Good morning, we made it through the first week of March relatively unscathed – I mean, comparably speaking.
I’m not even sure what passes for normal these days, but here we are, on the cusp of a weekend that will be dry, at least, if not terribly warm. More on that later.
When the weather starts getting warmer and the days longer, I find my craving for thing that are warm and comforting – like, say, oatmeal – starts to wane. Warmer weather is for cold, light, and refreshing foods. I was never a big cold cereal eater, though.
We had things like Cherrios and Weetabix and Grape Nuts in the house when I was growing up. No sugary cereals allowed. I did go through a sugar cereal craze when I went to college and was faced with unlimited amounts of Golden Grams in the dining hall. These and Frosted Mini Wheats are a weakness or mine.
But I like Fiber One, too, and also Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, which are sort of a healthified version of Cap’n Crunch’s Peanut Butter Crunch. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
As an aside, I hadn’t eaten Grape Nuts for literally years, and then when there was a shortage of them during the pandemic I found myself absolutely desperate to get my hands on some. I was totally jonesing for the unique sweet-nutty combined with cardboard taste that in no way shape or form resembles grapes.
Yes, that’s right, there are no grapes in Grape Nuts, not even raisins. It’s a misnomer if ever there was one.
Breakfast cereal is a uniquely American invention, and we also have the market cornered on production – the top brands are, I’m sure familiar, with names like Kellogg, Nestlé and General Mills. But we aren’t number one when it comes to consumption. That title goes to Ireland.
In terms of origin story, cereal has its roots right here in New York – in Dansville, Livingston County, to be exact – and started out its life as a digestive aid, created by a guy named James Caleb Jackson. Jackson was born in Manlius, Onondaga County, and became a fan of the so-called “water cure“, better known as hydropathy, after experiencing it at a spa in Cuba, NY.
Jackson was such a fan of the water cure that he trained to become a physician and eventually took over the Our Home Hygienic Institute, which was located on a mineral spring.
Jackson, who eventually changed the name of the institute to the Jackson Health Resort, not only believed in the curative power of water, he also was a firm advocate of a vegetarian diet, with a big focus on fruit, vegetables, and unprocessed grains.
This lead to his invention of a breakfast cereal he dubbed “Granula“, which was more or less the precursor to my beloved Grape Nuts – a bran-rich graham flour rolled into nugget shapes. This concoction, while healthful, was very hard, and Jackson found that it required a soak in milk to make it actually edible.
And, it all comes full circle. Amazing.
(Interestingly, Dansville’s chief claim to fame is NOT as the home of the breakfast cereal, but rather as the first location of the American Red Cross, according to its website).
Today, if you hadn’t already caught on, is National Cereal Day.
Today is going to be notably windy, with gusts of up to 50 mph possible. That will surely knock you off your feet if you’re a person of a certain stature like myself. Also, maybe bring the garbage cans inside? Temperatures will struggle to get out of the 30s and skies will be cloudy.
The weekend appears to be poised to bring us more of the same. More clouds and wind are in the forecast on Saturday, with temperatures in the mid-30s. Sunday is looking a bit better, with partly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 40s.
In the headlines…
Two days after imposing sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump yesterday abruptly suspended many of those levies, sowing confusion with investors and businesses that depend on trade with the countries.
The president said he would allow products that are traded under the rules of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the trade pact he signed in his first term, to avoid the stiff 25 percent tariffs he imposed just days ago on two of America’s largest trading partners.
It is the second time in two days that Trump has rolled back his taxes on imports from the US’s two biggest trade partners, measures that have raised uncertainty for businesses and worried financial markets.
Trump’s chaotic, stop-and-start approach has sent stock markets tumbling and generated anxiety among industries that depend on trade with Canada and Mexico, which account for more than a quarter of U.S. imports and nearly a third of U.S. exports.
A taste for American liquor could be one of the casualties in the trade war against Canada, after Trump placed a 25 percent tariff on Canadian exports.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said three states would face tariffs on electricity after a week of Trump’s swipes at Canada with fluctuating trade policies.
“I love Americans. It’s been 20 years of my life. But in saying that, no, we’re going to put a 25 percent tariff on electricity coming from Ontario to Michigan, New York and Minnesota,” Ford said on Fox Business Network’s “The Claman Countdown.”
Canadian Sen. Patrick Brazeau challenged Donald Trump Jr. to a charity boxing match over the “bogus” tariffs implemented this week by his father.
“I know, I still can’t believe it myself. But I no longer smoke and have been sober for almost 5 years,” the Quebec-based senator said in a post on X.
Trump signed an executive order seeking to severely punish the law firm Perkins Coie by stripping its lawyers of security clearances and access to government buildings and officials — payback for its legal work for Democrats during the 2016 presidential race.
Perkins Coie is the second such firm to be targeted by the president. He signed a similar memorandum attacking Covington & Burling, which has done pro bono legal work for Jack Smith, who as special counsel pursued two separate indictments of him.
Senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials are planning to meet next week to discuss the first steps of a deal that could seek an end to the war in Ukraine, after a week of U.S. moves casting doubt on its support for the country.
Both Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine confirmed the meeting, which is expected to take place in Saudi Arabia. Zelensky said Ukraine will work “constructively” with Trump to reach a “fast” and “lasting” peace.
Senior State Department officials have drawn up plans to close a dozen consulates overseas by this summer and are considering shutting down many more missions, in what could be a blow to the U.S. efforts to build partnerships and gather intelligence.
The Ebola outbreak in Uganda has worsened significantly, and the country’s ability to contain the spread has been severely weakened by the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance, American officials said this week.
Trump signed an executive order to create a government reserve of bitcoin along with a “digital asset stockpile” in the administration’s latest embrace of the cryptocurrency industry.
According to the order, the U.S. government will use the bitcoin already seized by federal law enforcement while disrupting financial crimes to establish the reserve.
CBS News’ parent company Paramount filed a pair of motions in district court to dismiss Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit stemming from the “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Harris right before the 2024 presidential election.
Several arts organizations sued the National Endowment for the Arts, challenging its new requirement that grant applicants agree to comply with Trump’s executive orders by promising not to promote “gender ideology.”
SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded minutes after liftoff, with debris reaching Philadelphia and flights being delayed in a couple of states, including Florida.
This was the rocket’s eighth test flight. Similarly to the previous attempt, it ended in the 400-foot-tall rocket disintegrating Thursday. It appeared some of the engines had failed and the rocket was spinning out of control.
Corrections officers who staged unauthorized strikes that sowed chaos across New York State’s prisons for the last two and a half weeks received an ultimatum: Return to work today or face termination, disciplinary action and the possibility of criminal charges.
State Corrections Commissioner Daniel Martuscello revealed that he and his team had been negotiating directly with striking officers and sergeants at many of the state’s 42 prisons, where thousands of workers walked off the job without union approval.
Martuscello said the new terms would establish a committee “focused on safety” that would address concerns about the HALT law governing solitary confinement in prisons. Correction officers say the law limits their safety and ability to control unruly inmates.
“This agreement was not negotiated with NYSCOPBA — the legally recognized entity through which all negotiations must be conducted,” James Miller, a spokesman for the union, said in an email. As a result, the union is refusing to sign off on it.
The state attorney general’s office has recused itself from the investigation of the beating of Messiah Nantwi, who died Saturday after a “use of force” by correction officers at at Mid-State Correctional Facility outside Utica.
A State Police homicide investigation into allegations that Nantwi died Saturday after being beaten by multiple correction officers has reportedly been hampered by the lack of body-camera footage of the incident.
A special prosecutor has been appointed to investigate the death of a Harlem man during an apparent altercation with correction officers in an upstate prison as it emerged that as many as nine officers could face criminal charges, officials said.
Trump made clear this week during his televised address to Congress that he wants his allies to kill the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act.
Some immigrant advocacy groups appear to have jumped the gun this week when they praised Gov. Kathy Hochul for supporting a bill that would expand sanctuary protections around the state.
Tens of thousands of people in New York will be kicked off a popular home-care program by the end of the month if they don’t register with the new company hired by the state to manage it.
Roughly 100 people have signed up to attend information sessions hosted by New York’s Department of Labor since New York’s campaign to hire fired federal workers rolled out about four days ago, according to the governor’s office.
Tracking the spread of avian influenza is an “anxious game,” according to Richard A. Ball, commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Markets.
Queens Assemblywoman Jessica González-Rojas said that reproductive justice is her “north star” as a community activist. Now, it’s guiding the policy she pushes as chair of the Assembly’s Task Force on Women’s Issues.
Two filings expected today in the ongoing effort to dismiss the public corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams could open up a new chapter in the saga as criticism that he has surrendered his independence to Trump to skirt charges reaches a boiling point.
Adams has taken few concrete steps to launch a serious re-election campaign, even as he faces a growing field of prominent challengers.
Adams slammed latecomer Democratic election rivals Adrienne Adams and Andrew Cuomo yesterday for running “shadow campaigns” capitalizing on his woes — while defiantly insisting he’s not going to drop out.
Mayor Adams launched a new joint “community coalition” with the NYPD to battle rampant drug use and vagrancy at troubled Washington Square Park and Greenwich Village.
Mayoral contender and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo fended off questions about his residency and ties to New York City, saying he has lived full time at his Manhattan apartment since the fall and is a “New Yorker 100% through and through.”
Fresh off of announcing he’s running for mayor this year, Cuomo acknowledged that he wishes he would’ve done some things differently while serving as governor, including as it relates to police funding.
House Republicans from New York are asking federal health agencies overseen by Robert Kennedy Jr. to rule on whether Cuomo violated federal policy by sending elderly patients to nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ruben Diaz Jr., the former Bronx borough president, announced that he would back Cuomo for mayor after endorsing Adams in 2021.
One of the largest municipal unions, the 25,000-member Teamsters Local 237, representing security guards at Big Apple public schools, colleges, housing complexes and homeless shelters, has also endorsed Cuomo.
Mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie wants to make afterschool programs free for all New York City families. It was not immediately clear how the Brooklyn state senator would pay for a dramatic expansion of the city’s child care and work programming.
A day after Adams faced a phalanx of questions in Washington about the city’s sanctuary city policies, his immigrant affairs commissioner faced a barrage of his own yesterday – this time from city councilmembers.
Manuel Castro, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said that his office has been kept in the dark on the mayor’s promised executive order allowing ICE to operate on Rikers Island.
Castro testified before a City Council hearing, ostensibly about his office’s $26.7 million budget. But councilmembers had more questions about the Adams’ administration’s stance on Washington policy matters.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called for an “emergency suspension” of sanctuary city protections as she toured the Brooklyn subway station where an illegal immigrant fatally torched a woman.
New York City’s involuntary removal policy was supposed to make it easier to help mentally ill homeless people get the care they need. In practice, it has raised impossible questions.
Experts are emphasizing the importance of vaccination against measles after two people in New York and three in New Jersey were diagnosed with the viral illness since the start of the year.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors announced 25 arrests in a series of crimes behind bars at the troubled MDC Brooklyn federal jail — including a half-dozen men charged in the bloody brawl that left Jam Master Jay’s killer, Karl Jordan, repeatedly stabbed.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called on the U.S. General Services Administration to keep the Leo W. O’Brien Federal Building open, saying its closure would threaten crucial services to thousands of Capital Region residents.
For years, advocates have pieced together state and federal funding for free school meals with the goal of reaching every student. Now, as they approach the finish line, there may be one last hurdle to overcome: Cuts to federal aid.
A Capital District Transit Authority bus driver said she was fired last fall after she was attacked while trying to intervene on behalf of an elderly passenger who was allegedly being harassed by a teenage rider near Albany High School.
Meteorologists and local officials are watching for possible flooding around the Capital Region following rain and rising temperatures.
After 39 years covering New York politics and government, Karen DeWitt will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Radio Television Digital News Association in Washington, D.C.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
