Good morning. It’s Monday.
I am lucky enough to have had the opportunity to travel fairly extensively – both inside and outside the U.S. But one place I have longed to visit and haven’t yet managed to get to is Alaska.
I have read quite a bit about the 49th state to join the union, AKA the Last Frontier.
Here’s an interesting factoid: Only one-third of the land in the entire state has been defined by cities and towns, leaving a vast expanse of undisturbed, remote landscape…in other words, it’s a very good place in which to lose oneself, and I could do with a bit of that these days.
A state so remote that there are pockets that cell phone service is impossible? Yes. Sign me up, please.
This seems like a non sequitur, as so many of my posts do, I know. But there is – as always – a method to my madness.
Today is the anniversary of the official transfer of the territory of Alaska from Russia to the U.S. (yes, there was something to what Sarah Palin said, back in the day, sorta), which occurred in 1867.
Actually, the Alaska Purchase was completed in on March 30 of that same year, (a different holiday, Seward’s Day, commemorates that date), and Alaska was ours for the bargain basement price of $7.2 million. However, it wasn’t until six month later that the formal transfer war arranged, and a flag-raising ceremony took place at Fort Sitka.
Alaska Day is a paid holiday for employees of that state. An official celebration is held in Sitka, which is the largest incorporated city in the U.S. with a total area of 4,811 square miles, and was the state capital until 1906, when Juneau took over that title.
Sitka is also only accessible by boat or plane, which is kind of cool, but also that description applies to many places in Alaska – or so I’m told.
Roads are not really their thing – only 20 percent of the WHOLE STATE is accessible by road, actually, and despite a land mass of 586,412 square miles, Alaska only has 12 numbered highways.
Given how car crazy we Americans are, this is really kind of mind blowing.
Alaska Day is not without controversy. It is protested by Native people who say that this was the date when their land was taken away from them. They assert that since they were there first, the land was not Russia’s to sell, and the whole Alaska Purchase was illegitimate from the get-go.
Apparently, there was a battle to ratify the Alaska Purchase in Congress, because the territory was widely viewed as cold, barren, and generally useless. The the public hung the name “Seward’s Folly” on the territory. Secretary of State Seward was very big on expansion, and regarded an opportunity to add 20 percent to the landmass of the United States as a windfall.
Little did he – and all his naysayers – know what riches lurked beneath the state’s surface.
But oil aside, I personally think the natural wonders of Alaska are just as impressive and worthy – if not more so. I hope to make it there one day soon.
After a rather disappointing weekend, weather-wise, things will dry out today. The forecast is calling for partly to mostly cloudy skies and temperatures in the low-to-mid 50s.
In the headlines…
The House and Senate face an onslaught of deadlines key to fulfilling members’ campaign promises and keeping the government afloat as they return from recess this week.
Democrats are still tussling over how to scale back their ambitions to expand the country’s social benefits and overhaul its climate-change policy face dwindling time to reach an agreement.
Democrats are debating whether doing nothing will cost more than doing something to deal with climate change, education, child care, prescription drugs and more.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg delivered a blunt warning to Joe Manchin and other Senate Democrats who are forcing Biden to scale back his climate crisis agenda: your resistance is going to cost lives.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and fellow progressives have pushed back after the White House is reportedly working to rewrite Democrats’ large reconciliation package without a key climate change provision due to Manchin’s opposition.
Ex-Queens Rep. Joe Crowley, the former chair of the House Democratic Caucus who lost his seat to Ocasio-Cortez, is now working to torpedo his party’s proposed tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy.
Support for a fourth stimulus check continues to grow as a petition calling on Congress to deliver another round of aid nears 3 million signatures.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot will vote tomorrow on a recommendation report for the Justice Department to bring charges of criminal contempt against Steve Bannon for flouting a congressional subpoena issued last month.
Biden said witnesses who defy subpoenas from a House panel should be prosecuted. “I hope that the committee goes after them and holds them accountable,” He said in brief remarks to reporters. When asked if they should be prosecuted, he said: “I do, yes.”
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger defended Biden’s right to weigh in on the prospect of prosecuting those who flout congressional subpoenas to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol.
With negotiations on his domestic agenda continuing in Congress, Biden took to the road Friday to pitch the importance of improving government-funded child care programs in the U.S.
Biden’s struggle to make America normal again after the pandemic is proving to be far more protracted and complicated than first thought, which has enormous political implications for the President and his party.
An admission by Buttigieg that supply chain backups, which are having a corrosive impact on the wider economy, will linger into next year further underscored a tough midterm election environment for Democrats.
Buttigieg sought to take the high road after Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked him for taking paternal leave.
“When somebody welcomes a new child into their family and goes on leave to take care of that child, that’s not a vacation. It’s work. It’s joyful, wonderful, fulfilling work, but it is work,” Buttigieg said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
In a letter published on Friday, two congressional staff associations called for better pay and “a stronger college-to-Congress pipeline” to recruit Black graduates.
Union leaders are pressing to increase their ranks and secure gains for their members as workers demand more from their employers and companies struggle with labor shortages and snarled supply chains.
The coronavirus has become the leading cause of death for officers despite law enforcement being among the first groups eligible to receive the vaccine at the end of 2020.
Police officers and others responsible for public safety should view vaccination against Covid-19 as a key part of their role, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, said.
The battle to inoculate the nation against the coronavirus has reached a fever pitch in recent months.
Russia is reporting its largest daily number of new coronavirus infections, more than 70 percent up on the number a month ago as the country faces a sustained rise in cases.
The TSA should use its canine teams to keep airport security lines moving if there is a worker shortage amid the federal COVID-19 vaccination mandate, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
ESPN reporter Allison Williams is leaving the network over her decision not to get a COVID-19 vaccine.
Robert A. Durst, a former real estate mogul, is on a ventilator in a Los Angeles hospital after testing positive for Covid-19, days after being sentenced to life in prison for the 2000 murder of his confidante.
Gov. Charlie Baker’s contentious COVID-19 vaccination requirement, impacting about 44,000 state workers in Massachusetts, took effect yesterday, with the vast majority of personnel complying with his executive order.
A Washington state physician assistant has had his license suspended following an investigation into more than a dozen complaints linked to COVID-19.
Life on college campuses is as close to pre-pandemic normalcy as it has been in 18 months, but as the semester progresses with few interruptions, some students are pushing back, calling the mitigation measures schools have imposed an overreach.
Alzheimer’s patient deaths spiked during the COVID pandemic, leaving caregivers of the vulnerable population on edge, officials said.
New York’s statewide COVID-19 positivity rate remains below 3 percent and is even lower in the Big Apple, the latest stats show.
Nearly two-thirds of New York residents are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the latest federal statistics.
Mandates have prompted a surge in vaccinations among those who had held out. Some report feeling relief; others, anguish and resentment.
COVID cases in students are higher on Long Island than anywhere else in New York State, according to data from the New York State Department of Health.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is hoping to be the last woman standing in the 2022 Democratic gubernatorial primary, with her allies banking on a crowded and ugly race to divide her downstate enemies and deliver victory.
While picketing with CWA workers in Buffalo late last week, state Attorney General Letitia James sounded like a candidate for higher office, but she has yet to announce a run for governor.
“We need to stand with all of you,” James said. “This is a moment in history where the hospital needs to stand up and do the right thing for the workers who were there for them in the midst of a pandemic.”
Hochul spoke with James Friday about the state’s defense of its vaccine mandate in the courts, which came on the same day both Democrats were in Erie County and as the race for governor continues to heat up.
After a decade in which he led the organization’s move toward carbon reduction, New York Power Authority President and CEO Gil Quiniones has resigned to become CEO at Commonwealth Edison Company, Chicago’s main utility firm.
The MTA’s chief innovation officer Mark Dowd — brought on board in November 2019 as part of an agency reorganization mandated by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature — will resign by the end of the year, transit sources said.
The MTA is starting to chip away at a worker shortage that’s caused tens of thousands of bus and subway trips to be canceled or delayed this year — but commuter relief could be months away.
The MTA spent $86 million on a state-of-the-art, NASA-like “bus command center” that has gone unused for more than two years because it’s already falling apart.
A 50 percent surge in thefts targeting city straphangers drove an overall increase in felony subway crime in September, according to new NYPD stats set to be shared at today’s MTA board meeting.
Eric Adams, New York City’s likely next mayor, rebuked Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to scrap the current gifted and talented system as he prepares to leave office, but he has yet to release his own plan for the city’s schools.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton wished “good luck” to mayoral frontrunner Adams if he’s elected — saying state legislators made a “mess” with recent criminal justice reform.
Adams said he’s “really troubled” about de Blasio’s plan to shift the vast majority of retired city workers from their current health care plans to another, less expensive option — a policy that has retirees fuming.
Adams also signaled a significant gap between he and de Blasio’s thinking when it comes to COVID vaccine mandates, saying he would require school children to receive shots in order to attend class.
Adams is “extremely optimistic” that Brooklyn Nets superstar Kyrie Irving will suit up soon for his hometown squad — despite the guard’s refusal so far to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
Adams once orchestrated a sexist smear campaign against a transit cop after she accused members of a Black police fraternal organization he co-led at the time of cheating on a sergeant’s exam.
The NYDN endorsed Adams for mayor.
Mayoral hopeful Curtis Sliwa ripped Hochul for OK’ing legislation that led the NYPD to allow open drug use on city streets, claiming the policy is hampering Gotham’s economic rebound.
De Blasio tapped a violent felon to a senior role in his administration’s Community Affairs Unit, and then promptly fired him after newspaper inquiries regarding his hiring.
Brooklyn activists are planning a last-minute effort to derail the proposed Gowanus rezoning, saying the recent devastation from Hurricane Ida shows the city needs to do a better job taking flooding, climate change and its sewage system into account.
The city is letting down its minority- and women-owned businesses, according to a new report from Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office, with just 3.8% of city contracts awarded to such businesses, known as MWBEs, in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
A Bronx man who was being held at the Rikers Island jail complex died on Friday after, his lawyer said, he contracted the coronavirus — the 13th death in custody during an especially deadly year in New York City’s jails.
Two cemetery monument companies are accused of scamming dozens of grieving New Yorkers.
Ex-LG Bob Duffy, who represented the Cuomo administration in negotiations one decade ago for the Buffalo Bills’ current lease, isn’t jarred by the projected $1.4 billion price tag for a new stadium in Orchard Park.
Part of the sidewalk outside the New York State Museum was barricaded and closed to the public yesterday, after a panel from the museum’s ninth floor fell off and hit the building’s terrace level, and then Madison Avenue and the sidewalk.
The Ballston Town Board passed new legislation that allows solar development, though with significant restrictions. The main one: acres of solar panels must be screened so that they can’t be seen by anyone off-site.
The man who allegedly caused Wood Road Elementary School and Ballston Spa middle and high schools to be in a lockout situation last Thursday was arrested by Saratoga County Sheriff officials over the weekend.
An energy price shock is serving as a reminder of the world’s continued dependency on fossil fuels- even amid efforts to shift to renewable sources of energy.
The Gabby Petito Foundation held its first fundraiser near her Long Island hometown yesterday, raising more than $13,000 as the family of the slain 22-year-old tries to make a positive difference out of their devastating loss.
Former President Bill Clinton was released from a California hospital after several days of treatment for a non-Covid-19 infection.
A spokesman for Clinton shared a statement on Twitter from Dr. Alpesh N. Amin, the chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, who had been overseeing the team of doctors treating the former president.
