Good morning. The middle of the week has arrived. Hello, Wednesday.
Here’s a thing that I know is going to be triggering for someone out there…I already have a few people in mind, specifically, but oh well, maybe I’ll reach out to warn them not to read this morning.
It’s International Pronouns Day, which was founded by the director of Leadership Initiatives at the University of Maryland, Shige Sakurai.
Sakurai, who goes by they/them, was also the first person in the United States to receive a non-binary driver’s license.
After being featured in press coverage for that landmark accomplishment, they said that they endured abusive and threatening comments in college for their gender nonconformity and activism against “anti-queer and misogynistic hate speech.”
According to the official International Pronouns Day website, this day “seeks to make respecting, sharing, and educating about personal pronouns commonplace; referring to people by the pronouns they determine for themselves is basic to human dignity.”
International Pronouns Day started in 2018, and the idea is to promote equity – particular for transgender and genderqueer individuals who struggle with the fact that many people refuse to identify them in the manner they have chosen for themselves.
Further complicating matters is the fact that many languages are, by their very nature, gender binary.
There are ways to get around this, of course, the most obvious of which is to simply use the pronoun “they” for everyone, regardless of how they appear. This might make some strict grammar nerds uncomfortable. If that’s the case, perhaps just simply revert to using a person’s proper name and leave it at that.
Broaching the pronoun subject is perhaps not natural for some people, but not to worry, the Human Rights Campaign has a whole handbook about that.
They also offer a handy “pronouns 101” guide that includes pronoun etiquette tips – like creating opportunities for people to share their preferred pronouns through their email signatures.
Also, and though this seems fairly self-explanatory, perhaps it bears mentioning: If you’re unsure of what a person might prefer to be called, try asking. And if you screw it up, apologize – sincerely – and then try not to make that mistake again.
Also, this whole pronoun discussion has become so normal that GMA did a segment on it last year. (I have to confess that i did not know about “zir” and “ze” until I watched the video).
It looks like another lovely fall day is on tap, with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 70s. Enjoy it while you can.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden informed House progressives that the final bill to expand the social safety net is expected to drop tuition-free community college, a major White House priority.
Biden expects negotiations to wrap up this week on a $2 trillion government-overhaul package with at least $500 billion to tackle climate change and money for middle-class priorities — child tax credits, paid family leave, health care and free pre-kindergarten.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted that the discussions “focused around a shared commitment to the care economy, ensuring working families have more breathing room, addressing the climate crisis, and investing in industries of the future.”
Biden acknowledged that opposition from Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) to a clean electricity program would require Democrats to abandon it, according to lawmakers at the meetings.
The Biden administration backed down on a controversial proposal to direct the IRS to collect additional data on every bank account that sees more than $600 in annual transactions, after criticism from GOP lawmakers and the banking industry.
The new proposal, which would help pay for the expansive social policy and climate change bill that includes it, narrows the scope of information that banks would have to provide to the I.R.S. about customer accounts.
A new Quinnipiac University poll shows Biden’s approval numbers continuing to slip through his first year in office, stuck in the upper 30s. Respondents gave him a negative 37% job approval rating, with 52% disapproving and 12% not offering an opinion.
Senate Republicans are expected to again block action on voting rights legislation, intensifying calls by activists and lawmakers for Democrats to finally do away with the filibuster or find themselves at a steep disadvantage in the midterms and into the future.
Rachel Levine, who was born male but identifies as a woman, was sworn in as an admiral of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, becoming the organization’s first person who identifies as female to achieve that rank.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously to recommend charging former top Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon with criminal contempt of Congress for defying its subpoena.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said that Bannon “stands alone in his complete defiance of our subpoena” and the panel will not take no for an answer.
Vice President Kamala Harris is heading to the Bronx this Friday to highlight how the Biden administration’s infrastructure agenda would “benefit working families” if approved by Congress, a White House official said.
First Lady Jill Biden will visit a New York City school today as she calls for teachers to get a pay raise.
General Electric, Union Pacific and other large U.S. employers are imposing Covid-19 vaccine mandates for their workers to comply with a Dec. 8 deadline set by the Biden administration for companies that are federal contractors.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who is vaccinated against Covid-19, tested positive for the virus, according to department spokesperson Marsha Espinosa.
Espinosa said in a statement that Mayorkas tested positive after “taking a test as part of routine pre-travel protocols.” Mayorkas was expected to travel to Colombia this week with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Mayorkas is experiencing only mild congestion. Under health guidelines, he will isolate and work at home as he recovers.
The senator leading a congressional probe into Brazil’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro be charged with homicide for alleged government errors that led to the deaths of thousands.
A report from the panel’s investigation also recommends criminal charges against 69 other people, including three of Bolsonaro’s sons and numerous current and former government officials.
Taking an ill-advised risk in a pandemic that has killed more than 726,000 Americans, conservative radio host Dennis Prager, 73, said that he contracted COVID-19 on purpose.
Despite school re-openings and the end of some federal aid, many people are in no rush to land a job. Savings and health concerns are playing a role.
A small group of doctors has emerged as a huge source of misinformation – whether as social-media influencers or family doctors meeting with patients in person – about Covid-19 vaccines.
Beloved California burger chain In-N-Out is firing back against San Francisco’s vaccine mandate.
Southwest Airlines has scrapped a plan to put unvaccinated employees who have applied for but haven’t received a religious or medical exemption on unpaid leave as of a federal deadline in December.
Mounting data suggest that older people are at higher risk of severe disease from a breakthrough infection of COVID-19—and scientists say that should come as no surprise.
Immigration authorities in Singapore seized 23,100 tablets of the parasite-killing drug at the country’s border in recent weeks. Despite the Centers for Disease Control’s warnings, ivermectin has surged in popularity as a bogus COVID cure.
A report released by Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group that gained access to a number of leaked, unredacted Pfizer contracts, sheds light on how the company uses that power to “shift risk and maximize profits,” the organization argues.
Pfizer’s Covid vaccine is 93% effective at protecting against hospitalization in 12- to 18-year-olds, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a small study released yesterday.
The study offered additional signs that extending vaccines to more young people could not only reduce the spread of the virus in the U.S., but also protect those children from the rare cases in which they become severely ill.
New York has launched a website that will be a central data hub for information about COVID-19, including statistics and resources.
Governor Kathy Hochul reminded the public of the November 1 vaccine mandate.
Hochul said the state anticipates Pfizer’s vaccine for children ages 5 to 12 will be out next month and parents should call their pediatricians now to schedule appointments.
New York officials are pushing forward on the plan to vaccinate children against COVID-19 once they are approved for ages 5-11, and Hochul wants schools to become alternate vaccination sites due to fears of an impending rush on pediatricians.
A state bill signed by Hochul will require the MTA to release more data to the public in a format that is easily readable and accessible. Advocates have long clamored for the MTA to release its data on ridership figures, service delivered, and spending.
“One of my highest priorities… is to restore people’s faith in their government and an important part of that is increasing transparency,” said Hochul.
Hochul’s hand-picked chairman of the embattled Joint Commission on Public Ethics cast the deciding vote that blocked action to rescind the agency’s prior approval of disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s controversial $5.1 million COVID-19 book contract.
The motion went down by one vote because so many other commissioners had departed the meeting by the time the vote occurred late yesterday afternoon.
A new Siena poll shows Hochul leading some of her potential Democratic primary opponents in 2022, but that’s a long way off and her job performance rating has dipped into negative territory just two months on the job.
Despite Cuomo leaving Albany in disgrace under the threat of impeachment after a state AG probe found his alleged sexual misconduct violated state and federal law, the scandal-scarred former governor is second in the polled field of contenders.
Pollsters warn it’s still very early in the race and the Buffalo native has her work cut out for her with COVID, a faltering economy and concerns about crime. It also remains to be seen who exactly will enter the fray.
The fact that he’s at the back of the pack in the poll won’t factor into NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision on whether to run for the job, he said, citing his “long, rich history of being an underdog.”
Hochul is sticking by the embattled head of the state Democratic Party amid calls for him to resign after he compared the party nominee for Buffalo mayor, India Walton, to the former head of the Ku Klux Klan.
Hochul declined to involve herself in the race for Buffalo mayor, saying she’ll work with whoever the voters select.
A demand for aid has depleted the Excluded Workers Fund in New York, and thousands of those who qualify could miss out on payments.
The exact date is unknown, but the hope is that mobile sports betting, which was legalized in New York last spring, will be ready in time for the Super Bowl.
Republican leaders in New York’s Senate are calling for Hochul to suspend the state’s tax on fuel as prices soar at the gas pump and experts are expecting home heating bills this winter to be financially devastating for many residents and business owners.
New York employers are no longer allowed to drug test most workers for marijuana, the state Department of Labor (DOL) announced in new guidance.
A new audit by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that the state’s economic development agency falls short in evaluating the effectiveness of the nearly $2 billion in business incentives it hands out each year.
Eric Adams, the borough president of Brooklyn, will face Curtis Sliwa, a founder of the Guardian Angels and a radio host, for an hour tonight in the first of two official debates among the two leading candidates for mayor of New York City.
The debate will be live on NBC 4 New York at 7 p.m. and it will also be streamed online. News 4’s David Ushery will serve as moderator and the panelists are Melissa Russo, Telemundo 47’s Allan Villafana and Sally Goldenberg of Politico.
To look closely at Adams is to find a bundle of contradictions.
Adams has maxed out on raising money for his election against Sliwa, but that hasn’t stopped him from helping a political action committee solicit funds. The group, Striving for a Better New York, has yet to report donations to the state.
Adams is promising to build 300 new miles of protected bike lanes across the five boroughs if he wins the Nov. 2 election.
Adams, the Democratic nominee and prohibitive favorite in the city’s mayoral race, made the cycling commitment as he collected an endorsement from StreetsPAC, a local political organization committed to street safety.
Adams pledged to build a stronger bike culture in New York City and apologized for his role in a Black fraternal police organization’s smear campaign against a female officer in the early 1990s, saying: “I was wrong.”
“Thirty years ago while being a spokesperson for the Guardians Association, it was inappropriate what we did, and so a clear apology: I was wrong and when I’m wrong, I’m wrong and I don’t have a problem acknowledging that I was wrong. I was wrong.”
Sliwa, the 67-year-old founder of the Guardian Angels public safety group, rescheduled an Oct. 16 interview with Crain’s after misplacing his famous red cap.
De Blasio said he was unaware of efforts by his own lawyer and the NYPD to obtain a key cell phone from the head of his protective unit, an inspector whose conduct was recently referred to the Manhattan DA’s office for a possible criminal probe.
De Blasio ripped the global education giant International Baccalaureate for planning several important end-of-year assessments during the major Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
A lawyer for Trump told a judge that the ex-president’s firm might not budge from the city-owned Bronx golf course it runs, despite de Blasio’s orders to scram by Nov. 14.
The work-from-home trend brought on by the COVID pandemic will have long-term implications for New York City’s economy and could cost the city $111 million a year in reduced sales tax revenue, according to a new report issued by the comptroller office.
A pair of unmasked NYPD cops shoved a straphanger out of a Manhattan subway station after he says he repeatedly asked them why they weren’t following a state rule that requires people to cover their faces in mass transit facilities.
The New York City Board of Health declared racism a public health crisis, passing a resolution that directed the Health Department to take steps to ensure a “racially just recovery” from the coronavirus pandemic.
As New York City struggles to revive its economy from the devastation wrought by the pandemic, one key element is still missing: big-spending foreign tourists.
New York’s taxi industry has been decimated by multiple economic crises. Drivers say the city’s response is woefully inadequate.
A towering statue of a woman’s head with her index finger pressing on her lips now faces lower Manhattan along the Hudson River, inviting the chaotic metropolis to stop and listen.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he has urged Biden to nominate Assemblyman Nick Perry to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Jamaica.
A candidate running for Glenville’s top job arranged for items to be purchased at his family-owned hardware store and sought to be reimbursed by the town.
Opposition within City Hall to a proposed Community Police Board resulted in the measure being pulled from the agenda of last night’s Saratoga Springs City Council meeting.
After 27 years in business, Casey’s Restaurant in Rensselaer has abandoned dinner service, citing lack of staff.
Upending centuries of medical dogma, a team of South African researchers has found that breathing may be a bigger contributor to the spread of tuberculosis than coughing, the signature symptom.
Families and victims of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead have reached a $25 million settlement with the school district.
Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients.
CNN anchor John King revealed he has multiple sclerosis during a live segment of his daily show “Inside Politics”.
Netflix Inc. Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said he “screwed up” in his efforts to communicate with employees upset over “The Closer,” a comedy special by Dave Chappelle in which he made remarks viewed as offensive to the transgender community.
