Good Monday morning. Now THAT was a summer weekend!
In typical New York fashion – because we don’t like to do anything halfway – we went from wet and freezing cold to broiling hot all in the span of a single week. Perhaps you spent the last two days soaking up the sun, floating on a pool or a lake, or simply relaxing in the shade.
Whatever you did, it’s likely there was food involved at some point, and it’s also likely you consumed some of it in conditions that weren’t optimal when it comes to keeping things that might spoil cool.
Thankfully for those of us who need a refresher on this front, it’s World Food Safety Day. Actually, the focus of this day is far bigger than simply not bringing a mayo-based salad to your next picnic.
In this case, “safety” refers to the absence or safe, acceptable levels of hazards in food that may harm the health of consumers. An estimated 600 million people around world fall ill and 420,000 die after eating food contaminated by viruses, bacteria, parasites or chemical substances every year.
So, the purpose of this day, jointly facilitated by the WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), is to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect and manage food-borne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism and sustainable development.
This year’s theme, ‘Safe food today for a healthy tomorrow’, stresses that production and consumption of safe food has immediate and long-term benefits for people, the planet and the economy.
The ecoli (and other pathogen) recalls on veggies and fruits? Salmonella scares in meat? That’s food safety.
And then there’s mishandling of food, which also causes untold numbers of illnesses. In case you’re looking for some helpful hints, click here. It should go without saying that (especially after the events of the past year), it all really starts with washing your hand thoroughly and frequently.
It’s going to be another scorcher, with record-high temperatures in the low-90s expected, along with a mix of sun and clouds. It’s a good day to cool off with a big bowl of ice cream – chocolate, of course. Is there anything else worth eating? Come at me, vanilla fans. You know how I feel about you.
OH, also, for those of you who follow this sort of thing….welcome to the last scheduled week of the legislative session.
In the headlines…
The Biden administration this weekend confronted the implications of a sudden and grave national security challenge as ransom-demanding cyber hackers target the staples of American life — food, gas, water, hospitals and transport.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said the agency was investigating about 100 different types of ransomware, many tracing back to hackers in Russia, and compared the current spate of cyberattacks with the challenge posed by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Regular cyberattacks, targeting everything from businesses to basic infrastructure, are the new normal, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said.
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said he won’t support federal voting rights legislation that his party says is critical for preserving democracy, effectively turning the path ahead for all other major items on Biden’s agenda into quicksand.
Biden will use his visit to Europe this week to “rally the world’s democracies” in a reset of U.S. foreign policy after four turbulent years under Donald Trump – all while threats to American democracy, stoked by Trump, proliferate at home.
The president’s plan for the trip was set out in a column for the Washington Post last night, as Trump spoke to Republicans in North Carolina.
Biden has issued a statement pledging to affirm his “special relationship” with Britain when he meets Boris Johnson at this week’s G7 summit in the UK and discuss matters including the impasse in Northern Ireland.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen secured a landmark international tax agreement over the weekend, one that has eluded the United States for nearly a decade.
Yellen hailed the deal, reached by finance ministers of the Group of Seven leading nations over the weekend in London. She called it a return to multilateralism and a sign that countries can tighten the tax net on profitable firms to fund their governments.
…But with a narrowly divided Congress and resistance from Republicans and business groups mounting, closing the deal at home may be an even bigger challenge.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ first trip abroad to Guatemala and Mexico got off to a rocky start yesterday, when a technical issue grounded the plane after about 30 minutes into the flight.
As Biden pitches universal preschool and free community college as part of his plans to overhaul a coronavirus-ravaged economy, education experts see teachers as the linchpin.
The U.S. passed another milestone in its COVID-19 vaccination effort yesterday after administering its 300 millionth dose.
The rate of vaccinations around the country has sunk to new lows in recent weeks, threatening Biden’s goal of 70 percent of American adults with at least one dose by July 4.
The United States is averaging fewer than 1 million shots per day, a decline of more than two-thirds from the peak of 3.4 million in April.
More than five months into the Biden administration’s vaccination campaign, even a blueprint that’s worked with other ethnic and racial groups isn’t doing enough to win over Black Americans.
One hundred former presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers have urged the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations to pay for global coronavirus vaccinations to help stop the virus mutating and returning as a worldwide threat.
The economies of rich countries will shrink by twice as much as they did in the Covid-19 crisis if they fail to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions, according to research.
“Damning” science strongly suggests that COVID-19 is a man-made monster, optimized in a lab for maximum infectivity before hitting the outside to catastrophic effect, two experts said.
A new kind of COVID-19 vaccine could be available as soon as this summer.
Scientists are asking a lot of questions about Covid-19 booster shots, but they don’t yet have many answers.
Jon Rahm sank his final putt at the Memorial Tournament on Saturday with a six-stroke lead and a cakewalk to a lucrative purse. Moments later he was in agony. He had tested positive for Covid-19.
Twitter has suspended author Naomi Wolf after she posted outlandish vaccine misinformation on the platform, including a claim that the shots were a “software platform that can receive uploads.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci — under intense criticism for recently revealed emails — joined First Lady Jill Biden at a vaccination site in Harlem.
Fewer workers have been moving for new jobs during the pandemic. Will anyone want to when it’s over?
As states across the U.S. try to figure out ways to bring people back into the workforce, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is betting on government-funded hiring bonuses to motivate workers to find a job.
UAlbany is seeking $1 million in federal funding to purchase new equipment it says would allow it to conduct rapid surveillance of the coronavirus as it mutates — enabling detection and intervention of dangerous variants before they have a chance to spread.
New York’s Covid-19 positivity rate declined for the 62nd straight day Saturday and hit a record low 0.52 percent, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in his daily update yesterday.
The scratch-off Lottery game for New Yorkers who get vaccinated has been extended for another week.
In a surprise move Friday, the state announced that masks are no longer required in schools and camps, whether indoors or outdoors.
Despite the announcement from the state Health Department saying masks would no longer be required in schools starting Monday, the state Education Department has told school board presidents across the state that masks are still the rule — for now.
Cuomo has extended alcohol-to-go options for another 30 days.
Federal investigators are devoting significant resources to the investigation of the Cuomo administration’s handling of nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.
Albany’s top Democrats — state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie — introduced a bill that would authorize the Legislature dip into state coffers to pay for its sprawling impeachment investigation into Cuomo.
The bill provides a blank check for the investigation and any other expenses tied to an impeachment process, including any eventual trial. A legislative source confirmed that the bill is expected to pass early this week.
Kinsa, a start-up company that has routinely detected the spread of the seasonal flu before U.S. officials, will distribute as many as 100,000 free smart thermometers in New York City’s elementary schools and give the resulting data to local health officials.
Several gun-control measures, judicial nominations and a bill letting sexual-abuse victims sue their attackers are on New York state lawmakers’ to-do lists as they wrap up their annual legislative session this week in Albany.
Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder is throwing down the gauntlet for anyone who rides around the city on two wheels — proposing that everyone including little kids carry a license and that all of their rides have registered plates.
Cuomo has nominated one of New York City’s staunchest defenders of Christopher Columbus to serve as a trustee on CUNY’s governing board — and a battle is already brewing over the move.
Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, the daughter of New York’s governor, used a social media post last week to share her queer identity and call for allies to speak up against homophobia.
New York college students hitting campus this fall — the first semester that recreational marijuana is legal in New York — won’t be allowed to spark up a joint on the quad.
Nourish New York, an effort to respond to the surge in demand at food banks across the state as well as the financial hardships facing farmers affected by supply chain disruptions, will now be permanent.
With just days left in the legislative session, hundreds of activists will march to the Capitol today to demand the Senate and Assembly vote to pass the New York Health Act.
A Black man with a hardscrabble youth who advocates for veganism and meditation seems an unlikely heir to ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s legacy, but that’s how progressives in the mayor’s race are trying to depict Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president.
Here’s how eight of the leading candidates for mayor of New York say they would help the city recover, and also where they stand on police reform.
Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, was regarded as New York City’s problem solver. Now she faces her own challenge: persuading voters to elect a newcomer to politics.
The Department of Sanitation under then-Commissioner Garcia awarded a $14 million, emergency contract to a construction company owned by a convicted tax cheat — because it didn’t bother to run a Google search, according to a blistering audit.
Mayoral hopeful Scott Stringer appeared to fake a city bus ride with his two sons for his latest ad — getting aboard a defunct model labeled “M14D” in Brooklyn even though that route is actually miles away in Manhattan.
Former Rep. Anthony Weiner, once a serious mayoral contender himself, is not impressed by the current crop of candidates.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most prominent left-wing leaders in the country, endorsed Maya Wiley in the race for New York City mayor on Saturday, urging voters to “come together as a movement.”
Adams and Wiley traded barbs over Wiley’s plan to trim funding for the NYPD by $1 billion.
Miami’s mayor said that he welcomes New Yorkers to the city — boasting of the city’s comparatively low taxes and “best quality of life.”
Mayoral contender Adams fired back at the Miami mayor for claiming hours earlier that Big Apple residents would be better off in the Sunshine State because of its low taxes and property prices.
A 10-year-old Queens boy’s joyous first day at the beach after a year of coronavirus lockdown ended afterward in his senseless death when a gunman opened fire on the family’s barbecue.
Adams called the boy’s death “crushing,” while vowing to halt spiraling gun violence in the Big Apple if he’s elected mayor.
The MTA’s pandemic-era shuttle buses are about to be a thing of the past with the recent return of 24/7 subway service.
Police in riot gear enforcing a new curfew at Manhattan’s Washington Square Park arrested 23 people during a clash that left eight cops injured, authorities said.
Many of New York City’s most outwardly gay-friendly parishes are concentrated in Manhattan, a center of both gay culture and efforts to build a gay-friendly Catholicism.
The Metropolitan Opera, which has been closed since March 2020 because of Covid-19, is looking at a difficult path forward.
Shaker High School held a candlelight vigil last night on the school’s football field to honor the life of tenth grader Destiny Greene.
Albany City Court Judge Helena Heath is set to retire on June 29. She is relocating to Washington, D.C.
City officials and veterans celebrated the fifth annual Henry Johnson Day Saturday, honoring Albany’s World War I war hero.
The Troy City Council voted 4-3 to name itself as the lead agency for conducting the environmental review of the proposed rezoning and site plan for a controversial apartment project.
A psychiatrist said in a lecture at Yale University’s School of Medicine that she had fantasies of shooting white people, prompting the university to later restrict online access to her expletive-filled talk, which it said was “antithetical to the values of the school.”
North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik is having a baby this fall. She announced the news on Twitter.
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are now a family of four! The Duchess of Sussex welcomed the couple’s second child — a baby girl — on Friday.
The couple named their new baby Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.
