Good morning. It’s Wednesday of a three-day holiday week, so – unless you’re working through Thanksgiving and Black Friday – you’re probably already sliding gently toward powering down.
OR, if you’re a lot less lucky, you’re hitting the road/rails/skies, in which case, I pity you. We’ll get back to that in a moment.
First, a reminder of the programming pause we’ll be taking over the next several days.
There will be no “Rise and Shine” tomorrow or Friday, Nov. 28. We will return bright and early on Monday, Dec. 2, to ring in the brand new month and start the winter/Christmas/Kwanza/Chanukah countdown. Christmas and Chanukah coincide this year, with the first night of the latter occurring on Dec. 25, Christmas Day.
This is actually a pretty rare situation. The last time it occurred was 2016, when the first night of Chanukah coincided with Christmas Eve, and THAT was the first time in four decades such an overlap had taken place.
But before we get there, we have to get through what’s in front of us: Thanksgiving, which, as I’m sure you know by now, is a fairly controversial holiday from an indigenous perspective. It’s also a difficult time for a lot of people who either don’t get along with their biological families, are estranged from them, or don’t have a home or food or anything much to celebrate.
Also, although the vast majority of employers offer Thanksgiving as a paid day off, and a fairly sizable number also offer the following Friday, too, about 33 percent do require at least some employees to work the holiday. Some provide extra pay as an incentive, but others do not.
So far, the weather is making the biggest pre-holiday news, as it’s shaping up to be both wet and cold, with – at least in the Albany area – rain in the morning tomorrow changing over to snow in the afternoon. If you’re hitting the road or flying out today, though, things look pretty clear – locally, anyway – with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the mid-40s.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday are looking unremarkable from a precipitation perspective, though the weekend is going to be colder, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s.
If you happen to be traveling outside New York, well, the weather is probably already throwing a bit of a wrench into your plans. It’s also shaping up to be a pretty wet situation for the thousands of turkey trotters out there – especially in the Northeast – while those in the midwest are going to want to bundle up well, as they’re likely to face temperatures more akin to mi-winter than late fall.
However you plan to celebrate, here’s hoping you’re safe, healthy, warm, an well-fed. Try to stay sane amid those awkward family discussions and/or while stuck in the inevitable traffic jam/line etc. Gobble, gobble, all. I’ll catch up with you next month/week!
We’ve already dispensed with the weather. Let’s get down to business.
In the headlines…
Israeli ministers approved an American-backed cease-fire with Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group, the Israeli prime minister’s office said yesterday, moving the two sides closer to a truce in their deadliest war in decades.
Finally, President Joe Biden got his Rose Garden peace deal. It was not exactly the one he has been straining to land for most of the past year, but it was a breakthrough nonetheless — and, coming after a bitter election, a sweet moment of validation.
All schools in Lebanon will be closed today due to “ongoing aggression and the current dangerous conditions” in Lebanon from Israel’s increased attacks on the country, the Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Abbas Al-Halabi said.
The deal does not address the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is still fighting Hamas militants in response to the group’s cross-border raid into southern Israel in Oct. 2023.
Gaza’s Civil Defense vehicles, which serve emergency functions like search and rescue operations, are no longer operating in Gaza City because the agency is out of fuel, it announced yesterday.
Donald Trump picked Jamieson Greer, a lawyer and former Trump official, to serve as his top trade negotiator, a position crucial to the president-elect’s plans of issuing hefty tariffs.
Greer is no stranger to the role, having served as chief of staff to Robert Lighthizer, the trade representative during Trump’s first term. At the time, the administration implemented across-the-board tariffs on China and other countries.
Trump chose Kevin Hassett to be the director of the National Economic Council. In one of the most expansive roles in the administration, Hassett will work closely with the Treasury secretary on Trump’s economic plans, including tariffs and tax cuts.
Trump has picked a leading Covid lockdown sceptic Jay Bhattacharya to be the next director of a key US public health agency: the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s biggest government-funded biomedical research entity.
Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor, will be tasked with leading the federal government’s medical research efforts and will work “in cooperation” with incoming Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the president-elect said.
Texas officials sent a clear message during twin events in the Rio Grande Valley this week that they would be a willing partner to the incoming Trump administration and its immigration crackdown.
Lawyers for Trump are demanding that New York Attorney General Letitia James drop her civil fraud case against him, his family and his businesses “for the greater good of the country.”
Kamala Harris’ failure to win the presidential election despite a war chest of $1.5 billion “disqualifies” her from ever running for office again, one Democratic megadonor claimed in a new interview.
MSNBC said it was “unaware” that Harris’ presidential campaign paid $500,000 to Sharpton’s National Action Network nonprofit ahead of a friendly interview with the Democratic nominee just weeks before the election.
It’s official: A legal settlement that will rewrite the way many real estate agents are paid in the United States has received its final approval from a federal judge.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that she has signed five new laws aimed at keeping some of that hard-earned cash in New Yorker’s pockets and improving consumer safety this holiday season.
“At a time when New Yorkers are experiencing the devastating effects of rising prices, it’s important that I do everything I can to put more money back in their pockets,” Hochul said in a written statement.
As Trump promises mass deportations of millions of immigrants across the country, Hochul indicated this week that New York state will cooperate to at least some extent with federal immigration authorities.
Hochul, increasingly facing heat from opponents and critics, is zeroing in on one of voters’ top concerns: crime.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is part of a team of attorneys preparing a legal defense for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bolstering his long-standing pro-Israel credentials as he reportedly weighs a run for New York City mayor next year.
Weighing a run for governor, Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres distanced himself from past left-leaning positions this week, telling The NY Post the border crisis had changed his view on immigration policy.
As many as 3 million New Yorkers may be fraudulently reaping taxpayer-funded Medicaid and other public health insurance benefits at a potential cost of $20 billion a year, a staggering new study claims.
Federal authorities have opened a corruption investigation into a Queens pastor and a political action committee he formed to support Mayor Eric Adams, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry.
The Far Rockaway home of the pastor, Rev. Alfred Cockfield II, was raided about two weeks ago as part of an investigation led by the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Adams said he hopes that under Jay Clayton, Manhattan’s likely next U.S. attorney, “the system of justice moves to be proper,” a comment that comes as the mayor is facing criminal indictment by the office Clayton is expected to lead.
“I am hoping that the next prosecutor that comes in understands how important justice is in this country and what it means to Americans,” the mayor said. “I think the system of justice must be fair.”
Adams argued that last week’s horrific stabbing spree in Manhattan was the “byproduct” of efforts to slash the inmate population on Rikers Island.
Whitney Tilson — the Biden-bashing Wall Street investor who was among the first Democrats to demand the president exit the 2024 election race — is running for New York City mayor.
New York City officials are drawing up plans to shutter a giant Brooklyn migrant shelter amid concerns that the facility will attract the unwanted attention of the Trump administration.
A Queens couple allegedly led a shoplifting ring that swiped nearly $2 million in beauty products and clothing from retail stores and resold the merchandise in New York City and the Dominican Republic.
The theft and fencing operation included such products as makeup, perfume, cosmetics, designer clothing and accessories stolen from retailers such as Macy’s, Sephora and Ulta Beauty that were sold locally and abroad at deeply discounted prices.
Drug addiction fueled David Andino’s need to steal. Every day, he hit the same Target in Manhattan. His mother, a retired police officer, hadn’t seen him in years.
An NYPD captain in Brooklyn has been placed on desk duty and is under investigation after what sources described as a scuffle with the commander of a housing police precinct over whose officers would get credit for a gun arrest.
A study from New York University found that the air on subway platforms is potentially unhealthy because it contains tiny, almost invisible particles of iron, an inevitable result of the friction between brakes, train wheels and subway tracks.
Rudy Giuliani lashed out at a Manhattan Federal Court judge, claiming he didn’t have enough money to pay his bills amid collection efforts from the Georgia mother and daughter election workers he baselessly accused of ballot fraud.
“Every implication that you’ve made is against me!” Giuliani, the disbarred former US attorney for the Southern District, shouted at Judge Lewis Liman during a hearing in Manhattan federal court.
A humpback whale made a shocking splash beneath the Brooklyn Bridge this week, marking the species’ first visit to the East River in two years.
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyers filed a legal claim against New York City, alleging that he is receiving substandard medical treatment in unhygienic conditions while in custody at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex.
New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer says he’s asking Congress for tens of millions of dollars in security funding to protect the state as it prepares for an influx of about 1 million people for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Most recipes for Thanksgiving staples like pumpkin pie, stuffing and sweet potato casserole call for eggs. But this year, a continuing spike in avian influenza cases is driving up the cost of the basic ingredient.
Four years after thousands of nursing home residents died from COVID-19, families of those victims are asking to meet with a firm the state hired to author a report on its pandemic response that’s “filled with errors,” they said.
The will of John F. Hendrickson, whose property near Long Lake is among the most desired private holdings in the Adirondack Park, reveals he’s letting his older brother figure out what to do with his multimillion-dollar estate.
With two shootings and a fight occurring in the last week on Lark Street in Albany, many business owners see the surge in violence as a result of longstanding issues that have been a problem for years.
Nine years after fast-casual burger chain BurgerFi first opened franchises in the Capital Region, its locations in Colonie and Saratoga Springs will close permanently in December. The decision was made after the national chain filed for bankruptcy.
Seuk Kim was transporting three rescue dogs from Maryland to Albany, when his plane crashed in the Catskill Mountains. He died, but two of the dogs managed to survive.
