Good morning, it’s Monday and Halloween week is upon us.
We don’t get any trick or treaters since we live on a dead end drive with terrible lighting and no sidewalks. No sane parent would consider this a prime location for treat collection by costumed wee ones.
This makes me a little sad, as I really enjoy seeing the kids all dressed up. It brings me back to my childhood in New Paltz, where Halloween is a very big deal – or was, anyway, I haven’t celebrated the holiday there in many years.
I have a lot of fond recollections of marching down Main Street from the middle school to the firehouse, where we Halloween Parade participants would receive our first treats of the evening – a full-sized Hershey’s bar and an apple. We would then trick-or-treat our way home, knocking on doors and collecting loot along the way.
These were the days before the needles-in-candy panic had truly set in. All of those stories are, for the record, largely an urban myth.
There wasn’t and never has been a large-scale effort to tamper with Halloween treats, but parents nevertheless have grown increasingly wary of letting their precious progeny collect candy from strangers. There’s also the growing number of allergies and avoidances to contend with and also health concerns about eating too much sugar, chemicals, and processed everything.
I guess I sound curmudgeonly and old, but I kind of long for the good old days of homemade cookies and popcorn balls in your Halloween treat bag, instead of the health and allergy conscious options many people are offering up these days. And to add insult to injury (from a nostalgic point of view), these pencils, stickers, and plastic trinkets are being doled out, not at front doors, but at trunk-or-treats or pre-planned parties, which are perceived as safer than the door-to-door route.
I have to confess that despite my gripes, I did recently volunteer at a teal pumpkin Halloween party thrown by the East Greenbush YMCA. In case you’re not familiar, the Teal Pumpkin Project is a campaign that aims to make the holiday more inclusive for kids who suffer from food allergies by encouraging people to offer non-food treats.
Participants signal that their house is allergy friendly by placing a teal pumpkin – an actual painted gourd or a facsimile thereof – somewhere easily visible outside.
This party featured a wide range of activities -from crafts and face painting to dancing, a magic show, and a variety of games, with non-food items offered as prizes. The kids seemed to have a rip-roaring good time. Even I, a self-professed grump, enjoyed myself, though I did feel a small stab of loss at the lack of any fun sized candy bars – more for me than for the kids, truth be told.
Halloween this year falls on a Friday, which is a big bonus for the kids who still participate in day-of celebrations, since their parents can’t use the old “you have school tomorrow” excuse to cut the fun short. The forecast is looking a little iffy at the moment, with the potential for rain showers, but it’s still early yet – plenty of time left for things to change for the better in the weather department.
As for today, it’s looking like another fairly decent mid-to-late fall situation, with partly cloudy skies and high temperatures in the low-to-mid 50s.
In the headlines…
Chinese and American trade negotiators said yesterday that they had agreed to a framework of a deal on tariffs and other issues ahead of an expected meeting of the countries’ top leaders this week.
“We are moving forward to the final details of the type of agreement that the leaders can review and decide if they want to conclude together,” Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, said to reporters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital.
President Donald Trump was set to meet with Emperor Naruhito after landing in Japan this morning as part of his weeklong trip to Asia.
Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, could “consummate” a deal to allow TikTok to continue to operate in the United States when they meet on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
A U.S. military ship yesterday docked in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago amid tensions in the Caribbean sparked by U.S. military action against boats accused of attempting to smuggle fentanyl to the U.S.
Trinidad and Tobago is located just north of Venezuela, not too far offshore from the country the Trump administration has directed verbal fire at in recent weeks.
Senators from both parties are expressing concerns about President Trump’s unilateral approach to conducting military strikes against alleged drug cartel boats in the Caribbean.
“President Trump meets with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at [Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)] summit,” the White House’s account on the social platform X posted yesterday, featuring a photo of the two leaders.
President Trump once again urged pregnant women not to take Tylenol unless “absolutely necessary,” to avoid giving the over-the-counter drug to children “for virtually any reason” and to break up certain vaccine dosages.
The maker of Tylenol said the drug is “the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy” – a claim backed by rigorous research.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who has positioned himself as one of President Trump’s most visible Democratic antagonists, said yesterday that he will consider running for president after the 2026 midterm elections.
Newsom has long been considered a potential candidate for 2028 by many political observers. But on “CBS News Sunday Morning,” he addressed the issue more directly when he was asked is he would give a presidential run serious thought.
Two suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, justice and police officials said yesterday, a week after the heist that stunned the world and sparked a massive manhunt.
The robbery was carried out by four people. Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said in a statement that the arrests were made Saturday evening and that one man was taken into custody at the Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was trying to leave the country.
Authorities tracked down the suspects using their DNA, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV. Both men are from the Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers, where one was arrested. At least two other individuals suspected of being involved in the heist remain at large.
A new statute requiring New York law enforcement officers to seize firearms when responding to domestic violence calls is drawing both praise from proponents and criticism from gun rights supporters, who warn it could undermine due process.
A judge on Friday ordered New York to produce by February a long-awaited set of regulations intended to drive the state’s mandates for reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
New York is violating its climate law — and doesn’t get a pass because implementing the law is “complicated,” a judge found.
Thomas H. Mungeer, the former president of the New York State Troopers PBA, was arrested and arraigned on a grand larceny charge on Friday that accuses him of misusing thousands of dollars in funds from the union he headed for more than 13 years.
The impending halt of SNAP payments due to the federal government shutdown has the potential to create a “perfect storm” for the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York and other groups serving the state’s poorest residents.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced over $11 million in state funding for emergency food relief programs for hungry New Yorkers and urged the USDA to immediately release funds to food aid recipients for November and prevent a public health crisis.
The federal indictment of New York’s attorney general centers on a home she purchased for a relative. It is an act that rings deeply familiar to many.
The MTA is celebrating two major feats: The three billionth contactless payment tap and its highest two-day ridership since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hochul yesterday marked the 200th anniversary of the opening of the original Erie Canal in New York City with the arrival of the Buffalo Maritime Center’s Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief.
North of 10,000 people gathered in Queens for three hours last night to rally around New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, whose openers included Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
Speaker after speaker at Sunday’s rally, which drew thousands to a tennis stadium, said electing Mamdani would essentially serve as an opening salvo in a fight to take back the country from Trump and his allies.
“Over these nine final days, I ask for only one thing from each of you: more,” Mamdani told an electric crowd, promising that their final-stretch efforts door-knocking and canvassing are what will deliver him a mayoralty focused on affordability.
Mamdani’s rally also featured Hochul, a more moderate, business-friendly Democrat who campaigned for him Sunday night for the first time since endorsing him. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie spoke, too.
Hochul was berated by hecklers screaming “tax the rich!” as she took the stage, forcing the headlining candidate to come out early to quell the unrelenting crowd.
Hundreds of Jewish New Yorkers and supporters rallied in Queens yesterday for NYC mayoral candidate and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the independent who has been vocal about standing with Israel and Jewish New Yorkers.
The Big Apple’s hotly contested mayoral race sparked a massive first-day voter turnout Saturday, with about five times more voters hitting the polls compared to 2021 as early voting kicked off, according to the Board of Elections.
Across the city, more than 164,000 New Yorkers flocked to the polls this weekend for the first two days of early voting, according to the Board of Election, a staggering turnout that nearly matches the entire early voting count in 2021.
The NY Daily News endorsed Cuomo for mayor, saying that despite his flaws “a decade as governor proves that he is a competent executive and could well do the job of running the city government.”
Vice President JD Vance attacked Mamdani in a social media post on Saturday, taunting the NYC mayoral frontrunner for his comments about his aunt feeling unsafe after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The first immigration case Mamdani may have to confront if elected could be his own – as two House Republicans push the Justice Department to probe his path to citizenship and possibly boot him from the US.
“I just think we need to take a hard look at how these folks became citizens, and if there is any fraud or any violation of the rules we need to denaturalize and deport,” Florida Rep. Andy Fine said.
Mamdani, in an emotional 10-minute address delivered outside a Bronx mosque on Friday, condemned attacks against him that he deemed Islamophobic, emphasizing his Muslim faith and demanding an end to the divisiveness.
After the speech, Mamdani posted a nearly seven-minute video on social media sharing a similar message. It was viewed more than nine million times.
Mamdani was in tears as he recalled his frightened Muslim aunt in the days after 9/11 and pledged not to hide his own faith should he win City Hall.
As he heads into the last stretch before the general election now that early voting in NYC has begun, Mamdani is trying to signal a united front amongst Democrats – showing that his agenda has the backing of the three most powerful lawmakers in the state.
Cuomo was endorsed Saturday by the United Clergy Coalition, an alliance of faith leaders representing more than 150 congregations from across New York City.
One of Curtis Silwa’s staunchest supporters in the orthodox Jewish community, Americans Against Antisemitism founder Dov Hikind, a former assemblyman, is dropping the Republican and instead backing Cuomo against Mamdani.
Even if Mamdani wins the Nov. 4 election, he and his movement may face a far tougher challenge than even a long-shot campaign: running the largest city in America and proving to the political world that their liberal agenda can be replicated across the country.
Mamdani, the democratic socialist who’s often slammed as a far-left radical on Fox News, is launching a new TV ad campaign taking aim directly at the conservative network’s local viewers.
The ad, which urges viewers not to be “fooled by the noise” from the conservative outlet, will start airing Saturday morning, the first day of early voting in New York City.
Even with the election nearly two weeks away, Mamdani’s campaign has started lobbying City Council members on his proposal to launch a new agency that would take over certain responsibilities, such as mental health calls, from the NYPD.
Mamdani says NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch will fall behind his vision for criminal-justice reforms, insisting that if he wins the race, “everyone will follow” his lead.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, endorsed Mamdani for New York City mayor on Friday, the latest sign that skeptical party officials are swallowing concerns about their nominee as Election Day nears.
Jeffries said that one factor in his recent endorsement of Mamdani for mayor was the candidate’s plan to keep NYPD Commissioner Tisch, calling it a key public‑safety commitment.
Cuomo, a Democrat running on a third-party line, has appeared repeatedly on Staten Island and shifted his messaging in ways that seem designed to court Republican voters.
The New York Knicks issued a cease-and-desist letter to Mamdani after the politician used a modified version of the Knicks logo in campaign advertisements.
Mayor Eric Adams has only weeks left in office, but he can use them to appoint people with the ability to shape policy beyond his tenure – including to try to stymie Mamdani’s rent freeze, a top priority.
The NY Post endorsed Republican Maud Maron, a former public defender and mom of four, in her challenge to unseat Democratic Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
Bragg is the only prosecutor to convict a president. But mentioning Donald Trump to him on the campaign trail is a conversation stopper.
The construction worker who fell to his death at a sprawling Manhattan jobsite last week put in excessive hours in recent weeks while managers sped to catch up on delays to the project’s schedule, according to the man’s best friend and co-worker.
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid targeting vendors of counterfeit merchandise in Chinatown is the latest law enforcement operation aimed at an underground economy that has persisted in Lower Manhattan for centuries.
Prometheus, at Rockefeller Center, is getting really great new skin. It’s 23¾-karat gold. This is why one of the most famous statues in the United States is behind what amounts to a giant dropcloth right now.
The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office allegedly sought to bury information about a security lapse that enabled a suspect to go through a police interview, a court arraignment and the booking process at the county jail while carrying a loaded handgun.
The city of Watervliet has imposed a Halloween curfew, restricting the times when unaccompanied minors can roam the streets on Halloween and the night before Halloween, also known as Cabbage Night or Mischief Night.
A report released last month is raising questions about whether hikers are bringing microplastics into remote areas of the Adirondack wilderness, prompting scientists to say more research is needed on the subject.
Washington County-based content creator Cooper L. Wright is being sued over allegations that include falsely claiming employment and termination from a teen and tween-focused retail chain.
Police and personnel records involving a candidate for Saratoga County sheriff shows that he was arrested in 2000 on charges of stalking, burglary and harassment, and again in 2001 for allegations of impersonating a police officer.
Actress Allison Mack, a convicted NXIVM official, is launching a podcast. Canadian Broadcasting Company’s “Uncover: Allison After NXIVM” will detail her life before, during and after NXIVM, including her two years in prison on racketeering charges.
Albany NanoTech Founder Alain Kaloyeros and three other defendants in the “Buffalo Billion” bid-rigging case appeared Friday in federal court in Manhattan.
A former vice president at the Capital Region Chamber of Commerce — now facing accusations he tried to lure a 15-year-old for sex — will remain in jail, at least for now.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
