Good morning, it’s Wednesday. We are rocketing toward the holidays at warp speed.
This is as good a time as any to remind you of the annual “go dark” week here at Civ Mix, where we take the days between Christmas and New Year’s off for some much-needed rest and relaxation.
Don’t worry, I’ll remind you again.
Starting next Monday, there will be no “Rise and Shine,” though rest assured that the dogs, who are conditioned to get up with me at 3 a.m., will ensure that I am staying more or less in the habit of rising at the crack of dawn. Sometimes, when they’re feeling generous, they let me sleep past 4 a.m. Big of them, don’t you think?
Among the many Christmas traditions that I coveted from afar, but never quite understood as a child was the Advent calendar. As far as I knew, it was a holiday countdown game during which lucky participants got to open a door or window a day (depending on the design), behind which there would be a treat – anything from a fun illustration to some candy or even a small gift.
Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that. The word “Advent” has its roots in the Latin adventus, which means “arrival” or “coming”. It also has a connection to the German word Adventskalender, which means what it sounds like. Said calendar is indeed a method of counting down the days in anticipation of Christmas – and, from a religious standpoint – the arrival of Baby Jesus.
Apparently, though, there’s more to it than that. Originally, Advent was tied to the baptism of new Christians, which usually took place at Epiphany. That is the end – not the beginning – of the Christmas season when Christians recall the coming of the Magi and celebrate the baptism of Jesus. Clearly, the practice has evolved significantly since then.
The modern-day, four-week Advent period begins on the Sunday closest to the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle (Nov. 30) and then lasts for the next three Sundays. The First Sunday of Advent can fall anywhere between Nov. 27 and Dec. 3, which makes the fabrication of Advent calendars tricky – especially if you want to use them again, year after year.
As a result, calendars made of paper or wood usually start arbitrarily on Dec. 1.
The calendar countdown to Christmas once involved a far simpler practice, established by the German Protestants, of lighting a candle a day, or even simply making marks on the mantle to indicate the passage of time. The point is to take a moment out of the frenzy of pre-holiday preparations and remind oneself of the reason behind the season, so to speak.
The printed Advent calendar that is the precursor to the vast variety of what is available today was created by a German publisher named Gerhard Lang. He was said to be inspired by the childhood memory of his mother sewing 24 cookies into the lid of a box letting him eat one of them each day.
There was a bit of a dark detour during the Nazi era, during which the Third Reich appropriated Advent calendars as a form of propaganda. But they enjoyed a surge of popularity in the post-war period when people were longing for a return to normalcy.
These days, Advent calendars are very big business, boosted further still by social media mentions and reveals. A luxury Advent calendar can set you back thousands of dollars, and their growth in popularity shows no sign of slowing. The commercialization of the whole thing makes me a little sad, but, then again, that’s sort of the general theme of Christmas – and the holidays – writ large, isn’t is?
Anyway, for those who are observing, Happy Advent (is this a thing?) I hope your daily mini-unboxing is bringing you joy.
The weather is about to take a turn for the worse – or at least the wetter – with cloudy skies in the morning and showers developing in the afternoon. Temperatures will top out in the low 40s.
In the headlines…
President-elect Donald Trump is suing prominent Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer and the newspaper she works for over an unfavorable poll published near Election Day that predicted he’d lose the Hawkeye State to Kamala Harris.
“Contrary to reality and defying credulity, Defendants’ Harris Poll was published three days before Election Day and purported to show Harris leading President Trump in Iowa by three points,” reads the suit. “(He) ultimately won Iowa by over 13 points.”
Trump’s attorney unsuccessfully asked a federal judge to move forward with his lawsuit against journalist Bob Woodward over published audio tapes of interviews the famed Watergate reporter conducted with Trump for a 2020 book.
In a letter to the judge that was unsealed yesterday, Trump’s lawyers claimed to have uncovered “evidence of grave juror misconduct during the trial,” during which he was convicted of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal.
Trump selected Herschel Walker to be the U.S. ambassador to the small Caribbean nation of the Bahamas, turning to a longtime ally and former football star who generated national headlines in his failed run for a Senate seat in Georgia in 2022.
In a statement on social media, Trump highlighted Walker’s athletic record as qualifying him for the position, in addition to a role in the first Trump administration as a co-chair of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
Less than half of Americans said their opinion of Trump is favorable, according to a recent poll.
In a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, around 41 percent stated that their opinion of the president-elect is favorable. Around 55 percent stated that their opinion of the president-elect is unfavorable.
Still stinging from the election, President Joe Biden is pushing for his final priorities but has absented himself from the national conversation about Trump after warning repeatedly that he was a threat to American democracy.
Biden said yesterday that there is no sense of danger so far from the drones that have been spotted in the Northeast, noting that officials are looking into them.
Congressional leaders released bill text last night that would fund the federal government into March, hitched to more than $100 billion in disaster aid and a slew of last-ditch policy bills as lawmakers prepare to leave town for the holidays.
Racing to avert a government shutdown Friday night before fleeing the Capitol until January, lawmakers have again turned their year-end funding bill into the proverbial “Christmas tree” measure, ornamented with a variety of unrelated legislation.
The bill would kick the Friday funding deadline to March 14 to buy more time for the next Congress and incoming president — the first Republican trifecta since 2017 — to hash out how the government should be funded for much of next year.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said a permanent funding fix for the World Trade Center Health Program will be included in a must-pass budget bill that Congress will vote on this week to keep the government open past the Friday deadline.
House Republicans said their one-time colleague, former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, should face a criminal investigation for her role on the select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
House Intelligence Committee members sought to ease public worries about drone sightings following a briefing, echoing law enforcement claims that there is nothing nefarious behind the activity even as some called for legislation to address the matter.
House Democrats yesterday elected Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) as the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, according to multiple lawmakers familiar with the matter. Connolly, 74, defeated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 35, of New York.
Like other senators leaving the chamber next month, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, yesterday marked the end of his three terms with an emotional, highly personal floor speech. But he refused to call it a farewell.
“It is not — I promise you — the last time you will hear from me,” Brown, 72, assured his applauding colleagues as he concluded remarks that caused him to choke up several times.
A Manhattan grand jury has indicted Luigi Mangione on first-degree murder and terrorism-related crimes for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, court filings show.
The Manhattan Supreme Court indictment charges Mangione, 26, with first-degree murder, second degree murder as a crime of terrorism, and nine other charges related to the high-profile hit outside an entrance to the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg called Thompson’s killing “brazen, targeted and premeditated,” adding: “This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted murder that was intended to cause shock and attention and intimidation.”
Officials in Wisconsin gave little new information yesterday about a shooting that left a student and a teacher dead and six others injured.
Newly uncovered photos and online accounts purportedly associated with the Wisconsin teen school shooter suggest an obsession with other school shooters such as Columbine killer Eric Harris — and even show her wearing a t-shirt of his favorite band.
Gun violence on school grounds has seen a notable uptick in the last four years, according to a review of data collected by the K-12 School Shooting Database.
More than 50 shootings with at least one victim have occurred during school time each year since 2021, according to the database, a research project that tracks all instances in which a gun was fired or brandished on school property.
Teen drug use hasn’t rebounded from its drop during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the results from a large annual national survey released yesterday.
Roughly two-thirds of high school seniors said they hadn’t drunk alcohol or used marijuana or tobacco products in the past month — marking the greatest percentage of sober teens since the annual survey began documenting substance use in 2017.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to file paperwork seeking Mangione’s extradition from Pennsylvania, where he has been held since he was arrested last week at a McDonald’s.
New York’s most powerful Democrats convened at the state Capitol yesterday to cast the state’s Electoral College vote for an unsuccessful candidate for president in an event that felt more reminiscent of a funeral than an act of democracy.
Hochul called for the Electoral College to be abolished, arguing the system is outdated and the popular vote should prevail.
Around 90% of shifts at upstate New York health care facilities are staffed at unsafe levels, according to a new report issued as the state continues to grapple with an overall staffing crisis in the medical sector.
A Manhattan judge yesterday denied Mayor Eric Adams’ motion to dismiss the bribery count in his public corruption case.
Judge Dale Ho said federal prosecutors made a convincing enough argument in their 57-page indictment to let the bribery charge stand, at least for now.
The ruling deals a blow to the mayor’s effort to blunt the five-count criminal case alleging a long-running quid pro quo scheme involving the Turkish government.
“[The] Indictment is sufficiently pleaded, and dismissal is not warranted,” Manhattan federal court Judge Dale Ho wrote in a 30-page order rejecting Adams’ arguments that the government’s allegations did not meet the legal standard for bribery.
Adams was in Albany yesterday, while several of his top deputies were due in Washington – all seeking to advance the mayor’s state and federal priorities amid the political backlash of his criminal indictment.
Adams pressed Hochul face-to-face in Albany for action on a slew of hot-button issues, including expanding the city’s powers to remove mentally ill New Yorkers from public spaces.
Adams’ 2021 campaign provided records to address more than $2 million in financial discrepancies flagged in an audit of its operations, but his team also left some suspected violations unresolved, including a question about payments to two top aides.
Adams is expected to announce Jimmy Oddo, the current New York City Department of Buildings commissioner, will lead the Department of Sanitation, according to multiple people briefed on the plan.
Adams has ordered New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch to “go desk by desk” and find ways to move cops in units not directly involved in law enforcement back to patrol on the streets, noting cops are “masters at hiding out somewhere.”
A contract for the company that administers the test to get into New York City’s elite specialized high schools is expected to be approved during a much-delayed and crucial vote today.
More than 8,300 delivery workers allegedly cheated out of tip money by defunct alcohol-delivery platform Drizly will share a $4 million payout – or about $500 apiece – under a restitution agreement announced by the New York attorney general’s office.
The MTA is finally moving to overhaul the Queens bus network that largely runs along defunct trolley routes and has hardly changed since the 1950s.
Groups on the frontlines of New York City’s street homelessness crisis fear they’ll be forced to lay off dozens of staffers next month due to a $4 million funding cut included in this year’s city government budget.
Prosecutors say Rex Heuermann, the architectural consultant accused in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, created a grim planning document in 2000 that delineated his methods of hunting, torturing and killing humans.
Heuermann has been charged with a seventh murder: the death of Valerie Mack, whose remains were first found 24 years ago, according to a superseding indictment unsealed yesterday.
A businessman in the Bronx falsified information on thousands of returns, committing one of the largest tax frauds in Department of Justice history, prosecutors said.
The city will pay nearly $30 million to settle a massive race discrimination lawsuit filed by FDNY fire protection inspectors, according to the union repping the workers.
SeeClickFix complaints about road conditions could end up costing the city of ALbany money after the state’s highest court this week ruled the complaints filed through the app qualified as “prior written notice” of a need to repair a roadway.
An intact prehistoric mastodon jaw was discovered in the backyard of a Hudson Valley house after the homeowner initially saw a pair of teeth poking up by a plant, according to state officials.
The board of the Albany County Airport Authority says it does not anticipate hiring a permanent successor until the completion of an ongoing $100 million expansion project — work that is not expected to be wrapped up until the summer of 2026.
After more than two years of talking about it and several studies later, City Council members moved a step closer this week to lowering the speed limit to 25 miles per hour on most streets in Schenectady.
Jonie Civill of Civill Realty has been named the 2024 Realtor of the Year by the Greater Capital Association of Realtors (GCAR).
The Queensbury mansion of Kris Roglieri, the jailed Albany loan broker who is sitting in the Rensselaer County jail awaiting trial on wire fraud charges, has been listed for nearly $2 million by Davies-Davies & Associates Real Estate.
The Cambridge-Greenwich police chief who was arrested on misdemeanor charges — just a week into the job — pleaded guilty this week to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct in Salem Town Court.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
