Good Tuesday morning.
We are five days into Domestic Violence Awareness Month, which was launched nationwide in October 1987, though its roots date back to 1981. Since that time, considerable progress has been made to support domestic violence victims and survivors, to hold abusers accountable, and to create and update legislation to further those goals.
But more needs to be done. Because as we know, domestic violence is an ongoing – and unfortunately, increasing – problem.
To be clear, domestic violence is not always physical. Abuse can come in many forms – mental, verbal, technological, and even financial. But all of these have one thing in common – the individual engaged in the aforementioned behavior is trying to control their partner and have power over them.
The pandemic exacerbated the problem of domestic violence, as you might have heard, and experts and advocates were not at all surprised. Historically, this sort of abuse has increased during times of economic stress or upheaval.
Basically, any time the support structure of courts, shelters, advocacy organizations, and/or law enforcement is disrupted, and it’s harder for victims to access help, or get cut off from friends and family, domestic violence flourishes.
An average of 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute, which adds up to more than 10 million abuse victims annually.
One in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been physically abused by an intimate partner, and 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men have been severely physically abused by an intimate partner. Millions of Americans live in daily, silent fear within their own homes.
Homicide is one of the leading causes of death in the United States for women under the age of 44, and nearly half are killed by a current or former male intimate partner.
If you or someone you know is in a situation from which you need to extricate yourself and you need assistance, click here. If you’re looking for advice on how to support someone you know who might be a domestic violence victim, click here.
Perhaps the best advice is: Listen without judgement. These situations are not linear, and a victim might not what the things you think are what they should want.
If you see someone sporting a purple ribbon this month, it’s because they’re trying to raise awareness about domestic violence. There’s more on that here.
We’re in for more rain this morning, which will taper off shortly before noon, leaving us with overcast skies. Temperatures will be in the low 50s.
In the headlines…
Facebook and its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, were inaccessible for hours yesterday, taking out a vital communications platform used by billions and showcasing how just dependent the world is on a company under intense scrutiny.
Facebook’s apps — which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus — began displaying error messages around 11:40 a.m. Eastern time, users reported. Within minutes, Facebook had disappeared from the internet.
The outage lasted about six hours.
The company said in a blog post that its engineering teams found that “configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication.
Twitter appeared to embrace its moment in the spotlight. The company’s main account tweeted “hello literally everyone,” garnering 2.4 million “likes” in just four hours, as social media users turned to the platform to express their frustration.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, pushed back on several politically sensitive positions his party leaders are taking at a crucial time for President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.
With his full domestic agenda teetering in Congress, Biden — a longtime stalwart of the Democrats’ moderate wing — has found unlikely allies in the form of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Biden said that activists who have confronted Manchin and Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, in recent days went too far, even as he described such confrontations as a common facet of life in politics.
Sinema is clapping back after she was videotaped and chased into a school bathroom over the weekend by a group of pro-Biden agenda activists, confronting her over her objections holding up Democratic efforts on Capitol Hill.
As Democrats labor to keep Biden’s proposal on track in Congress amid deep internal divisions, a robust influence campaign is meeting it at every turn.
Biden excoriated Republicans for blocking his party’s efforts to raise the debt ceiling weeks before a projected government default, calling their tactics “reckless” and “disgraceful” and warning they risked “a self-inflicted wound that takes our economy over a cliff.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer set up a vote by tomorrow on increasing the federal government’s borrowing ceiling, but didn’t lay out how Democrats planned to pass a bill without Republican votes.
A New York mother and son have been charged with theft in aiding the disappearance of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop during the Jan. 6 insurrection after the FBI initially raided a home 4,500 miles away in Alaska, looking for the computer.
Mooney-Rondon, 55, and Rondon, 23, of Watertown, have been charged with a slew of misdemeanors, including theft of government property and disorderly conduct in a restricted building — as well as a felony for obstructing an official proceeding.
A senior State Department official is leaving his role in the Biden administration. And on his way out, he has sent a scathing internal memo criticizing the president’s use of a Trump-era policy to expel migrants from the southern border.
Former President Donald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the deadly storming of the U.S. Capitol.
Trump allies formed a new super PAC days after Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s former campaign manager and the leader of one of the largest pro-Trump super PACs, was accused of sexual misconduct.
Trump has reportedly agreed to keep his plans for a 2024 White House run on ice for now after being talked out of launching a presidential campaign.
The ex-president was convinced by political allies that he can keep himself in a stronger political position within the Republican Party and his loyal base of supporters by holding off on announcing a bid to return to power.
The Biden administration reversed a contentious policy set under Trump that barred organizations that provide abortion referrals from receiving federal family planning money.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged an end to the “Covid zero” strategy seven weeks into a lockdown that has failed to halt an outbreak of the Delta variant, announcing that restrictions would be gradually lifted in Auckland, the country’s largest city.
Phuket, a resort island where vaccinated people who test negative for the coronavirus can roam freely, is starting to see some life return to its tourism industry.
Johnson & Johnson reportedly plans to ask federal health regulators early this week to authorize a booster shot for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine, making it the third pharmaceutical company to call for extra shots.
Two scientists whose research contributed to the development of COVID-19 vaccines missed out on the latest Nobel Prize in medicine, which was given to two U.S.-based professors for their work on heat and touch.
The Treasury Department is set to soon claw back federal rental assistance from groups that haven’t acted to spend enough of the money so it can be given to other communities with greater need, according to new guidance published yesterday.
The mandate that virtually everyone who works in NYC public schools be vaccinated compelled thousands of Department of Education employees to get at least one dose of a vaccine in the past week, leading to extremely high rates among educator.
Thousands of New York City school staff were barred from returning to work yesterday for failing to comply with the vaccination mandate that took effect Friday afternoon.
Hundreds of people — most of them Department of Education staffers — protested the agency’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate yesterday.
A hefty 95% of public school staffers got at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by the deadline, bringing them in compliance with the city’s mandate — but the schoolhouse gates closed for roughly 8,000 school workers without jabs.
Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider, announced that 1,400 employees — less than 2 percent of its staff — refused to get vaccinated against the coronavirus and had to leave their jobs.
A group of anti-vaccine protesters were caught on video busting up an outdoor COVID-19 testing site as they walked through Union Square.
The city has now made 250,000 New Yorkers $100 richer with its Benjamins-for-shots vaccine incentive.
Associate Court of Appeals Judge Jenny Rivera is the only state jurist out of a total of approximately 1,300 who declined to get vaccinated and failed to apply for a medical or religious waiver. She can’t enter the courthouse as a result.
New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs endorsed Gov. Kathy Hochul in the 2022 primary, arguing that a fierce multicandidate free-for-all could be damaging to the party — even as several potential contenders take steps toward running.
Jacobs said his endorsement was done in a personal capacity that does not reflect the intent of the state party, but the announcement already had some on the left seeing his backing as evidence that Hochul is just business as usual.
Jacobs had staunchly defended Andrew Cuomo long after other Democrats had called for his resignation, was hand picked by the ex-governor to lead the party, and called him prior to endorsing Hochul to give him a heads up about the decision.
“We have a governor we know can win against any Republican they put up in the fall,” Jacobs said during a press conference on Long Island, adding that Hochul has proven since taking office that “she can do the job.”
Jacobs raised concerns that an intra-party Democratic battle would provide a pathway to victory for a Republican in 2022.
Two potential Democratic 2022 contenders – NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams – were critical of Jacobs’ decision and spoke in support of a primary. AG Tish James, who has been moving toward a run, would not comment.
James was in the South Bronx yesterday morning, kicking off a statewide tour in which “she will begin delivering the first of up to $1.5 billion to combat the opioid epidemic,” her office said, tapping into settlements she negotiated.
“We’re not talking about politics, we’re talking about lives today,” James admonished a reporter who asked about Jacobs’s endorsement.
The attorney general has a piggy bank of cash to offer localities across New York as a result of her civil lawsuits against pharmaceutical giants like Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Cardinal Health and others.
Hochul is hitting up film producers and the marijuana industry to help bankroll her re-election campaign.
Hochul has told the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to find an alternative to Cuomo’s $2.1 billion “AirTrain” pet project between LaGuardia Airport and eastern Queens.
Hochul announced the appointment of two new state ethics commissioners, including a new chairman to lead the embattled panel that she’s pledged to reform.
The new appointments come just one day ahead of a special meeting where the group is expected to discuss launching an internal probe into the approval surrounding disgraced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $5.1 million book deal.
After leading New York’s ethics commission for one meeting, the panel’s Chair James Dering has resigned, commissioners were told.
When Cuomo received a $25,000 raise in January — becoming the highest paid governor in the U.S. — the action simultaneously increased the pensions of approximately 375 state workers.
A group of leaders representing hospitals, health insurers and consumers delivered a report to the state Legislature that included recommendations for reducing health care costs and complexities for New York patients.
Bronx prosecutors have dismissed domestic violence charges against Bronx state Sen. Luis Sepulveda.
Democratic NYC mayoral candidate Eric Adams returned $1,275 in political contributions to three NYPD cops who were found to have abused their authority, his campaign said.
The city Department of Transportation commissioned a new Staten Island Ferry boat, the first new vessel for the cross-harbor service in 16 years.
De Blasio was forced once again to defend his embattled homeless shelter system after a weekend of newspaper exposés revealed the CEO of a top provider cashed in as he put pals on the payroll and funneled millions to for-profit companies he controls.
New York City is Dewey decimating late fees — and closing the book on millions of dollars of outstanding fines for overdue or lost books.
A Rikers Island inmate stabbed in the eye was taken to an infirmary for medical treatment by other inmates — because correction officers were nowhere to be found, according to a new lawsuit filed yesterday.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s new physical OMNY fare card — which became available in some retail stores Oct. 1 — will hit straphangers with a $5 surcharge that, at least for now, is non-refundable.
Lovely Warren, the embattled Democratic mayor of Rochester, agreed to resign as part of a plea deal on several state criminal charges, capping a swift and staggering fall for a politician once considered a rising star in the state Democratic Party.
The plea deal will also settle weapons and child endangerment charges Warren faced. She could have faced prison time if she went to trial and was convicted. She did not respond to questions from reporters after the hearing.
Warren was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge, which includes resigning as mayor by Dec. 1.
In July, Warren and husband Timothy Granison pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from a police raid that allegedly turned up a rifle and pistol, and her 10-year-old daughter alone, in the home they share.
The Nature Conservancy and state officials are “in discussion” over the future of Follensby Pond, the historical site of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s philosophers camp and one of the largest privately owned tracts left for possible acquisition in the Adirondack Park.
The majority of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) members voted yes on a strike authorization vote this weekend.
Bubba Wallace said becoming the first black driver in 58 years to win a race in Nascar’s premier series brought “a lot of emotion”. He took his first Nascar Cup Series win at Talladega Superspeedway yesterday, after rain cut the race short with him in the lead.
In case you were wondering: The best way to kill the invasive species the Laternfly is to stomp on it.
