Good Wednesday morning.
If you’ve been around here for a while, you’re well aware that I’ve never met a nut (the eating kind, not the people kind) that I didn’t like. I have my preferences, of course. Peanuts, almonds, cashews, and Brazil nuts are at the top of the list, followed closely by walnuts, hazelnuts, and perhaps pecans.
Some of these are better in their creamy, spreadable form, while others go better in oatmeal or baked goods or even turned into milk. Still others – like Brazil nuts, for example – are best salted and eaten out of hand. Ditto macadamia nuts. There are some nuts I wouldn’t turn down in a pinch, but don’t readily opt for. Pistachios are among them.
I think this is in part because pistachios are kind of a pain to eat. You have to work to get them out of the shell, and then the result is, well, kind of underwhelming. Small, slightly chewy and, in my opinion, relatively tasteless meats that don’t really deliver much bang for the buck.
I guess the same could be said for walnuts, if you’re eating them out of the shell. The same goes for almonds, peanuts, etc. But I don’t encounter them all that frequently in their un-shelled form.
According to one online source I found by searching “world’s most popular nut”, pistachios in their shell rank No. 5 behind cashews, walnuts, almonds and peanuts (in ascending order).
Perhaps they are genuinely underrated? They do pack a significant punch, from a nutritional standpoint. They have a lower fat content and calorie count compared to other nuts, but are high in antioxidant compounds and also vitamin B6, which helps boost your immunity, among other thing.
The word “pistachio” is derived from the Greek pistákion, which means, fittingly, “the green nut”. They have been cultivated for thousands of years in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean, and even get a mention in the Bible. They were prized by ancient civilizations not only for their taste, but for their reported medicinal properties, used in treating stomach ailments and reducing inflammation.
Pistachios were introduced to Europe during the first century AD by the Romans. But the U.S., which is now the world’s largest pistachio producer (bigger than both the No. 2 and No. 3 producers, Iran and Turkey, combined), wasn’t actually introduced to the tree that grows these seeds (yes, they’re technically seeds, not nuts) until the mid1805s by a seed distributor named Charles Mason, who was well known for focusing on experimental crops.
The first pistachio trees were planted around Sonoma, CA, and today the Golden State is responsible for growing 99 percent of the U.S. crop (about 300 million pounds a year, give or take). The rest are grown in Arizona and New Mexico.
Today is National Pistachio Day, If you’re celebrating by indulging in some pistachio consumption and go the in-shell route, be aware that 1) the natural color of the shell is beige (not green or red, that’s a dye), and 2) washed and dried shells can be recycled in a number of ways – including as a mulch for plants and/or as compost.
Another warm day (for this time of year) is on tap. Temperatures will be in the low-to-mid 40s. It will be cloudy, with a chance of snow – not a lot, maybe less than an inch or so – as night falls.
In the headlines…
House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled off a stunning turnaround last night to rescue a critical vote to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda that had seemed doomed just moments earlier.
Surprising even some of his critics, Johnson and his leadership team capped hours of drama in the Capitol by successfully flipping multiple GOP holdouts to pass a budget blueprint that will mark the first step toward moving Trump’s ambitious agenda forward.
The legislation — which provides a framework for Republican priorities on tax, border, and energy in “one big beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts — was approved in a 217-215 vote. It now heads to the Senate.
The nearly party-line vote teed up a bitter fight within the GOP over which federal programs to slash to partially finance a huge tax cut that would provide its biggest benefits to rich Americans.
In theory, the budget, which kicks off the process of passing an extension of tax cuts enacted in 2017 and up to $2 trillion in spending cuts meant to partly offset them, could become law without significant cuts to Medicaid. But it won’t be easy.
Cutting Medicaid spending, which is expected to be central to fulfilling the budget plan that House Republicans adopted, could result in millions of Americans across the country losing health coverage unless states decide to play a bigger role in its funding.
More than 20 civil service employees resigned yesterday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
Amy Gleason is the acting administrator of DOGE, a White House official revealed after weeks of questions about Musk’s official role and authority.
Gleason, the technical leader tasked with reconfiguring the federal government, has a background in health care and previously worked at the US Digital Service, an office created by President Obama, which has been renamed the US DOGE Service.
DOGE has quietly deleted all of the five biggest “savings” on its original online “wall of receipts”, after The New York Times and other media outlets pointed out they were riddled with errors.
Fired US Agency for International Development employees will be “escorted” to their desks and have “15 minutes” to collect personal belongings from the gutted agency’s Washington headquarters later this week, according to a notice from USAID.
Ukraine has agreed to turn over the revenue from some of its mineral resources to the United States, an American and a Ukrainian official said, in a deal that follows an intense pressure campaign from President Trump that included insults and threats.
Trump said he was expecting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to sign the deal this week, after the two leaders exchanged strong words about each other.
“I hear that he’s coming on Friday,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Certainly it’s OK with me if he’d like to. And he would like to sign it together with me. And I understand that’s a big deal, very big deal.”
Trump yesterday previewed his plans for a new visa program he was calling the gold card, describing it as “somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication.”
The blingy new program would allow “very high-level people” a new “route to citizenship,” Trump said. The price tag, he said, would be about $5 million.
“That’s going to give you green card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship,” the president explained. “And wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card.”
Jacqui Heinrich, Fox News’s senior White House correspondent, sharply criticized the White House’s decision to take over the press pool from the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), which has governed the press pool for decades.
Heinrich, in a post on X, pushed back on press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s claim that “we are giving the power back to the people” by taking control of the pool, which is a small group of reporters that travels with and covers the president’s daily activities.
Within the span of 90 minutes yesterday, two airplanes, at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport and at Chicago’s Midway International Airport, were forced to abort landings to avoid collisions, federal aviation officials said.
A Southwest Airlines flight narrowly avoided a collision with a private plane on a runway in Chicago, thanks to a last second “go-around” maneuver.
The near-miss was captured on video, which shows the commercial plane about to touch down at Chicago Midway, then quickly lifting off the tarmac as the smaller jet crosses its path to landing.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has launched a new initiative to recruit workers into state service as the federal government is laying off thousands of highly qualified individuals.
“The federal government might say ‘You’re fired,’ but here in New York, we say ‘You’re hired,’” Hochul said in a recruiting video. The state has more than 7,000 unfilled government posts.
Hochul’s proposed guardrails for New York City Mayor Eric Adams are far from assured as state lawmakers expressed skepticism about the measures in a closed-door meeting this week.
Hochul announced $19.5 million in state investments to improve public safety in Albany, including a new $1 million commitment to the City of Albany Police Department and $500,000 for the Albany County Sheriff’s Office.
The Hochul administration moved closer to taking legal action that could include potential arrests as the names of more than 330 correction officers and sergeants taking part in a prison strike were added to an amended petition filed in state Supreme Court.
New York’s public universities are trying to safeguard their campuses against federal spending cuts under Trump.
Hochul ordered the City University of New York to immediately shut down a “Palestinian Studies” professorship posting at Hunter College that critics argued promotes hateful instruction that demonizes Israel.
More than a dozen nursing homes in New York have closed since 2021 as health care providers say they are struggling to retain staff with low Medicaid reimbursement rates that have not been adjusted in more than a decade.
New York persisted with a plan to build flagship dispensaries for people the state once prosecuted for weed offenses, even as it failed to meet its goals. Now the state IG’s office is investigating the program, called the Cannabis Social Equity Investment Fund.
Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado had some strong words about “leadership” and “power” in a fiery speech just a day after he announced he wouldn’t run with Hochul in 2026 as the Hudson Valley Dem considers his next move.
Adams finds himself in a strange and lonely spot: An incumbent mayor of the nation’s largest city, running for reelection with a skeleton campaign crew and some of his closest aides distancing themselves as his federal corruption case plods along.
Adams announced the groundbreaking of a new 22,000-square-foot NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health Community Health Center in Far Rockaway.
Adams and police officials took a swipe at a bill pushed by progressives that would abolish the NYPD’s gang database — saying it’ll make it more difficult for cops to nab violent criminals and prevent shootings.
For three hours this week, the NYPD’s top lawyer and police brass dueled members of the City Council over bills to eliminate a gang database and bar DNA tests of teens without parental consent. Neither side seemed to budge.
A quarter of New York City residents don’t have enough money for staples like housing and food, and many say they can’t afford doctor visits, according to a report that underscores the urgency of the affordability crisis officials are struggling to confront.
The report, by a research group at Columbia University and Robin Hood, an anti-poverty group, found that the share of New Yorkers in poverty was nearly double the national average in 2023 and had increased by seven percentage points in just two years.
Columbia has tapped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to lead a course on diplomacy, decision-making and organizational leadership starting next month.
Though he once pushed for deep NYPD cuts, Brad Lander said that as mayor, he would hire more police officers, acknowledging that progressive Democrats like himself were “slow to respond” to some public safety concerns during the pandemic.
The Working Families Party endorsed self-described “moderate Democrat” Council member Justin Brannan for city comptroller over his opponent, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, because of his platform advocating for the working class.
A controversial 2,200-bed migrant men’s shelter has opened its doors in the South Bronx — to the widespread condemnation of residents, merchants and local officials.
New York City’s unions play an outsized role in municipal elections where fewer than one in four voters participate. But heading into the most chaotic mayoral primary election of this century, three of the city’s top unions are beset by internal turmoil.
Moldy meals, insufficient food and no requested halal accommodations. Those were some of the complaints that members of the New York City Council surfaced yesterday in an oversight hearing on the food served up at city shelters.
A 55-year-old man awaiting trial on murder and other charges died in a holding area at a Manhattan courthouse on Monday, according to officials and court records – the second person to die in Correction Department custody in the past week.
Raymond Santana, 50, a member of the “Central Park Five,” announced his Democratic campaign for the Council seat currently held by Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, who is term-limited and will leave office after this year.
The MTA opened a gleaming new $75 million passageway on schedule and under budget that will ease crowding from the platform of the 7 train to the mezzanine of the Grand Central-42nd Street station – one year after a priest blessed the project.
Sixteen people were hospitalized yesterday after a subway train hit an object on the tracks at an Upper Manhattan station, causing a fire that filled the station with smoke, according to fire and transit officials.
Members of the Bonnano crime family hired a Long Island detective to stage a fake police raid at an illegal gambling parlor run by their rivals, federal prosecutors said.
Hector Rosario, a Nassau County detective, raided a gambling operation that competed with the Bonanno crime family, according to federal charges.
Dockworkers on the East and Gulf Coasts voted in favor of a new contract yesterday, ending labor turbulence at ports that handle a large share of U.S. trade with the rest of the world.
The International Longshoremen’s Association, said nearly 99 percent of its members had supported the contract, which raises wages 62 percent over six years and guarantees jobs when employers introduce technology that can move cargo autonomously.
Three New York companies were awarded $180,000 in grants from the Jeff Lawrence Innovation Fund as part of the New York State Microelectronics Innovation Challenge.
The South End Children’s Cafe will receive $500,000 in state funding to aid in its expansion.
The Joann fabrics store on Glen Street in Queensbury — the only Capital Region location spared from an earlier announcement the company planned to close 500 stores — will be shuttered as part of what the company now says is a plan to go out of business.
The Advance Albany County Alliance’s board approved a resolution this week to negotiate a contract with two Long Island firms for a $14.6 million bid to demolish Central Warehouse.
Starbucks is laying off 1,100 corporate employees, its chief executive said in a letter to workers this week, marking the coffee chain’s latest move to restructure amid lackluster sales.
The cuts will affect nearly 7 percent of the company’s 16,000 employees who work outside company-owned stores; baristas are not included. Starbucks had indicated in January that it planned to cut corporate jobs.
In an announcement Monday, Starbucks also outlined plans to remove a selection of its less popular drinks — including several blended Frappuccino beverages, the Royal English Breakfast Latte and the White Hot Chocolate — starting on Tuesday, March 4.
“These items aren’t commonly purchased, can be complex to make, or are like other beverages on our menu,” Starbucks wrote. adding that simplifying its menu would allow it to “focus on fewer, more popular items, executed with excellence.”
Photo credit: George Fazio.
