Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
Young people who are close to obtaining a degree in communications, marketing, Political Science or some combination thereof often come to me to ask how they can get into the PR/public affairs business. I don’t want to be a downer, but given the way of the world at the moment, with AI already cutting a wide swath in the job market, I find myself a little at a loss for for what say.
If I were to be giving advice to, say, my step-kid, who, to be clear, would not be taking advice from me, but let’s argue that he might, I would probably suggest that he consider going into the trades. Being a person who never learned anything useful – like how to change the oil in my care, for example, or do basic home repairs – I find myself completely at the mercy of my mechanic, my HVAC tech, and, perhaps most of all, my plumber.
Plumbing is one of those necessities that we don’t think about until it breaks. And, I don’t know about you, but those breaks usually occur at the most inopportune time on my end – like, in the dead of night, or on a holiday, or a weekend.
During the ungodly cold snap we had this past winter (note that I am using past tense here deliberately, even though the first day of spring is still over a week off), a lot of people experienced burst pipes and busted boilers, driving up frantic calls across New York and New England for help to plumbers and heating techs – and also enabling them to charge premium emergency service rates.
To be clear, it is not at all easy to become a plumber – or any skilled tradesperson, for that matter. Just to become a licensed journeyman plumber can take up to five years, including classroom work, successful completion of a paid apprenticeship, and roughly 8,000+ hours of on-the-job training. It takes another five to seven years to reach master plumber status.
Once you get all that training under your belt, though, and assuming you have proven yourself competent – or, better yet, skilled – you can count on 1) steady work, and 2) decent compensation, earning between $40 and $50 an hour.
Though plumbing is standard here in U.S., which is part of the developed world, it is not a foregone conclusion. Some 1 million people across the nation lacked indoor plumbing as recently as 2021.
That number climbs significantly when you consider the rest of the world, about half of which – an estimated 4.2 billion people – lives without access to safely managed sanitation, which means no waste treatment plants, no septic systems, and, in some cases, no indoor toilets.
Today is World Plumbing Day, which was established in 2011 by the World Plumbing Council (yes, such a thing exists) to “recognize how plumbing creates a global network of skilled professionals, pipes, and standards that connect people everywhere to health, opportunity, and each other.”
The brief taste of spring is, sadly, coming to an end. Today will be slightly cooler, with highs “only” in the low 60s. Skies will be overcast with a chance of showers that will increase as the day progresses until a steady rain develops overnight.
In the headlines…
The U.S. military said that it had struck 16 Iranian mine-laying vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important shipping conduits for oil, as Trump administration officials struggled to present a clear plan for the war against Iran.
Investors across the world are keenly focused on the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that separates the world’s biggest oil and natural gas producers from their customers.
An inflation report to be released today will provide the latest measure of price increases as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran drives up gasoline costs and renews concerns about affordability.
The pain at the pump is quickly turning into a political headache for Trump and his fellow Republicans, whose narrow congressional majority looks increasingly fragile ahead of the midterms.
Iran has responded to the U.S.-Israeli assault on the country by launching drones and missiles at American targets across the Middle East, hitting embassies, killing U.S. soldiers, and damaging military bases and air defense infrastructure.
The White House is (still) getting energy from solar panels that Trump’s predecessors put on its roof, somehow enduring through the president’s criticism of renewable energy.
Trump told House Republicans Monday he had one overriding legislative priority for 2026. Then they spent yesterday talking about just about anything else.
The Trump administration plans to restart the Global Entry program today, just weeks after it paused the program because of a partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.
The voting technology company Smartmatic asked a federal judge to dismiss the federal criminal charges against it because they were part of President Trump’s “campaign of retribution against his perceived enemies.
Democratic Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, 78, a civil rights leader who has held his seat for more than 30 years, is projected to win his primary race, fending off a long-shot challenge from 34-year-old antitrust lawyer Evan Turnage.
Republican Clay Fuller, who is backed by Trump, and Democrat Shawn Harris are advancing to a runoff to replace former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.
New York’s lofty goal to dramatically reduce its greenhouse gas emissions has run into a major roadblock: Gov. Kathy Hochul’s election-year quest to make the state more affordable.
Hochul is defusing political landmines left by her predecessor Andrew Cuomo — narrowing the scope of criminal justice and climate change laws beloved by the left.
Democrats in the state Legislature are renewing proposals advanced for the last several years to raise income taxes on high-income earners in hopes that Hochul will acquiesce to those requests.
The proposals, known as “one-house” resolutions, have typically in years past also included raising personal income taxes, which have been shut down by past governors. But his year Mayor Zohran Mamdani is bringing new political clout into the mix.
The Democratic leaders in both houses of the state Legislature released budget proposals for the coming fiscal year that support the renewal of a fare-free bus pilot program as Mamdani continues his push for eliminating bus fares citywide.
Mamdani’s old colleagues in Albany aren’t going to let him maintain control of New York City schools without a fight.
New York State Police and local law enforcement agencies will increase patrols through St. Patrick’s Day to combat drunk, impaired and reckless driving, Hochul announced.
Amid a crisis in the state’s prison system, the governor’s and Legislature’s budget proposals differ, but largely lack major reforms.
Hochul’s recent policy cracks down on phones in schools. Her enforcer? A freaky neon-green creature named Frankie Focus.
A new bill introduced in the state Legislature would require social media companies to add new safeguards for protecting users against scams and fraud perpetrated on their platforms.
New Yorkers could get rebates to offset soaring utility bills, under plans the Democratic-led state Legislature unveiled today, while also proposing ending tax exemptions on yachts and gold bullion and raising taxes on crypto mining.
Several state legislators joined climate, immigration and economic activists at the state Capitol yesterday to coalesce around the common cause of raising taxes on the state’s wealthiest earners.
Protecting propane customers is the goal behind legislation being introduced at the Capitol by Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara.
Comptroller Mark Levine offered a sobering assessment of the City’s fiscal health today, warning the Mamdani administration’s preliminary budget takes an overly optimistic view of projected revenues and proposes risky paths for closing a looming gap.
Levine is warning that the city is staring down a $7.3 billion budget gap over this fiscal year and the next — a more dire projection than the mayor’s most recent estimate.
At a preliminary budget hearing today, the comptroller will outline his two-year budget gap estimate of at least $7.3 billion, and explain why he’s skeptical about the mayor’s revenue projections.
Mamdani says he wants to raise taxes on New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million per year. Some millionaires actually agree with him.
Mamdani announced 1,000 new free preschool seats for 3-year-olds in neighborhoods with unmet demand, including in some of New York City’s wealthiest zip codes — an expansion that he said would make the program truly universal for the first time.
A relationship that began with political solidarity over the plight of Palestinians has developed into a friendly connection between the mayor and Mahmoud Khalil, an activist detained under Trump’s crackdown for his role in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia.
President Trump and Jewish advocates slammed Mamdani for hosting anti-Israel activist and accused Hamas sympathizer Khalil at Gracie Mansion for Ramadan.
The FBI’s New York office said that their agents located explosive residue during a search of a storage unit believed to be tied to an attempted bombing outside the New York City mayor’s home last weekend.
Terror suspects Ibrahim Kayumi and Emir Balat, who allegedly of hurling two homemade bombs at an anti-Islam protest outside Gracie Mansion, had led relatively quiet lives in quaint, well-kept, Pennsylvania suburbs with their immigrant parents.
Cops temporarily evacuated a city park next to Gracie Mansion after an unattended package was discovered near where two ISIS-inspired protesters were arrested for throwing homemade bombs, but the object was later determined to be harmless, police said.
The City Council voted to start the process of giving local elected officials pay bumps with the formation of a three-person commission.
City Council members proposed a record-breaking $30-per-hour minimum wage bill – a measure that could nearly double the Big Apple’s current baseline pay of $17.
Thousands of New Yorkers are still waiting to receive official city-issued bins to put out their trash, and risk facing fines as soon as June if the sanitation department continues to face a supply chain backlog that’s slowed the delivery.
Former New York City Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Kaz Daughtry handed out more than a dozen NYPD parking placards to people not authorized to have them, police sources said. He denied the allegation.
An 83-year-old Air Force veteran pushed onto the subway tracks by a stranger at an Upper East Side station in a random act of violence is unlikely to survive, his heartbroken daughter said.
A pair of former rookie NYPD cops are facing federal charges for groping and stealing money from a naked prostitute in a Queens brothel, after the state case against them got tossed on speedy trial grounds.
Service on the E, F, M and R lines was suspended in most of Queens for two hours last night after a train struck and killed a person on the express track of the Queens Blvd. line.
Many villages across New York will hold elections on March 18.
Albany Mayor Dr. Dorcey Applyrs announced her first appointment to the city’s Community Police Review Board, selecting Dr. Lani Jones to serve as the board’s first mayoral appointee under the Applyrs administration.
Dutchess County Community College will expand its workforce training programs with the help of a state grant.
Greenville Superintendent Michael Bennett announced he will step down from his role effective April 13, 2026 and will transition to a new role aimed at advancing education statewide.
A beloved Albany Saint Patrick’s Day tradition is making its long-awaited return. The Copper Crow and The Hollow Bar and Kitchen in downtown Albany are hosting special breakfast events on parade day this Saturday.
A Troy man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting children over more than a year, according to the Albany County District Attorney’s Office.
An Albany man who shot and paralyzed another man during a June 2024 fight outside a CVS near Albany Medical Center was sentenced to 17 years to life in state prison, the Albany County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
