Good morning, you made it to Friday! Enough said.
I grew up in a fairly health conscious household. My mom shopped at the natural foods store before that was really a mainstream thing to do. I was not particularly thrilled that we were the only family I knew who purchased rice in bulk and had peanut butter you had to stir up every time you opened it because the oil had separated out.
At some point, we decided to try our hand at making kombucha, a fermented drink made out of tea that contains probiotics and antioxidants, which is said to have a wide variety of health benefits, though these claims have not been scientifically proven.
Today, of course, you can just walk down to your local supermarket, bodega, deli, what have you and take your pick from an array of commercially packaged kombucha. It is decidedly not cheap – maybe $4 a bottle or more, which certainly makes the idea of brewing it yourself more attractive.
At the time I’m speaking of – the mid-80s or so – kombucha was not widely available. So, we sent away for our very own Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast (SCOBY) – a living culture of yeast and bacteria – that (theoretically) one uses to make their own probiotic home brew.
I say “theoretically” because brewing kombucha is not a “set it and forget it” undertaking.
First of all, the SCOBY (AKA “mother” or “starter”) is not at all attractive – a sort of slimy blob that smells like vinegar – and it needs to be kept alive so it can work its fermentation magic, because a dead SCOBY is actually a danger to your health. But SCOBY’s are sensitive to all sorts of things – temperature is a big one, but also sufficient oxygen and sugar.
Sterilization is also critical. If your SCOBY gets moldy, you have to throw out your whole carefully assembled batch of “booch” AND the SCOBY itself and start all over again.
The entire process – if done right – takes a number of days – if not weeks. The payoff, of course, is homemade, affordable, tasty kombucha. And, if you’ve kept your SCOBY healthy, you can reuse it over and over again. This is really helpful if you drink a lot of kombucha, because that can quickly become an expensive little habit.
Also, you have a measure of quality control – and taste control – deciding what kind of flavors and carbonated base beverage to use.
It looks like we might get the slightest of reprieves from the frigid temperatures we’ve been experiencing of late – but not today, sadly. Today, will be partly cloudy and very windy, with temperatures in the mid-20s.
Saturday and Sunday, however, will warm up into the 30s! WHEEEEE. There will be a mix of sun and clouds tomorrow, and more clouds on Sunday, but no significant precipitation is in the forecast.
In the headlines…
An estimated 6,700 IRS workers were fired by the Trump administration, smack in the middle of tax season as the agency prepares to deal with 140 million tax returns.
The purge largely targeted newer “probationary” employees who have fewer protections than long-term workers.
The move to can IRS employees, specifically tax collectors, will likely cost the government money. “For every $1 that the IRS spends on high-end enforcement activity, the agency collects $12 in uncollected taxes,” Yale Law professor Natasha Sarin said.
More than 200 employees of the Transportation Security Administration were fired this week as part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping layoffs across the federal workforce.
Though it’s routine for TSA to terminate probationary employees for poor performance or conduct, the cuts add to growing concern about the impacts of layoffs at federal agencies focused on national security or public safety.
A federal district court judge in Washington denied a request by unions to block the Trump administration’s effort to drastically reduce the size of the federal work force.
The Trump administration told Congress that it believed the president had the constitutional power to summarily fire administrative law judges at will, despite a statute that protects such officials from being removed without a cause like misconduct.
The Trump administration is throwing out protections for roughly half a million Haitians that had shielded them from deportation, meaning they would lose their work permits and could be eligible to be removed from the country by August of this year.
The decision was signed this week by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and is the latest in President Donald Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration, including people whom the Biden administration had authorized to remain in the country.
The Trump administration yesterday transferred all of the Venezuelan migrants it had brought to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, suddenly emptying a detention operation that it had just as abruptly started this month.
Trump said that he was making Alice Johnson, whose sentence he commuted during his first term, his “pardon czar” to make recommendations about who should receive clemency.
Funds for vital health programs around the world remain frozen and their work has not been able to resume, despite a federal judge’s order that temporarily halted the Trump administration’s dismantling of the government’s main foreign aid agency.
The first meeting of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory committee since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary has been postponed, the department confirmed.
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell announced that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decades-long tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump.
McConnell, who turned 83 yesterday, was largely expected to end his Senate tenure at the conclusion of his term in January 2027 but made it official in a floor speech in which he reflected on his decades-long political career.
The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director, installing a staunch loyalist of President Donald Trump and conservative firebrand at the head of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
Ed Martin, the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, has sent letters to Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), accusing them of threatening public officials. Garcia, who publicly shared the letter, was accused of threatening Elon Musk.
U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey says the MTA should start giving drivers congestion pricing refunds.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will not exercise her authority to remove Mayor Eric Adams from office for now, but will seek to impose strict new guardrails on his administration of New York City.
The governor is adding a deputy state inspector general for city affairs, giving more oversight resources to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli and making it harder for the Department of Investigation commissioner to be fired.
While Hochul’s actions fall far short of removal, they would still curtail Adams’s independence as he battles accusations that he entered a corrupt agreement with the Trump administration to drop federal charges against him.
“My strong belief is that the will of the voters and the supremacy and sanctity of democratic elections preclude me from any other action. I cannot deny the people of this great city the power to make this decision for themselves,” Hochul told reporters.
Hochul has embraced a more aggressive stance, abandoning her initial more diplomatic approach, as she takes on Trump, deals with Adams and nears a competitive election next year.
Since being stripped of his federal security clearance last fall due to his corruption indictment, Adams has been barred from receiving information on a range of sensitive issues, including “terroristic threats” to New York, his lawyer said in court.
Adams, facing criticism over the terms under which Trump’s DOJ is moving to dismiss his criminal indictment, will go face-to-face with his opponents in the 2025 mayoral primary for the first time at a candidate forum next week.
Attorney General Pam Bondi derided the indictment of Adams as “incredibly weak”, as the Trump administration waits to hear if a judge will grant its request to dismiss the case.
A longtime ally and former top aide to Adams tried to force his way into a migrant shelter in 2023 then made false statements about the incident, resulting in the arrests of two security workers, a city investigation found.
AG Tish James filed a lawsuit in a federal court against nine e-cigarette manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers she alleges are marketing and selling flavored vapes in New York, in violation of local, state and federal laws.
Corrections officials have ended all outside visits to New York state prisons in the wake of a growing jail guard strike and sporadic inmate unrest — as riots erupted at another upstate prison early yesterday.
The newest uprising by out-of-control inmates struck the Riverview Correctional Facility, near the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Ogdensburg. No staffers were hurt during the chaos, which WWNY 7 News said broke out overnight Wednesday into yesterday.
Correction officers retreated from inmate dorms at Riverview Correctional Facility in St. Lawrence County early yesterday during an incident that may have been triggered by the ongoing strikes affecting operations at more than 30 state prisons across New York.
Multiple correction officers face charges of murder, manslaughter and gang assault for the beating death of Robert L. Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility in December.
The charges against the officers, which range from tampering with evidence to second-degree murder, are listed in sealed indictments opened yesterday afternoon in Oneida County Court.
Onondaga County DA William J. Fitzpatrick, whose office is handling the case as a special prosecutor, said three other correction officers have agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges in exchange for their cooperation and will appear in court at a later date.
“Robert Brooks should be alive today,” Hochul said in a statement. “The brutal attack on Mr. Brooks was sickening, and I immediately moved to terminate the employment of those involved.”
Complaints of misconduct made against law enforcement officers that weren’t found to be credible can’t be categorically withheld from members of the public who request them, New York’s highest court ruled.
New York City’s top early childhood official admitted that the communication “absolutely should have been better” before the sudden announcement of a spate of planned daycare center closures.
New York City will pay $3.5 million to the family of a visiting Belgian firefighter who was killed in a FDNY boat crash in the East River in 2022.
The Brooklyn Academy of Music, a performing arts institution, has announced that its president, Gina Duncan, will step down when her contract expires in June after three years in the position.
Amtrak announced that it will extend its current service levels between the Capital Region and New York City after the schedule for some Empire Service trains was reduced then expanded in November to accommodate holiday traveling.
As federal agencies move to begin enforcement of a long-delayed Real ID rule on May 7, adults will soon need either a Real ID or their passport to board domestic flights and to gain access to certain federal buildings.
Recent gunfire erupting outside of the Saratoga Springs police station has prompted the commissioner of public safety to once again call for city police to move out of City Hall’s basement and into a proposed $24 million police station.
A western Massachusetts construction materials company involved in the $81 million acquisition of the Gorman Group out of Albany is suing to recoup money in the deal alleging breach of contract and fraud.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
