Good morning, it’s Thursday already. Where does the time go?
Every day I write one of these, I have to choose some topic to focus on…(I mean, I don’t HAVE to do it, I guess, but it’s a tradition at this point). And every time I choose, I leave things on the cutting room floor, so to speak.
Some days are slim pickings. Others, like today, are an embarrassment of riches. I could go in so many different directions!
Like how can I elevate William Tell Day over Occult Day? Or pass over Rural Health Day, especially when residents of the more rural regions of this very state are experiencing a shortage of medical professionals and have to drive many miles to get good treatment?
It’s hard, but I think this one gives us the most bang for our buck today…It’s the Great American Smokeout.
This is an event, sponsored by the American Cancer Society on the third Thursday in November, has been around for more than 40 years. It has its roots in 1970, when a guy named Arthur P. Mullaney in Randolph, MA suggested that people give up cigarettes for a day, and then donate the money they saved as a result to a local high school.
A few similar events occurred over the next few years. In 1974, Lynn R. Smith, editor of the Monticello Times in Minnesota, spearheaded the state’s first D-Day, or Don’t Smoke Day.
But it wasn’t until 1976 that things really took off when the California division of the American Cancer Society successfully prompted nearly one million smokers to quit for the day.
Of course, a lot has changed since then. Remember, you used to be able to smoke pretty much everywhere – on airplanes even! It seems absolutely nuts these days, when you pretty much can’t smoke anywhere indoors.
I have to admit that going out is much more pleasant as a result, (when I used to go out, that is). I remember the days when you went to a bar or a club and came home and, no matter how late it was, had to shed your clothes in the hall and take a shower because the smell of smoke was so pervasive.
We all know that the best way to quit cigarettes is not to start smoking in the first place. It is NOT good for your health (doctors used to prescribe it!) And an addiction to nicotine is one of the strongest and most deadly addictions around.
They keep raising the cost of a pack of smokes, and people keep spending money on them – even though the data is quite clear that smoking causes cancer, and a whole host of other ills.
While cigarette smoking rates have dropped significantly, about 37.8 million Americans smoke, and about half of them who fail to kick the habit will die as a result of it. More than 480,000 people in the U.S. die from illnesses caused by smoking annually.
If you need help quitting, maybe today’s the day you start by going smoke-free for 24 hours! But you can always call the American Cancer Society hotline at 1-800-227-2345.
It’s going to be freakishly warm today, with temperatures in the mid-60s! BUT it’s also going to rain later in the day. It’s OK. I’ll take it. Also, if you haven’t already heard by now, a big storm is brewing around Thanksgiving, which could make traveling a headache.
In the headlines….
Voters have increasing doubts about the health and mental fitness of President Joe Biden, the oldest man ever sworn into the White House, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.
Biden called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate if “illegal conduct” is to blame for surging gas prices hurting Americans’ pocketbooks.
Biden, facing increasing pressure politically as inflation has soared to a 31-year high, requested the probe in a letter to Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan, claiming “mounting evidence of anti-consumer behavior by oil and gas companies.”
The move isn’t likely to have an immediate effect on the price consumers are paying for gas, which has recently soared as post-pandemic demand outpaces supply.
Fresh from signing a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that provides substantial funds for a nationwide electric vehicle charging network, Biden was in Detroit to visit Factory Zero, the centerpiece of General Motors’ shift to all-electric vehicles.
“We’re going to make sure that the jobs of the future end up here in Michigan, not halfway around the world,” Biden said. “Here in Detroit, we’re going to set a new pace for electric vehicles. This is not hyperbole. It’s a fact.”
Days after Biden told world leaders that his administration is committed to slowing climate change with “action, and not words,” his Interior Department oversaw one of the largest oil and gas lease sales in American history.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management sold 308 tracts covering 1.7 million acres to fossil fuel giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil.
Biden says he wants to save the planet and save union jobs. The electric-vehicle tax credit in his social spending package shows how those aims can sometimes conflict.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to approve a doctrine about the importance of communion that highlights the “special responsibility” of Catholics in positions of power to model church teaching but stops short of mentioning Biden by name.
Bishops, the document said, have a “special responsibility” to address circumstances “that involve public actions at variance with the visible communion of the church and the moral law.”
The document that fell far short of refusing Holy Communion to Biden or others who support abortion rights, something conservatives in the Church have pushed for in spite of guidance from Pope Francis.
A bitterly divided U.S. House of Representatives voted narrowly to censure Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, for posting an animated video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and assaulting Biden.
The vote was 223-207 for censure — with two Republicans joining majority Democrats — to issue the rare rebuke of Gosar for posting the photoshopped clip of him slashing AOC to death and attacking Biden. One Republican member voted “present.”
Jacob Chansley, the former actor and Navy sailor better known as the QAnon Shaman, who was portrayed by a prosecutor as “the flag-bearer” of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has put on hold the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for U.S. employers with 100 employees or more, after being told by a court last week that it must do so.
The OSHA website reads: “While OSHA remains confident in its authority to protect workers in emergencies, OSHA has suspended activities related to the implementation and enforcement of the ETS pending future developments in the litigation.”
The U.S. reached an encouraging milestone yesterday with 80% of Americans ages 12 and older having received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator said.
The pace of vaccination against the coronavirus among newly eligible younger children is accelerating, and nearly 10 percent of the nation’s 5- to 11-year olds have already had their first shot, the White House estimated.
A steep rise in Covid-19 cases in Europe should serve as a warning that the US could also see significant increases in coronavirus cases this winter, particularly in the nation’s colder regions, scientists say.
The Biden administration will spend billions of dollars on a new plan to combat the pandemic, investing in antiviral pills, rapid tests and manufacturing.
A federal agency that was run by a college friend of Jared Kushner and assigned $100 million to spend on fixing the Covid supply chain crunch has so far failed to invest a single dime, according to a new government watchdog report.
Airline travel this Thanksgiving season is expected to approach pre-pandemic levels, Transportation Security Administration officials said. The agency is preparing to handle about 20 million air passengers.
You may need up to three Covid-19 vaccine doses to be considered fully vaccinated.
COVID-19 booster shots may become the new standard to be considered fully vaccinated, according to the nation’s top doctor, Anthony Fauci.
Moderna refiled its application to the Food and Drug Administration to approve vaccine booster doses for all adults ages 18 and older.
An influenza pandemic like the pandemic of 1918 could be even worse than Covid-19 has been, and the world is not ready to deal with it, the National Academy of Medicine said in a series of reports released yesterday.
It is possible to have both the flu and COVID-19 at the same time.
Federal public health officials are investigating a “large and sudden” outbreak of the flu among students at the University of Michigan, the university announced this week.
Covid deaths and infection rates may dip below seasonal flu levels by the middle of next year assuming new dangerous variants don’t emerge in the meantime, Bill Gates said.
In a TikTok video that has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Dr. Carrie Madej outlined the ingredients for a bath she said will “detox the vaxx” for people who have given into Covid-19 vaccine mandates. (Spoiler alert: it’s a hoax).
Mask-wearing is the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid, reducing incidence by 53%, the first global study of its kind shows.
Florida Republicans passed four bills that protect workers who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and sent the package to Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign.
DeSantis had requested the bills be passed.
Americans died of drug overdoses in record numbers as the pandemic spread across the country, federal researchers reported, the result of lost access to treatment, rising mental health problems and wider availability of dangerously potent street drugs.
There were an estimated 100,306 drug deaths in the 12 months running through April. This marks a nearly 29% rise from the deaths recorded in the same period a year earlier, indicating the U.S. is heading for another full-year record after drug deaths.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and top city health officials urged New Yorkers to get tested for COVID and said the city is doubling its mobile testing fleet ahead of the winter holidays in the hopes of preventing a surge in new cases.
Family members of New York nursing home residents are now allowed to visit loved ones whenever they want — and regardless of vaccination status — in a stunning reversal of pandemic-era restrictions imposed almost two years ago.
It’s time for Gov. Kathy Hochul to say when students might be able to remove their masks inside schools, say schools chiefs in the Lower Hudson Valley.
Three months after Hochul’s ascension as the state’s first female governor, the 2022 Democratic primary contest is veering toward something we haven’t seen in decades: a freewheeling intraparty battle among some of the state’s best-known political figures.
A half dozen state lawmakers endorsed Hochul’s campaign for a full term next year as she draws support from members in her native western New York as well as Democrats from New York City.
Attorney General Letitia James is pushing back against critics who have framed her sexual harassment investigation as a political takedown of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
A state troopers’ union blasted James for releasing transcripts of interviews with Cuomo’s accusers, saying Wednesday that the move “re-victimized these women” and could hinder future investigations.
Fifty-four members of an alleged drug trafficking ring were indicted in Fulton County for what the state Attorney General’s Office said was a sprawling operation that distributed narcotics across the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley.
New York’s attorney general has ended her lawsuit seeking to stop anti-abortion protesters from dissuading women from entering a reproductive health clinic in the New York City borough of Queens.
During a visit to Buffalo earlier this week, Hochul did not shed much light on negotiations with the Buffalo Bills over a stadium deal, but she did give a signal about the timing.
An Albanian immigrant who fled repressive communism is seeking to oust veteran New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the powerful Democratic majority leader.
A new city teachers’ faction has had it with union boss Michael Mulgrew. Arguing that he operates without properly engaging members, a coalition of politically disparate blocs has united against him.
Mayor-elect Eric Adams boosted his Bitcoin dream for New York City, saying that he wants to create a cryptocurrency committee to study the controversial currency.
De Blasio gave rave reviews to his successor’s late night TV debut, labeling Adams’ gag in which he whipped out a prop dime bag of weed “fun.”
Republican lawmakers will see their ranks nearly double on the City Council come January — with hopes of a stronger counter-balance to far-left Democrats — and leading them in that effort will be Staten Island Councilman Joe Borelli.
Two of the men found guilty of the assassination of Malcolm X are expected to have their convictions thrown out today, the Manhattan DA and the mens’ lawyers said, rewriting the official history of one of the most notorious murders of the civil rights era.
The move follows a 22-month review conducted by defense lawyers and Manhattan prosecutors who concluded that the men had been wrongfully convicted.
Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and a man later known as Thomas Hagan were convicted of the murder and sentenced to life in prison. Hagan was paroled in 2010. Aziz was released in 1985 at age 83. Islam was released in 1987 and died in 2009.
For decades, the men have maintained their innocence. And Mujahid Halim, a third man who was convicted in the assassination after he confessed on the witness stand, has steadfastly denied that Aziz and Islam were involved.
“The events that brought us here should never have occurred,” Aziz said in a statement. “Those events were and are the result of a process that was corrupt to its core — one that is all too familiar — even in 2021.”
Manhattan DA Cy Vance Vance apologized on behalf of the law enforcement agencies, saying they had failed Aziz’s and Islam’s families.
Manhattan’s top Democrat can’t be charged with leaving the scene after dooring a bicyclist in Harlem — because he technically wasn’t driving his car when he opened his door, prosecutors said.
The New York Blood Center wants to build a 233-foot-tall tower on a residential block in the Upper East Side. The city has proposed $450 million in tax incentives.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved the purchase of 60 fully electric buses for a $64 million, part of the agency’s larger effort to phase out all its fossil fuel-guzzling buses by 2040.
The MTA has only figured out how to balance its budget through the middle of next year and may be forced to raise fares in July despite Hochul’s pledge earlier this week to delay fee hikes “indefinitely.”
A pair of state senators from New York City, citing the case of a Maryland man sentenced to prison for murder, have proposed legislation that would ban rap music lyrics from being used as evidence against defendants in criminal cases.
State legislators have introduced a bill that would shift approximately $230 million in annual revenue from slot machines that’s currently paid to horse racing tracks and breeders and redistribute it to schools, human services and other public uses.
More than 100 nurses rallied outside of New York-Presbyterian Hospital yesterday morning to call attention to what they say is a dire nursing shortage.
The nurses are demanding hospitals, in general, raise pay, do more to hold onto staff members and make working conditions safer. One speaker said some nurses are taking care of 30 patients, while another said they care for up to 60 patients by themselves.
When no ordinary fire hydrant will do, New York City offers multiple members-only dog parks, for annual fees ranging from free to $2,200.
A Bronx man, 23, was arraigned on an indictment charging him with unlawfully breaching a perimeter fence, entering an unoccupied aircraft, and entering the terminal at the Albany International Airport on May 24, federal authorities said.
The Historic Albany Foundation (HAF) honored the owners of both single family homes and renovation projects that relied on millions of dollars of tax credits at its annual preservation awards in September.
For leading the gut-renovation and overhauls of an 1871 church in Saratoga Springs and an 1881 commercial bakery in Albany into arts venues, the Proctors Collaborative is one of this year’s winners of an Excellence in Historic Preservation Award.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, and 11 other lawmakers sat down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Washington, D.C. to discuss the northern border, supply chains and other joint issues.
“Adirondack Mac,” a Lake Placid moose mascot designed by a Fashion Institute of Technology student, appeared yesterday in a mock curling competition at the Schenectady Curling Club, as well as in the Schenectady Holiday Parade Saturday.
India Walton is now joining progressive efforts to our Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown from his position from with Democratic National Committee.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating claims that Cassava Sciences, the sixth-best performing U.S. stock this year, manipulated research results of its experimental Alzheimer’s drug, according to people familiar with the matter.
Apple delivered an early holiday gift to the eco-conscious and the do-it-yourselfers: It said it would soon begin selling the parts, tools and instructions for people to do their own iPhone repairs.
There’s no verdict yet in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial.
