Good morning, it’s Wednesday – all day long. Not Tuesday, Wednesday.
That is the first PSA of the day. The second is a bit lengthier.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re moving into flu season, which typically begins in October and runs through May and will peak somewhere between December and February. (If you’re really into tracking this sort of thing, click here for access to a handy CDC surveillance data chart, though I can’t say for certain if it’s being kept up to date since the government shut down).
As a reminder, the flus is actually with us all year round, but tends to become more severe/prevalent when the weather turns cooler for a few reasons.
One is that viruses find it easier to thrive and spread in colder temperatures. It also helps (the viruses, not their hosts) that people spend more time indoors, increasing their chances of coming into contact with infected individuals.
Lastly, cold weather can indeed weaken the immune system – so your mom did indeed know what she was talking about when she was nagging you to wear your hat, scarf, and gloves – leaving you more susceptible to all manner of viruses.
The Covid pandemic taught us – or rather reminded us – of a few best practices when it comes to virus prevention. Among the most effective things you can do – other than becoming a hermit for the winter and avoiding other people entirely – is to get vaccinated. I know that’s a pretty controversial statement these days, given the debate over inoculation, writ large, these days.
According to the CDC, the flu vaccine can be up to 60 percent effective in preventing influenza-related illnesses, though a number of factors come into play, including an individual’s age and overall health and the time since their last inoculation.
Another good option to protect yourself against airborne viruses is to correctly wear a mask. (I say “correctly” because there’s a lot of bad mask etiquette out there; cover the nose AND the mouth for complete protection). I have been seeing masks more frequently out in the wild, but I know a lot of people – including me – are not anxious to return to the days when the lower half of one’s face was obscured from the world.
The next best thing you can do is something that is deceptively simple. It’s so damn obvious a preschooler can do it, and yet so many people forget and/or neglect this incredibly important step prior to eating, after going to the bathroom, after touching garbage, after touching public surfaces (handrails, door knobs etc.), and before or after coming in contact with others.
WASH. YOUR. DAMN. HANDS.
Caveat: You need to wash them the RIGHT WAY, which means using soap and water, lathering by rubbing your hands together for at least 20 seconds (enough time to hum “Happy Birthday” twice through), not neglecting the backs of your hands or between your fingers or under your nails, drying thoroughly with a clean towel, and then, if you can help it, not touching anything else before consuming food or touching your eyes, nose, and/or mouth).
If soap and water isn’t available, hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol will do in a pinch, but it is not nearly as effective as the good old fashioned option.
According to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, handwashing can prevent 1 in 3 cases of diarrhea and 1 in 5 respiratory infections. In fact, if everyone practiced good handwashing hygiene, 1 million deaths around the world could be prevented. This, of course, assumes that everyone has access to clean water and soap, which is not actually the case. But that’s a post for another day.
Today is Global Handwashing Day, which was founded by the Global Handwashing Partnership to encourage people to “be a handwashing hero” – probably the simplest thing one can do to persevere one’s own health save lives. I’m not sure what more incentive you might need.
A pretty nice day is on tap, with morning clouds that will give way to partly sunny skies in the afternoon. Temperatures will top out in the high 50s.
In the headlines…
Two weeks after the start of the government shutdown, President Donald Trump has seized on the stalemate for political gain, aiming to hurt Democrats while insulating his administration from the costs of the fiscal crisis he helped bring about.
Two weeks into the government shutdown, the Trump administration has frozen or canceled nearly $28 billion that had been reserved for more than 200 projects primarily located in Democratic-led cities, congressional districts and states.
A pair of decades-old promises from Congress, ensuring disabled students receive a free and appropriate education and protecting all pupils from discrimination in school, were thrown into doubt after a round of sweeping layoffs at the Education Department.
Trump said that his administration is considering “terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil” in retaliation for Beijing refusing to buy U.S. soybeans.
At a White House ceremony in the Rose Garden on what would have been her husband’s 32nd birthday, Erika Kirk accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of Charlie Kirk and delivered a powerful, deeply personal tribute to his life and legacy.
Time magazine’s paean to Trump’s role in brokering a Gaza ceasefire, leading its Nov. 10 issue, was accompanied by a photo of the president taken from below and with the sun behind his head. The result, he says, is “super bad”.
Trump’s efforts to disband programs that promote democracy abroad and downplay allegations of corruption and human rights abuses in other countries took on an added dimension when he called for pardoning Israeli’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hamas handed over more bodies of deceased hostages to Israel yesterday, one sign of progress after a number of apparent setbacks in the day since Trump touted his plan to end the Gaza war
Trump said that Hamas will disarm pursuant to his 20-point peace plan or “we will disarm them.” “Well, they’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm, and if they don’t disarm, we will disarm them,” he told journalists at the White House.
Cable news networks CNN and Fox News joined the news divisions of ABC, NBC and CBS in rejecting the Pentagon’s efforts to manage coverage on the Department of Defense.
Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country – including New York – in a group chat referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers.
Staten Island GOP Assemblymember Mike Reilly has fired his chief of staff, Peter Giunta, due to alleged comments made in a text thread among a group of young Republican leaders from across the country.
New York City-area airports are refusing to play Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s video blaming Democrats for the government shutdown – as Gov. Kathy Hochul slammed the DHS chief over the “false” and “nakedly partisan” message.
“When Kristi Noem isn’t busy trying to defund the police in New York, she’s apparently hard at work subjecting travelers to obviously false and nakedly partisan messaging,” Hochul said in a statement.
A person living in New York tested positive for the mosquito-borne chikungunya virus in the first reported transmission within the US in six years, officials said.
Testing proved that a Long Island woman had been exposed to the mosquito-borne virus, which is more commonly seen in the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Trump yesterday unleashed a new salvo of insults and attacks on Mamdani and repeated his threats to cut federal funding to NYC if the Democratic nominee wins the upcoming mayoral election.
“I wouldn’t be generous to a communist that’s going to take the money and throw it out the window,” Trump added. “We’re not going to let someone get into office and squander the taxpayer money from this country. Not going to let it happen.”
Hochul said she wants to work with Democratic mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani to achieve universal healthcare — although she stands opposed to the candidate’s plan to fund the program through tax hikes.
Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race, appeared with Hochul for the first time since she endorsed him last month.
“That is still a fight that my children are facing today, young families are facing today,” Hochul said. “I’ve had conversations with Assemblymember Mamdani about how we can get to universal childcare. I believe we can. I believe that,” she said.
“I found him to be eminently rational and understands this is something that would take an act of the legislature and the governor to sign,” Hochul said when asked if she thought she could bring Mamdani around to backing off his tax-the-rich plan.
The federal government is accusing New York officials of falsely claiming that a commercial driver’s license seized from a migrant during a truck stop checkpoint in Oklahoma last month was issued legally and under the correct name.
New York’s top law enforcer, AG Letitia James, is housing a cop-hating fugitive relative with a lengthy felony rap sheet — who was twice arrested for assaulting police officers — at one of her Virginia homes, according to court documents.
Michael Henry, a commercial litigator who is challenging James again after an unsuccessful bid to unseat her in 2022, is now able to tout the backing of the five Republican committee chairs representing the five boroughs.
The New York Independent System Operator, which manages the state’s power grid, issued a new assessment yesterday that warns there may be “significant reliability shortfalls within the next ten years.”
Rising demand, weak transmission and aging power plants are straining the electric grid in New York City and Long Island, according to two reports unveiled by the NYISO, which offer outlooks for five and 10 years out.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has sought to paint Mamdani as an extremist, has homed in on questions about Mamdani’s stance on prostitution.
Cuomo proposed giving landlords financial incentives to fill vacant, run-down rent-stabilized apartments in order to address the city’s housing crisis.
As Cuomo vies to become the next mayor of New York City, his past attempts to cut state aid to the City University of New York are raising questions about his commitment to public universities in a race centered on affordability.
Mamdani and his Democratic Socialist of America allies will “take us backwards,” Mayor Eric Adams warned yesterday as he ripped the front-runner candidate for City Hall.
Adams said that he’s planning to use his clout as the 110th mayor of New York to help pick his successor, and it definitely won’t be Mamdani.
Mamdani will make his first appearance on Fox News in an interview with Martha MacCallum.
Mamdani has proposed nearly doubling the local minimum wage to $30 by 2030, which could mean fatter paychecks for thousands, but also, according to some economists, possibly hasten the demise of some jobs altogether.
Mamdani picked up an endorsement from Bishop Orlando Findlayter, a Brooklyn pastor who previously supported Cuomo in the race for City Hall.
New York City Council Member Chi Ossé joined the Democratic Socialists of America this summer, making him the fourth City Council member on the rolls of the left-wing group, which has become increasingly influential amid Mamdani’s rise.
Of the 51 seats in New York City Council, 29 have challengers to incumbents on the ballot. But three of those races stand out: each has a Democrat on the ballot seeking to best a Republican in a district that swings both ways.
A Queens City Council candidate participating in the city’s public matching funds program has spent $12,000 in campaign funds at restaurants and more than $2,500 on gas in his second bid to unseat an incumbent.
MGM surprisingly dropped its bid to build a casino in Yonkers yesterday – a move that whittles the field of new prospective gambling facilities downstate.
The move by MGM Resorts International – first reported by Crain’s – to withdraw an application to expand its existing Empire City outpost leaves a trio of contenders for three coveted state gaming licenses.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has six staff members scouring the country for witnesses as it decides whether to retry a man convicted in the killing of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old whose 1979 abduction reshaped American childhoods.
The fight over the future of Airbnb and other short-term rentals in New York City is turning ugly, with proponents and opponents of expanding the temporary housing market lobbing accusations of racism at each other.
The owners of the troubled East Williamsburg mega-venue Avant Gardner have filed permits for a full demolition of the Brooklyn Mirage, its seasonal outdoor stage.
The parents of a 20-month-old girl who drowned in a Bronx day care’s pool two months ago plan to sue the center and its operators this week, they said, adding they have been left in the dark about how their daughter died.
A group of homeowners near the Forest Hills Stadium in Queens is suing the city, alleging it illegally takes over their private streets to facilitate concerts at the venue, where nearby residents have complained for years about excessive noise and disruptions.
A controversial highway expansion in the Hudson Valley has been delayed after pushback from transportation planners and environmentalists, who argued that it isn’t necessary and would harm the local environment.
The United States Geological Survey reports a preliminary magnitude 2.6 earthquake struck early yesterday morning near Chazy.
A Shenendehowa substitute teacher’s case nearly made every substitute teacher in New York state eligible for summertime unemployment benefits.
The former chair of the Malta Republican Committee, who is suing the Saratoga County Republican and Conservative chairs and their committees, has asked the state Commission on Judicial Conduct to ensure a local judge recuses himself from her lawsuit.
Rebecca Del Gaizo plans to step down from her role as Brunswick clerk 14 weeks after she stopped spending regular business hours at Town Hall — a place she has claimed was riddled with toxicity — to work a new state job.
Albany International Airport removed a video of U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem blaming Congressional Democrats for the federal government shutdown. The airport pulled the video after first refusing to confirm its existence.
Troy Republican Mayor Carmella Mantello’s newly unveiled $122 million budget plan takes a swing at a fee she’s staunchly opposed since it was implemented under Democratic leadership in 2017.
The replica Erie Canal boat Seneca Chief arrived at Mohawk Harbor yesterday in Schenectady as part of a 33-day bicentennial voyage from Buffalo to New York Harbor commemorating Gov. DeWitt Clinton’s 1825 inaugural journey on the waterway.
East Greenbush Town Supervisor Jack Conway has a proposition for the East Greenbush Community Library: let’s iron out a deal to buy your property, or the town will take it anyway.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
