Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
The unexpected mini-heatwave has sent my garden into overdrive. All of a sudden, it seems like everything is blooming all at once.
The former owner of this house was a master gardener, and thankfully planted a lot of perennials, which means things just come back year after year and I get to enjoy the fruits of her labor.
She selected the plants with pollinators in mind, which means we have a lot of butterfly, bug, and bee activity – something I welcome, as I understand the important roles they play, as long as they keep their distance from me on the porch and by the pool.
Small but incredibly mighty, bees are absolutely critical to the survival of the human race, as they are responsible for pollinating approximately one-third of the food we eat. That includes all manner of fruits, vegetables, and nuts – not to mention non-edible plants and trees that are part of a healthy ecosystem, preventing erosion and providing shade and clean air, as well as supporting a wide range of wildlife.
You probably think you’re familiar with bees, but I bet you’ll be surprised to discover that there are 20,000 different species of them – about 250 of which are bumblebees, 500 to 600 that don’t sting at all, and just 7 honeybees. (If you really want to go deep on the different types of bees, where they can be (ahem) found, and how to tell them apart, click here.
You might have heard something about catastrophic colony die-offs, which beekeepers across the U.S. say are responsible for the loss of some 600,000 bees every year. Bees can’t seem to catch a break, being negatively impacted by everything from climate change, disease and loss of habitat to overdevelopment, insecticide use, and even DOGE.
Both wild bees and managed honeybee populations, which are basically agricultural livestock and, in some cases, moved from place to place to put their pollinating skills to work, are struggling to stay afloat. The best way to address this, as far as I can tell from some very surface level reading, admittedly, is to double down on creating pollinator friendly habitats.
So, I guess I’m doing my part!
In case you hadn’t already guessed, today is World Bee Day, which was established by the UN in 2017 to raise awareness about the importance of bees to, well, everything.
Today’s date – May 20 – was selected because it’s the birthday of because of Anton Janša, who was born in Slovenia in 1734 and eventually became to be known as a pioneer of modern apiculture (the formal word for beekeeping). Though Slovenia has a longstanding beekeeping culture that pre-dated Janša, he was the first to teach it as a science and championed a number of innovations in the field.
As an aside, while bees can be deadly, they generally are NOT unless, 1) you’re allergic to their stings, or 2) they attack in a defensive swarm, which happens rarely, but usually in cases when a hive is disturbed. So, rule of thumb: Leave bees alone if you can, and if you DO get stung by one, and you know you’re allergic, take the necessary precautions.
Though it won’t be dropping precipitously in any way that threatens bee comfort or survival, the temperature is heading back down toward more seasonable norms.
Today will see highs “only” in the low 80s, with partly cloudy skies in the morning and cloud cover thickening as the day progresses. Get your Vitamin D in the form of sunshine while you can, because we’re going to be headed into a rainy stretch, according to the extended forecast.
In the headlines…
The Justice Department expanded the agreement it reached with President Trump to resolve his extraordinary lawsuit against the IRS to include a provision that would bar the agency from pursuing tax claims against the president, his family or his businesses.
In a one-page document signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and quietly posted on the department’s website, officials vowed not to pursue any matters, including those involving Trump’s tax returns, that are currently pending.
The new provision was released just one day after Trump agreed to drop his suit in exchange for the creation of a $1.8 billion compensation fund for people he believes were wronged by federal investigations or prosecutions.
Republican senators yesterday tabled an amendment introduced by Democratic Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego that would bar the Trump administration from creating its $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.
Former New York City Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Eric Adams could be among those who seek payouts from Trump’s $1.8 billion fund to compensate people who faced federal investigation and prosecution under the previous presidential administration.
As part of the settlement deal, the U.S. is also “forever barred and precluded” from examining or prosecuting Trump, his sons and the Trump organization’s current tax examinations.
The Senate agreed to take up a measure that would force Trump to end the war in Iran or win authorization from Congress to continue it, after a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in pushing forward with a resolution the GOP has blocked for months.
The Trump administration says it can’t bring a Colombian woman back to the United States after deporting her to Africa — despite a court order demanding her return — because of the ongoing Ebola outbreak there.
Republicans backed by the president won or were in first place in primaries yesterday in Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky, where Rep. Thomas Massie, the House’s most prominent G.O.P. critic of Trump, was sent on his way out of Congress.
Massie’s loss marks Trump’s latest victory in his ongoing retribution-seeking efforts and reinforces his dominance in the G.O.P. despite his consistently sinking approval ratings among Americans more broadly.
The president’s endorsement of Ken Paxton, a MAGA loyalist, in Texas was viewed as a hammer blow to respected veteran Senator John Cornyn’s hopes of retaining his seat ahead of a runoff election next week.
State Rep. Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist who has repeatedly challenged Philadelphia’s political establishment, won the tightly contested 3rd Congressional District primary — a victory for the city’s left-leaning coalition after a combative and rare open contest.
Rabb, an anti-ICE, anti-establishment state representative and self-described “radical” democratic socialist endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Rep. Mike Collins, an immigration hard-liner, and Derek Dooley, a former college football coach and political newcomer, advanced yesterday to a runoff in the Republican Senate primary in Georgia.
State Assembly Democrats have discussed adding a $250,000 item in New York’s overdue budget to provide State Police security for the Swift-Kelce nuptials, which will take place in the Big Apple on July 3. But the funding was pulled from the agenda.
Every major New York cannabis trade organization unified in Albany behind a single message: the legal market the state spent five years building is still being undercut by illicit products, and regulators, lawmakers and licensees need to close that gap together.
A bill recently introduced by state Sen. Patricia Fahy would bring self-driving cars such as Waymo taxis to Albany and Rensselaer counties, the latest attempt to expand the use of autonomous vehicles in New York.
The financial backgrounds of three challengers battling to unseat longtime incumbent state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli have been disclosed in new filings with the state ethics commission.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the GOP nominee for governor, posted an AI-generated campaign video that may run afoul of a 2024 law aimed at curbing deceptive political communication. His campaign denied the video violated election law.
Trump will deliver remarks on Friday in Rockland County at a campaign event for U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, who is fighting to keep his congressional seat in one of New York’s most hotly contested swing districts.
Nearly two years after the Board of Regents announced that Regents exams would someday become optional for students to earn their high school diplomas, school districts are taking matters into their own hands.
A last-ditch effort to prevent hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers from losing their publicly funded health insurance is facing an uphill battle in Albany.
State lawmakers are nearing a deal to send rebate checks to qualified New Yorkers to offset rising energy costs this fall, according to legislation being drafted at the State Capitol.
“Those of you who thought we’d have a budget by the LCA Show? You just lost big on Kalshi,” Gov. Kathy Hochul joked on stage at the LCA Show last night. “That’s how we filled New York City’s budget gap.”
Hochul brought her A-game to her rebuttal. Embracing her “wrath of Kath” persona (with an image emblazoned on T-shirts tossed to the crowd), she donned a leather jacket and entered the stage through a cloud of smoke.
Hochul got a celebrity boost from Alec Baldwin, who played Trump in a prerecorded video skit, imploring the governor to rename landmarks such as “Cen-Trump Park” or “the Trumpen Zee Bridge.”
Hochul is poised to make New York the nation’s latest sanctuary state, completing a remarkable evolution from an upstate county clerk who once threatened to call the authorities on undocumented immigrants seeking driver’s licenses.
The Long Island Rail Road slowly crawled back into action yesterday after the MTA cut a deal with transit unions that ended a strike that shuttered the service for three days.
The exact cost and details of the deal that brought the roughly 3,500 workers back on the job are not yet available, but so far, it seems Hochul can claim at least a modest victory over the strike’s end.
Details are still emerging about the contract reached after a three-day strike that shut down America’s busiest passenger rail service. But the fallout could be felt for years.
New York City has extended nearly 100,000 3-K and Pre-K offers for the upcoming school year, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Hochul announced yesterday.
Mamdani has agreed to a quarterly on-air interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer, following a time-honored tradition of New York City mayors using call-in radio to respond to the questions, opinions and gripes from regular New Yorkers.
Mamdani said the Luigi Mangione supporters who celebrated the killing of a UnitedHealthcare CEO should not have received press credentials, and his administration is looking into “what the immediate next steps are” for changing how they’re handed out.
“Those three individuals should not have received press passes,” the mayor told reporters, referencing the three Mangione supporters, who call themselves the Mangionistas.
It’s unclear whether the City Council has the votes to override Mamdani’s first veto of a controversial bill that would require the police department to create and publicize plans for security perimeters around educational facilities during protests.
A Voodoo King delivered a clutch assist ahead of the Knicks’ wild comeback win last night, conducting a spiritual cleanse to quell fears from fans that Mamdani would bring his “Curse of the Mambino” to Madison Square Garden.
More than a year after the Trump administration abandoned a federal corruption indictment against Eric Adams, then the mayor of New York City, a government watchdog is asking Manhattan’s top prosecutor to pursue the case in state court.
Federal agents yesterday detained a 21-year-old Honduran man at an immigration court in New York City, an action that his attorneys said defied a federal judge who barred such arrests a day earlier.
A 56-year-old woman died overnight after falling into an open manhole when she stepped out of her vehicle in Midtown Manhattan — one of New Yorkers’ greatest fears.
A 40-year-old man died in New York City jail custody yesterday morning after he was found unresponsive at Rikers Island, less than 24 hours after a 41-year-old woman died at the women’s jail on the same complex.
A group of tenants of rent-stabilized apartment buildings once in the portfolio of the failed Signature Bank say conditions haven’t improved fast enough since the New York City Employees’ Retirement System invested in their buildings’ mortgage loans in 2024.
“Beaches,” a long-in-the-works stage musical about a decades-long friendship between two women, announced that it would close on Sunday after a disappointingly short Broadway run.
At least five Long Island school budget proposals failed to garner enough voter support Tuesday while 115 others won approval, according to early returns last night. Results for the remaining four districts were still pending by midnight.
Local Conservative Party leader Bill Fiacco is back at his job as a maintenance supervisor at the Rensselaer County Courthouse less than two weeks after he called a longtime Capital Region official a homophobic slur on social media.
A welfare check on an elderly woman on Friday thwarted a scam to bilk her out of $20,000, according to the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office.
A $40 million project to repave a stretch of the Northway from Guilderland to Malta begins this week, the state Department of Transportation announced.
The Grassland Bird Trust expects to withdraw its pending appeal with the state Office of Renewable Energy Siting to limit a Canadian company’s plans for a solar array in exchange for funding to buy more habitat for threatened and endangered birds.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
