Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
I’m giving it a solid three days before all this snow and ice is gone for good. We’re heading into a warm spell, with temperatures rising through the 50s and flirting with 60 tomorrow (though there’s rain in the forecast). I, for one, won’t be sad to see the back end of winter, which seems reluctant to loosen its grip.
I have to confess that I did see one silver lining in the spate of bad weather we just experienced – it wasn’t good news for ticks.
Sadly, even freezing temperatures (unless it’s below 10 degrees F for a prolonged period of time – aren’t enough to stop the blood suckers in their tracks. They are hearty little buggers and they tend to emerge as soon as the temperature hits 40 or so. But snow and cold does put a damper on their activity, at least in the short term.
The brief spate of unseasonably warm weather we enjoyed prior to last weekend’s storm was sufficient to wake ticks up from their winter nap. I did not see it personally, but was told by my fellow dog parent that he found one crawling on his arm not long after taking one of the fur children out for their afternoon constitutional.
Ugh. I immediately called the exterminator and ordered up an off-cycle spray. You can’t be too careful when it comes to ticks. With the winters getting progressively shorter and warmer, tick activity is on the rise.
Up to 50 percent of the tick population in New York is estimated to carry Lyme disease, which continues to be the most prevalent tick-borne illness in this state, although others – like Anaplasmosis and the meat-allergy causing alpha-gal syndrome (AGS) – are starting to creep up there.
In our neck of the woods, (read: the Northeast) the incidence of Lyme disease is lowest from late December to about late March. This has less to do with the weather, which, experts say, doesn’t actually impact the number of biting insects like ticks or mosquitoes, but more about the life cycle of a specific species: The Blacklegged (AKA Deer) tick.
The nymphal and larger adult female stages of the tick are responsible for most of the transmitted cases of Lyme disease, Babesiosis, and Anaplasmosis, and their distribution relies significantly on the availability of their preferred host, white-tailed deer. but by late fall the nymphs have aged into their adult stage.
Ticks do need to be attached to you for a period of time – generally about 36 hours or more – before transmitting Lyme or other diseases. In the case of Lyme, early symptoms usually appear within three to 30 days after a bite. That telltale bullseye rash doesn’t always appear – it develops in up to 80 percent of cases – but usually early symptoms are flu-like in nature.
As the disease progresses, severe fatigue, a stiff aching neck, and tingling or numbness in the arms and legs, or facial paralysis can occur. The most severe symptoms of chronic, long-term Lyme disease (severe joint pain, heart and nervous system trouble etc.) may not materialize for some time – perhaps even years, though this is a hotly debated topic among medical professionals.
We’re well into Tick Bite Prevention Week (March 24-30), which highlights best practices like keeping grass cut short, trimming shrubbery, reducing leaf litter, sticking to the center of the trail when hiking, wearing protective clothing, using repellents, and – perhaps most importantly – performing regular tick checks upon coming in from outdoors (and that means even a short stroll around your local park and/or picnicking in your own backyard).
Just as I was putting the finishing touches on this post, I happened upon this headline from the Times Union: “The end of Lyme disease? Two vaccines show promising early results.” Hope springs eternal, (see what I did there?), maybe the days of obsessive tick checks and tucking your pant legs into your socks are numbered? Or maybe that’s just good practice, you be the judge.
Since we’ve already dispensed with the weather at the top of this post, let’s get down to business.
In the headlines…
Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial on charges that he falsified business records to hide a potential sex scandal is scheduled to start on April 15 after a judge denied the former president’s attempts to delay it further.
For roughly an hour yesterday morning, the judge, Juan M. Merchan, slammed arguments from Trump’s lawyers that his case should be pushed back any further because of newly disclosed documents from a related federal investigation.
A state appeals court ruled that Trump and his co-defendants in the New York civil fraud case have 10 days to post a $175 million bond, down from the $464 million judgment that was originally due yesterday.
One court offered Trump a financial lifeline. Another set him on a path to prosecution. It was a taste of what America will experience until the November election.
Trump’s net worth shot up by more than $4 billion in recent days to about $6.5 billion, according to Bloomberg, which tracks the 500 wealthiest people in the world.
Tensions between the United States and Israel were exposed yesterday when Washington stood aside and allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The bonanza was the result of a merger approved Friday between Trump’s social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, and a shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., known as DWAC.
The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip during the remaining weeks of Ramadan, breaking a five-month impasse during which the United States vetoed three calls for a halt to the fighting.
The US decision to abstain on the vote prompted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a scheduled trip to the US by two of his top advisers, two Israeli officials said.
Netanyahu’s decision to scrap the planned delegation to Washington — a trip President Joe Biden personally requested a week ago — amounts to a low point in the ever-deepening rift between the two men.
When Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant meets with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin today, Gallant is expected to ask for more US weaponry and equipment to support Israel’s war in Gaza, US officials said.
Two of the three members of Israel’s war cabinet signaled their opposition to government proposals on the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox men into the military, setting up a potential collapse of the government coalition.
Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) raised concerns that a dwindling House GOP majority due to multiple vacancies could hurt the caucus’ prospects and may even lead to Democrats taking over the chamber.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, with his job on the line, has privately told people he would make sure the House moves to assist Ukraine, a step that many members of his party oppose.
Leadership at NBC raced to contain an escalating revolt as some of the country’s best-known television anchors took the extraordinary step of criticizing their network on its own airwaves for hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel as a political analyst.
Boeing CEO David Calhoun will step down from the embattled plane maker at the end of the year as part of a broad management shakeup after a series of mishaps at one of America’s iconic manufacturers.
The outgoing chief executive’s four years in the top job were marked by safety scandals, grounded planes, Covid and more grounded planes.
Boeing’s chairman and the head of the commercial airplane unit are also leaving. Boeing’s chairman, Larry Kellner, will not stand for re-election as a board director. The board has elected former Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to succeed him.
A cargo ship struck a bridge that crosses outer Baltimore Harbor early this morning, triggering a partial collapse and sending cars and possibly people into the Patapsco River, the authorities said.
The crash sent large plumes of smoke and fire into the air and part of the bridge appeared to collapse over the front of the boat, video footage showed. Dark smoke continued to rise into the air for several minutes.
State lawmakers are expected to blow their April 1 budget deadline as talks drag on over potential cuts in education and Medicaid spending and how to build more affordable housing, but a conceptual agreement could be announced late this week.
The $233 billion budget proposal Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to land is facing headwinds in a state divided over the migrant crisis, an ideological split inside the Democratic Party over crime and political complexities to expand housing and help tenants.
Rep. Paul Tonko is planning to introduce legislation this year that he said would add federal restrictions to the burgeoning “Wild West” mobile sports betting industry.
State officials are encouraging visitors to come to New York to view the first solar eclipse here in nearly a century but are also cautioning that there may be severe gridlock and limited cellphone service in areas in the direct path of the event next month.
Hochul said that New York State government agencies are prepared for the total eclipse of the sun that will pass through the heart of the state in about two weeks.
State lawmakers are set to try to make it easier for teachers, cops and other state and local government workers to pad their pensions — and leave taxpayers footing the nearly $4 billion bill, a new analysis shows.
The proposed change — backed by Albany pols under pressure from the workers’ powerful unions in an election year — would hit New York City taxpayers with $163 million in added annual pension costs, according to the Empire Center for Public Policy.
A man has died on New York City’s subway after being shoved on to the tracks in front of an oncoming train in what police are saying was an unprovoked attack.
The unprovoked attack in East Harlem was the latest in a series of violent episodes that have led officials to increase the police presence in the subway.
A police officer died yesterday after being shot during a traffic stop in Queens, the police and city officials said.
“We lost one of our sons today and it is extremely painful. It is extremely painful,” Mayor Eric Adams said, addressing reporters at a hospital in Queens.
Officer Jonathan Diller, 31, a married father of a 1-year-old boy, was shot in the stomach after police tried to remove the suspect, identified by sources as 34-year-old Guy Rivera, from the passenger seat of the car near 19-19 Mott Avenue in Far Rockaway.
A longtime political consultant attended a City Hall meeting last year with Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister and top officials in the Adams administration — but did not report it in federal filings.
New York City officials are moving ahead with a contentious plan to give migrant families debit cards for food and baby supplies, with the first cards being distributed yesterday to a small handful of new arrivals.
A space crunch at a Manhattan school building sparked by a massive influx of migrant kids is likely to force a city special needs school out of its home — and into an inadequate 127-year-old site.
The Adams administration will impose migrant curfews at three more massive shelters in the Big Apple.
Dozens of people — including real estate executives — donated to both Adams’ reelection campaign and his legal defense fund. Not many want to talk about it.
The City Council asked the state’s highest court to reverse a ruling that struck down a law giving hundreds of thousands of noncitizen New Yorkers the right to vote in local elections.
Adams, who had been a defendant in the suit supporting the law, is not joining in the appeal to the state’s highest court. The city Law Department will continue to represent the Council in the matter, according to officials.
In the wake of four subway shootings this year, NYPD officials said they will deploy 800 additional plain clothes and uniformed officers to crack down on fare evasion over the next five days.
Affordable apartments for people earning what the city considers “moderate income” make up just 5% of the 24,000 newly added subsidized apartments in recent years, and account for the smallest slice of the newly built affordable housing stock.
School buses, some commuter buses, and a large swath of the city fleet will be exempt from the MTA’s congestion pricing plan.
The three groups are the latest, and likely final, classes of vehicles to get a pass from the charges, which the MTA board plans to finalize tomorrow.
The MTA will outfit more than 100 New York City buses with real-time camera display screens under a new pilot program that aims to make buses safer.
Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl whose escape from the Central Park Zoo and life on the loose captivated New York, had enough rat poison and pigeon virus in his system to kill him even if he had not died after apparently striking a building last month.
The finding, from a necropsy conducted by Bronx Zoo pathologists after Flaco’s death on Feb. 23, validated widespread concerns about the hazards he faced living as a free bird in Manhattan for just over a year. He would have turned 14 this month.
Solar and wind farms in New York set collective hourly records for power generation as the state looks to move to emissions-free electricity by 2040, according to the NYISO.
Albany County’s Lawson Lake Park is closed while crews assess and clean up storm damage from the weekend storm that dropped trees, limbs and power lines across much of the Capital Region.
Onondaga County on Friday officially filed a lawsuit against New York over the new state law that will move many local elections to line up with state and federal elections in even-numbered years.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ was stopped for questioning at a private airport in Miami yesterday evening just as his California neighbors dished on his wild lifestyle after federal agents raided his mansions over alleged sex crimes.
In response to questions about Combs’s residences, Homeland Security Investigations said the searches were part of “an ongoing investigation.”
Photo credit: George Fazio.
