For decades, it turns out, needlessly onerous regulations had deprived Californians of both the pleasure of eating outdoors and the convivial streetscapes that curbside dining creates. Before COVID-19, “a restaurant or bar, in order to serve outside, would basically have to expand their liquor permit,” state Senator Scott Wiener told The New York Times in June. “It could be a lengthy, difficult process, with appeals.” But last year, as desperate restaurant owners looked for ways to protect their business from a coronavirus that spreads most readily indoors, the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) issued emergency rules that said that if a city allowed it, they could expand alcohol sales outside, he continued. “That’s been great, not just for bars or restaurants, but patrons like it,” Wiener said. “And it activates public spaces.”

Indeed, large and small municipalities alike relaxed their own restrictions in ways that helped local businesses, pleased consumers, enabled people-watching, and transformed spaces for parked cars into gathering places for humans. If the lost square footage denied a motorist a parking spot, it helped multiple diners. And improved urban and suburban streets were achieved at bargain prices for taxpayers, as most costs were covered by restaurateurs, who built and maintained the new spaces.

It’s a story that ought to end happily—and teach politicians a valuable lesson: that regulatory reforms are needed so that positive change can occur under normal conditions rather than requiring governors and mayors to suspend stifling rules during emergencies.

Instead, red tape is already creeping back like an invasive vine.

In San Diego, “hundreds of outdoor dining structures might have to come down,” the Voice of San Diego reported in May. “City staff said they don’t see any way around putting restaurateurs through a more intensive process to make their outdoor structures permanent and bring their slapdash structures up to code.” Paso Robles and Pismo Beach are ending temporary programs, even as local officials professed to want more outdoor dining going forward.

I don’t know how to put this in a way that will not make me sound flippant: No one cares. Literally speaking, I know that isn’t true, because if it were, the articles wouldn’t be commissioned. But outside the world inhabited by the professional and managerial classes in a handful of major metropolitan areas, many, if not most, Americans are leading their lives as if COVID is over, and they have been for a long while.

In my part of rural southwest Michigan, and in similar communities throughout the country, this is true not despite but without any noticeable regard for cases; hospitalization statistics, which are always high this time of year without attracting much notice; or death reports. I don’t mean to deny COVID’s continuing presence. (For the purposes of this piece, I looked up the COVID data for my county and found that the seven-day average for positive tests is as high as it has ever been, and that 136 deaths have been attributed to the virus since June 2020.) What I wish to convey is that the virus simply does not factor into my calculations or those of my neighbors, who have been forgoing masks, tests (unless work imposes them, in which case they are shrugged off as the usual BS from human resources), and other tangible markers of COVID-19’s existence for months—perhaps even longer.

Indeed, in my case, when I say for a long while, I mean for nearly two years, from almost the very beginning. In 2020, I took part in two weddings, traveled extensively, took family vacations with my children, spent hundreds of hours in bars and restaurants, all without wearing a mask. This year my wife and I welcomed our fourth child. Over the course of her pregnancy, from the first phone call to the midwife a few months after getting a positive pregnancy test until after delivery, the subject of the virus was never raised by any health-care professional, including her doula, a dear friend from New York.

Meanwhile, our children, who have continued to attend their weekly homeschooling co-op since April 2020, have never donned masks, and they are distinctly uncomfortable on the rare occasions when they see them, for reasons that, until recently, child psychologists and other medical experts would have freely acknowledged. They have continued seeing friends and family, including their great-grandparents, on a weekly basis. As far as I can tell, they are dimly aware that “germs” are a remote cause of concern, but only our oldest, who is 6, has any recollection of the brief period last year when public Masses were suspended in our diocese and we spent Sunday mornings praying the rosary at home.

There is something to be said about a truly disastrous meal, a meal forever indelible in your memory because it’s so uniquely bad, it can only be deemed an achievement. The sort of meal where everyone involved was definitely trying to do something; it’s just not entirely clear what.

I’m not talking about a meal that’s poorly cooked, or a server who might be planning your murder—that sort of thing happens in the fat lump of the bell curve of bad. Instead, I’m talking about the long tail stuff – the sort of meals that make you feel as though the fabric of reality is unraveling. The ones that cause you to reassess the fundamentals of capitalism, and whether or not you’re living in a simulation in which someone failed to properly program this particular restaurant. The ones where you just know somebody’s going to lift a metal dome off a tray and reveal a single blue or red pill.

...snip...

What followed was a 27-course meal (note that “course” and “meal” and “27” are being used liberally here) which spanned 4.5 hours and made me feel like I was a character in a Dickensian novel. Because – I cannot impart this enough – there was nothing even close to an actual meal served. Some “courses” were slivers of edible paper. Some shots were glasses of vinegar. Everything tasted like fish, even the non-fish courses. And nearly everything, including these noodles, which was by far the most substantial dish we had, was served cold.

Amassing two-dozen of them together amounted to a meal the same way amassing two-dozen toddlers together amounts to one middle-aged adult.

NEW YORK — Mayor-elect Eric Adams’ push to install his preferred pick to lead the legislative body meant to serve as a check on him as City Council speaker has begun to falter, as four people who influence the process continue to oppose his selection, according to seven sources involved in the negotiations.

Adams and his political advisers have been quietly backing Queens City Council Member Francisco Moya in the in-house race to be the speaker, and things seemed to be going their way earlier this week. But over the past few days they have run into opposition from the leaders of two unions — 32BJ SEIU and DC37 — as well as the Democratic Party bosses in the Bronx and Queens — Moya’s own backyard, the people said, speaking anonymously to discuss private deliberations.

Now two of Moya’s chief rivals for Council speaker — Brooklyn’s Justin Brannan and Manhattan’s Keith Powers — are in talks with the labor and party bosses to drop their own bids and get behind Adrienne Adams. She attended the same high school as the new mayor with whom she shares a last name and has fashioned herself as a politically moderate Democrat with close ties to the party boss. In recent days, she has emerged as a strong competitor in the race.

The deal-making has been engulfed in chaos over the past week, as the incoming mayor faces fallout from a foray into local politics after his decisive electoral win this year. He has branded himself nationally as the face of the Democratic Party — a former police captain who supports law enforcement but has personally experienced the abuses of cops. Now his rising star nationally is being threatened at home by this disorganized effort, much of which took place while he was on a spiritual journey in Ghana.

(CNN) — As of Tuesday, December 14, some travelers going to Las Vegas may notice a change in their itineraries.

That day, the airport formerly known as McCarran International Airport is set to become Harry Reid International Airport. Its FAA code, LAS, will stay the same.

The Clark County Board of Commissioners voted in February in favor of renaming McCarran after Harry Reid, the powerful Democrat who served Nevada in the US Senate for decades, including a stint as majority leader during the Obama administration from 2007 to 2015.

"It is with humility that I express my appreciation for the recognition today," Reid said in a statement published by CNN affiliate KSNV.

Mark Meadows indicated in a Jan. 5 email that the National Guard was on standby to “protect pro Trump people,” according to an email obtained by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot and described in a public document Sunday night.

The context for the message is unclear, but it comes amid intense scrutiny of the Guard’s slow response to violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and conflicting timelines about their response from the Pentagon and National Guard leadership.

The description of the message is part of a 51-page document released Sunday by the select panel a day before it is set to vote to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress. The full House is expected to vote to hold Meadows, former White House chief of staff to President Donald Trump, in criminal contempt of Congress on Tuesday.

In other messages described by the committee, Meadows appears to have asked members of Congress to help connect Trump with state lawmakers.