Good morning. The good news: It’s Friday. The perhaps not-so-good news, depending on your world view: It’s Friday the 13th.
Not that I subscribe to the theory that the 13th in unlucky. If I were to build a skyscraper, for example, I would certainly have no problem including the 13th floor. (I’m not going to be doing this anytime soon, but it’s really the only example I could come up with that was remotely germane).
Then again, I am not a particularly superstitious person on the whole.
I don’t avoid black cats as a rule. I do go out of my way not to walk under ladders, but it’s more out of a concern that they might fall on me and not because I believe doing so is particularly unlucky. Ditto breaking mirrors. Glass shards are dangerous and get everywhere – especially if they’re really small and present an outsized danger to bare feet and sensitive doggo paws.
A friend of mine recently was appalled to learn that a colleague was going in for a scheduled c-section today – Friday the 13th – and demanded that she ask for a change or risk dooming her child to a life of unluckiness. She responded that unfortunately, she was beholden to her doctor’s calendar (don’t get me started on this) and he was going on vacation. So today is the day, and that’s it.
My colleague had a good attitude, though, and said she was determined that her child would be the one to prove people wrong and demonstrate that being born on a supposedly unlucky day is nothing but a myth. I hope – for her sake and the baby’s – that she’s right.
How did we get here, anyway? There’s a whole host of speculations as to where this particular superstition got its start. (For the record, there is not universal agreement on the unlucky nature of this date, as in Greece and Spanish-speaking countries, it is Tuesday the 13th that’s a problem, while in Italy, it is Friday the 17th).
Anyway, as to the origin story. Some say it comes from the Last Supper, because it was the 13th and final disciple to arrive – Judas Iscariot – who betrayed Jesus, leading to his crucifixion on Good Friday.
Sticking with the Biblical theme, Friday – though not necessarily the 13th – is believed to be when that Adam and Eve plucked and consumed the forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge; the day Cain murdered his brother, Abel; the day the Temple of Solomon fell; and the day Noah’s ark set sail.
More recently, rapper Tupac Shakur died on Sept. 13, 1996 after being shot six days earlier, and the Costa Concordia cruise ship crashed off the coast of Italy on Friday, Jan. 13, 2012, killing 30 people.
Others trace the source of the superstition back further still, to ancient Hindu beliefs or Norse mythology. Even the ancient Code of Hammurabi reportedly omitted a 13th law from its list of legal rules. Though this was probably a clerical error or a a simple oversight, people looking for proof of the theory that 13 is bad news often point to it.
The truth is the whole “Friday the 13th is unlucky” phenomenon got really solidified in the collective western consciousness, perhaps thanks to the 1907 publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth, by Thomas William Lawson, which focused on a New York City stockbroker who plays on superstitions about the date to create chaos on Wall Street.
And of course, who could forget Friday the 13th, the movie, released in 1980, which sparked countless childhood nightmares, compliments of a hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason.
I don’t want to downplay the phobias and fears that people have around this date. There are even names for them – paraskevidekatriaphobia refers to having an irrational dread of the date, which is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a generalized fear of the number 13.
But there are also some traditions, cultures, and even high-profile people that believe both Fridays and the 13th day of the month bring GOOD luck, not bad.
For example, a certain performer named Taylor Swift – perhaps you’ve heard of her – believes that 13 is a lucky number, so much so that she would often draw it on her body before taking the stage. (This has something to do with the fact that she was born on Dec. 13, 1989, but there’s more to it, as she has explained in past interviews).
A spate of some summer-like temperatures is on tap, starting today with mostly sunny skies and the mercury headed into the low-to-mid 80s. The rest of the weekend looks like it will bring more of the same, which is great. Wear your t-shirt and shorts while apple picking and cider doughnut eating and have the best of both worlds!
In the headlines…
Thousands of Boeing workers walked off the job after rejecting a contract offer from the company, a potentially costly disruption as Boeing tries to increase airplane production after a safety crisis.
The strike, the first at Boeing in 16 years, is expected to bring operations to a halt in the Seattle area, home to most of Boeing’s commercial plane manufacturing. The slowdown could also further disrupt the company’s fragile supply chain.
President Joe Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States, European officials say.
The issue, which has long been debated in the administration, is coming to a head today with the first official visit to the White House by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Kyiv’s other allies have been supplying weapons, but with restrictions on how and when they can be used inside Russia, out of concern such strikes could prompt retaliation that draws NATO countries into the war or provokes a nuclear conflict.
Former President Donald Trump said that he won’t do a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. After his rocky performance in Tuesday’s debate, Trump posted on his social media site that he wouldn’t agree to any further clashes.
“There will be no (additional) debate!” Trump wrote. There was no immediate response from the Harris campaign, though Harris told rally goers at both of her stops in North Carolina yesterday that she and Trump “owe it to voters” to square off again.
“Because we’ve done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate,” Trump said at the rally, counting his debate against President Biden in June as the first one.
The Harris campaign said it took in $47 million in donations in the 24 hours after they met for the first time.
Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris in an Instagram post after the debate accounted for more than half of the roughly 727,000 visitors to Vote.gov from Tuesday to Wednesday, according to a government spokeswoman.
An antisemitic ad campaign in Michigan, funded by a group that appears tied to Republicans, seems designed to remind Muslim voters of Harris’s pro-Israel views and her husband’s Jewish faith.
A bomb threat received by officials in Springfield, Ohio triggered the evacuation of City Hall, just days after Trump claimed that immigrants there have been abducting and eating the residents’ pets.
The mayor of the Ohio city at the center of a firestorm over immigration says that his town needs help — not the hate that has been stirred by politicians and extremists.
New York’s highest court will not hear Trump’s appeal of a ruling in his Manhattan criminal trial that prevents him from publicly disparaging some of the people involved in the proceeding.
A judge in Atlanta threw out three charges in the Georgia election interference case against Trump and his allies yesterday, saying the state did not have jurisdiction to bring them.
A voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Newsmax appears to be headed toward trial following a judge in Delaware’s ruling.
Gov. Kathy has basal cell carcinoma, a common type of skin cancer. She announced her diagnosis to reporters yesterday following a public safety press conference, saying she will have a “tiny, tiny speck on my nose” removed out of an “excess of precaution.”
Hochul, 66, will undergo the removal procedure this morning. “I’m not going under. It’s local anesthesia. It will be occurring Friday morning. I’ll be back to work an hour later, but there will be a bandage on my nose,” the governor told reporters.
Basal cell carcinoma—a slow-growing cancer often linked to sun exposure—is one of the most common types of skin cancer. It is highly curable, especially if it’s caught early.
The governor urged New Yorkers to get tested for the disease regularly and to protect themselves against overexposure to sunlight.
Hochul says she has made an “aggressive” effort to reassure film and TV production executives and the Broadway theater community that the state ardently supports their industries.
Over lunch at the Paley Center for Media in New York, Hochul said that she met with Disney CEO Bob Iger on Wednesday in an effort to persuade him to bring more projects and jobs to the state.
Hochul celebrated New York’s world-renowned fashion industry and its role in driving the state economy at the conclusion of New York Fashion Week, announcing the first round of funding from the New York State Fashion Innovation Center will launch Sept. 15.
The state has spent about $25.4 million as of last month representing the legal interests of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and several of his top aides as they fend off civil complaints, criminal investigations and inquiries from the state Legislature.
New York City Police Commissioner Edward Caban resigned yesterday, one week after it emerged that his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.
Caban, who had been in charge of the nation’s largest police department for about 15 months, said in an email to staff that he made the decision to resign after the “news around recent developments” had “created a distraction for our department.”
“I am unwilling to let my attention be on anything other than our important work, or the safety of the men and women of the NYPD,” Caban, who also had been the city’s first Latino police commissioner, added in the email.
Adams, who addressed New Yorkers virtually yesterday but did not take questions, announced an interim replacement: Thomas G. Donlon, a veteran F.B.I. counterterrorism official.
Most recently, Donlon ran his own private security and consulting company called Global Security Resolutions, which he founded in 2020.
“Earlier this week, I spoke to you about the ongoing investigations that have come to light,” Adams said. “I was as surprised as you to learn of these inquiries, and I take them extremely seriously.”
The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation division has joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in looking into questions about the NYPD’s nightclub enforcement, a senior official tells NBC New York.
A City Hall staffer was fired after reportedly referring a Brooklyn bar owner to James Caban, the twin brother of now former Police Commissioner Edward Caban who is under scrutiny from the feds for using his family ties to drum up security business.
Long before federal authorities seized their electronics and raided their homes, Schools Chancellor David Banks and his younger brother, Terence Banks, attended a Jets football game in a luxury suite — courtesy of a character from political corruption history.
Tim Pearson, one of Adams’ most powerful advisers, has since 2022 held dozens of meetings directly related to NYPD promotions and other internal department matters.
Adams’ team wrote in a letter to the city’s campaign finance watchdog that the campaign needed more time to respond to questions about apparent sloppy recordkeeping because its lawyer was too busy dealing with a federal inquiry.
Almost 200 years after slavery officially ended in New York, the City Council passed legislation authorizing a commission to study the devastating effects of human bondage and to develop a plan to make reparations for the harms caused.
City lawmakers yesterday abruptly yanked legislation that would have decriminalized jaywalking amid an internal debate over how liable drivers should be when they hit a pedestrian outside a crosswalk.
In an astonishing turn for a 50-year-old book and its 88-year-old author, Robert Caro, “The Power Broker” seems more popular and relevant than ever. The first ever digital edition of the book will be released this month, on Sept. 16.
“Nothing is wrong with Happy.” The July 31 statement the Bronx Zoo was undeniably prickly. By then, Happy, its 50-plus-year-old female Asian elephant, had not been seen by visitors in her outdoor enclosure in two weeks, and people were starting to notice.
Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul whose conviction for sex crimes in New York was overturned in April, is facing a new indictment, Manhattan prosecutors said in a hearing yesterday.
New York Public Radio is, once again, cutting its journalism and programming across several of its properties, including public radio news station WNYC 93.9 FM, podcast production house WNYC Studios and classical WQXR 105.9 FM.
Two men have been charged in connection with a deadly daylight shooting that took place at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village over the summer, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.
La Grenouille, the last survivor of an elegant corps of French restaurants that arrived in New York in the 1960s and helped secure the city’s reputation for sophisticated dining, will close this week.
The state Division of Human Rights recently filed a fair housing discrimination lawsuit against an Albany property management company for discriminating against potential renters who want to use housing vouchers.
The school district canceled all after-school activities and on-campus sports yesterday after receiving three separate phone calls threatening gun violence since Tuesday night.
Another regional elected official is talking about the prospect of becoming the next chief executive officer of Albany International Airport: Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
IBM will lease another 30,000 square feet of space at the Albany NanoTech complex on Fuller Road as it ramps up hiring at the computer chip research facility.
Jason Schofield, the former Rensselaer County elections commissioner currently awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to voter fraud, plans to sue the city of Rensselaer after its Common Council reduced his salary in a newly acquired city job to $100 annually.
Three current and former employees of Rensselaer County testified in U.S. District Court that county officials directed them to sign absentee ballot paperwork three years ago — and that they complied out of fear they may face retaliation if the declined to do so.
Selling Kris Roglieri’s million-dollar Queensbury mansion may not generate enough profit to make its sale worthwhile, according to the bankruptcy trustee charged with unloading the assets of the loan broker to pay off his debts.
Owners of the 9-month-old NewVida Preserve in Jay have put the property up for sale in what they described as a tactical move to attract capital necessary to build out the resort and generate new income.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
