Good morning. I cannot remember the last time I was so relieved to write the words: “It’s Friday.”
This week has been a whirlwind of travel – from Albany to D.C. (by plane) and then NYC (by train) in a single day, then 24 hours later from NYC back to Albany (again, by train – thanks, Amtrak, for resuming northbound service!)
Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot. I know plenty of people maintain scheduled equally hectic, if not more so. But it really took a toll on me. I was lucky, though, when it came to the weather, because it has been clear and also unseasonably warm.
Both D.C. and NYC were downright balmy. I was wearing a fall-to-winter transition coat that was perfect for last week’s chill in the air, but this week left me sweating. Today is going to be more of the same, with temperatures in the low-to-mid 60s (!) in the Albany area, and mostly cloudy skies.
I’m not complaining, per se, but it’s galling to me that this fleeting warm snap is coming at a time when I am least able to make the most of it – traveling for work instead of home with a clear schedule and able to sneak off for a good restorative hike.
Some of my happiest times (leaving aside the ill-fated summertime trip to Corsica) have been spent in the woods. Growing up in the Catskills gave me ample opportunity to experience the serenity that comes with being in nature.
Taking some time – if even only a few stolen hours – to disconnect from the phone and reconnect with myself and a select few friends and loved ones (especially of the furry variety) is truly a gift. And there’s ample evidence that being outdoors has a positive effect on both your mental and physical health.
Though I’m sadly not going to be able to celebrate it, today is National Take a Hike Day, which was established by the American Hiking Society to encourage people to hit the trails.
As an aside, though I’ve done a fair amount of hiking myself, I was not familiar with this organization, which has a lot of resources on its website for veteran enthusiasts and newbies alike. Check them out by clicking on their name. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Also worth mentioning: The American Hiking Society.
Not that I’m advocating for anyone to get in trouble, but it you CAN take a day off – or maybe even just cut out a few hours early – to get outside, you really should do it. Because the opportunity is really fleeting, as the weekend is shaping up to be kind of a mixed-bag, weather-wise.
And, Capital Region residents are really blessed to live in an area that is literally littered with great hikes. From the Catskills to the Adirondacks to the Taconics and over to the Hoosac Range (in Western Massachusetts), there is something for everyone at every hiking ability level.
Temperatures will struggle to get out of the mid-to-high 40s on both days, and there will be showers in the morning tomorrow, though the sun will break through in the afternoon. Sunday will be partly cloudy with a chance of a shower made up of rain or even wet snow.
Like I said, get out there while the gettin’ is good.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden has signed the bipartisan short-term funding bill that will keep the government open and operating until early 2024 ahead of tonight’s deadline.
The president signed the bill while in San Francisco for the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, where he has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other Asian world leaders.
The measure passed the House and Senate by wide bipartisan margins this week, ensuring the government remains open until after the holiday season. The measure doesn’t include any of the funding Biden has said is urgently needed for Ukraine and Israel.
As Congress struggles to do the bare minimum of keeping the government funded, House Republicans are using the annual federal spending bills to try to punish the Biden administration.
Biden said he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco.
Biden said that the United States has “real differences with Beijing,” one day after he held an hours-long meeting with Xi at a moment of deep tension between the two countries.
Biden is nurturing economic ties this week with Asia, but he is not signing any trade deals at the regional summit in San Francisco.
Special counsel Robert Hur is reportedly not expected to charge anyone in connection with the mishandling of classified documents at two locations connected to Biden.
The entire population of Gaza — 2.2 million, with about half of them being children — is in need of food assistance and at risk of starvation because of a collapsed food supply chain and insufficient aid delivery, the United Nations World Food Program said.
Israeli soldiers have recovered the bodies of two of the hostages kidnapped during the Hamas-led attack on Israel last month from a building next to the Al-Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, the Israeli military said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned the killing of civilians in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war while delivering his opening remarks at a virtual inaugural session of the second ‘Voice of Global South Summit’.
More than a dozen Jewish TikTok creators and celebrities confronted TikTok executives and other employees in a private meeting this week night, urging them to do more to address a surge of antisemitism and harassment on the popular video service.
Less than 24 hours after Elon Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X as “the actual truth” of what Jewish people were doing, IBM paused its advertising on the social media platform as X’s chief executive and others scrambled to contain the fallout.
A jury has found David DePape guilty on two counts in the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, last year in the couple’s San Francisco home.
DePape looked down and showed no emotion as the panel found him guilty of attempted kidnapping of a federal official and assault on the immediate family member of a federal official.
The trial lasted four days, and the jury reached its decision after deliberating for roughly eight hours. DePape, 43, faces the possibility of decades in prison.
Embattled Rep. George Santos was hit with a bombshell new congressional ethics report that sparked new calls for his expulsion, and prompted him to announce he would not seek re-election.
The explosive report detailed how the Long Island Republican used campaign donations to splurge on personal expenses like travel, credit card payments, cosmetic procedures and even porn.
House ethics investigators found that Santos used campaign money on personal spending splurges in the Hamptons and Atlantic City, shopping at high-end retailers and even Botox treatments and OnlyFans payments.
A New York appeals court judge paused gag orders on Donald Trump and his lawyers that had prevented them from commenting on court staff in the civil fraud trial of the former president.
Associate Justice David Friedman of the First Judicial Department ruled from the bench. In a written order, the judge said: “considering the constitutional and statutory rights at issue an interim stay is granted.”
The former president wasted little time in reopening attacks on the judge in the civil case, Arthur Engoron, calling his actions “Radical and Unprecedented”.
Trump’s defenses in his federal election interference case are coming into focus: a mix of blame shifting, political attacks and a kind of legal gaslighting.
New Yorkers who complete their sentences and stay out of trouble for a certain period of time will have their criminal records automatically sealed under a long awaited bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Under the so-called “Clean Slate Act,” following their release from any incarceration, records of individuals with eligible misdemeanor convictions will be sealed after three years and those with certain felony convictions, after eight years.
The law will go into effect a year from now, though it will take three more years to clear the records of those currently waiting.
Hochul made an appearance at the state Democratic Committee’s annual meeting on Long Island, where she once again praised the work of Party Chair Jay Jacobs, even as he continues to face calls for his resignation amid losses in his own backyard.
Hochul signed legislation this week that made Diwali a school holiday for city public schools.
Hochul said that she backs an “increase in compensation for judges” in the state, in an effort to “attract and retain talented judges.”
Mayor Eric Adams announced painful budget cuts to New York City services that would freeze police hiring and close libraries on Sunday and warned that more cuts would be necessary without additional federal funding to manage the migrant crisis.
The budget cuts would bring the number of Police Department officers below 30,000 for the first time since the 1980s, slash the Education Department budget by $1 billion over two years and delay the rollout of composting in the Bronx and Staten Island.
New York City’s Education Department will cut nearly $550 million from its budget this year as part of a sweeping round of citywide reductions ordered by Adams.
The New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library and Queens Public Library announced they’ll be making service cuts and ending seven-day-service in all libraries as part of citywide budget cuts triggered by Adams’ latest spending plan update.
As F.B.I. agents searched the home of Adams’s chief fund-raiser earlier this month for evidence his campaign conspired with Turkey, separate teams executed warrants at the residences of two others with ties to the mayor and that country.
The person accused of acting “improperly” as news of the federal investigation into Adams’ 2021 campaign emerged is Adams’ staffer Rana Abbasova, whose electronics, including her phone, were recently seized by the FBI.
An ex-FDNY chief accused the Adams administration of helping big real estate developers cut to the front of the line of builders awaiting fire inspections as the FBI deepens its probe into the mayor’s potential kickback scheme involving Turkish officials.
Adams is expected to appoint Jeffrey Garcia, a veteran Bronx restaurateur, as the city’s new “nightlife mayor” after letting the position sit empty for nearly a year.
Dozens of migrants and advocates protested outside Gracie Mansion yesterday as they demanded that Adams stop trying to nix New York City’s “right to shelter” law amid the ongoing asylum seeker crisis.
An innocent man exonerated in the assassination of Malcolm X says in a $40 million lawsuit that the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover hid evidence pointing to the real killer to protect the agency’s undercover operations to undermine the civil rights movement.
The FBI and the NYPD spent two days this week digging at two Orange County horse farms in connection with an ongoing investigation into the Gambino crime family, according to three law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation.
Three New York colleges — including Columbia, Cornell and Cooper Union — are among seven schools being investigated by the Department of Education over complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus.
More than 100 Harvard professors sent a letter to the university president, condemning her for issuing a statement opposing antisemitism on campus — claiming she bowed to the interests of wealthy donors and alumni, and curbed students’ free speech.
A pro-Israel “doxxing truck” broadcasted the names and faces of “Yale’s Leading Antisemites” near the university’s New Haven campus.
A union representing Legal Aid Society lawyers has drafted a controversial resolution denouncing Israel’s “colonial apartheid occupation” of the Gaza Strip — which the non-profit swiftly slammed as “antisemitic.”
Dozens of tractor-trailers clog the intersections of the City of Saratoga Springs, block parking spots and as a recent study from two Planning Board members contends, cause “economic and environmental damage to our neighborhoods.
A 2021 candidate for city of Saratoga Springs commissioner of finance, JoAnne Kiernan, has been appointed by mayor-elect John Safford to become his deputy.
A federal jury has awarded $9.25 million to the mother of a prisoner who died after a 2016 confrontation with correction officers at Clinton Correctional Facility.
REI, the outdoor recreation and camping co-op, will be opening in Crossgates Mall next fall, the retailer said.
At least one unionized workforce with ShopRite will see extended health insurance coverage, severance payments and a 401K lump sum payment after the grocery stores officially close tomorrow.
A Massachusetts-based fuel company is proposing to build a biodiesel facility near the Port of Albany as part of what observers say has been a boom in that type of fuel.
Seventy-six Capital Region artists and organizations were among the recipients of the New York State Council on the Arts annual grant awards.
The Supreme Court refused to revive a Florida law that banned children from “adult live performances” such as drag shows.
Sean Combs, the producer and music mogul who has been one of the most famous names in hip-hop, was sued in federal court by Cassie, an R&B singer once signed to his label, who accused him of rape, and of repeated physical abuse over about a decade.
Cassie alleged in the suit filed against Combs in New York federal court that he brought her into his “ostentatious, fast-paced, and drug-fueled lifestyle” not long after she met him and signed to his label when she was 19 and he was 37 in 2005.
