Good Monday morning.
I don’t know about you, but life has seemed more like a roller coaster ride of late than usual.
Between the resurgence of the pandemic, the upheaval in New York politics and the changing of the seasons (sadly, yes, summer is quickly wrapping up), it has more of an up-and-down experience than I would like.
Today happens to be National Roller Coaster Day, a day that celebrates the actual RIDE not the metaphorical shitshow we have collectively been experiencing over the past 17 months or so.
This unofficial holiday commemorates the first vertical loop roller coaster, which was patented by Edwin Prescott on this day in 1898. The oldest known roller coasters are believed to have originated in the Russian mountains in the 17th century and were constructed from ice and wood. (Sounds totally safe, right?).
For many years, Coney Island’s Cyclone claimed the mantle of the oldest U.S. coaster, but it turns out that inventor J.G. Taylor may have opened up the first roller coaster at Rocky Point, Rhode Island in 1872.
The supposed father of the American roller coaster was the inventor LaMarcus Thompson.
A few interesting roller coaster facts:
- Roller coaster loops are never circular. They’re designed with an upside down “teardrop” shape because perfectly circular loops will subject riders to up to 6Gs of g-force, causing them to get injured.
- Your organs are actually floating when you get that “stomach in your chest” feeling on a roller coaster.
- The Beast at Kings Island in Ohio is the longest wooden roller coaster, with 7,359 feet of track. That makes it the third longest coaster overall in the world.
- Takabisha at Fuji-Q Highland in Japan has a 121 degree tilt drop free fall, making it the world’s steepest roller coaster.
If you want to really go down a roller coaster rabbit hole and see all the stats on the biggest, baddest, tallest, fastest etc., click here.
Also, if you’re really a roller coaster lover, consider taking on the world record.
Apparently it’s also Stay at Home With Your Kids Day, which was launched to highlight the hard work undertaken by parents who are full-time caregivers for their children. Of course, last year that really described, well, almost everyone with kids.
Legend Elvis Presley died on this day in 1977, suffering from heart failure brought on by his drug addiction. He was 42.
We’re getting a respite from the extreme heat, which is nice. Today will be mostly cloud with highs nearing 80.
In the NYS leadership headlines…
KG Kathy Hochul, who will make history as the female governor of New York, vowed to uphold integrity in her administration after Andrew Cuomo resigned following the state attorney general’s investigation that found he sexually harassed multiple women.
Hochul said that she supported mask mandates for children in school as a necessary safety step for helping New York get through a new wave of COVID-19 infections.
The incoming governor stopped short of ruling out statewide vaccination requirements, saying she will be “looking at the possibility of mandates.”
State Sens. Jamaal Bailey from the Bronx and Harlem’s Brian Benjamin are under consideration to be Hochul’s appointed LG.
Members of New York’s political class have said Hochul should be a welcome change from Cuomo’s top-down, brutalist style of governing over the past decade.
“I will not be sidetracked by labels or how people want to characterize my administration, other than I will fight like hell for every day New Yorkers,” Hochul said during a round of interviews on Sunday morning TV.
Hochul is pledging to work closely with the mayor of New York’s largest city on issues like vaccinations, a potentially drastic change to the state’s response to Covid-19.
Hochul said she will consider Cuomo irrelevant after he leaves office, but also said his commissioners would keep their jobs, at least temporarily, when she becomes Governor on Aug. 24.
Hochul insisted that her husband’s top position at Delaware North won’t lead to corrupt dealings or even the perception that she’s giving him preferential treatment when she steps in as New York’s chief executive later this month.
Hochul visited the Erie County Fair over the weekend.
“It was here that I actually had to present myself to an audience at 10 years old, and I started the journey, unexpected journey, but one where I developed some confidence as a young girl,” said Hochul.
Hochul predicted that “it won’t be difficult” for her to end Albany’s “legacy of sleaze.”
As governor, Cuomo had an annual salary of $225,000 – among the highest among his gubernatorial peers. However, most of his recent financial resources have come from the sales of his books.
Cuomo’s ex, Sandra Lee, are not necessarily engaged, but are very much enjoying one another.
Instead of scandal-scared Cuomo, New York Republicans might face a history-making woman with a moderate record, upstate birth certificate and thick Rolodex built up over six years working politicians, business owners and local leaders all over the state.
NBC has removed a video from its website showing Tonight Show Host Jimmy Fallon praising Cuomo.
For those who watched Cuomo closely as he guided New York through the pandemic – commandeering ventilators, raising field hospitals, reassuring the public that a strong hand was in control – it had been disorienting to see him lose his grip so swiftly.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said he will “suspend” the impeachment investigation into Cuomo, arguing the probe was unneeded after the governor announced his intention to resign, even though investigators had found evidence of misconduct.
“I’m not gonna drag the state through the mud, through a three-month, four-month impeachment, and then win, and have made the State Legislature and the state government look like a ship of fools,” Cuomo said.
After the impeachment investigation was dropped, several members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee are demanding action.
“The expectation was that this was going down in a floor fight in the State Senate,” an ex-Cuomo official said. “…there was going to be a lot of blood on the ground, a whole lot of anger, that this was going to be ugly, and there was no other way for this to go.”
In a tweet, Cuomo accuser Charlotte Bennett said Heastie’s decision to end the probe sends a message that “corruption, sexual harassment/assault and retaliation are acceptable.”
A spokesperson for Democratic Assemblyman Dan Quart said he was unaware the suspension was coming said in a statement that he was “disappointed” with the decision.
Fresh off celebrating his 51st birthday, Chris Cuomo is scheduled to return from a week-long vacation and host his prime-time CNN show tonight, just as he has for the past three years. But Cuomo’s world has changed since he went on vacation.
The chair of New York’s ethics oversight commission, Camille Joseph Varlack, informed other commissioners Friday she is resigning.
Cuomo leaves behind unfinished transportation projects, including a plan to charge fees to drive in Manhattan. The fate of congestion pricing is now uncertain.
Paterson claimed that Cuomo stabbed him in the back by personally calling then-gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer in 2006 to advise him not to support Paterson for lieutenant governor.
For 40 years, the Cuomo name has been synonymous with Democratic power in New York. Now it could mean something else.
In other news…
Taliban fighters poured into the Afghan capital Kabul amid scenes of panic and chaos, bringing a swift and shocking close to the Afghan government and the 20-year American era in the country.
Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country yesterday, joining thousands of his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking the country.
After 20 years of diplomacy and support, American officials are now contemplating the harrowing question of whether — and how — they might engage with a Taliban government in Afghanistan.
The Taliban will declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul, a Taliban official announced.
At least three people were killed by gunfire this morning at the passenger terminal of Kabul’s international airport, where thousands of Afghans who fear for their lives after the Taliban takeover have converged in hopes of getting an evacuation flight.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan is instructing U.S. citizens to shelter in place amid reports that the city’s airport is under fire.
France is relocating its embassy in Kabul to the airport to evacuate all citizens still in Afghanistan, initially transferring them to Abu Dhabi.
The turmoil that has engulfed Afghanistan, which led Biden to send 4,000 troops back to the country only weeks after he had taken 1,500 out, has confronted the White House with a crisis that could have lasting humanitarian and national-security consequences.
Former President Donald Trump called on Biden to “resign in disgrace” over his handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal and other issues
The death toll from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti climbed to 1,297, a day after the powerful temblor turned thousands of structures into rubble and set off franctic rescue efforts ahead of a potential deluge from an approaching tropical storm.
At least 500 of the fatalities were in the country’s southern peninsula where Saturday’s magnitude 7.2 quake hit, Jerry Chandler, head of Haiti’s civil-protection agency, told reporters.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked a top committee to look at moving forward on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill along with the $3.5 trillion budget framework in an effort to balance the demands of her party’s ideological factions.
The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history.
With a stockpile of at least 100 million doses at the ready, Biden administration officials are developing a plan to start offering booster shots to some Americans as early as this fall even as researchers continue to hotly debate whether extra shots are needed.
Iceland, which had been praised for its coronavirus response and its world-leading vaccination rate, is now seeing its highest levels of infection since the start of the pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has dismissed a study that deemed the Moderna vaccine as more effective than the Pfizer one against the COVID-19 delta variant.
Drugmakers Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna are expected to reap billions of dollars from COVID-19 booster shots in a market that could rival the $6 billion in annual sales for flu vaccines for years to come, analysts and healthcare investors say.
The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States hit a record high of just over 1,900 on Saturday, as hospitals across the South were stretched to capacity fighting outbreaks caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant.
A former acting CDC director said that he does not believe that the recent surge of COVID-19 cases will lead to massive shutdowns throughout the country, though he acknowledged some schools may close.
The U.S. could soon see more than 200,000 new cases of Covid-19 every day as the Delta variant spreads at a rapid pace, particularly among unvaccinated people, the director of the National Institutes of Health predicted.
A new study from Harvard University researchers concluded that approximately 20% of COVID-19 cases in California and Washington state were linked to wildfires that took place in the area.
A growing group of healthy J&J vaccine recipients are contemplating whether they should get a “booster” dose from one of the mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, hoping to improve their chances against the delta variant.
Nursing homes in Florida and other Covid-19 hot spots are once again tightening restrictions on visitation and group activities in response to recent rises in Covid-19 cases.
Repercussions from the Delta variant of Covid-19 are starting to ripple across companies, raising staffing costs in senior housing, disrupting production of potato chips and leading some companies to rein in profit projections.
Emotions ran high on both sides as school boards across the country debated mask mandates, generating stunning video footage that bombarded social media.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urged the federal government to crack down on the sale of phony COVID-19 vaccination cards — and spread the word that “dumb” people buying the fake inoculation documentation risk spending time behind bars.
A prominent cardinal who has expressed skepticism of vaccines tested positive for the coronavirus just days ago and is already breathing via a ventilator.
Actor and activist George Takei said that the “willfully unvaccinated” who refuse to be inoculated against coronavirus should be last in line for priority care.
Todd Pletcher, who has won 14 training titles at Saratoga Race Course, has tested positive for COVID-19.
COVID-19 numbers across New York yesterday remained similar to the numbers reported on Saturday as officials continue to urge all New Yorkers to get vaccinated. There were just under 4,500 new cases reported in the last 24 hours.
New York City hit a somber milestone on Saturday, surpassing 1 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa and some local Republican leaders were among 300 people at a Manhattan rally yesterday to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s vaccine mandate for city employees and indoor venues.
Some of the city’s most recognizable entertainers take turns singing, dancing and playing instruments in a new music video covering Billy Joel’s 1976 song “New York State of Mind.”
Around New York State, both tenants and landlords were reminded of how precarious their living situations were, after the Supreme Court blocked part of an eviction moratorium that the state had imposed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Staffing shortages at Rikers Island are causing delays in the medical treatment of inmates, and health care workers there worry those lags and lapses in protocol are putting them in grave danger.
East Harlem Councilwoman Diane Ayala is planning a run for council speaker, two sources with knowledge of the matter revealed.
A Brooklyn friend of Eric Garner Jr. feared he would meet the same fate as his pal’s father when NYPD cops put him in a chokehold in 2019, according to a lawsuit.
The state Public Service Commission this week boosted their low-income energy bill discount programs administered by electric and gas utility companies, saying that should benefit an additional 95,000 customers statewide.
The city of Albany has not yet decided whether to grant the Police Athletic League a permit for its annual Capital Holiday Lights in the Park fundraiser, after neighborhood groups have pushed to end the show’s 24-year residency in Washington Park.
A Rotterdam priest has withdrawn from public ministry after being accused in “a single allegation of sexual abuse that was first reported in a Child Victims Act case,” according to a statement by the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese.
Officials are investigating why a tour bus en route to Niagara Falls got off a roadway and subsequently rolled over on its side, leaving all 57 passengers with injuries.
