Welcome to the end of the week. Friday has arrived. Phew.
WAS YESTERDAY GLORIOUS AND AMAZING OR WHAT? Mother Nature really outdid herself, as the temperature topped out at 70-some-odd degrees. A bit of a tease, though, since today is supposed to be in the mid-50s.
And next week? Yeah. Let’s not even go there.
Today is Girl Scout Day, commemorating the day when the organization’s founder, Juliette Gordon Low, officially registered the U.S. organization’s first 18 girl members in Savannah, Georgia.
Girl Scouts are more or less synonymous with cookies…and yes, we’ll be getting to that. But Low’s vision was to create a program that would prepare girls to meet their world with courage, confidence, and character.
The original Scouts was an outdoor and educational program for youth. Members played basketball, hiked, swam, and camped. This was back in the early 1900s, mind you, in the midst of the Progressive Era.
Gordon Low’s small gathering has since grown into a global movement that today includes 2.6 million Scouts (1.8 million girls and 800,000 adults) in 92 countries and more than 50 million alums, who are, as the website puts, it “united across distance and decades by lifelong friendships, shared adventures, and the desire to do big things to make the world a better place.”
The cookie sale thing actually started in the very early years of the Girl Scouts, when members baked in their own kitchens and sold their goodies to raise money to fund their various activities. The original official cookie was a sugar cookie, for which the recipe was published in The American Girl magazine in 1922.
In 1935, the Girl Scout Federation of Greater New York raised started selling commercially baked cookies. Buying its own die in the shape of a trefoil, the group used the words “Girl Scout Cookies” on the box. In 1936, the national Girl Scout organization began the process of licensing the first commercial bakers to produce cookies that would be sold nationwide by girls in Girl Scout councils.
By 1937, more than 125 Girl Scout councils reported holding cookie sales.
Today, of course, you can get your Girl Scout cookie fix by ordering online. There are 12 varieties, including a gluten-free version, and I have engaged in very serious and heated debates about which are the best. Peanut Butter Do-si-dos. Hands down. Come at me. I’m ready. And no thank you to the Samoas, (which apparently are also known as Caramel deLites?!).
Ridiculous. There’s nothing light about them, and there’s just too much going on there. I like my cookies unadulterated, thanks very much.
It’s also National Working Moms Day. You’ve probably heard something about how the pandemic has impacted women more than men when it comes to job loss. Some people have called what we’re experiencing a “she-recession.”
Not only did women hold a high percentage of the service industry positions that were wiped out by the lockdowns imposed in an effort to prevent COVID-19 from spreading, but they also left the workforce in higher numbers due to child rearing responsibilities. (Someone needed to take care of the kids when schools shut down and switched over to remote learning).
Now that things are starting to return to some semblance of normal, women are finding it more difficult to get back to work. Basically, this past year has wiped out decades of hard-fought workplace advancement for women.
So, a shoutout to every mom out there who is making it work – whether you’re “working” from home, or just home working. Kudos.
In the headlines…
New York State lawmakers opened an impeachment inquiry into Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the surest sign yet that the governor was seeing his party turn against him amid growing scrutiny of a recent series of sexual harassment accusations.
After a three-hour emergency meeting, the state Assembly announced that it would give its judiciary committee broad jurisdiction to investigate allegations of misconduct against Cuomo, – including the sexual harassment claims and his administration’s handling of virus-related deaths of nursing home patients.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said the Judiciary Committee “will have the authority to interview witnesses, subpoena documents and evaluate evidence, as is allowed by the New York State Constitution.”
The decision set the stage for what could be the state’s first impeachment effort in more than a century.
The announcement came on the same day that 59 Democrats in the State Legislature — about 40 percent of the party’s members in the Assembly and the Senate — signed on to a statement demanding that Cuomo immediately resign.
The Albany Police Department has been formally notified about the allegation that Cuomo groped a female staffer at the Executive Mansion on Eagle Street last year in an incident that may amount to a crime.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan said the decision by Cuomo’s acting counsel to refer a sexual assault allegation against the governor to the city’s police department was “highly unusual” and would normally be a matter handled by the State Police.
The woman hasn’t filed a criminal complaint, but Beth Garvey, the governor’s acting counsel, said that the state had reported the allegation to the Albany Police after the woman involved declined to do so herself.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, a frequent Cuomo critic, joined the calls for his resignation , calling the most recent allegation “disgusting” and saying, “He can no longer serve as governor. It’s as simple as that.”
After Cuomo was first accused of sexual harassment by former aide Lindsey Boylan, the governor’s office called at least six former employees either to find out if they had heard from her or to glean information about her in conversations some said they saw as attempts to intimidate them.
The New York office of the National Organization for Women, long a staunch ally of Cuomo, issued a statement calling for him to resign immediately in the face of increasing sexual harassment allegations.
De Blasio and Schumer say $6 billion in federal stimulus funding through the American Rescue Act will be coming to New York City, but not funneled through the state government.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer joined other Democratic lawmakers in demanding that Cuomo be held accountable for the sexual misconduct accusations — but cautioned about jumping to conclusions.
Capital Region Democratic Assembly members John McDonald and Pat Fahy are suggesting that Cuomo should step aside temporarily – if he won’t resign – while the investigation into sexual harassment allegations against him is carried out.
The Cuomo administration has spent the last year quietly allowing COVID-19 patients to return to homes for the disabled — much like it did with nursing homes — and the policy remains in effect.
President Biden pressed states to widen Covid-19 vaccine eligibility to all U.S. adults by May 1, calling for an all-hands effort to defeat the coronavirus to set the stage for small gatherings during Independence Day weekend.
Biden marked a year since the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country with his first prime-time address – a speech in which he mixed hard numbers on vaccine distribution with appeals to unity and a deep-seated belief in America’s power to overcome any challenge.
Biden signed into law a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus bill, hours before he planned to address the nation to begin an extensive outreach campaign explaining the massive spending package.
The latest batch of COVID relief checks of up to $1,400 will land in bank accounts this weekend via direct deposit, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced.
The president noted that the stimulus package provides $130 billion for schools, an amount that he said will “accelerate a massive effort to reopen our schools safely.”
Biden also condemned “vicious” hate crimes against Asian-Americans, who he said have been “attacked, harassed, blamed and scapegoated” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Weekly jobless claims rose less than expected last week, but remained above pre-pandemic levels, as the U.S. economy tried to shake off impacts from Covid-19 and employers waited to see if Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus would become law.
Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 712,000 in the week ended March 6, down about 200,000 from an early January peak and close to a pandemic low point reached last November.
The five-county Albany metro area had 31,600 fewer jobs in January than the same month a year earlier, the state Labor Department reported. The pandemic in January 2020 hadn’t yet triggered the lockdowns and layoffs that would follow two months later.
Washington State Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal asked the Ethics Committee to launch a probe of three Republican House members accused of helping rioters plan the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and to refer potential criminal charges to the Justice Department.
The European Union expanded its list of approved Covid-19 vaccines to four options, but the addition of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine Thursday appears unlikely soon to accelerate Europe’s lagging rollout.
Tens of millions of doses of the coronavirus vaccine made by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca are sitting idly in American manufacturing facilities, awaiting results from its U.S. clinical trial while countries that have authorized its use beg for access.
Patients with COVID-19 who felt more than five symptoms in their first week of illness were more likely to become a “COVID-19 long hauler,” which researchers qualified as having symptoms for longer than 28 days, according to a new study.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he would have been stunned if he knew a year ago that the United States’ coronavirus death toll would reach such devastating levels — and blamed the grisly tally partially on politics.
New York will soon get a massive influx of COVID vaccines from the federal government, with more than 100 community health centers across the state getting their own supply of shots, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Starting April 1, domestic travelers to New York will no longer be required to quarantine, though the state will still recommend they do so as “an added precaution.”
Buffalo Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins wants to see the border between the U.S. and Canada fully reopened by Independence Day.
Amtrak will restore the Lake Shore Limited, with service from Albany to Boston, Chicago and New York City, on May 31, the passenger railroad announced.
The LAPD severely mishandled protests last summer in the wake of George Floyd’s death, illegally detaining protesters, issuing conflicting orders to officers and striking people who had committed no crimes with rubber bullets, bean bags and batons, according to a scathing report.
Former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin now faces an additional murder charge in the death of George Floyd after a Hennepin County judge reinstated a count of third-degree murder.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman called out the public affairs network C-SPAN for misidentifying him as his fellow Black New York delegation member, Rep. Mondaire Jones, during a Wednesday debate in the House of Representatives.
Senators this week overwhelmingly voted to confirm Rep. Marcia Fudge as the next U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, making her the first Black woman to lead the sprawling agency in 44 years.
The House approved a pair of bills aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks for gun buyers, as Democrats pushed past Republican opposition to advance major gun safety measures after decades of congressional inaction.
Some Black mothers are seeking alternatives, worried about Covid-19 and racial inequities in health care.
Cramped holding cells in New York City’s courthouses were left out of the picture when COVID-19 led the city to equip court buildings with state-of-the-art ventilation systems.
The city would create a year-long “regulatory holiday” for small businesses aimed at saving them $100 million in fees, under a new plan from mayoral candidate Maya Wiley.
The Freelancers Union endorsed both Wiley and Andrew Yang for mayor. The unusual dual endorsement came with the mayor’s race featuring for the first time ranked-choice voting.
Biden is poised to name a top New York City schools official, Mary Wall, to a senior administration role focused on reopening the nation’s schools, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.
Families of 9/11 victims will once again read their names out loud to commemorate this year’s 20th anniversary of the World Trade Center attack, a year after the COVID pandemic divided people over how to remember the fallen, organizers said.
Manhattan’s Battery Park City is under consideration as a site for a state Covid-19 memorial to commemorate essential workers during the pandemic. Some say the neighborhood, already overloaded with monuments, isn’t the best location for this tribute.
An ex-staffer for GOP congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis got a no-jail sentence in court after he pleaded guilty to trying to fix a college basketball game at his alma mater.
As the state Legislature considers legalizing cannabis for adult use, the New York State PTA is pushing back, releasing an email to members to call attention to the marijuana measure, raising concerns over the effect on younger people if they gain access.
The state has lost a court battle to reverse a ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency that General Electric Co.’s dredging project to remove PCBs from the Hudson River was satisfactorily completed.
New York imprisons more people for technical parole violations than any other state, and at a rate almost three times higher than the national average.
Ex-Schenectady County Human Rights Commission Executive Director Angelicia Morris testified at a hearing to clear her name that nobody on the panel told her she was insubordinate, violating bylaws or abusing her power — the reasons given for her firing.
The first hydrogen “energy station” in the United States would be built in the Capital Region by the end of next year under a partnership between National Grid and energy storage company Standard Hydrogen Corp.
As climate change and pollution threaten its famed clarity, Lake George’s two largest watchdogs are merging to better fight for its future.
Universal basic income, in which citizens receive a stipend from the government to cover necessary expenses, will get a test run in Ulster County under a pilot program that will deliver $500 to 100 households from May 2021 through April 2022 – a total of $6,000 per family.
