Good morning, CivMixers.
It’s the third Thursday in November, which means the Great American Smokeout is upon us.
This long-standing effort dates back to the 1970s, when a Massachusetts high school guidance councilor Arthur P. Mullaney challenged people to give up cigarettes for 24 hours and donate the money they would have saved on smokes to the school’s scholarship fund.
The idea was picked up in 1974 by a Minnesota newspaper editor, who led the state’s first “Don’t Smoke Day.” And then two years after that, the California Division of the American Cancer Society got 1 million people to quit smoking for the day.
In 1977, the American Cancer Society took the idea nationwide, which helped spur a significant change in the way the public views tobacco advertising and use.
It’s hard to believe now, but smoking used to not only be associated with everything cool, but it was even promoted (at the urging of the cigarette companies) as healthy, and was widely allowed – in planes, in restaurants and bars, and even in the legislative chambers of the state Capitol, where lawmakers’ old desks were fitted with a handy ashtray.
Today, we understand not only the deadly nature of inhaling burning highly addictive nicotine into your own lungs, but exhaling smoke into the atmosphere where it can do damage to others. Indoor smoking is widely banned, and there are also many laws prohibiting smoking in some outdoor spaces.
Though smoking rates have dropped – thanks to improved public education and rising tax rates – almost 38 million Americans still haven’t kicked the habit. About half of them will die from a smoking-related illness as a result. More than 480,000 people in the U.S. die from a smoking related illness annually – about one out of five deaths overall. ing causes 1 out of 5 deaths in the US alone.
In New York last year, the governor signed a bill into law that raised the state’s legal smoking age from 18 to 21, and this covers e-cigarettes and vaping devices as well as traditional tobacco products.
China is the world’s largest consumer and producer of tobacco. There are reportedly 350 million smokers in the country and it produces 42 percent of the world’s cigarettes. China also, in recent years, has been experiencing a lung cancer epidemic on an unprecedented scale.
If you or someone you know or love is trying to quit smoking, there are a lot of resources out there for you. And why not start today? No time like the present – especially since we’re collectively fighting a virus that (in many cases) impacts your breathing.
Also, before we move on to the news, it’s International Men’s Day – a day that focuses on men’s health, improving gender relations, highlighting male role models, and promoting positive (ie. not toxic) expressions of masculinity. This also provides us with a chance to recognize men who don’t fall into traditional categories of masculinity. (More on that tomorrow).
We’re in for a mix of sun and clouds today and temperatures in the mid-to-high 40s, which is not quite so frigid as what we experienced yesterday, but still not what I would call balmy.
In the headlines…
Amid a third and significant wave of new coronavirus cases, the U.S. has added 50,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in the past 60 days, pushing the death toll to 250,029 yesterday.
The US military this week reportedly tallied 1,314 new coronavirus cases — a record daily amount, as COVID-19 numbers among the country’s civilian population have been concurrently surging.
Masks prevent people from transmitting the coronavirus to others, scientists now agree. But a new trial failed to document protection from the virus among the wearers.
The coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca is safe and triggers a similar immune response among all adults, according to the preliminary findings of a peer-reviewed phase two trial.
The drug maker Pfizer said yesterday that its coronavirus vaccine was 95 percent effective and had no serious side effects — the first set of complete results from a late-stage vaccine trial as Covid-19 cases skyrocket around the globe.
Pfizer said it will ask health regulators to authorize its experimental Covid-19 vaccine within days, which means the shot is on track to go into distribution by the end of the year, if the regulators permit.
“It makes it now clear that vaccines will be our way out of this pandemic,” says Kanta Subbarao, a virologist at the Doherty Institute, who has studied emerging viruses.
Breakthroughs in Covid-19 vaccine trials are giving a boost to the organizers of next summer’s Tokyo Olympics, who are looking into vaccine suppliers and planning to encourage athletes to get their shots.
Scientists who initially warned about contaminated surfaces now say that the virus spreads primarily through inhaled droplets, and that there is little to no evidence that deep cleaning mitigates the threat indoors.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic leaders are under fire for flouting some of the virus-related restrictions (like mask wearing in public) they have admonished constituents for failing to follow.
To adapt to the pandemic and the job loss it unleashed, more Americans are becoming their own bosses, setting up tiny businesses to work as traveling hair stylists, in-home personal trainers, boutique mask designers and chefs.
The New York Times editorial board issues a call to “save America’s restaurants” with a fresh round of federal aid.
President Donald Trump’s campaign has filed yet another version of its lawsuit over the election results in Pennsylvania, now contending that he should be named the victor in the presidential contest there or that the state legislature be given the authority to assign the state’s 20 electoral votes.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he doesn’t expect the state’s hand recount of presidential votes will reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s lead there.
Georgia election officials expect to release a report today on their hand tally of the presidential race.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission late yesterday, after an hours long often-contentious debate, agreed to issue an order today to recount ballots cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties as requested by Trump.
Trump’s campaign is mounting a fresh legal bid to prevent the certification of votes in Nevada. A new lawsuit names the state’s Democratic presidential electors as defendants – including one who says she’s currently homeless.
Arizona’s top elections official said she has received “ongoing and escalating” threats of violence in the aftermath of Biden’s win over Trump in the 2020 race. She’s not alone.
Biden’s vote tally is getting close to a record 80 million votes as ballots continue to be counted across the country, The Associated Press reported.
A handful of current Trump administration officials, as well as some political appointees who left in recent months, have quietly started to reach out to members of President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team.
Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller has just 63 days to put his stamp on the Pentagon, and he’s racing to make changes before the Trump era ends.
In Minnesota, where “defund the police” became a progressive rallying cry following the killing of George Floyd, the phrase is being blamed for harming down-ballot Democrats both here and nationally after some suburban voters were repelled by the message.
Two senior Minnesota Democratic state senators abruptly quit the party after it failed to win the seats necessary to reclaim the majority in this month’s elections.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has presided over two conference calls in which his fellow Democratic senators analyzed the disappointing results of races in Iowa, Maine, Montana and North Carolina, where they thought they had a chance to knock off GOP incumbents.
The U.S. approved Boeing 737 MAX jets for passenger flights again after dual crashes took 346 lives, issuing a set of long-anticipated safety directives and notices to airlines globally that will help resolve the plane maker’s biggest pre-pandemic crisis.
Outdated information technology contributed to the Department of Homeland Security’s struggle to track migrant families detained at the U.S. border, an internal watchdog says, leaving the number of families separated still unclear.
Former President Barack Obama’s memoir sold more than 887,000 copies on Tuesday, a sizzling debut that publisher Penguin Random House said marked the largest first-day sales for any book it had ever published.
New York City area hospitals are preparing for a significant resurgence of Covid-19 patients, with staffing and worker burnout their primary concerns.
New York City will temporarily close its public schools and switch to fully remote learning for its students because of a rising number of Covid-19 cases in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The announcement came as the share of people tested in the city who are positive for the virus rose to 3% over a seven-day average. The city set that rate as the threshold for stopping in-person instruction in the nation’s largest school district.
De Blasio delayed his daily news conference from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. after he and his aides spent the morning scrambling to ensure that the governor was informed about their plan to close schools.
At 2:19 p.m. de Blasio had still not held the briefing, but tweeted an announcement that the city had indeed surpassed 3% and would close public schools beginning today.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo debated the NYC school-closing news at a tense press conference with reporters, where he lashed out at the WSJ’S Jimmy Vielking, saying: “Let’s try not to be obnoxious and offensive in your tone.”
New York Times reporter Jesse McKinley backed Vielkind up, to which Cuomo retorted: ” I don’t really care what you think. Of course, you agree with him because you’re in the same business with him.”
As Cuomo continued to rip into reporters for seeking clarity on Big Apple schools, New York City’s schools chancellor told principals that all in-person learning in the New York City school system — the nation’s largest — will shut down due to a citywide rise in coronavirus cases.
The mayor and Cuomo both indicated that further restrictions to public life “were coming, and coming soon,” as de Blasio put it.
City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a 2021 mayoral contender, is suing de Blasio’s administration for failing to hand over records related to the mayor’s response to the COVID-19 crisis.
Commuters could have to wait much longer for subways, buses and trains in 2021 as New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority outlined potential service cuts to plug a multibillion-dollar deficit caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Transit officials say their doomsday plan is a worst-case scenario made necessary because even with Biden assuming office in January, it is unclear if there will be a breakthrough in Congress on another stimulus package.
The wife of the first MTA worker to have died of COVID-19 is suing the agency — claiming the transit authority didn’t properly respond to the pandemic, new court papers show.
Cuomo says he’s expecting a “tremendous spike” of COVID-19 cases in New York after Thanksgiving. This comes as a portion of Western New York has been ordered into an orange zone. His advice? “Don’t be a turkey.”
Cuomo said areas around Erie and Buffalo are going from a yellow zone to an orange zone due to the high rates of infection, and have seen “astronomical” increases in positive test results.
The governor said that law enforcement officers who are declaring they will not enforce a 10-person limit on gatherings are violating their constitutional oath to uphold the law.
“I don’t believe as a law enforcement officer you have a right to pick and choose what laws you will enforce,” Cuomo told reporters.
New York City hotel owners have been ordered to pay $500 million to employees who lost work because of the coronavirus pandemic, which is reportedly the largest payout of its kind.
A record number of Albany County residents are now hospitalized with COVID-19, officials announced.
Columbia High School will go to virtual learning today after a student tested positive for COVID-19, the East Greenbush school district said.
Incumbent members of the state Assembly and Senate representing New York City, Long Island and the Hudson Valley have taken the lead in a half-dozen races after trailing behind Republicans at the end of in-person voting.
Sens. Andrew Gounardes of Brooklyn and James Gaughran of Long Island both emerged victorious after tough challenges from their GOP opponents, who were in the lead by thousands of votes on Election Day.
Biden won the counties of Saratoga and Rensselaer, where Trump claimed victory in 2016 and Republicans have dominated down ballot, according to election results yesterday.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams formally announced his 2021 mayoral candidacy on a Zoom call.
Archie Spigner, a New York City councilman who was a political kingmaker in southeast Queens for a half-century, helping fellow Black politicians climb the ladder and coaxing jobs and construction projects into his district, died at the age of 92.
State advocates and lawmakers gathered yesterday morning to urge Cuomo to pass bills that target issues that have been disproportionately harming communities of color and immigrant communities.
Cuomo declared he will forgo his anticipated $25,000 raise slated for Jan. 2021, but so will other top politicians and state officials in light of the Empire State’s staggering $63 billion deficit.
The state Department of Labor has teamed up with the Coursera online training platform to allow people free access to nearly 4,000 job-training programs in areas like advanced manufacturing, health care and technology.
The National Rifle Association has agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty for violating state insurance laws when it promoted policies to protect gun owners from the legal consequences stemming from shooting a person in self-defense.
Revised data for an audit examining possible racial bias within the City of Albany’s police department added roughly 9,500 more arrests and showed Black residents make up a slightly higher percentage of arrests than previously reported.
SEFCU is closing some branches to keep customers and employees safer due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The closures are meant to be temporary.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved the sale of the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City to a New Jersey company for dismantling, despite petitions from state and local officials to hold public hearings before taking action.
An 18-year-old Buffalo man who told authorities someone spray-painted his car with “Trump 4 President” allegedly vandalized the vehicle himself.
More than 300 unionized health care workers at Nathan Littauer Hospital and Nursing Home in Gloversville have a new contract after a vote with an overwhelming margin, according to 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East and the hospital.
The Troy Waterfront Farmers Market will move to new winter quarters in December: the former Price Chopper supermarket at 865 Second Ave. in Lansingburgh, which has been vacant since the grocery store closed at the end of February.
The underwhelming first glimpse of the Norway spruce that will serve as Rockefeller Center’s annual Christmas tree seemed a metaphor for 2020’s troubles. “But perhaps the tree just needs a little time to relax.”
Also…this.
