New York Today: Shed a Layer

Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times The weather outside is not frightful.

Updated 10:00 a.m.

Good Thursday morning. We awake to a relatively balmy day, with a high of 30 and temperatures climbing through Saturday, and a scandal involving Gov. Chris Christie.

Things change so fast: Polar Vortex 2014, we hardly knew ye.

After two days of cold-related problems, mass transit is expected to run normally today. Schools around the region will open on time.

Temperatures may still fall short of the 40-degree average for this time of year, but we’re likely to see people celebrating anyway.

Here are some other things we suspect New Yorkers are looking forward to:

- Exercising outdoors. Yet fear of frostbite didn’t stop 6,669 people from getting on Citi Bikes during the cold spell.

- Eating out, drinking out, leaving the house, period. Especially those with children. As an expert on confinement once said, “I consider being snowed in with kids an extreme environment.”

- A usable toilet. A transit worker told 1010 WINS on Wednesday that the toilet in her subway station had frozen.

- Going out with the dog. “I’ll take the dog for a walk that lasts longer than 15 minutes!” a reader, Jayna Wallace, told us on Twitter.

- Gloveless phone use. No need to wear special gloves or chew a hole in your mitten to text outside.

- And lastly, an end to weather dithering. That includes complaining about the weather, global warming debates and defending your cold snap to relatives in Michigan.

How are you planning to take advantage of a warmer day? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter, using #NYToday.

Here’s what else you need to know for Thursday.

THIS JUST IN

Governor Christie has scheduled a news conference for 11 a.m. in Trenton.

He is expected to speak publicly for the first time about emails and texts that link his office to traffic jams at the George Washington Bridge. Watch the livestream here.

Our live blog with the latest developments is here.

WEATHER

Freezing never felt so good: sunny today, with a high of 30.

Overcast later, turning grim tomorrow. Not cold, but flurried, with a chance of light snow and freezing rain.

The weekend will be wet and warm, with highs Saturday in the mid-50s and rain a near certainty.

COMMUTE

Subways: Check latest status.

Rails: Check L.I.R.R., Metro-North or New Jersey Transit status.

Roads: Check traffic map or radio report on the 1s or the 8s.

Alternate-side parking is in effect today and Friday.

DE BLASIO WATCH

From Javier C. Hernández of the City Hall bureau of The Times:

- The mayor will detail his plan to expand after-school programs at 4 p.m. in the Bronx, a key part of his proposal to raise taxes on wealthy New Yorkers.

- Mr. de Blasio will swear in a new class of police recruits and the Queens borough president.

- Eric Cantor, the House Republican leader, took an unusual swipe at Mr. de Blasio for his criticism of charter schools.

- The mayor brought “ciao bella” to Albany. And those everyman suits? He gets them at Rothmans.

COMING UP TODAY

- Elected officials from Brooklyn call on the N.Y.P.D. to close homicide cases in other boroughs at the same rate as in Manhattan. City Hall steps. 11 a.m.

- Mets fans: give blood in exchange for tickets to an April game at Citi Field. 10 to 5 p.m.

- An exhibition of the New York street photographer Harvey Stein’s portraits of Coney Island and Harlem opens at the Leica Gallery in NoHo. 6 p.m. [Free]

- A talk about U.S. government surveillance with Heidi Boghosian and Lewis Lapham at the Mid-Manhattan Library. 6:30 p.m. [Free]

- Adelle Waldman reads from “The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P” at KGB Bar in the East Village along with the novelists Kate Manning and Jonathan Miles. 7 p.m. [Free]

- The Close Guantánamo Now Tour kicks off with a screening of the documentary “Doctors of the Dark Side,” at All Souls Church on the Upper East Side. 7 p.m. [Free]

- For more events, see The New York Times Arts & Entertainment guide.

IN THE NEWS

- The New York City Council elected a fiercely liberal Democrat from East Harlem as its speaker: Melissa Mark-Viverito. [New York Times]

- The extreme cold can kill off invasive species that threaten New York’s plants and trees, like the woolly adelgid. [New York Times]

- A man was arrested at J.F.K. in connection with the killing of a Brooklyn landlord. He was the victim’s tenant. [New York Times]

- A new report from the CUNY Graduate Center shows the gap between rich and poor is growing. [WNYC]

- Con Edison’s customers set a one-day record for winter gas and electricity use. [CBS New York]

- Scoreboard: In a four-game streak, Nets corral Warriors, 102-98. Rangers shoot down Blackhawks, 3-2.

AND FINALLY…

Not only is there ice in the Hudson, but the Symmes Hole of Brooklyn has been shrinking.

The Symmes Hole, as a blogger and self-made naturalist, Matthew Wills, calls it, is a curious, circular hole in the middle of the otherwise frozen pool of water at Pier 1 on the Brooklyn waterfront.

“The bubbler, keeping oxygen in the pool after Sandy ravaged the park’s whole watering system, is maintaining it against the freeze,” Mr. Wills explains.

That’s been good for local animals.

But why Symmes? John C. Symmes expounded a theory, around 200 years ago, that the earth was “hollow and habitable within,” and that the entrances were at the poles.

Joseph Burgess and Andy Newman contributed reporting.

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