Good morning. It’s Monday and for the first time this weekend, I felt chilly. For the record, I didn’t like it. It feels weird to wear socks and shoes and heavy sweaters and jackets. I’ll adapt in time, of course, but it’s going to take a minute.
My morning routine will change a little because it will involve putting on more layers to walk the dogs, go to the gym and just get out the door to start my day. This adds some extra time, even though I am a notoriously fast showerer. Get in, wash, get out. No lingering.
PSA: It’s not good for your skin to hang out in there and luxuriate under the hot water, people, no matter how good it feels. It’s also good to conserve water. The average shower, according to the EPA, lasts about eight minutes, which is damn long in my book. The average shower head has a water flow of 2.1 gallons per minute, so eight minutes means more than 16 gallons down the drain.
One thing I will not sacrifice under any circumstances to save time is the precious few moments I spend every morning on word puzzles. Word puzzles are my jam. I am not a Wordle girlie, but I do enjoy the other New York Times offerings, including the crossword, Spelling Bee, Connections, and this new thing called Strands, which is a word hunt/jumble sort of situation. Very fun.
It’s amazing how much better I feel about myself when I solve Connections all in one go, or when I win the “Queen Bee” award without requiring any hints. My whole outlook improves noticeably. And woe to the person who crosses me on the days I fail to solve one or more of my puzzles.
One game I could never get into, though, was Sudoku. Again, word person here. Numbers are my nemesis. I know people who swear by this game, but no matter how many times I try, I just can’t get the hang of it.
The name is “Soduku” obviously Japanese, and is short for a far longer expression – “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, which translates into “the digits are limited to one occurrence.”
Sudoku, though wildly popular in Japan, wasn’t actually created there. Though it has its roots in an 18th Century Swiss mathematician’s game called “Latin Squares”, the modern-day version was invented by an American – a Midwesterner, to be exact.
The man in question was one Howard Garns, an architect and freelance puzzle inventor from Connersville, Indiana. In 1979, he created a puzzle known at the time as “Number Place” (because involved placing individual numbers into empty spots on a 9 x 9 grid). It was published in Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazine, and….well, nothing.
No, Number Place was not an immediate success. In fact, it wasn’t until the game was published in Japan five years later – with a name change to “Sudoku” – that it started to gain popularity. It took another two decades for the U.S. to catch Sudoku fever.
Sadly, Garns died in 1989 so never saw the incredible worldwide success the game he invented as a lark in his spare time enjoys today. And he doesn’t even get the credit for bringing Soduku to the masses.
That honor goes to Maki Kaji, a Japanese puzzle maker who became known as the “Godfather of Sudoku”. He earned that moniker in part because it was his idea to re-name the little-known game he chanced upon in a U.S. magazine and found deceptively simple and oddly addicting.
Credit also goes to a guy named Wayne Gould, who programmed the software that automatically generated Sudokus and approached The Times, a UK newspaper, which agreed to publish it (again, after it appeared in a U.S. publication but generated little interest).
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Soduku’s rules are straightforward. Players fill in a 9×9 square using the numbers 1-9 with no repeated numbers in each line, horizontally or vertically. But there’s a catch – several 3×3 squares are marked out in the grid, and each of those can’t have any repeat numbers either.
Today is International Sudoku Day because it’s Sept. 9 – AKA 9/9 – which forms the same pattern as a classic Sudoku grid. Clever! I never would have thought of that, because, again, I’m a word person.
The Alzheimer’s Association has endorsed Sudoku as a possible preventative strategy against dementia, but before you rush out and buy a book or what have you, know that research is mixed on the subject and some experts think the gains made by “exercising” your brain with puzzles are only short lived.
My philosophy is that while it might not help, it certainly can’t hurt, and even if the cognitive improvement is only in the short-term memory department, I’ll take it.
A kind of blah day is on tap from a weather perspective, with cloudy skies in the morning followed by the chance of showers in the afternoon. Some thunder is possible. Temperatures will be in the low 70s.
In the headlines…
Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris enter the campaign’s homestretch in a tight race, and with their only scheduled debate looming tomorrow, Harris faces a sizable share of voters who still say they need to know more about her.
A NYT/Siena national poll of likely voters found Trump leading Harris, 48 percent to 47 percent, within a three-percentage-point margin of error and largely unchanged from a Times/Siena poll in late July just after President Biden dropped his re-election bid.
As Harris, Trump and their aides scheme out their strategies for this week’s much-anticipated debate, one big question is how the candidates will approach a big strength for Democrats and a major weakness for Republicans: abortion rights.
Steve Buscemi, Marisa Tomei, John Turturro, Mark Ruffalo and Lorraine Bracco joined former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Leon Panetta to raise money for Harris during a Zoom fundraiser with an Italian theme.
A New York judge on Friday delayed the sentencing in a criminal case against Trump in order to ensure the court is seen as politically impartial.
Judge Juan Merchan set the new sentencing date for Nov. 26, a few weeks after the election. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records to hide payments to an adult film star.
Trump’s sentencing in Manhattan was delayed, thanks in part to his legal resources and political status. It raised a question: Is he above the law?
Those who knew the 14-year-old gunman accused of killing four people in last week’s massacre at Apalachee High School in Georgia have described the boy’s home life as brutal.
As residents in Winder, Ga., consoled one another, questions rose about whether more could have been done to prevent the attack.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer circulated a letter to Senate colleagues warning of the Sept. 30 government funding deadline and highlighting rail safety and lowering the cost of insulin and prescription drugs as top remaining 2024 priorities.
On his most recent financial disclosure form, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. reported a single gift: $900 concert tickets from a German princess known for her links to conservative activists.
The disclosure does not list the event’s details, including the concert’s name, location or how many tickets the princess provided.
But in an interview with a German news organization, the gift provider, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, described Justice Alito and his wife as “private friends” and said the tickets were for the Regensburg Castle Festival.
In advance of his appearance on Capitol Hill, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo penned a Daily News op-ed in defense of his Covid record – particularly in the area of nursing home deaths.
Transit advocates, still incensed by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s pause on congestion pricing, rallied yesterday for a “day of action.” They aimed to highlight the urgent need for accessibility projects that the program was intended to fund.
In the days since Linda Sun’s arrest, Hochul and Cuomo’s representatives have pointed fingers, each blaming the other for her rise. Both, however, say the FBI didn’t tell them about its 2020 interview with Sun as she was ascended the ranks of state government.
Queens state Assemblyman Ron Kim says groups tied to the Chinese Community Party tried to topple him and steal his predominantly Asian-populated seat in the June Democratic primary.
Several hotly contested New York congressional races could decide which party controls Congress for the next years — after the Empire State surprisingly titled the balance in favor of the GOP two years ago.
After perhaps the most challenging week of his political career, Mayor Eric Adams visited two Black churches in Brooklyn and compared himself to Job, a righteous biblical figure who endured immense suffering but whose blessings were ultimately restored.
Adams compared himself to Job — the biblical figure known for enduring tragedy as a test of his faith in God, suggesting that an ongoing FBI probe is just the latest round of affliction in his life that he’s overcome.
Two and a half years into his term — and after criticizing Biden early on for his response to the migrant crisis — Adams is once again in the position of having to weigh whether to accuse Biden’s Justice Department of investigating him for political reasons.
Adams is facing mounting questions over his ability to govern after federal investigators seized phones from multiple officials in his administration, compounding scrutiny of a Democrat who was already ensnared in an apparently separate criminal probe.
Several administration officials said they were grappling with how to carry on with their jobs while a federal investigation loomed over so many top bosses. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
Terence Banks, one of two brothers of top officials in Adams’ orbit who are ensnared in a federal corruption investigation, is not a registered lobbyist, but keeps a roster of clients with business interests before Adams’ administration.
Adams said Saturday he supports a “good healthy review” of Police Commissioner Edward Caban, after declaring he has full confidence in the top cop amid a federal probe involving him and other key administration advisers.
City Councilman Robert Holden, a long-time NYPD supporter, said on “The Point with Marcia Kramer” that Caban should step down.
Hochul and other pols gave Adams the cold shoulder at Saturday’s Labor Day Parade after a series of federal raids targeting members of his inner circle and their kin, while a heckler jeered the mayor over the multiple probes into his administration.
Whooping cough cases are skyrocketing in New York City, according to shocking new data that emerges as many unvaccinated migrants continue to pour into the Big Apple.
So far this year the city has seen a staggering 169% surge in the potentially fatal illness compared to the same period in 2023 — and almost 500% more cases than there were at this point in 2019, the Center of Disease Control and Protection found.
Two veteran New York City newspaper reporters who cover the NYPD were given the boot from the media trailer at police headquarters dubbed “the Shack” after attempting to contact officers without first going through the department’s press office.
A Gothamist analysis of city data found that six of the seven drowning victims this summer lived in districts where fewer than half of residents have access to swimming facilities within 15 minutes by public transit.
The city parks department plans to crack down on New Yorkers who abandon animals in green spaces across the five boroughs, citing the alligator that died after it was left in the Prospect Park Lake last year as evidence the problem has grown out of control.
A 20-year-old Pakistani national living in Canada has been arrested for alleged plans to carry out a terrorist attack at a Jewish center in Brooklyn the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday.
A Brooklyn Democrat who infamously bit a cop’s arm at a homeless shelter protest — and then had protesters linked to Communist China rally in her support — has created a legal defense fund to pay her lawyers.
Transgender prisoners in New York City would be able to obtain wigs, hair extensions, chest binders, tucking undergarments, prosthetics and similar items under a liberal Brooklyn Democrat’s bill — potentially at taxpayers’ expense.
Dozens of fed-up New Yorkers rallied outside a massive migrant shelter in Brooklyn yesterday, demanding that City Hall balk at renewing the controversial lease for the troubled 2,000-bed facility on federal parkland.
Downtown’s imperiled Elizabeth Street Garden became part of the New York Fashion Week festivities as the site of the Libertine show, which made its feelings about the future of the local treasure clear.
Coney Island’s Cyclone roller-coaster finally reopened on Saturday morning after it was shut down following a malfunction last month.
Three people who tested positive for Legionnaires’ disease have died amid an outbreak at an assisted living home in Albany, N.Y., that sickened at least seven others, officials said on Friday.
The Albany County Industrial Development Authority backed down in the face of local opposition to its proposal to allow the county agency to enter into tax abatement agreements on projects without the approval of local governments.
Three mothers who lost children in the 2018 limousine crash in Schoharie were at the state’s second-highest court on Friday to listen to Nauman Hussain’s appeal of his conviction on 20 counts of manslaughter in the case last year.
After three years of bus driver shortages that led to crowded buses regularly arriving late to school, Albany schools rolled to a banner first day of school.
Dave Sunkes Jr., a longtime administrator and the athletic director for the Ballston Spa Central School District died Saturday, the district said in a letter.
Saratoga Springs socialite Michele Riggi and her brother-in-law, Vincent Riggi, have reached a confidential settlement agreement in their multimillion-dollar legal dispute.
In a case that underscores Rensselaer County’s legacy of alleged political corruption, three county officials accused of conspiring to file dozens of fraudulent ballots to sway the 2021 elections are scheduled to stand trial in U.S. District Court in Albany today.
Two emus died from eastern equine encephalitis last week in Nassau, according to the Rensselaer County Department of Health.
Plans for a new low-cost grocery store in one of Troy’s most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods will come to fruition soon — but perhaps not this week as initially reported.
The leaders of the Lake George Park Commission and Lake George Association (LGA) in a joint interview promised to work together in battling invasive species on the lake, seeking to turn the page on a contentious fight over using an herbicide in the lake.
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce sent fans into a tizzy during a date night in Brooklyn, days after an allegedly leaked “strategy document” suggested the couple is planning for a breakup.
Kendrick Lamar will headline the Super Bowl LIX halftime show, organizers announced. Lamar, the NFL and its partners announced the news at the start of the first full day of the 2024 football season.
Jannik Sinner beat Taylor Fritz in the U.S. Open final at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 yesterday, in two hours, 15 minutes.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
