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Its a Gateway to confusion.

Just as the federal government finally approved the environmental impact statement for the multi-billion-dollar construction of two new cross-Hudson train tubes followed by the rehab of the existing century-old tubes, Gov. Cuomo suggested last week that he wont pay New Yorks share of the project. Not to worry though, said representatives for Amtrak and the Gateway development team itself, Cuomos threat to tank the project just shows he cares.

At a press conference on Thursday, Cuomo said that Amtrak has already benefitted so much from the work New York did on Moynihan Station and on a key rail junction in the Sunnyside train yards that New York State shouldnt have to pay 25 percent of the $13-billion Gateway project. The funding agreement for the plan, which was agreed to by all parties, was designed to have the federal government cover half of the project, with the Empire and Garden states splitting the rest.

All those renovations at Harold Interlocking, you know who that helped? Amtrak, Cuomo said. You know who paid? We did. Now who owns Amtrak? The federal government. And Im telling Amtrak today, and Im telling our federal officials today: we expect a fair deal from the federal government and Amtrak. Dont expect New Yorkers to have fixed Harold Interlocking, pay for Moynihan, invest heavily in rebuilding Penn [Station], which is owned by Amtrak, and build [Penn South] without them actually stepping up and fulfilling what has been their delinquent role in New York.

Cuomo also suggested that New York would not chip in for the just-approved planto build new tunnels under the Hudson and then shut down one existing tube at a time for repairs because it was a stupid way of doing things.

My advice to the feds: Im not going to spend New Yorkers money in a way that is not the most cost-effective, cost-efficient way. Im not gonna pay unless it is a smart, efficient, effective process, period. And if the federal government wants to do stupid, they can do stupid with their money. But were not going to do stupid with our money, the governor said.

Thursdays comments were were another recent salvo in a tiff over the direction of the Gateway project, which seeks to repair damage from Hurricane Sandy. Previously, the governor spent the last few years fighting the Trump administration to advance and fund the project, but Cuomo made a sudden turn in late 2020 and demanded that Amtrak fix the two existing tubes inside the century-old tunnel in a similar fashion to the repairs the MTA used for the L-train tunnel. The governor specifically pointed to a report from consultants London Bridge Associates, which said that the tunnels could remain in service even while undergoing repairs.

That push went over like a turd in a punch bowl with New Jersey Sens. Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and the leadership of New Jersey Transit and Amtrak because Gateway supporters feared that the suggestion the trains could run through the tubes during repairs may blow up the political will for the project and even require another environmental impact statement.

Cuomos repair-in-place proposal was looked at in the NJ Transit- and Port Authority-authored EIS. But the Cuomo plan racking cables the same way the MTA did inside the L trains Canarsie Tube so that the tunnels would not have to be completely closed during the repairs was deemed infeasible because of the differences between the Hudson and East River tunnels. The EIS also determined that there wasnt enough service redundancy in case something went wrong in one tunnel while the other was closed for repairs, meaning that an unforeseen disaster could cripple service all along the Northeast Corridor.

Even though Cuomo seemed to be threatening to pull New Yorks funding from the project if his desired fix wasnt adopted, New Yorks representative on the Gateway Project said such threats are good, actually.

Theres a reason why Andrew Cuomo is the greatest infrastructure governor in the country perhaps, in the last 75 years, said Gateway Program Development Chairman Steven Cohen, who also serves as the projects New York trustee. Its because hes blunt, hes direct. He wants to get things done, and he wants to do them efficiently. He wants to embrace new technologies and new techniques, and he doesnt believe that the process of building is a static process where you are beholden and embedded in a design that may be stuck in time and couldnt be improved.

Gateway Program Development Corporation Vice Chairman Anthony Coscia (who is also Amtraks chairman) said the federal rail operator was still focused on the existing plan: new tunnels before fixing the old tunnel.

The analysis did examine a number of different options, said Coscia. We believe the strongest option is to build a new tunnel. Once the new tunnels are built, there are two tubes in existing tunnel, one of them can be taken out of service at a time which would leave us with a three-tube capacity between New York and New Jersey, which is a very robust capacity and doesnt require taking the risk of putting tons of commuters every day at risk that an overnight construction project wont be able to happen. Because of all of the pushing that was done by all the parties, we came up with the best possible option, which is how this project will proceed. So there are very strong facts that support the position that weve taken, and in fact those facts were arrived at, because of all the pushing the topic, because of all the debate thats taking place.

Cohen immediately threw his deputy under the bus.

I wouldnt be properly serving in the role Im supposed to serve as an appointee by the Cuomo administration if I didnt highlight one point: If there is a way to do this project that does not put the morning commute at risk, and to do it simultaneously and save the kind of time and therefore money that would be say, Of course were going to do it that way,' Cohen said.

Outside supporters of the project said that it was time for things to get moving, especially as federal support has finally come through.

This is not the time to slow down our progress with more studies and tinkering on the margins, said Felicia Park-Rogers, the director of Regional Infrastructure Projects for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign. We have a good plan to dramatically improve safety and reliability of workers into New York City. We have a transit and rail friendly administration in Washington. Now is the time to move forward with what we know needs to be done to repair these tunnels correctly. Its in the best interests of New York for Gov. Cuomo to move forward quickly and efficiently with this urgently needed project. We can do this.

Cuomos threat, or possible extremely public highwire negotiation tactic, is just the latest snafu for Gateway, the effort to build a capacity and redundancy-boosting rail tunnel underneath the Hudson River in order to provide better service for Amtrak and New Jersey Transits pre-pandemic 200,000 daily riders. The project, which is the latest version of a decades-long attempt to increase capacity across the Hudson River, is on its third presidential administration at this point. Then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who once thought he would be president killed an earlier version of it as a nod to the anti-Obama Tea Party. The Trump Administration held the project up during its four years in charge, but President Biden was a champion of Gateway even before he started living at the White House.

Representatives for Gov. Cuomos office did not respond to a request for further clarification on his Gateway funding stance.

Read more:
Amtrak And Gateway Leaders: We Love That Andrew Cuomo Hates This Project Now - Streetsblog New York

It's Saturday morning. Over the course of the previous 48 hours, at least half of the days speakers had canceled. This was meant to be a political summit, an opportunity for Ohios diehard Trump supporters and Republican clubbers to hear and challenge the platforms of candidates seeking office in 2022: in Ohios 16th Congressional District, against the undisputed Republican In Name Only (RINO) Anthony Gonzalez; in the Senate Race, to claim the seat of wimpy conservative Rob Portman; and in the Gubernatorial election, to primary the tyrant Mike DeWine. High-profile national guests were slated to appear as well, in keynote capacities: Colorados gun-toting warrior-luminary Lauren Boebert, The Daily Wires Candace Owens, and Matt Gaetz, the Florida Congressman who was at the moment facing some unwelcome media attention.

The day before, one of Gaetz associates had pleaded guilty to six charges in a federal sex trafficking investigation. (Among other things, Gaetz is alleged to have had sex with a minor.) Later Friday, the Daily Beast published another explosive scoop. Gaetz reportedly snorted cocaine with a paid escort after a 2019 GOP fundraiser in Orlando, in a hotel room paid for by his campaign. The escort then turned her relationship with Gaetz into a taxpayer funded no show job.

Perhaps the Ohio candidates perceived that any Gaetz association might be politically toxic in light of the recent headlines. Or perhaps they recognized that appealing to, and answering questions from, a hopped-up rightwing fringe was a devils bargain. But for whatever reason, the confirmed speakers were dropping like midges. On the morning of the summit, it was unclear if anyone from the Senate race would even show up. Cleveland car dealer and tech entrepreneur Bernie Moreno was evidently on a flight to Florida. J.D. Vance, the bearded hillbilly whisperer and Peter Thiel's puppet or blood boy, was rumored to have backed out too. Ditto Northeast Ohio businessman Mike Gibbons. Congressman Bill Johnson was up in the air. Max Miller, the fratty scion of Clevelands biggest 20th Century real estate empire, Forest City, who is thought to be the candidate around whom anti-Gonzalez Republicans should coalesce in the 16th, submitted a video from his phone. Jim Renacci, the recurring Ohio candidate who is now considering a run for Governor, backed out after Gaetz was announced.

The event website had happily promoted that Mike DeWine, Anthony Gonzalez and Jane Timken (the former state GOP chair who's running for senate) declined to attend. But the more recent cancellations have yet to be conveyedto the ~500 guests who paid for the privilege of getting up close and personal with the state's rising stars. They may now be sensing something is afoot.

The Strongsville GOP had already pushed back the event start time. Doors were meant to have opened at 8:00 a.m., but at 9:30, a line of impatient Trumpists still snaked around Michauds exterior. The parking lot from which they sprang, resplendent in camo and Americana, foretold the flavor of the day. TRUMP Won, proclaimed an illustrative bumper sticker.

For this crowd, the default position on the 2020 presidential election is that it was stolen. The default position on Covid-19 is that Gov. Mike DeWine is a commie rat bastard. Any elected Republican who supported DeWine or his authoritarian lockdowns must be voted out post-haste.

The idle chatter throughout the morning was Covid-centric. Guests engaged in cordial one-upmanship about who respected the states health protocols least. It should go without saying that no one outside the press corps and the Michauds event staff was wearing a mask. Some may have been vaccinated, but they kept that quiet. Admitting youd gotten a shot, to these folks, would be kind of like admitting youd gotten an abortion, or gotten skeptical about the prevalence of automatic weapons. It's just not the party line. The crowd skewed older, though a few millennial couples (on dates?) and well-dressed zoomers, aspirant D.C. intern types, could be spotted as well.

It became clear that by and large, these were not your grandfathers Republicans. Sure, they live in the suburbs and exurbs. Sure, theyre fond of catchphrases like, You can have God without government, but you cant have government without God. Sure, theyre bananas for the sanctity of unborn life and the primacy of the nuclear family. Sure, they worship Trump and routinely say, almost as an oath, that he is the greatest president of my lifetime. And sure, with single-digit exceptions, they are white. But this contingent in Strongsville harbors far darker and more delusional views than the garden variety capitalism-worshiping conservative. They are militantly opposed to masks, vaccines, critical race theory and the majority of elected Republicans in Washington, whom they regard as disgraceful RINOS. Fewer and fewer of them even bother with Fox News. Too liberal.

Its difficult to assess how pervasive this strain of political thought really is, or how much thought goes into this strain of cultural performance. But this crew was described by one speaker, (a guy from Dublin, Ohio who helps organize Republican clubs across the state), as the tip of an expanding iceberg that's growing faster and more fearsome than the Tea Party ever did. Though the members of this movement have an array of pet causes the convention of states, the availability of ammo, the persecution of white males they are united in their devotion to Donald Trump. The ire for Gonzalez, it should be clear, has nothing to do with his legislative record or his responsiveness as an elected representative. It's all because he voted to impeach. (The Strongsville GOP currently has a resolution calling on Gonzalez to resign.)

By 11 a.m. the crowd has been guzzling coffee, nibbling on pastries and watching the Trump 2020 campaign kickoff in its entirety on YouTube for more than an hour. At first, the Trump video sort of seemed like part of the program, a thematic entre to the days speeches that would communicate to the upcoming candidates, this is the bar. But as Trumps remarks dragged on, the crowd grew visibly less engaged, talking amongst themselves with arms across their chests, etc. It was impossible to deny the video's actual purpose: stalling.

And now Burns is filling minutes any way he can. He has overseen an exhaustive repertoire of patriotic preambles: the presentation of colors, the Pledge of Allegiance, an Evangelical benediction, the National Anthem, and the formal recognition of the veterans in the room. Now, Burns is saying hed like to take a moment to thank the people keeping us safe today. (Its a bit of a jolt, but he is referencing the off-duty cops, not the Michauds staff sanitizing surfaces. Heaven help anyone attempting to enforce Covid-19 safety protocols in the presence of the state's largest grassroots GOP organization.)

When Burns finally does get around to introducing the day's first candidate, 26-year-old congressional hopeful Jonah Schultz, and the goateed Christian liberty warrior enters to "Eye of the Tiger," it's already almost lunch time.

As it turns out, Schultz is one of only five candidates to speak. (Candace Owens and Matt Gaetz did provide end-of-day keynotes as well.) One of them, the Black, Catholic, Widowed Republican Laverne Jones-Gore, whom Burns erroneously introduced as "Laverne Gore-Jones," was a last-minute addition. She's running a doomed campaign in the 11th District, where no amount of frothy rightwing support in a primary will matter in a general against either Nina Turner or Shontel Brown.

The others were undercard candidates at best. Businessman Mark Pukita? Pukita is running for Senate. He tried to get a leg up by accusing Moreno and Vance of ditching the summit because of Gaetz he was the first, in fact, to openly acknowledge any of the day's absences but the crowd didn't seem all that inspired by his anti-elitist schtick. Pukita was confronted by an audience member during his Q&A about a recent social media "mistake." He'd posted a picture of his grandchild wearing a mask. Would he explain himself, the questioner wanted to know? Would he atone? Pukita laced up his shoes and tried to stand on principle. He said that as a constitutional conservative, he believed in individual choice. And he gently advised the gathered crowd that if they didn't want to be judged for not wearing masks, they really shouldn't judge others for choosing to wear them. One might have thought that the Evangelicals in the room, at least, would have appreciated this biblical messaging. But no. This was perilous territory for the already little-known Pukita. No one applauded. As Senator, Pukita said that one of his chief policy prerogatives would be working to eliminate the Federal Departments of Education and Labor. When asked why he'd stop there, Pukita said that he'd be open to eliminating many other departments as well: Energy, Commerce, Agriculture.

Farmer Joe Blystone is running for governor. He provided some comedic value later in the day but little else. "I have no experience," he declared, "but I can balance a checkbook and surround myself with God-fearing people. I'm a farmer, folks. I can run this state." When a ringing cell phone interrupted his remarks, he said, "Okay Devil, I'm not gonna let you win." He advocated refusing all federal aid to Ohio because it came with too many strings attached. Like others, he ardently opposed "critical race theory" in schools. Unlike others, he recounted in detail his dialogue with the Lord that led to his decision to run.

The only serious (that is, well-funded) candidate in attendance was Josh Mandel, whose harrowing soullessness this publication has lately explored. Mandel's lowlight was an extended attack on Toledo Blade reporter Liz Skalka, mocking her tweets about Mike DeWine's Vax-a-Million lottery and making sure the crowd knew she was in the room. Mandel, like Trump, is a performer without any actual beliefs. He reveled in being "canceled" by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and encouraged Republicans to wear their cancellations suspensions by Facebook, chiefly as badges of honor. He identified himself as the "pointy tip of the spear" on issues that the Right cares about most and said he would be a "fighter" in the U.S. Senate. He was unequivocal that the 2020 election was stolen, that Anthony Gonzalez was "a bad guy," and that religious liberty is a fundamental American value, provided you are not Muslim or an atheist.

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Bigger Than the Tea Party? Strongsville's GOP Summit and the Delusions of the Trump Faithful - Cleveland Scene

A garden party is going to be held to mark the 90th anniversary of Lady Herbert's Garden, and everyone is invited.

If afternoon tea and taking in Coventry's history from inside the city walls sounds appealing, you will want to add this to your calendar.

Based in the heart of Coventry city centre, Lady Herbert's Garden is a historical gem.

The garden was first opened to the public in 1931 by local industrialist and philanthropist Sir Alfred Herbert.

Sir Alfred created the garden in memory of his late wife Florence, to be a 'haven of peace and floral beauty' in the city centre.

Historic Coventry, the trust that looks after the gardens, is hosting an afternoon tea party on Sunday June 13, and tickets are on sale now.

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Traditional afternoon teas will be served to be enjoyed on the garden lawn, and the time slots are 1.5 hours.

Organisers have said this is a ticketed event and pre-booking is essential.

It is an outdoor all-weather event, and guests are required to reserve their table slot and select their menu when purchasing their tickets.

Sir Alfred's vision for the garden was for it to be a treasured green space in the city for the community to enjoy.

Initial laying out and construction began in 1930 and the last section was completed in 1939.

The design of the garden was appointed to Sir Alfred's cousin, Albert, who had previously designed offices, factories and warehouses.

Unfortunately, part of the garden was destroyed during the Coventry Blitz in 1941, which were rebuilt in a modified form.

Alongside the recent restoration works on the medieval city gates that sit within the site, Historic Coventry Trust have worked to make sure the garden can be enjoyed by the public in Coventry.

For the full menu and to book tickets click here.

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Read more here:
Afternoon tea party to mark 90 years of Lady Herbert's Garden - Coventry Live

Arlene Orani, owner of Len Kitsen came by to showcase her popular tea bombs!

Len Kitsen started as a foodie page where all the recipes she made from home, and restaurants she would check out would be featured. Until one day she decided to turn it into a business page. The creation of Tea bombs started in January this year when one of her cousins sent her a video of beautiful little tea spheres that was exactly similar to the trending hot chocolate bombs. She gave it a try, spent about two weeks with the recipe, and started posting them on her Etsy and IG page. After a day, she was surprised and blew up from there.

She likes how fun it is to make, you can be creative in so many ways like adding dried herbs, edible flowers, or fruits and you can even infuse any flavor you want! She has made a variety of fun flavors with caffeine and caffeine-free options. She has been also accepting customized orders for herbal, non-herbal teas, or any requests from customers, she is always open to any suggestions or ideas which has helped her gain more audience and regular buyers. In addition to that, she just recently launched the Tea Party in a Box which makes the Tea experience more enjoyable with friends and family.

Making the Tea bombs from a hard candy sphere to a finished product takes at least 2 hours, Arlene demonstrates the last step on How to insert the tea bag inside the spheres.

Find Arlene online, IG, and Etsy.

More here:
Tea Bombs that are almost too pretty to drink! - ABC 4

There are some things that one should keep in mind while setting the table for a tea party to arrange it correctly. Here is how you can perfectly arrange the table for a tea party.

Having afternoon tea might sound too basic and easy for some people, but it can be a daunting task when you have to arrange the table elegantly and sophisticatedly for a tea party. The European dining etiquette was established to create order at the table and this order is set to accommodate a right-handed setting.

Setting the table just the right way for a tea party is important as there are some etiquettes that one needs to follow while presenting things such as milk, sugar, kinds of tea, etc. Have a look at some ways to perfectly arrange the table for a stylish and elegant tea party at home.

1. To begin with, spread a stylish tablecloth on the table. The next step is to place a small size plate in the centre of the table. This is done to create focus and to incorporate and place small-sized foods that you and your guests might have along with the tea.

2. The next step is to place a salad size fork to the left of the plate. A small butter knife goes to the right of the plate. This knife may be used to cut pastry or to spread jam or butter on bread or buns

3. Now place the teacup on the sauce to the right of the plate. The handle of the cup should be facing the right at the three to four oclock position. Next, place a teaspoon on the rim of the saucer with the bowl facing upwards.

4. Place the napkin to the left of the fork. The open corner of the fold of the napkin should face the right into the plate. The pastry fork should be placed to the top centre above the plate with the handle on the left. Devon or Clotted cream and jam should be placed on the left next to the luncheon plate.

5. Keep the tea strainer above the teacup. Take the teapot and place it to the right, next to the teacup with the spout of it facing to the left. Place the water glass to the right above the plate. Things like sugar, sugar tongs and milk can be placed at either the centre or on the left side of the plate. Keep the sugar bowl on the left side of the tray and the milk on the right side of the tray with the handle to the right.

Also Read: 4 Precautions to take after your first dose of the COVID 19 vaccine

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Here is a step by step guide to perfectly set a table for a tea party - PINKVILLA