Oh, hello Friday. I am not at all sad to see you.
Hello and welcome to what is for most of us the formal end of the work week. (I don’t know about you, but I usually put in some hours on the weekend – just not as intensely as during the week, so it is a break of sorts).
Today is National Space Day, (not to be confused with the International Day of Human Space Flight, which is April 12), which is dedicated to highlighting the extraordinary achievements, benefits, and opportunities in the exploration and use of space.
The actual purpose here is to promote STEM education with an eye toward encouraging young people to get interested in pursuing a career in science, which can perhaps lead to something space-related.
It’s kind of crazy that humans have only been exploring space for about 60 years. There’s still so much we don’t understand about our own small sliver of space, let alone all that lies outside the boundaries of our solar system.
This day was started as a one-off in 1997 by the Lockheed Martin Corporation. In 2001, due to its extreme popularity, former astronaut and senator John Glenn expanded Space Day to International Space Day.
There’s a lot going on in the space space (see what I did there?) these days. Just this week, SpaceX managed to land its prototype Starship rocket at its Texas base without blowing it up – the first time it has succeeded in doing so in five attempts.
SpaceX was facing added pressure to succeed with this particular flight after NASA last month announced a version of Starship will be used as a lunar lander when the space agency returns humans to the Moon.
Also making a lot of headlines is the fact that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and other agencies are scheduled to deliver unclassified reports on UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomenon, which some people believe to be UFOs) to Congress. The Department of Defense’s watchdog is set to examine how the Pentagon has handled reports of UAPs.
Interesting: UFO reports have surged during this past year and Ohio is again one of the top ten states for sightings.
Did we just have more time to look at the night sky over the past pandemic year, and was the sky clearer due to the drop in air pollution that occurred as a result of the fact that so few of us were traveling (in planes, trains, buses and automobiles)? Or did we all just collectively go crazy from the stress and start seeing things?
I’ll just leave those questions out there for you to ponder.
And while you do, perhaps you’ll need a drink (not right now, of course, but for later) to help get those brain juices flowing. It’s Cosmopolitan Day, celebrating the iconic alcoholic beverage made with vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice, and freshly squeezed or sweetened lime juice and served in a long-stemmed, wide-mouthed glass. (Not my favorite, back when I was still drinking; I was more of a Scotch girl, but you do you).
Another not-raining day is on tap, with partly cloudy skies and temperatures in the low 60s. The weekend looks passable, at best, with showers predicted for tomorrow evening and temperatures barely getting out of the 50s. Still, it’s not snow.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden said he wants to see a corporate tax rate “between 25 and 28” percent, setting down a new marker in the ongoing negotiations over how to fund a major infrastructure bill.
As Biden finalizes his first batch of political nominees for ambassadorships, veteran diplomats are offering a warning: don’t make Europe a playground for wealthy donors and longtime friends and allies.
Rising asset prices in the stock market and elsewhere are posing increasing threats to the financial system, the Federal Reserve warned in a report.
The U.S. employment picture improved sharply last week, with first-time claims for unemployment insurance dipping below 500,000 for the first time since the pandemic crisis.
Initial claims totaled 498,000 for the week ended May 1, against the Dow Jones estimate of 527,000. That was down from the previous week’s total of 590,000, which saw a substantial upward revision from the initially reported 553,000.
At the same time, the pace of applications is still well above the roughly 230,000 level that prevailed before the viral outbreak tore through the economy in March of last year.
While the jobs market still has a long way to go before it fully heals from the pandemic damage, improvement has accelerated in recent weeks as restrictions on activity continue to be lifted.
South Carolina is joining Montana in ending federal pandemic unemployment benefits for its residents next month. The Republican governors of both states say the enhanced jobless programs are dissuading people from returning to the workforce.
In a red-hot economy coming out of a pandemic and lockdowns, with unemployment still far higher than it was pre-Covid, the country is in a striking predicament. Businesses can’t find enough people to hire.
Hours after Florida installed a rash of new voting restrictions, the Republican-led Legislature in Texas pressed ahead yesterday with its own far-reaching bill that would make it one of the most difficult states in the nation in which to cast a ballot.
The FEC said it has formally dropped a case looking into whether former President Donald Trump violated election law with a payment of $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to a porn-film actress by his personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen.
The commission’s decision was the result of a deadlock between Republican and Democratic members during a meeting in February. Four of the six commissioners must agree to proceed with an action.
With Trump’s return to Facebook in limbo, YouTube has emerged as the former president’s best chance to return to social media in the near future.
A new study estimates that the number of people who have died of COVID-19 in the U.S. is more than 900,000, a number 57% higher than official figures.
Worldwide, the study’s authors say, the COVID-19 death count is nearing 7 million, more than double the reported number of 3.24 million.
The center of the global Covid-19 pandemic has shifted decisively to low- and middle- income countries, fueling sickness and death on a scale that trends suggest could quickly exceed the world-wide toll in 2020.
Biden’s about-face on pushing pharmaceutical companies to share vaccine patents, in an attempt to help poorer countries, faces a considerable challenge in Europe.
India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi demanded the government rapidly vaccinate the entire country and scientifically track the coronavirus in an effort to curb a deadly second wave which saw 1.5 million new cases in a week.
India today reported a record daily rise in coronavirus cases of 414,188, while deaths from COVID-19 swelled by 3,915, according to health ministry data.
Unused COVID-19 vaccines in Japan are set to reach tens of millions of doses, as the country is poised to approve two more shots in coming weeks and the pace of its inoculation campaign remains slow due to manpower and logistical bottlenecks.
Quality-control problems at a Baltimore plant making Covid-19 vaccines have led health officials on three continents to pause the distribution of Johnson & Johnson doses, as the troubles of a politically connected U.S. contractor ripple across the world.
The American public’s willingness to get a Covid vaccine is reaching a saturation point, a new national poll suggests, one more indication that achieving widespread immunity in the United States is becoming increasingly challenging.
Only 9 percent of respondents said they hadn’t yet gotten the shot but intended to do so, according to the survey, published in the April edition of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor.
Even with vaccines, many older people and their relatives are weighing how to manage at-home care for those who can no longer live independently instead of sending them to a nursing home.
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine lifted the biotech company to its first-ever quarterly profit, a milestone in the rise of a company that burst into the spotlight last year as it rapidly developed a shot against the coronavirus.
A bar owner who allegedly sold fake Covid-19 vaccine cards at his Northern California business has been charged with multiple felonies, including forgery and identity theft.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said students should not be forced to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Virus infection levels continued to slide throughout New York, according to test results released yesterday.
New York City plans to offer tourists a shot of the Covid-19 vaccine as part of a push to draw more foot traffic to city attractions.
New York City should set up a system for offices and other sites to check people’s vaccination or COVID test status before letting them in, says the chair of the City Council’s Health Committee, Mark Levine.
The bodies of hundreds of New Yorkers are still sitting in a refrigerated morgue on the Brooklyn waterfront more than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Big Apple.
A coalition of New York City clergy and minority activists is urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop using them as political “props” and designate houses of worship as “essential,” letting them operate COVID-19 vaccination sites and community health centers.
A program of the New York Foundation for the Arts is accepting applications for $1,000 cash grants for New York City-based creators with disabilities who have experienced hardships as a result of the pandemic.
New York businesses will begin to reopen in weeks, but in residential buildings, no one seems quite ready to abandon pandemic protocols.
A group of city landlords and property owners filed a federal lawsuit seeking to put the kibosh on New York’s recently renewed eviction moratorium.
New York state tax officials are scrutinizing refund claims filed by nonresident tax filers who normally commute to jobs in New York but have been working remotely during the pandemic.
Cuomo signed the New York Health and Essential Rights Act, or NY HERO Act, into law late Wednesday, a major win for union supporters and essential workers who said the pandemic exposed the need for more stringent safety protocols.
Cuomo is privately encouraging some of the state’s wealthiest business leaders to remain in the Empire State and lobby lawmakers to remove the federal cap on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT.
Sheldon Silver, who dominated New York politics for years as the Democratic Assembly speaker before being convicted on federal corruption charges, was ordered back to prison.
The 77-year-old Democrat from Manhattan’s Lower East Side will have to head back to lockup after the feds decided he could not serve out his sentence in home confinement.
His return to prison came after the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which prosecuted Silver’s case, said it had notified the Bureau of Prisons that it had opposed Silver’s release.
The husband of state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s chief of staff was sentenced to 76 months in prison and ordered to pay $136,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for his earlier guilty plea to cocaine trafficking and tax evasion charges.
The fallen Albany powerbroker has served less than a year of a 6 1/2-year sentence for secretly taking $800,000 in legal fees from real estate developers from 2005 to 2015.
New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang’s relationship with Bradley Tusk, a tech investor and lobbyist, has raised concerns about conflicts of interest if he is elected.
Yang began airing his first mayoral campaign television ad on the heels of a new poll showing him losing grip on his front-runner status for the first time since entering the race.
“If we win, I will not lobby or talk with the new mayor — nor anyone in a Yang administration — on any matter that intersects with our work,” Tusk pledged on Medium.
Yang’s campaign is touting his frontrunner status in the race for mayor based on a new internal poll — but might be unpleasantly surprised at the results of the ultimate ranked-choice vote.
Yang pitched a plan to raise taxes on vacant commercial lots by 500 percent over five years, saying the hike would spur development while generating nearly $1 billion a year for the city.
With just seven weeks until New York City’s primary election, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is expected to launch his first TV ad today to encourage Democratic voters to send him to City Hall.
William Bell, the father of tragic groom-to-be Sean Bell — who was killed in a hail of 50 bullets fired by police in Queens in 2006 — stood beside Adams in front of NYPD headquarters at a press conference and endorsed his mayoral run.
NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer is trying to keep his mayoral campaign afloat after sexual harassment allegations have been lodged against him. Some critical supporters have abandoned him thus far, but others are sticking around.
The NYC Board of Elections would be required to report wait times at polling stations on its website, under a new bill from Bronx Councilman Rafael Salamanca.
Michelin officials announced the rankings for the 2021 edition of the guide. Five NYC_area restaurants were awarded three stars, the highest honor, despite the pandemic. Another 14 received two stars, and 49 were recognized with a single star.
On the heels of a harrowing 24 hours of subway mayhem that saw a transit worker slashed in a bloody attack and train delays and vandalism blamed on mentally ill people, Mayor Bill de Blasio said a “real New Yorker” has no fear of riding the city’s transit system.
DE Blasio has quietly moved to rename and make permanent first lady Chirlane McCray’s embattled billion-dollar ThriveNYC mental health initiative, shifting the program into City Hall and creating the Office of Community Mental Health to house it.
The state’s ban on single-use plastic shopping bags has been a mixed bag, with some groceries ignoring the new regulations and the state issuing zero fines so far.
A privately-run new bike share service can continue to operate its e-bikes in Manhattan for now despite city litigation to bring the company’s operations to a halt, a judge ruled.
The clock is ticking as Cuomo has yet to pick a candidate to fill an upcoming vacancy on New York’s top court.
A land rush is occurring in upstate New York as builders of solar farms are racing to grab the best spots for their planned projects. Not everyone is happy about that.
North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik is scheduled to meet on Monday with the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans, as she looks to dismantle opposition to her becoming the next Republican conference chair.
Stefanik, without naming GOP leader Rep. Liz Cheney, portrayed herself yesterday as the best choice to replace the Wyoming lawmaker and unite the Republican party around Trump.
Stefanik blasted Twitter after the platform briefly suspended the account of one of her aides, a move a company spokesperson later said was an error the site has since reversed.
The Office of the New York Attorney General said in a new report that a campaign funded by the broadband industry submitted millions of fake comments supporting the 2017 repeal of net neutrality.
The Cohoes Board of Education has approved the appointment of Peggy O’Shea as superintendent for a three-year term, effective immediately. O’Shea was named acting superintendent in October, then interim superintendent in December.
A leisurely stroll or bike ride across the Congress Street Bridge — without fears of dodging rushing traffic and with plenty of time to gaze down the Hudson River Valley — is the vision behind a $5.7 million proposal.
Troy residents urged the City Council last night not to hire six community police officers but to instead invest money in meeting city needs for additional social services, recreation and programs to battle systemic racism.
An Albany middle school was locked down for more than an hour yesterday after a bomb threat was called in at about 1:10 p.m.
Proceedings in a driving while intoxicated case against former Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb continued yesterday in Victor Town Court, with plans for a possible verdict on the morning of July 15.
Three southern Vermont newspapers — the Bennington Banner, Brattleboro Reformer and Manchester Journal — are being sold to a software and currency trading entrepreneur with a number of businesses in the region.
A chicken shortage is driving up prices.
I am not sure I 100 percent agree with this assessment.
