Good Wednesday morning, CivMixers.
It looks like New York largely missed the worst of the storm that has been really doing a number on much of the rest of the nation – especially Texas, where the infrastructure and residents aren’t used to this sort of thing.
But not to worry! There’s more where that came from. Winter always gets the last laugh.
There were icy road conditions and sporadic power outages upstate as a result of the most recent storm. But it was nothing compared to the more than 3.5 million outages in Texas, where many have been without power for hours or even days in freezing temperatures. At least 23 people have died thus far in storm-related incidents.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of the Lenten period leading up to Easter, when Christians believe Jesus was resurrected.
The day derives its name from the practice of placing repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants to either the words “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” or the dictum “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
True fact, though, there’s no actual mention of Ash Wednesday in the Bible, and the tradition of donning ashes as a sign of penitence actually pre-dates Jesus.
Last year, Ash Wednesday fell around the same time that the coronavirus pandemic started to become something to worry about for most Americans. It was the first day many religious leaders began to tweak their rituals by adding steps like hand sanitizer, and no one had any inkling just how devastating the virus would become or how long the pandemic would drag on.
Now, of course, we’re a lot wiser – and a lot more weary. Many church leaders will be following guidance from the Vatican recommending that priests sprinkle ashes on people’s heads without saying anything instead of swiping it on the forehead. Some reportedly won’t be distributing ashes at all.
If you happen to know someone who’s active in the PTA, you might wish them a Happy Founders Day today. On this day in 1897, more than 2,000 people – mostly mothers, but also fathers, teachers, laborers and lawmakers – attended the first convocation of the National Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C. Twenty years later, 37 chartered state congresses existed.
The National Congress of Mothers was founded by Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst. Of course, women did not have the right to vote at the time, nor was activism by women particularly popular or routine.
However, these two women believed that mothers would support their mission to eliminate threats that endangered children, and they were onto something, clearly, because now the PTA is the the largest volunteer child advocacy organization in the nation.
The New York State Congress of Parents and Teachers is the first state branch of the National Congress, organized in October 1897.
In 1899 it was incorporated as The Mothers’ Assembly of the State of New York. In 1920 it was reincorporated as the New York State Congress of Mothers’ and Parent-Teacher Associations. In 1925 the name was changed yet again to the New York State Congress of Parents and Teachers, AKA The State PTA.
We’re in for a rather calm day today – the calm before the (next) storm, so to speak – with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-20s. There is a warning issued for potential black ice on the roads this morning, which developed as the temperature dropped overnight after a rather warm day.
So be careful if you’re driving. Meanwhile, I’ll be making my usual commute from kitchen to home office – a whopping 25 steps or so. OK, maybe 50.
In the headlines…
As a winter storm forced the Texas power grid to the brink of collapse, millions of residents were submerged this week into darkness, bitter cold and a sense of indignation over being stuck in uncomfortable and even dangerous conditions.
This situation could have wide-reaching implications as the U.S. power industry attempts to slash carbon emissions in response to the climate crisis.
The FERC and North American Electric Reliability Corp. said they’ll open a joint inquiry into the Texas bulk power system’s operations during the extreme winter weather conditions battering the Midwest and South-Central states.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has also called for an investigation into the outages. He also called for an emergency reform of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit corporation that oversees the flow of power in the state, saying its performance had been “anything but reliable.”
While some wind turbines did freeze, failures in natural gas, coal and nuclear energy systems were responsible for nearly twice as many outages as renewables, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) said.
As climate change accelerates, many electric grids will face extreme weather events that go far beyond the historical conditions those systems were designed for, putting them at risk of catastrophic failure.
Rescuers have saved thousands of “cold-stunned” sea turtles near South Padre Island in Texas after a record-breaking winter storm brought freezing air temperatures to the region, according to conservation group Sea Turtle, Inc.
The winter storm stretching disrupted distribution of the coronavirus vaccine this week, as clinics giving shots closed and shipments of the vaccine stalled with snow and ice grounding flights and turning highways dangerously slick.
Former President Donald Trump blasted Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell as a “third-rate” politician and vowed to support far-right candidates challenging establishment Republicans in the next midterm elections.
Trump is no longer relying on Rudy Giuliani for legal representation, an aide to the former president said Tuesday, as the former mayor’s own troubles with the law continued to pile up.
Dr. Anthoy Fauci, who has served as the COVID-19 point man for both Trump and President Biden, has received Israel’s acclaimed Dan David Prize for “defending science,” which comes with $1 million.
New COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the decline in the U.S., but health experts warn about complacency, while stressing that social distancing measures and the use of face masks are still important tools in keeping the progress going.
President Biden said that the COVID-19 vaccine will be “available” to every American who wants it by the end of July.
Health experts are monitoring whether alterations to the coronavirus vaccinations will ultimately become necessary to fight new strains of the virus, such as the one first detected in South Africa.
Biden also said teachers should move up in priority for getting vaccines, although he didn’t say whether he thinks teachers should be vaccinated before returning to the classroom. The CDC maintains teacher vaccinations are not a prerequisite for reopenings.
Biden’s COVID-19 czar Jeff Zients told governors that the weekly vaccine supply going out to states is increasing by more than 20% to 13.5 million doses this week. In addition, the supply going directly to pharmacies will double to 2 million this week.
Biden’s administration is considering a new approach as it struggles with a messy vaccine rollout — setting aside his harsh criticisms of the tech industry and taking Silicon Valley up on its latest offers to help fight the pandemic.
A technology executive in California has apologized for hosting a conference in Culver City after which two dozen attendees and staff members at the event tested positive for the coronavirus.
CVS said it would re-enter the Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces next year, as its major role in Covid-19 testing and vaccination allows it to forge ties to more consumers.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s job approval rating has dropped 10 points since January, a new Siena poll showed, amid bipartisan criticism of his administration’s reporting of the number of nursing-home residents who died from Covid-19.
The governor’s favorability rating remained at 56%, with 39% of respondents holding an unfavorable view of Cuomo, the Siena poll found.
Nine Democratic members of the state Assembly accused Cuomo of federal obstruction of justice in a letter seeking support to strip him of his COVID-19 emergency powers.
New York City released data that showed disparities in Covid-19 vaccination rates by ZIP Codes. The share of fully vaccinated residents varies widely, from 2% in some parts of Queens to 25% in some parts of the Bronx.
Republican state Sens. Dan Stec and Sue Serino are pushing a bill that would require the state Department of Health to post weekly updates on the state website that would show how vaccine is being distributed.
When New York was given the authorization to develop saliva-swab tests to detect COVID-19, it was touted as an ideal national approach for expedient and more widespread testing, yet the less-invasive tests are not widely available to the public.
State education officials barred administrators from requiring COVID-19 testing consent forms for kids to participate in any school-related activity, which runs counter to an existing policy in NYC.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who represents parts of the Bronx and Westchester, announced that his mother has died from coronavirus.
The Mount Sinai hospital system has abruptly canceled all scheduled first-dose coronavirus vaccinations for members of the public — and is reportedly blaming the reallocation of supplies to government-run inoculation sites.
New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sued Amazon, arguing that the company provided inadequate safety protection for workers in New York City during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who raised concerns over the conditions.
James alleges Amazon has “repeatedly and persistently failed” to take adequate measures to protect its workers in its Staten Island and Queens warehouses, the lawsuit filed in New York County Supreme Court maintains.
“Amazon has cut corners in complying with the particular requirements that would most jeopardize its sales volume and productivity rates, thereby ensuring outsize profits at an unprecedented rate of growth for the company and its shareholders,” the suit alleges.
Cuomo said he would amend his proposal to regulate and tax recreational marijuana in hopes that the drug could be legalized as part of the state budget due by April 1.
The amended version of Cuomo’s cannabis proposal would reduce criminal penalties for illegal sales, outlines how some of the tax revenue would be spent and allows for the delivery of cannabis products.
A federal appeals court cleared the way for New York City to release hundreds of thousands of police disciplinary records, a major milestone in a long and bitter political battle to open the records to public scrutiny.
The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling affirmed a Manhattan federal judge’s previous decision that the disciplinary records should be made public. It also lifted a stay from September that prevented the publication of the records.
The head of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee blasted NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea’s absence at a hearing on police reform bills. It was the latest in a string of hearings to which he sent underlings in his place.
Five months after dropping out of the race for mayor of New York City to focus on his mental health, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, said that he was considering a late entry into the city comptroller’s race.
The criminal case against Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park and falsely reported he had threatened her, was dismissed after she completed a therapeutic program that included instruction about racial biases.
Cooper’s lawyer suggested lawsuits are imminent.
A NYC public school principal is asking parents to “reflect” on their “whiteness” — passing out literature that extols “white traitors’’ who “dismantle institutions,” education officials confirmed.
Some of the barricades around Trump Tower in Manhattan, erected after the former president was elected, have come down, and security measures have been eased now that he’s out of office. Neighbors are relieved.
At dozens of microbakeries in apartment kitchens across the five boroughs, laid-off chefs are flexing their creativity to meet the city’s demand for cheer and calories.
In the latest in a string of unprovoked subway assaults, two women were punched in separate attacks on Manhattan train platforms yesterday, police said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio voiced confidence that a big new deployment of NYPD officers will make the subways safer in the wake of last weekend’s stabbing rampage, but conceded the city can do more to reach people having mental health issues near the tracks.
Ghislaine Maxwell was “physically abused” during a routine search by a correctional officer at a Brooklyn federal jail and then faced retaliation after complaining, her attorney wrote.
With gestational surrogacy now legal in New York, there are new rights and protections for both parents and surrogates, and more help for patients.
Officials in Saratoga, Renssealer and Schenectady county say Cuomo brought up expanding the state’s mass vaccination site network into local counties during a recent call.
A Long Island high school is going remote after its students recently attended super spreader parties, which prompted a rise in COVID-19 cases within the community, school officials said.
A Saratoga County man admitted to painting the mysterious orange blazes on the Cascade Mountain trail in the fall of 2019 so he could find his way back down the mountain. He will pay a $500 civil penalty.
Four Rensselaer County men who wore body armor and carried police batons while walking through the city’s peaceful Black Lives Matter protest last June pleaded guilty in City Court to a variety of charges, according to court records.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization that last summer battled local officials over COVID-19 closures and restrictions is suing Schoharie County in federal court alleging it was targeted for its religious views.
Business activity grew “modestly” across New York state in February, according to the latest findings of the Empire State Manufacturing Survey. The monthly survey is conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Oneida County’s two elections commissioners have decided to resign from their jobs amid mounting pressure over a series of mistakes in the NY-22 race.
The Shinnecock Indian Nation today will announce plans for a casino on its Southampton reservation, according to an alert sent to media outlets.
Allison Gollust, a CNN executive and top lieutenant to Jeff Zucker who briefly did a stint as Cuomo’s communications director, has emerged as the leading internal candidate to take over the network if Zucker steps down as president.
A New York hedge fund that is the largest shareholder in Tribune Publishing reached a deal to acquire the rest of the newspaper company, which owns some of the biggest papers in the country, including the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News.
BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti, a co-founder of the Huffington Post with Arianna Huffington, finalized his company’s acquisition of the left-leaning news and culture site.
Veteran CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin announced at the top of her show yesterday that she’ll be leaving the network in mid-April after 13 years.
The Hudson River sloop Clearwater’s first captain, Allan J. Aunapu, died in an accident last Thursday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., at age 79, according to a news release from the Clearwater nonprofit organization.
Marriott International Inc. Chief Executive Officer Arne Sorenson, who ran the world’s largest hotel company and talked often about the need for business executives to speak out on important social issues, died at the age of 62 after battling pancreatic cancer.
