Good morning, it’s Thursday. Happy Plimsoll Day!
Yeah, I had no clue, either.
On this day in 1824, Samuel Plimsoll, an English politician and social reformer, was born in Bristol, England. His life might have been otherwise unremarkable had he not tried in 1853 to become a coal merchant and failed utterly.
The failure reduced Plimsoll to destitution, and it was this experience – living on nearly nothing in a common lodging, as he often recalled – that galvanized him when his fortunes returned and he launched a political career, to champion reforms on behalf of the impoverished.
When he was elected as a member of Parliament, he focused his efforts on so-called “coffin ships” – unseaworthy and often uninsured vessels whose owners risked the lives of their crew members.
Plimsoll wrote a book about the plight of sailors called “Our Seaman, An Appeal,” seeking to raise the public’s awareness about the difficulties and challenges faced by those who made a living on the sea.
Through his efforts, a number of regulations were imposed on shipowners, including the creation of what is known as the Plimsoll line – the mark on the side of a ship that indicates the safe limit to which it may be loaded without the risk of sinking.
In 1906, foreign ships were also required to carry a load line if they visited British ports. The basic symbol of a circle with a horizontal line passing through its centre, is now recognized worldwide and is mandatory for merchant ships. If you have a few minutes, this video explains how it all works.
Apparently, there are a number of markers commemorating Plimsoll and his work in several spots around England. I’m not a big sailor, but I think it’s kind of cool that an invention so simple and long-standing is still being used today, and still saving lives.
Another close-to-spring-like day, with temperatures in the mid-40s and a mix of clouds and sun. This sounds amazing until you start looking down the line and see a few days ahead of us where we will be back to the 20s, so enjoy it while you can.
In the headlines…
Facing growing pressure to ease up on pandemic restrictions, the White House insisted it is making plans for a less-disruptive phase of the national virus response.
The US is nearing the end of the “full-blown” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic — and virus-related restrictions may soon no longer be necessary, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
But Dr. Fauci cautioned that the situation “is still unpredictable,” and said any transition out of the current crisis would be gradual.
Sources told CNN the administration’s top health officials are assessing in real time how to handle federal guidance on mitigation steps like masking and there is an internal recognition that the US is entering a new phase.
The head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, vowed that party leaders are readying plans to move their message beyond the COVID-19 public health crisis to one assuring Americans of a return to normalcy.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky said pointedly that while Covid-19 cases are dropping overall and her agency is working on new guidance for the states, it is too soon for all Americans to take off their masks in indoor public places.
But impatient states, including Democratic New York, made clear they aren’t waiting for Washington as public frustration grows.
The move was seen as a watershed moment in the state’s coronavirus pandemic response, reflecting the continued decline of the Omicron variant, now understood to cause milder effects than scientists originally knew.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New York will end its COVID-19 mandate requiring face coverings in most indoor public settings — but will keep it for schools. Illinois announced the same. So did Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
“At this time, we say that it’s the right decision to lift this mandate for indoor businesses and let counties, cities and businesses to make their own decisions on what they want to do with respect to [the] mask or vaccination requirement,” Hochul said.
Debate over the mask mandate has been escalating as some parents grow increasingly vocal about their frustration with the face-covering requirements, while others maintain it’s too soon to start loosening COVID-19 rules.
The number of COVID-19 cases in New York schools since school began passed the half million mark last week. The weekly numbers continue to fall from the holiday surge, but have not yet returned to November levels.
Local counties, cities and businesses will still have the option to mandate masking or proof of vaccination, but it will not be required.
In NYC, aside from schools, masks will still be required on public transit, in Broadway theaters and many other cultural venues, in nursing homes, in any business the owner decides to require them, and, of course, everywhere for the unvaccinated.
A majority of New York City residents say they agree with COVID-19 vaccine mandates – and they’re angry with the minority who refuse to get jabbed, a new poll found.
If 2021 was the year of the vaccine, 2022 is already shaping up to be the year voters demand the U.S. moves on.
A U.S. appeals court panel declined to block a lower court ruling that Biden could not require federal employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Scientific advisers to the FDA will decide next week whether to endorse giving two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to children 6 months to 4 years of age, before clinical trials have shown whether a full course of three doses is effective.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is fighting to save his job, said the easing of COVID rules would come a month earlier than planned.
A South Korean diagnostics company is recalling its rapid COVID-19 test kits in the United States because they were illegally imported, according to the FDA.
CVS got a sales boost from doling out more than 59 million Covid-19 vaccines and tens of millions of tests last year, but doesn’t expect the same benefit this year, the company said.
A blockade of the bridge between Canada and Detroit by protesters demanding an end to Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions forced the shutdown of a Ford plant and began to have broader implications for the North American auto industry.
The mother of a Canadian trucker who died from COVID-19 after never getting the vaccine is upset with the ongoing blockade protest among anti-mandate truckers in Ottawa.
Dozens of Republican lawmakers are once again calling for Biden to take a cognitive test, urging him to “follow the example set by former President Trump.”
The Republican push for Biden to undergo cognitive testing comes as recent polls have shown Americans are unsure of the president’s mental fitness for office.
Approval of Biden’s performance in the White House continues to weaken as the administration works to deal with the Ukraine border conflict, rising inflation, the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and chaos at the Mexican border.
Some of the 1,700 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division being deployed to Poland to bolster that ally will begin to set up checkpoints, tent camps and other temporary facilities inside Poland’s border with Ukraine to serve arriving Americans.
Americans who need help getting out of Ukraine if Russia invades could be brought through Poland and receive support from U.S. troops, a senior defense official and a U.S. official said.
A review of threats against members of Congress shows how a mainstreaming of violent political speech has prompted a growing number of Americans to target elected officials.
A bipartisan push is growing to bar members of Congress from trading individual stocks, an effort pushed by vulnerable lawmakers eager to take on perceived corruption in Washington.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued a subpoena to Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to Trump who was involved in what he called an “operation” to keep the former president in office after he lost the 2020 election.
Rudy Giuliani reportedly called a Michigan prosecutor in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election to demand he seize voting machines from a county that became the unlikely focus of Trump’s campaign to overturn his election loss.
The state Board of Elections has failed to enforce a 2019 law requiring campaigns to disclose the identities of the individuals behind certain corporate donations, while campaigns across the state – including Hochul’s – have flouted the law with impunity.
Two prominent Democrats questioned an aspect of Hochul’s proposal to expand apartments and backyard cottages in single-family neighborhoods by overriding local zoning as a way to increase affordable housing.
Hochul will need to answer a subpoena to shed light on whether her office pushed state regulators to approve a cannabis company merger at the urging of a campaign contributor, a State Supreme Court judge ruled.
Hochul moved to stop New Jersey from pulling out of the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, an agency mandated with cracking down on organized crime at seaports.
State Attorney General Letitia James landed an early boost to her reelection campaign, scoring endorsements from two politically powerful unions.
Former State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gave a very detailed interview about his fall from grace and his struggle to reckon with the behavior that ended his long political career.
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara wrote a children’s book about justice.
Mayor Eric Adams used his virtual appearance before the state Legislature to argue that changes to bail laws and other measures designed to make the criminal justice system more fair have overreached, allowing more dangerous criminals onto the streets.
Adams has asked for changes to bail reform laws and other criminal justice measures, saying they will bring down crime rates in the city and reduce gun violence. At times, lawmakers told him to change his approach.
Since he’s taken office, top Democrats in both Assembly and Senate majority conferences say they’ve had little to no interactions with Adams or his staff about how to accomplish mutual goals for New York City.
Adams favors freezing rents for regulated tenants this year — in theory.
The Rev. Al Sharpton called on Adams to address the brazen thefts at New York City stores, complaining that businesses have been forced to such extreme security that retailers are even “locking up my toothpaste.”
A recent report by the nonprofit New York City Criminal Justice Agency found that nearly half of the 16-year-olds arrested and processed in the city under the Raise the Age law committed new crimes.
A married couple was charged with sex trafficking young women into a prostitution operation – a scheme that prosecutors said in some cases involved the use of New York’s foster care system to gain access to potential victims.
A South Korean diplomat reportedly suffered a broken nose in an unprovoked attack on a Midtown street.
Nearly three-quarters of New York City voters — 74 percent — think crime is a very serious problem, the highest ever recorded since the Quinnipiac College Poll first asked the question in 1999.
Subway ridership topped three million trips on Tuesday for the first time since the Omicron variant hit the city in the weeks before Christmas, the MTA said.
GOP firebrand and ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin described herself to a Manhattan jury as a single mom leading a quiet life far from the national stage in a snowy mountain town in the Last Frontier.
The legal battle between retired New York Jets great Darrelle Revis and his former agents is now under review at the state’s top court.
New York’s state pension fund will sell $238 million worth of stock and debt it holds across 21 shale oil and gas companies, saying they have not shown they are ready to move to a low-emissions economy.
Environmentalists and power plant operators found themselves on the same page this week, with both groups lining up against a proposed power line that would bring hydroelectricity from northern Quebec to New York City via a cable beneath the Hudson.
A residents group fighting construction of the proposed Kings Landing II apartment project downtown attacked the earlier King’s Landing I project as a “boarding house” that failed to comply with what the city Planning Commission approved in 2018.
Figure skater Nathan Chen has his Olympic gold medal. The 22-year-old took the win in the men’s singles event, rebounding from his disappointing 2018 Pyeongchang performance for a triumphant comeback.
Chloe Kim did it again, soaring to another Olympic gold medal in the halfpipe.
More than two days after the team figure skating event ended with Russia winning, Olympics officials still have not handed out the medals as they investigate a “legal issue” that has generated questions in the sport.
Actor Bob Saget, who was found unresponsive in a hotel room last month, died from head trauma, his family said in a statement.
There is one outcome fans can accurately predict for the Super Bowl LVI: blazing hot weather. The National Weather Service in Los Angeles issued a heat advisory through Sunday evening, with unseasonably hot temperatures in the upper 80s expected.
