Good Tuesday morning. Happy 4/20.
This unofficial holiday celebrating cannabis is particularly (ahem) potent in New York this year, given the fact that we recently became the 15th state to legalize the drug for adult recreational use.
It is now legal for anyone 21 or older to posses up to three ounces of cannabis at home or in public (up to 24 grams of concentrated product like oils).
Ostensibly, you would have had to purchase your weed somewhere, but in typical New York fashion, it is not yet legal to SELL cannabis – that won’t occur until a regulatory framework is established by the yet-to-be-formed Office of Cannabis Management.
And so it won’t likely be anytime before 2022 that New Yorkers can purchase safe, regulated adult use cannabis at licensed dispensaries or consumption sites (like lounges, though alcohol will not also be sold there).
There is always the option of the medical program, which was expanded and made more accessible under the new law. But you’ve got to get a prescription and also a medical cannabis card in order to participate.
About 4/20…it has its roots in (where else?) California in the 1970s, and has to do with some high school students. There’s also a Grateful Dead connection, because of course there is. If you want to go down this particular rabbit hole, and don’t already know the back story, click here.
Today also would have been the 70th birthday of the singer, songwriter and record producer Luther Vandross, which I would not have known had Google not been celebrating it with a video doodle.
Vandross, who died fairly young (54 of a heart attack two years after he suffered a severe stroke that left him in a coma for several months and wheelchair bound thereafter) in 2005, was considered the “Pavarotti of Pop” by some critics, and also the “Velvet Voice” by others. During his career, he sold over 35 million records worldwide.
If you’re a techie, then you probably already know that Apple is going to be holding its first media event of 2021 today, where it is expected to reveal some new products.
Also, in a very strange combination, it’s National Pineapple Upside Down Cake Day AND also National Lina Bean Respect Day. Just yuck. Sorry.
We’re on tap for a fairly nice day, with more clouds than sun (but no rain) and temperatures in the low 60s. (But if you live in the Western part of the state, you might not want to pack that shovel and heavy coat away just yet).
In the headlines…
Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president and champion of liberal politics, activist government and civil rights who ran as the Democratic candidate for president in 1984, losing to President Ronald Reagan in a landslide, has died at the age of 93.
In a statement, former President Jimmy Carter said he considered Mondale “the best vice president in our country’s history.” He added: “Fritz Mondale provided us all with a model for public service and private behavior.”
Rep. Maxine Waters last weekend called for protesters to “stay on the street” and “get more confrontational” if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted in the killing of George Floyd.
The judge overseeing trial said yesterday that those comments could be grounds for appealing a verdict.
The case yesterday went to the jury in a city on edge against another round of unrest like the one that erupted last year over the harrowing video of Chauvin with his knee on the Black man’s neck.
Hundreds of high school students in Roseville, Minnesota joined a student walkout as deliberations continued. Jurors deliberated for four hours yesterday before adjourning for the night without reaching a verdict.
Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota declared a “peacetime emergency” in the metropolitan area. He promised to protect protesters’ rights, but called for resources to prevent the kind of property destruction that happened during the unrest that followed Floyd’s death.
President Joe Biden is keeping a watchful eye on this week’s closing arguments, fearful that a controversial verdict could inflame new racial tensions and further escalate a deepening crisis in confidence with the nation’s police forces.
The White House backtracked after Biden over the weekend described the influx of migrant children on the country’s southern border as a “crisis,” in what appeared to be a notable shift in language.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up three challenges to a federal ban on gun ownership for people convicted of nonviolent crimes, disappointing 2nd Amendment advocates who hoped a more conservative court would chip away at the restriction.
The Biden administration is considering requiring tobacco companies to lower the nicotine in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. to levels at which they are no longer addictive.
Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick suffered a stroke and died of natural causes, the medical examiner’s office in Washington, D.C., said, weighing in on a question that has lingered since the officer died a day after he was assaulted during the Jan. 6 riot.
All adults in every U.S. state, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are now eligible for a Covid-19 vaccine, meeting the April 19 deadline that President Biden set two weeks ago.
Even as the U.S. and other countries press ahead with their COVID-19 vaccination programs, infections are increasing faster than ever globally.
About a fifth of those 65 and older in the U.S., a group that is particularly vulnerable to serious complications and death from the COVID-19 virus, have not received even one shot.
Emergent BioSolutions has shut down new manufacturing of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine at its Baltimore plant at the request of the Food and Drug Administration after an inspection of the troubled facility last week, Emergent said.
The age distribution of Covid-19 cases showing up in hospitals has shifted to a younger population, as younger people, who haven’t been vaccinated, are helping drive a rise in cases, according to health officials.
Soaring carbon emissions this year are on track to reverse a big chunk of last year’s sharp reduction, which some climate researchers had hoped might be an environmental silver lining of the pandemic.
State AG Tish James has opened an investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s use of state resources as he wrote and promoted his recent pandemic memoir, the latest inquiry to engulf the embattled three-term Democrat.
The investigation was opened after James received a formal referral letter from the state comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, saying that a criminal investigation was warranted.
DiNapoli, an independently elected fiscal officer, asked James to investigate the “alleged commission of any indictable offense or offenses in violation of” laws barring public officials from using state resources for private purposes.
“We have officially jumped the shark – the idea there was criminality involved here is patently absurd on its face and is just the furthering of a political pile-on,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi.
During a virtual news conference yesterday, Cuomo refused to say how much he was paid to write the book, saying it will be revealed when he releases his income tax return. He added: “On the book, some people volunteered to review the book.”
Cuomo downplayed poll numbers showing his favorability rating has dipped following several weeks dominated by calls for his resignation.
More than half of New York voters view Cuomo unfavorably, according to the new Siena College Research Institute poll – the first time the governor’s unfavorability rating has surpassed 50 percent in Siena’s polling.
A slight majority of New Yorkers said Cuomo shouldn’t resign amid sexual-harassment allegations, but a growing number of voters view him unfavorably and don’t want him to seek re-election, the poll found.
Cuomo was certain about one thing in early March: He wasn’t going to follow in the footsteps of former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, who resigned from office after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct.
Prominent New York Republicans flocked to Albany’s Renaissance Hotel to discuss the party’s plans for the 2022 gubernatorial campaign as incumbent Cuomo faces multiple investigations and polls showing decreasing approval of him from the public.
Cuomo, who has chaired the National Governors Association since August, and 20 other governors want the federal government to pass the SAFE Banking Act of 2021. They issued a letter to congressional leaders that pushes them to pass it.
New York was the hardest-hit state in terms of job losses and deaths per capita due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a new analysis has found.
New York is ready to ease COVID capacity restrictions for museums, movie theaters, large arenas and other businesses as the city’s positivity rate dipped below 5 percent for the first time since November.
Museums and zoos will be able to open at 50 percent capacity on April 26. Movie theaters will be able to open at 33 percent on April 26, and indoor large sports arenas will be able to open at 25 percent on May 19.
All judges and court workers across the state are slated to return to their assigned courthouses on May 24, more than a year after the pandemic postponed all nonessential services and proceedings and forced courts to conduct most business virtually.
Connecticut will lift all COVID-19 restrictions with the exception of the mask mandate on May 19, Gov. Ned Lamont announced.
New York City’s influential teachers’ union endorsed the city comptroller, Scott Stringer, in the race for mayor, providing a much-needed boost to a campaign that has struggled to gain momentum thus far, despite Stringer’s deep experience in city politics.
Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang scored an endorsement from Bronx Democratic Assemblyman Kenny Burgos, teaming up with the state lawmaker on a plan to grow the city’s vast summer youth jobs program.
New York City schools will see their budgets boosted this fall, as every school will for the first time receive all of the money they are owed under the city’s Fair Student Funding Formula, city officials said.
The NYPD has agreed to stop using an “alert” noise on so-called sound cannon devices after demonstrators and photographers sued, saying it caused migraines and dizziness.
The New York Police Department is creating a civilian panel to help address a rise in hate crimes in New York City, department officials said.
The LIRR is testing new battery technology that could speed up the MTA’s efforts to fully electrify the commuter rail service, officials announced.
New York has just spent $1.5 billion to renovate the Javits Center in hopes of enticing very large groups of people to gather under the same roof. When will that seem like a good idea again?
The Albany Common Council tabled a vote on a bill that would ban city police from using tear gas and rubber bullets.
The African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region is looking to open a full-service grocery store in the former McDonald’s at 106 S. Pearl St.
The SUNY Adirondack softball team will resume its season following an investigation into “concerns” within the program, a school spokeswoman said.
In an effort to drive the state toward carbon neutrality, Grant Cottage on a Saratoga County mountaintop has become the state’s first historic site to move completely off the grid.
Pressure mounted on Peloton when the chair of a House consumer-protection subcommittee called on the company to recall its treadmills.
NASA’s experimental helicopter Ingenuity rose into the thin air above the dusty red surface of Mars yesterday, achieving the first powered flight by an aircraft on another planet.
Matthew McConaughey has said he would be a fool not to honestly consider running for governor in his home state of Texas. A new poll shows the actor isn’t the only one considering the valid possibility of a McConaughey governorship.
A number of comedic stars, including Owen Wilson, will be shooting a movie in Saratoga Springs in the coming weeks.
NBA Hall of Famer and six-time champion Scottie Pippen said that his eldest son Antron has died at the age of 33.
A backcountry guide who was fishing just west of Yellowstone National Park in Montana was fatally attacked on Thursday by a large grizzly bear that might have been protecting a food source, park and law enforcement officials said.
