Good morning, it’s Monday. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, especially since the weekend was really quite stellar, weather-wise. A little breezy, but not too hot or too cold. Just right for many outdoor fall activities.
Also just right for waiting on every long lines at early voting sites, which opened for business across New York on Saturday. I was thinking about going – I would really like to cast my ballot and get it over with at this point because I am DONE with the election drama. (Sorry, recovering political reporter over here).
But then I checked in with my parents, who live in a competitive congressional district and they said they waited TWO HOURS to cast a ballot, and also had to park in an overflow lot and walk just under a mile to reach the poll site. As mentioned, it was a nice day, and they are fit and healthy (thank goodness) 70-somethings. Still. It seemed excessive to me.
Also, I do sort of like the whole Election Day ritual of going to the local firehouse and kibbitzing with the volunteers who always have a hard time finding me in the voter rolls. It has become so predictable that I schedule a full hour out of my day for voting – just in case. They also always have leftover Halloween candy on hand, and sometimes also cookies, which is nice.
I did learn my lesson after bringing my smallest dog along with me to vote when he was a puppy. I thought it was be a cute thing that the volunteers would appreciate, which they did, until he peed on the floor.
Thankfully, the firehouse floor is concrete, and there were ample cleaning supplies on hand. The little monster did make my job harder by prompting walking through his own pee puddle and tracking it everywhere.
Like I said, never again.
Now, Gizmo’s outings are fairly limited – unless we’re traveling, which is a special occasion. He goes to daycare, and sometimes to Grandma’s house, and, if he’s really good (or manages to slip out the door before I can close it), is treated to the occasional off leash romp in the backyard.
The yard is a real fall bonanza at the moment. There is a lot of bird and squirrel action, also bunnies, chipmunks, garden snakes, the under-the-porch groundhog, the occasional deer, a visiting cat from next door, and bats. Lots and lots of bats.
I like my backyard bats. They eat bugs – thousands and thousands of them in a single night – which I appreciate, and they more or less stay out of the way unless it’s twilight and they go swooping around in search of dinner. I keep meaning to build a bat house, but haven’t gotten around to it, though they appear to be getting along just fine without me.
Bats are nature’s pest control, and they do this incredibly generous service – worth billions of dollars a year to the agricultural industry – absolutely free. And how do we repay them?
We make up stories about how they turn into vampires, run screaming from them when they bungle their way into our hours, catch them and cut off their heads to make sure they’re not rabid, and use their likeness to depict everything scary and spooky on Halloween.
Poor misunderstood bats.
We are in the middle of Bat Appreciation Week, which runs from Oct. 24 through Oct. 31, and aims to dispel myths about the mammals belonging to the order of Chiroptera, which derives from the Greek for “hand-wing.” The truth is that they are small, shy, reclusive, helpful and largely harmless animals that are very unique – using echolocation to navigate their way around in the dark.
Yes, there is such thing as a vampire bat, but they mostly live in Mexico and South America and feed largely off of livestock (like cattle and horses) as well as deer, wild pigs etc. Not people. People, in fact, are not good for bats, which, are threatened by a variety of things – including the white-nose fungus you might have heard something about, as well as habitat loss, climate change, and wind turbine collisions – just to name a few.
I have done my best to demystify bats in this space, dedicating some time every year to explaining why they’re friends, not foes. Hopefully, this helps in some small way.
Today will be partly cloudy with temperatures topping out in the low 50s.
In the headlines…
The rally at Madison Square Garden that former President Donald Trump held in New York yesterday began with warm-up speakers delivering a litany of racist remarks, vulgar insults and profanity-laden comments.
One speaker likened Harris to a prostitute with “pimp handlers.” A third called her “the Antichrist.” And the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked Harris — the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father — with a made-up ethnicity.
Melania Trump gave speech at the rally – her first remarks at a Trump campaign event this year. Though she appeared in the audience at the Republican National Convention, she did not deliver remarks.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, compared Trump’s rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden in to a 1939 pro-Nazi event.
A speaker at the rally, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, spent a portion of his time attacking Puerto Rico, drawing backlash from Democrats and the Harris campaign.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally was a “white flag of surrender,” adding: “He’s giving up, because why else would you come to New York City? You are not going to find undecided voters walking the streets of Manhattan today.”
Mayor Eric Adams defended Trump, slamming claims from Democrats that the Republican nominee is a “fascist” who could be compared to Hitler, saying: “I have had those comments hurled at me by some political leaders in the city; my answer is ‘No.'”
“I know what Hitler has done and I know what a fascist regime looks like,” Adams said, calling for the temperature to be turned down in the country’s political discourse and saying Trump should be permitted to rally in Manhattan as a matter of free speech.
While speakers stumping for Trump were pumping up his supporters inside Madison Square Garden Sunday night, Trump fans and those opposed to his policies outside the Midtown arena spoke their minds while remaining civil.
While some 20,000 Trump supporters filled Madison Square Garden to capacity, many thousands more were turned away, according to law enforcement sources. “They could have sold the Garden twice,” a law enforcement source said.
Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. both took the stage at different points inside the World’s Most Famous Arena 25 years after the businessman sat courtside at a New York Knicks game with John F. Kennedy Jr. months before he died in a plane crash.
Nearly half of all voters are skeptical that the American experiment in self-governance is working, with 45 percent believing that the nation’s democracy does not do a good job representing ordinary people, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll.
A memo circulating among several of Trump’s advisors recommends that if he is elected, he bypass traditional background checks by law enforcement officials and immediately grant security clearances to a large number of his appointees after being sworn in.
The leading super PAC supporting Vice President Kamala Harris is raising concerns that focusing too narrowly on Trump’s character and warnings that he is a fascist is a mistake in the closing stretch of the campaign.
If he wins the White House, Trump, who has a sentencing hearing three weeks after Election Day, could disrupt or even dispose of the various cases he is facing.
Gaza hostage and ceasefire talks in Doha “have begun,” a diplomat familiar with the matter told CNN. Top negotiators from the United States, Israel and Qatar were slated to meet in Doha yesterday to discuss efforts to reach an agreement, CNN reported.
Iran vowed to respond to Israel’s strikes on the country this weekend, which Tehran says killed five people, but said it does not want a wider war.
Three waves of predawn strikes on military targets in Iran on Saturday completed Israel’s retaliation on Iran, the Israel Defense Forces said, in what U.S. officials and others hoped would be the last shot in a hostile exchange between the two regional powers.
The Washington Post said Friday that it will not endorse a candidate in the presidential election this year — or ever again — breaking decades of tradition and sparking immediate criticism of the decision.
But the newspaper also published an article by two staff reporters revealing that editorial page staffers had drafted an endorsement of Harris over Trump, and the paper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, decided not to publish it.
Bezos has thus far remained silent on the subject. But at least one editor has resigned, and high-profile Post staffers have publicly expressed their dismay as many in the paper’s Opinion section are furious over how the situation was handled.
Mariel Garza, the editorials editor of the Los Angeles Times, resigned after the newspaper’s owner blocked the editorial board’s plans to endorse Harris for president.
The Los Angeles Times’ billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong blocked his newspaper from endorsing Vice President Harris to protest her support of Israel’s war in Gaza, his daughter claimed, but Dr. Soon-Shiong said she did not speak for the paper.
Several plans to combat misinformation are in place across newsrooms that will follow the climax of a hard-fought campaign on Nov. 5.
Chinese hackers engaged in a broader espionage operation targeted cellphones used by Trump, Harris, and GOP Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance.
Two weeks before Election Day, Hochul made a point of distancing herself from a ballot measure that should’ve been a slam dunk for Democrats but, as POLITICO exposed last week, is being grossly mishandled.
Praising the round-the-clock efforts of volunteer firefighters, Hochul announced a $25 million fund to provide the newest and most modern firefighting equipment to help them do their job.
Hundreds of organizations and schools across the state are calling on Hochul to fund free school lunches for every student in New York.
Hochul has a bet with California Gov. Gavin Newsom that the Yankees will beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series — with the loser forced to showcase the other team’s swag in their workplace, she said Friday.
Without lifting a finger, high school students in the top 10% of their senior class at 68 schools across the state will soon be automatically admitted to one of the top State University of New York campuses.
The Citizens Budget Commission, in a recent report, contends that New York’s incipient Cap and Invest program is unrealistic and could cost businesses and consumers billions of dollars a year.
New York is trying to extract a $24,000 fine from the New England Patriots for reportedly not carrying workers’ compensation insurance in the Empire State for more than a year.
Adams did not attend the first candidate forum for the New York City mayoral race, but his record — and the criminal charges he faces — received plenty of attention on Saturday from the Democrats who are running to unseat him.
Candidates took shots at Adams over his federal corruption indictment, his handling of the cost of living and crime during the event, held in a Bronx church and organized by civil rights activist Kirsten John Foy.
New York City voters continue to sour on Adams, with only 12 percent committing to support his reelection as he fights federal corruption charges, according to a new poll.
The results of a New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday morning spell further trouble for the Democratic mayor: Three-quarters of respondents believe he acted either illegally or unethically, while a paltry 7 percent say he did nothing wrong.
Lawyers for Adams doubled down on Friday on accusations that the government leaked sensitive information that could jeopardize his federal bribery case.
In a new filing, Adams’ defense team argued that federal prosecutors, law enforcement agencies and news outlets released sensitive information that tainted public perception of the mayor before a grand jury could hear the case.
Evolv, the technology company behind the Adams administration’s controversial subway system weapons scanner program, disclosed Friday that some of its employees have “engaged in misconduct” during business deals.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection poured concrete over a community-built goldfish pond, citing safety concerns, much to the disappointment of its Brooklyn neighborhood.
Ex-36-year state Assemblyman Peter Abbate, a former longtime Brooklyn politician, has taken the extraordinary step of using thousands of dollars from his dormant but still-flush campaign war chest to attack fellow Democrats in an internal party feud.
Firefighters from across the country will join federal Homeland Security Department officials at the FDNY Fire Academy this week for a two-day deep dive on how to better tackle the scourge of deadly lithium-ion battery fires.
It was a blast from the past as the MTA celebrated the New York City subway’s 120th birthday with two vintage train rides on century-old Lo-V subway cars.
A state judge has put a project to add bike lanes through an industrial section of Long Island City on pause after businesses along the stretch claimed the process to redesign the roads went through illegally.
New York City is planning to reject applications for new street festivals in an effort to cut down on NYPD overtime. The move, in response to a request from the NYPD, was revealed in a public notice published by the city’s Street Activity Permit Office last week.
Democrats are going all-in on efforts to flip New York’s 4th Congressional District blue, funneling big names and money into the Long Island locale with hopes that a victory could help usher in a Democratic House majority next year.
Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ campaign is under fire for distributing a flyer on which AI was used to digitally place her next to an Adams aide at a Black voters forum she didn’t attend.
The New York Post endorsed three Republicans running in swing districts: Reps. Mike Lawler (NY-17), Alison Esposito (NY-18), and Rep. Marc Molinaro (NY-19).
Dem ex-New York Rep. Mondaire Jones claims he’s for tougher border security as he seeks a political comeback — but he championed “defunding” ICE when he ran for office in 2020, recently unearthed videos show.
Across New York State, Republican and Democratic candidates are using the migrant crisis to attract voters fearful of its effects on their districts.
Two weeks after Susan B. Anthony cast her ballot in the 1872 presidential election, a deputy federal marshal visited her home in Rochester to arrest her. More than a century later, her historic home is now – for the first time ever – an early voting poll site.
A second grandstand and sensory-friendly space at Proctors for families are among the new attractions revelers can expect to see at this year’s annual Holiday Parade in Schenectady, now in its 55th year.
Alexis “Lexis” Figuereo, co-founder of Saratoga Black Lives Matter and an outspoken activist, has been charged with pointing an AR-15-style rifle at a man and using the weapon to menace him during a dispute Thursday at a Schenectady apartment.
Continuing research on Adirondack moose is showing that the population is holding steady despite challenges associated with climate change, parasites and road traffic, according to a state wildlife biologist.
The environmental groups Riverkeeper and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed separate lawsuits against New York, New Jersey and Delaware over what the organizations allege are the states’ violations of the Endangered Species Act.
The City of Albany’s new school zone speed cameras are in full effect, issuing 12,895 tickets to drivers going more than 10 mph over the 20-mph speed limit from Oct. 7, the first day fines were levied, through Oct. 21.
Print is not dead, according to Erin Harkes, singer, comedian, and now editor-in-chief of “Metroland Now,” the recently launched entertainment and arts publication inspired by “Metroland,” the region’s longtime alternative weekly.
Amazon has recently purchased 150 custom-made Rivian electric delivery vans, which now make up a majority of the vehicles at its Cohoes facility, which opened in 2022 and gets 45,000 packages to local Amazon customers every day.
Town of Colonie officials are currently weighing a budget proposal for 2025 that would give the town supervisor a 6% pay raise and raise property taxes by 2%.
After two years without a full-time Director of Code Enforcement, Troy Mayor Carmella Mantello says the search is almost over and the field has narrowed to two candidates.
A new sign honoring 19th-century sculptor Edmonia Lewis, who hailed from the town, has been erected on the front lawn of the East Greenbush Town Hall on Columbia Turnpike.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
