Good morning, it’s Thursday. The unofficial start of summer is upon us as Memorial Day weekend approaches.
I’m going to hazard a guess that half of the people who usually read this morning missive are already checked out and on their way to the beach, the lake, the mountains etc. Sadly, we’re headed into some decidedly un-summer weather – a sharp contrast to the record-breaking heat we briefly experienced.
Mother Nature forgot to look at the calendar, maybe?
Today will bring temperatures in the mid-60s with clouds in the morning and sunshine in the afternoon. As for the weekend, tomorrow (Friday) is shaping up to be the best of the lot, though it still won’t be pool weather for all but the heartiest of souls, with highs flirting with 70 degrees. Skies will be partly cloudy.
There’s a chance of rain on both Saturday and Sunday, with temperatures dropping from the mid-60s to the high 50s. Brrr.
Sundown tonight is the start of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, commemorating the day that G-d gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on top of at Mount Sinai. This is a pretty major holiday that not a lot of people outside the faith are aware of. It is widely considered the spiritual birthday of the Jewish nation, which these days is a controversial topic in and if itself.
The word “shavuot” means “weeks” in Hebrew, so this is the “Festival of Weeks”. It marks the conclusion of the Counting of the Omer, ending the seven-week countdown that begins on the second day of Passover.
There’s also a less religious aspect to Shavuot, which is also an ancient agricultural festival celebrating the end of the spring barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest. It was traditional for farmers to mark this moment by bringing the first yields of their wheat fields and/or bread that was baked from that wheat to the temple as an offering.
One of the traditions on Shavuot – reading from the Book of Ruth – makes a connection between the spiritual and agricultural aspects of the holiday as it is set against a backdrop of harvesting and gleaning grains. It is also common to stay up all night to study Torah on Shavuot (the holiday spans a 24-hour period from sundown to sundown) and eat dairy foods like cheesecake.
The eating of dairy is in part to mark the beginning – through the transfer of the Torah on Mt. Sinai – of the laws of kashrut (keeping kosher), which forbid the mixing of milk and meat. There are other reasons, too, and if you want to go deep on that, click here.
Since we’ve already dispensed with the weather (I’ve been doing that a lot lately…the weather has just seemed newsworthy, of late), let’s get down to business.
In the headlines…
The Democratic Party is entering the midterm elections with the political winds at its back but a fiercely dissatisfied and divided voter base that is trying to steer the party in wildly divergent directions, a New York Times/Siena poll found.
More than half of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents expressed frustration with the party, despite the fact that Democrats appear well positioned to take the House and compete for the Senate in November.
The House passed a sprawling housing bill aimed at tackling a major cost-of-living issue, bringing Congress a step closer to passing the most substantial housing legislation in a generation.
The $1.8 billion fund created by the Trump administration to pay people who claim mistreatment by the federal government appears to violate longstanding DOJ standards and practices, as well as a policy directive issued by the administration last year.
A federal judge ordered the White House to preserve all presidential records including text messages exchanged among its top officials, telling the Trump administration that at least for now it must follow a law it had unilaterally declared unconstitutional.
The Department of Health and Human Services released its newest surgeon general advisory on adolescent screen time, urging kids to put down their phones and “be in the moment,” stopping short of recommending specific screen-time limits.
Dr. Stephanie Haridopolos, an HHS official who was the architect of the advisory, urged children and adolescents to “live real life” — a reference to the advisory’s recommendation to youth engaging in what they call excessive screen time.
Public health experts around the world and health workers on the ground in the Congo say that the response to the Ebola crisis has been significantly hindered by the near-absence so far of the United States, historically the leader in any major outbreak.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief yesterday shot down Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments alleging the agency was a “little late” to identify an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The state Legislature has finally printed one of the remaining nine budget bills, setting lawmakers up to at least begin voting. But the process is still slow-going as legislators grapple with what is already the tardiest spending plan in nearly two decades.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie expects state legislators to pass two constitutional amendments on redistricting before adjourning for the year in early June.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman has a plan for the GOP to win back the governor’s mansion: organized labor.
New York lawmakers will provide more funding for schools to fulfill a new mandate to begin offering full-day pre-K by 2028 but will also delay the deadline by five years for districts to begin only purchasing electric buses as fleets are updated.
Education advocates are cheering changes in the state funding formula for school aid that would increase support for city students who are homeless, in foster care or learning English.
The first of nine state budget bills is out and includes a surprise expansion of an expired and controversial property tax break – a narrow expansion of projects that can qualify for 421-a, which expired in June 2022.
Kingston is among 18 of the 28 cities in the state’s Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) initiative that saw no gun-related homicides in the first four months of the year, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
The state Legislature is considering giving Mayor Zohran Mamdani the power to shut down his predecessor’s last-minute City Charter review commission.
Mamdani will maintain control of the nation’s largest school system for the next two years under state legislation unveiled yesterday.
Mamdani fired back at Jeff Bezos after the Amazon founder and executive chairman questioned whether raising taxes on billionaires would do anything to help working-class New Yorkers.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not gonna help that teacher in Queens. I promise you,” Bezos said in an interview on CNBC. Mamdani responded on X: “I know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ.”
Bezos called the pied-a-terre tax “fine”, while rejecting broader “tax-the-rich” arguments, saying: “Ken Griffin isn’t a villain. He hasn’t hurt anybody; he’s not hurting New York. In fact, quite the opposite.”
In harnessing the power of memes and narrative, Mamdani is relying on a well-worn playbook — one used by the MAGA world in its over-the-top portrayals of Trump and by the left in how it uses Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in its messaging.
Mamdani is targeting a wide swath of Brooklyn south of Prospect Park for his first neighborhood-level housing plan, with an eye toward the future Interborough Express light rail, officials.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted his successor, Mamdani, for planning to skip the upcoming Israel Day parade — calling the snub evidence of his “hatred” toward Jewish people.
Mamdani joined Hochul and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to celebrate record low crime levels in the Bronx, to tout violence prevention programs and to announce a surge of 200 more cops into the borough. Notably absent: His Office of Community Safety.
Ramzi Kassem is accustomed to challenging authority. As the chief counsel to Mamdani, he finds himself on the other side.
New York City’s chief auditor is calling on Mamdani to make big-time budget cuts – warning about the potential hit artificial intelligence could deliver to the economy of the world’s financial capital.
The city must move swiftly to prepare for the job losses that may result, the comptroller, Mark Levine, warned in a new report, which marks the first major effort by city officials to engage with the looming question of what A.I. will mean for New York’s future.
Rather than attempt to override Mamdani’s first veto, the City Council will reintroduce a new version of the controversial bill that would require the NYPD to create and publicize plans for security perimeters around educational facilities during protests.
Menin’s new bill would direct the NYPD to plan protest buffer zones for public and private K-12 schools only. Colleges, universities, museums and libraries, teaching hospitals and other educational facilities will not fall under the bill’s scope.
Donike Gocaj, 56, who fell into an open manhole in Midtown Manhattan after stepping out of her car, died as a result of the intense heat inside the manhole beneath the streets and trauma from the fall, according to the city’s medical examiner.
Amtrak said that it had chosen a developer to remake dreary Penn Station in New York City, one day after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the federal government intended to spend $8 billion on the project.
Madison Square Garden will not be forced to relocate under a Penn Station redesign plan approved by the Trump administration and Amtrak Wednesday — with the federal government pledging $8 billion to revamp the decrepit train hub.
The MTA bungled routine garage repair work so badly the agency now has to fork over an additional half a million dollars and add another year onto the project’s timeline.
Even with its Pride flag restored, New York City’s iconic Stonewall National Monument has been put on an endangered list of historic national places.
Bronx residents will walk through a new pavilion on the way to Orchard Beach this summer due to a $114 million overhaul to the New Deal-era building.
A Brooklyn woman was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for drowning her three children in the ocean and leaving their bodies along the Coney Island shoreline.
Joey Chestnut, the competitive eater best known for winning the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest 17 times, pleaded guilty to a battery misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to 180 days of probation in April.
New York City was pummeled with heavy rain and thunderstorms as stranded drivers were forced to seek refuge atop their cars amid the violent flash flooding.
Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs may enlist the private sector to fund youth and seasonal recreation jobs as part of her administration’s broader approach to public safety.
Republican Mayor Carmella Mantello and Democratic Council President Sue Steele have agreed to implement additional internal controls on Flock Safety license plate readers, including limitations on data sharing, following months of vocal public backlash.
Voters in the Capital Region offered a clear statement about electric buses in Tuesday’s school budget votes.
Voters gathered in Schaghticoke on Tuesday to not only vote down a budget but also mourn a beloved school they said is now in its death throes.
Efforts from two county law enforcement leaders and deputies to save an estimated 70-year-old snapping turtle that was likely hit by a car did not prevail.
Russell Sage College inched closer to its merger with the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences this week, winning Board of Regents approval. The next (and final) step: getting federal approval. That’s expected next year.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
