Good morning, it’s Thursday.
Now that the weather has decided to catch up and be seasonably appropriate, I am seeing – or rather smelling – more and more people breaking out their grills.
To be fair, I am sure that some diehard grilling fans have been partaking in this pastime all year, refusing to be deterred by snow, or ice, or cold – sort of like the people who religiously drink iced coffee in sub-zero temperatures. I consider grilling a fair weather practice and refuse to stand in the pouring rain or snow, parka on and tongs in hand, simply for the benefit of grill marks.
That’s why they made broilers. And air fryers.
Anyway.
Americans do love to connect with their inner prehistoric selves, charing their food on an open flame (or smoldering coals, or gas-fired grill, you get the idea).
Two-thirds of respondents to a 2025 survey called summer grilling season their favorite time of year. Hands down, it appears that hamburgers are this nation’s favorite grilling fare, with 77 percent reporting it was a No. 1 staple. Hot dogs clocked in second, with 65 percent.
Like so many iconic foods, the origin story of hamburgers is hotly debated. However, no less an authority than the Library of Congress maintains that a man named Louis Lassen, the proprietor of Louis’ Lunch in New Haven, CT, served the first true hamburger sandwich in the United States in 1900.
Louis’ Lunch is still alive and kicking, and claims the title of the nation’s oldest continuously operated hamburger restaurant, though it has relocated several times. It is now at 261 Crown St. in a building that has been landmarked by the city. Hamburgers are made on cast iron vertical gas broilers that date back to 1898, and bread is toasted in a 1929 Savory Appliance Radiant Gas Toaster.
The restaurant even has its own shorthand – for example, according to the website (linked above) if you ordered “two cheese works, a salad and a birch” you would be served two hamburgers with cheese, tomato and onion, cooked medium rare on toast, a side of potato salad and a birch beer.
Of course, humans have been consuming chopped up meat for centuries. How it’s served – with onions added; topped with gravy; even raw, mixed with egg, in some cases – depends on where you might be dining. “Hamburg” steak, though, originated in – where else? – Hamburg, Germany, and German immigrants brought the recipe to the U.S. with them when they arrived here in the 1800s.
So popular is the hamburger that Americans consume on average three a week, which adds up to be more than 150 a year (red meat is bad for you, says who?) You can, of course, have a “burger” made of pretty much anything these days – turkey, chicken, shrimp, salmon, tofu, beans, Beyond Meat. You get the picture.
Today is National Hamburger Day, and there are numerous offers and deals to be had. (It appears to also be National Beef Burger Day, but don’t let that arbitrarily limit your options.
We’re headed back down to cooler temperatures temporarily, with highs reaching only into the high 60s. We’ll see showers in the morning follower by clouds in the afternoon.
In the headlines…
Iran said that it had retaliated today against the latest U.S. strikes in southern Iran by targeting the American military base from which they were launched, warning that its response to further U.S. attacks would be “more decisive.”
President Trump yesterday held the door open for more negotiations with Iran but insisted he did not feel any political pressure to make a deal to end the unpopular three-month war and lower gas prices.
The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, the 82-year-old former magazine writer who accused Trump of sexual assault, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.
Trump had another medical exam this week, putting his health under renewed public scrutiny after he has worked to dismiss concerns over his age and stamina.
The 79-year-old president spent more than three hours at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for what the White House described as preventive medical and dental checkups.
A group of 35 former federal judges asked a court to reopen a legal dispute between President Trump and the federal government that was settled by creating a controversial $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund,” calling the deal potentially fraudulent.
Jill Biden says she was “frightened” as she watched Joe Biden’s 2024 debate performance unfold and thought he was having a stroke.
“I don’t know what happened,” the former first lady said in an interview with “CBS News Sunday Morning.” “As I watched it, I thought, ‘Oh, my God, he’s having a stroke.’ And it scared me to death.”
In a 30-second snippet of the interview, which is scheduled to air in full this weekend, she said that she had never seen her husband have a meltdown like the one she saw when he took the debate stage in Atlanta.
Former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi was diagnosed with thyroid cancer right after being fired by President Trump in April, she revealed yesterday.
She has been undergoing treatment and recovering from surgery she underwent a few weeks ago, she told CNN on Wednesday, adding that she’s “doing well.”
It’s 58 days late, but New York finally has a budget for fiscal year 2027, after lawmakers late adopted the final measures of the state budget – the latest in 16 years – late last night.
The budget softens the state’s climate change goals, limits local police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities and sprinkles cash across the state to cities struggling with their own financial woe
New regulations governing the auto insurance industry in New York were signed into law this week by Gov. Kathy Hochul and lawmakers hope they will lower premiums in a state with some of the highest rates in the nation.
The reforms are designed to “battle fraud, limit damages paid out to bad actors and ensure that consumers, not insurance companies, are prioritized,” according to the governor’s office.
New York drivers who have racked up 16 or more speed camera violations in a year will now need to install a speed-limiting device in their car, after Hochul signed legislation targeting drivers with numerous infractions.
The governor signed into law what her office describes as the most significant reforms of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) since its passage in 1975 as part of her “Let Them Build” agenda.
Hochul did her best to try and own Trump when asked a question about his New York Knicks fandom and things went horribly wrong.
More than 8 million New Yorkers are set to get a check this year to offset rising utility costs, according to a state budget bill set for passage this week.
Two free World Cup watch parties are coming to Long Island this summer after Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and Hochul both announced they’re sponsoring events.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, in an Empire Report op-ed, explained why she believes the state budget “truly addresses the affordability crisis.”
Tom DiNapoli, the state comptroller in New York since 2007, now faces his first primary challenge, as two Democrats hope to capitalize on anti-incumbent fervor.
The Legislature will introduce two constitutional amendments that would change the state’s redistricting process after a Supreme Court’s decision that weakened a landmark Civil Rights-era law credited for increasing minority representation in Congress.
A rally took place outside of state Sen. Jeremy Cooney’s office yesterday, where advocates called on him to co-sponsor the Rent Emergency Stabilization for Tenants (REST) Act, which aims to stabilize the increasing costs of rent.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani disbanded a hostile city commission created by his predecessor that, like a zombie, lived on into the New York City mayor’s tenure, moving to create his own in its place that is tasked proposing government efficiency initiatives.
Mamdani has agreed to let NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch place most of the department’s uniformed officers on 12-hour shifts during at least one week this summer, which could anger supporters who cheered his campaign promises to curb police spending.
The final New York state budget did not include an expected delay to the smaller class sizes mandate that Mamdani is banking on to shave a half-billion dollars off the city’s budget gap.
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, marked Eid Al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, by joining New Yorkers in prayer at Macombs Dam Park in the Bronx.
The mayor marked Eid al-Adha with members of the Bronx’s Muslim community, joining public prayers on the soccer field at Macombs Dam Park near Yankee Stadium while wearing a kurta styled after an Arsenal jersey.
Mamdani wanted a multibillion-dollar bailout from Albany this year, and he got one — but rather than a suite of big tax hikes, the final deal includes a mishmash of cost shifts, delayed pension payments and one notable new tax on pricey second homes.
The City Council is pushing back against Mamdani’s cuts to the Parks Department — seeking to fund an additional 200 officers to monitor quality-of-life issues across the Big Apple’s green spaces.
The city Department of Transportation is expected to announce today the redesign of McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn will be completed after years of delays.
As the New York Knicks prepare to compete in the N.B.A. finals for the first time since 1999, the cost to witness the games at the team’s home court, Madison Square Garden, has caught many fans off guard.
Israeli-made products were ripped from the shelves of the lefty Park Slope Food Coop just hours after being banned in a historic vote — prompting scores of Jewish shoppers to threaten to quit the member-run market in revolt.
Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso is defending organizers’ phone calls to voters that suggest that Mamdani supports him in the Democratic primary for NY-7, when Mamdani actually backs Reynoso’s rival.
Fatal subway surfing incidents across the five boroughs have persisted due to easily obtainable subway keys, MTA radios and an underground, engagement-focused social media community, NYPD officials said.
A deadly explosion at a Staten Island shipyard last week was accidental, according to the FDNY.
Happy, a Bronx Zoo elephant who gave researchers new insight into the animal’s behavior and became the crux of a closely watched animal rights case, has been euthanized at age 55 after she showed signs of falloff in kidney or liver function.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Lige Hampton said in a court deposition that he was concerned about “the safety of everyone there,” referring to the ICE holding cells at his workplace, 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan.
About six months after financial problems at Swifty’s Restaurant & Pub were made public, the Delmar location will be put up for sale later this week, according to the agent holding the listing.
A court stenographer’s filling of the transcript of a murder and arson trial with words like “blah, blah, blah” and “omitted” is not enough to force a new trial for a man convicted of killing a Steuben County man for insurance money, the Court of Appeals ruled.
State lawmakers approved an aid package for the City of Albany, which includes $20 million in additional funds to close the city’s 2025 budget deficit.
The custodian who was caught living at Hackett Middle School said he made a serious judgment error but wants to keep his job.
Clifton Park residents who tried to block construction of a large gas station and convenience store in their neighborhood lost their bid in state Supreme Court.
Efforts to develop the site of the former Kenwood Convent into a mixed-use commercial venture with a data center requiring as much as 180 megawatts of electricity will face a lengthy municipal approval process that the plan’s backers have yet to begin.
The pilot killed in a crash at Saratoga County Airport was towing a glider when his single-engine plane went nose down on takeoff and crashed on the runway, the FAA said.
A worker at The Fort Miller Co.’s concrete batch plant died yesterday morning while “working on production equipment,” according to the company.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
