Good morning, it’s Thursday.
As we approach the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I am steeling myself against the inevitable feeling of grinchyness that tends to sink in for me right around now.
It is not that I dislike celebrations – I do enjoy them, honestly. I like dressing up, especially, and look for pretty much any excuse to do so. I just find myself increasingly uncomfortable in crowds…I’m not sure if this is an age thing or a heightened awareness of security thing.
Either way, I just don’t love being out and about when a lot of other people are, too.
You’ve probably seen the “it’s too peopley outside” meme? This captures my holiday sentiments exactly. The trouble with being uncomfortable with a lot of people is that it tends to make me come off as a little prickly – even rude. I’m working on checking this negative tendency, but it’s probably going to be a lifelong process.
What I really need is a refresher course in basic kindness.
Kindness, is case you, like me, might be a little rusty, according to Oxford Languages, is “the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.” Another AI-generated definition I liked was “a combination of being helpful, consideration, and compassionate toward others without expecting anything in return.”
I don’t think it’s any secret that the whole country could use a massive dose of kindness right now. We are bitterly divided as a nation, deeply distrustful of one another and of the government that is supposed to protect and serve us.
Nearly half of Americans responding to a recent Politico poll said they felt America’s best days were behind it, and many – particularly those under the age of 44 – believe the so-called “American Dream” no longer exists. Back in September (in other words, before the historically long government shutdown began on Oct. 1, 2025), an AP-NORC poll found that outlook on the direction of the country among both Democrats AND Republicans had soured.
I don’t think I’m going out on a limb by saying that it’s highly likely opinions have tanked further since then, with the deep partisan divisions in D.C. causing real pain among Americans in need – most notably those who rely on SNAP benefits to feed themselves and their families.
While Congress has voted to end the shutdown, its impacts will undoubtedly be felt for some time. And for those who thought the shutdown wasn’t going to impact them, I say: Sure, just don’t try flying anywhere at the moment.
Before you think this post is just going to descend ever deeper into darkness and pessimism, hang in there, because here’s where the kindness part kicks in.
Across the nation, individuals, companies, and nonprofits stepped up to assist as our elected officials battled it out over the future of SNAP (and healthcare and other things) on Capitol Hill. November is already peak season for food pantries and food banks, and thanks to the halting of federal funds on which hungry people usually rely, demand has kicked into high gear.
World Kindness Week, which kicks off today with World Kindness Day, could not come at a better time, in my humble opinion. You can do as much – or as little – as you see fit to observe.
Personally, I’m going to TRY to take the edge off and listen a little more than I speak. A leopard can’t change its spots overnight, so don’t look for a sweet and cuddle Liz Benjamin anytime soon, though. I’m aiming for one percent better, and I’m going to do more in the donation department this holiday season.
Baby steps.
There’s some good (seasonally appropriate) news on the weather front – at least as far as the temperature is concerned. We’ll see highs in the mid-40s, which is a veritable heat wave, and cloudy skies. There remains a chance of rain and/or snow showers, but no accumulation of any significance is in the forecast. Small blessings.
In the headlines…
President Trump last night signed a bill to end the longest-ever government shutdown in the Oval Office after more than six weeks — and without concessions to Democrats who had demanded negotiations over skyrocketing health insurance premiums.
“It’s an honor now to sign this incredible bill and get our country working again,” Trump said in the Oval Office, flanked by House Republican leaders as well as business and union leaders.
The stopgap spending bill, which funds the government through the end of January, was approved by a vote of 222-209 after an hour of debate. It was then sent to the President for his signature.
It will take some time for the programs and people who were affected by the funding freeze to recover.
The federal government is expected to start reopening immediately, ending the longest shutdown in U.S. history after 43 days. Furloughed workers will return to their jobs and critical workers like air traffic controllers will receive back pay.
The Supreme Court extended a pause on full funding of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits for November on Tuesday night ahead of a pending vote to reopen the government.
Flight delays and cancellations across the country persisted as the U.S. House of Representatives was scheduled to vote on a bipartisan bill that would end the record-setting government shutdown.
Despite the shutdown nearing an end, experts and airlines have cautioned that travelers should prepare for further flight disruptions throughout the week.
Mere hours before the federal government reopened, the Department of Transportation announced flight reductions will freeze at 6% thanks to strong staffing levels and a “rapid decline” in air traffic controller callouts.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent revealed that the Trump administration has discussed restricting the president’s proposed $2,000 tariff dividend to families making less than six figures.
The Trump administration has developed plans for a wholesale shift in homelessness policy that would slash support for long-term housing programs. Critics say it could quickly place as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people at risk of returning to the streets.
The Trump Organization requested 184 foreign workers to work across various company properties, a record number that has increased over the years.
House Democrats released emails in which Jeffrey Epstein wrote that Trump had “spent hours at my house” with one of Epstein’s victims, among other messages that suggested Epstein believed Trump knew more about his abuse than he has acknowledged.
That account, included in a new tranche of documents, conflicts with Trump’s denial of ever knowing about Epstein’s solicitation of underage prostitution before Epstein’s 2008 plea deal.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said that the emails, which they selected from thousands of pages of documents received by their panel, raised new questions about the relationship between the two men.
Epstein said of Trump, “I know how dirty donald is,” in a 2018 email thread about Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen having pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and agreed to cooperate in a federal investigation of the president.
The White House said that Dems on the House Oversight Committee deliberately withheld the name of the victim in the missive, Virginia Giuffre, who said before her death that she witnessed no wrongdoing from Trump during their interactions.
A poll shows Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who is running for governor in New York, trailing incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul by only 3 percentage points, an early sign that the race could be extremely close if Stefanik wins the GOP primary.
Stefanik launched a broadside this week against Hochul’s energy policies, criticizing the governor’s continued ban on fossil fuel exploration and her broader record on the energy sector as state utilities announced another major rate hike for homeowners.
Hochul once blocked two gas power plants and championed New York’s trailblazing effort to combat climate change. But as she prepares for what’s expected to be a tough reelection battle next year, Hochul has steered a monumental pivot on energy policy.
State Senator James Skoufis of New York has been a steady critic of Hochul, a fellow Democrat. Her vetoes of his bills seemed intended to send a message.
Hochul is on the lookout for someone to serve as her running mate in 2026, when she’ll ask New York voters to elect her to a second full term as governor. Her search comes as she faces a primary challenge from her current No. 2, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado.
The ongoing debate over a Bitcoin mining facility in the Finger Lakes has entered the realm of state politics. Delgado has voiced his opposition to Hochul’s decision to allow Greenidge Generation to continue operations on Seneca Lake.
Hochul must decide by year’s end whether to sign a law that would mandate two-person crews on all NYC subway trains, a practice critics say is costly and outdated.
Over 200 people gathered in front of Hochul’s New York City office on Tuesday to denounce the green lighting of the Northeast Supply Enhancement pipeline.
Prosecutors yesterday said Linda Sun, a former high-ranking aide in New York’s government, sold out the state to reap millions in gifts and benefits from Beijing.
State Budget Director Blake Washington threw cold water on calls from progressives to raise taxes on the state’s highest earners and insisted New York is doing OK financially.
Hochul and Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani both attended the ribbon cutting for National Urban League’s new base in Harlem.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is heading out of Long Island today to stump upstate as he weighs whether to jump into the race for governor. He will be in the Hudson Valley and Albany.
Stefanik would trounce Blakeman in a potential Republican primary for governor — and run neck and neck in a general election against Democratic incumbent Hochul, a new poll claims.
Less than a week since Mayor-elect Mamdani opened a resume portal to build his team, more than 50,000 New Yorkers have already submitted their applications.
Two New York transit experts — one of whom oversaw the launch of the city’s “Vision Zero” street safety initiative — have reportedly emerged as early favorites to become Mamdani’s Department of Transportation commissioner.
Mamdani’s radical policy proposals have prompted high-profile restaurateur Stratis Morfogen to cancel plans to open three new establishments. “I waited for the election before signing and now I’m not signing,” he said.
Self-stylized anti-socialist moderate Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi wants to hike taxes on the wealthy — but he still doesn’t agree with Mamdani’s philosophy.
Mamdani is poised to reap the benefits of housing-related ballot measures approved by voters on Election Day — but the socialist pol has given few concrete signs about whether he’ll actually use them.
Mamdani has spoken privately with several Democratic governors from Illinois, Pennsylvania and Maryland about how to take on President Trump and tackle other priorities.
Mamdani plans to pick up the phone and call President Donald Trump prior to taking office “because this is a relationship that will be critical to the success of the city,” he said.
The teams of Mayor-elect Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch have been in touch since Mamdani’s Nov. 4 general election win, and the two have a meeting scheduled.
Mamdani pledged to shutter Rikers Island and shrink the city’s jail population. As he prepares to take office, a coalition of formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, family members and advocates are demanding he make good on those promises — and go further.
Rana Abdelhamid, a Muslim community organizer, has filed to run for Assembly District 36, the western Queens district currently represented by New York City Mayor-elect Mamdani, according to state Board of Elections records.
The Adams administration has designated the Elizabeth Street Garden as city parkland, making a bureaucratic maneuver that will likely complicate incoming Mayor Mamdani’s pledge to build an affordable housing development for seniors on the site in Nolita.
In a Nov. 3 letter to the parks commissioner, Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, the commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, Louis Molina, said that the city “unequivocally and permanently dedicates this property to public use as parkland.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres is in for a primary fight as another challenger is ready to jump into the ring. Public defender, community board member and DSA organizer Dalourny Nemorin announced her candidacy for the 15th CD in the South Bronx.
Rabbis in The Bronx are rallying around pro-Israel Rep. Torres, by accusing his newly-announced Democratic primary opponent Michael Blake of stoking “antisemitism” in his campaign kickoff video.
Caroline Kennedy is reportedly “living in fear” that her controversial son Jack Schlossberg’s run for Congress could make him “a target for violent haters.”
Brooklyn Councilwoman Crystal Hudson, a leading candidate in this year’s City Council speaker race, raked in campaign cash from real estate interests at a time her website claimed she wasn’t accepting any such contributions.
The City Council is pushing legislation that would make it harder for authorities to collect from deadbeats who owe tens of thousands of dollars on their water bills, Big Apple regulators say.
The City Council approved a major rezoning in Long Island City that its backers say will transform the Queens neighborhood.
Some 15,000 new homes are slated to be built in Long Island City after the City Council passed the Adams administration’s ambitious “OneLIC” rezoning plan during a final vote yesterday — the largest such neighborhood plan in decades.
After more than 25 years, five presidencies and four governors, the plan to rebuild Penn Station is nowhere near completion.
New “speed limiter” devices for cars are set to force reckless drivers with multiple violations to finally slow down, by linking to their ignitions and capping how fast their car can go with the help of GPS technology.
Two dozen NYC-area hospitals earned top marks for patient safety — while six are barely making the grade, a new watchdog report card shows.
Two NYPD officers sustained minor injuries during a scuffle involving federal immigration agents in Washington Heights yesterday morning, police said.
New York has agreed to delay implementation of the All-Electric Buildings Act, which was scheduled to go into effect in January and would prohibit natural gas and heating oil equipment in many new construction projects, including residences.
The New York Department of Health permitted millions of dollars in improper Medicaid payments to flow to providers due to a lack of oversight related to a systemic billing code error and other issues, the state comptroller said in a recent audit.
Supermarkets and convenience stores have been thrust once again into confronting the latest Trump administration policy decision that appears to have taken consumers by surprise: the death of the penny.
More people claim they voted for a Stephentown Memorial Library budget proposal than what was reported in unofficial election results on Nov. 4.
An Albany man has been convicted of attempted murder and other charges after he shot a man near an Interstate 787 exit ramp last year.
Albany County Public Defender Stephen Herrick will be leaving his position after nine years in the role. Herrick, 78, is not retiring. Instead, he will be moving to the county’s assigned counsel program, working under Shane Hug, the program’s administrator.
If the operators of the Gore Mountain ski center open a recently completed lodge in North Creek as planned this month, they would have overcome several costly delays in the $40 million project to develop the historic town park at the foot of the mountain.
Seeking to restore his authority in his business partnership with his brothers, Adam and Joseph, Patrick Fitch is suing, accusing them of denying him buyout chances, blocking him from inspecting documents and excluding him from business decisions.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
