It’s Monday, the start of another full mid-summer work week. Good morning.
It’s also Orangemen’s Day, also known as the Glorious Twelfth.
If you are not familiar with Irish history, you could be forgiven for being confused by the aforementioned sentence. Orangemen’s Day commemorates Protestant king William of Orange’s victory over Catholic king James II at the Battle of the Boyne – a pivotal moment for the Protestant cause.
In Ulster, which is split 50/50 between Catholics and Protestants, the day was known in the past for sectarian violence that worsened during the 30-year conflict known as The Troubles – the Drumcree conflict is the perhaps the best known of the parade-related standoffs.
But in more recent years, marches were celebrated peacefully.
This day is also observed in Canada, which saw a significant influx of Irish immigrants – the majority of whom were Protestants – prior to the great famine of 1840. As such, the establishment of the Orange Order (an organization that promotes Protestant values) was commonplace in many parts of the country.
These days, parades in large cities like Toronto have fallen out of favor, but Newfoundland and Labrador still observe Orangeman’s Day as part of this legacy.
Speaking of Canada…today is also Etch A Sketch Day – a day that celebrates the iconic drawing toy invented by André Cassagnes of France. The Ohio Art Company manufactured it, but it’s now owned by Spin Master of Canada.
The Etch a Sketch was first made available on July 12, 1960. At the time, it was sold for $2.99. It was enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY in 1998. (BTW, if you haven’t visited this museum, it’s worth a trip, and Rochester has a lot of worthwhile stuff to do these days…consider a pilgrimage).
Did you know, by the way, that there’s now a color Etch A Sketch available? Perhaps this is common knowledge among people who have children…which, of course, does not include yours truly.
Will it never stop raining??? This summer has been a seriously wet bummer. And there’s more of the same in the forecast for today, with steady rain in the morning giving way to showers in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the low 70s.
BTW: Flash flood watches are in effect in parts of the Capital Region and in the tri-state area. Be aware.
In the headlines…
Former President Donald Trump widely praised those who attended the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection at the Capitol, repeatedly using the word “love” to describe the tone of the event.
Trump bathed in the adulation of an adoring crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference as he easily won the straw poll of attendees when they were asked who they’d like to see run for the White House in 2024.
Actor and director Sean Penn savaged Trump’s coronavirus response, likening his actions to “someone with a machine gun gunning down communities that were most vulnerable from a turret at the White House.”
The National Rifle Association may have committed fraud by trying to declare bankruptcy earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, pointing to the gun group’s heavy spending on advertisements.
Virgin Galactic owner Richard Branson rocketed into space yesterday, an edge-of-the-seat sub-orbital test flight intended to demonstrate his company’s air-launched spaceplane is ready for passengers who can afford the ultimate thrill ride.
The Virgin Group founder launched with three company employees, flying 53 miles above the earth in a final test mission before kicking off commercial space flights next year. Branson – who earned his pilot’s license – tested the astronaut cabin experience.
“The whole thing was magical,” Branson said, adding: “I don’t know what’s going to come out of my mouth because I feel I’m still in space.”
A Haitian-born doctor based in Florida has been arrested as a “central” suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the national police chief suggested at a news conference that he believes the suspect was plotting to become president.
A team of American government investigators is ready to begin assisting the investigation into the assassination of Haiti’s president, a senior Pentagon official said.
President Joe Biden is set to give an anticipated major speech on voting rights tomorrow in Philadelphia.
The Department of Education canceled an additional $55.6 million in student loan debt for 1,800 students who were victims of a for-profit college fraud, bringing the total amount of canceled student loan debt by the Biden administration to $1.5 billion.
Biden fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a Trump administration appointee, after he refused to resign from the post.
The president and energy companies want new transmission lines to carry electricity from solar and wind farms. Some environmentalists and homeowners are pushing for smaller, more local systems.
Even the president labeled one of his own speeches as “boring” recently – an admission that highlights a tendency toward delivering minutiae-filled discourse over scaling oratorical heights.
Forty-two states saw an increase in COVID-19 cases last week from the week before, a sign that the pandemic is not yet over in the United States.
Arkansas not only has one of the lowest vaccine rates in the country – only about a third of eligible people are fully vaccinated – but is facing a troubling uptick in Covid-19 cases – fueled mostly by the emerging Delta variant of the virus.
A political “schism” over getting vaccinated against coronavirus is putting Americans’ health at risk, particularly as cases of the delta variant are surging around the country, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over the next step in the nation’s coronavirus recovery, according to poll results released yesterday.
The U.S. State Department was criticized over a tweet that tied the historic protests that broke out in Cuba to COVID-19 concerns in the country where people have been living under communism for decades.
Global economic recovery from the ravages of COVID could be at risk due to new variants of the deadly virus, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
“We are very concerned about the Delta variant and other variants that could emerge and threaten recovery,” Yellen said. “We are a connected global economy. What happens in any part of the world affects all other countries.”
Israel said it will begin offering a third dose of Pfizer’s vaccine to adults with weak immune systems but it was still weighing whether to make the booster available to the general public.
Fauci emphasized that boosters aren’t recommended “right now”, as more than 90 percent of Covid-related new hospitalizations were in unvaccinated patients, but didn’t rule out the possibility they might eventually be advisable for certain populations.
Fauci said there should be more coronavirus vaccine requirements at the local level, though he has continued to insist the federal government will not mandate them.
COVID-19 vaccine maker Pfizer will meet with federal health officials as soon today to discuss the need for a booster dose of the coronavirus vaccine as it prepares to seek authorization, the company said.
Months after Rupert Murdoch got a Covid-19 dose, one of his network’s stars, Tucker Carlson, called a Biden vaccination proposal “the greatest scandal in my lifetime.”
Millions of Americans have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated against Covid-19, but one group is well behind: young adults.
Bubba Watson said yesterday morning that he can’t play in the fourth and final major of the year because he had been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
An unvaccinated Belgian woman who died from COVID-19 last spring had actually contracted two variants simultaneously.
Twelve of New York’s congressional Democrats are demanding that the federal government immediately reimburse the city’s public hospital system for at least $864 million in coronavirus-related emergency spending.
New York state’s daily COVID positivity rate inched past 1% over the weekend, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office, as officials focus on the highly contagious delta variant of the deadly virus.
With less than a month to go before many schools begin reopening for the fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines for preventing Covid-19 transmission in schools.
Democrats must look at the real issues facing New York and other U.S. cities and move beyond the hyper-partisan politics of the post-Trump era, Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams said.
Adams is headed to the White House today to discuss ways to combat gun violence with Biden.
Adams and the Rev. Al Sharpton traded compliments about the Democratic primary victory that has taken the Brooklyn borough president to the brink of City Hall.
Adams said that cops who follow their department’s rules should be shielded from lawsuits for actions on the job — except for “reckless” conduct like in the death of George Floyd.
Adams said there was little difference on criminal justice issues between him and progressive Manhattan District Attorney candidate Alvin Bragg — who has vowed not to prosecute a raft of offenses if he’s elected.
Adams has stances on policing, transportation and education that suggest a shift from Mayor Bill de Blasio.
A 13-year-old boy was fatally shot in the Bronx yesterday afternoon in what police officials said they believed was a gang-related attack that targeted him specifically.
Though she came in third in the NYC Mayor’s race, Maya Wiley says ranked choice voting was not the reason for her loss, nor will it be an impediment to candidates of color in the future.
The city’s effort to more than 8,000 homeless people from pandemic hotels to group shelters halted after the Legal Aid Society filed a motion accusing it of violating the rights of people with respiratory conditions and other medical and psychological problems.
NYC courthouses are in decrepit and ‘historically unsanitary’ condition, photos show.
Federal judges handed down dozens of lighter sentences due to brutal conditions in New York City’s federal jails during the coronavirus pandemic, new statistics show.
Each of New York City’s subway booths once housed buckets of cash, coins and turnstile tokens, but they may soon be left vacant for long stretches of the day if MTA officials go ahead with a plan forcing booth workers to also patrol stations and platforms.
The uncertainty of AG Tish James’ probe into alleged misconduct by Gov. Andrew Cuomo has paralyzed much of New York’s Democratic political apparatus. State lawmakers have put their parallel impeachment investigation on a very slow burn.
“I didn’t go to Cuomo’s recent fundraiser. I’m over him,” TWU International President John Samuelsen said after nearly every other top labor leader in the state stumped for Cuomo at the June 29 high-dollar soiree.
Cuomo’s haphazard plan to build an essential worker memorial in Battery Park City keeps hitting a wall of resistance from local politicians who call the most recent options for a site “unacceptable.”
Three openly gay members of the state Assembly penned a letter to the Thruway Authority saying that Chick-fil-A should not be allowed to open locations inside rest stops, because of the fast food chain’s history of “opposing the rights of LGBTQ+ individuals.”
The union representing a variety of state agency law enforcement officers has hired an experienced Cuomo hand – Seth Agata – as its new executive director.
Mirroring national trends, women and people of color teaching at New York institutions were far less likely than their male and white peers to earn the distinction of tenure between 2013 and 2019.
Half the time police in New York say they wielded force it was used on a person who is Black, newly released state data show, highlighting a rate that is substantially disproportionate to the state’s overall population, which is 18 percent Black.
A New York state DEC forest ranger is joining the fight to contain a wildfire in Oregon.
The Capital City Rescue Mission is proposing a $6 million dormitory expansion in downtown Albany as part of an effort to better serve those it houses.
Recovery efforts will continue for at least several weeks after a storm ripped through Coxsackie in Greene County last Wednesday, shredding dozens of old-growth trees, downing power lines and making streets impassible.
The City of Albany police department is adding 10 automatic license plate readers throughout the city. Unlike typical license plate readers that are attached to police cars, these devices will be stationary.
There’s a bear in Niskayuna.
The shortage of workers both locally and nationally has impacted one of Lake George’s most kitschy tourist attractions, as the House of Frankenstein Wax Museum cannot find a 6-foot individual to fill the costume of its namesake creature.
A prominent Hollywood lawyer has had discussions with Britney Spears about representing her in her conservatorship battle, and he plans to attend a hearing in Los Angeles on Wednesday to begin the process of taking over as her counsel.
Authorities searching for victims of a deadly condo collapse in Florida said they hope to conclude their painstaking work in the coming weeks as a team of first responders from Israel departed the site.
Weeks after a Florida condo building crashed to the ground, an unlikely survivor has emerged: Binx the cat.
Bill Cosby isn’t welcome at the legendary Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village.
Novak Djokovic tied Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal by claiming his 20th Grand Slam title, coming back to beat Matteo Berrettini 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in the Wimbledon final.
Despite taking an early lead in yesterday’s Euro 2020 final, England fell apart in the second half before losing to Italy on home soil.
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit made a splash over the weekend with a new “inclusive” runway show featuring women of diverse body types, ages and races.
“Black Widow,” the latest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, made enough domestically to beat the previous record for a pandemic-era opening, Variety reports.
More manatees have already died in 2021 than in any other year in Florida’s recorded history, primarily from starvation due to the loss of seagrass beds.
