Good morning, it’s Monday.
I saw some very cute ghosts, superheroes, dragons, and modern-day cartoon characters I couldn’t for the life of me identify this past weekend, and enjoyed it greatly.
In the absence of children in my household, I indulged by desire to dress up by purchasing costumes for the dogs and sending them off to daycare dressed as an oversized bumblebee, a glow-in-the-dark skeleton, and a furry pumpkin.
The resulting photos, secured with the assistance of many treats, no doubt, were priceless.
During my run this morning, I saw people out in their yards wasting no time in taking down their Halloween decorations. No doubt the Christmas lights will be up within a matter of days, which seems a little too early – especially given that the weather has remained relatively clear and unseasonably warm.
For those who simply can’t get enough Halloween, there’s Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which not Halloween, per se, but perhaps Halloween adjacent. It is observed throughout Mexico and Central America, as well as in Latino and Mexican-American communities here in the U.S., Oct. 31 and Nov. 1-2.
It is believed that the spirits of the dead return to earth during this holiday to visit with their living relatives and loved ones whom they left behind.
The gates of heaven are said to open on Halloween. Then on Nov. 1 – Día de los Angelitos (day of the little angels) – the spirits of deceased children come back to reunite with their parents and other family members, and on Nov. 2 – Día de los Muertos (also known as All Souls Day) – the adult spirits get in on the action.
This is a joyous, rather than sad or mournful, holiday. It is not, as some people think, a Mexican version of Halloween, though the two do share some traditions – like costumes (often skull masks or makeup) and parades and treats, including sugar skulls and a weet bread decorated to resemble a skull and crossbones known as pan de muerto.
Another tradition for the Day of the Dead is to build an ofrenda, which is a temporary alter that usually incorporates the four elements – earth, wind, and fire – to honor the returning spirits.
On the ofrenda, one might find candles to lead the spirits’ way, pitchers of water so the dead can quench their thirst after their long journey back to the world of the living, bright orange marigold flowers (also believed to help guide the dead to the altar through their strong scent), sugar skulls, and decoratively cut paper that represent the wind and/or fragility of life.
Also on the ofrenda you’ll likely find pictures of the deceased and some of their favorite meals (notably tamales) and alcoholic drinks, toys, or personal belongings.
Another warm day is on tap, with highs reaching into the high 60s. Skies will be partly cloudy.
In the headlines…
Democrats are ahead of Republicans in almost all of the seven battleground states that will determine which party controls the Senate, according to the final set of polls from The New York Times and Siena University before the midterm elections.
The surveys found that Democrats hold sizable leads in Texas, which has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988, and Kansas, which has not elected one since 1932.
All told, the Democratic Party is ahead in all seven states likeliest to decide control of the Senate: Michigan, Kansas, Texas, Maine, Ohio and, more narrowly, Alaska and Iowa.
Michigan Dem Rep. Haley Stevens endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers Sunday in a stunning defection two days before the midterm election after a massive, public falling-out with Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, two of the Democratic Party’s most prominent progressives, bashed Stevens on Sunday for endorsing Rogers over El-Sayed, a fellow Democrat, in the high-stakes Michigan Senate race.
Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville was slammed for comparing Stevens to a “used condom” after she endorsed Rogers and suggested she consider opening a cheeseburger restaurant with another party-line crosser, Pennsylvania’s Sen. John Fetterman.
President Donald Trump railed against El-Sayed at a campaign event in Iowa Sunday, repeatedly referring to the Michigan progressive as a “jihadist”.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris, two potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2028, appeared together in public on Sunday for the first time all year, but there were few hints of what would happen after Tuesday’s election.
Republicans are already privately blaming Trump as they brace for losses on Tuesday. Even as they race to distance themselves from his actions on tariffs, the unpopular Iran war and his mass deportation agenda, few have been willing to criticize him publicly.
Trump’s allies are bracing for legal bills that could reach into the millions as Democrats ready for investigations if they win the Tuesday midterm elections — but the administration is preparing to fight back and has a new tool to drag out proceedings.
Senator Christopher S. Murphy, 53, Democrat of Connecticut, was hospitalized on Saturday after suffering a stroke, according to a statement from his chief of staff. Doctors are optimistic he will make a full recovery.
Air traffic control audio revealed the panicked final moments from a private jet as it plummeted to Earth near a South Florida mobile home park, leaving at least nine people dead.
Photos and video posted online showed the business jet diving nose first to the ground and exploding. In a radio call, a pilot said the plane was descending at 20,000 feet per minute.
Shootings in four college communities over the weekend left three people dead and at least 29 others injured. Indiana, Delaware, Alabama, Illinois and Colorado police are each investigating shootings in crowded parties near college communities.
The hail of Texas gunfire was part of a wave of violence on Halloween that left at least 24 dead and 94 wounded across the country, according to police statements. The shootings stretched from California to Delaware.
Students gathered on college campuses on Sunday night for a joint event organized by the group Take Back the Night to protest sexual violence on campus in the wake of allegations of rape at Cornell University.
Gov. Kathy Hochul says the Trump administration has made it “very difficult” to achieve some of her goals for the state, including addressing high energy costs.
In the final days before the general election, the governor campaigned in New York City with Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez. Her opponent, GOP Bruce Blakeman, focused on Long Island and upstate.
“They want to support me and I’m grateful to have such a broad base of individuals with different perspectives who are joining our coalition to make sure Democrats win big,” Hochul told reporters.
The governor began her day at a diner on the Upper West Side, seeking to bolster support in an area that typically favors Democrats. Hochul has defended Democratic principles against what she describes as “Trump-style” leadership.
Blakeman, rallying with 100 supporters in Queens, attacked Hochul over congestion pricing, which charges a toll for vehicles operating south of 60th Street in Manhattan, and predicted the fee would expand to other parts of the city.
Democratic Queens Councilmember Phil Wong is blasting Hochul for her gas stove ban, saying it’ll take a bite out of Asian culture.
Hochul’s war chest heading into next week’s election has been padded by donations from people she installed in state government jobs.
Some progressive Democrats who are dragging their feet to the polls to vote for Hochul have landed on a solution: Follow Mamdani’s lead and vote for her on the Working Families Party ballot line.
Tens of millions of dollars from around the country are flowing into competitive congressional races in upstate New York, according to a Times Union analysis of campaign spending data. And the spigot remains open.
Flu season is making an early appearance in New York this year, with cases rising steadily during the past month. The state health authorities have already logged more than 10,000 flu cases this season, which is likely an undercount.
A year after Mamdani’s election, New York’s economy doesn’t look like the stuff of socialist dreams — or capitalist nightmares. Zohranomics is unfolding at a piecemeal pace.
After Mamdani sought to remove the head of New York City’s Racial Equity Commission, some have raised questions about his commitment to reparations.
NYC First Lady Rama Duwaji has yet again jetted overseas, this time to England where she collaborated with global pop star Dua Lipa on an art installation for the 2026 London Literature Festival.
The nation’s two most important buyers of mortgage loans have imposed new rules for New York City’s rent-regulated buildings in the wake of Mamdani’s rent freeze that are making it impossible or extremely difficult for landlords to get financing.
Nearly a year into his administration, Mamdani has not shared a vision for addressing many of the pressing challenges facing the New York City school system. One of the most urgent is the small-schools crisis, driven by years of declining enrollment.
President Trump has agreed to grant an immediate travel visa to the mother of Javits Frimpong, a 15-year-old boy originally from Ghana who was shot and killed on his way to school in the Bronx earlier this week, Mamdani said.
The Council’s sanitation committee will take a closer look at how the city prepares for winter storms and snow removal, after two major storms buried streets and sidewalks earlier this year and lingering low temperatures kept piles of snow frozen for weeks.
The 28-year-old jogger savagely stabbed on a Brooklyn promenade Friday night spoke to her dad on the phone just minutes earlier, law-enforcement sources revealed to The Post — along with other eerie new details in the baffling case.
Katie Suarez, of Gravesend, Brooklyn, was stabbed while running on the Shore Parkway Greenway near Bay 17th Street, the police said. As of Sunday, no arrests had been made.
In 2023, after several e-bike battery fires erupted inside NYCHA apartments, leadership considered banning the devices entirely from authority property, but instead restricted households to charging only one battery at a time – a compromise that has had deadly results.
Central Park goers want lawless e-bikes to slow down but the reckless riders are defiantly flouting laws and turning the greenspace into a danger zone. Now some fed-up locals say it’s time for an outright ban.
Clear skies and warm weather made Sunday the “perfect” day for a New York City marathon — at least according to the revelers packed along the 26.2 mile route.
Andreas Almgren of Sweden and Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya were the first man and woman respectively to win the New York City Marathon on Sunday — beating a record number of competitors.
New York civil rights activists are applauding a judge’s findings in California that there was “a mountain of evidence” showing ICE agents racially profiled Latinos in the LA area, in violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Requests for shoreline setback variances have reached record levels in Adirondack communities, particularly those on Lake George, driven in part by a surge of converting camps into year-round homes, Adirondack Park Agency data reveals.
A law firm hired by the Rotterdam Town Board to investigate workplace misconduct complaints filed by two employees against town Supervisor John Polimeni and town attorney John Mertz has determined the allegations could not be substantiated.
Bat populations, which plunged by as much as 99% from white-nose syndrome over the past 20 years, regrouped in the deep Barton Hill Mines between the hamlets of Witherbee and Mineville and are now making a comeback.
The superintendent of South Colonie schools said Friday that the district is hiring a consulting firm in the wake of multiple protests over the use of racial slurs in the district’s schools.
Maximilian Cardone, a Rochester Institute of Technology student from Albany who was reported missing last week, has been found dead, the university confirmed Friday.
A high-stakes rescue unfolded overnight on Oct. 21 when forest rangers with the state DEC arrived at the Mount Colden Trap Dike, a notoriously dangerous climb, to find a 60-year-old Canadian man stuck on an icy 1-by-3-foot ledge on the slide.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
