Good morning, it’s Thursday.
If you are lucky enough to live somewhere with low light pollution and – perhaps more importantly in this case – minimal clouds in the forecast (more on this in a moment) you are in for a sky-watching treat tonight into tomorrow morning.
The Alpha Capricornids and the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor showers are both set to peak tonight – a rare occurrence that offers the opportunity to see two very different types of meteors, scientists say. Though neither of these showers are as visually spectacular on their own as, say, the larger Perseids, which are scheduled to peak in the middle of next month, together they should put on a pretty good show.
At its height, the Southern Delta Aquariids can generate as many as 25 shooting stars an hour and the Alpha Capricornids about five per hour. You have to be assiduous and patient in order to catch the Aquariids, which tend to be on the smaller and dimmer side and also move very fast, making them difficult to spot, but the Capricornids are known to produce very bright fireballs, which streak across the sky with considerable drama.
The Aquariids and the Caprocornids are believed to be caused by debris generated by two different comets – Comet 96P/Machholz and Comet 169P/NEAT, respectively. (Remember that meteor showers are created when the Earth moves through a comet’s debris trail, and the atmosphere gets littered with space rocks called meteoroids.)
Aside from the light and weather challenges, there’s one more wrinkle sky watchers will have to contend with tonight: The full Buck moon, (named for the season during which male deer start growing their new antlers), which will be glowing so brightly that it will make the meteor showers harder to see. The moon is scheduled to reach its peak illumination at 10:36 a.m. Eastern Time.
If you are going to try to catch the show tonight, go out between midnight and dawn, get as far away from human-made light as you can and find a spot that is elevated with a clear view of the sky. Don’t get frustrated if you don’t see anything right away. It takes about 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust, though you shouldn’t need any fancy equipment like binoculars or a telescope, though I guess it couldn’t hurt if you had them available and wanted to bring them along.
If you happen to be in the Southern Hemisphere, you’re likely to have better viewing conditions because these two showers will be positioned closer to overhead in that part of the world as opposed to down by the horizon, which is what we will be seeing – if we are lucky enough to sport anything at all – up North.
The forecast in the Albany area is calling for overcast skies with lingering rain showers during the day and high temperatures peaking in the mid-70s. It looks like that might clear up in time for the meteor show, however, with the evening forecast predicting just a “few clouds from time to time”.
Fingers crossed.
In the headlines…
U.S. Central Command announced new strikes on Iran in response to Iranian forces targeting U.S. military assets in the Middle East, after a day in which fighting reignited across the region.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened further escalation after a wave of retaliatory U.S. strikes on the country overnight.
An Iranian strike hit a Chinese firm’s building in northern Kuwait this morning, severely damaging the structure and killing a worker, Kuwait’s military said, hours after Jordan’s air defenses shot down five missiles launched from Iran.
Republicans last night postponed a critical vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general after two key G.O.P. senators threatened to derail it over a deal he cut to settle President Trump’s lawsuit against the I.R.S.
The senators, John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who are not returning to Congress next year, accused Blanche of refusing to put on paper his promise to kill aspects of the deal.
President Trump claimed that the Supreme Court striking down his emergency tariffs and executive order restricting birthright citizenship cost the country “trillions and trillions” of dollars.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Does anybody have any idea how much Money and Prestige the United States Supreme Court has cost our Nation with their negative Rulings on Birthright Citizenship and TARIFFS? The answer, TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS!”
Dr. Anthony Fauci yesterday repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer dozens of questions from senators in a Republican-led committee hearing about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The decision, at least for now, shielded Fauci from answering questions that could expose him to accusations of lying under oath.
Hadi Matar, the man who stabbed author Salman Rushdie more than a dozen times in 2022, was found guilty of aiding a foreign terrorist group and carrying out the orders of the Iranian government, which called for Rushdie’s death more than three decades ago.
“(Matar’s) brutal attack on Mr. Rushdie during a peaceful speaking event is a chilling reminder of the global reach of Iranian terrorism,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg said in a statement, adding that “justice has been done.”
A federal judge in Newark has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit that sought to force New Jersey to turn over its voter registration records.
The latest round of rebate checks for New York taxpayers will be arriving in September and October — on the eve of an election — according to a person familiar with the matter.
Energy capacity and the potential impact on electric ratepayers emerged as a central concern Wednesday as Gov. Kathy Hochul defended her decision to temporarily halt new hyperscale data center development in New York.
Supporters of the moratorium took the chance to voice concerns about data centers that went beyond environmental impacts. The governor met with eight people in Henrietta outside Rochester to talk about what they’d like to see happen over the next year.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is taking another page out of Trump’s playbook and refusing to say he will accept the results of the November election without a caveat. That comes shortly after he said Democrats will “steal” the election.
Blakeman railed against rival Hochul for soaring MTA spending — but he stood by the “hardworking people” in the transit agency labor unions after a Post report on soaring overtime spending.
Nearly 52 million students nationwide in public, private or charter schools could be eligible for federal “freedom” scholarships, including more than 2.7 million students in New York state, according to a new report released this week.
Federal district judges in Manhattan appointed James M. McDonald, a former partner at Sullivan & Cromwell who represented President Trump in his appeal of his criminal conviction, to lead the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.
Nearly a week after New York City tax officials released information on who could potentially be on the hook for a new pied-à-terre tax, attorneys and homeowners said they were baffled by the process overseen by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration.
Mamdani defended his administration’s rollout of pied-á-terre surcharge amid criticism that the 17,000 New York City homeowners notified they may be subject to the tax include some who live full-time in the city.
The information already was available to anyone who wanted to see it and was compiled “based on the parameters set by the state law,” said Jae Ko, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Finance.
Food delivery workers raked in an additional $104 million in tips after the city started enforcing a law to crack down on “deceptive” tipping practices from delivery apps, Mamdani said.
Actress Patricia Heaton, who was in New York City during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, joined families of the victims in calling for Mamdani to be banned from the 25th anniversary at Ground Zero.
MTA boss Janno Lieber blamed Mamdani’s “free bus” promises for a spike in fare evasion that has sent paid ridership plummeting by a whopping 7.7% in June.
Mamdani said that religion played no part in his selection process for the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary.
New York City officials told developers this week to pause some construction at a high-rise office building in Midtown Manhattan over structural issues at the building, which is being converted to apartments.
The rider of an illegal motor-bike was killed on his way to work yesterday morning in Lower Manhattan outside of the protected bike lane that conveys cyclists northbound from the Brooklyn Bridge path.
The long-stalled plan to build a floating pool in the East River is once again delayed until at least 2027.
The MTA announced a settlement with disability advocates to end a multiyear legal dispute over high rates of broken and out-of-service subway station elevators.
A Manhattan judge ordered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to sit for a deposition on Jan. 30 in his sexual harassment case while urging both sides to prioritize settlement talks.
The union representing Central Park’s carriage horse drivers is suggesting that electrical problems could be behind what made a horse bolt last month — killing an 18-year-old tourist.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a nearly $300 million deficit next year, with higher-than-anticipated raises won by Long Island Rail Road union workers costing the agency an additional $180 million per year.
Torrential rains not seen since Tropical Storm Irene hit New York nearly 15 years ago flooded homes and streets across the Capital Region and Hudson Valley, making travel dangerous as precipitation overwhelmed storm sewers and sent creeks spilling over.
Numerous towns and counties in the Capital Region and Hudson Valley declared a state of emergency due to flash flood warnings and watches.
Two Hudson Valley duck farms this week fired the latest salvo in their seven-year battle to overturn New York City’s ban on the sale of foie gras, arguing that an appellate court’s decision earlier this year ignored the intent of state law.
More than 351,000 people, or 12% of the population, in 23 New York counties north of Westchester don’t know where their next meal is coming from, according to a 2026 State of Hunger Report released by the Regional Food Bank of Northeast New York.
The operators of an Arbor Hill convenience store were arrested this week on federal criminal charges that accuse them of redeeming more than $1.5 million in fraudulent food stamp benefits during an 18-month period that ended in December.
Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy is refusing to advance the NAACP city branch’s recommendation that political rival Marion Porterfield serve as a volunteer member of the panel that reviews the police department’s internal affairs investigations.
A 39-year-old youth aid bureau detective died this week after 16 years on the Schenectady Police force. Tim Higgins, who was diagnosed with peripheral T-cell lymphoma in 2025, was getting treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
