Good morning; it’s Wednesday.
I had a lot of interests when I was a kid – many of them outdoor pursuits. I was really into bike riding, tree climbing, swimming, and doing gymnastics on the front lawn. One thing I never got into, however, was horses.
A handful of friends in my class, (I’m talking middle school here, like 4th or 5th grade), were diehard horse girls. They drew horses on every spare sheet of paper, pretended to be horses on the playground, and – above all – rode horses whenever they got the chance, be it at riding lessons or on their own farms.
I’m not sure why I never got into horses. Maybe it was because we lived in town. Or maybe because I was the child of two transplanted Brooklynites whose leanings were more toward the academic than the physical. Either way, I never really took a shine to equines, even though I was a big animal lover, writ large.
I’m fairly sure that my shying away (see what I did there?) from horses was helped along by the fact that I once fell off of one at the home of a close friend who was an avid rider.
She left me astride her tamest horse for a moment while she went inside the house to do I’m not sure what…maybe go to the bathroom? One minute I was sitting there, minding my own business on a horse who was tethered to the fence, and the next thing I knew I was rudely bucked into the air, landing flat on my back.
This incident injured my pride more than anything else. At worst, I got the wind knocked out of me. But it left me with a lingering dislike – and distrust – of horses, which I never managed to fully shake.
Today, I view them with a healthy sense of respect and a little tiny bit of fear. I am, after all, only just a hair over five feet tall. The average full-sized horse (depending on the breed, of course) weighs between 900 and 1,200 pounds and measures between 13.3 and 17.3 hands tall, which is anywhere from between five and six feet, give or take a few inches.
Horses and humans have been linked together for centuries, though equines were domesticated long after dogs, cattle, sheep, and goats – sometime around 3500 BC on the steppes of southern Russia and Kazakhstan, it’s believed, and then later introduced to the ancient Near East around 2300 BC.
This was a turning point in human history, and horses were subsequently used as transportation (ridden and pulling carts, etc.), in agriculture, in war, and for racing. They figure prominently in ancient art and were quickly viewed as a valuable and worthy commodity and/or companion.
There’s still such a thing as wild horses, and apparently they’s a big problem for ranchers and farmers. The storied Chincoteague ponies also still exist, though they do NOT actually live on Chincoteague Island.
Horses are also raised for meat in many parts of the world, but here in the U.S. that practice is generally viewed with strong distaste – perhaps because this country is home to some of the world’s most extreme animal rights activists. (For the record, Americans once consumed their fair share of horse meat and also fed it to their pets).
These days, it seems the news about horses is more controversial than anything else – especially when it comes to racing and carriages. I still know quite a few people who keep horses, though, which I guess isn’t surprising given our proximity to Saratoga.
Today, if you hadn’t already had some inkling, is the National Day of the Horse, designated as such in 2004 by Congress to recognize the contribution of horses to this country’s economy, history, and character.
The economic contribution of the horse industry is actually quite significant – about $122 billion as of 2017, according to one account, though to be honest, that figure varies widely depending on the source. Horses play a lot of roles – from athlete to family pet to therapist. I have a healthy respect for horses, I just prefer to admire them from afar.
If you’re heading out for a ride today, you better bundle up. It will be clear and cold, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s.
Before we go: A very happy birthday to Taylor Swift, who turns 34 today. Her fans are celebrating “Swiftmas.”
In the headlines….
President Joe Biden told Israel’s leaders that they were losing international support for their war in Gaza, exposing a widening rift with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejected out of hand the American vision for a postwar resolution to the conflict.
Biden noted that Israel has the support “right now” of the U.S., Europe, and the EU, but added: “They’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.”
The U.N. General Assembly demanded an immediate cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in an overwhelming vote yesterday that highlighted much of the world’s desire to bring the bloody conflict to an end.
Biden is poised to meet today at the White House with family members of Americans who were taken hostage by the militant group Hamas during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel.
This comes after relatives of the families said they were snubbed of an invitation to a White House Hanukkah celebration that was held Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Washington yesterday to make an in-person plea for the military and economic aid he said is necessary to continue Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.
Biden warned that Russia was celebrating American division over providing aid to Ukraine, as Zelensky hit a wall of resistance from congressional Republicans during a daylong lobbying blitz in Washington.
Biden said in a joint news conference with Zelensky that the US would “continue to supply Ukraine with critical weapons and equipment as long as we can,” which was a subtle shift from his past messaging.
Biden announced $200 million in pre-approved aid in critical needed equipment, additional air defense interceptors, artillery and ammunition for Ukraine, but warned that without supplemental funding, the ability to provide more assistance is dwindling.
The House is pushing toward a vote today to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into Biden as Republicans rally behind the charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence.
The resolution will direct three powerful committees to continue investigating Biden to see if there are “sufficient grounds” to impeach him.
For the first time since nations began meeting three decades ago to tackle climate change, diplomats from nearly 200 countries approved a global pact that explicitly calls for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” like oil, gas and coal that are heating the planet.
The new deal had been floated early today after a global rallying cry and was stronger than one proposed days earlier, but still had loopholes that upset critics.
Outside the negotiating rooms, COP28 is part trade fair, part lobbyist jamboree and part debate tournament.
This past summer in the Arctic was the warmest since 1900, contributing to disasters across the wider region, including flooding in Juneau, Alaska and a record wildfire season in Canada, a new report found.
The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average as a result of human-caused climate change, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.
The House is set to vote today on a bipartisan resolution condemning the congressional testimony of three university presidents at a hearing last week that centered on the rise of antisemitism on college campuses.
The University of Pennsylvania’s board of trustees has named Dr. J. Larry Jameson, the dean of Penn’s medical school, as the institution’s new interim president following the resignation of Liz Magill over the weekend.
Harvard’s governing body said it stood firmly behind Claudine Gay as the university’s president, a stance both praised and condemned by students, faculty and alumni.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu announced his endorsement of former United Nations Nikki Haley as the Republican presidential nominee.
Sununu cast Haley as a fresh face for the party who could take on the elites in Washington and move the nation past the “nonsense and drama” of former President Donald Trump.
“It doesn’t get any better than this. To go and get endorsed by the ‘Live Free or Die’ governor is about as rock solid of an endorsement as we could hope for,” Haley said.
Trump is selling pieces of the suit he wore when his mugshot was taken and a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with the man himself — but you should probably read the fine print before purchasing.
Trump’s new $99 NFT collection – the “Mugshot Edition,” is a nod to the former U.S. president’s legal troubles, and stirred up prices for the non-fungible tokens he’d already issued.
Michael Cohen, the onetime fixer for Trump who went to prison after pleading guilty to campaign finance violations in 2018, was trying to persuade a judge to end court supervision of his case now that he has been released.
An attorney for Cohen cited several legal cases in an appeal to cut short the Trump-fixer-turned-critic’s supervised release — the only problem is, the cases don’t seem to exist, a Manhattan federal judge stated.
In his first federal court appearance since being ousted from Congress, ex-Rep. George Santos got a reprieve when a judge turned back a prosecution push to try him in mid-2024 on charges of fraud and campaign finance law violations.
Santos said he is afraid of going to prison. “It’s not a pretty place, and I definitely want to work very hard to avoid that as best as possible,” he added somberly.
Santos told Frank Morano in a radio interview, “I’m not done with public service. I want to go back to Congress.”
Since his expulsion from Congress, Santos has stayed in the public light and is attempting to wring as much attention and money from it as he can.
New York’s redistricting saga is far from over. Yesterday, the state Court of Appeals ruled 4-3 that the New York Independent Redistricting Commission will need to draw a new electoral map by Feb. 28 next year.
“We are holding the IRC and legislature to what the Constitution demands and will do so as often as necessary to secure compliance with its mandate,” Chief Judge Rowan Wilson wrote in the court’s majority opinion.
As the 2014 constitutional amendment stipulates, if the commission doesn’t submit maps to the Legislature by a certain deadline, the Legislature will draw the maps themselves, as they did in 2022 before they were challenged.
The ruling could allow Democrats to tilt anywhere from two to six G.O.P.-held seats leftward. Republicans vowed to challenge any gerrymandered map.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will decide the future of noncompete clauses in New York over the next three weeks — and it will likely come down to whether she can strike a compromise among key state lawmakers, business interests and labor unions.
New York State is planning to pay landlords who rent out single room occupancy units, commonly known as S.R.O.s, in an attempt to fight homelessness by slowing the decades-long decline in the number of small, cheap rental homes.
Mayor Eric Adams said the Biden administration needs to get a better understanding of “basic things” tied to the Big Apple’s migrant crisis — as he insisted his time in office has been “successful” and blamed asylum seekers for his historically low polling.
Michael Giaccio, a veteran New York political consultant who raised funds for Adams’ 2021 campaign, has been hired to solicit cash for his legal defense trust, which will accept donations from anyone, including reputable individuals affiliated with Turkish groups.
Adams said he’s open to rolling back some of the budget cuts unveiled in his administration’s most recent financial plan — as long as the reversals are reasonable and “make sense.”
Adams knew the job would come with challenges two years ago at the end of the pandemic, but he didn’t imagine he’d be facing what he is facing now.
Adams claimed that “political opportunists” intent on derailing his administration were behind a flurry of unsubstantiated rumors exchanged over the weekend that he was on the brink of an indictment.
Adams said the Biden administration needs to get a better understanding of “basic things” tied to the Big Apple’s migrant crisis — as he insisted that his time in office has been “successful” and blamed asylum seekers for his historically low polling.
New York City is paying tens of thousands of dollars a month for meals that are supposed to go to feed migrants but instead are never eaten and are thrown away, according to internal company records.
A city bill to strictly limit the use of solitary confinement in Rikers Island may finally come to a vote.
A proposed bill would force the NYPD to file millions of reports on even the most ordinary encounters with New Yorkers — prompting critics to blast the bill as potentially leading to massive overtime and diverting police from dealing with crime.
The families of remaining Israeli hostages gathered at Gracie Mansion last night for the mayor’s annual Hanukkah celebration where attendees lit a menorah made of a license plate from a car left behind after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state.
The Bronx apartment building that partially collapsed Monday, leaving a harrowing skeleton of a structure but miraculously sparing anyone serious injuries, had been flagged for more than 100 building violations, according to city records.
It was not yet clear what caused the corner of the building to crumble. City officials and prosecutors in the Bronx said they were investigating the collapse.
Displaced residents of a building that partially collapsed in the Bronx on Monday afternoon recalled a slew of unsavory and unsafe conditions in their apartments, including rats, leaks, and visible cracks in the walls.
The building was deemed “unsafe” by an engineering firm in February 2020 — just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the Big Apple to a standstill — forcing the structure’s deteriorating facade to go without critical repairs for years.
The Queens bus network would see its first major redesign since the 1950s under a plan released by the MTA.
Macy’s has hit a high note with its holiday windows. Both locals and tourists are loving an interactive Christmas carol-karaoke element that’s a key part of the department store’s festive display.
Nearly $18 million in grants as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure & Jobs Law will go toward improving road safety in several communities in upstate New York, U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand announced.
The Rockwell Falls Public Library, closed since late September and in a state of administrative paralysis since its director and several board members resigned, now has a full Board of Trustees after the state Board of Regents appointed three new members.
The Hoosick Town Board will hold a public hearing on Jan. 3 to set a year-long moratorium on large-scale solar projects. The effort comes in response to residents’ mounting concerns about a proposed 20-megawatt project on 130 acres.
Jordan B. Peterson, the controversial Canadian psychologist, is bringing his “We Who Wrestle with God” tour to Proctors Theatre on Feb. 6. Schenectady will be the third stop on Peterson’s 51-city tour.
The 2024 Freihofer’s Saratoga Jazz Festival features two days, two stages, 22 artists and a new record.
Andre Braugher, an Emmy Award-winning actor best known for playing stoic police officers on the television shows “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” died on Monday after a brief illness. He was 61.
A study published in the journal Nature Communications found that free-ranging domestic cats (including feral ones) eat more than 2,000 species, raising renewed concerns about the ecological fallout.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
