Good morning, it’s Tuesday….is anyone working around here? Besides me, I mean.
I expect that some people are looking forward to the down time this holiday season will bring and using it to participating in worthwhile activities like catching up on their Netflix queue. As a non-TV watcher, I’ve never really understood the drive to watch every show in a series.
The last show I can recall watching all the way through from beginning to end was “Bosch“, which, by the way, I think I probably enjoyed so much in part because I had read the series. Then again, this didn’t hold true for “Bosch: Legacy”, which I didn’t like nearly as much and couldn’t get through even though it, too, was based on author Michael Connelly’s books.
I did, however, really enjoy “Longmire“, another excellent book-to-TV adaptation; if you haven’t read Craig Johnson’s books, put that on your to-do list, STAT.
With the exception of my very young cartoon watching days, I’ve never been a massive TV fan. I think I largely missed the whole “Seinfeld” craze, tuning in just enough to conclude that yes, I might – at the right angle and light – bear a passing resemblance to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character Elaine Benes, which people liked to tell me back when I had long curly hair and wore glasses.
“Seinfeld“, no thanks to me, was a cultural phenomenon – one of the most popular and critically acclaimed TV sitcoms in US history, with top ratings and an historic 76.3 million people tuning in to watch the series finale in May 1998.
It was “Seinfeld” that gave us today’s so-called holiday, “Festivus“, which was created by Kramer and involves the airing of grievances, feats of strength, a delicious meal (preferably meatloaf), and an aluminum pole instead of a tree. For you diehards out there, this holiday was unveiled in an episode entitled “The Strike”, which aired on Dec. 18, 1987, AKA Season 9, Episode 10.
As silly as “Festivus” sounds, the whole point is really to create a counterbalance to the commercialism of Christmas, which is something I can definitely get on board with. This year, I have again entered into a pact with my husband not to buy any gifts for each other. The problem is that he always gets “a little something, because it’s my holiday”, and I end up feeling like a jerk.
But Festivus (for the rest of us) isn’t about gifts. It’s about being together and enjoying one another’s company and having a few laughs. It’s inclusive, it’s culturally neutral, and it’s an opportunity to let your hair down and just BE. Who can’t get down with that?
The interwebs inform me that there is a real story behind this made-up holiday, as it was created by author Daniel O’Keefe Sr., who celebrated Festivus to commemorate his first date with his eventual wife, Deborah.
However or whyever or wherever – or even whether – you celebrate, Happy Festivus to all! I have no idea where I’m going to find an aluminum pole at this late date. Feats of strength I’ve got down, though…I’m heading out to the gym right after this.
Remember when I said I didn’t think we would have a white Christmas? Well, color me wrong.
We’re in for some snow today, and the rest of the week will all but certainty be cold enough for whatever accumulates to stick around. We’ll have snow in the morning giving way to snow showers in the afternoon. One to three inches will likely pile up, when all is said and done. Temperatures will top out in the low 30s.
In the headlines…
The race to succeed President Trump is gearing up following Turning Point USA CEO Erika Kirk’s endorsement of Vice President JD Vance, marking one of the first major endorsements ahead of the 2028 Republican primary.
The rapper Nicki Minaj, who previously criticized President Trump’s policies, praised him and Vice President Vance during a surprise appearance at a Turning Point USA event on Sunday.
Trump announced a new class of battleships as part of the U.S. Navy’s “Golden Fleet”, which will be equipped with guns, missiles, hypersonic weapons and high-powered lasers.
The president said development of the new “Trump class” of warships would help maintain military superiority and improve the industrial base, but analysts suggested they were the wrong approach to current threats.
The U.S. military struck an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean yesterday, killing one “narco-terrorist.”
U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) shared a 27-second video of the strike on X, adding the vessel was “operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters” and was “transiting along known narco-trafficking routes” in the eastern Pacific.
The Trump administration has ordered nearly 30 ambassadors in embassies around the world to return to the US within weeks, a move that would leave a big gap in the American diplomatic corps as Trump says he wants to resolve conflicts through diplomacy.
Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, sent a raft of letters seeking information from people who were reportedly invited to a White House dinner for donors to the ballroom project.
The Food and Drug Administration approved a pill version of the weight-loss injectable drug Wegovy, offering patients who fear or are uncomfortable with needles a more palatable option. The medication will be available in the United States early next year.
The pill contains a much larger dose of semaglutide, the compound that is in Wegovy and the diabetes drug Ozempic, than the shots because only a fraction of the substance is absorbed into the bloodstream when it is swallowed instead of injected.
Wegovy’s Danish makers Novo Nordisk said the once-daily pill was a “convenient option” to the injectableand would provide the same weight loss as the shot. It comes after Wegovy was approved by the FDA specifically for weight loss.
A federal judge in Brooklyn declared a mistrial in the corruption case against Linda Sun, a former aide to governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo charged with illegally serving as an agent of China.
The federal jury in Brooklyn was unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the case against Sun and her husband, Chris Hu. The foreperson said the panel was deadlocked on all 19 counts.
Prosecutor Alexander Solomon told the judge that the government wants to retry the case “as soon as possible.” A status conference is set for January 26, 2006.
Sun, her face partially obscured by a pair of black sunglasses, shook her head with a small smile when reporters asked for a statement. Jarrod L. Schaeffer, a lawyer for Sun, said the mistrial underscored “how questionable and flawed these charges were.”
The governor said she was blindsided by the Trump administration’s sudden suspension of two major offshore wind farms in federal waterways off the New York coast.
“We just learned that the job-killing Trump administration is taking another hit on New York,” Hochul told reporters prior to taking questions at an unrelated state Capitol press conference before adding, “a little frustrated here, folks.”
Trump’s latest salvo against offshore wind threatens the reliability of New York’s electric grid and undermines Hochul’s “all-of-the-above” pivot on energy.
Hochul negotiated with Trump to salvage one of the now-halted projects earlier this year, in what administration officials portrayed as a deal to win approval of a natural gas pipeline.
Hochul has a chance to open up a critical new source of financial support for local families with school-age children, at no cost to New York state. But she’ll have to defy the teachers’ unions to accept it.
New York has set new restrictions on the sale of kratom, an unregulated drug that has been tied to at least 100 deaths in the state in the past year and is commonly sold in gas stations, bodegas and specialty shops.
Hochul signed into law a bill late Friday night that provides a remedy for victims of coerced debt—a kind of financial abuse where bad actors either take out lines of credit in another person’s name without them knowing or pressure someone into accruing debt.
Hochul signed laws requiring more cameras in state prisons and mandating that developers of new AI models adhere to safety protocols as she cleared her desk of more than 100 bills before the new year.
Hochul signed a long-sought package of prison reform bills into law, calling it “landmark” legislation that would improve safety for staff and incarcerated people alike. But days later, the scope and significance of the measure is still being fiercely debated.
Lawmakers and advocates held a virtual press conference to celebrate Hochul’s decision to sign a bill that relates to the provision of gas service to new customers and ends the costly 100-foot rule, which is said to benefit all those in the state.
Zohran Mamdani will be sworn in as New York City’s next mayor by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Attorney General Letitia James, his transition team said.
Sanders, a democratic socialist senator from Vermont, has supported New York City’s mayor-elect since the Democratic primary.
At least 20 percent of Mamdani’s administrative appointees are connected to anti-Zionist US activist groups, such as Students for Justice in Palestine, the Anti-Defamation League said in a new report.
The ADL’s second “Mamdani Monitor update” dug into the social media histories of more than 400 people the democratic socialist has appointed to serve on various committees to assist his transition to City Hall.
“We must distinguish between antisemitism and criticism of the Israeli government,” Mamdani said during a press conference on an unrelated transition announcement, after he was asked about the latest report.
Mamdani appointed a former Federal Trade Commission director, Sam Levine, to implement a “relentlessly pro-worker” agenda as the head of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, a position that has huge consequences for street safety.
Levine worked under former FTC chair Lina Khan, who now co-chairs Mamdani’s 400-person transition team, serving in the federal consumer protection office from 2021 until 2025.
With a little more than a week left in office, the Adams administration released recommendations for ramping up housing construction in Manhattan.
Mayor Eric Adams will be remembered for the drumbeat of scandals that derailed his mayoralty in New York City, a growing affordability crisis and progress on public safety and housing.
A new report from REBNY found that the sluggish pace of housing construction is holding the city back. It estimated that it takes on average 3.4 years to build a new apartment building; in Manhattan, it takes more than four years, the report said.
George Conway, a prominent Trump critic, filed to run for the House of Representatives to replace retiring Representative Jerry Nadler in a New York City district that spans much of Manhattan.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection once again threw its annual holiday party at Gracie Mansion, but the event is getting the thumbs down from an immigrant rights activist in a year where federal immigration enforcement has gained so much attention.
Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa marked the first anniversary of the subway arson killing of a homeless woman allegedly torched by an illegal immigrant — and called for a statue of the victim to be erected on the platform where she died.
According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center forecast, the probability of having more than 1 inch of snow on the ground on Christmas Day is only about 23% in Albany, 67% in Buffalo, 63% in Syracuse, and just 4% in Central Park in New York City.
In the three months since he admitted in a television interview to killing his parents and burying them in their backyard nearly a decade ago, Lorenz Kraus has continued to talk.
After spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars building up the state’s winter sports facilities, the Olympic Regional Development Authority’s leaders acknowledged it lacks the ability to plan repairs to the ice rinks, ski centers and sliding tracks.
The head of a recreational complex’s board and Troy’s 50th mayor blame each other’s administrations for the low point they have arrived at in their relationship.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
