Good Wednesday morning, and Happy Birthday to the U.S. Navy Reserve!
Formed in 1915 in response to the outbreak of World War I, (which means it’s not as old as the Navy itself), the Reserve made up almost 84 percent of the Navy’s fighting force during the war. Among its ranks were five future U.S. Presidents and 15 recipients of the Medal of Honor.
The Reserve, a force of highly trained men and women available to meet the expanded needs of the regular Navy, has since had reservists serve in every major war in which the U.S. has fought.
Reservists serve as either the Selected Reserve (SELRES) or Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) Sailors, and amplify the Navy’s core capabilities, including forward presence, deterrence, sea control, power projection, maritime security, humanitarian assistance, and disaster response.
This is not a federal holiday, but there are normally birthday events held at individual Navy Reserve units, Reserve HQ, and at the Navy Memorial in Washington D.C.
It’s also National Anthem Day because on this day in 1931, “The Star-Spangled Banner” became the national anthem of the U.S. as President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution.
The Star-Spangled Banner was a poem written by Maryland attorney Francis Scott Key in 1814 after he witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812 and was inspired by the sight of a lone U.S. flag still flying over Fort McHenry at daybreak.
By the early 1900s, however, there were several different versions of the song, so President Woodrow Wilson asked the Bureau of Education to standardize it. The Bureau hired five musicians, including John Philip Sousa, to create the final result, which was first performed on Dec. 5, 1917.
Worth noting – though potentially controversial – is the fact that it’s National Canadian Bacon Day, which celebrates the fact that our neighbors to the North are the world’s third-largest pork exporter and annually ship the equivalent of one thick pork chop or five slices of bacon for every human being on the planet.
Canadian bacon, for the record, is a pork product that is cut from the back of the pig. It usually comes in rounded slices. In contrast, American bacon, with the streaky cured and smoked strips is cut from the pork belly, which is higher in fat.
In Canada, Canadian bacon is known as “back bacon.” I know some people swear by it, as it’s leaner than the U.S. version. But I’m not a big fan. Too much like ham, which I really don’t like. Sorry, OK, I said it. Someone convince me otherwise.
We’re on tap for cloudy skies today and temperatures in the 40s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden is barreling into his first science-vs.-politics showdown with powerful Southern Republican governors, one that could define the outcome of the race to vaccinate enough Americans before variants take hold.
The governors of Texas and Mississippi defied federal government warnings to not relax restrictions and open their economies too fast, going it alone as new infections plateau at high levels and fears grow over a huge spike in the coming weeks.
Gov. Greg Abbott said it’s time to “open Texas 100%” and end the statewide mask order, citing declining hospitalizations across the state as more people are vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Biden said the U.S. will have a large enough supply of coronavirus vaccines to inoculate every adult in the nation by the end of May — two months earlier than previously expected.
The administration had provided support to Johnson & Johnson that would enable the company and its partners to make vaccines around the clock.
Many states prioritized COVID-19 vaccines for people over 75, then moved to those over 65, but they shouldn’t keep stepping down by age, an advisory committee to the CDC said, because the approach is inherently unfair to minorities.
Country music star Dolly Parton, who donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which worked with the drugmaker Moderna to create its vaccine, 75, received a shot of her own medicine.
Chains such as CVS Health Corp., Walmart Inc. and Walgreens-Boots Alliance, Inc. are collecting data from millions of customers as they sign up for shots, enrolling them in patient systems and having recipients register customer profiles.
Nursing homes in the U.S. have seen a huge drop in new COVID-19 cases this year — suggesting that coronavirus vaccines are working, a new report claims.
Biden has pulled his nomination of Neera Tanden to lead the Office of Management and Budget after senators made clear her path to confirmation was unlikely.
Biden in a statement said Tanden had withdrawn her nomination though he still “look(ed) forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration,” signaling that he could still appoint her to a position that does not require Senate confirmation.
Seth Harris, who previously served as acting Labor secretary under former President Obama, has reportedly been tapped by the White House to serve as labor adviser under the Biden administration.
Biden and top Democrats are working to ensure that frustration over the exclusion of the minimum wage increase in the stimulus plan does not overshadow the success of the package.
The U.S. Supreme Court seemed ready to uphold two election restrictions in Arizona and to make it harder to challenge all sorts of limits on voting around the nation.
For the first time, in both cases, the Supreme Court is considering the section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits practices that “result in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen…to vote on account of race or color.”
House Democrats are poised to pass a sweeping elections and ethics bill, offering it up as a powerful counterweight to voting rights restrictions advancing in Republican-controlled statehouses across the country.
FBI Director Christopher Wray described an ominous warning the night before the Capitol riots about the prospect of extreme violence as “raw, unverified, uncorroborated information” – but said it was shared extensively with Capitol Police and other authorities.
Wray warned senators that domestic terrorism was “metastasizing across the country,” reaffirming the threat from racially motivated extremists while largely escaping any tough questions about the bureau’s actions before the siege of the Capitol.
The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician.
The review found Jackson made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted colleagues’ concerns about his ability to provide proper care.
Some $1.5 million included in the latest COVID stimulus bill for Seaway International Bridge connecting New York to Canada across the St. Lawrence River has been dropped because Republican North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik declined to fight for it.
A request for the $1.5 million was originally made by the Department of Transportation under the Trump administration in spring 2020 and that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer didn’t know it was in the stimulus bill until he read about it in media reports.
At least 13 people died after an SUV packed with dozens of passengers collided with a semitruck near the U.S.-Mexico border, according to California Highway Patrol officials.
With allegations of unsettling behavior toward women spilling into the public eye, Gov. Andrew Cuomo spent yesterday fending off calls for his resignation, with few voluble defenders in a moment of unparalleled weakness in his decade-long tenure in Albany.
Republican Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin, a former state senator, said he is “actively exploring” a 2022 run for governor.
The state Working Families Party, with which Cuomo has often clashed, joined the call for him to resign, saying he “has shown himself to be far more concerned with misleading the public and mistreating others than caring for New Yorkers in need.”
Amid dueling scandals engulfing the Cuomo administration, state legislative leaders announced that they will pass a bill in the coming days to repeal the temporary emergency powers given to the Democratic governor at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The legislature will likely act on the bill as soon as Friday, Democratic Capital Region Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner said in a Twitter post.
“The public deserves to have checks and balances. Our proposal would create a system with increased input while at the same time ensuring New Yorkers continue to be protected,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.
“These temporary emergency powers were granted as New York was devastated by a virus we knew nothing about,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in a statement. “Now it is time for our government to return to regular order.”
A spokesman for Cuomo didn’t immediately comment on the resolution, but the governor has previously said his expanded powers helped him make decisions and avoid a patchwork response to the virus.
Cuomo has avoided public appearances for days as some members of his own party call for him to resign over sexual harassment allegations. He last took questions from reporters during a Feb. 19 coronavirus briefing.
Cuomo was last before video cameras this past Thursday, (Feb. 25), when he introduced Biden at a virtual meeting of the National Governor’s Association, which he chairs.
The White House dodged on the chance to weigh on whether Cuomo should step down as chair of the National Governors Association, with Press Secretary Jen Psaki saying that’s a decision for the organization itself to make.
Six state legislators who bill themselves as “socialist” issued a statement supporting impeachment proceedings against Cuomo.
“He should resign, but because that is dependent on him, we also need to be willing and ready to investigate and impeach,” Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat whose district covers Manhattan’s financial district and Chinatown, said.
State Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, a close ally of Cuomo’s, said people need to wait on judging the allegations until after an independent investigation is completed and criticized Democrats who are calling on the governor to resign.
Jacobs told members of the GOP that they had no room to criticize Democrats after years of blindly supporting former President Donald Trump through controversies with over 20 women accusing him sexual assault among other claims.
The attorney general’s investigation into Cuomo, which will likely take months, will give her far-ranging subpoena powers to request documents and call witnesses – including the governor himself.
Cuomo could face criminal exposure for a former aide’s allegation that he kissed her without her consent at his midtown office in July 2018.
Actress Rosie Perez, a longtime Democratic activist whose distinctively Brooklyn voice contributed to Cuomo’s “Mask Up, America” campaign last spring, lambasted the governor’s apology statement in response to sexual harassment allegations.
Cuomo has been quick to call for the resignations of powerful Albany lawmakers accused of sexually harassing aides, but refuses to heed his own advice now that he’s the one facing multiple claims, critics argue.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo is being slammed by fellow members of the media for refusing to cover his brother governor’s growing list of scandals, following a number of softball interviews during the height of the pandemic.
Biden’s aides were furious that Cuomo made a self-serving video for the 2020 Democratic National Convention and asked his camp to redo it, but they refused, a new book says.
Cuomo sounded defeated, senior officials who had spoken with him said. It seemed to be getting to him that the usual strategic plays were suddenly no longer working. “Like an old man who just didn’t have the fight in him anymore,” said one.
New York state could buy financially distressed office buildings and hotels and convert them into affordable housing for homeless and impoverished New Yorkers under a bill being considered in the state Senate.
Legislative leaders and Cuomo are projecting two-year revenue totals that are $2.453 billion above the estimates in the executive budget proposal.
Despite a federal report ranking New York third in the nation for the number of Lyme disease diagnoses, not a penny has been set aside in Cuomo’s executive budget for research, prevention or treatment of the disease or other tick-borne illnesses.
After blocking a bipartisan proposal to create accurate maps showing where high-speed internet service is available and where it is lacking, the Cuomo administration has failed to include the plan in the governor’s executive budget.
Two New York City residents have been infected with a coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa, and city officials are closely studying another variant found in New York.
As the COVID-19 vaccination is rolled out in New York State, over 50,000 farmworkers have been left in limbo after they were removed from the State’s implementation of Phase 1B at the last minute.
New York City is significantly increasing its capacity to test for coronavirus variants by quadrupling the number of coronavirus samples that can be sequenced in city laboratories in March, and starting a new program to vaccinate older homebound people.
New York will start administering Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose coronavirus shot this week at three of the state’s mass vaccination sites.
Hours-long wait times were reported at Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Center vaccination hub yesterday, with a massive line at one point extending outside and around the block.
Mayor Bill de Blasio called for the state to expand COVID-19 vaccine eligibility yet again to include city workers like sanitation workers, lifeguards and courtroom employees — as he also demanded more doses for New York City.
De Blasio said he plans on getting Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine to show New Yorkers who may be wary about its effectiveness that it’s the “right choice.”
Sports fans in New York can now use a state-issued “pass” to prove they’re COVID-free before the next big game at Madison Square Garden or Barclays Center.
Federal approval of New York City’s congestion pricing program will move forward “aggressively” under the leadership of new Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, de Blasio said.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams received a key mayoral endorsement from the powerful hotel workers union, the second big stamp of approval from a labor union in the race so far.
Tablets are taboo for students who want to take the highly-competitive Advanced Placement exams at home this spring, yet another blow to New York City schoolkids struggling to stay on track during a year of constant disruptions.
An outbreak of coronavirus at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has prompted the Troy school to suspend all in-person instruction and take several other steps.
Outgoing University at Albany basketball coach Will Brown released an “open letter to the Capital Region community“, expressing gratitude for numerous people he worked with in his 21 seasons at the school.
Schenectady County government facilities will welcome back employees and library-goers for scaled back services inside on March 22.
The Albany Common Council passed legislation designed to strengthen the Historic Resources Commission’s oversight of emergency demolitions in the city.
The attorney for Ellazar Williams, who was paralyzed in a 2018 police shooting, wants the city of Albany to provide 10 years of data on all incidents involving , resistance or a “firearm or other deadly force,” according to court papers.
Nearly 25% of people in a recent survey indicated that they plan to move to the Adirondacks within the next five years and are looking for recreational opportunities, affordable single-family homes and high-speed internet.
The owner of a Cheektowaga strip club stands accused by federal prosecutors who for more than a year have been looking into the possible resurgence of the Buffalo Mafia.
Seresto, one of America’s most popular flea and tick collars, has been tied to the staggering number of pet deaths as well as tens of thousands of animal injuries and the harm of hundreds of people, according to Environmental Protection Agency documents.
Six of Dr. Seuss’s books will no longer be published after a recent review concluded they contained offensive images, the company in charge of the late author’s works said.
An unknown man tried to break into Sandra Lee’s home in Malibu, Calif., on Feb. 11, police said. She wasn’t home at the time.
Lee has teamed up with one of the governor’s daughters, Cara Kennedy-Cuomo, to executive produce a new documentary on the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Vernon Jordan, a civil-rights leader whose pragmatism and charisma gave him access to corporate boardrooms, congressional leaders and the White House, died Monday at the age of 85.
Reggae legend Bunny Wailer — a founding member of the Wailers with Bob Marley — passed away at the age of 73.
Geoffrey Scott, a soap opera star popular for roles in TV juggernauts like “Dynasty” and “Dark Shadows,” has died at the age of 79.
