It’s Friday AND it’s a holiday weekend. GOOD MORNING!
First, some housekeeping: There will be no “Rise and Shine” this coming Monday, July 5th, as we will be taking the day off in observance of our nation’s 245th birthday, which will occur on Sunday.
In case you’ve forgotten the point of the Glorious Fourth, which has become synonymous with barbecues, and picnics and fireworks, it is the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776 by the Second Continental Congress, which called for the American colonies to secede from Great Britain.
Hence, “Independence” Day. (Also, for you history buffs out there: It is also the day when three former presidents died and one was born…got any ideas about who?)
This year’s celebration is particularly sweet as we are celebrating our independence from COVID-19 (mostly, variants be damned), and the lockdowns and worry and public health protocols it required. In-person events are back.
Fireworks displays are back, much to the chagrin of my poor dog, who hates loud noises with a passion.
The term “Independence Day” was not used until 1791, then in 1870 it became an official unpaid holiday for federal employees, staying that way until 1941 when it became a paid holiday for them.
As for today, it’s World UFO Day, which is fitting, given the recent release of this.
Unfortunately, the weather is not looking so fabulous for the next few days. Monday might be OK. But the weekend will bring a lot of rain and clouds. Today will be much the same, overcast with light rain on and off throughout the day.
Oh, well, a vacation is a vacation.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden drew on his own experiences with grief and loss to comfort families affected by the Florida condo collapse, telling them to “never give up hope” even as the search for survivors paused a week after the building came down.
The president said chances were fading that anyone else would be found alive under the mass of concrete and steel left by a collapsed condominium.
Rescue crews resumed their search for survivors of the Champlain Towers South collapse yesterday evening, more than 14 hours after work was halted out of concern that the rest of the building could also fall.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thanked Biden for his immediate support of the state’s response to the deadly Surfside condominium tragedy.
Officials are considering demolishing the rest of the Champlain Towers South as operations continue in sections that crumbled to the ground a week ago, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said.
The chief building inspector who said the tower was in “good shape” is now under scrutiny.
The United States has won international backing for its plan to overhaul the global system for taxing companies, a huge step toward simplifying a complex web of rules long exploited by big corporations.
Biden is sharply criticizing the Supreme Court’s ruling that upheld voting restrictions in Arizona, blasting the decision as “harmful.”
A year and a half since it began racing across the globe with exponential efficiency, the pandemic is on the rise again in vast stretches of the world, driven largely by the new variants, particularly the highly contagious Delta variant first identified in India.
The White House said it would send out special teams to hot spots around the United States to combat the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant amid rising case counts in parts of the country where vaccination rates remain low.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the United States rose 10 percent this week as the highly contagious delta variant gained further ground, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said areas with low vaccination rates are quickly turning into hot spots even as the overall national picture remains very hopeful.
The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, even eight months after inoculation, the company reported – a finding that should reassure the 11 million Americans who have gotten the shot.
In laboratory testing, the vaccine triggered a strong immune response in blood samples taken from eight vaccinated people, J&J said.
Now that the Delta coronavirus variant is posing a serious risk to unvaccinated Americans, some experts are calling for the FDA to fully approve the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, which are currently being used under emergency use authorization.
The Republican-led, pandemic-fueled campaign to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom of California got an official election date on Thursday, as the state’s lieutenant governor announced that voters would head to the polls on the issue on Sept. 14.
Reputed virologists and vaccinologists have resigned as editors of the journal Vaccines to protest publication of a peer-reviewed article that misuses data to conclude “for three deaths prevented by [COVID-19] vaccination, we have to accept two inflicted by vaccination.”
Predators worldwide took advantage of pandemic restrictions to draw more people into forced labor and sex trafficking, including children who spent days online under government-imposed stay-at-home orders, according to a new State Department report.
The military is struggling to fully vaccinate more troops across all service branches. While the Army and Navy are outpacing the civilian population in vaccine uptake, the Air Force and the Marine Corps have faced greater challenges.
If you think you have COVID-19, it might be best to stay away from your pets, says the author of a Dutch study that found a surprising number of dogs and cats may be getting infected.
In the new study, researchers at the University of Guelph in Ontario tested 48 cats and 54 dogs from 77 different households that had a positive Covid-19 case in the previous nine months.
As local governments continue to encourage their unvaccinated residents to get their COVID-19 shot, Common Pleas Judge Richard Frye from Franklin County, Ohio, is making getting a coronavirus vaccine a term of a defendant’s probation.
When cruise ships depart from Florida’s ports in the coming months, some won’t require passengers to get the most effective pandemic life preserver there is — a Covid-19 vaccination.
Walgreens’ role in administering Covid-19 vaccines helped lift its sales and profit in the latest quarter, but the drugstore chain said it is expecting a sharp slowdown in shots this summer.
Beginning in March of last year when COVID-19 was raging in the United States, millions of consumers flocked to any store that had Clorox products. Now, with vaccines and coronavirus numbers falling, Clorox stock is getting wiped out.
The Trump Organization, which catapulted Donald Trump to tabloid fame, TV riches and the White House, was charged with running a 15-year scheme to help its executives evade taxes by compensating them with fringe benefits hidden from authorities.
Read the indictment here.
Prosecutors described a 15-year-long tax-fraud scheme involving off-the-books payments to employees at the Trump Organization. Executives took perks like car leases and Manhattan apartments without the company or the recipient paying taxes.
Attorney General Merrick Garland imposed a moratorium on federal executions pending a review of the Justice Department’s policies and procedures, reversing a Trump administration decision to resume them.
As vaccination levels rise and businesses reopen, residential real estate has finally bounced back to where it was before Covid devastated New York.
Caught in bidding wars for medical supplies and forced to scour the globe for personal protective equipment when Covid-19 ripped through New York last year, New York hospitals are now sitting on stockpiles of gear.
The neighborhoods in Queens that reeled during the pandemic are buzzing. But recovery feels very far away.
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine will resume in-person Holy Eucharist services after more than a year of complying with coronavirus closures, the church announced.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the first batch of headliners for the city’s planned “homecoming concert” in Central Park this summer, which is being booked with the 89-year-old music producer Clive Davis.
Lincoln Center named Mahogany L. Browne its first ever poet in residence, part of its initiative to use its outdoor spaces as New York emerges from pandemic lockdowns.
New Jersey’s yearlong ban on smoking inside casinos in Atlantic City will end on Sunday as the state continues to relax its coronavirus-related mandates.
Initial filings for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, indicating continued improvement in the U.S. jobs market, the Labor Department reported.
First-time jobless claims totaled 364,000 for the week ended June 26, compared with the 390,000 Dow Jones estimate. That marked a new pandemic-era low and a decline of 51,000 from the previous week.
Continuing claims for the week ended June 19, meanwhile, unexpectedly rose to 3.469 million filings, up from the previous week’s upwardly revised 3.413 million. Analysts were expecting a decline to 3.382 million filings.
Global stock markets rose on strong European and U.S. shares yesterday, with stocks brushing off a rapid re-acceleration in coronavirus cases and oil and the dollar extending their first-half rallies.
As U.S. employers’ search for hires increases in urgency – especially in the manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and food-service industries – truck drivers, hotel cleaners and warehouse workers are being offered signing bonuses of hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
As Gov. Andrew Cuomo gears up to campaign for a fourth term, a new Siena poll found more than 60% of voters surveyed would rather see the Democratic executive resign immediately or not run for office again.
The survey of 809 voters found that 39% of respondents said Cuomo should finish out his term but not run again as investigators review sexual-harassment allegations by current and former aides. The governor has denied wrongdoing.
If Cuomo did seek a fourth term, more than half (56 percent) of voters said they would prefer to elect “someone else.”
Nursing homes are confused about which health and safety protocols they should keep and want to know why the state Health Department is directing them to follow some newly expired guidance since Cuomo abruptly ended the state of emergency last week.
The New York City Board of Elections, which has a history of mishaps, is now under intense fire for its error in releasing mayoral primary results.
Red-faced city election officials held an apparently illegal, secret meeting Wednesday to discuss the botched vote count that threw the Democratic mayoral primary into chaos.
Mayoral candidate Maya Wiley declared her bid plenty alive yesterday – a day after the release of partial ranked-choice election results that showed her within striking distance of Kathryn Garcia in the second-to-last round.
Just over 21,000 votes separated City Councilmember Brad Lander and Council Speaker Corey Johnson in the comptroller race after the city Board of Elections on Wednesday performed a do-over tabulation of preliminary ranked choice votes.
A California woman who falsely accused a teenager of stealing her phone and then attacked him at a New York City hotel was charged with a hate crime.
The MTA unveiled its newest batch of subway cars in Brooklyn yesterday – a year after they were first scheduled to hit the tracks.
National Grid plans to continue pursuing an expansion of a gas project in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and more compressed natural gas injection sites to meet growing demand for natural gas downstate.
A proposed partnership on an anaerobic digester project between Albany and Saratoga counties that was projected to save both groups millions and reduce waste incineration is on hold after the total cost jumped 40 percent.
A conference held yesterday on whether the judge overseeing the criminal case against Nauman Hussain should accept a plea deal in the matter ended without a clear resolution.
A group of municipalities and local environmental organizations is suing the Cuomo administration over what they say is the loss of their constitutional home rule rights by giving a special state panel – not localities – the power to approve large solar and wind farms.
A recent legislative scorecard compiled by a organization representing rank-and-file cops suggests that north Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik’s pro-police rhetoric doesn’t match her voting record.
The Democratic nominee for Buffalo mayor, India Walton, was accused of welfare fraud, failed to pay her taxes and was caught driving with a suspended license, according to public records.
Reservations for full-service camping in the Empire RV Park during the New York State Fair are open. Reservations can be made at reserveamerica.com.
Nurses at Albany Medical Center voted to approve their first union contract at the hospital, according to the hospital and union.
After being closed for 15 months, the Crandell Theatre in Chatham, a single-screen movie house nearly a century old, is reopening this week with a series of four feature films screening Thursday through Sunday.
Siro’s restaurant, a track-season fixture since 1945 in Saratoga Springs, will reopen on July 14 under the fifth management team in a decade.
The neighborhood abutting the S.A. Dunn construction and demolition debris landfill is now considered an Environmental Justice zone, which could complicate the controversial facility’s efforts to renew its state operating permit next year.
More ticks have been reported in Suffolk County on Long Island than any other county in America.
Bill Cosby spent his first hours of freedom eating “extra-crunchy” pizza and chatting with supporters before leaving his suburban Philadelphia mansion yesterday afternoon to reunite with his wife Camille, his spokesman said.
Howard University denounced actress Phylicia Rashad’s public support of Cosby. She is a dean at the historically Black college.
TikTok said it would widely roll out the ability to edit and upload videos that can run up to three minutes over the coming weeks.
The Boy Scouts of America reached a settlement with major groups of sex-abuse victims seeking compensation through the youth group’s bankruptcy proceedings, a milestone in its efforts to turn the page on its past failures to protect children.
Standout U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson’s trip to the Olympics is in jeopardy after she tested positive for a prohibited substance, according to multiple reports.
The wealth management firm that was set to take over as the co-conservator of Britney Spears’s estate, alongside her father, has requested to resign from the arrangement, according to a court document, throwing her conservatorship into greater turmoil.
Nathan’s Famous doesn’t just sell hot dogs. It also does fried frog’s legs.
Richard Branson plans to beat Jeff Bezos to space.
