Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
One of the things that attracted me to the house in which we are currently living was the large backyard. It’s a little over an acre, which is pretty sizable for an urban lot. Technically, the property is on the border of Troy and Brunswick, so while it’s not in the city’s downtown, we still have a Troy zip code.
The yard is longer than it is wide and slightly sloping, with a gentle uphill rise that ends in a wooded area. It is highly landscaped, with multiple flower beds, a pond, a pool, and a defunct half basketball court. (I say “defunct” because a storm took out the hoop last year and no one used the thing anyway; now it’s just an asphalt square smack in the middle of the lawn, which I have ambitions to fill with a gazebo – some day).
It should be noted here that the previous owner was a master gardener and also retired. She and her husband spent a LOT of time taking care of the many plantings and raised vegetable beds, which is something I have neither the time nor the inclination to do.
The raised wooden beds are now gone, which was a massive undertaking that required a lot of sweat equity, and have been replaced by grass. The extremely over-planted poolside beds have been ripped out and simplified, compliments of my extremely talented landscaper neighbor, without whom I’m not sure how I would be faring in the yard care department.
Truth be told, keeping up with the yard is a lot of work.
I’m sure anyone with half a brain would have known that right off the rip. But I saw the place for the first time in late summer, when everything was in full bloom and looking amazing, seducing me into believing that I absolutely needed to live there and would figure out the whole maintenance and mowing thing at a later date.
One saving grace is the fact that the flower beds are all planted with mature perennials, which means that they come back year after year. Don’t ask me what’s growing there, because I have no earthly idea, but I think – based on all the bee and butterfly activity – that the selection was made with an eye toward attracting and supporting pollinators.
This is a good thing, because, in case you hadn’t heard, pollinators are in short supply these days – especially butterflies, whose population has declined 22 percent over the past two decades – about 1.3 percent a year – according to a study published this past spring in the journal Science.
Some butterflies are faring worse than others. Monarchs, for example, which are among the most easily recognized butterfly, thanks to their striking orange-and-black coloring, and also undertake one of the world’s longest insect migrations at up to 3,000 miles, have seen their population decline by up to 90 percent since the 1980s.
Why is this happening? Well, it’s the same story with butterflies as it is with all the other birds, beasts, insects and plants that are seeing their numbers decline – loss of habitat, loss of food source (in the case of the Monarchs, it’s milkweed, which also serves as a sort of nursery for the adult caterpillars’ eggs), pesticide and herbicide use, and climate change.
Butterflies are not only important pollinators, but also serve as a food source for birds, bats, reptiles, and some other insects. They also are highly sensitive to environmental changes, and so serve as a sort of bellwether for scientists. Oh, and also, they’re beautiful, which is no small thing in a world where small moments of beauty can too often feel few and far between.
August is when the so-called “super generation” of Monarchs that will be migrating south to Mexico are born. They are spending these indolent summer days flitting from one flower to another, collecting nectar from late-summer bloomers like goldenrod and aster and fueling up for their big trip.
Other butterflies you might be spotting around now: Swallowtails (about as spectacular as Monarchs, if not more so), Cabbage Whites, and Red Admirals, among others.
As mentioned, I’ve been enjoying butterfly spotting in my pollinator friendly garden. If you’re interested in creating something similar in your backyard, click here, here, or here.
The crappy air quality that is coming to us compliments of the Canadian wildfires has been a real bummer and looks like it’s going to continue for a while, with areas of smoke reducing visibility from time to time. Skies will be cloudy, and the temperature will top out around 80 degrees.
In the headlines…
The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary and a longtime vaccine critic, announced in a statement that $500 million worth of vaccine development projects, all using mRNA technology, will be halted.
The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections.
The Trump administration is restoring full funding for a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program that provides grants to reduce and track drug overdoses, including fentanyl.
President Donald Trump floated a plan to grant legal status to undocumented immigrant farmworkers, claiming that foreign-born migrants are “naturally” better suited than “inner city” Americans to menial agricultural jobs.
In what would be a controversial partial break from his hardline mass deportation plan, Trump said he wants to allow migrant farm workers, millions of whom have lived in the country for years or decades, to remain in the U.S. indefinitely.
“In some cases, we’re sending them back to their country with a pass back (so when) they’re coming in, they’re coming in legally,” Trump said. “We can’t let our farmers not have anybody.”
Steve Witkoff, an envoy for Trump, arrived in Moscow today for talks on Ukraine that the president has described as pivotal in determining whether the United States goes ahead with new sanctions against Russia.
A prominent member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Edward Coristine, 19, was beaten in an attempted carjacking in Washington this week, prompting Trump to renew his threat of a federal takeover of the city.
In a social media post, Trump shared a photograph that appeared to show Coristine lying in the street bleeding, battered and shirtless, writing that crime in the nation’s capital was “totally out of control,” though the city’s crime rates have been falling.
Coristine, a software engineer nicknamed “Big Balls,” was assaulted early Sunday by a group of teenagers attempting to carjack him and a woman whom police identified as his significant other.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sued to remove Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu from his seat amid a battle between Texas Democrats and Republicans over redistricting.
“If a small fraction of recalcitrant lawmakers choose to run out the clock today, they can do so for any, and every, Regular or Special Session, potentially bankrupting the State in an attempt to get their way,” the Texas Supreme Court suit from Abbott reads.
Democrats in California moved this week to counter redistricting efforts by Texas Republicans with discussions of a new political map of their own drawn to help Democrats win as many as five of the state’s Republican U.S. House seats next year.
Rep. Mike Lawler said what Texas Republicans are doing is “wrong” after they forwarded a gerrymandered congressional map, which would result in five new GOP seats in the House ahead of next year’s midterm elections, as he seeks reelection.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle, called the Texas redistricting effort “a legal insurrection.”
“When Republicans rig congressional maps in one state, it weakens representation in every state,” the Governor wrote. “Every unfair seat they create tilts Congress further out of balance,” the governor wrote.
Hochul indicated a willingness to disband New York’s Independent Redistricting Commission as a nationwide redistricting battle heats up.
“We fundamentally don’t think that New York is going to save American democracy by gerrymandering,” Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor for Reinvent Albany, told Spectrum News 1.
State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris is backing Zohran Mamdani for mayor, further consolidating the Assembly member’s support from key local and state party leaders.
Mamdani would not commit to keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in his administration if elected, even as he praised her crime record.
Mamdani — who has faced heat lately over years-old social media posts critical of the police — came face-to-face with an audience of NYPD officers and told them he would, if elected, spare them the responsibility of responding to most mental health calls.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former member of the NYPD, brought his best dance moves and his police commissioner to a National Night Out event with the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville.
Adams was questioned about former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new public safety plan that calls for hiring more NYPD officers and raising starting salaries by $15,000. The mayor’s response: “Already did it.”
Shootings and the number of New Yorkers who fell victim to gun violence have plunged to all-time lows so far this year — even as the Big Apple contended with its deadliest mass shooting in 25 years, new NYPD crime statistics show.
Adams’ re-election campaign got a boost from scores of city faith leaders at an endorsement event in front of City Hall yesterday, as one pastor took a shot at Mamdani.
New Yorkers of various faiths heaped praise on the incumbent mayor, whose path to re-election appears steep, and compared him to biblical figures.
Mamdani was accused of Italian-American “hate” after he called for tearing down Christopher Columbus statues. The Columbus Heritage Coalition referenced a 2020 Mamdani tweet showing him giving the middle finger to a Columbus statue in Astoria.
City Council Democrats are planning to override Adams’ veto of a bill that would decriminalize unlicensed street vending — but they’re likely to let stand another veto he recently issued that relates to a proposal for building a Bally’s casino in the Bronx.
Cuomo appeared to criticize Israel over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza yesterday, and then hours later distanced himself from his comments, arguing that Israel was not solely responsible.
Cuomo, who has made his fierce support for Israel a central theme in his campaign for mayor, said in an interview that Israel and others should move quickly to deliver humanitarian aid. Then he attacked Mamdani, who he claimed was “glorifying Hamas.”
“Do I support what the Israel government is doing vis-à-vis Gaza? No. Do I support Israel impeding humanitarian aid? No,” Cuomo said in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Two people have died and more than 50 have been sickened in a fast-growing outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Central Harlem that has health officials still searching for the source more than a week after people began turning up ill.
A carriage horse that had worked in New York City for less than two months collapsed and died at a Manhattan intersection Tuesday afternoon, officials said.
The horse, a 15-year-old mare named Lady, was found unresponsive near the corner of 11th Avenue and West 51st Street around 2:30 p.m. by police officers responding to a 9-1-1 call. She was pronounced dead after being brought to a Hell’s Kitchen stable.
Cyberbullying has risen sharply in New York City public schools since the pandemic shuttered buildings and forced young people onto their devices, according to a new citywide survey of students.
About 42% of students say their classmates regularly harass or intimidate each other online, the results showed — compared to 35% in 2019. Just a quarter of students reported no cyberbullying at their schools.
New York City has officially opened its first shelter for transgender and gender-nonconforming people who are homeless.
The latest outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in Central Harlem has killed two people so far and sickened at least 58 others.
A low-intensity earthquake in New Jersey reverberated across the lower Hudson Valley yesterday, with residents as far north as Poughkeepsie reportedly feeling shocks, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The 2.7 magnitude quake struck at 12:11 p.m. about a mile southwest of Hillsdale, a borough in Bergen County, the USGS said. No damage or injuries have been reported.
There is apparently little that can be done to stop or prevent the out-of-control wildfires tearing through much of northwest Canada — some engulfing more than 250,000 acres.
Jacob’s Pillow, the celebrated dance center in Becket, Mass., said that it has canceled the rest of its summer festival after a production manager died last week while moving staging platforms.
Initially, weekend performances were canceled, but yesterday evening, Jacob’s Pillow announced on its website and via a short email sent to its community that the rest of the season, which was scheduled to run through Aug. 24, has been called off.
A Westchester County high school graduate was released from federal immigration detention late Monday, after her arrest was met with resistance from faith leaders and a bipartisan group of elected officials.
The state Department of Transportation yesterday released its final study examining the possibilities for reimagining Interstate 787, ruling out four of the nine potential futures for the highway corridor.
Schenectady County has signed a letter of intent to have a major supermarket chain operate a full-service grocery store in the Hamilton Hill neighborhood near downtown, according to county officials.
Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy will make history again when he appoints Oscar Quintero as the first Hispanic person to sit on the City Court bench in the Electric City.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and Gloversville native Richard Russo is the latest author to be welcomed into the inner circle of Oprah Winfrey book club picks.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
