Good morning, it’s Friday. We’re on the cusp of the end-of-summer weekend blowout. (I’m not sure how many you are still with me here, but if you are, thanks for your loyalty and work ethic). When we meet again, we’ll be officially barreling toward fall.
A programming note that bears repeating: There will be no “Rise and Shine” Monday, Sept. 1, in observance of the Labor Day holiday. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled posting bright and early on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
It’s worth noting that while we apart, National Beach Day will occur. (It’s tomorrow, Saturday, Aug. 30). If the word “beach” is synonymous with “sandy” to you, know that an estimated 31 percent of the world’s ice-free shoreline properties fall into this category.
Africa has the highest portion this total, with 66 percent, while Europe, renown for its pebbly, rocky beaches, has the lowest at 22 percent. Personally, I kind of prefer rocky beach – a predilection I might have developed during the year I spent living in France. I am not at all a big fan of sand, especially between my toes and in other bodily crevices. It gets everywhere and is impossible to eradicate completely, I find.
It’s not comfortable to sit on rocks, or even walk of them, I know. But a sturdy chair and some water shoes can address this small inconveniences, which I consider a minor price to pay in exchange for no sandy in your bathing suit.
Beaches, like pretty much everything else that’s good in life, are endangered. This is due to a wide range of factors – over development, climate change, erosion, pollution, overuse etc. One report I read while scrolling through the interwebs to put this post together says that coastal shifts and rising sea levels could wipe out nearly half of the sandy seashores around the globe by the end of this century.
Needless to say, this isn’t good news – and not only for those lucky enough to own beachfront properties that are threatened with extinction as a result of the rise in frequency of climate change-driven extreme weather event and erosion. Beaches are unique ecosystems, with flora and fauna that do not thrive elsewhere.
In addition, the landscape of beaches and their immediate surroundings are critical elements of flood management.
So what can be done? Actually, quite a bit. When I to comes to combatting erosion, there are both hard and soft engineering solutions. The former include things like seawalls, breakwaters and jetties, while the latter calls for trucking in additional sand (this is apparently known as “beach nourishment”), installing and/or encouraging oyster reefs, and planting stabilizing vegetation (like sea oats), that can prevent sensitive sand from blowing and washing away.
It should also go without saying that if you’re visiting a beach, you should practice good beach-protecting habits. This starts with NOT LITTERING!!! This seems so obvious, but the amount of trash I routinely see at the beach – most notably, and noxiously, in my opinion, cigarette butts.
And, if you truly want to be a good citizen, consider picking up after those who aren’t (this includes your dog, who may or may not be allowed on the beach, check the rules and follow them).
When it comes to beaching, I am a big fan of off-season visits. This is because I vastly prefer walking on the beach to sunning or swimming. Beach walks are better when there aren’t a lot of people around, I find. An empty beach is also better for shark tooth searching, which is an amazingly relaxing and fulfilling pastime that I highly recommend, if you get the chance.
The holiday weekend weather forecast isn’t bad, though perhaps not warm enough for a lot of swimming. Today’s outlook is the “worst” of the lot, with rain showers predicted in the morning, followed by partly cloudy skies in the afternoon. Temperatures will struggle to get out of the high 60s.
Things will warm up through the 70s and perhaps hit the low 80s as the weekend progresses. Skies will be partly cloudy tomorrow, and then mostly sunny Sunday and Monday. (Remember to check the forecast, though, as these things are likely to change – especially if you’re in the Adirondacks or somewhere else with notoriously fast-moving weather patterns.
Enjoy the break, I’ll see you on the flip side.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump thinks the Republican National Committee should host a midterms convention to bolster the party’s chances of holding onto control of the House of Representatives and the Senate past 2026.
The Trump administration is making plans for an immigration crackdown in Chicago that would involve 200 homeland security officials and the use of a naval base outside the city as a staging area, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
Trump signed an executive order that requires federal buildings in Washington to maintain a classical style of Greco-Roman architecture associated with the marble columns and austere hallways of the Supreme Court and U.S. Capitol.
The new guidelines, which the White House has framed as “making federal architecture beautiful again,” also discourage federal construction projects nationwide from choosing modernist styles like Brutalism.
A federal appeals court declined to stop the Trump administration from withholding billions of dollars set aside by Congress for foreign aid.
The decision by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit not to hear the case and potentially flip an earlier ruling by three of its judges was a technical-sounding step in a case with major constitutional implications.
Two influential GOP senators are expressing unease over Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s firing of Susan Monarez as director of the CDC which led to the resignations of four other high-ranking CDC officials.
Kennedy Jr. summoned Monarez to his office in Washington this week to deliver an ultimatum: She needed to fire career agency officials and commit to backing his advisers if they recommended restricting access to proven vaccines — or risk being fired herself.
Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary Jim O’Neill is expected to be named acting director of the CDC, a move that comes as hundreds of staffers walked out of CDC headquarters yesterday in protest of leadership changes at the public health agency.
CVS, the country’s largest pharmacy chain, is currently not offering Covid vaccines in 16 states, including Florida, New York and Pennsylvania, even to people who meet newly restricted criteria from the Food and Drug Administration.
Patients are inundating some New York City medical practices with messages that they are experiencing Covid symptoms amid a late-summer surge of coronavirus infections and the appearance of a new variant.
A federal judge barred the Trump administration from removing Voice of America’s (VOA) director Michael Abramowitz from his post.
The two children killed in the shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis were identified by the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office as 8-year-old Fletcher Alexander Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Lillian Moyski.
Jesse Merkel, Fletcher’s father, spoke outside Annunciation Catholic Church and asked that people remember his son “for the person he was and not the act that ended his life.” He also advised other parents, “Give your kids an extra hug and kiss today.”
“Fletcher loved his family, friends, fishing, cooking, and any sports that he was allowed to play. While the hole in our hearts and lives will never be filled, I hope that in time, our family can find healing,” the heartbroken father said at a press conference.
Harper’s parents remembered her as a “bright, joyful, and deeply loved 10-year-old whose laughter, kindness, and spirit touched everyone who knew her.”
The shooting has brought a tragic spotlight to a busy urban parish that much preferred being locally famous for its Wiffle ball field and its annual SeptemberFest.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent a letter to GOP leaders calling on them to schedule a meeting “immediately” to discuss the path to a funding deal to avoid a government shutdown after Sept. 30.
Lawmakers in Texas moved decisively to curtail the distribution of mail-order abortion medications from states like New York and California, allowing nearly anyone to sue doctors, distributors and manufacturers anywhere in the country and collect cash awards.
Democrats are turning to governors for a shot in the arm, at a time when their party has been rudderless and looking for leadership.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the completion of the Reserve at Saratoga Springs, a $78 million development featuring 202 affordable and supportive apartments.
Mayor Eric Adams’ reelection campaign was denied public matching funds by the city Campaign Finance Board (CFB) for the 11th time yesterday, while his main competitors received sizable payouts.
The board voted to block the incumbent mayor from receiving public funds again. CFB Chair Frederick Schaffer cited the same reasons for the board’s decision as the last time it ruled to withhold matching funds from Adams’ campaign earlier this month.
Adams told reporters that he will deploy 1,000 more police officers to the Bronx following a string of shootings in the borough, some of them fatal.
“We have 1,000 more officers that are going to be deployed in the Bronx to assist with Chief [Benjamin] Gurley and assisting other personnel,” Adams said as he addressed the community members at Haffen Park, where a deadly shootout erupted Saturday.
Zohran Mamdani sought to distance himself yesterday from the national Democratic Socialists of America platform, which includes proposals to eliminate all misdemeanor offenses and to close local jails.
Mamdani reiterated to reporters that he does not support decriminalizing misdemeanors or defunding the police, despite his past tweets criticizing the New York Police Department.
The NYC-DSA manifesto — which was scrubbed from its website in late 2021 — lays out how the group aims to “dismantle and move beyond” America’s capitalist society and create a “wholesale socialist transformation of our national and global economy.”
Mamdani passed four bills during his nearly five-year tenure as a member of the Assembly. But he has lent his name to hundreds of proposals at the state Capitol that help provide a window into his policy platform, even if most didn’t get over the finish line.
The tenure of former mayor and fellow arch-progressive Bill de Blasio in City Hall shows how quickly big plans like those Mamdani is espousing can collide with structural limits, flawed policy design, and unplanned events.
Mamdani widened a fund-raising advantage over his rivals yesterday, securing another $1.9 million as the city doled out matching public funds.
The rate at which New York has been adding millionaires to its population in recent years has fallen below that of other large states, potentially costing billions in unrealized state tax revenue, according to a report from a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group.
Marchers led by the Rev. Al Sharpton protested Trump’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion. Mamdani attended; Cuomo and Adams did not.
Cuomo claimed Trump will stage a takeover of New York City if Mamdani is elected mayor, as he also again tried to shift blame for the bail reforms he passed as governor.
Across New York City, drivers of cars with illegal out-of-state license plates or no plates at all are more likely to have outstanding tolls and fines, speed in school zones and block fire hydrants, according to a new City Council report.
The report found these “ghost cars,” as they’re commonly called by city officials, make it difficult for authorities to enforce the law because of their harder-to-trace nature.
New York parents preparing their kids for the first day of school are finding supplies cost more than ever — an added strain on families already struggling to make ends meet.
A seventh person has died in Central Harlem’s ongoing Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, according to an update from the city’s health department yesterday.
Perennially-buzzy West Village red sauce joint Carbone has been concealing its city-issued, cleanliness-rating “B” letter grade from diners — possibly for years.
Cigarettes sold legally in New York City are among the highest taxed in the US. But a Rutgers University study found most of the discarded cigarette packs collected throughout the city were brought in from states with much lower taxes on the product.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged two workers with faking hundreds of safety inspections meant to ensure Con Edison’s natural gas pipelines throughout New York City and Westchester County were protected from gas leaks or explosions.
A Department of Corrections bigwig admitted he used a government car on 118 days for “personal errands” and to commute to his house in the suburbs, officials said.
Despite fewer than 750,000 people inhabiting 16 rural New York counties, doctor-patient ratios can fall well below recognized guidelines, creating “an alarming lack of access to basic care,” a new report from the state comptroller’s office found.
The driver of a dump truck that crashed into a Brunswick home and fell partly into the basement of the weakened structure was found dead yesterday afternoon, authorities said.
Niskayuna school leaders unanimously approved a contract with the town of Niskayuna earlier this week to station a police officer at the high school, reviving the district’s long inactive school resource officer program.
Drivers headed to the Empire State Plaza and points downtown via the South Mall Arterial road into Albany should prepare for a detour and potential delays as workers begin replacing aging infrastructure beneath the road as part of a multiyear repair project.
Two new reporters have joined WNYT-Channel 13. Benny Nezaj and Jack Keys started at the Hubbard-owned station earlier this month.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
