Good morning, it’s Friday. Thankfully. It has been a very long week. Down and back to New York City in one day always kicks my butt. I’m just not as young as I used to be, I guess.
Also, Amtrak, if you’re reading this, please, PLEASE for the sake of all that is holy, improve the WiFi service on the Albany-to-NYC corridor. I get that you’re reducing service and everything, but it seems to me that a country that has been able to successfully send people to space, create robots that dance, and invent self-driving cars could handle this simple task.
I don’t mean to rant, but 5 hours without working, reliable WiFi – roughly 2.5 each way – makes me itch. I SHOULD be able to just embrace the silence and relax, but I just can’t. I’m too addicted to the phone, and to being constantly reachable. It’s an illness.
I am going to try to detach myself at least partially over the coming Memorial Day weekend – the three-day unofficial kickoff to summer. Programming note before we go any further: There will be no Rise and Shine on Monday, May 26, in honor of the holiday. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled nonsense bright and early Tuesday morning.
About Memorial Day. It has come to be about welcoming the all-too-fleeting summer with cookouts and picnics and boating and hiking and beaching and all the outdoors things (weather permitting, of course, but we’ll get to that later).
Memorial Day is the country’s second most popular grilling day after July 4th. And did you know that an estimated 7 BILLION hot dogs are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day? That’s about 818 hot dogs a second, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, which I didn’t even know existed until today.
But the true meaning of Memorial Day, which, for the record, has been around a lot longer than you might think, is about honoring those who served in the armed forces and died protecting our freedom and our country.
It started out as Decoration Day during the Civil War as a moment to remember the Union and Confederate soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict. It was later expanded to include all soldiers who died in any conflict. The name “Memorial Day” was instituted in 1967 through a presidential proclamation issued by Lyndon B. Johnson, who also made the day an official federal holiday and “a day of prayer for permanent peace.”
The first state to officially celebrate Memorial Day was none other than our own New York, which started the tradition back in 1873. It became traditional to honor the fallen by decorating their graves with flowers or American flags, wearing poppies, and/or participating in moments of remembrance, parades, or ceremonies.
The weather picture is steadily improving over the next several days. Today is the worst of it, with more clouds and occasional rain showers, and more unseasonably chilly temperatures (50-ish degrees). Saturday will be a bit warmer, with temperatures climbing toward – but not quite reaching – 60. We will pass 60 on Sunday, and both days will be dry but cloudy.
Monday looks like a decent enough day, though perhaps not beach/lake weather, except for you diehard cold water lovers. The sun will make an appearance now and again, and temperatures will top out in the low 70s.
In the headlines…
House Republicans narrowly approved President Trump’s “big, beautiful” agenda bill early yesterday morning, sending it to the Senate after a 48-hour scramble to get fiscal conservatives and blue-state moderates on board.
With the 215-214 vote, lawmakers met Speaker Mike Johnson’s goal to approve the legislation by Memorial Day weekend, but more drama is likely in the Senate, where Republicans have demanded additional cuts and insisted on preserving Medicaid rules.
House Democrats’ campaign arm argued that Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will cost House Republicans the majority in 2026, raising costs for working families and benefiting only the wealthiest earners.
Millions of low-income people would lose access to federal food aid under the House budget plan, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office.
House Republicans’ tax package would only provide a modest boost to economic growth, according to a new government analysis that’s sure to disappoint GOP lawmakers.
Trump dined at his Virginia golf club with the highest-paying customers of his personal cryptocurrency, promising he would promote the crypto industry from the White House as protesters condemned the event as a historic corruption of the presidency.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s wide-reaching effort to detain and deport international students, barring the federal government from arresting those students or revoking their visas while the case plays out in court.
The Trump administration said it would halt Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, taking aim at a crucial funding source for the college in a major escalation of the administration’s efforts to pressure it to fall in line with the president’s agenda.
Columbia University violated civil rights law by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward harassment against Jewish students, the Health and Human Services Department said, the Trump administration’s latest accusation of antisemitism against the school.
The Trump administration announced that it was investigating the admissions system at an elite public high school in Fairfax County, Va., which has been accused of discriminating against Asian American students to favor other racial groups.
The Government Accountability Office ruled that the Department of Transportation violated the 51-year-old law blocking presidents from withholding funding Congress has approved.
The US Mint has placed its final order of penny blanks and will stop producing the coin when those run out by early next year — marking the beginning of the end for one of the oldest continually printed money pieces in the U.S.
The man accused of fatally shooting two staff members of the Israeli Embassy in D.C. outside a Jewish museum told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza,” authorities said in announcing charges in the incident that they called a targeted act of terror.
The suspect in the antisemitic attack, Elias Rodriguez, 31, a Chicago native and the son of an Iraq War veteran whose antisemitism grew out of his association with US left-wing politics, reportedly did not have any direct connection Israel or the Palestinian cause.
Rodriguez was charged with first-degree murder and other crimes, according to an F.B.I. affidavit filed in federal court in the capital.
The victims, Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky met while working at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, her father said. Lischinsky had just bought an engagement ring, an official said, and planned to propose during a trip to Israel.
In light of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo being the target of a Department of Justice investigation, Gov. Kathy Hochul was asked if she believes these investigations are political. Her answer: “Hell yeah.”
The clock is ticking for this year’s legislative session in Albany, with only 10 scheduled days remaining. And Hochul has yet to approach legislators with an end-of-session agenda.
Hochul spoke in Buffalo about a $1,800 baby bonus as part of her “plan to transform New York into the best, most affordable place to start and raise a family.“
Hochul roasted the Albany press corps and her political rivals this week following the annual Legislative Correspondents Association show.
Republicans in New York’s Assembly this week accused Democrats of blocking legislation that would require the PSC to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of renewable energy and zero-emission mandates that were enacted as part of the state’s 2019 Climate Act.
Democratic lawmakers at the state Capitol want to overhaul state laws on construction wages. They’re facing opposition from a coalition of business leaders who say expanding compensation standards would make construction projects too high.
Federal railway Amtrak is set to shut down one of the four tubes of the East River Tunnel starting tonight, kicking off a larger overhaul that has faced opposition from the MTA, Gov. Hochul and an unlikely consortium of local elected officials.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority defied the feds’ fourth deadline to kill congestion pricing — while ripping Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s repeated threats as a “sham.”
Cuomo rarely misses an opportunity to remind voters he’s a “Queens boy,” raised in Holliswood. So his absence from a mayoral forum this past Saturday in St. Albans, 15 minutes from where he grew up, did not go unnoticed.
City Council Speaker and mayoral candidate Adrienne Adams delivered an emotional speech at Elmhurst Hospital to mark the fifth anniversary of her father’s COVID death, linking one of the darkest moments in her life to Cuomo’s leadership during the pandemic.
Adams criticized Cuomo for his “redemption” campaign to return to office several years after resigning as state governor while embroiled in scandal. I remember begging the governor’s office to send life saving vaccines to my community,” she told reporters.
Cuomo has a long, combative history with Jeanine Pirro, the federal prosecutor in Washington, D.C. who is reportedly overseeing a criminal investigation against him.
Kathryn Wylde is retiring after a quarter century advocating for New York’s business sector, counseling mayors and governors and shaping key policies as president of the Partnership for New York City.
Wylde has been a behind-the-scenes power broker for decades, working on behalf of the business and political elite.
Meera Joshi, who quit her role as deputy mayor for operations in February over Adams’s cooperation with Trump, is being named president of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, where more than 570,000 people are buried.
The New York City Comptroller’s Office will investigate how city funding for the New York City Housing Authority is being doled out on capital projects — at the request of tenants who complained about “a lack of transparency” in how such funding is allocated.
Crime on the city’s subways has continued to fall to historic lows, but felony assaults, a violent category that often shapes public perception, have climbed, according to NYPD crime data.
Dozens of city spots are offering active duty-troops and veterans deals for Memorial Day weekend in a Fleet Week surprise for service members, officials said.
The New York Knicks’ Cinderella story isn’t just a rags-to-riches story for the team, as postseason home games could generate up to $832 million for city businesses, the mayor’s office announced.
A struggling office tower in the heart of Midtown Manhattan is set to be converted into a residential building with 1,250 apartments, in one of the most notable examples of how New York City’s economic center has evolved after the pandemic.
In the days leading up to last weekend’s Brooklyn half marathon, State Assemblyman Michael Novakhov’s office reached out to organizers of the race and Mayor Adams’ office to urge enhanced heat precautions. So when a runner died, he was furious.
The daughter of a woman who was brutally beaten on Randall’s Island said her mother had to be resuscitated on Wednesday during surgery and is undergoing another dangerous surgery yesterday.
Kid Cudi took the witness stand at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ sex trafficking trial, telling a jury about how his Hollywood Hills home was burgled and his Porsche was torched in his driveway after the hip-hop mogul learned he was dating Casandra “Cassie” Ventura.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this week announced a recall of cucumbers linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened people in 15 states, including New York.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued an alert this week, encouraging outdoor adventurers to postpone high-elevation activities due to unstable spring conditions.
The Village of Hoosick Falls’s top law enforcement officer has been fired amid an ongoing investigation by the state comptroller’s office.
Saratoga Springs police appealed to the City Council for the second time this week to approve a $25 million, three-story facility in order to, as they described it, provide better safety and security to both officers and people at the station.
Troy City Council President Sue Steele wanted to continue serving as chairwoman of the city’s housing authority board. Mayor Carmella Mantello had other plans.
Gulfstream Developers’ proposal to erect a small-sized home community on the former grounds of a Troy medical campus could be fully approved by early summer.
Counties are beginning to spend more money on efforts to provide adolescent offenders with the support services that had been promised as part of the Raise the Age statute. But less than 40 percent of the $1.7 billion allocated since 2019 has been expended.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
