Good morning, it’s Tuesday and the end of June is upon us.
I’m already seeing calls drop off my calendar as people shift into vacation mode in anticipation of the July 4th weekend. I have mixed feelings about this holiday.
This year, thanks to the 205th celebrations, fireworks are going to be bigger and better than ever – assuming, that is, that the municipality where you live has been able to 1) find some fireworks and trained crews to detonate them, and 2) afford them in the first place.
I consider myself as patriotic as the next person, but since I became a dog owner, I have been a lot less of a fireworks fan. My OG dog, Henry, is very noise sensitive, and responds very badly to fireworks (as well as thunderclaps, cares backfiring, gun shots etc.) Watching him have an doggie anxiety attack is very painful, and no amount of drugs, soothing, closet time, etc. has worked to date.
If you have any advice, I’m all ears.
There are other things that are taking place in the sky that are considerably less noisy, but arguably no less spectacular.
Summer provides some of the best stargazing opportunities in the Northern Hemisphere – even though the nights themselves are short – in part because it’s warm out, and so comfortable to be outside, but also because we at this time are facing directly into the dense center of the Milky Way galaxy, providing a view of hundreds of billions of stars.
Mid-July through mid-August is a peak season for meteor showers, which are more commonly known as shooting stars. Meteors are, in fact, flashes of light that are caused by small space rocks known as meteoroids that burn up as they streak through Earth’s atmosphere at an extremely high rate of speed.
When meteors are traveling through space – before they hit the Earth’s atmosphere – they’re known as meteoroids. If these space rocks don’t disintegrate into nothing once they enter our atmosphere and make landfall somewhere on the planet, then they’re called meteorites.
Meteoroids are small chunks of rock or metal that orbit the Sun – usually not much larger than a dust particle or perhaps a pebble. They are born from either comets or asteroids, which are smaller than planets, but larger than the meteoroids themselves. Usually, meteoroids group together in the space between Mars and Jupiter, but have been known to show up elsewhere in the galaxy, too.
So now that we’ve got all THAT out of the way: Happy International Asteroid Day (and extra kudos to Google for sending an animated asteroid shooting across my screen!) This day marks the anniversary of the largest recorded asteroid impact in history – the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, Russia.
On that day, scientists recorded an object estimated to be up to 300 feet long plunging through the Earth’s atmosphere, creating a fireball in the process that exploded over a remote (thankfully) area, burning and toppling pine trees across several thousand acres. This phenomenon, which detonated with an energy equivalent to 10 to 15 megatons of TNT, is known as a cosmic airburst – there was no actually contact with the ground.
Astrophysicist and Queen guitarist Brian May, (that brings “We Will Rock You” to a whole new level, doesn’t it?), established Asteroid Day in 2014, along with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, filmmaker Grig Richters, and B612 Foundation president Danica Remy. The UN officially established the day in 2016 to raise awareness about asteroid hazards and the need for planetary defense.
You might have heard of an asteroid called 2024 YR4, which was speculated to pose a potential threat to Earth in 2032. But it looks like you can cross this off your list of anxieties, as NASA is now saying it’s highly unlikely that it will come in contact with our planet for at least the next century.
Phew. On to other worries, then.
An extreme heat watch is in effect from 10 a.m. tomorrow through 8 p.m. Friday. That means we should expect dangerously hot conditions with heat index values of 110 degrees or more. It will be hot and humid even after the sun goes down.
Today will bring a mix of sun and clouds, with more clouds as the day progresses, and a chance of a stray shower or thunderstorm. Temperatures will peak in the low 90s.
In the headlines…
The Supreme Court said the Federal Reserve, unlike any other agency in Washington, has a measure of independence from the presidency and day-to-day politics. But the court didn’t define to what extent.
President Trump expressed surprise after the Supreme Court yesterday declined to review his appeal in a civil case involving E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded $5 million in damages after she accused him of sexual assault.
Now Trump will have no choice but to pony up the $5 million to the 82-year-old, who has repeatedly claimed that the president sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room during the mid-1990s.
Trump continued to hem and haw about whether he would sign a popular piece of bipartisan legislation intended to lower housing costs for Americans nationwide. “It’s a yawn,” he said of the bill that lawmakers in his party are desperate for him to pass.
About four million Americans have dropped out of Affordable Care Act insurance coverage this year as costs soared due to the loss of enhanced subsidies.
Speaker Mike Johnson plans to use an unusual maneuver to merge the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) after conservatives ground the House to a halt over the voter ID bill.
The House passed a sprawling package of kids online safety bills last night, marking the first time a version of the landmark Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) made it out of the lower chamber.
A coalition of 25 states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against Trump’s administration for its strict interpretation of new Medicaid work requirements included in the One Big Beautiful Bill.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) violated congressional protections when it issued an interim final rule concerning who is eligible for exemptions from new Medicaid work requirements.
The Supreme Court turned away a legal battle involving New York’s now-repealed mandate for healthcare workers to receive the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic.
Trump acted lawfully when he fired former Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter last year, the Supreme Court ruled, finding legal protections against such dismissals unconstitutional.
Gov. Kathy Hochul yesterday urged residents to take precautions as the first widespread heat wave of the summer is expected to intensify Wednesday and Thursday.
Hochul announced plans for the massive 4th of July celebration that will take over NYC this week, with the largest parade of tall ships ever assembled as the centerpiece of the historic occasion marking America’s 250th birthday.
Hochul has signed legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Aron Wieder that expands residency options for correction officers employed at local jails in Rockland and Orange counties.
New York’s new law restricting mask use by ICE agents carrying out their duties went into effect Friday amid dueling lawsuits – with the Trump administration trying to stop it, and the state of New York filing its own to defend the law’s constitutionality.
AG Letitia James lauded a Supreme Court’s ruling upholding a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days to be counted.
Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat who represents New York’s 18th Congressional District, says the Department of Defense is looking to reduce statutory reporting requirements for PFAS at military installations – a move he opposes.
The Preservation League of New York State is now accepting nominations for its 2027–2028 Seven to Save list, a program aimed at identifying and supporting at-risk historic sites across the state.
The Democratic Socialists of America likely chose not to run or endorse a single recent candidate on Long Island because it thought it could lose face — but a planned local takeover is coming, experts say.
Long Island voters in both parties are consumed by economic dread — but they can’t agree on which financial issues mean the most to them or who is to blame, a new Post poll shows.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to permanently abandon its efforts to suspend funding for a $16 billion rail tunnel under the Hudson River, describing those attempts as “flagrantly” illegal.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first budget was set to come down to the wire yesterday as his administration remained stuck in a fight with the City Council over the expansion of a rental assistance program.
The Council and Mamdani are reportedly close on a deal that would see the administration spend an additional $125 million a year on the CityFHEPS voucher program, which pays a portion of eligible New Yorkers’ rent, and change eligibility requirements.
Mamdani’s administration announced the closure of a Rikers Island facility yesterday. City and jail officials said the North Infirmary Command was permanently shut down.
Mamdani admitted that his slate of candidates campaigning against Israel in favor of the Palestinian cause helped secure lasy Tuesday’s election sweep — and repeated that he opposes Israel functioning as a Jewish-led state.
Barstool owner Dave Portnoy said that he’d consider running for elected office over his frustrations with current Big Apple leadership — adding he’d “love to run against” Mamdani.
The number of New Yorkers who testified at public Rent Guidelines Board meetings more than doubled this year compared to last year, as Mamdani launched an initiative to get more people to turn out.
The Mamdani administration has unveiled rules for how the city’s new pied-à-terre tax will be enforced — with the first surcharge notices going out in the coming weeks.
The city is honoring the Knicks’ legendary championship clinch by installing temporary street signs feting them in Manhattan – but New Yorkers say it’s only a matter of time before the instant-classic markers are clinched by die-hard fans.
Mamdani unveiled a $15 million plan to expand transgender medical services for youths and adults across New York City, as local hospital systems have shuttered their treatment programs amid mounting pressure from the Trump administration.
Mamdani left his rent-stabilized apartment in Queens to move to the mayor’s official residence this year. Now, his former landlord is raising the rent on that unit for the new tenant by more than 30%. And there is nothing in the city’s new rent freeze to stop it.
A 51-year-old man has been indicted on charges of stabbing seven people at Pennsylvania Station earlier this month, Manhattan prosecutors said. The man, Hector Deleon, faces seven counts of attempted murder. All the victims survived.
Developers behind the latest effort to build thousands of new apartments above and along Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards train tracks say they plan to break ground by 2028 – a quarter century after city and state officials first greenlit the long-stalled development.
The proposal is the latest attempt to complete Atlantic Yards, a project near Downtown Brooklyn that includes building housing over a rail yard. It has been in progress for decades.
A dispute in a hotel room involving bear spray led to the evacuation of the 400-room DoubleTree hotel in the Financial District yesterday morning, leaving eight people with minor injuries, police said.
Luigi Mangione’s wild ride through the justice system stalled out yesterday when he got stuck in a Manhattan court elevator for 20 minutes, delaying a hearing in his federal case.
A judge yesterday moved back the start date of Mangione’s federal trial to January, saying the delay was necessary to accommodate his state trial scheduled to begin in September.
George Gresham, a hospital custodian who became a political force as the longtime president of the nation’s largest health care workers union before being ousted in an election last year amid accusations of self-enrichment, died on May 8. He was 71.
Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers East, which Gresham led from 2007 to 2025, said his death followed “a long illness.”
A federal lawsuit filed by a father and son who own more than 160 acres of property in Delaware County is seeking to overturn New York’s ban on the extraction of natural gas through fracking.
The father of the four children who were found dead in their grandmother’s apartment last week said he received 10 letters from Saratoga County Child Protective Services informing him that the agency was investigating the living conditions at their home.
A massive search for a missing 7-year-old boy expanded yesterday with police and residents combing the village for signs of Harbi Nagi, a nonverbal autistic child who vanished from a relative’s home on Sunday.
Beyond the hum of casino machines in the distance, a crowd gathered at the Saratoga Casino Hotel harness track on Sunday to quietly mourn and pay respects to 17 horses lost in a tragic barn fire earlier this month.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
