Good Tuesday morning.
When I was growing up, I badly wanted a job. I wanted my own money and not to have to ask my parents for every little thing.
Until I was old enough to strike out on my own where work was concerned. I received an allowance – weekly, then biweekly – from my paternal grandfather, who, without fail, sent it from his retirement home in Florida.
It started as a silver dollar, and then eventually worked its way up to $15 every other week. There were no strings attached to this money, technically speaking, though my parents would routinely withhold it if I didn’t do my chores – basic stuff like making my bed.
They were completely within their right to do this, of course, but it rankled me. That money was MINE, destined for me.
My maternal grandmother every once in a while would also send money – much larger amounts, like up in the low hundreds. This was not a regular thing, though it continued well into my college years, but which time, of course, I was working and making my own money.
I did a lot of waiting tables in my late teens and early 20s. I was fast and had a good memory, which was helpful, and I could be polite, if not necessarily solicitous, of customers. I worked a wide variety of waiting jobs – banquet, fine dining (crumbing the tables and opening the wine table side haunt me to this day), diner, outdoor BBQ, coffee shop.
My first job, aside from the odd babysitting gig, was as a tea girl at Mohonk Mountain House. If you’ve never been there, afternoon in the Lake Lounge is a daily ritual not to be missed. It involves several kinds of tea – herbal and black – and a variety of cookies, all presided over by servers dressed meticulously in black and white.
So, I did a lot of jobs, but one position that never appealed to me was paperboy (the PC term these days is newspaper carrier). Get up at the crack of dawn, fold papers, bag them, then deliver them all before sunrise and heading to school? No thanks. Also, until I didn’t have a car until I turned 16 and by then I was able to drive myself to what I considered more lucrative job opportunities.
My other half did have a paper route, and he recalls it with what I interpret as a mix of fondness and revulsion. He was also a volunteer firefighter during high school, and then went on to be a police officer, so you can see the through line there. He has a high threshold for weird hours and potential danger (I guess for newspaper carriers its mean dogs, angry customers who don’t tip and cars?). I, on the other hand, do not.
These days, I’m not sure that the paper “boy” or “girl” even exists anymore. From what I can tell, it’s mostly adults driving cars filled to the brim with newspapers stuffed in plastic bags – to the extent that anyone still gets a dead tree paper delivered.
There’s not a lot of statistics available about the number of news carriers left in the U.S., but when you note the steady decline in the number of newspapers still publishing, it’s a safe bet that there are fewer news carriers today than there used to be.
Also, I’ve come across several news reports about how papers are increasingly outsourcing delivery to US Postal Service due to chronic staffing shortages. This is a bummer for anyone who really enjoys a leisurely read of the Sunday paper, because in many cases it doesn’t arrive at your home until Monday morning.
Oddly, despite the fact that news carriers are on the decline – at least here in the U.S. – there are not one, but TWO national days recognizing their contribution to the world. I somehow missed the first one (Sept. 4), today is the second – International News Carrier Day, to be exact.
This comes in the middle of National Newspaper Week (NNW), which runs Oct. 6-12 and is a week-long promotion of the (dying, arguably) newspaper industry in both the U.S. and Canada. I have a soft spot for newspapers, since I dedicated about 12 or so years of my life in service of them. I loved being a reporter, but I have to confess that I can’t remember the last time I actually read a hard copy newspaper. I consume a TON of media – almost exclusively online.
I’m not sure what that means, probably nothing good. I can’t imagine a world without newspapers, even though I don’t personally peruse them anymore.
We’ll have intervals of clouds and sun today, with temperatures topping out in the mid-60s.
In the headlines…
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is running out of staff to deal with the potential devastation of Hurricane Milton as it barrels toward Tampa with wind speeds that have reached 175 miles per hour.
As of yesterday morning, just 9 percent of FEMA’s personnel, or 1,217 people, were available to respond to the hurricane or other disasters, according to the agency’s daily operations briefing.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned residents of the state’s weary west coast to brace for a “ferocious” storm, as Hurricane Milton’s wind speeds reached 180 miles an hour before dropping to 165 m.p.h.
DeSantis said that uncertainty over the storm’s path would lead to widespread evacuations. “We have to assume it’s going to be a monster,” he said.
“Prepare quickly and get out of the city,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said. She told residents to prepare for “an event like none other,” telling people living in evacuation zones, mobile homes and low-lying areas to get to higher ground as soon as possible.
“If you choose to stay … you are going to die,” Castor bluntly said on CNN while talking about the dangers of Milton, a “literally catastrophic” Category 5 hurricane that’s barreling toward the Sunshine State’s coast.
According to the National Hurricane Center’s Live Hurricane Tracker, Milton will make landfall on the west coast of Florida on Wednesday evening. It’s expected to be a Category 3 storm when it hits the shore.
The White House says Vice President Kamala Harris was briefed on the anticipated effects of Milton on Florida, as well as the various preparations underway across the federal government to support Florida’s response.
The Supreme Court turned down an appeal from the Biden administration urging the justices to allow some emergency abortions in Texas.
The administration said that Texas’ strict abortion law conflicted with a 1986 federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, that requires emergency rooms in hospitals that receive federal money to provide some forms of emergency care.
The decision left Texas as the only state where the Biden administration is unable to enforce its interpretation of a federal law in an effort to ensure women still have access to emergency abortions when their health or life is at risk.
The Georgia Supreme Court reinstated a state law that prohibits abortions beyond six weeks of pregnancy while it considers an appeal to a lower-court decision that had briefly allowed greater access to the procedure.
The law, called the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, or the LIFE Act, was set to take effect again at 5 p.m. yesterday.
In a wide-ranging interview that ran last night during a “60 Minutes” election special on CBS News, Harris revealed more details about her firearm, a Glock she’s had for “quite some time,” which she had teased last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Harris was pressed on her changing policy positions and her expensive economic plan on “60 Minutes,” in what proved to be her toughest media interview since becoming the Democratic nominee.
“60 Minutes” offered a lengthy on-air explanation to viewers for why former President Donald Trump declined to participate in the program’s traditional interviews it has with presidential candidates ahead of the election.
Trump suggested in a radio interview that he had visited war-torn Gaza in the past, a place there is no record of him visiting. When asked to clarify, a campaign aide said that Gaza is “in Israel” and that Trump has visited Israel.
Trump suggested undocumented immigrants who commit murder have “bad genes,” in the latest example of the former president using dehumanizing rhetoric as he tries to stoke fears about those in the country illegally.
Large groups of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through the streets of Manhattan last night, while a vigil to remember those killed and missing in last year’s Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 was held in Central Park. Several arrests were made.
In the city, which is home both to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and to thousands of Palestinians, some gathered in protest and others in solemn remembrance.
Hundreds of Columbia University students joined a walkout yesterday afternoon as part of protests planned across New York City campuses marking the anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war.
During tense but somber vigils on the university library steps, students and their supporters expressed outrage and sorrow.
Bloodshed marred an Oct. 7 protest yesterday when a New Yorker holding an Israeli flag to mourn the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack was ambushed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators marching through Manhattan.
NYSUT is throwing its weight behind an upstate Democrat, Sen. John Mannion, in a battleground congressional district race — with the goal of making Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries the next speaker of the House.
Students at 20 New York colleges will have to travel to cast their ballots in November — in spite of a state law that requires local boards of elections to provide polling places on campuses.
The Hochul administration has extended the application deadline for homeowners to apply for emergency repair grants for extreme weather events across the state from the months of July and August to Nov. 8.
Starting next year, the state Education Department plans to track how students are doing in science and social studies, instead of just English language arts and math.
A statewide ballot measure, known as the Equal Rights Amendment, has become a target for Republican opponents who have cast it as an attack on family values, while proponents of the ballot measure, known as Proposition 1, have struggled to raise money.
Hope Knight, a senior Hochul administration, member attended a recent Taiwan National Day event, marking the 113th anniversary of the Republic of China, suggesting the governor’s office is more willing to engage Taiwan since the Linda Sun scandal.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is intent on filling top posts in Eric Adams’ administration as City Hall turns into the “Titanic” — but insiders say she’s won’t push out the mayor before the election for fear of backlash.
Adams joined Hochul on stage at a somber Oct. 7 memorial in Manhattan last night — their first public appearance together since the mayor was indicted on federal corruption charges.
Hochul revealed that she rejected the idea of taking an immediate flight back to the U.S. upon learning her father died while she headed to Israel last year.
The governor said the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was a call for Jewish genocide that could violate state human rights law.
Three more aides to Adams — including two whose homes were raided — are leaving the administration as federal prosecutors investigate him and his inner circle for corruption.
Winnie Greco — a longtime confidant of the mayor who officials believe will potentially be indicted by the feds — resigned, while staffer Rana Abbasova, a key figure in the criminal case against Adams, was fired.
A spokesman for City Hall declined to explain the firing. But an administration official said it was not an act of retaliation because the mayor did not personally fire Abbasova; someone else in his administration did.
Abbasova, who worked as the Director of Protocol in the Mayor’s Office for International Affairs, was on leave from her post while she was believed to have been cooperating with Manhattan federal prosecutors as a key witness in their investigation.
Scandal-plagued Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks has reportedly resigned, succumbing to weeks of pressure amid federal probes that ensnared both him and his longtime friend, Adams.
Banks “stated he wants to transition to some other things with his life and he doesn’t want this to be a constant burden on the work that we’re doing in the city,” the embattled mayor told NY1 Spectrum News. “And I accepted his resignation.”
Even before Adams was indicted, Wright and David Banks reportedly had been expressing frustration with the mayor over policy matters, like the school’s chancellor’s attempt to implement a cell phone ban.
Maria Torres-Springer, deputy mayor for housing, economic development and workforce, is now the top contender for first deputy mayor.
Newly obtained e-mails show that the mayor’s longtime friend and top advisor, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, stuck with Adams even when she feared for her safety. Will she stay by his side through a federal investigation?
“I’ve made no decisions yet,” billionaire John Catsimatidis told Page Six amid a report that New York City’s five county chairmen prefer the 77 WABC Radio owner over any potential GOP candidate if Adams is ousted, adding he’s scared he “might win.”
Three shelter security guards are suing the city and Adams’ embattled former advisor Tim Pearson, alleging he attacked them last fall when they asked for his identification at the entrance to a midtown migrant shelter.
NYPD sergeants earning less than some of the police officers they supervise are urging Adams to come to the table to renegotiate the glaring pay disparity.
Two adult public housing workers were nabbed yesterday in the Upper East Side beatdown on former Gov. David Paterson and his stepson – the final suspects busted after two boys, 12 and 13, surrendered over the weekend, cops said.
A former bureau chief at the Bronx district attorney’s office was fired after abusing her position by pushing subordinates to vote for her in a “Fab Over 40” beauty contest, the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board said.
A Trump-supporting manufacturing company owner in the City of Amsterdam won a last-minute court victory allowing him to illuminate a 100-foot wide “Vote for Trump” sign — despite their city’s effort to block the massive political endorsement.
In a ceremony, a ‘Vote For Trump’ sign that sits atop the former Fownes building in Amsterdam was lit up last night, despite the fact that the mayor insisted it’s a code violation.
For the 11th straight year, Albany County’s property tax rate is going down.
Albany Medical Center has submitted its plan to the state on how it will address alleged deficiencies in staffing.
One year since the state inspector general received a complaint regarding corruption at the Adirondack Park Agency, the investigation remains ongoing. Little more has been made public.
Residents on Glenwood Road in Menands are pushing back against a village mandate that would require them to change the house numbers in their addresses, a move they say will create unnecessary headaches.
The Cookie Factory, a popular local bakery that makes cookies, cakes, pastries and bread sold in stores and at its retail location in Troy, remains open after filing for bankruptcy last month – a judge’s decision will keep the doors open for now.
Speed cameras graduated from generating warnings to generating fines near three Albany-area schools yesterday.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
