Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
We’re on the cusp of Halloween and I really have been slacking on the holiday-related content. Yes, we did bats and cats, but there’s so much more to explore. I apologize for falling down on the job.
There are several explanations for why I’m just not in the Halloween mood this year.
First, my step-kid is long past the days of trick-or-treating. (The year he was a tiny Darth Vader and we dressed up as Han Solo and Princess Leia to accompany him on his candy-acquisition rounds was a big highlight – I think he was seven years old at the time).
Second, we moved to a dead end street that has about seven houses and zero street lights, which is not exactly welcoming to the sort of trick-or-treaters who get chauffeured around by their parents. Our old house was adjacent to a neighborhood that was a Halloween destination – lots of cul-de-sacs and not a lot of through traffic.
As a result, quite literally hundreds of kids would get shuttled there every year, and the home owners went all out with the decorations and the candy purchasing. It was really a scene.
(As an aside, Americans typically purchase about 600 million pounds of candy a year for Halloween, which works out to about 24 pounds per person. This year, consumers are expected to spend slightly less on candy – about $3.5 billion, a slight decrease from last year and the first time expected spending has decreased since 2020).
We tended not to get hit nearly as hard, but then during the pandemic while I was working at home alone, the doorbell started ringing at around 5 p.m. with tiny ghosts and cartoon characters and whatnot, all trying to get their goodies in before bedtime. I was caught unawares. I ended up giving out full-size Kind bars, protein bars, nuts – pretty much whatever I had around the house.
I loved Halloween when I was little. My dad and I marched in the New Paltz Halloween parade every year and then worked our way home, hitting doors along the way. When I was very small, my mom made some pretty ingenious costumes – like a rabbit out of footie pajamas – and then just popped me into bed when I got home.
As I got older and went out with my friends, the best part of the night was coming back to the house and pouring all the candy on the floor, sorting it, and then trading away the things we didn’t like. I always tried to get rid of anything that wasn’t chocolate – chocolate and peanut butter, event better. There were some things I definitely wanted to part with as soon as possible, including candy corn.
I’m sorry, candy corn lovers, I just don’t see the point. It’s waxy, tasteless – pretty much just senseless empty calories. No thanks. It turns out, though, that I might be in the minority among New Yorkers, because, according to Brach’s anyway, the Empire State is among the top ten candy corn purchasers in the U.S. (Perhaps this has something to do with populations size, because California, Texas, and Florida are also at the top of the list).
I’ve seen a variety of ingredient lists for candy corn, which may or may not contain one of the following: sugar (a LOT of sugar), corn syrup (another form of sugar), salt, sesame oil, honey, artificial flavor, food colorings, gelatin, and/or marshmallow.
The weirdest potential component that I found might be in your candy is confectioner’s glaze made from some sort of gelatin, perhaps lac resin, which is a bug secretion.
If you want to get even more icked out about that: The lac bug is a parasite, and it secretes a sort of waxy substance to protect itself. This substance is scraped off the bug, though sometimes the bug itself is simply chucked into the mix, to be used in a variety of products, including but not limited to, a wide variety of candy, paint, and makeup.
Candy corn does have a certain nostalgia factor, which explains why it’s popular among older folks. A survey from the National Confectioners Association (NCA) found that candy corn is most popular with GenXers, with 58% of them enjoying it. (For the record, GenX is my generation, those born between 1965 and 1980, and, as mentioned, I am definitely not Team Candy Corn).
If you really want to go deep on candy corn popularity, click here. But from everything I’ve read – and this is a MOST unscientific assessment – you’ll be far more popular if you give out anything with chocolate in it than you will if you’re opting for candy corn on Halloween night. Also popular with the younger set: Anything sour.
It’s going to be in the low 70s today (!) with clouds in the morning and sun in the afternoon.
In the headlines…
In her last major campaign speech, Vice President Kamala Harris called President Donald Trump “consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power” and presented herself as a fighter who would usher in a new generation of leadership.
With a gleaming White House as her backdrop, Harris delivered her closing argument, urging the nation to move beyond violent division and “to stop pointing fingers and start locking arms” for a future of shared responsibility.
More than 75,000 spectators gathered in Washington, D.C., to hear Harris’ closing argument speech at the same site of Trump’s infamous “Save America” rally that preceded the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Her crowd was bigger.
The swing state race between Trump and Harris is virtually tied, with new polls out yesterday that show a one-point race in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada, all within the margins of error.
Barbara Pierce Bush, daughter of former President George W. Bush and granddaughter of former President George H.W. Bush, revealed she’s backing Harris in next week’s election.
The former first daughter — the fraternal twin sister of NBC “Today” anchor Jenna Bush Hager — spent part of this past weekend on the campaign trail, knocking on doors in battleground Pennsylvania for the Democrat.
Trump refused to apologize for racist remarks about Puerto Rico made by a speaker at his Madison Square Garden campaign rally even as outcry continued to grow, but insisted he didn’t know the comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, whose comments sparked outrage.
“The love in that room, it was breathtaking,” Trump said. “There’s never been an event that beautiful. It was a lovefest. It was love for our country.”
Trump and his allies are trying to recreate a moment that resonated deeply with his supporters in the 2016 campaign: when Hillary Clinton referred to Trump supporters as a “basket of deplorables.”
A single apostrophe — or lack thereof — caused an uproar in the presidential race last night after President Joe Biden criticized Trump during a virtual event and later denied he was referring to Trump’s supporters as “garbage.”
In a posting on social media, Biden said he was talking about racist language, not Trump supporters themselves.
Trump’s oldest daughter and former top aide was once one of his most prominent campaign surrogates. Lately, she’s noticeably absent.
Aileen M. Cannon, the federal judge overseeing the prosecution of a man accused of trying to assassinate Trump, rejected the man’s request that she remove herself from the case.
Cannon said she has no relationship with the former president even though he appointed her to the bench and she has ruled in his favor in a separate criminal matter.
In her ruling yesterday, Cannon said she has never spoken with Trump or met him, and she has no concerns over the “political consequences of my rulings.”
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has become perhaps the most prominent business backer of Trump’s campaign. But even he has doubts that the former president’s economic plans will swiftly supercharge the United States economy.
Investigators responding to arson fires at two ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest this week found devices at both scenes marked with the words “Free Gaza,” according to two law enforcement officials.
A federal judge in Pennsylvania threw out a lawsuit brought by six Republican congressmen from the state that sought stricter scrutiny of ballots from overseas, including from members of the military stationed abroad.
Judge Christopher Conner, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, dismissed the case on several grounds, including that the members of Congress lacked standing and filed the lawsuit too close to the election.
CNN banned a commentator from the network after an ugly exchange Monday night where he appeared to suggest that a Muslim journalist on the show with him could be blown up as a Hezbollah sympathizer.
David DePape, the intruder who broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi two years ago and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
U.S.-based airlines are now required to give passengers automatic cash refunds when a flight is significantly delayed or canceled — even if the customer doesn’t ask for one — under a new Department of Transportation rule.
The rule, which was finalized in April, went into full effect this week ahead of the upcoming holiday travel season.
Catholic leaders and others with the coalition opposing the state’s controversial Proposition 1 abortion measure are demanding that Gov. Kathy Hochul repent for calling them “evil’ and forces of “darkness.”
Hochul’s office last week denied National Review’s request for government records and correspondence relating to her numerous interactions with the Chinese consulate general and pro-Beijing groups in New York.
Hochul is eyeing changes to state climate policy to accommodate spiking demand from data centers, AI supercomputers, and cryptocurrency projects.
During a recent visit to Brooklyn, Hochul met with local residents and business owners after announcing new measures to strengthen voter registration integrity across New York State.
At a combative City Hall press conference, Mayor Eric Adams defended an NYPD chief’s recent appearance on the right-wing network Newsmax and dodged questions from reporters on his stance on Trump.
“With all that’s going on to everyday New Yorkers, we’re asking questions that, ‘Is someone a fascist or is someone a Hitler?’ That’s insulting to me, that is insulting, and I’m not going to engage,” Adams told reporters.
Adams defended NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell after he was criticized for participating in a televised interview, while in uniform, with the far right-wing outlet Newsmax during Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally.
Adams skipped the first candidate forum of the 2025 mayoral race last weekend because he was too busy with work and couldn’t find time for “frivolous stuff,” he said.
The last defendant in the Manhattan DA’s straw donor case involving Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign pleaded guilty to a non-criminal violation yesterday.
Jesse Hamilton, a top city real estate official, appeared in a promotional video for a warehouse in the Bronx his agency is actively trying to purchase — raising new questions over city contracts amid several ongoing investigations.
The general counsel for New York’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services advised against a leasing deal brokered by Hamilton, whose phone was seized last month as part of a corruption investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
After decades of mostly turning the other way, city officials finally decriminalized jaywalking, crossing against a traffic signal or outside a crosswalk. The City Council passed a bill last month to allow pedestrians to cross the street wherever they please.
The measure became law over the weekend after Adams declined to take action — either by signing or vetoing it — after 30 days
A Queens judge ruled that the local law that let New York City rapidly shut down more than 1,000 businesses accused of selling cannabis without licenses is unconstitutional because it denies shop owners their rights to due process.
The former executive director of a Brooklyn nonprofit dedicated to helping Black transgender people stole nearly $100,000 from the group and spent it on Mercedes-Benz payments, a home renovation and other personal expenses, prosecutors said.
Two years after Democrats suffered embarrassing midterm losses in New York that cost them control of the House of Representatives, the state is poised to once again play a pivotal role — this time, the party hopes, in its favor.
From the suburbs of Long Island to central New York, Democrats in a half dozen key races are vastly outspending Republicans in the final days, in some cases by more than two to one. Party leaders have assembled a sophisticated new turnout operation.
A new poll found that both Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Lawler and Democratic incumbent Rep. Pat Ryan lead their challengers in key races that could help determine which party will win control of the House in November.
Outside of the race for the White House, the contest for New York’s 22nd Congressional District promises to be one of the most closely watched races in the nation on election night. It’s one of Democrats’ best shots to pick up a seat coast to coast.
Embattled Long Island Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito claimed yesterday that Democratic challenger Laura Gillen is part of the Harris-Biden team that “broke” the border over the past three-and-half years.
A Democrat-aligned group is sending spammy mailers designed to look like official election literature to voters in New York’s battleground 19th Congressional District.
A state Supreme Court justice upheld the town of Monroe’s decision to reject a formation petition for a proposed breakaway village in a test of the state’s new village incorporation laws.
Albany ENT and Allergy Services has agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty and spend $2.25 million on bolstering its cybersecurity over the next five years for failing to protect its patients’ private and medical information, Attorney General Letitia James announced.
Owners of Crossgates Mall got another $55,000 tax break last week, as they are poised to take possession of the streets surrounding a planned Costco Wholesale store.
Schenectady residents will pay roughly 3% more in taxes next year, while Mayor Gary McCarthy will receive a nearly 19% pay hike as part of the budget passed this week by City Council members, one of whom referred to it as a correction.
Hank Kuczynski, a former deputy mayor, was named the new Department of Public Works commissioner for the City of Saratoga Springs. But the tenure might be brief.
The new Union Hall Supply Co., a men’s clothing store that has a location in Saratoga, is opening its Stuyvesant Plaza shop doors today with a welcome party and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Teri Garr, the quirky comedy actor who rose from background dancer in Elvis Presley movies to co-star in such favorites as “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie,” has died. She was 79.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
