Good morning, it’s Monday. Holiday countdown: There are 16 days until Christmas/Chanukah, and 15 days until Kwanza kicks off.
I spent some time this past weekend volunteering for the Historic Albany Foundation during the annual downtown Albany Hot Chocolate Stroll.
If you’re not familiar, this is a very fun event during which you register at a central location, receive a “passport” with the names of all the participating organizations/businesses, and visit each one to receive a small hot chocolate sample – and sometimes a treat, to boot.
Historic Albany’s location is at the home of its future headquarters in the city’s oldest still standing building – 48 Hudson Ave., which is in the process of being rehabilitated. It’s a very cool space, and also very Christmasy, with a lot of exposed red brick that looks lovely with some well-placed garland and lights.
The only drawback is that it’s not yet heated, and Saturday was not particularly warm. That said, large urns of hot chocolate make pretty good impromptu hand warmers. We also gave out authentic Dutch Stroopwafles, which were placed on top of the hot chocolate cups to warm. These were a big hit.
I think by the end of the event, we had hosted some 450 people – give or take – which is double the number that stopped by last year. This was a big success. I was very impressed by those participants who made it to every location – about two dozen in all – which is a damn lot of hot chocolate to consume, especially since some of the options (assuming one was of age) were boozy.
I’m starting this post out with a little dose of volunteerism because 1) I really enjoyed it, and 2) I like to provide a bit of an antidote to the spend-spend-spend message of the holiday season, which, sadly, the second half of this post is all about.
Today is Green Monday – green like money and consumerism, not like sustainability . The name was coined in the early 2000s by eBay, when it became clear that the second Monday in December was one of the biggest online shopping days of the year (second behind Cyber Monday).
Why? Well, usually, the two-week out mark from Christmas Day is the cutoff date for many retailers to guarantee shipping in time for morning-of gift opening. If you buy after that date, you might – or might not – see your packages arrive on time. Savvy retailers are now seeking to capitalize on this phenomenon by offering Green Monday deals, seeking to lure fence-sitting shoppers in.
I guess one could quibble with my characterization of Green Monday being not about sustainability, if you’re the sort of person who thinks that online shopping is more environmentally friendly than driving to a brick and mortar store.
Then again, all that packaging and energy required to ship online purchases, not to mention the data centers necessary to store and retrieve orders cancels out – by a significant factor, I would say – any pollution savings one might realize by not starting up and driving the car.
It’s going to be unseasonably warm again today, with temperatures rising into the low 40s – but also wet, with rain developing later on in the day. Skies will, not surprisingly, be cloudy.
In the headlines…
Donald Trump pushed Russian leader Vladimir Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war despite being weeks from taking office.
“He wants to have a ceasefire,” Trump said of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “He wants to make peace. We didn’t talk about the details. He thinks it’s time, and Putin should think its time because he’s lost — when you lose 700,000 people, it’s time.”
Trump doubled down on levying tariffs in his first days in office, minimizing his prior emphasis on retribution against his perceived enemies, in his first network interview since he won the election.
Trump outlined an aggressive plan for opening his second term in the interview that aired yesterday, vowing to move immediately to crack down on immigration and pardon his most violent supporters while threatening to lock up political foes like Liz Cheney.
Cheney called Trump’s threat to imprison her and other members of a congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol an “assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”
Trump wants to pardon the 2021 Capitol rioters on his first day back in office. He also vowed to end automatic citizenship for those US-born immigrants, but offered to work with Democrats to help some undocumented individuals brought here as children.
Trump also falsely noted that only the United States has birthright citizenship, despite other countries like Brazil and Canada also offering birthright citizenship.
In an exclusive interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, Trump said he does not plan to try to remove Fed Chief Jerome Powell, whose term runs through May 2026.
Trump named several high-level picks for the State Department yesterday In several posts on Truth Social, he shared the new positions to work under his nominated Secretary of State, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
Trump’s Surgeon General nominee caused a gun accident when she was 13-years-old that left her dad shot dead — a tragedy which inspired her to pursue a career in medicine, but which she only partially revealed to the public.
A federal judge in Maryland has paused a lawsuit against Linda McMahon, the former World Wrestling Entertainment executive whom Trump chose for education secretary, while another court weighs a recent state law involving such cases.
The president-elect has released a new fragrance line for men and women to commemorate his historic election victory, and he found an unwitting model to help sell it: First Lady Jill Biden.
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria arrived in Russia yesterday after fleeing his country – a stunning fall for the longtime dictator who lost his hold on power to a lightning fast offensive by rebels who took control of Damascus.
According to Russian state outlet TASS, Assad and his family arrived in Moscow and were being guided by “humanitarian considerations,” meaning Russia granted them asylum.
Around 100 people gathered in Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan yesterday afternoon to celebrate the fall of Assad. Some were draped in the flag of the Syrian opposition, with green, white and black stripes and three red stars.
President Joe Biden said that the sudden collapse of the Syrian government under Assad is a “fundamental act of justice” after decades of repression, but it was “a moment of risk and uncertainty” for the Mideast.
Biden called the extraordinary fall of the Assad regime in Syria “a moment of risk” and “historic opportunity” while offering a blueprint for how the US plans to support the region.
The Israeli military captured territory on the Syrian side of the border in the Golan Heights after the Assad regime collapsed, the IDF said in a statement.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez built her reputation clashing with House Democratic leaders. Now, for the first time, she will take a shot at joining their ranks, seeking the coveted position of top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
The 35-year-old New York congresswoman’s announcement comes as Democrats are reshaping their committee leadership, with the oversight committee set to play a critical role in challenging potential actions during the next second Trump administration.
By far be the youngest to serve in the post, Ocasio-Cortez threw her hat in the ring in a letter to colleagues, saying this “is not a position I seek lightly.”
Notre Dame Cathedral hosted its first Mass since 2019 yesterday, more than five years after a fire devastated the historic building.
Archbishop Laurent Ulrich led the proceedings and French president Emanuel Macron was in attendance. About 2,500 people heard the liturgy, including many clergy and dignitaries. The ceremony was not open to the general public.
The cathedral was ceremonially reopened Saturday, with Macron and President-elect Trump in attendance. But yesterday’s Mass was the first religious service in the 12th-century building since the blaze.
The murder of Brian Thompson did not appear to have been committed by a coldly calculating professional, according to people who study criminal behavior.
Police discovered Monopoly money in a backpack they believe belonged to the masked assassin who gunned down Thompson in Midtown, law enforcement sources told the NY Post.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the “net is tightening” on the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting suspect as the manhunt for the executive’s assassin entered its fourth day.
The NYPD released new images of the suspected killer, depicting him sitting in the back of a taxi wearing a face mask and a black hoodie. He looks directly at the camera. A second image shared by the police shows the man standing outside the vehicle.
The police have said that the man took a taxi around 7 a.m. Wednesday on the Upper West Side after the shooting. He took the cab uptown to a bus terminal near the George Washington Bridge, where they believe he may have caught a bus out of the state.
On Saturday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed new legislation that would allow employees in New York to file for workers’ compensation after extraordinary workplace stress.
For the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic almost five years ago, New York’s Executive Mansion welcomed the public for a holiday open house, though the governor was not in attendance.
Five new laws signed by Hochul intend to help consumers save money in various ways, ranging from a quicker health club membership cancellation process to easier access to restaurant sanitary inspection grades.
In a letter sent to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, eight New York GOP members argued that the state has evaded federal oversight and rushed the restructuring of the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program.
The firm at the center of bid-rigging claims involving Hochul’s overhaul of a $9 billion home care program, Public Partnership LLC, added staff weeks before it won the contract, records show.
A new House bill introduced by Rep. Ritchie Torres would ban health insurers from imposing arbitrary time limits on patients under anesthesia — days after Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield only backed off the move amid outcry.
New York may soon require more transparency from state agencies related to certain contracts awarded to private entities — notably contracts that, right now, don’t require real-time public disclosure or oversight from the state comptroller’s office.
Law enforcement throughout New York State issued over 50,000 tickets for various vehicle and traffic law violations during the Thanksgiving travel period, according to Hochul’s Traffic Safety Committee.
Pay increases for thousands of state employees at over a dozen agencies went into effect earlier this month.
Criminal justice reform advocates in New York are making their case for fixes to the parole system in 2025.
The New York Racing Association and its national thoroughbred horse racing regulator are locked in a fee dispute that this week prompted a federal lawsuit. NYRA’s ability to conduct any horse races at its tracks is at stake, it said.
With his political future in doubt, Adams, the Democratic mayor of New York City, has opened the door to returning to the Republican Party.
When asked in a television interview on Friday if he would consider rejoining the GOP, Adams replied: “The party that’s most important for me is the American party — I’m a part of the American party. I love this country.”
Adams is looking for ways to go over the City Council’s head to tweak the Big Apple’s restrictive migrant “sanctuary city” designation, he said during a TV interview.
Spectators at a mayoral cake cutting ceremony in NYC were treated to an unexpected spectacle – when the 6-foot confection collapsed into a sticky mess and workers were left scrambling to piece it back together before Adams.
Adams yesterday announced a $152.7 million investment to transform Fifth Avenue from Bryant Park to Central Park into a pedestrian-friendly boulevard.
The redesign will expand sidewalks by 46%, reduce traffic lanes and add greenery, creating a safer, more walkable space, City Hall said. The project aims to give a boost to Fifth Avenue’s economic output.
The iconic luxury Manhattan retail strip between 48th to 55th streets celebrated its 200-year anniversary with a major birthday bash that closed down the street – allowing New Yorkers and tourists alike to spill into the roadway and bask in Yuletide cheer.
Workers at Strand Books — one of New York City’s most famous book shops — walked off the job Saturday as part of a labor strike demanding they make more than minimum wage.
John Chan was a Chinatown gangster before remaking himself into a powerful force in New York politics — one closely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party.
Jay-Z was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl with Sean Combs in a lawsuit filed Sunday by an unnamed plaintiff. He vehemently denied the allegation and accused the lawyer who brought the suit of trying to blackmail him with false claims.
The Mets are the winners of the Juan Soto sweepstakes. He chose the Mets out of the many big-moneyed suiters, coming to terms with the Amazins’ on a 15-year, $765 million contract yesterday, one night before the start of baseball’s annual winter meetings
A group of former and current city officials is pushing to restructure Hudson’s government by shifting the mayor’s power to a city manager and slashing more than half of the Common Council positions.
The Village of Whitehall has declared a local state of emergency due to a failure of its water system, shutting down all local water access late last night.
The 2024 New York State Tree Lighting and Fireworks Festival kicked off last night with hundreds of family and friends spreading holiday cheer at the Empire State Plaza. This year marks the 47th annual year the event was held.
The President of SUNY Schenectady County Community College (SCCC) is stepping down in July 2026. Dr. Steady Moono has been the school’s President for more than a decade.
It has been one year since a 28-year-old man opened fire outside Temple Israel in Albany. City leaders gathered for a service Saturday inside the synagogue to remember this day and stand against hate.
Chef Jermaine Wright of 8 County Kitchen and Palace Theatre aims to feed 500 people next Saturday, Dec. 14, while hosting a food and toy drive right before the holidays through the Each One, Feed One Holiday Harvest.
Albany Police released further details concerning a child who died after falling through the ice at Washington Park Lake Saturday afternoon — and the girl who fell in the frigid water trying to save him.
A million dollars has been set aside in Albany County’s 2025 budget to tackle housing affordability — but officials have yet to decide how exactly to use those funds.
Last week, as part of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s bicentennial celebration, a time capsule was buried in front of the campus’ Troy Building for the college community to open upon the school’s tricentennial in 2124.
A 43-year-old East Greenbush man has been charged with using his tow company to steal 17 vehicles over the last two years and selling them to scrapyards or used car dealerships.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
