Good Thursday morning. Is it me or this week flying by…SO CLOSE to spring. I mean, not really, but every hour, every minute, every second gets us a step in the right direction.
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day – a date selected by the United Nations in 2005 because it is the anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Actually Auschwitz was a whole death complex in Nazi-occupied Germany.
There was Auschwitz I, the main camp, and Auschwitz II, the former created to punish and exterminate political and other opponents of their regime, and the latter that was specifically focused on exterminating Jews – or, as the Nazis would put it, making Europe ”Judenrein” (free of Jews), via gas chambers.
And rounding up the deadly grouping was Auschwitz III-Monowitz, a labor camp for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben; and also dozens of sub-camps.
It’s estimated that the SS and police deported at least 1.3 million people to the Auschwitz camp complex between 1940 and 1945. Of these individuals, approximately 1.1 million were murdered.
Here’s a rather alarming data point, decried by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this week: barely half of adults worldwide have heard of the Holocaust, which saw the murder of 6 million Jews – one-third of the Jewish people- as well as millions of others during World War II.
And when it comes to young people he said, that lack of knowledge is “worse still.”
I don’t want to harp too much on this point, and I am, of course, somewhat biased in terms of feeling strongly about this, since I am, after all, a Jew, but nearly one out of every four Jews in the U.S. has been the subject of antisemitism over the past year, according to an October 2021 report by the American Jewish Committee.
Antisemitism and Holocaust denial is clearly on the rise, but, then again, hate crimes are on the rise, writ large.
In New York City alone, for example, hate crimes complaints rose nearly 100 percent last year and several types of bias crimes also skyrocketed – in some cases more than 340 percent. And the borough that saw the biggest increase? Manhattan.
In response, new Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg announced he’s expanding his office’s hate crimes unit to address the uptick in racially motivated attacks.
At the risk of going to a very dark and frightening place – and I’ve just barely scratched the surface of the Holocaust and hate crimes – I’m going to cut thing short and end on an upbeat note…
It’s also National Chocolate Cake Day. You’re welcome.
A storm forming over the Mid-Atlantic could wallop New York City with up to 1 foot of snow this weekend, with more possible in New England.
The National Weather Service is tracking two paths for the potential storm, one that remains primarily at sea and another that makes landfall in New England. The various trajectories put the Albany area at the western edge of the storm.
Today, we will see partly cloudy skies, with temperatures in the mid-20s.
Headlines…
Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the three remaining liberal justices on the nation’s highest court, will step down from the Supreme Court at the end of the current term after more than 27 years of service, according to people familiar with his thinking.
President Joe Biden and Breyer are scheduled to appear together at the White House today as the Supreme Court justice is set to announce his retirement.
Breyer’s departure gives Biden a chance to reinforce its liberal minority and deliver on his campaign pledge to make history by nominating the first African American female justice.
Breyer, 83, is the court’s oldest justice and was nominated in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. Breyer has been under unprecedented pressure to retire while Democrats have narrow control of the Senate, which must confirm Supreme Court nominees.
Biden is eyeing at least three judges for Breyer’s seat – U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. More potential names here.
Biden’s choice for the Supreme Court gives him the opportunity to reinvigorate the democratic base. If she is confirmed, Biden will secure a much-needed victory for his administration.
When news of Breyer’s retirement broke, speculation started almost immediately (especially on the right) that Biden would tap Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him. (That’s highly unlikely).
Senate Democrats say they plan to move speedily to consider Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy, following the lead of Republicans who raced through the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a matter of weeks before the 2020 elections.
While Democrats failed last week to upend the Senate filibuster to pass new voting rights laws, they do not have to change any rules to thwart a Republican filibuster against a Supreme Court nominee — those changes have already been made.
Biden signed an executive order making sexual harassment an offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
The order will also strengthen the military’s response to domestic violence and the wrongful broadcast or distribution of intimate visual images, the White House said.
Former president Trump’s supporters who buy into his lies that the last election was stolen from him were elated Tuesday night with news from the right-wing Gateway Pundit: The Wisconsin legislature had just voted to withdraw the state’s electors for Biden.
The only problem is: That didn’t actually happen. And, also, it’s not possible.
The Biden administration said that it had canceled two mining leases that would have allowed a copper mine to be built near an area of pristine wilderness in Minnesota.
The U.S. provided Russia with written proposals to tamp down military competition in Europe, countering demands from Moscow and trying to avert what Western officials worry is a looming Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden says he would consider personal sanctions on Vladimir Putin if Russia invades Ukraine.
Former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry sharply criticized the Biden administration’s contingency plans in the event that Russia cuts off its gas supplies to Europe.
G.O.P. leaders are attacking Biden for what they call a weak response to Russian aggression, but their far-right flank is questioning U.S. involvement, and even its alliance with Kyiv.
Facing rising inflation and stock-market turbulence, Biden met with top corporate executives to promote his stalled education, healthcare and climate bill, saying the plan “lowers prices for families and gets people working.”
Federal Reserve officials signaled that they were on track to raise interest rates in March, given that inflation has been running far above policymakers’ target and that labor market data suggests employees are in short supply.
If interest rates do go up, it will be for the first time in more than three years.
Chair Jerome Powell said that inflation has gotten “slightly worse” since the Fed last met in December. He said raising the Fed’s benchmark rate, which has been pegged at zero since March 2020, will help prevent high prices from becoming entrenched.
More signs emerged that the Omicron wave is taking a less serious human toll in Europe than earlier phases of the pandemic, while U.S. data showed daily average deaths from the disease exceeding the peak reached during the surge driven by the Delta variant.
More than two-thirds of cases of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 are among people who have been reinfected with the virus, a new study found.
A study, published by the journal Cell, found four factors that could be identified early in a person’s coronavirus infection that appeared to correlate with increased risk of having lasting symptoms weeks later.
Moderna Inc. has started testing in people a version of its Covid-19 vaccine modified to target the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, in case such a shot is needed to bolster protection.
Spotify is in the process of removing Neil Young’s catalog of music from its service after the artist published — then took down — an open letter with an ultimatum: Deal with the vaccine misinformation coming from Joe Rogan’s podcast, or lose Young’s music.
Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser extended the city’s COVID-19 indoor mask requirement through the end of February.
An unvaccinated Sarah Palin dined outdoors at the Manhattan restaurant Elio’s two days after she tested positive for COVID-19. Palin reportedly ate indoors at the restaurant over the weekend and had come back to “apologize” for the media frenzy.
New York’s indoor mask mandate will remain in effect for now after an appeals court judge on Tuesday blocked a lower-court ruling from a day before that had abruptly struck down the policy and created confusion across schools and businesses.
New York City’s public schools will halve the minimum required isolation period for students who test positive for the coronavirus, and the quarantine rule for unvaccinated students who are exposed to the virus, to five days from 10.
New COVID-19 cases in Capital Region schools dropped to 4,200 last week, down from the peak of 6,500 cases the week following winter break.
The back-and-forth over New York’s indoor mask-wearing mandate caused tumult in some Capital Region schools this week.
Nearly two months after the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus was first detected in the state, hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are finally on their way down in the Capital Region.
Gov. Kathy Hochul rejected renewed calls to give judges new powers to keep pre-trial suspects behind bars, delivering a potential setback to a key part of Mayor Eric Adams’ new plan to tackle gun violence.
Adams invoked the federal government’s response to 9/11 as a starting point to how leaders should now approach stemming the “terror” gun violence has created in the city and New York State.
Violent gun incidents are on the rise in New York, and because many of the firearms used in those incidents originated out of state, curbing the flow of those guns needs to be a top priority, Hochul said.
“Two young men in their 20s, two young men who had their entire lives ahead of them and their family and one with a new spouse and that was all shattered with a gun that was traced back to Baltimore,” the governor said.
Fellow officers who worked with slain NYPD cops Wilbert Mora and Jason Rivera were overcome with grief as they remembered their Brothers in Blue at a vigil last night outside the 32nd Precinct.
A task force including officials from local governments, neighboring states and federal agencies met for the first time yesterday to identify how illegal guns from other states are contributing to the increase in violent crimes following years of record lows.
Hochul will meet with embattled Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for the first time tomorrow, she told The NY Post, noting that she’s “monitoring” the controversy surrounding what critics say are his soft-on-crime policies.
Bragg tapped the Peter Pope to serve as his office’s first prosecutor dedicated to curbing gun violence — as state and local officials take aim at a surge in shootings crippling New York City.
Facing a backlash over the lenient policies he put in place upon taking office earlier this month and following a string of high-profile shootings, Bragg acknowledged that his emphasis, if not his approach, had changed.
Bragg also hired Danielle Filson, a former spokeswoman for ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Amid cops being shot and killed by violent parolees, the Working Families Party, which claims to fight for the interests of blue-collar workers, has declared war on the unions representing uniformed officers.
Harlem Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan, who has equated the policing system to slavery and is the granddaughter of a police officer, is now considering how to deliver her message in a district mourning for two officers.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie pushed back on claims that the rise in violent crime in New York has been a result of the state’s bail reform law, which eliminated the option of cash bail for most lower-level and nonviolent charges two years ago.
A revised state law dealing with the handling of evidence in criminal cases is straining the resources of county prosecutors, say representatives of the District Attorneys Association of New York State.
Progressive groups are starting to line up behind Jumaane Williams’s gubernatorial bid. New York Communities for Change, an advocacy and community organizing group with roughly 20,000 members, is endorsing the public advocate today.
New York’s ethics oversight body is issuing a subpoena to Hochul’s office, seeking records related to the tenure of Hochul’s predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the activities of volunteers in assisting in his COVID-19 pandemic response.
Even after Cuomo resigned in the wake of a state AG’s report that concluded he’d sexually harassed multiple women, his support remains steady among small donors who have dismissed the scandals that engulfed him as overblown or politically motivated.
The state Senate confirmed Adrienne Harris, a former public policy professor, presidential advisor, financial executive, and corporate lawyer, as superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services.
New York state is ready to tear down the elevated Interstate 81 through downtown Syracuse and build a street-level community grid in its place, Hochul said.
With a 2019 state law calling for a zero-carbon economy by 2040, a broad coalition of environmental and social justice activists Wednesday said lawmakers and Hochul need to commit $15 billion this year to start toward that goal.
Rising crime and the use of the subways by the homeless are scaring riders away from mass transit, MTA officials said.
Cops last night released a photo of the suspect wanted for randomly shoving a 62-year-old man onto the subway tracks at a Lower Manhattan station on Sunday.
The Bronx got burned by a Department of Transportation mistake that listed the name of a Queens official on a welcome sign, sparking a jokey inter-borough beef.
Hochul says she has offered “a very robust incentive package” to lure a semiconductor chip manufacturer to Central New York that could employ up to 5,000 people and help transform the local economy.
There’s been a spike in shoplifting in New York City. The NYPD says it hasn’t seen levels like this since 1995, and elsewhere around the country, organized retail crime is ramping up.
Democrats who control the state Legislature are plotting to knock off Rep. Nicole Malliotakis the lone GOP member of New York City’s congressional delegation, by redrawing a legislative district to add liberal Brooklyn precincts to her Republican stronghold.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has asked a judge to toss out former President Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to block her investigation into the Trump Organization, new court papers show.
Albany Council members who reviewed body camera footage of city police officers critically injuring Jordan Young in a shooting earlier this week said they were left with questions but none of them disputed the police department’s version of what happened.
Schenectady’s Cornells in Little Italy, closed since the beginning of the pandemic, reopens tomorrow, with a new owner but almost entirely the same staff.
Rensselaer County native Edmonia Lewis, the first Black and Native American sculptor to earn international recognition, became the newest face of a U.S. Postal Service’s stamp at a ceremony in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
Renowned jockeys Johnny Velazquez and Mike Smith, as well as a former New York Gaming Commission steward, took the stand at an administrative hearing to testify in support of legendary horse trainer Bob Baffert in his battle against NYRA.
Once a rite of passage for kids from Western New York to Northern New Jersey, the Boy Scout Camps that dotted the Adirondacks are fading from the landscape, victims of financial and legal troubles and a declining number of youngsters interested in scouting.
Yolanda Vega, the iconic New York Lottery announcer who made dreams come true, is calling it a career after more than three decades of calling out winning numbers.
MSNBC will reportedly soon announce plans to move morning anchor Stephanie Ruhle to the 11 pm ET hour that Brian Williams turned into an elite destination.
Bravo fired Jennie Nguyen, a star from its reality show “Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” after reports surfaced of offensive posts she shared on Facebook.
It was final “Jeopardy!” for Amy Schneider. The prolific contestant’s historic run on the game show ended after 40 consecutive victories, giving her the second-longest win streak ever.
Ice-T, the gangsta rap trailblazer-turned-primetime TV history make, has teamed up with the cereal brand Honey Nut Cheerios to promote a healthy lifestyle for American Heart Month.
Minnie Mouse is getting ready to debut her very first pantsuit, an exclusive Stella McCarney design, in Paris.
