Good morning, it’s Thursday.
I have been following the Winter Olympics with marginal interest. I refuse, like some people I know, to wake up at crazy hours to catch all the action in real time as it occurs six hours ahead of us in Milan and Cortina, Italy. But I am reading the headlines and watching the outtakes after the fact – in addition to my regularly scheduled news perusing.
The two main takeaways seem to be that these games have been more dramatic than usual and the U.S. is more or less underperforming.
The list of high-profile bad-news headlines is long – from Lindsey Vonn’s devastating crash and the on-ice meltdown of Ilia Malinin, the so-called “Quad God”, to the judging controversy involving ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates, and skater Amber Glenn’s medal-costing error.
Outside Team USA, there also was something to do with curling, though I am struggling to follow it; a complaint filed by Eileen Gru – the US-born skier competing for China – over a schedule she claims is unfair; and a Norwegian biathlete confessing on live TV after winning a gold medal that he was oh so sorry he had cheated on his girlfriend.
On top of all that, the Olympic Villages reportedly ran out of condoms in just three days due to what the organizing committee called “unanticipated demand”. The fact that the Olympics are a sex-fest for super-fit, adrenaline-hyped athletes has been reported on many times, though there’s also a far less titillating phenomenon of athletes swiping condoms not for their own use, but as souvenirs for friends.
If you’re really paying attention, you might be aware that there’s a new addition to the sports line-up in this year’s Winter Olympics: Skimo (short for “ski mountaineering“).
In the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, a number of new sports will make their debut, including Cricket, flag football, and squash, while lacrosse and baseball/softball will be returning to the roster. Breakdancing will not be returning after its rather controversial debut in the 2024 games in Paris, and men’s lightweight rowing also didn’t make the cut.
There’s a complicated and involved process for determining which sports make the grade and which get ditched that is overseen by the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee. Sports are evaluated based on five factors that are then split into 35 different criteria that include the sport’s popularity and the overall value it might contribute to the legacy of the games.
Among the sports that are no longer included: Tug-of-war, which was – once upon a time – a highly competitive team sport included in five Olympics from 1900 to 1920, with Great Britain sweeping most of the medals.
If you want to go very deep on the history of that, check out the website of the Tug of War Association, “the governing body for tug-of-war in England” that has existed since 1958. Some people are still holding out hope that this discipline might again be included in future Olympics, although those efforts have not borne fruit to date.
There are still quite a number of tug-of-war enthusiasts, who continue to compete on the world stage. It is an ancient strength-based contest that has been around for thousands of years and appears to have originated in ancient Egypt, Greece, China and India as part of military training to help soldiers/warriors build up their strength.
Happy International Tug-of-War Day to all who celebrate! Enjoy the remainder of the Winter Games, if you’re a devotee.
We had a winter weather advisory through 4 a.m., with mixed precipitation (rain, snow, freezing rain etc.) and the possibility of up to 4 inches of accumulation, plus a light glaze of ice, which has the potential to make driving during the morning commute very treacherous.
Also an air quality alert was in effect through midnight yesterday.
The weather should calm down as the day progresses, leaving us with cloudy skies and temperatures peaking in the high 30s.
In the headlines…
Police in Britain arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, over suspicions of misconduct in public office following accusations that he shared confidential information with Jeffrey Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy.
Thames Valley Police said in a statement that it had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.” It is the former prince’s 66th birthday.
The police force, which covers an area in southern England where the former Prince Andrew used to live, did not name him, as is standard practice under British law. It is extremely rare for a senior member of the royal family to be arrested.
The rapid buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East has progressed to the point that President Donald Trump has the option to take military action against Iran as soon as this weekend, administration and Pentagon officials said.
Trump has given no indication that he has made a decision about how to proceed. But the drive to assemble a military force capable of striking Iran continued this week despite indirect talks between the two nations.
Trump claimed that the U.S. trade deficit has fallen by 78 percent because of tariffs. “THE UNITED STATES TRADE DEFICIT HAS BEEN REDUCED BY 78% BECAUSE OF THE TARIFFS BEING CHARGED TO OTHER COMPANIES AND COUNTRIES,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The Air Force One fleet is getting a makeover at the hands of the First Air Traveler, and just as he’s done on the ground, the president is painting over a reminder of the John F. Kennedy administration.
Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr said that late-night host Stephen Colbert, who has been at the center of a controversy surrounding an interview he did with Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico, sees that ” the limelight is fading.”
Crews found the bodies of eight backcountry skiers near California’s Lake Tahoe and were searching for one more after they were caught in an avalanche, the nation’s deadliest in nearly half a century, authorities said.
Grammy-winning rock band U2 released a new EP yesterday with an opening track that pays homage to Renee Good, a Minneapolis mother who was killed by federal agents on Jan. 7 while opposing ICE operations in her state.
The six-track EP, titled “Days of Ash,” kicks off with a song called “American Obituary.” Its lyrics include the lines, “Renee Good born to die free / American mother of three / Seventh day January / A bullet for each child, you see.”
Another ransom note demanding $6 million in cryptocurrency in exchange for the safe return of Nancy Guthrie was sent to TMZ yesterday.
The latest ransom note includes “a highly sophisticated demand” and “graphically describes the consequences if the ransom isn’t paid,” TMZ reported. The outlet said it forwarded the information to the FBI and would not release additional details.
The New York state attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s administration over the October cancellation of more than $7.5 billion in clean energy grants.
Former New York City Council Member Diana Ayala has filed to run for Assembly District 68 in East Harlem. She’s challenging Assembly Member Eddie Gibbs, who has stirred controversy on more than one occasion since taking office.
The Trump administration released the remainder of funding that it had withheld since last fall on the project to replace a vital East Coast rail link that daily carries more than 200,000 Amtrak and New Jersey Transit travelers across the Hudson River.
The White House freed the remaining $98 million due for the Gateway project to boost passenger rail capacity into Manhattan, and an additional $30 million in reimbursements for work that had been completed in January, Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement.
Hochul made a big pledge to Rochester and Monroe County when she released her executive budget proposal: the spending plan included $300 million for economic development in Rochester.
A provision of Hochul’s proposed executive budget this year would “erode” the state comptroller’s contract oversight to the tune of at least $4 billion in state spending over the next fiscal year, according to Tom DiNapoli.
Critics say Hochul’s proposed tax on nicotine pouches would give smokers less reason to quit.
More than $240 million in tax credits and subsidies was awarded to create and preserve 1,800 affordable, modern homes in 27 housing developments across New York, according to Hochul’s office.
New York’s affordable healthcare plan is in jeopardy. Many New Yorkers could lose their Essential Plan healthcare coverage in July. H.R. 1, the Big Beautiful Bill, as Trump calls it, cut existing Obamacare funding for states.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s “tax the rich” ultimatum puts Hochul in the crosshairs of both lefties and Republicans alike — with insiders saying he may be shooting Democrats in the foot during an election year.
Mamdani is facing criticism and questions from advocates for homeless New Yorkers after abruptly reversing his policy pledge to end homeless encampment sweeps.
Matt Rauschenbach, spokesman for the mayor, said the administration has been “laying the groundwork” for the new policy since the administration halted the sweeps in early January.
Mamdani is looking to get the Big Apple on a tighter budget, and seems to see cuts to the New York Police Department (NYPD) as a way of getting the city back on track.
Mamdani’s first preliminary budget cancels his predecessor’s plan to hire 5,000 additional police officers and keeps the NYPD’s roughly $6.4 billion budget essentially flat.
Mamdani named six appointees to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board, in a move that brings him a step closer to fulfilling his campaign promise of freezing the rent for tenants in New York City’s roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.
The Big Apple got more money to burn thanks to legal pot sales — but the surge in tax revenue still isn’t matching the growing cannabis industry, city officials said.
A hotly debated housing bill that would give nonprofits first dibs on property purchases — vetoed by former Mayor Eric Adams hours before he left office — is likely to get a new chance to pass under the Mamdani administration.
An empty city-owned lot in East Harlem that has long served as parking for the adjacent 25th Precinct will be transformed into a 20-story, 341-unit, $225 million affordable housing development anchored by a cultural center.
Another example of the havoc the recent cold snap caused in New York City: Major crimes reported on the subway system rose 17% during the first five weeks of the year, according to NYPD data.
The state is paving the way for construction to begin on its large-scale renovation of SUNY Downstate University Hospital.
An assistant police chief hired to help lead the law enforcement agency at New York City’s public hospitals abruptly resigned from his new post after reporters inquired about misconduct allegations against him while he was a police chief in Michigan.
A putrid sidewalk so blanketed with poop that it’s barely passable has become a symbol of the Big Apple’s winter crap crisis — as complaints over dog waste reach record highs.
New Yorkers are so filthy that snow removal techniques used in other cities just won’t cut it. The giant snow vacuum used by Montreal, Canada, to suck snow off the streets, for example, gets too clogged with garbage to work in NYC.
Cohoes Fire Lts. George Primeau and Robert Johnson claim in a federal lawsuit that that they were denied career mobility for exercising union-protected speech.
GlobalFoundries is navigating a second major executive leadership change in less than a year with the announcement that its president and chief operating officer will be leaving.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they had made a “mistake” after falsely claiming to have bought a warehouse owned by a former Trump adviser where the agency wants to build a detention center in the Hudson Valley.
A State Police investigator yesterday pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to a charge of lying to federal investigators about tipping off a former confidential informant who was under investigation for selling deadly fentanyl pills in Dutchess County.
Four months after Columbia Memorial Health announced significant cuts at its main health care facility in Hudson, the hospital said it plans to add beds for patients with conditions like Alzheimer’s and mental illness.
The Troy Proctor’s Foundation has accused members of the Troy Local Development Corporation of failing to properly review plans to transform an old downtown theater into a municipal office hub in a newly filed lawsuit.
The captain of the Glens Falls Fire Department was arrested this week for writing and cashing checks associated with the department’s union and keeping the funds for personal use, State Police said.
Researchers at the University at Albany are building a computer model that will predict weather-related electrical outages across North America using artificial intelligence and storm outage data from electric utilities.
The Colombian man who, along with his wife and daughter, was “adopted” by members of a Colonie church before his deportation last month had been facing a felony charge well beyond a purported traffic violation that caused his removal from the US.
Patricia “Patti” Howard, the voice of the Malta Drive-In who for 20 years talked to patrons over the car window transmitters, was 60 when she died on Feb. 4 after a long struggle with cancer.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
