Good Monday morning.
ICYMI: President Joe Biden last week issued the first ever presidential proclamation naming today Indigenous Peoples’ Day. A particularly pertinent passage of that proclamation (WOW, that’s a lot of p’s in one sentence) reads as follows:
The Federal Government has a solemn obligation to lift up and invest in the future of Indigenous people and empower Tribal Nations to govern their own communities and make their own decisions. We must never forget the centuries-long campaign of violence, displacement, assimilation, and terror wrought upon Native communities and Tribal Nations throughout our country. Today, we acknowledge the significant sacrifices made by Native peoples to this country — and recognize their many ongoing contributions to our Nation.
To say that this is a very big deal is an understatement, but perhaps isn’t terribly surprising from a president who also appointed the first-ever Indigenous cabinet secretary (Deb Haaland, secretary of the Interior).
The second Monday in October has traditionally been recognized in the U.S. as Columbus Day, which was first declared a national holiday in 1934 and approved by Congress as a federal holiday in 1968.
In many communities, however, Indigenous Peoples’ Day has replaced Columbus Day, as many – particularly Native peoples – associate the Italian explorer with atrocities brought against Indigenous individuals who were, of course, here long before he “discovered” America, and the emergence of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
South Dakota was the first state to observe Native American Day in place of Columbus Day in 1990. Vermont, Maine and New Mexico started observing Indigenous People’s’ Day in 2019, and Virginia followed last year.
The growing movement to supplant Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day has not sat well with many Italian-Americans, who viewed this holiday as an opportunity to honor their cultural heritage and contributions to the U.S.
This whole situation also becomes much more complicated when you take into account that many of the statutes of Columbus that are now being challenged, and in some cases, taken down, were first erected in in the wake of an 1891 lynching of 11 Italian immigrants in New Orleans, an era when Italians faced widespread discrimination.
New York City has removed Columbus Day from the public school calendar, replacing it with “Italian Heritage Day/Indigenous People’s Day” – a decision that caused considerable controversy. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is Italian-American on his mother’s side, said after the fact that he hadn’t been in the loop on the decision.
Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is also Italian-American and was rather outspoken about it, was also not at all happy, insisting that “You don’t have to exclude Italians to celebrate indigenous people.”
Cuomo and de Blasio also spoke in favor of keeping the prominent Columbus Statue in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle, despite an effort to get it removed.
Just a few days ago, a controversial statue of President Teddy Roosevelt that stands outside the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan was splattered with red paint, seemingly in anticipation of today’s holiday.
Earlier this year, the NYC Public Design Commission unanimously voted to take down the Roosevelt statue and relocate it to a cultural institution that has not yet been named.
According to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s public schedule, which was released last night, she will be marching in New York City’s “Columbus Day Parade” and later will deliver remarks at the South Asians of New York Annual Diwali Extravaganza.
If she doesn’t get any “what do you think about Columbus vs. Indigenous People’s Day” questions I will be surprised.
We’re in for a spate of very nice weather, with temperatures in the low-to-id 70s and partly cloudy skies.
In the headlines…
The fate of major climate action is at stake in the two spending bills currently being debated in D.C.
Bernie Sanders has pushed Congress for decades to expand the social safety net and fight climate change, with limited success. Now, with Democrats on the brink of finalizing such a package, the Vermont senator must decide how much is enough.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on Congress to increase the federal government’s debt limit by December, warning yesterday that inaction could cause a recession.
The White House told the National Archives it is not asserting executive privilege on an initial batch of documents related to the Jan. 6 violence at the U.S. Capitol, paving the way for sharing documents with the House committee investigating the insurrection.
The U.S. Treasury is being held hostage by Republican Senator Ted Cruz’s efforts to halt a Russia-to-Germany gas pipeline, blocking critical appointments when the federal debt limit remains a pressing issue, White House officials and Democrats in Congress say.
Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, along with 19 other lawmakers, has requested that Biden fulfill his promise of canceling student debt by sharing information on how much legal authority he has to do so.
The Justice Department has been quietly ramping up antitrust enforcement under the Biden administration, despite not having a politically confirmed official to serve as antitrust chief.
The big picture for Covid-19 is looking brighter as new infections and hospitalizations decline, though five states – Montana, Colorado, Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania – had at least 10% more new cases this past week compared to the week before.
With holidays approaching, health experts said some festivities can start to return to a sense of normalcy, but they also warned that Covid-19 isn’t defeated yet. Experts said that outdoor trick-or-treating – particularly for vaccinated kids – should be fine.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said COVID-19 cases would need to go “way down” before most vaccinated Americans can safely gather publicly indoors without masks.
People who both had Covid-19 and are vaccinated don’t need to rush to get the boosters now rolling out across the U.S., health experts say.
New York’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign hit a “major milestone” with 85.1 percent of adults getting at least one jab.
The vaccination rate among home health workers in New York as a deadline arrived on Thursday for them to get Covid shots was about 86 percent, exceeding the expectations of some union and industry leaders.
Hospitals across Rochester have been battling with staffing shortages ever since New York’s healthcare worker vaccine mandate went into effect.
Some universities are now requiring COVID-19 vaccines for employees, but within the SUNY system, there’s currently a patchwork of different policies governing employee vaccination.
SUNY has issued incendiary termination letters to nurses and other medical professionals charging them with misconduct, insubordination, dereliction of duties and incompetence after they declined to get vaccinated by the mandatory Sept. 27 deadline.
A group of animals at the Seneca Park Zoo in Monroe County have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
To address the vaccine gap in New York, health officials and some Black churches have sought to use the power of the pulpit to vouch for the safety of vaccines and to push back against misinformation.
Heavy marijuana users who are also vaccinated may be more susceptible to breakthrough cases of COVID-19, a new study found.
Sydney’s cafes, gyms and restaurants welcomed back fully vaccinated customers today after nearly four months of lockdown, as Australia aims to begin living with the coronavirus and gradually reopen with high rates of inoculation.
For more than 18 months, Australia has shut itself off from the world, closing borders and imposing strict lockdowns to stamp out Covid-19 outbreaks in an attempt to eliminate the virus. Now it’s going to try to learn to live with Covid.
Coronavirus infections among schoolchildren in the U.K. have pushed daily caseloads to stubbornly high levels, a setback that underscores how Britain now trails many of its European neighbors on vaccination after staking out an early lead.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Allen West, who is currently recovering from a case of COVID-19, said his hospitalization with the virus has made him “more dedicated to fighting against vaccine mandates.”
The Javits Center, the same Manhattan venue where self-proclaimed geeks gathered for the Big Apple’s largest costume party, was once one of the busiest hospitals in the city, battling a deadly disease at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
A year after the “defund the police movement,” police departments across the U.S. are getting their money back as violence and major crime rises.
A police standoff with a Queens man who climbed a tree to avoid being arrested ended after a third day.
Southwest Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights yesterday and just over 800 on Saturday, wreaking havoc on weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers.
In a media statement on Twitter, the airline blamed bad weather combined with staffing shortages, garnished with a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) traffic control directive.
Federal researchers will release nontoxic particles and gases into the New York City subway this month as a part of a study on airborne terrorism threats, officials announced.
A passenger whose erratic behavior prompted pilots to make an emergency landing at La Guardia Airport this weekend was not charged after the authorities determined that he “did not make a verbal threat” and was not carrying a suspicious item.
The “security incident” that forced the New-York bound flight to make an emergency landing at LaGuardia Airport on Saturday turned out to be a misunderstanding — after an airline passenger mistook another traveler’s camera for a bomb.
Maria Ambrocio, 58, who worked as a nurse through the pandemic in a New Jersey hospital, was knocked down in Times Square by a man who was fleeing after snatching a cellphone, the police said. She later died after suffering a traumatic brain injury.
The homeless mugger who plowed into the New Jersey nurse and left her for dead in Times Square was tossed behind bars yesterday on upgraded charges of murder.
Though Mayor Bill de Blasio seemed to put the final nail in the coffin for the Department of Education’s Gifted & Talented (G&T) program, the likely next mayor, Eric Adams, has given some indication he might not be willing to bury the initiative at all.
A spokesperson for Adams said he “has said consistently he would keep the Gifted and Talented test and provide more resources, classes and support to lower-income students to ensure fairer outcomes,” adding his “position hasn’t changed.”
De Blasio is betting that a massive shift in the way NYC provides health care coverage to retired municipal workers could save it up to $600 million a year — but many of those very same workers fear the new plan could bankrupt them in their golden years.
The pandemic reshaped commuting patterns in New York, but the MTA has done little to adapt, according to a report from city Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The MTA needs to adjust its service schedules to meet the demands of a rolling, “24/7 rush hour” that has become dominant in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stringer said.
The animal rights group NYCLASS blasted Charter Communications for pulling a provocative TV ad featuring “Sopranos” star Edie Falco that urges the City Council to ban the “abusive” horse carriage industry.
Last week, when Gov. Kathy Hochul announced nearly $25 million in state funds to help nonprofits guard against hate crimes, she was introduced at the Manhattan event by a woman who organized a campaign fundraiser for the governor that same day.
Why unflattering reports about Hochul are emerging now is not clear, but they come as she is seeking to distance herself from the former governor — who is known for exacting political vengeance on his foes.
John Maggiore, a Buffalo native and longtime aide to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is refusing to give up his post on the Public Service Commission despite Hochul’s request he resign.
The disgraced former governor’s campaign committee is still marked “active” by the state elections board — and still accepts contributions.
Cuomo’s personal attorney wrote a detailed letter to the state Assembly again calling into question the fairness of a state attorney general’s investigation of his conduct while critiquing the credibility of the women who accused him of sexual harassment.
The Niagara County Democratic Committee voted to endorse Hochul’s 2022 election bid, joining its Erie County counterpart to become the first two county committees to offer her their backing.
A Long Island Democrat, Rep. Tom Suozzi, is making his most aggressive move in a potential bid to challenge Hochul in a primary next year — by outflanking the former lieutenant governor in the mayor’s race in her hometown of Buffalo.
Suozzi backed Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown against his successful primary opponent, Indian Walton, declaring the Western New York race to be a battlefront in a broader ideological war in the Democratic primary.
Hochul signed legislation making it illegal to use a person’s immigration status against them.
Threats to report a person’s immigration status could previously be treated as a crime in cases of labor and sex trafficking, but they weren’t treated as potential extortion or coercion offenses.
The state’s $2.1 billion relief fund for undocumented workers affected by the pandemic is nearly tapped out and stopped taking new applications last Friday.
Hochul has signed into law a bill that will allow a new real estate sales tax to fund affordable housing programs in the five East End, LI towns.
Landlords filed evictions cases against more than 4,000 tenants in the Capital Region during the pandemic, data released by the New York court system reveals for the first time.
The Capital Region cemented its place as a center for New York’s growing offshore wind industry with the announcement of a second major assembly point for the turbine structures that will ultimately go off the coast of Long Island over the next decade.
Alicia Purdy is running as the Republican candidate for mayor of Albany, though it may be a bit tough to tell.
Adirondack Wildlife Refuge is finding new homes for the majority of its animals after the operator surrendered two of her remaining wildlife licenses the state planned to revoke after years of alleged deceptive and improper reporting.
A U.S. Navy employee and his wife have been charged with attempting to share secrets about nuclear submarine technology with a foreign country, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.
R. Kelly’s music sales have spiked since he was convicted for sex trafficking and racketeering.
Paul McCartney is insisting it was bandmate and songwriting partner John Lennon who decided The Beatles couldn’t “work it out” in 1970 — and not him, as has been widely reported for five decades.
The new James Bond movie “No Time to Die” opened with $56 million at domestic theaters between Friday and yesterday to lead all films. The spy thriller marks the fifth and final performance by Daniel Craig as 007.
