunt are facing down a herculean task, experts say.
Card is a certified firearms instructor, law enforcement officials in Maine said. And while he’s had no deployments, records provided by the Army indicate Card is a petroleum supply specialist in the Army reserve.
Rep. Jared Golden, who is from Lewiston and was one of two Democrats to vote against raising the minimum age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21, said the Wednesday shootings have moved him to change his stance on assault weapons.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ position on gun control has come under scrutiny after a mass shooting in her home state of Maine left at least 16 people dead.
Now that the House has a new speaker, a handful of Republican members from New York are moving forward to expel their delegation colleague, Rep. George Santos, from Congress.
The resolution was introduced by Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, R-N.Y., and was co-sponsored by fellow New York Republican Reps. Brandon Williams, Nick LaLota and Marc Molinaro.
The action was precipitated by the filing of 23 fresh federal criminal counts against Santos earlier this month, accusing him of inflating his campaign’s fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors’ credit cards without their consent.
Santos is expected to plead not guilty today to 10 new federal charges, even as a House expulsion vote looms next week.
A judge yesterday reaffirmed Donald Trump’s $10,000 fine over an out-of-court comment during Trump’s New York civil business fraud trial, a penalty the former president’s lawyers argued was unfair and unconstitutional.
Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to reinstate a gag order Trump, citing recent social media posts about the former president’s chief of staff that they said represented an attempt to influence and intimidate a foreseeable witness in the case.
Federal prosecutors have quietly withdrawn a subpoena seeking records from Trump’s 2020 campaign as part of their investigation into whether his political and fund-raising operations committed any crimes as he sought to stay in power after he lost the election.
Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder announced that he was ending his 2024 Republican campaign for president and endorsing Trump.
“As I look at the path forward, and after careful consideration and consultation with my campaign team, I have made the difficult decision to suspend my campaign,” Elder said in a statement announcing the end of his campaign.
A man was arrested twice Wednesday after trying to break into presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s home in Los Angeles, he announced.
The intruder was first arrested after climbing a fence at the home and later returned after being released on bail and levied a restraining order. Kennedy was home during both attempts.
Donald Trump Jr. dubbed Kennedy a “Democrat plant” after the candidate left the Democratic primary to pursue a presidential bid as an independent, potentially hurting former President Trump’s election chances.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman pleaded guilty yesterday to one misdemeanor count tied to pulling a fire alarm in a congressional office building, despite there not being an emergency.
He will pay a $1,000 fine and serve three months of probation, after which the false fire alarm charge is expected to be dismissed from his record under an agreement with prosecutors.
If he fulfills these terms, prosecutors will drop the charge at his sentencing hearing on January 29.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced taxpayers will cover the costs of her recent visit to wartime Israel, reversing course after a nonprofit was supposed to pick up the tab but has yet to receive clearance from a state ethics panel.
Hochul had sidestepped multiple questions on who funded the trip, with her office saying only that a nonprofit group pledged to pay and that an ethics panel was reviewing the arrangement.
Instead of waiting for the state’s ethics commission to approve an arrangement for the UJA-Federation of New York to pay for a trip that already occurred, a Hochul spokesperson said, the state would be stepping in to pay instead.
New York has banned the use of corporal punishment in all private schools, making it one of just a handful of states in the nation to bar teachers in all types of schools from hitting students.
Hochul signed a bill into law making dissemination or publication of AI-created intimate images illegal.
Mayor Eric Adams raked in more than $326,000 in income last year, but declared a net loss of nearly $5,000 on his rental building in Brooklyn — a financial setback that came after he spent heavily on rat mitigation at the property, his tax returns show.
Adams is ramping up efforts to fly migrants to the destination of their choice, figuring it’s cheaper than sheltering them for months on end.
New York City is shelling out millions of dollars to wash clothes for migrants in local shelters — including a $1.1 million emergency cleaning contract awarded to Queens-based CRC Management Co. for people in shelters it runs that was revealed in city records.
The pace of new migrant arrivals into the Big Apple slowed in recent days, falling from a rate of almost 4,000 arrivals per week down to 2,500 last week, new city data shows.
Adams formally threw his support behind Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan’s competitive reelection bid – his first endorsement in this year’s local election cycle.
Adams, a proud self-professed, albeit imperfect, vegan, cut the ceremonial ribbon strung across Empire Steak House with a flourish.
Adams announced the appointments of two civic leaders from his administration tasked with helping alleviate the city’s racial justice issues.
Adams and Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez announced there will be 107 car-free locations across all five boroughs for the Halloween season as part of the city’s second annual ‘Trick-or-Streets’ program.
A top Adams operative under investigation over allegations that he assaulted a migrant shelter security guard was once convicted by the NYPD of impeding an internal investigation of a domestic incident and placed on a list of cops with credibility issues.
The Flatiron, the storied office building in the heart of Manhattan that has recently fallen on hard times, will be converted into luxury housing, its owners announced.
Police say students were not in serious danger during a pro-Palestinian protest at Cooper Union on Wednesday, after multiple outlets initially reported Jewish students were “barricaded” in the university library.
Representatives for a group of Jewish students at Cooper Union want the university’s president fired for what they claim was her failure to protect them from a mob of pro-Palestine protesters who cornered them in the school library.
Members of the influential Tisch family projected faces of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas onto the side of New York University’s library in a show of support to the college’s Jewish students after posters bearing similar photographs were ripped down.
MTA brass are standing up against worker assaults after a Staten Island man was charged with accosting an employee yesterday.
A dog in the New York City Department of Correction K9 unit died this week after he was found unresponsive inside a department vehicle on Rikers Island, a department spokesperson said.
A 7-year-old boy was killed in Brooklyn yesterday morning when the driver of a Police Department tow truck hit him while he was crossing the street, the police said.
A Bengali snack called fuchka, largely unknown in New York City five years ago, has spawned a glut of imitators, all within a one-block radius of one corner on 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens.
After migrants protested sub-par living conditions at the Super 8 motel in Rotterdam, the company tasked with managing their care publicized a letter from a state official that detailed how living conditions were satisfactory at upstate hotels.
It marks the latest effort by DocGo, the publicly traded company hired by New York City to care for thousands of migrants, to try and sharpen its image amid questions about its work as well as the actions of its former CEO.
A jury convicted Nelson Patino of murder, rejecting his claim — one that’s been rarely used in a U.S. court — that a brief psychosis disorder from having COVID-19 drove him to fatally stab his wife and 5-year-old son at their Duanesburg home in 2021.
Appellate justices unanimously upheld the 2018 felony conviction of a Schenectady man who walked into a neighbor’s fenced yard, allowed his two pit bulls to maul a cat and fled with the mortally wounded pet in the mouth of one of his dogs.
