Good morning, and welcome to July. It’s Thursday.
It’s National Postal Worked Day AND Postage Stamp Day – a twofer!
The Post Office actually has its roots in the U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, to be exact. When the Constitution was ratified in 1789, it gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper” for executing this task.
This fact has actually come into play in recent years as the Post Office has been the center of considerable controversy.
Postal workers, however, should not be blamed for the shenanigans that take place in D.C. These folks walk through water (well, rain, not to mention snow, extreme heat and more) to deliver our mail. They walk (unless they’re driving on a route) an average of 4 to 8 miles carrying a full load of letters and packages, delivering them promptly to each of our doorsteps.
Approximately 490,000 postal workers across the United States head out each day to our residences and businesses.
The Post Office is a $73.1 billion enterprise, but it has been steadily losing money over the years, including $9.2 billion in 2020, which was, to be fair, a pandemic. And total revenues actually increased by $2 billion last year, as package delivery increased sharply because people were home and, well, ordering a lot of things on line.
Congress gave a financial lifeline to the USPS in the form of a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Treasury under the CARES Act, a coronavirus bailout bill, but former President Trump threatened to block it unless it dramatically raised prices for online retailers, whom he was convinced don’t pay enough for its services. The agency DID get its money, and then promptly burned through it.
Debate over overhauling the USPS continues into the Biden administration.
Oh, and for the record, the U.S. issued its first postage stamp on this day back in 1847. Prior to that, stamps were not required. A letter could be mailed and delivery paid for by the recipient. In 1855, the postage stamp became mandatory.
Princess Diana would have turned 60 today, had she not been killed in a car crash in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi.
The heat has finally broken – and how! We’re looking at a streak of temperatures in the 70s and even maybe the 60s. And rain, lots of rain, which is nice from a cooling-things-down perspective, but not so nice from a it’s-a-holiday-weekend perspective..
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden signed three laws that dismantle part of the Trump era, blocking payday lenders from avoiding caps on interest rates, restricting greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas drilling and ending rules on how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission settles claims.
Biden encouraged California Rep. Maxine Waters to run for Senate during a bill signing event at the White House, which produced a series of hot microphone moments for the president.
House Democrats are poised to approve a huge boost in infrastructure spending, a $715 billion proposal they view as a vehicle to install some of their own policy preferences into an evolving $973 billion Senate package that stands among Biden’s top priorities.
With all but two Republicans voting no, the House created a select committee, controlled by Democrats, to scrutinize the security failures and root causes that contributed to the Capitol riot.
Biden plans to travel to Florida today, where he is likely to visit the site of the condo building collapse near Miami Beach on Thursday, according to the White House.
Two children are among the 18 people confirmed dead in the Surfside, Florida, condo collapse, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a news conference yesterday afternoon.
In the early morning hours, immediately after Champlain Towers South collapsed, fire rescue workers heard reports of a woman alive trapped in a lower level that was now inside the garage. They spoke to her, but she didn’t make it.
As families cling to fading hope, Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said many have asked him when efforts will turn from a rescue to a recovery mission and wondered how long a person could survive under the heaps of rubble.
The majority of the Florida condo board quit in 2019 as squabbling residents dragged out plans for repairs.
Former President Donald Trump’s Sarasota rally scheduled for Saturday is moving ahead despite a report that Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office asked for the event to be postponed while the governor responds to the mass casualty event in Surfside.
The specific tax-related charges against the Trump Organization and its longtime CFO, Allen Weisselberg, are expected to be unsealed today.
A grand jury in Manhattan has indicted the Trump Organization, long managed byTrump, and its chief financial officer in connection with tax-related offenses.
The specific charges against the company and its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, were not immediately clear. The indictment was expected to be unsealed this afternoon after Weisselberg and lawyers for the Trump Organization appear in court.
Trump spent yesterday discussing the U.S.-Mexico border wall with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has vowed to use state resources, a $250 million down payment to be exact, to continue work on Trump’s border wall, which has been halted by Biden.
Trump appears to be leaning toward running for president again in 2024.
Donald Rumsfeld, the acerbic architect of the Iraq war and a master Washington power player who served as US secretary of defense for two presidents, has died at the age of 88.
Rumsfeld, who served four presidents, oversaw a war that many said should never have been fought. But he said the removal of Saddam Hussein had “created a more stable and secure world.”
Bill Cosby defiantly proclaimed his “innocence” in a tweet after being sprung from prison, and included a photo of himself raising his right hand in a fist.
“It’s a beautiful day, not just for Bill Cosby because this is about all Americans, making sure that they get justice,” spokesman Andrew Wyatt said after Cosby, 83, was freed from a Pennsylvania prison because his sex-assault conviction was vacated.
Many of the women who accused Cosby of sexual misconduct, and worse, said they were disheartened by the ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Indonesia’s government added hospital bed capacity in preparation for a post-holiday increase in Covid infections, but parts of the country are still running out of beds as daily cases surge to new highs.
The Brazilian Health Ministry says 1,122 children under the age of 10 have died from Covid-19 since the pandemic started.
A total of 1,991 COVID-19 cases in Scotland have been linked to fans attending Euro 2020 soccer matches, Public Health Scotland reported.
COVID-19-related deaths in Mexico likely exceed the confirmed toll by about 60%, Health Ministry data released yesterday showed.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer plans to announce details of a COVID-19 vaccine sweepstakes that will give vaccinated Michiganders a chance to win a combined total of more than $5 million in cash and nine college scholarships worth $55,000 apiece.
The highly transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, first identified in India, has become the most prevalent variant among new COVID-19 cases in the United States, according to California-based genomics company Helix.
The Delta variant of Covid 19 has now been detected in all 50 states and Washington.
Vaccines protect against the variants, but conflicting advice from health authorities about masks has bewildered a worried public.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said that fully vaccinated people are “safe” from the current variants and do not need to wear masks, doubling down on CDC guidance as some others call for a return to mask wearing.
Europe could surpass the United States in vaccinations rates as it overcomes an initially slow rollout while the U.S.’ rate has mostly stalled.
People who became infected with Covid-19 after getting a messenger RNA vaccine carried less virus and had shorter cases than unvaccinated people who became infected, a study by government health researchers found.
A grand jury in Texas declined to indict a Houston doctor who was accused earlier this year of stealing 10 doses of Covid-19 vaccine and inoculating a few faint acquaintances and finally his wife in a late-night race in to use the medicine before it expired.
More than 80 teens and adult staff have tested positive for COVID-19 after attending a summer camp in central Illinois that did not require masks indoors or vaccination status.
A state Assembly committee looking into a possible impeachment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo will begin issuing subpoenas as part of its investigation.
The Assembly committee’s decision to use subpoenas to gather statements under oath comes after the state AG’s office began issuing testimonial subpoenas nearly two months ago in a parallel investigation, requiring their witnesses to give sworn statements.
New York lawmakers considering whether to begin impeachment proceedings for Cuomo have collected more than 100,000 pages of documents, including emails, texts, letter documents, photographs, contracts and transcripts.
Prominent leaders in the labor movement, business community and politics on Tuesday attended Cuomo’s $10,000-a-ticket fundraiser in New York City as he faces multiple controversies and calls for his resignation from elected officials in New York.
The soiree was expected to raise more than $1 million for Cuomo’s re-election campaign, a haul that will be reflected in a campaign disclosure report due in July, two people familiar with the event said.
Cuomo signed a bill into law creating an independent settlement fund for money collected from opioid litigation.
New York’s ethics commission voted against seeking a criminal investigation into whether someone from within its own ranks leaked confidential information to Cuomo, even as new details emerged about the 2019 incident.
Small business landlords are vital to providing affordable housing, Sen. James Tedisco said, but they can’t make a living when tenants don’t pay rent, and a state bailout fund meant to help both tenants and landlords is ineffective.
A day after New York City’s Board of Elections sowed confusion in the Democratic mayoral primary, it issued a new preliminary vote tally suggesting that the race between Eric Adams, the primary night leader, and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly.
Voters who supported Andrew Yang and Maya Wiley were more likely to rank Kathryn Garcia next over Adams, helping her make significant gains in the mayor’s race and suggesting she was able to draw support from different parts of the political spectrum.
Adams’ lead in the city’s Democratic mayoral race is even slimmer than initially thought — with runner-up Garcia trailing him by less than 15,000 ballots, according to corrected results released by the Board of Elections.
That’s a 2.2 percent margin in a race that will be determined by 125,000 absentee ballots the board plans to count next week.
The board has said that an official winner in the race likely won’t be declared until the week of July 12.
Assembly districts that back Adams have returned more absentee ballots than the districts that backed the other three major Democratic mayoral contenders, an analysis of Board of Elections records shows.
Adams filed a lawsuit seeking to reserve his right to have a judge review the ballots in the Democratic primary for mayor.
“We petitioned the court to preserve our right to a fair election process and to have a judge oversee and review ballots, if necessary,” the Adams campaign said in a statement.
The Board of Elections, which has a history of mishaps, is now under intense fire for its error in releasing mayoral primary results.
Sen. Zellnor Myrie says there is a statewide problem with how elections are run, and the Senate will be holding hearings on the issue in the coming weeks with an eye toward reform. (He’s chair of the Senate Elections Committee).
Helped along by an enormous infusion of federal pandemic aid, New York City officials adopted the city’s largest budget ever, a $98.7 billion spending plan that restores many of the service cuts prompted by the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus.
The new budget, which kicks in today, is backed by more than $14 billion in federal aid, and is $100 million higher than a preliminary spending plan Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled in April.
If four days of sweltering temperatures had not already distressed some New Yorkers, the emergency alert that jolted residents’ cellphones yesterday afternoon surely did.
De Blasio pleaded for New Yorkers to reduce their power use as the city baked in temperatures approaching triple digits.
A Manhattan judge withheld a final decision on whether attorneys for the family of Eric Garner can question de Blasio and other top city officials under oath about the Staten Island man’s death seven years ago in an NYPD chokehold.
The New-York Historical Society, the oldest museum in the city, is getting an upgrade.
A bill that allows state park rangers and forest rangers the option of carrying epinephrine injectors to counteract allergic reactions was signed into law by Cuomo.
Following a challenging academic year frequently disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, school districts in the Capital Region are taking exceptional measures to pass as many students as possible.
Albany Medical Center has reached an agreement with its nurses on a new labor contract after more than three years of intense negotiations that at times devolved into public disputes and charges of union-busting.
The state Division of Human Rights has determined there is probable cause to justify holding a hearing in Schenectady County jail guard Desiree Pieniazek’s fight to be recognized by the county and co-workers as nonbinary, according to Pieniazek’s attorney.
In a move that is largely a formality, the State University of New York will sign an official lease for the 97,621 square feet of office, lab and clean room space that SUNY Polytechnic Institute uses at the state’s Albany Nanotech complex on Fuller Road.
The first night back for Alive at Five was rained out.
Malik Evans, an at-large member of the Rochester City Council and a former Rochester City School Board president, will run unopposed for mayor in November, making him the very likely successor to incumbent Lovely Warren.
A female spectator who triggered a chain-reaction crash during the first of the Tour de France’s 21 stages on Saturday has reportedly been arrested.
Prince William and Prince Harry will unveil a statue of their late mother, Princess Diana, at Kensington Palace today in a long-awaited ceremony.
The landscape of college sports forever changes today when legislation from several states goes into effect, allowing student-athletes to monetize the use of their name, image and likeness without impacting their college eligibility.
They held the title for nearly 30 years, but Los Angeles residents can no longer claim they have the worst traffic in the country, according to a study on traffic trends in 2020. the New York-Newark region now has that title.
Allison Mack, former “Smallville” actress and high-ranking member of the cultlike group Nxivm, was sentenced to 3 years in prison. Mack is required to have 3 years of supervised release after serving her prison term and has to pay a $20,000 fine.
Mack was one of the lead deputies and recruiters for NXIVM — the cult group that masqueraded itself as a self-help organization. The group’s leader, Keith Raniere, was sentenced to 120 years in prison in October for racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
A judge ruled against Britney Spears in her attempt to have her father, Jamie, removed as conservator of her estate.
The actor James Franco has agreed to pay more than $2.2 million to settle a pair of lawsuits, including one from two former students of his acting school who said he had subjected them to sexually exploitative auditions and film shoots.
