Good morning on this gloppy Wednesday.
For thousands of charter school students in the city, school today will consist of a very long field trip.
To Albany.
They’re heading to a rally organized by the pro-charter group Families for Excellent Schools. More than 100 charter schools in the city will close today.
The group wants lawmakers to allow more charter schools, increase funding and compel districts to give them free space.
(Charters are independently operated public schools.)
Kate Taylor, a Times education reporter, laid out the political back story:
Governor Cuomo, a supporter of charters, is pushing educational changes that are opposed by teachers’ unions, as well as by Mayor de Blasio and his Albany allies.
The charters, Ms. Taylor said, “will bring all these thousands of students and teachers and parents, and Cuomo can point to them all and say, ‘Look at all these people who are calling for change.’ ”
Daniel Dromm, a city councilman who heads the education committee, condemned the charter group for “using schoolchildren for political purposes.”
“I mean, we could close all the public schools here and bring a million kids to Albany,” he said. “What does it prove?”
Ann Powell, spokeswoman for Success Academy, the city’s biggest charter network, said that the school day will be filled with learning.
The schedule for the bus ride includes a civics lesson, reading and writing, even math and science.
That’s before the rally.
On the way home, she said, “Probably if my experience last year is any indication, a couple of people will fall asleep.”
Here’s what else is happening:
WEATHER
A busy time.
Rain continues pretty much all day, with a high of 41.
Around 10 p.m., it turns to snow.
Four to 8 inches fall as temperatures drop through the 20s on Thursday.
By Friday morning, it will be 11 degrees, with a wind chill below zero.
COMING UP TODAY
• Mayor de Blasio makes an education-related announcement at a school gym in Bay Ridge at 10:15 a.m.
• A rally to support striking car-wash workers outside Vegas Auto Spa in the South Slope in Brooklyn. 10:30 a.m.
• Better than a bouncy castle: a walk-through inflatable colon in the lobby of Mount Sinai Hospital, for colorectal cancer awareness month. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. [Free]
• The 120-artist Spring/Break show opens to the public in the big post office building on Eighth Avenue and includes paintings made from $10,000 in shredded money. [$10]
• A Princeton professor discusses “Poetry, Drumming and Mathematics” at the Museum of Math. 4 and 6:30 p.m. [$9 for students, $15 for adults]
• A talk on Confucius and “What Ancient Thoughts Mean for a Modern China” at New America NYC in SoHo. 6:30 p.m. [Free]
• Tom Brokaw interviews Thomas McGuane about his new story collection at the Strand bookstore. 7 p.m. [$15 purchase required]
• Nets host Hornets, 7:30 p.m. (YES). Knicks at Indiana, 7 p.m. (MSG). Rangers at Detroit, 8 p.m. (NBCS).
• For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.
COMMUTE
• Railroads: L.I.R.R., Metro-North, N.J. Transit, Amtrak
• Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.
• Alternate-side parking: suspended today for the weather and Thursday for Purim.
• Ferries: Staten Island Ferry, New York Waterway, East River Ferry
• Airports: La Guardia, J.F.K., Newark
IN THE NEWS
• The city has issued more than 10,000 tickets this winter for failure to clear sidewalks of snow and ice. [New York Times]
• Hillary Clinton ran her own computer system for her official emails, traceable to an Internet service registered to her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. [Associated Press]
• Power is out in about 1,200 homes in Brooklyn and Queens because of manhole problems. [Con Edison]
• A fire near Columbia University forced the evacuation of a Barnard dorm and damaged Ollie’s Chinese restaurant. [CBS Local]
• Mayor de Blasio, the comic TV personality. [New York Times]
• A Brooklyn man was charged in the 2013 death of a transgender woman who was viciously beaten in Harlem. [New York Times]
• A window washer fell five stories to his death in TriBeCa. [WABC Eyewitness News]
• Scoreboard: Kings subjugate Knicks, 124-86. Stars outshine Islanders, 3-2 in overtime. Devils defang Predators, 4-1. Spring training: Yankees tie Phillies, 5-5.
• For a global look at what’s happening, see Your Wednesday Briefing.
AND FINALLY …
One hundred and ten years ago this week (not 100, as we wrote earlier), the celebrated Ross-Healy dog case was resolved.
It concerned a lost red Irish setter named Celt who had belonged to P.J. Healy of West 80th Street.
One day, Mr. Healy’s wife saw a neighbor’s maid walking a dog resembling Celt. She called him. He came.
But the maid’s employer, Mahala Ross of West End Avenue, insisted that the animal was her dog, King.
Months of legal maneuvering ensued, along with “184 typewritten pages of testimony and opinion,” The Times reported.
Ms. Ross won the first round. But an appeals court awarded the dog to the Healys.
Mr. Healy treated Celt to porterhouse steak at a restaurant on Columbus Avenue.
Kenneth Rosen contributed reporting.
New York Today is a weekday roundup that stays live from 6 a.m. till late morning. You can receive it via email.
What would you like to see here to start your day? Post a comment, email us at nytoday@nytimes.com, or reach us via Twitter using #NYToday.
Follow the New York Today columnists, Annie Correal and Andy Newman, on Twitter.
You can always find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com.