Good morning, it’s Wednesday.
The day after an election is always something of a letdown – all that energy expended toward a single day, campaigning, getting out the vote, making last-minute calls and pushes to the polls. And then, boom. It’s over.
I think this feeling is a relic from my reporting days, because we spent months talking to candidates, scrutinizing survey results, covering rallies and press conferences, reading campaign finance filings, and just generally documenting the horserace du jour.
And then Election Night was always very…long, especially in recent years, which saw a lot of cliffhanger races that weren’t called until the wee hours of the morning, if at all.
That’s a lot of live TV, hours and hours of it. Not even Election Night pizza can make a 12-to-15-hour stint on the anchor desk palatable.
And then the day after everyone feels a little hungover. But there’s still a lot of work to do. There are winners and losers and court battles over results, and, of course, the next election. Because there’s always a next election.
Heck, we were talking about the next presidential race before the dust even settled on the last one.
It all makes for a very stressful experience, and this was all a very long lead-up for me to announce that it’s National Stress Awareness Day.
The American Psychological Association was among the many organizations that warned of a second pandemic of sorts – a mental health crisis caused by Americans inability to cope with the stresses of the coronavirus pandemic. And unfortunately, it appears that those predictions are coming true.
All across the country, we are sleeping less, struggling with weight gain and misuses substances like alcohol and drugs in response to the financial, emotional, and physical challenges posed by the Covid-19 crisis. The labor shortage has exacerbated the problem, with many Americans just basically throwing up their hands and walking away from jobs due to burnout and lack of satisfaction.
Stress, as you may have heard, can be a killer. It often manifests as physical symptoms, such as fatigue, headaches and muscle tension and can even lead to serious health issues, such as cardiovascular disease.
Typically, experts will tell you the best way to manage your stress is to get enough sleep, eat a healthy diet, and exercise. Also, and this is a big one, you need to learn how to relax. This is the one I have the most difficulty with. The exercise thing, I’ve got more or less down pat.
Anyway, so today might be a good day to actually get started with that mediation app you might have downloaded but never opened (guilty), or to take a moment to just walk outside and get away from the computer for a few minutes (also guilty).
Do it for your health.
We’ll have a mix of sun and clouds today, with temperatures in the high 40s.
In the headlines…
Sen. Joe Manchin said his chief concerns need to be addressed to secure his vote for the $1.75 trillion economic package – climate change, taxes, Medicare and immigration – while also expressing new optimism that a deal could ultimately be reached.
President Biden expressed optimism that Manchin will ultimately vote in favor of the Build Back Better budget deal containing much of the president’s domestic agenda. “I believe that Joe will be there,” Biden said. “I think we’ll get this done.”
From the moment he landed in Rome for the Group of 20 meeting, and then on to the climate summit in Glasgow, Biden took on the role of a traveling salesman, exulting in the backslapping, personalized politics that he believes makes him a strong negotiator.
Global leaders at the Glasgow climate summit pledged to sharply curtail methane emissions, with Biden saying the U.S. would tighten regulations on oil and natural-gas production to reduce leaks of the potent greenhouse gas.
An aide woke up Biden after he dozed off at the COP26 climate summit.
Democrats reached an agreement on provisions designed to lower the price of some prescription drugs, appearing to resolve one of the final issues in the party’s negotiations over their $1.85 trillion healthcare, education and climate-change bill.
Negotiators were also pushing for a costly agreement to reinstate a federal deduction, capped in the 2017 tax cuts signed by President Donald Trump, for state and local taxes, which would benefit people in high-income states like New York and New Jersey.
The Biden administration finalized a regulation that will sharply increase the financial penalties for larger hospitals that don’t make their prices public.
The CDC issued formal recommendations for children as young as 5 years old to get vaccinated against COVID-19, clearing the final regulatory hurdle for younger kids to start receiving Pfizer’s vaccine this week.
The endorsement by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky was the last step before doctors, nurses and pharmacists could start giving the shots. Some sites could start administering the vaccine as early as today.
Pfizer increased its forecast for sales of its Covid-19 vaccine this year to about $36 billion, a roughly 7% boost that comes as the U.S. prepares to distribute the shot to 28 million children ages 5 to 11 years old.
Two months after the Pentagon began requiring all troops to get the coronavirus vaccine or face dismissal, the vast majority have now had shots, in part because none received a religious exemption, military officials said.
American officials warned that the reopening of international land borders next week could lead to longer wait times at ports of entry and asked that travelers have their travel and vaccine documents readily available for border officials.
The Navajo Nation — the largest reservation in the United States — is enduring yet another virus surge, and experts and tribal leaders aren’t sure why. Other highly vaccinated tribes are also contending with a resurgent virus.
House Sergeant-at-Arms William Walker has leveled $48,000 in fines against Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for refusing to wear a mask in the House chamber.
The state-run MTA has become one of the least vaccinated public workforces in New York City as COVID-19 inoculation rates soared among city workers in the wake of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s order that they get shots or be suspended from their jobs.
Some of the people who put on the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show are expressing concerns about the Covid-19 protocols in place for workers as the show prepares to open on Friday night.
Gov. Kathy Hochul — standing behind a podium on Brooklyn’s ornate new alternate court — announced a new vaccine initiative that will once again put the Nets and their owners, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, in the forefront of the state’s campaign against COVID-19.
Republicans claimed the governorship of Virginia for the first time in more than a decade, electing the businessman Glenn Youngkin over former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat.
Youngkin’s win gave the GOP a potential playbook in competitive parts of the U.S. ahead of next year’s congressional midterm elections.
Minneapolis residents rejected an amendment that called for replacing the city’s long-troubled Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican Jack Ciattarelli were virtually deadlocked early this morning after a campaign centered on the incumbent’s progressive policies and handling of the pandemic.
Boston voters chose city councilor Michelle Wu, 36, as mayor, making her the first woman and first person of color elected to lead Massachusetts’ capital.
Eric Adams, a former New York City police captain whose attention-grabbing persona and keen focus on racial justice fueled a decades-long career in public life, was elected as the 110th mayor of New York, and the second Black mayor in the city’s history.
To no one’s surprise in the Democrat-dominated New York City, Adams was on course to easily beat his Republican opponent, Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, with a lead of 66% to 29% after more than half of projected votes were counted.
Less than an hour after polls closed, Sliwa, who brought one of his pet cats (a month-old kitten named Gizmo) to the polls with him, conceded the race to a chorus of raucous boos from a crowd of supporters at the Empire Steakhouse in Midtown.
Sliwa told his supporters at his Election Night party in crowded room at a Midtown steakhouse that he wasn’t going anywhere — and quoted disgraced ex-President Richard Nixon in the process.
Adams faces a staggering set of challenges as the nation’s largest city grapples with the enduring consequences of the pandemic, including a precarious and unequal economic recovery and continuing concerns about crime and the quality of city life.
Adams has said his personal story – including attending college at night and suffering police abuse as a teenager – resonated with New Yorkers. “New York has chosen one of our own,” he said. “This is proof the people of this city will love you if you love them.”
Adams drew applause from Big Apple bigwigs like Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt at an election night VIP party where he promised to embrace the city’s financial leaders.
“Can we hit reset with our business community? Can I say to you that this is going to become one of the most business-friendly cities?” Adams said.
In an effort to pin down where Adams actually lives, reporters from New York magazine held a stakeout outside of his Brooklyn brownstone. The results did not disappoint, as Adams caused a traffic jam and drove on the sidewalk.
Fresh off his victory, Adams is heading to the annual post-election SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico – a crucial gathering for New York’s political class. A unique confluence of circumstances and personalities have made this year’s Somos the event of the season.
The Daily News says Adams “faces a two-month sprint before taking the oath of office, time that must be spent staffing up the top echelons of his administration and refining proposals put forward in the campaign.”
Brad Lander and Jumaane Williams were easily elected as the city’s next comptroller and public advocate respectively yesterday — and the progressive pair appear likely to clash with incoming Adams on policy matters once they’re all sworn in next year.
Lander was elected the city’s next comptroller after campaigning as an independent-minded reformer who will be a check on the next mayor’s administration.
Adams onetime primary opponent, Andrew Yang, cast a ballot for the first time for the position he once sought.
Alvin Bragg became the first Black lawyer elected as Manhattan’s district attorney in one in a dizzying array of Democratic victories.
He will take over an office that continues to disproportionately prosecute Black defendants, and Bragg throughout his campaign has drawn on his personal experiences growing up in New York to illustrate the types of changes he wishes to make.
City Council District 32, which has been held by Eric Ulrich since 2009, is a political rarity: It is the only Republican-held Council seat in Queens. And after yesterday, it will stay that way. Joann Ariola, chair of the Queens GOP, defeated Democrat Felicia Singh.
Republicans won four contested City Council races in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island and had a shot at taking a fifth in a potential upset.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards cruised to reelection, as City Council members Mark Levine of Manhattan, Antonio Reynoso of Brooklyn and Vanessa Gibson of the Bronx all got promotions to borough-wide posts.
As of midnight, the fate of some of the five constitutional amendments that appeared on the ballot remained up in the air, and will come down to the absentees.
One change, known as the “Green Amendment,” was approved by a larger majority than any of the other four changes under consideration, 61 percent to 26 percent.
Two statewide ballot measures that would nix provisions of the state constitution and allow same-day voter registration and universal vote-by-mail were voted down.
Republican Anne Donnelly took an Election Night lead over Democratic state Sen. Todd Kaminsky in the heated battle to become Nassau County’s next top prosecutor.
Donnelly, a longtime county prosecutor, declared victory over Kaminsky, while in Suffolk, Democratic incumbent DA Timothy Sini conceded to former federal prosecutor Ray Tierney, who ran on the Republican and Conservative party lines.
The Nassau DA post was left vacant when the previous district attorney, Madeline Singas, was named a justice in the New York Court of Appeals by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown has claimed victory in the race for mayor as a write-in candidate, while his challenger, India Walton, who defeated Brown in the June primary, has not conceded.
The growing accumulation of write-in votes point to a significant lead for Brown and the first time any Buffalo mayor has won a fifth term. His victory, he said, was not “just a referendum on the City of Buffalo, it was a referendum on the future of our democracy.”
Some political pros said the seeds of Walton’s disappointing performance were those she sowed on primary night and in the weeks afterwards, when she failed to broaden her base of support beyond the most progressive of progressives.
Republican John C. Garcia was clinging to a slim lead in the race for Erie County sheriff late yesterday, but the outcome remained too close to call. A clear winner will emerge only after a potential 19,000 absentee ballots are counted in coming days.
Westchester County Executive George Latimer announced victory over his Republican opponent Christine Sculti.
Hochul signed legislation barring the display of symbols of hate on all public property and equipment after a fire truck decorated with a Confederate flag sparked outrage last year.
“Symbols of hate have no use other than to spread ignorance and incite violence,” Hochul said. “As New Yorkers, we must remain united and actively fight to eradicate these attitudes, and this legislation bolsters those efforts.”
Hochul is preparing to scale down the state’s plan for the redevelopment of Pennsylvania Station and the surrounding neighborhood, a closely watched project that could reshape Midtown Manhattan.
Hochul insists her “cordial” relationship with state AG Tish James will continue despite the fact that the two are now 2022 Democratic primary rivals.
New York is expected as early as this week to name at least two operators to begin offering online sports betting.
Solitary confinement will return to Rikers Island jails under an emergency order issued by de Blasio in a retreat from policy his administration announced earlier this year.
Angry FDNY union leaders fired back at de Blasio, saying they were sick of his allegations that firefighters were faking illnesses to protest the city’s vaccine mandate.
The targeting of a state senator’s staffers by firefighters protesting vaccination mandates should result in “further discipline,” de Blasio said, just days after his fire commissioner ordered the maximum suspension allowed for the FDNY members in question.
Nine months after being declared the loser in the close and messy re-election bid for Congress, former U.S. Rep. Anthony Brindisi was on track for defeat in a bid for a seat in the 5th District of the New York State Supreme Court.
Five of the of the 6 towns and villages in Central New York posed a direct yes or no question to voters yesterday – should retail cannabis dispensaries be prohibited?
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan won her bid for a third term in a three-way race.
Republican Peter Crummey won the the Town of Colonie supervisor’s race against Democrat Kelly Mateja, flipping the town’s top spot to the GOP for the first time in 14 years.
Ron Kim held a lead of roughly 300 votes over Republican Heidi Owen West late last night in the race to be Saratoga Springs’ next mayor, with independent candidate and current Commissioner of Public Safety Robin Dalton a distant third.
After months of heated debates and division in the town, a multi-million dollar proposal to redesign Delaware Avenue was rejected by residents.
The murder charge leveled against a state trooper last week in Ulster County may be only the second time that a member of the storied police agency has been accused of homicide in connection with a vehicle pursuit.
The Atlanta Braves have won their first World Series title since 1995 after defeating the Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 last night at Minute Maid Park.
“This city has been hungry for a championship for so long,” said Freddie Freeman, the longest-serving member of the team, who homered and caught the final out. “I cannot wait to see the crowds in the next couple days when we get back home.”
