Good Monday morning.
January is traditionally a month when people hit the reset button. For many, this means getting to the gym more often, swearing off sugar and alcohol, or starting a new diet.
One of the more popular trends in recent years has been to go gluten-free, which a lot of influencers – and even some dieticians and medical professionals – seem to believe gives you more energy, helps with weight-loss and reduces inflammation, resulting in improved overall health.
The jury – and the science – are still out on all that.
There ARE some people who truly suffer from sensitivity to gluten and should avoid it for medical reasons, most notably those who have celiac disease – an inherited autoimmune disorder where gluten triggers a response that damages the lining of the small intestine and inhibits the absorption of important nutrients into the body.
Left undiagnosed and/or untreated, celiac disease can lead to some serious problems, like osteoporosis, infertility, neurological disorders, and in very rare cases, cancer.
There’s also gluten ataxia, an autoimmune disorder that affects some nerve tissues and causes issues with muscle control and movement.
And then there are people who are legitimately allergic to wheat, whose immune systems react to gluten or other wheat proteins like they are a virus or bacteria, creating antibody that may bring on symptoms of congestion and even difficulty breathing.
The reality though, is no matter how trendy it is to eschew gluten, an estimated 1 percent of the U.S. population suffers from celiac disease, which is a comparatively small number, and many of those individuals are asymptomatic. A gluten-free diet for these folks is deadly serious and necessary – not merely a trend.
The gluten-free diet has been around a very long time – since the 1940s, as it turns out. A Dutch pediatrician noticed that during the wheat shortages caused by WW II, some children with celiac disease were suffering fewer symptoms than when they had unfettered access to bread.
It wasn’t until the 1980s when the idea of non-celiac gluten sensitivity popped onto the scene. And things really got serious in the 1990s, when some studies suggested there might be an association between gluten and schizophrenia, or even a relationship between gluten and autism.
By 2013, the gluten-free food and beverage industry grew to $10.5 billion, according to the market research company Mintel. And the very next year, the first National Gluten-Free Day was born.
You knew we were getting there, right? It was just a very long wind-up, cause National Gluten-Free Day is…TODAY.
Just like most highly processed foods, a lot of the gluten-free products on the market today are not, in fact, good for you. They can be higher in sugar, fat, and other not-great ingredients that actually CAUSE weight gain.
If you’re really feeling that gluten might be a problem for you, check in with a professional before you cut it out of your diet, because a strict gluten-free diet has actually been shown to be less than healthful for some individuals. And, as usual, choosing whole foods over processed and pre-packaged convenience products is always a smart way to go.
Phew. What a rant. I’m off the soapbox now.
After the storm-that-sort-of-wasn’t, (though the block of ice that encased my car yesterday morning was no joke), we’re in for a blast of really frigid air. Boo hiss. Today will be fairly manageable, with temperatures in the mid-20s and partly cloudy skies.
But tomorrow? Ugh. Let’s not think about it until we have to, shall we? Suffice to say it’s time to dig out your long underwear, and your insulated mittens, and your extra heavy sweaters.
In the headlines…
At least 19 people, including nine children, were killed in a fire in a Bronx apartment building, in what officials described as one of the city’s worst fires in recent memory. Mayor Eric Adams said it was likely caused by a malfunctioning space heater.
More than 60 were injured, and those with life-threatening injuries were taken to five Bronx hospitals. Roughly 200 firefighters battled the blaze, officials said.
Stefan Ringel, a senior adviser to Adams, said the children killed were 16 years old or younger. Many of the building’s residents were originally from the West African nation of Gambia, the mayor said, and there was a large Muslim community.
“This is a horrific, horrific, painful moment for the city of New York,” Adams said at a press conference at the scene of the fire. “The impact of this fire is going to really bring a level of just pain and despair in our city.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul was also on site where she noted that she spoke with a mother who lost her entire family in the fire and sent a message to the victims that “we will not forget you, we will not abandon you.”
“My heart is with the loved ones of all those we’ve tragically lost, all of those impacted and with our heroic @FDNY firefighters,” Hochul tweeted. “The entire State of New York stands with New York City.”
Hochul said she would establish a victim’s compensation fund, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised to offer housing, tax and immigration assistance at the federal level.
The fire was caused by a faulty space heater. Firefighters found victims on every floor, many of them in cardiac and respiratory arrest, said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. Some people “could not escape because of the volume of smoke,” he said.
The door to the apartment where the fire started was left open – it did not close automatically when the residents left – and that allowed smoke to spread throughout the building.
The Bronx building is owned by a group of investors, LIHC Investment Group, Belveron Partners and Camber Property Group, who bought it as part of a $166 million deal in early 2020 for eight rent-regulated buildings in the borough.
Camber’s co-founder, Rick Gropper, was named as a member of Adams’s transition team for housing issues before the mayor took office this month.
The building was cited for more than two dozen violations and complaints since 2014 — despite $25 million in state loans for repairs.
An online fundraising campaign has raised more than $180,000 for the victims of the Bronx fire.
The Bronx tragedy comes just days after a house fire in Philadelphia left 12 people – including eight children – dead.
Fresh off a high-profile speech in which he warned that a dagger had been placed at the throat of American democracy, President Joe Biden will travel to the state that White House officials view as “ground zero” for Republican-led election suppression efforts.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will speak in Georgia tomorrow, just as Senate Democrats are readying a push to debate and vote on changes to the chamber’s rules in the hopes of advancing voting rights and elections legislation.
Former first lady Michelle Obama said in a letter yesterday that a coalition of voting rights organizations would register more than a million new voters across the country in the run-up to this year’s midterm elections.
Obama said her foundation, When We All Vote, along with 30 other organizations, will recruit and train at least 100,000 volunteers to register voters.
Democrats face a risk if they make saving democracy their campaign mantra in the 2022 midterms. Polling suggests their warnings haven’t resonated with voters in their uphill bid to keep control of Congress.
Republicans are carrying out a “legislative continuation” of last year’s siege of the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi charged.
As Biden wraps up his first year in office, he has held fewer news conferences than any of his five immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies, and has participated in fewer media interviews than any of his recent predecessors.
U.S. political luminaries including Biden and former President Barack Obama celebrated the life of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Saturday, describing him as an unpretentious pragmatist who got things done.
Biden hailed the Nevada Democrat as someone who “would always have your back” and Obama recalled him as a fighter “who did not give up.”
The U.S. is now averaging more than 700,000 new coronavirus cases per day, a USA TODAY analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.
The average of known cases could soon triple the pre-Omicron record set a year ago, when the U.S. briefly saw about a quarter million daily cases.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Friday appeared ready to reject one of Biden’s most aggressive attempts so far to combat the spread of Covid-19 – a vaccine or testing requirement aimed at large businesses.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office tweeted that she had tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing symptoms though she was vaccinated and boosted.
The congresswoman’s test result comes just over a week after she was spotted maskless enjoying drinks with her boyfriend while on vacation in Miami as omicron cases soared across the nation.
Escalating demand for Covid-19 tests is prompting some laboratories to ration access, giving priority to people with symptoms or other health concerns as the Omicron variant quickly spreads.
The good news: Rapid antigen tests can definitely detect Omicron. The bad news: Some research indicates that rapid tests may be less sensitive to Omicron than they are to other variants.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky fielded questions about her decision to drop the testing requirement, and maintained that antigen tests are less sensitive to the Omicron variant, which is surging across the U.S., than to previous versions of the virus.
Walensky corrected claims made by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who said last Friday that “we have over 100,000 children, which we’ve never had before, in serious condition, and many on ventilators.”
For months, Walensky has met privately with prominent Democratic media consultant Mandy Grunwald to improve her communication skills and continues to do so, according to a person familiar with the previously unreported sessions.
Some people with a weakened immune system can get a fourth dose of the coronavirus vaccine as early as this coming week, according to recommendations from the CDC that were updated last week.
The U.S. Army has announced early results for a vaccine developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research that includes defense against the now dominant omicron variant.
A snow leopard has died of COVID-19 at the Miller Park Zoo in Bloomington, Ill.
Airlines canceled thousands more flights in recent days as the industry tried to move past its holiday hangover. Bad weather and coronavirus outbreaks among workers continued to disrupt schedules across the United States.
The Covid-19 pandemic threatened to ruin Americans’ finances. For many, the opposite happened.
The U.S. is planning to hand out $10 billion to help upstart companies gain access to capital in a bid to rev up business in disadvantaged communities and spur a broader economic recovery from the pandemic.
A judge ordered that tennis player Novak Djokovic be released from detention, overturning the Australian government’s cancellation of his visa and clearing the way for him to compete at the Australian Open.
A Cypriot scientist defended his assertion that a new strain of Covid-19 exists that combines characteristics of the delta and omicron variants.
With opening ceremonies in Beijing less that a month away, the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in nearby port city of Tianjin for the first time.
Australia must “push through” the fast-moving Omicron outbreak, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said today, as infections surpassed 1 million, more than half in the past week alone, throwing a strain on hospitals and supply chains.
Myanmar’s ousted civilian leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for possessing walkie-talkies in her home and for violating Covid-19 protocols.
New coronavirus cases leaped 64% in New York in the week ending yesterday, as 367,687 cases were reported and authorities warned the omicron variant was threatening already overburdened hospitals.
Under pressure from Hochul, hospitals in New York have disclosed that nearly half of their so-called COVID-19 patients currently hospitalized were admitted for other reasons.
Following a bumpy first week back for New York City public schools, Adams, speaking on the Sunday morning television shows, reiterated his commitment to keeping children in the classroom.
Adams said that childcare facilities and preschools will remain open amid heightened concern of the number of coronavirus infections rising amongst kids.
“When you start to disrupt the stability of childcare, of daycare, and education, it has a rippling impact throughout our entire city,” Adams said. “Parents…can’t keep their children home. They have to work.”
New York City is weighing a COVID vaccine mandate for students to go to school in the fall.
A dozen New York City lifesavers were so sickened by COVID-19 they can’t do their jobs — and now they’re in desperate need of a lifeline.
COVID-19 ended their careers — and now a small group of New York police officers hopes the city grants them the same disability pensions they would get for any other injury suffered in the line of duty.
Hochul on Friday announced a COVID-19 booster shot mandate for health care workers in New York, citing the rising numbers of vaccine breakthrough infections caused by the omicron variant. There will be no test-out option.
New York State released new visitation rules for nursing homes. All visitors will be required to show a negative COVID-19 test within 24 hours of their visit. In addition, visitors will be required to wear a surgical type mask.
The current spike in coronavirus cases appears to be less deadly than earlier waves, but some safety-net hospitals are still being severely strained.
Millions of New Yorkers should expect tax relief, thanks to the next state budget, but it’s far from clear how the state will use billions in rising tax revenues this year.
Hochul vetoed a bill aimed at setting retirement eligibility for forest rangers and environmental conservation officers on par with other state law enforcers.
The political leader of Queens, Borough President Donovan Richards, says he will spearhead a campaign to build support for Hochul’s planned Brooklyn-Queens “Interborough Express” commuter rail service.
Adams went on the defensive over prominent appointments for his own brother and a former high-ranking cop implicated in a bribery scandal.
“Let me be clear on this,” Adams said. “My brother is qualified for the position, number one. He will be in charge of my security, which is extremely important to me in a time where we see an increase in white supremacy and hate crimes.”
He said his office was seeking a waiver from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board to allow sibling Bernard Adams to take a high-ranking NYPD job — after the brother had already joined the city payroll.
Adams’ new chief of staff managed a medical company that remains in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to a Brooklyn landlord struggling to recover the money and evict its tenant for more than a year, the landlord claims in court records.
Adams said that he supports legislation passed by the City Council allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections.
“While I initially had some concerns about one aspect of the bill, I had a productive dialogue with my colleagues in government that put those concerns at ease,” Adams said in a statement. “I…look forward to bringing millions more into the democratic process.”
Starting next year, 800,000 legal permanent residents will be eligible to vote in municipal elections.
The NYC Board of Elections must now begin drawing an implementation plan by July, including registration rules and provisions that would create separate ballots for municipal races to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots in federal and state contests.
New York City’s new police commissioner expressed severe dissatisfaction with the policies of the new Manhattan DA, sending an email to all officers that suggests a potential rupture between City Hall and the prosecutor over their approaches to public safety.
The late Friday night memo to the department from Keechant Sewell questioned whether new reforms from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg would help or hinder in protecting officers, the public and crime victims.
Newly installed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg defended his controversial policies in a Harlem speech saying it had been a “long week” that left him surprised about the “push back” on his progressive agenda.
Former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Bragg is “handcuffing the police” and blamed his election on George Soros, claiming the billionaire has “effectively destroyed the criminal justice system in America.”
Gubernatorial hopefuls – including fellow Democrat, Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi – slammed Bragg’s controversial policy of not prosecuting certain low-level crimes while downgrading other charges, with some calling for his removal.
Conservative political commentator Joe Pinion is throwing his hat in the ring to run for U.S. Senate against powerful incumbent Schumer — the Democratic majority leader from New York who is seeking a fifth term.
Millionaire Republican Harry Wilson says he is seriously considering a run for governor, insisting his strong experience in the business world would help a reeling New York still battling the pandemic. He’ll make a decision “soon.”
A new state law prohibits insurance companies from refusing to provide insurance to homeowners based on dog breeds, a move that’s drawing praise from pet owners who say some dogs are unfairly maligned as inherently violent.
Effective today, new rules are in place governing access to the state Capitol and LOB due to COVID-19.
Hochul and state officials are faced with questions this year of how much to invest in the Capitol and the aging Empire State Plaza after years of deferred maintenance during the periodic economic downturns that have faced the state over the past two decades.
Some people Hochul turns to for advice: Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, NAACP NY leader Hazel Dukes, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes and NYC labor leader Gary LaBarbera.
Veteran Albany lobbyist David Weinraub shared how his firm’s strategy has shifted under Hochul’s administration.
In light of questions about several flights during her first 45 days in office — when she conducted campaign activity, but did not pay back the taxpayers — Hochul directed her ethics counsel to re-review all aircraft usage and make any appropriate reimbursements.
GOP Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan announced he was refusing to cooperate with the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, joining a growing list of allies of former President Donald Trump who have adopted a hostile stance toward the panel’s questions.
TV star and comedian Bob Saget, who portrayed the beloved character Danny Tanner on the hit sitcom “Full House,” died yesterday at the age of 65.
The actor passed away at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. He was pronounced dead at the scene after first responders found him in his hotel room around 4 p.m. No signs of drug use or foul play were found.
Michael Lang, who helped bring the Woodstock music festival to life in 1969, died Saturday from a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 77.
Will Smith, Nicole Kidman, Jason Sudeikis and Jean Smart were among the big-name actors awarded honors at the Golden Globes during a bizarre stripped-down ceremony that had no audience and wasn’t even televised amid a series of controversies.
