Good morning, it’s FRIDAY! Enough said.
Having access to endless information at your fingertips is both a blessing and a curse. I cannot for the life of me recall what it was life to be unable to think of, say, the name of a movie or a historical fact and not simply just fire up your phone or laptop and have the answer within a matter of seconds.
However, there are some things that I feel like I might be better off not knowing, given my propensity to worry. I definitely do NOT need more fodder for the hamster in my brain that is running endless laps on its proverbial wheel and keeping me up at night.
For example, I wish I didn’t know that approximately 10 million pets are stolen or go missing every year, and, due in large part to a failure by their owners to sufficiently prepare for this sort of near-inevitable event, a lot of them don’t make it home.
If you, like me, are not terribly good at math, let me break that down for you – 10 million pets is about one in three pets. I HAVE THREE DOGS! I don’t like these odds at all, especially since my biggest boy, Manny, (he’s the all-black one, if you have seen online photos of the brood) has incredibly strong prey drive and isn’t terribly smart.
Manny did get out once when the front door was inadvertently left open (by someone who shall remain nameless – not me) and he spotted a deer in the woods across the road. He bolted straight out the door and into the night. I was convinced he was gone for good, especially since we live not far from a pretty busy road on which people drive much too fast and Manny is very skittish and not terribly smart.
Thankfully, we did manage to get him back. He was completely panicked and muddy and took hours to calm down. You can rest assured that I now ALWAYS pull the front door shut tight behind me and lock it – even if we are inside the house.
I did buy one of those WiFi-enabled tracking collars, but I haven’t used it yet. Don’t ask me why – sheer laziness, I think, is the answer.
The best ways to keep your pets safe and guard against them getting out and running away is to 1) keep them on-leash at all times when outside, 2) invest in a good fence (personally, I do not truck with those invisible electric fences because I think Manny would go right through them, and 3) don’t let them out unsupervised – even if you think your yard is secure and/or they have good recall because a true escape artist always finds a way.
Microchipping is the best way to better the odds of getting your beloved fur friend back with you if they go missing or are petnapped. The statistics speak for themselves – microchipped pets are three times more likely to be reunited with their owners than those who are not microchipped. (Lost dogs are more far likely to be returned than lost cats, which is sad).
A caveat: Microchipping technology only works if the chip is registered AND the information on it is updated when an owner’s contact information changes. If your beloved animal DOEs get out and go missing, make sure you spread the word far and wide ASAP – call the shelters, the vets, law enforcement, and the microchip company and start canvassing the neighborhood.
Hopefully, as with the case with Manny, your pet won’t have gotten too far. There are plenty of heartwarming stories out there of pets being rescued and/or found hundreds of miles away from home – again, if they’re chipped, they can be scanned and hopefully returned to their forever families.
BTW, July is National Lost Pet Prevention Month.
It looks like we’re getting a break from the extreme heat and humidity today, which is great news. Temperatures are forecast to top out in a more comfortable low-80 degree range and some clouds in the morning will give way to mostly sunny skies.
The weekend is shaping up to be a bit of a mixed bag, weather-wise, with temperatures in the low-to-mid 80s on both Saturday and Sunday, and a chance of thunderstorms and/or rain showers as the weekend progresses.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump has been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency, a blood circulation issue, after noticing “mild swelling in his lower legs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed.
Leavitt made the surprise disclosure while addressing conjecture about recent bruising on Trump’s hands, which she said was assessed to be “irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin” as a preventative heart-health measure.
Dr. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said in a memo that Trump had noticed mild swelling in his lower legs and underwent an evaluation which revealed the condition. He added that the condition was “benign” and common in people over 70.
Trump announced that he was authorizing Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the public release of grand jury testimony from the prosecution of the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, and Bondi said she would make that request in federal court today.
House Republicans, under pressure from Democrats and their own angry constituents, broke with Trump and agreed to lay the groundwork for a potential vote calling on the Justice Department to release material from its investigation of Epstein.
Gov. Kathy Hochul joined the fray, saying: “Why won’t the attorney general in Washington release the Jeffrey Epstein files?” she asked. “Because I want to know what’s in them. What are they hiding? What’s the cover up all about?”
Maurene Comey, a career federal prosecutor who worked on the Jeffrey Epstein case and was abruptly fired by the Trump administration this week, implored her colleagues not to give into fear, calling it “the tool of a tyrant.”
Comey’s firing typified the chaos that has gripped the four New York region U.S. attorney’s offices since Trump reclaimed the White House, taking closer control of the Justice Department than any president in the last half-century and rattling the legal system.
Congress approved a White House request to claw back $9 billion for foreign aid and public broadcasting, after Republicans bowed to Trump in an unusual surrender of congressional spending power.
The House’s 216-to-213 vote early this morning sent the package to Trump for his signature. Two Republicans, Representatives Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Michael R. Turner of Ohio, opposed the measure.
The House’s vote to clear the Senate-amended package came less than 24 hours after the Senate voted to tweak the administration’s original proposal that would have cut an additional $400 million from the global AIDS fighting program, PEPFAR.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has disbursed funding for stations through September. After that, more than 100 combined TV and radio stations that serve millions of Americans in rural pockets of the country will be at risk of going dark.
The Food and Drug Administration is allowing Juul Labs to keep its electronic cigarettes on the market about three years after the agency banned the company’s products.
The Trump administration is pushing to conduct an on-site inspection of the Federal Reserve as Trump and his top aides continue to pressure Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, to lower interest rates or resign.
Christopher J. Waller, a Fed governor who was appointed by Trump in his first term and is seen as a potential contender to be the next Fed chair, laid out the case for a quarter-point rate cut when the central bank next votes on monetary policy on July 30.
Waller also endorsed further interest rate cuts this year – an argument that rests on the assumption that price pressures stemming from Trump’s sweeping tariffs will lead not to a persistent inflation problem but only to a temporary burst.
CBS announced yesterday that it plans to end “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in May, citing a “financial decision.”
The maneuver, which ends years of original late-night programming at CBS that started when the network lured David Letterman from NBC in 1993, comes as the economics of wee-hours TV have begun to accelerate.
Colbert was informed of the decision last night and addressed the matter during yesterday’s taping at the Ed Sullivan Theater. “I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” he said. “I wish somebody else was getting it [after me].”
Many fans questioned the timing of and motivation for the announcement, noting that Colbert hosted the most-watched show in late night television.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, who has taken the train for years, Sean Duffy, and the U.S. secretary of transportation, who rode the subway a few stops in April, drew two starkly different conclusions at a tense public meeting this week. Each man called the other a liar.
Hochul has made known to Trump in recent conversations her frustration over the impact anticipated in New York from the recently enacted tax bill he signed into law earlier this month.
Hochul yesterday lambasted congressional Republicans’ massive tax and spending law and assembled members of her cabinet to address federal cuts to the state as a result of that legislation, saying “the human toll of this is beyond unconscionable.”
“It’s an intentional infliction of pain on the people of this great state in our country,” Hochul said. “It is taking a wrecking ball to the lives of the most vulnerable.”
“For what purpose? Why is this happening? To fund tax breaks for the most privileged, the wealthiest, millionaires and billionaires who, last I checked, are doing just fine,” the governor added.
GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik released a video depicting Hochul as “weak” and predicted she would be a rubber stamp for “Commie Mamdani.”
Both the city and state’s gargantuan budgets are “unaffordable and unprepared” in the wake of a potential recession and impending cuts from the feds, a fiscal watchdog group said yesterday, sounding the alarm on massive overspending.
The NYS Public Service Commission is halting the approval process for construction of new transmission lines to bring offshore wind power into the New York City downstate region, citing Trump’s opposition to such projects, the groups said.
A federal appeals court ordered the dismissal of the National Rifle Association’s lawsuit accusing a New York state official of violating its free speech rights by coercing banks and insurers to avoid doing business with it.
Several law enforcement unions formally endorsed Mayor Eric Adams for re-election. But the city’s largest police union, representing rank-and-file NYPD officers, has not yet announced whom it will endorse.
Adams formally received support for his reelection bid from several unions representing employees of the police and correction departments unions, who expressed concern a City Hall led by Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani would be a “de Blasio 2.0.”
Discovery in the civil sexual assault suit against Adams has hit a snag as his lawyers say they can’t produce his NYPD employment records because they were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy more than a decade ago.
As the mayor of New York City, Adams has never been a stranger to the media. But lately, the mix of where he’s showing up on TV has changed. He’s now a frequent guest on Fox News and Fox Business, making seven appearances on the networks this year.
In a new interview, former NYPD Commissioner Thomas Donlon said Adams is a “morally corrupt” leader who appointed a band of “clowns” to run his police department and should have no place in City Hall – now or in the future
New York City Socialist Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is facing heat online over a clip where he explains how he was able to take time off work because he knew his parents would financially support him.
“I worked until January, and then I took time away from my job and one of the major reasons I could do that was because I knew that if I ran out of my savings my family would be able to support me,” Mamdani said in the clip posted on X.
Mamdani’s primary win and proposal to raise taxes on millionaires have touched off fears of a new wave of wealth flight from the city. Yet so far, there is little evidence of a slowdown in high-end real estate or real wealth losses in New York.
Mamdani is being ripped for advocating “the abolition of private property” — as a video resurfaced of him touting the radical position this week.
“If there was any system that could guarantee each person housing — whether you call it the abolition of private property or you call it a statewide housing guarantee — it is preferable to what is going on right now,” Mamdani said in the video.
Even as Mamdani’s message resonates with national Democrats, many House Democrats in New York remain hesitant to endorse him.
A new opponent to Mamdani has recently cropped up, seemingly out of thin air: CityDeskNYC, a modest automated account on the social media platform X that appears dead set on destroying the mayoral candidate’s credibility.
Andrew Cuomo is shifting gears and taking personal responsibility for running what he admits was a lackluster campaign in the Democratic mayoral primary, acknowledging that any strategic mistakes ultimately fall on him.
Cuomo is facing fresh mockery for a mea culpa about his so-far doomed New York City mayoral run, after he vowed to focus on “touching more people.”
Columbia University officials and the Trump administration inched closer to ending a monthslong standoff over the college’s ability to protect Jewish students, meeting for about an hour in Washington, where they agreed on the main terms of a deal.
A 20-year-old New York City high school student from Ecuador released from a federal detention facility was whisked away by ICE agents, forced to sleep upright in an overcrowded holding room and then sent to Louisiana before ultimately winning her freedom.
A judge in Sullivan County awarded a $30 million verdict for a New Jersey man who was sexually abused as a teenager at a Hudson Valley Boy Scout camp by an attorney who was accused of posing as a doctor so he could drug and prey on his alleged victims.
A retired Air National Guard pilot conducted an emergency landing this week, landing his plane upside down in a field in the Albany County Hilltowns, State Police said.
Albany County Executive Dan McCoy continued pushing back on criticism leveled by Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan in the wake of chaotic scenes of violence that marred the state’s fireworks event in downtown Albany on the Fourth of July.
Hours after at least eight men were allegedly detained Tuesday morning by masked, plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and driven away in unmarked vehicles, citizens spoke out at that evening’s Saratoga City Council meeting.
Brett Eby, the Republican candidate for Saratoga County district attorney, is now being endorsed by the county’s Conservative Committee.
A Troy police officer abused his authority out of spite when he arrested a man who honked his car horn at a traffic light, a recently filed federal lawsuit alleges.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
