Good morning, it’s Wednesday. I had to remind myself of that a few times, so perhaps you needed a reminder, too.
June, for those who were not aware, is Pride Month, which is held annually to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising (June 28) in Manhattan – a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States.
Memorials are also typically hosted throughout the month to recognize members of the LGBTQ community who have been the victims of hate crimes of HIV/AIDS.
Google today is celebrating Pride with a doodle honoring astronomer, veteran, and gay rights activist Dr. Frank Kameny, who was born in Queens on May 21, 1925, and has been called one of the most prominent figures of the U.S. LGBTQ+ rights movement.
Says Wikipedia:
In 1957, Kameny was dismissed from his position as an astronomer in the U.S. Army’s Army Map Service in Washington, D.C., because of his homosexuality, leading him to begin “a Herculean struggle with the American establishment” that would “spearhead a new period of militancy in the homosexual rights movement of the early 1960s”.
Kameny formally appealed his firing by the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Although unsuccessful, the proceeding was notable as the first known civil rights claim based on sexual orientation pursued in a U.S. court.
He also founded a militant gay rights group in 1961 in Washington, DC, and in 1965 organized the first public protests by gay people in front of the White House, among other places. In 1968 Kameny coined the then-radical “Gay Is Good” battle cry.
It’s also Global Running Day – a worldwide celebration that encourages people to lace up their sneakers (or their Vibrams, or nothing at all, for you purists) and hit the trails, roads, sand etc.
National Running Day was created in 2009, and is held every year on the first Wednesday in June. Among its organizers are the New York Road Runners, Boston Athletic Association, Running USA, and USA Track & Field. The event was national first, and then went global in 2016.
If you’re going to get your miles in today, you might want to do it early. The weather forecast is calling for rain in the afternoon, with a mix of sun and clouds in the morning and temperatures in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
Joe Biden is the first sitting president to commemorate the 1921 Tulsa Massacre – one of the worst incidents of racial violence in U.S. history.
Biden recounted the horrific details of the massacre that devastated Greenwood, adding: My fellow Americans: this was not a riot. This was a massacre – among the worst in our history, but not the only one. And for too long, forgotten by our history.
The Biden administration suspended oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reviving a political fight over a remote region that is home to polar bears and other wildlife — and a rich reserve of oil.
The move unspooled a signature achievement of the Trump presidency and delivered on a promise by Biden to protect the fragile Alaskan tundra from fossil fuel extraction.
The Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols program (MPP), which had forced 70,000 asylum-seekers to remain in Mexico during their U.S. immigration proceedings, was officially ended by the Biden administration.
The former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in George Floyd’s death made his initial appearance yesterday on federal charges alleging he violated Floyd’s civil rights by pinning the Black man to the pavement with his knee.
New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries reportedly suggested on a strategy call with fellow Democrats that Attorney General Merrick Garland could appoint a special counsel to investigate the bloody Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Biden will hold a White House news conference at 1:15 p.m. today on the nation’s coronavirus response.
Moderna is latest pharmaceutical company to apply to the FDA for full approval for its Covid-19 vaccine for use in people 18 and older, which would allow it to market the shot directly to consumers, and could help raise public confidence in the vaccine.
The WHO has cleared a Covid-19 vaccine made by the Chinese pharmaceutical company Sinovac for emergency use, opening the way for it to be included in Covax, the sputtering worldwide initiative that low-income countries rely on for the vaccine.
The WHO called for $50 billion in funding from wealthy nations to buy vaccine doses for developing countries, saying that “countless lives” and trillions of dollars in economic activity hang in the balance.
While most of the United States’ prison systems have struggled to vaccinate inmates, those in California and some other states have outperformed vaccination rates among the general public.
A 41-year-old man from eastern China may be the first human to contract the H10N3 strain of bird flu, Chinese officials said, adding that the infection was a result of accidental cross-species transmission.
COVID-19 vaccines have allowed nursing homes in the U.S. to make dramatic progress since the dark days of the pandemic, but senior care facilities are still experiencing scattered outbreaks that are largely blamed on unvaccinated staff members.
Federal health officials have started a new study exploring whether mixing different Covid-19 vaccines can prolong immunity and better protect people from concerning variants of the coronavirus.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro confirmed his intention to host the Copa America tournament in Brazil, despite the country’s ongoing struggles with Covid-19.
The United Kingdom recorded a happy milestone yesterday, announcing it had not recorded a COVID-19 related death in the previous 24 hours.
With the pandemic precautions that kept people at home receding, officials and police departments are bracing for a violent summer.
Business travel is starting to make a comeback.
Though the Excelsior Pass is basically just a QR code on your phone that indicates vaccine status, it, and vaccine passports more generally, have become a political flash point among conservatives and others who say the passports violate privacy concerns.
New Yorkers have been able to enjoy cocktails and a bottle of wine when they ordered in during the coronavirus pandemic, but a battle between restaurateurs and liquor stores is clouding the future of alcohol-to-go.
The rate of people testing positive for COVID in New York City hit the lowest level yet yesterday, an “extraordinary milestone” that Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed would continue to usher in the city’s recovery.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reelection campaign is hosting a fundraising event with tickets going for $10,000 a head later this month, even as his political future remains uncertain amid multiple probes into the three-term governor.
The fundraising event is scheduled a few weeks before the July 15 deadline for disclosing how much money the governor’s campaign has raised in the past six months.
Republican lawmakers blamed Cuomo for “lighting the match” that has triggered a recent spike in crime by signing criminal justice reforms championed by Democrats, including bail reform.
Cuomo’s office won’t release public records on his $5.1 million book deal, with his attorneys invoking one law that keeps records of the state’s ethics panel secret and another that protects law enforcement records if releasing them could interfere with an investigation.
Dr. Anthony Fauci appears to be taking a page from Cuomo’s playbook by releasing a memoir about the so-called “lessons” he has learned in public service amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A controversial bill that would survey how well public schools are teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust cleared a key Assembly committee, after sparking debate among Democrats and Republicans amid a rise in anti-Semitism across the nation.
In a letter to Cuomo, three prominent legislators affirmed their expectation that changes to the state’s medical cannabis program passed this spring should have been implemented with urgency by the state Department of Health and not subjected to delays.
Criminal justice reform advocates are hoping a bill known as “clean slate” will pass before the legislative session ends on June 10. It would seal, and eventually expunge criminal records.
State workers in many agencies are still being required to wear masks and complete personal health assessments each time they go to their office — despite those protocols having been eliminated in other workplace settings, including the Executive Chamber.
Despite opting against getting the coronavirus vaccine, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Giuliani keeps making campaign appearances in various indoor settings without a face mask on in apparent violation of New York’s public health restrictions.
In the past two weeks alone, Giuliani, who is unvaccinated, has posted photos of himself on Twitter appearing maskless and shoulder-to-shoulder with staff indoors at a bagel shop, a diner and a pizzeria.
As New York City public schools’ fall reopening plans come into focus, the city’s charter school networks are still sorting through questions about virtual classes and vaccine requirements — and sometimes are at odds with the Department of Education.
The leading Democratic candidates vying to become New York City’s next mayor veered sharply into attack mode yesterday, as they sought to draw distinctions on how they would address critical issues like crime and the city’s economic recovery.
Mayoral candidate Andrew Yang issued the opening salvo, tilting to his most negative tone of the campaign yet and painting the Brooklyn borough president, Eric Adams, as the stale choice of the political class.
Adams called rival Yang’s campaign a “joke” and said Yang should drop out of the race — prompting the entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate to fire back by calling the ex-cop Brooklyn borough president “business as usual.”
NYPD union leaders and cops slammed Democratic mayoral hopeful Maya Wiley as “out of touch” and “dividing the city” with her new campaign ad claiming the department doesn’t value the lives of black New Yorkers.
The Democratic mayoral candidates face off for their first in-person debate tonight.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a City Hall front-runner, revealed that he was once a Big Apple squeegee man — and said he has a plan to sweep them off the streets that does not involve the NYPD.
Republican mayoral hopeful Curtis Sliwa got into it with a crew of Big Apple squeegee men, telling them if they don’t clean up their act, “I’m going to run you guys out of this town.”
The city’s teachers’ union, which has backed Comptroller Scott Stringer for mayor, is going all out to prevent leading New York candidates Adams and Yang from being elected.
PLACE NYC, a vocal parent group that backs the city’s accelerated education programs , said Adams was its top choice because of his support for the specialized high school admissions test and other education positions.
Recent polls show a shift in momentum away from former presidential candidate and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, the early front-runner who benefited from name recognition.
The advent of a system allowing voters to rank up to five people in an eight-way field — with six first-time candidates who have no proven bases of support — has scrambled political conventions.
Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, the leading female Democratic candidate in the race for comptroller, is accusing rival Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, of elbowing her out of a speaking engagement Sunday at a Queens church.
While Memorial Day is the unofficial start to summer in the city, New Yorkers have already been filling the city’s green spaces, celebrating the joy of being together.
The MTA opened new wheelchair-accessible subway elevators at a Midtown subway stop, a decade after money was first allocated for their construction.
Roughly 70 percent — or about 330 — of the city’s 472 subway stations currently have cameras, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said.
New York City filed a lawsuit against McKinsey & Company, a consulting firm accused of being a mastermind of the opioid epidemic.
Environmentalist launched a gas bill strike yesterday, pledging to withhold money from their monthly utilities in protest of National Grid’s controversial pipeline project beneath the streets of Brooklyn.
Magnolia Bakery, the New York company that rose to fame during the cupcake craze of more than a decade ago, is looking ahead to its next chapter under new ownership.
The producers of “Pass Over,” a bracing play about two Black men trapped on a street corner, announced that they plan to begin performances on Broadway on Aug. 4, advancing the industry’s planned restart by nearly a month.
The Coachella music festival is tuning up for its big return after two years of COVID-caused cancellations. Organizers announced that the event will be back in Indio, Calif., for the weekends of April 15-17, 2022 and April 22-24, 2022.
Macy’s annual July 4 fireworks show will be close to normal next month in NYC — after 2020’s “pop-up” shows designed to discourage large gatherings.
Confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Capital Region have finally returned to levels last seen before Halloween, when a new wave of infections began to swarm hospitals and kill hundreds of local residents over a period of several months.
Crime and policing dominated the Albany mayoral candidates forum last night as the city grapples with gun violence and the fallout from Black Lives Matter demonstrations and escalated confrontations – including discussion on when tear gas should be used.
The lack of traffic downtown in Troy has become as common as the sighting of costumed extras and the 19th century storefronts that now adorn Monument Square for the filming of HBO’s “The Gilded Age.”
One to two gallons of jet fuel leaked from a tanker truck that rolled over on American Oil Road in the Port of Rensselaer Monday, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said, and there were no impacts to water, air or soil.
New Yorkers who fell back on their rent due to the COVID-19 pandemic could start applying for emergency rental assistance program yesterday.
Donald Trump Jr. accused New York Attorney General Letitia James of leading a “political persecution” against his father, former President Donald Trump, with her office’s investigation of the Trump Organization.
James filed a petition in court to require Eastman Kodak Co. CEO Jim Continenza to publicly testify in an ongoing insider trading investigation.
New York state leaders are being urged by a coalition of more than 100 campus and community organizations to back a measure that would expand early voting sites to include college campuses and require campus be locations for polling sites.
The New York State Police remains overwhelmingly white — an imbalance some troopers say is rooted in a legacy of racism.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer said he was “beginning to see some progress” on the part of average Canadian citizens for a reopening of the border between their country and the U.S.
Billionaire investor Leon Black was sued by a woman who alleges the private equity bigwig forced her into twisted sex acts and said he’d have her thrown in jail for publicly uncovering his violent and “sadistic side.”
Following an outcry over comments about racism made by an editor at JAMA, the influential medical journal, the top editor, Dr. Howard Bauchner, will step down from his post effective June 30.
JBS USA, the world’s largest meat supplier, shut down all nine of its U.S. plants following a cyberattack.
