Good morning, it’s Monday. There are 43 days remaining until the start of Fall. Get those final summer ya-yas out while you still can.
I didn’t do any significant traveling this summer, aside from heading to New York City multiple times for work, spending a few days here and there in the Hudson Valley (where I grew up), and a quick trip to the Finger Lakes area for a grueling trail run. (I can highly recommend Watkins Glen, if you haven’t yet had the chance to visit).
I’m OK with sticking close to home at the moment, give the extremely concerning state of our nation’s aviation industry. I wouldn’t mind a little road trip action, though, which is something I did a lot in my 20s but have tended to shy away from as I age. Spending endless hours in the car can do a number on a body that needs regular stretching and bathroom breaks.
One of those younger-years road trips took me through a number of Southern states, which are about as foreign to this dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker as one can get. It’s more or less like visiting another country, but without having to worry about exchanging currency or speaking another language.
One trip included a pilgrimage to Graceland, the Memphis, Tennessee mansion once owned by Elvis Presley. I was really looking forward to this stop, because, well, Elvis. I’m a big fan, though not as big a fan as some people out there. I’m sure those diehards are going to be unhappy with what I say next, because truthfully, I found Graceland underwhelming.
The house itself was smaller, darker, and hell of a lot tackier than I had expected. It was, of course, a different time with a far different decorating standard, but just click on photos of the famed Jungle Room (Elvis’ version of a man cave) and you’ll see where I’m coming from. The ephemera, though, which are on display at the adjacent museum complex, are very cool. Ditto the cars and the jets.
Elvis purchased Graceland for $102,500 in 1957 and promptly set about remaking it into a home befitting the man who came to be known as “the King”. The house didn’t open to the public until decades after his death in June of 1982, thanks to an effort spearheaded by his ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, in a bid to both preserve his legacy and make some money to straighten out the property’s finances, which were at the time in disarray.
These days, more than 600,000 people visit Graceland annually, making it one of the nation’s most visited private homes – reportedly second only to the White House.
Elvis, as an aside, remains one of the best-selling music artists in history, with estimated sales of 500 million records worldwide. He also is still a significant pop culture figure, whose name and songs are recognized around the world. His life was notoriously troubled, and he died at Graceland at the age of 42 on Aug. 16, 1977, of what was originally called a heart attack but later was determined more likely to have been caused by prescription drug overdose.
Graceland itself has been in the news over the past year, thanks to a battle between the King’s great granddaughter, Danielle Riley Keough, and a company that claimed to have the right to foreclose on and sell the property after Lisa Marie Presley’s death in 2023.
There’s a lot more at stake here than the future of a well-known tourist attraction. The rock-and-roll icon is actually buried on the grounds of Graceland, as are his father, Vernon, his mother, Gladys, his paternal grandmother Minnie Mae, his grandson Benjamin, and his daughter Lisa Marie.
Aug. 8 marked the start of Elvis Week in Memphis, which will culminate on the anniversary of the King’s death (Aug. 16, as referenced above). The core event of this celebratory week is a candlelight vigil held on Aug. 15 in front of Graceland’s front gates.
The vigil ends at the Meditation Garden at Graceland, where Elvis is buried along with his aforementioned family members. But that was not Elvis’ first resting place, He was initially buried at Memphis’ Forest Hill Cemetery after his death, but the family decided to exhume his body and relocate it to a safer location after someone tried to steal his coffin. His grandmother’s remains were relocated from the cemetery at the same time.
Long live the King, forever may he reign.
Today is going to be a lot like yesterday, which is to say very hot. Temperatures will top out in the low 90s, and skies will be mostly sunny. Don’t forget to wear that sunscreen and stay hydrated.
In the headlines…
The White House said 450 officers from multiple federal agencies were deployed in high-traffic D.C. areas and other hotspots on Aug. 9 and 10. The officers are from 18 agencies, including the FBI, the DEA, and the Secret Service.
In a statement, an F.B.I. spokeswoman said agents were “participating in the increased federal law enforcement presence in Washington,” and referred additional questions to the White House.
The FBI is reportedly also sending in agents from Philadelphia and other offices to help in D.C. and the Secret Service and the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division have also been ordered to conduct “special patrols” in the city.
The US military is preparing to activate hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington, DC as a part of Trump’s sweeping federal crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital, according to authorities.
A White House press conference today will “essentially stop violent crime” in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social, claiming the city had become “one of the most dangerous” in the world.
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post accompanied by images of a few tents and refuse scattered on the roadside and the steps of a building, adding “we will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel yesterday defended his government’s plan to launch a renewed offensive against Hamas in parts of Gaza, following a wave of international condemnation from traditional allies and critics at home.
An Israeli strike near a hospital in Gaza City last night killed four Al Jazeera journalists, the network said, and Gazan health officials reported at least one additional fatality.
Trump spoke yesterday with Netanyahu, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. The two leaders discussed Israel’s plans for taking control of Gaza and efforts to release the remaining hostages, the statement said.
Australia said it would recognize Palestine statehood during the UN General Assembly’s annual session in September — echoing similar announcements by France, Britain and Canada, and adding to international pressure on Israel to end the war in Gaza.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia said on Monday that the move was “part of a coordinated global effort building momentum for a two-state solution.”
As President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia gets ready to meet with President Trump on Friday in Alaska, Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that the U.S. is working to set up a meeting that also includes President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
Trump said on Saturday that he was nominating Tammy Bruce, a spokeswoman for the State Department, as the next deputy representative of the United States to the United Nations.
A shooting at the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention killed a police officer and rattled the community of public health workers, who said the attack was a manifestation of rampant misinformation surrounding vaccines.
A 30-year-old man has been identified as the suspect in the shooting outside Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) building in Atlanta that left a DeKalb County police officer dead on Friday.
A union representing CDC employees demanded that the federal government condemn vaccine misinformation after the shooting, saying the violence wasn’t random and “compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.”
The Justice Department has reportedly subpoenaed New York Attorney General Letitia James as part of an investigation into whether she violated Trump’s civil rights.
James, New York’s attorney general and a longtime nemesis of the president, is being investigated in two separate inquiries, in a remarkable use of executive power to pursue a foe.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has appointed a “special attorney” to probe mortgage fraud allegations against Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and James, two administration officials told NBC News.
“Any weaponization of the justice system should disturb every American,” the AG’s spokesman said. “We stand strongly behind our successful litigation against the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association, and we will continue to stand up for New Yorkers’ rights.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul is again labeling GOP-led redistricting in Texas a “legal insurrection” and a “blatant power grab,” sharpening her rhetoric as she urges New Yorkers to back a constitutional change allowing the state to redraw its congressional maps before 2032.
New York’s next planned redistricting is in 2032. But appearing on Fox News yesterday, Hochul defended a mid-decade redistricting process, which would require changing the state’s constitution, if it could happen at all.
Days before thousands of correction officers across New York engaged in a weeks-long strike that cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars, leaders of their union warned Hochul’s office that it was coming.
Hochul has until the end of the year to act on a bill that would ban anonymous complaints to the state’s child abuse hotline.
Hochul renamed a Central Park subway station after Malcolm X, the prominent civil rights leader who was a longtime Harlem resident, as part of the city’s Harlem Week celebration.
The New York lieutenant governor, Antonio Delgado, with only one state staffer, has had a light public schedule and so is focused on running a campaign to unseat his one-time ally, Hochul. Her loyalists are attacking him for being a do-nothing official.
Delgado is clearly attempting to appeal to recent New York City Democratic mayoral primary winner Zohran Mamdani and the larger progressive movement statewide, whose respective popularity and organizing power could add weight to his campaign.
With Delgado in tow, New Yorkers took to the streets in full force Saturday morning to protest several natural gas pipeline projects, including one slated for construction in the waters surrounding Staten Island.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo slammed Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized apartment, invoking both his wife and parents and suggesting his choice to remain in that apartment is causing someone else to be homeless.
Cuomo proposed “Zohran’s law” that would block privileged New Yorkers like his socialist rival from living in rent-stabilized apartments.
The varied responses to Mamdani’s victory among Black voters and leaders have highlighted new fault lines among one of the city’s most influential Democratic voting blocs.
Hochul slighted Mamdani during her Fox News interview yesterday, signaling that she may not endorse him in the election even after he praised her “courage.”
Mamdani’s resounding primary victory exposed how a Democratic socialist’s ability to dominate across the city, and his 56-43 win over the more moderate Cuomo has sparked a wave of energy for lefty challenges to sitting Democratic lawmakers.
Ex-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly warned it would be a “tragedy of major proportions” if city voters elect Mamdani, who is “totally unqualified” for the office.
Billionaire Illinois Dem Gov. JB Pritzker ripped Mamdani’s contention that people of his net worth shouldn’t exist. “Look, how much money you have doesn’t determine what your values are,” Pritzker fired back on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
New Yorkers with second homes in the ritzy Hamptons are being urged to save the Big Apple from Mamdani by switching their voter registration from Long Island to the five boroughs, insiders told The Post.
Adams’ legal defense trust, which he has used to cover lawyer fees during his corruption case, is still more than $3 million in the red after not receiving any donations in six months — a debt that doesn’t include the potential for more recent legal bills.
Adams has vetoed 14 City Council bills and other measures in less than four years in office, a move supporters hailed as critical to thwart the Council’s radical leftist agenda.
The NYPD and Adams are facing yet another lawsuit from an ex-employee. This time it’s from a former NYPD attorney who says she was fired in retaliation after investigating a high-ranking member of the department.
As he and Adams compete for financial support from New York’s deep-pocketed business community, Cuomo returned to the Hamptons on Friday for his first large-scale campaign fundraiser in the wealthy enclave since relaunching his mayoral bid.
The Adams administration will shut down operations at New York City’s last hotel dedicated to housing homeless migrants in the coming months, the mayor’s office announced Saturday.
Immigrants housed at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan face “crowded, squalid and punitive conditions,” and are being deprived of access to attorneys, according to a class-action lawsuit brought by a Peruvian man against Homeland Security officials.
Merwil Gutièrrez who came to the U.S. from Venezuela two years ago seeking asylum, is one of many immigrants across the nation who have been taken into custody by federal authorities, their whereabouts unknown or unclear.
Police said they nearly doubled their presence at yesterday’s Dominican Day Parade after violence shut down last year’s event earlier than planned.
Questions are being raised about Board of Election member Chair Frank Seddio’s campaign committee spending, which includes $9,200 to a Connecticut artist for a portrait of the Brooklyn Democrat and $20,300 for Christmas decorations.
New York City’s ongoing outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Central Harlem, which has killed three people and sickened dozens more, is the latest in a series of similar clusters that have made headlines in recent years, usually in the summer months.
Aland Etienne, the security guard murdered in a mass shooting committed by Park Ave. shooter Shane Tamura after spending the final moments of his life trying to save others, was laid to rest Saturday.
A 17-year-old boy was arrested on Saturday in connection with an early morning shooting that wounded three people in the heart of Times Square, the police said.
Two men were killed and eight people wounded in a spate of shootings over a bloody six-hour span in New York City stretching into early yesterday, cops said.
The City of Albany’s Community Police Review Board is in crisis, as its relationship with the Common Council, the mayor and its own program director are strained.
A woman was wounded early yesterday morning after being shot on a rural road in southern Albany County.
Even though more and more people, who are often unpaid volunteers, are now licensed to care for wild creatures in need, the workload for many wildlife rehabilitators hasn’t abated.
GlobalFoundries revealed last week that it will benefit from an expanded manufacturing relationship with Apple, maker of the popular iPhone device owned by nearly 1.6 billion people worldwide.
The Olympic Regional Development Authority, the New York entity charged with being a prudent manager of the state’s snow and ice sports centers, lost a record $50 million in the last year.
Memorial services have been set for Dan Wilson, the construction executive and Montgomery County legislator who was killed last month in a small plane crash on Block Island, R.I.
In the wake of his Aug. 2 performance at SPAC as part of the Outlaw Music Festival with Willie Nelson, Wilco, Lucinda Williams and Waylon Payne, Bob Dylan spent time at White Lake Studios in Colonie, according to a news release from the studio.
The big, ambitious specialty store Old World Gourmet Market in Wilton has closed temporarily again, for the second time in two months and plans to return Sept. 10 following hiring and training of new staff.
Two clerical positions — including one held by a former Republican elections official convicted of ballot fraud in 2023 — have been gutted from the Rensselaer Common Council’s budget.
As the fall elections for Saratoga Springs City Council near, Commissioner of Public Works Chuck Marshall is winning the race for donations.
The boys’ basketball team at Albany Academy recently joined football, hockey and boys’ lacrosse as sports at the school competing at the prep school level. The school eventually intends to shift its boys’ and girls’ athletic programs there as well.
A retro-inspired ice cream parlor opened Friday at Home of the Good Shepherd’s memory care facility on Saratoga’s Church Street, offering a dose of nostalgia — and therapeutic support — to residents living with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
