Hello and welcome to the middle of the week. It’s Wednesday.
It’s also National Equal Pay Day, which was was first observed in 1996 by the National Committee on Pay Equity, a coalition of women’s and civil rights organizations, labor unions, professional associations and individuals working to eliminate sex and race based-wage discrimination and to achieve pay equity.
What is pay equity? It’s when people who do the same job make the same amount of money, regardless of their gender, race, religious orientation or any other factor that should really have no impact – in a perfect world – whatsoever on determining their salary.
The world, sadly, is not perfect. As of this month, women who work full time in the U.S. are earning $.82 to every $1 earned by a man. This day marks the day into the year on which it takes for women on average to earn what men did in 2020.
That’s 15 months. Or, if you want to look at it a different way, consider a typical 9:00-5:00 work day, in which, theoretically speaking, women start working for free at 2:40 p.m.
This day is perhaps more important than ever to recognize in 2020, given the fact that the pandemic-induced recession has hit women harder than men. In fact, some economists have taken to calling it a she-cession, or a female recession. Women, on average, held more service industry jobs than men, and lost more jobs as a result of the economic downturn.
They’ve also been slower to return to the workplace, with some women not actually facing layoffs but rather the difficulty – at least until very recently – of trying to juggle kids at home doing remote learning with their own careers. Something had to give. Someone had to stay home and make sure the kids got fed and logged onto their respective virtual learning experiences.
More often than not, that someone was a woman. Basically, the pandemic in a single year wiped out multiple years of hard-fought workplace advancements for women, setting us collectively back too many steps to count.
The labor participation rate for women was 55.8 percent last month, its lowest level since 1987.
The situation has been exponentially worse for women of color, who also had the added burden of getting infected by COVID -19 and dying at higher rates than their white counterparts. Also, this is a global problem, not just something occurring here in the U.S.
Oh, another perhaps initially unforeseen casualty of the women-leaving-the-workplace phenomenon? The child care industry.
Depressed? Well, that makes two of us. Thankfully, there’s an excuse to eat chocolate covered raisins for breakfast today – or cheesesteak, if that’s more along your lines of personal indulgence preferences. You do you.
It’s going to be cloudy today with the chance of rain in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the low-to-mid-60s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden used the latest mass shooting to offer his most vocal push for gun control since taking office, saying the deaths of 10 people at a grocery store in Colorado should jolt Washington and the nation into action.
Biden’s call for an assault weapons ban and a wave of other gun control measures adds a daunting new policy challenge to a progressive agenda that is already shaping up as the most ambitious by a Democratic president for decades.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps that will save lives in the future,” Biden said. “This is not and should not be a partisan issue. It is an American issue.”
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on reducing gun violence that was scheduled before the latest deadly attack. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will meet this week on next steps in gun-control legislation.
Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, the 21-year-old suspect in Monday’s massacre at a Colorado supermarket, which left 10 dead including a store manager and a police officer, faces 10 counts of murder in the first degree, police said.
Law enforcement officials and former associates of Aliwi Alissa described him as someone prone to sudden rage who was suspended from high school for a sudden attack on a classmate that left the student bloodied.
A search of the suspect’s suburban Denver home turned up other weapons, a senior law enforcement source said. The weapon used in the attack was an AR-15-style pistol modified with an arm brace, according to the source.
The suspect’s brother said he had been bullied in high school and suggested he might be mentally ill..
The president spoke in Ohio to celebrate the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, extend its special enrollment period from May 15 to August 15 and to promote his American Rescue Plan.
North Korea fired off multiple short-range missiles this past weekend after denouncing Washington for going forward with joint military exercises with South Korea. The missile tests represent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s first challenge to Biden.
The Senate voted 57 to 43 to confirm Vivek H. Murthy as United States surgeon general, ensuring that a top ally of Biden will play a visible role in responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Two Democratic senators said they’ll vote against future presidential nominees who aren’t racially or ethnically diverse, jeopardizing Biden’s ability to fill his administration as he comes under fire for a lack of Asian-American representation in his ranks.
The White House said it would appoint a senior official to focus on Asian-American priorities after the two Asian-American lawmakers called on Biden to address their concerns.
The Biden administration is searching for new ways to stem the surge in the number of migrants at the southern border.
Senior White House officials are visiting Mexico and Guatemala this week in a bid to curtail a surge of migrants at the U.S. southern border that is raising pressure for the Biden administration to take more aggressive measures.
Texas, Indiana and Georgia announced that residents 16 years and older will be eligible for Covid-19 vaccinations starting Thursday for Georgia residents, Monday for Texans and on March 31 for Indianans.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has kicked off early stage clinical trials of an experimental oral antiviral drug to treat COVID-19.
The European Union is finalizing emergency legislation that will give it broad powers to curb exports for the next six weeks of Covid-19 vaccines manufactured in the bloc, a sharp escalation in its response to supply shortages at home.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced an intensified coronavirus lockdown going into Easter, warning that new mutations raised the specter of a potentially deadly “third wave” of COVID-19 as Europe struggles in its vaccination campaign.
Authorities in Hong Kong and Macao have suspended the rollout of BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine citing a packaging defect found in their first batch of doses.
Pfizer plans to begin testing its mRNA technology to create new vaccines, now having proven the process works for coronavirus, the company’s Chief Executive Albert Bourla said.
A group of medical experts says that AstraZeneca essentially cherry-picked data to make its vaccine look better.
A new study illuminates the complex array of neurological issues experienced by people months after their coronavirus infections.
The suicide of Kent Taylor, the founder and chief executive of the Texas Roadhouse restaurant chain, has drawn attention to a possible link between Covid-19 and tinnitus, the medical term for a constant ringing in the ears.
Coronavirus infection rates and hospitalizations are rising again across the state, with New York City still grappling with more contagious variants of the virus.
More than 40,000 people have now died in New York due in part to the novel coronavirus, with 53 additional deaths Monday. Statewide positivity was 4.74 percent, and 4,681 patients were hospitalized – including 925 in the ICU.
As vaccinations continue to ramp up in the Big Apple, some 80,000 municipal office workers are preparing to return to the workplace physically — and will begin doing just that starting May 3 under a new directive Mayor de Blasio announced.
This represents a significant turnabout for a city that served as the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, coming to symbolize the perils of living in densely packed global capitals.
Two prominent state Democratic lawmakers who are pursuing potential impeachment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced they’re infected with the coronavirus: Speaker Car Heastie and Assemblyman Ron Kim.
“With the upcoming New York state budget deadline, I plan on remaining in the Capital Region and working from my Albany residence,” said Heastie, who had already received one dose of the COVID vaccine.
“This is a reminder to everyone that we must continue to be vigilant — wear a mask, wash your hands, practice social distancing, and get tested if you are feeling any symptoms,” Heastie wrote on Twitter.
A state Assembly committee that is conducting an impeachment investigation into Cuomo publicly met with attorneys for the first time yesterday and promised a wide-ranging review of his conduct.
The investigation will likely take “months rather than weeks” because there are so many allegations against Cuomo, according to the Judiciary Committee chair, Long Island Assemblyman Charles Lavine.
“I served on the governor several days ago a notice of non-retaliation,” Lavine said. “In other words, putting the governor on notice that he and his employees and allies should take no steps toward intimidating any witness or any potential witness.”
Ana Liss, one of Cuomo’s sexual harassment accusers, said she “cannot confidently participate” in the Assembly probe, following the lead of the first accuser, Lindsey Boylan.
Boylan is now saying that several Rochester-area politicians bore the alleged brunt of the governor’s wrath and mistreatment.
Cuomo’s brother, Chris, is losing viewers for his prime time show on CNN.
Cuomo’s appointees to the state ethics commission blocked a subpoena seeking information about the unpaid volunteers playing an outsized role in the COVID-19 response.
Democrats in the state Legislature are “really, really close” to an agreement to legalize adult-use cannabis products and allow New Yorkers to grow a limited number of marijuana plants in their homes, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said.
Stewart-Cousins did not provide details on what would be included in the measure, but said law enforcement agencies may receive more funding to train officers on how to recognize when someone’s impaired by the drug.
According to Rochester Assemblyman Harry Bronson, the Cuomo administration has shown a willingness to spend more of the money generated through taxes on cannabis on programs designed to support low-income and minority communities.
Staten Island DA Michael McMahon said New York “should follow the lead of 45 other states and expand the definition of ‘drug’ to include ‘any substance or combination of substances that impair, to any extent, mental or physical abilities.'”
Executives at major Wall Street firms and other New York employers warned that increasing taxes as part of the state budget could lead high-income earners who left the state during the Covid-19 pandemic to never return.
Schumer said he would recommend that the president nominate three Black lawyers to head U.S. attorney offices in New York, including a veteran of the Manhattan office known for its white-collar prosecutions.
Schumer will ask Biden to name Damian Williams as the next U.S. attorney in Manhattan, virtually ensuring that one of the most powerful and important federal prosecutor’s offices in the country will be led for the first time by a Black man.
A newly-formed commission tasked with examining structural racism in New York City plans to identify aspects of government that have hurt minorities and should be changed.
The 11-member panel will review the city’s charter and make recommendations for revisions. The commission is modeled in part on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation commission, which was formed after the nation ended apartheid.
Straphangers should notice slightly faster subway rides as the MTA has increased outdated speed limits in dozens of locations across the system.
The MTA will continue splashing out for its $300 million-per-year subway cleaning effort into the future — even as the COVID-19 crisis that spurred the practice winds down, officials said.
Maya Wiley wants new busways to speed up commutes for straphangers in some of the city’s transit deserts — and said her former boss, de Blasio, could’ve done a better job getting community cooperation with street redesigns.
The June 22 Democratic primary race for mayor is still “wide open” — with half of voters still undecided, a new poll reveals.
Toxic firefighting foam had been incinerated at the Norlite aggregate plant in Cohoes for longer and to a greater extent than previously known, according to shipping documents from the U.S. Department of Defense.
A state trooper was arrested after an investigation into two alleged domestic incidents, State Police said.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan introduced a package of legislation designed to protect tenants, reduce blight and overhaul the city’s rental registry.
New York Court of Appeals Associate Judge Paul Feinman, known as “a champion of the LGBTQ community,” tendered his immediate departure from the state’s highest court due to a health concern, the court announced.
As a bill to end prolonged solitary confinement in New York prisons awaits action by Cuomo.
Convicted sex-cult guru Keith Raniere and his legal team are in hot water for accidentally revealing the names of victims of the NXIVM leader in court documents.
One day after issuing an apology and announcing he would not be seeking re-election or running for state governor, Republican upstate Rep. Tom Reed canceled a number of local public appearances that were scheduled for this week.
George Segal, an Oscar nominee for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and an actor who brought a touch of class to a slew of movie and TV comedies in a career that spanned more than 60 years, has died at the age of 87.
A Los Angeles man found shrimp tails in his box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, and the brand’s curious response led him to investigate further.
Dr. Oz’s temporary hosting gig on “Jeopardy!” is antithetical to the show’s purpose as a program rooted in science and facts, argue hundreds of former contestants and fans.
No longer a working member of the royal family, Prince Harry has a new job: executive at a Silicon Valley startup.
Medium, the website that gives individual writers a platform and in recent years started its own online magazines, offered voluntary buyouts to all of its editorial staff as it announced it was scaling back its journalism.
Major Biden (one of the president’s two dogs) is back at the White House after a “biting incident” involving security.
