Good morning. It’s Wednesday.
We’ve been talking a lot about nurses lately. Nurses Month. Nurses Week.
And, beyond a doubt, these essential frontline healthcare workers deserve our praise and thanks.
Now, however, it’s time to pay particular homage to a branch of nursing that doesn’t get the respect it deserves, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important.
It’s National School Nurse Day, proclaimed as such by President Gerald Ford in 1974.
School nurses, according to the CDC, play a critical role in keeping young people healthy – especially the roughly 40 percent of school-aged kids who have at least one chronic condition (like diabetes or asthma or food allergies) that require daily monitoring and maintenance.
The history of school nursing dates back to the 1800s, with Belgium being the first city to employ a school physician. The practice began in earnest in the U.S.. 1894, when Boston appointed 50 “medical visitors” to visit schools and examine children thought to be “ailing.”
Several years later, other big cities – including New York – followed suit and established similar programs, with most of the medical professionals providing their services free of charge.
Neither federal nor New York State law requires the presence of a school nurse in every school building, even though many students suffer from conditions that require the care of a licensed nurse. And school nurses’ jobs have become even more important – not to mention vastly more controversial and complicated – as a result of the ongoing COVID crisis.
Prior to the pandemic, close to 50 percent of school nurses across the nation were responsible for covering more than one school, according to a 2018 study. And given the aforementioned lack of a mandate related to staffing, one-quarter of all schools have no paid nursing staff. Zero.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only about 84,200 registered nurses are employed in schools. That’s sufficient only to staff about 64 percent of schools with one full-time nurse.
School nurses take a lot of flack. Back in the day, I remember jokes about hiding out in the nurse’s office and getting to take a nap when one complained about “cramps,” or having to watch that weird movie about flowers that was somehow actually about menstruation. I think they also did scoliosis and hearing tests – both of which I dreaded.
But the truth is school nurses can be lifesavers. And the lack of having one on-site full time can have deadly consequences. The sad reality is that school nurses – like so many others in the medical professions – are burned out and leaving the industry in droves.
If you’re a school nurse and you have some time to get out and treat yourself today, it’s going to be GLORIOUS – and very warm, close to 80 degrees, in fact, and also sunny. Enjoy.
In the headlines…
Ukraine’s natural gas grid operator said that it would stop transporting Russian gas through an eastern border entry point called Sokhranivka, raising fears of a cutoff of flows to Europe.
Russia pummeled the vital port of Odesa, Ukrainian officials said, in an apparent effort to disrupt supply lines and Western weapons shipments as Ukraine’s foreign minister appeared to suggest the country could expand its war aims.
With intelligence officials warning that Moscow was counting on a protracted war in Ukraine to drain the determination of the United States and its allies, Congress forged ahead with overwhelming support in deepening the United States’ commitment.
The future of additional COVID-19 funding that the White House says it desperately needs to combat new variants and purchase updated vaccines looks increasingly uncertain after the money was left out of a must-pass aid package to Ukraine.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that he asked President Joe Biden last week to separate aid packages for Ukraine and Covid relief, as the combo bill stalled because of a fight over immigration rules.
The House approved a $39.8 billion aid package for Ukraine, sending the massive supplemental to the Senate as Russia’s invasion nears the three-month mark.
Biden, under pressure to tame high inflation, told Americans that he understands their plight and that he and the U.S. Federal Reserve are working to solve what he called his administration’s top domestic priority.
Biden warned voters unhappy with soaring inflation and his stalled domestic agenda against turning power over to “ultra-MAGA” Republicans in the midterm elections as he increasingly tries to cast former President Trump and his adherents as a political foil.
Conservatives on Twitter were not buying Biden’s speech assessing the pandemic and Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as the two main issues behind the United States’ economic woes.
Some Federal Reserve officials have begun to acknowledge that they were too slow to respond to rapid inflation last year, a delay that is forcing them to constrain the economy more abruptly now — and one that could hold lessons for the policy path ahead.
The Senate voted to confirm Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve, making her the first Black woman to sit on the central bank’s board.
There are 22 million U.S. millionaires, Credit Suisse estimates, up from fewer than 15 million in 2014.
Biden said his administration is currently evaluating how to best move forward on existing tariffs on China enacted during the Trump administration, but he cautioned that no decision has been made.
In a blistering statement, Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, who might run for president in 2024, called Biden “unwell” and “unfit for office,: adding: “He’s incoherent, incapacitated and confused. He doesn’t know where he is half the time.”
Kevin Morris, known for brokering big entertainment deals, has helped Biden’s son Hunter navigate his legal troubles and scrutiny from the right. Some of the White House’s allies are concerned.
Gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded in the United States in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, as gun-related homicides surged by 35 percent, the CDC reported.
The homicide rate from firearms increased to 6.1 per 100,000 people in 2020 compared with 4.6 per 100,000 in 2019.
The CDC report offers new details on one of the most violent eras in America in decades. Homicide rates increased more in areas with higher poverty levels, it found.
Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, 66, announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms.
In a series of tweets, the billionaire shared that he was “lucky to be vaccinated” and will be isolating until he’s healthy again.
A growing proportion of COVID-19 deaths are occurring among the vaccinated.
Americans itching to travel this summer after navigating Covid-19 for the past two years face a new disruption to plans: the rising cost of travel.
Emergent BioSolutions, a government contractor hired to produce hundreds of millions of vaccine doses, hid evidence of quality control problems from FDA inspectors in February 2021 — six weeks before it admitted 15 million doses had been contaminated.
Tesla operated its Shanghai plant well below capacity yesterday, showing the problems factories face trying to ramp up output under a tightening COVID-19 lockdown, while China’s capital kept up its fight with a small but stubborn outbreak.
China risks a “tsunami” of coronavirus infections resulting in 1.6 million deaths if the government abandons its long-held Covid Zero policy and lets the highly-infectious omicron variant to spread unchecked, according to researchers at Shanghai’s Fudan University.
The COVID-19 subvariant estimated by state health officials to be substantially more contagious than the first descendant of the potent omicron strain now accounts for up to 73.3% of all virus circulating in New York, according to new CDC data.
The Capital Region has the second-highest level of reported COVID-19 infections statewide, and hospitalizations are also continuing to trend upward.
Because of Covid-related disruptions, about a third of early elementary students will likely need intensive support to become proficient readers, according to one study.
While New York City Mayor Eric Adams and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul have both said they support making Covid vaccination for all public school children mandatory, that does not necessarily mean it is happening soon.
Tech-industry representatives are coming to Capitol Hill this week to warn that the remote-work trend will lead to more offshoring of software developer and other technology jobs unless the U.S. admits more high-skilled immigrants.
The best-laid plans for a full-time return to the office remain bedeviled by Covid-19 case rates and a work force reluctant to go back to their commutes, according to data published this week by the Partnership for New York City, a business advocacy group.
With yet another virus wave testing New Yorkers’ patience with the 25-month-old pandemic, Hochul called on people across the state to keep using test swabs to stop the spread.
New York will direct $35 million to health care providers in an effort to expand access to abortion procedures and bolster security at clinics, Hochul announced.
“We’re not backing down and I will not stand idly by when rights for women across the entire nation are destroyed,” Hochul said at a virtual press conference.
Republican gubernatorial candidates have been trading barbs over their respective stances on abortion access in New York over the past couple of days following a leaked U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion last week that would nix Roe v. Wade.
A Harlem real estate developer flipped on disgraced ex-Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin in a secret plea hearing last month, according to court documents unsealed yesterday.
A federal judge in Albany authorized New York to push back its congressional primary until August, a delay that will give more time for a neutral expert to draw new congressional maps for this year’s midterm contest.
The new redistricting process in New York is moving ahead despite last-ditch efforts from Democrats to hang on to the Legislature’s initially approved maps, ruled unconstitutional last month by the state’s highest court.
Rep. Antonio Delgado is yet to be formally sworn in as New York’s new lieutenant governor. But the two-term Democratic congressman has officially launched his bid for the party’s nomination as he seeks a full term as Hochul’s preferred running mate.
Common Cause NY and ethics-minded lawmakers remain committed to preventing former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other misbehaving elected officials from spending the campaign war chest they amassed while in office.
Elected officials who leave office under a cloud would face restrictions on the use of their campaign funds once out of the job under a measure proposed by state lawmakers and the good-government organization Common Cause.
Assembly Democrats in the Codes Committee voted along party lines to advance the New York Health Act to establish a statewide single-payer health care system, but not without challenges by Republicans.
New York City will inject $50 million over four years into the childcare sector to support its littlest learners and help parents get back to work, Mayor Eric Adams announced.
“Investing in childcare is a down payment on progress and the future of our kids. We need to get New Yorkers back to work and lower the cost of childcare – both of which will uplift families and remove the obstacles that are holding too many parents back.”
New York City’s soaring crime rate is no laughing matter — but comedian John Mulaney is quick to quip about Adams’ questionable crackdown on illegal behavior.
Hedge fund billionaire Dan Loeb appears to be cozying up to Adams after pouring $1 million into the political action committee that helped get him elected, according to people familiar with the matter.
Adams was keeping some pretty fancy company while he was in Los Angeles, it turns out.
Adams said that he is in “constant contact” with Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, declaring he is “fully confident” the city’s top cop will be able to reduce the city’s ever-increasing crime. He also said he tours the subway system “just about every other night.”
Adams’ new appointee to the city Board of Correction raised eyebrows when he dismissed four deaths of Rikers Island inmates this year as merely “natural.”
Major Big Apple initiatives that rely on Albany, such as mayoral control of schools, are in limbo because of a dysfunctional outreach effort by the new regime in City Hall, Adams critics say.
In remarks to ABNY, Adams called on all New Yorkers to help him fight crime and homelessness, improve education and more, adding: “I need you on the field with me fighting on behalf of our city.”
New York City’s streets have grown dirtier during the coronavirus pandemic — and Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch suggested that her old boss, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, shares some blame for that.
A New York City police officer was shot in the arm last night as he and a partner on a public safety team confronted a suspect near Crotona Park in the Bronx, the police said.
A 26-year-old woman accused of fatally shoving a beloved Broadway singing coach pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and assault charges even as prosecutors described a pre-wedding celebration that devolved into a bizarre and deadly fit.
A Manhattan judge revoked the $500,000 bail of Queens event planner Lauren Pazienza after shocking new details emerged about the wine-fueled rampage that preceded her alleged deadly shove of a beloved 87-year-old voice coach.
Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s office is scrutinizing revelations that dead and unwitting people have been appointed to positions in the borough’s Democratic Party.
This summer’s primary election ballots for key positions inside the Brooklyn Democratic Party are nearly set – putting insurgents within striking distance of potentially toppling current party leadership.
Brooklyn Councilmember Lincoln Restler released a new climate action roadmap for the 33rd district, the first of its kind for an individual city district.
Central Park’s Wollman Rink is transforming into a ′70s-themed roller disco destination, called The DiscOasis, from June 16 through Oct. 1 — with Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Niles Rodgers serving as the chief curator and “Groovemaster.”
Actor James Cromwell glued his hand to the counter at a Starbucks in Midtown to protest the coffee chain’s extra charge for vegan milk.
New York GOP Congressman Tom Reed is resigning, leaving office more than seven months before the end of his term. The announcement comes more than one year after a former lobbyist accused the congressman of sexual misconduct.
“After almost 12 years in Congress, today is my last day,” Reed said on the House floor. “It has been an honor to serve with you all from both parties. I love this institution, as it still exemplifies what is best about our government. We are the people’s House.”
The resignation means that New York will soon have two special elections on the ballot for congressional districts that are currently being redrawn. (The other is to fill the seat of Democrat Delgado, who is Hochul’s newly appointed LG).
What specific district Reed is leaving behind is still up in the air, with the congressional map in New York currently being drawn by a “special master” appointed by the state’s highest court. His fellow GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney has said she’ll run for his seat.
Punchbowl News reported that Reed is joining lobbying firm Prime Policy Group.
Job seekers in Albany County might have a better idea of what they’ll earn before they’re hired under a new proposal before the county legislature.
Scannell Properties, the Indianapolis company known for building warehouses and distribution centers for Amazon and others, is looking to develop 137 acres of land off Exit 16 of the Northway in the Saratoga County town of Wilton.
GlobalFoundries, the computer chipmaker headquartered in Saratoga County, announced record quarterly revenues and earnings amid the global chip shortage.
After two years of holding its Greek food festival in a drive-through format because of pandemic considerations, St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church this weekend brings back the event for a full three days of in-person activities and celebrations of Greek culture.
Mechanicville’s new public works commissioner is facing three charges of “improper practice” by the union representing his workers – including that he allegedly made them shovel snow after they complained to the union about working conditions.
A nationwide supply crunch of baby formula has left parents scrambling to feed their children.
Elon Musk said he plans to welcome Donald Trump back to Twitter once his purchase of the social media site goes through because it was a “mistake” to ban the former president in the first place.
Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson dodged criminal charges after punching a man multiple times before a flight out of San Francisco last month.
Mario Batali was acquitted of allegedly groping a fan at a Boston bar in 2017. The celebrity chef, 61, was found not guilty of indecent assault and battery in a trial that lasted less than two days, during which he did not testify.
It’s the end of an era. The iPod touch is no more.
