Good Tuesday morning.
There are eight days until Christmas/Hanukah and nine until Kwanza. I’m in Florida for a few days where it’s 80+ degrees, and I will never get used to seeing palm trees bedecked with holiday lights. But I can’t lie, it’s nice to be away from 20-something degree weather for a while.
I don’t know if you’ve been so dialed in to the holiday thing that you’re checked out from following the headlines. If so, good for you. Sadly, that is not the case for me. I have been reading with interest about tariffs for a host of reasons – some of them business related, others personal.
There has been a lot of focus industries that would be impacted by President-elect Trump’s plans to renegotiate the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) and his threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on exports to both nations unless they tighten their borders. I’ve read a lot about the potentially devastating effects on everything from energy, steel, aluminum, and potash, to agriculture.
Canada has, not unexpectedly, has promised to respond “robustly” if the Trump administration goes through with this plan. If the past is any precedent, also impacted will be the maple syrup industry, which is potentially going to be a big problem for the syrup lovers out there like myself.
The U.S. exports approximately $12 million in maple products to Canada, most of which is produced in Vermont and Maine. Canada, however, is the world’s largest maple syrup producer, accounting for 75% of the world’s entire production of the sweet, sticky stuff.
So, technically speaking, Canada doesn’t really need to bring anything in from the outside, though there’s a bigger existential crisis facing the syrup industry – something even bigger and more powerful (in the long term) than Trump: Climate change.
In 2023, Canada produced about 10.42 million gallons of maple syrup, which down from 17.4 million gallons in 2022. This was a 40.1% decrease from the previous year and 21.8% lower than the five-year average.
Poor weather conditions and a rise in demand contributed to this decline, which also resulted in Canada’s maple syrup reserve – the only one of its kind in the WORLD – hitting a 16-year low this past spring. (For the record, U.S. syrup producers experienced similar problems, albeit on a much smaller scale).
This year is shaping up to be considerably stronger for Canada from a maple syrup production standpoint, with some 239 million pounds produced as of spring 2024, compared to 124 million pounds in ALL of 2023. But for maple syrup lovers, an underlying long-term concern is warranted, I would say, given the ongoing unpredictability of the market and the weather.
Today is National Maple Syrup Day – a good excuse to go out and stock up. In case you’re confused, here’s a handy explanation of how maple syrup is graded and what the different colors mean.
Today will be unseasonably warm – up into the 50s! – with overcast skies and no significant precipitation in the forecast. Not to worry, though, if you’re hoping for some semblance of a white Christmas. That’s looking like a distinct possibility next week.
In the headlines…
A teenage student opened fire at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, yesterday, killing a teacher and another teenage student in the final week before Christmas break. The shooter also died, police said.
Barbara Wiers, director of elementary and school relations for Abundant Life Christian School, said students “handled themselves magnificently” after realizing this wasn’t a drill. The youngest students fled into the cold without coats, holding hands for safety.
The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is working with the Madison Police Department to help find out how the shooter at Abundant Life Christian School acquired a handgun.
Madison police identified the shooter last night as Natalie Rupnow, 15, who went by Samantha. She was a student at the school, said the police chief, Shon F. Barnes, at an evening news conference.
Rupnow was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital, and the evidence suggested she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Chief Barnes said.
A judge yesterday rejected Donald Trump’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling had nullified his criminal case in New York, upholding the former and future president’s felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.
The judge’s ruling preserves, at least for now, the stain of Trump’s criminal conviction. And if it withstands his appeal, it will make him the first felon to serve as president.
The Supreme Court declined to wade into Peter Navarro’s years-long battle with the government over presidential records, brushing aside an appeal from Trump’s former trade adviser without hearing from the Biden administration in the case.
When Pete Hegseth visited senators on Capitol Hill this month in an effort to show that he has the qualifications and judgment to lead the Defense Department, he was escorted by a security guard with a dark episode in his past.
Trump spoke to reporters and answered questions on a range of topics for about an hour yesterday, making a number of new claims that were false, misleading or overstated. He also repeated a number of familiar inaccuracies.
At a gala on Wall Street for the New York Young Republican Club, attendees were looking forward to retribution from the next Trump era, and musing on another run in 2028.
The Biden administration has taken its first step to retaliate for China’s broad hack of American telecommunications firms, moving to ban the few remaining operations of China Telecom in the United States.
The Biden administration is preparing a trade investigation into China’s production of older-model semiconductors, in response to fears that the United States’ growing dependence on these products could pose a national security threat.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany called a confidence vote in the German Parliament yesterday. He lost by a tally of 394-207, with 116 abstaining. That effectively ends the unpopular government he has led since 2021.
The vote means Germany will hold new federal elections in early 2025, most likely on Feb. 23. That’s about seven months earlier than originally planned.
A bill that would have required hospitals to engage with their local communities and give more notice of the closure of a facility or department has been vetoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul will host a virtual meeting today with nearly 200 companies and their security teams to discuss collaborating on security resources between the state and private services.
Several economic experts panned Hochul’s “inflation refunds” that she plans to distribute to qualifying New Yorkers as part of her 2025 State of the State initiative.
Hochul is making progress on addressing the 805 bills that the state Legislature approved this year. With just two weeks left in the year, she has 109 bills that still await her action. Five of those bills have not yet been delivered to her.
Two New York companies accused of price gouging during a 2022 national shortage of baby formula will turn over $675,000 of product to New York to be distributed to needy families under an agreement with the state attorney general’s office.
Social workers and state lawmakers are again at odds over legislation that would eliminate the controversial social worker licensing test.
Cannabis processors and cultivators are urging Hochul to sign a bill that would restructure their tax filings to be on an annual basis.
New York City’s defiant Democratic mayor ran into one hurdle after another yesterday, facing mounting fallout from the investigations into him and his inner circle just as he tries to improve his precarious political standing.
The city’s Campaign Finance Board voted yesterday morning to deny Adams $4.5 million in public funds for his re-election.
Ninety minutes later, his longest-serving, closest aide — Ingrid Lewis-Martin — and her lawyer announced the Manhattan district attorney will soon indict her on alleged corruption charges.
In a freewheeling press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club, Trump said he would consider pardoning Adams – a legal lifeline that carries great political risk in a New York City Democratic primary.
Trump, during the news conference in Florida, said he believed Adams had been “treated pretty unfairly” by prosecutors and promised to “look at” the case – and a potential pardon.
Trump might be speaking sympathetically about Adams, but Republicans in New York still view the mayor with skepticism.
Real estate leaders in New York City filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a new law that would shift expensive broker fees from renters to landlords.
Part of Herald Square’s holiday market was left in smoldering ruins yesterday when a blaze ripped through several booths, leaving one firefighter seriously injured.
The New York City authorities were trying early this morning to fix a major water main break in the Bronx that submerged cars and forced roads to close.
The New York Post is officially expanding its news, sports, and political coverage to Long Island.
Investigators on Long Island this morning will announce a “significant development” in the investigation of Rex Heuermann, the Massapequa Park architectural consultant accused in the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
The state attorney general’s office declined to prosecute an off-duty state trooper who fatally struck a pedestrian last August after determining criminal charges couldn’t be proven.
An inmate at Marcy Correctional Facility died a day after being transferred to a local hospital following a “use of force” incident, the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision announced Sunday.
A popular butterfly that summers in the Adirondacks may get new protections in 2025 in New York and nationwide.
A former employee is suing the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce and its president, alleging a pattern of discrimination that includes a hostile work environment, retaliation, and termination based on gender and age.
Town Justice James A. Bradshaw Jr. agreed to resign and never hold judicial office again, after he was served with a formal complaint alleging he called litigants “animals” and remarked it was “debatable” that an assistant public defender was a lawyer.
“Giddy Up!” — Shania Twain is bringing her 2025 tour to the Saratoga Peforming Arts Center on July 20.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
