Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
One of the great things about the internet is that it provides you with access to all manner of information you didn’t think you needed. For example, Google informed me that today is International Wombat Day, sending me down the proverbial rabbit hole in search of the answer to that age-old question: What the heck IS a wombat, anyway?
If you look at photos or video of wombats, they sort of look like a cross between a groundhog and a furry gray, pig. The likelihood that you have ever seen one in real life is pretty low, since they only live in one place in the entire world – Australia.
There are three species of wombat. The Common or Bare-Nosed Wombat is the most prevalent, with an estimated 1.3 million or so in existence. The other two – the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat and Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat – are far more rare, with about 100,000 to 300,000 of the former and just 500 of the later, which is critically endangered and therefore the subject of an intense conservation effort.
Five hundred sounds really low, but that is actually an improvement for the Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (AKA the NHW), which is found only in a small section of Queensland (a state in Northeastern Australia). At one point in the early 1980s, there were only about 35 NHW left in the entire country. A concerted effort to manage, protect, and recover the species has resulted in a steady growth in their population.
The difference in the three species is twofold – one has to do with the areas in which they live.
The different wombats like different habitats, ranging from woodlands to grasslands to scrublands. The Common/Bare-Nosed Wombat (BNW) can be found in Southern and Eastern Australia and Tasmania (an island off the country’s Southern coast, separated from the mainland by the Bass Strait), the Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat (SNW) prefers the semi-arid areas in the South and West of the country, and we already talked about the Queensland dwellers.
The other main difference between the wombat species, as you can probably guess, lies in the texture and length of their fur and whether they have fuzzy snoots, but also in their size, and ear shape.
Wombats are kind of cute, in my opinion, but they are not terribly friendly, as it turns out.
Like many animals, they might start out curious and/or cuddly when they’re young, but as they mature they grow ornery, unpredictable, and even hostile and/or aggressive (kinda sounds familiar, sadly). Though they are kinda tubby and waddle when they walk, they are, in fact, quite fast on the run and also have sharp teeth and claws – particularly in the back end – which they are not shy in deploying to defend themselves.
So, in short, wombats do not make good pets. Best to leave them alone – just ask the American influencer who drew worldwide derision for filming herself removing a baby wombat away from its clearly distressed mother.
Get ready for some morning showers, though that will taper off and there will be sun later in the day. Temperatures will again top out in the low 60s.
In the headlines…
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, and any settlement might be approved by senior officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
Justice Department regulations allow for the deputy attorney general to sign off on such a settlement. That office is held by Todd Blanche, who worked for Trump in the private sector and represented him during his 2024 “hush money” trial in New York City.
Trump’s planned second summit with Vladimir Putin was shelved indefinitely yesterday after Russia signaled it isn’t interested in a new U.S. proposal for Ukraine peace negotiations.
Just a few days after Trump announced the forthcoming summit, the meeting planned for Budapest was put on pause after a call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov.
Trump has fired the inspector general for the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., according to an official familiar with the situation. This latest action could further weaken the independence of watchdogs that root out waste, fraud and abuse in government agencies.
Paris Salehi was the latest casualty of Trump’s mass purge of government watchdogs, the investigators assigned to agencies across the administration who act as the eyes and ears of Congress and ensure taxpayer dollars are not misused.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime IG defender, posted on X that the White House flouted a statutory requirement to inform Congress about the removal in advance and provide the “substantive rationale.”
A person drove a vehicle into a security gate outside the White House last night, the Secret Service said. A man was arrested and there was no threat to President Trump, who was in the complex, according to the agency.
The nomination of Paul Ingrassia, a far-right lawyer and firebrand podcaster who had been tapped by Trump to lead the Office of Special Counsel, collapsed amid Senate GOP opposition, a day after Politico reported he had sent a series of racist text messages.
The University of Virginia and the Trump administration are close to striking a deal that would end a monthslong standoff that included the ouster of the school’s president in June, according to five people briefed on the matter.
In less than a year, President Trump has already significantly remade the White House. Here is what we know about five key White House renovations.
Ex-White House residents Bill and Hillary Clinton were mocked on social media after the former first lady criticized President Trump’s latest construction project at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
State lawmakers are accusing Gov. Kathy Hochul of retaliating against them for continuing a probe into mounting claims her administration rigged the contract for a massive $11 billion Medicaid homecare program.
Hochul vetoed legislation — inspired by the vicious deadly stabbing of EMS Lt. Alison Russo in 2022 — that would require two qualified medical first responders be dispatched to 911 emergency calls in the Big Apple.
Democrats in New York introduced a bill this week that would prohibit other states, territories or districts from sending their National Guard troops to the Empire State without approval from the governor.
State comptroller candidate Drew Warshaw, most recently an executive at the largest affordable housing nonprofit in the U.S., will introduce himself tonight to voters tuning in for the final debate in the race for New York City mayor on Spectrum News’ NY1.
New York Rep. Dan Goldman is calling for the NYPD to prepare to arrest federal immigration agents if they break the law while detaining people in the city — a request that’s prompting several legal experts to question if it could be carried out.
An upstate New York man pardoned by Trump after taking part in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was charged last week with a new crime: threatening to assassinate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, at an event in New York City.
Embattled demolition company Alba Services will pay $1.4 million to former and current workers for allegations it had violated state regulations and retaliated against employees who said they were injured on the job.
The Democrat running for Nassau County district attorney is threatening to sue the state Republican Party over ads linking her to socialist Big Apple mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani.
A fragile working relationship between Hochul and President Trump is in danger of being torn apart if Mamdani is elected New York City mayor.
Andrew Cuomo pleaded with New York City Republicans and conservatives to vote for him instead of GOP nominee Curtis Sliwa in the mayoral race — joking that “I don’t have horns.”
Cuomo, who is running an independent campaign for mayor, proposed that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a state agency, yield control of the subway system’s capital construction and station maintenance to New York City.
As he scrambles to assemble a winning coalition, Cuomo said that he’d be willing to offer Sliwa a job as an incentive for him to exit the race for City Hall.
For the first time in this year’s mayoral race, a pro-Cuomo super PAC is launching an attack ad campaign targeting Sliwa — and the effort is aimed, in particular, at luring Russian-speaking voters away from the GOP nominee.
Sliwa begged for donations ahead of the final fundraising deadline in the New York City mayoral race — as he called out the “elites” who want to push him out of the race.
Cuomo will step to the debate stage tonight, perhaps for the last time in his decades-long political career, and try to make the most of his final chance to publicly challenge Mamdani, the front-runner in the race for mayor of New York City.
The debate is scheduled for 7 p.m. Eastern and will last 90 minutes. It will air in full on Spectrum News NY1 and on WNYC radio. There will also be a livestream on YouTube.
Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Jewish communities along with the Upper West and Upper East sides of Manhattan poured money into Cuomo’s mayoral warchest last month after the exodus of incumbent Eric Adams, campaign contributions show.
Cuomo ripped a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in the city yesterday while assailing the Trump administration, calling the act an “abuse of federal power.”
ICE agents rounded up people along several blocks of Canal St., from Church St. to Lafayette St., on the borders of SoHo, Tribeca and Chinatown, shutting down the area as they conducted a raid targeting illegal street vendors.
The Department of Homeland Security described the operation – a raid in broad daylight – as “focused on criminal activity relating to selling counterfeit goods.”
Move over, DOGE. Mamdani wants to reclaim the mantle of government efficiency — and he’s targeting the city Education Department’s $41 billion budget.
Disgraced ex-Long Island Rep. George Santos revealed he is fleeing the Big Apple if Mamdani is elected mayor — as he urged Cuomo and Sliwa to form a “coalition.”
A look at the state of Sliwa’s the Guardian Angels reveals an organization marred by mismanagement: It has lost its tax-exempt status but continues to solicit donations online, all while exaggerating its presence around the United States and the world
In his birthday video released over last weekend, Mamdani, who turned 34 and is more than three decades younger than Cuomo and Sliwa, cracked that getting older was “not something I ever wanted to do. But I know it matters to you.”
NYPD brass is stepping up efforts to fill the department’s depleted ranks with a new recruitment drive at this year’s annual “Back the Blue” ceremony, including an advertising blitz.
A young window washer fell seven stories to his death while working at Columbia University’s School of Nursing in Washington Heights, police said.
TV host Bryant Gumbel, 77, is reportedly hospitalized in New York City after experiencing an undisclosed medical emergency. The former “Today” and “Real Sports” host was taken by ambulance from his Manhattan apartment around 9 p.m. Monday.
St. Peter’s Health Partners announced a new partnership with Buffalo-based Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center that is expected to bring expanded cancer care services to the Capital Region.
Siena University is eliminating its facilities department and outsourcing the jobs, the school said. “Any facilities employee who wants to can continue to work on the Siena campus, employed by the new vendor,” spokeswoman Lisa Witkowski said.
A misdemeanor charge against a prominent Queensbury developer who allegedly got into a brawl at the Adelphi Hotel in July will be dismissed if he stays out of trouble.
The Mechanicville schools superintendent is stepping down mid-year to take a job he believes will bring him more happiness – assistant superintendent of career and technical education, innovative high schools and adult education at Questar III BOCES.
An attorney for former NXIVM leader Keith Raniere argued before a tribunal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Tuesday that he deserved a new trial, or at least a hearing, on evidence tied to his conviction of possession of child pornography.
After a contentious exchange at a Town Board meeting with a town employee, Malta’s ethics committee determined that a councilman has violated local ethics rules and recommended that he be privately censured.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
