Good Tuesday morning.
I used to love a good rainstorm. I mean, as long as I was inside, that is. I really enjoy watching the rain come down and listening to it drum on the roof.
Ever since I got dogs, though, I have come to really dread big storms. They just really hate the loud thunder and lightning so much. There is a lot of trembling and refusing to go outside for toilet time and hiding in closets or the bathtub.
This time, I wised up and gave them some drugs about an hour before the storm was scheduled to really get underway. Now they are curled up and sleeping peacefully. And since they are happy, or at least not freaked out, I am happy.
I’m also thrilled to have a break in the heat. I am not big into muggy stickiness. I miss spring. I feel like I blinked and it was over. Give me all the 60-to-70-degree days, with light jackets and jeans, please and thanks.
This running weather. YAAAAS. After a night of some severe storms that included high winds and hail in some places, today we will see partly cloudy skies and it will be considerably cooler (in the high 60s).
Today is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia, and Biphobia, chosen to be commemorated on this day to mark the moment that the World Health Organization declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder – in 1990.
It took another 29 years – until 2019 – for the WHO to decide that it would no longer classify transgender identities (or in their parlance, “gender incongruence”) as mental and behavioral disorders.
Yeah, they were a little slow on the uptake.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped close to 70 countries from continuing to criminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults, and it seems like every day some new insult occurs, with countries rolling back hard-earned legal rights, imposing new restrictions, or passing straight-out discriminatory legislation – especially related to trans individuals.
The theme for this year’s IDAHOTB is “Our Bodies, Our Lives, Our Rights.” The day was founded by Louis-Georges Tin, a French academic and political activist who advocates against racism and homophobia. He acted as the committee chair for this day until his resignation in 2013.
In 2012, Tin and two other Committee members started a hunger-strike to urge the French president Francois Hollande to introduce a UN resolution decriminalizing homosexuality. “Biphobia” wasn’t added to the campaign until 2015.
Since we’ve already dispatched with the weather, let’s get to the news…
During his remarks in Buffalo today, President Joe Biden will call the shooting at a Tops supermarket “terrorism motivated by a hateful and perverse ideology that tears at the soul of our nation,” and call on Americans to “give hate no safe harbor.”
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, who is joining the president on the trip, will first visit a memorial for the shooting victims before meeting with families, first responders and law enforcement officials at a community center.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand will be heading to Buffalo with Biden today in the wake of a racist mass shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood that left 10 people dead.
In a Senate floor speech, Schumer slammed conservatives for disseminating racist and xenophobic ideologies, such as replacement theory, that influenced the shooter to target mostly Black victims.
Hastily scheduled ahead of Biden’s departure Thursday for a major diplomatic trip to South Korea and Japan, the Buffalo visit will be a chance to “try to bring some comfort to the community,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
In response to the mass shooting in Buffalo, House Democrats plan to tee up a vote on legislation to combat the growing threat of white supremacist and other domestic extremist groups.
Law-enforcement officials released the names of the 10 people killed in the mass shooting, which is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
The suspect in the mass shooting at Tops on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo planned out the attack at least two months in advance. He visited location on March 8, more than two months before the attack, and was confronted by a security guard.
The Buffalo massacre was an “act of domestic terrorism” along the lines of the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine shooting and the Parkland slaughter, civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump said.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney slammed House Republican leadership, accusing the top lawmakers of enabling “white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-semitism” after the Buffalo shooter allegedly espoused a racist, far-right conspiracy theory.
“History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse,” Cheney tweeted. “@GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”
The gun shop where the shooter purchased a rifle he used in the mass attack is temporarily closed and the business is facing a scathing social media backlash.
New York’s so-called red flag law took effect in 2019, judges have issued 589 orders barring people from possessing firearms because they pose a danger to themselves or others, but not the alleged Buffalo shooter.
A legal loophole is forcing New York prosecutors to drop charges against a slew of criminals caught with high-capacity gun magazines just like those used in the supermarket shooting in Buffalo.
The shooter may face possible domestic terrorism charges, the local DA’s office said.
he accused gunman in the mass shooting in Buffalo had planned a prolonged massacre after attacking a Tops supermarket Saturday, according to the Buffalo police commissioner, who said that the attacker wanted “to continue his rampage.”
Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is facing intense scrutiny from extremism experts, media watchdogs and progressive activists who say there is a link between the top-rated host’s “great replacement” rhetoric and the apparent mindset of the Buffalo suspect.
North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, and other GOP lawmakers have also come under scrutiny for previously echoing the racist “great replacement” theory.
During a concert stop in Buffalo as part of his Justice World Tour, Justin Bieber, 28, addressed the shooting, calling racism “evil” and “diabolical,” adding: “I would love if we could just take a moment of silence. That would mean a lot to me.”
The deaths of 10 people Saturday at the hands of a racist man at a Buffalo supermarket thrust New York leaders and Gov. Kathy Hochul into new negotiations over how to toughen gun laws in a state with some of the toughest gun laws in the nation.
The governor said that the racist shooting of Black shoppers at a Buffalo supermarket showed the need for national firearm reform, pointing to the perpetrator’s suspected purchase of a high-capacity magazine in Pennsylvania.
Hochul plans to introduce gun control legislation today. She wants to expand the state’s existing ban on some assault weapons to include what are called AOWs, or any other weapon, saying some of these guns are functionally assault weapons.
Faith and community leaders last night packed a Harlem vigil for the 10 victims of a racially-fueled mass shooting in Buffalo, calling for “unity in the face of hate.” About 100 people attended the ceremony hosted by Mayor Eric Adams.
State AG Tish James issued an alert urging New Yorkers to beware of potentially fraudulent charities created in the wake of what her team called “the hate-filled terror attack in Buffalo.”
More than 260 Ukrainian fighters, including some who are badly wounded, were evacuated from a steel plant in the ruined city of Mariupol and taken to areas under Russia’s control, the Ukrainian military said.
Ukraine’s government declared an end to its combat mission in Mariupol, concluding months of bloody battling against Russian forces that ended with a dramatic siege at an abandoned steel plant where fighters and civilians took refuge.
McDonald’s Corp. said it would quit Russia and sell its business there, ending more than three decades in the country over its invasion of Ukraine.
Hungary said a European Union embargo on Russian oil would cost the country close to $19 billion, raising the stakes in negotiations between it and other EU nations pushing to win Budapest’s support for the ban.
Americans can now order up to eight additional free coronavirus tests from the government online.
The newest distribution of free COVID tests will be shipped to homes in two packages of four, according to the U.S. Postal Service. The previous two rounds, offered in January and March, sent out four tests each.
The FDA reached an agreement with Abbott Laboratories on the steps needed to reopen the company’s shuttered baby formula plant, which could begin to ease the shortage of infant formula that has frightened and exasperated parents nationwide.
Abbott said it can restart the Michigan plant within two weeks subject to FDA approval. However, it would take six to eight weeks from the start of production for formula to arrive on store shelves.
Abbott also claimed that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had found no “conclusive evidence” linking formulas made at its Sturgis, Mich. facility to the infant illnesses and deaths that triggered the initial recall in February.
A virus that shows no signs of disappearing, variants that are adept at dodging the body’s defenses, and waves of infections two, maybe three times a year — this may be the future of Covid-19, some scientists now fear.
The FDA is is expected as early as today to authorize a booster shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 5 to 11, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. That would make those children the youngest Americans eligible for the additional shot.
Mayor Eric Adams is taking new action to increase NYC’s COVID-19 preparedness and to ensure readiness for the current increase in infections and potential waves to follow.
Citing high community transmission and rising hospitalizations from a fifth wave of coronavirus cases, City health officials strongly recommended that all individuals wear medical-grade masks in offices, grocery stores and other public indoor settings citywide.
The new recommendations, issued in a health advisory by the city health commissioner, come as the city approaches the orange, or “high” alert level for Covid-19, a benchmark it expects to hit in the coming days.
NYC is significantly expanding the number of COVID tests and masks it distributes to schools, libraries and houses of worship in a push to stem the growing number of coronavirus cases and to head off a future wave of the virus.
New York’s courts unveiled a slate of congressional districts that would loosen Democrats’ hold on key House seats and make it easier for Republicans to compete in this year’s midterm elections.
The map, drawn by a court-appointed special master charged with unwinding a partisan gerrymander, unquestionably offered a less favorable playing field to Democrats than the one initially adopted by the Legislature and invalidated by the state’s top court.
House lines drawn by special master Jonathan Cervas could pit incumbent Dems against one another and rearranges long-blue districts across NYC and the state, creating headaches for candidates and incumbents after the primary was pushed to August.
“Not unexpected, but this New York map is pretty bad news for Democrats,” Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said in a tweet.
Under the new maps, there are 15 districts leaning Democratic, three leaning Republican and eight falling in the 45-55% competitive range. The new map splits 15 counties within the new maps compared to 34 county splits under the Legislature’s plan.
The maps would create five districts that contain the homes of multiple incumbents, potentially setting the stage for several high-profile battles – including one for parts of Manhattan between Democratic veteran Reps. Jerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney.
“While the process to draw these maps without the Legislature is against the will of voters, if the newly-announced maps are finalized, I will run in New York’s 17th Congressional District,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the DCCC chair.
Maloney’s decision also pushed Hudson Valley state Sen. James Skoufis, a Democrat from Woodbury, to announce he is weighing throwing his hat into the race for the new 18th Congressional District, where Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan is running.
In a statement, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries excoriated the new maps, arguing they target Black representation on Capitol Hill, even comparing them to Jim Crow, and should be ruled unconstitutional.
Manhattan state Sen. Brad Hoylman is considering a run in the newly-drawn NY-10.
North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik and Democratic Capital Region Rep. Paul Tonko are now in the same district.
A bipartisan group brought yet another legal challenge to the lawmaker-drawn district lines in the state Assembly after two attempts to overturn the maps failed last week.
As New York’s primary elections loom, Wall Street billionaire Michael A. Jenkins’ money isn’t going towards the higher-profile race for governor, but to influence several little-noticed contests for state Assembly in New York City.
Mayor Adams heads to Albany today to lobby key Democratic lawmakers on his end of session priorities such as extending mayoral control of the city’s public schools. But Hochul and legislative leaders will be in Buffalo with Biden.
About 10 protesters confronted Adams during a graduation ceremony at Pace University yesterday, three weeks after students began circulating a petition to have his appearance at the event nixed.
Making use of crypto technology’s “blockchain” to store birth certificates, property deeds and other government documents is “the way of the future,” according to Adams.
One of New York City’s fiscal watchdogs reported that while the city’s continued financial recovery supports Adams’ move to increase his spending plan, there are several factors that may “taint” such an approach.
Backers of a federal takeover of the troubled New York City jail system launched a campaign to make their case a day before the Adams administration’s deadline to produce its plan to improve conditions on Rikers Island.
Adams unveiled a new City University of New York bachelor’s degree program in video game design as part of a self-described quest to make the Big Apple a global “center for innovation.”
NYC school superintendents handed in their pink slips last week as part of a citywide administrative shakeup will get another shot at keeping their jobs following community outrage over several of the firings, Schools Chancellor David Banks announced.
A $30 million stairway is part of an overhaul of the bustling Times Square subway station. They replace a stairwell near 43rd St. and Broadway that used to cramp riders into a narrow passage.
After allegations of employee harassment at Clifton Park Town Hall, including an employee alleging that Supervisor Phil Barrett pushed him into an office, three Town Board members are seeking to hire a law firm to investigate.
Three days after he retired as village police chief, Robert Ashe pleaded guilty in Village Court to a misdemeanor of official misconduct, ending a nearly six-month investigation about how he handled confiscated fireworks and police employment records.
The DEC announced that it tracked a wayward moose to a residence in downtown Schenectady, trapped it and returned it to the wild.
As parts of the U.S. face potential electricity shortages this year, power grid operators around the country are moving to keep old coal- and gas-fired power plants running longer and harder.
A state judge struck down a California law requiring companies in the state put female directors on their boards, the second legal setback in as many months for efforts to mandate board diversity.
Miley Cyrus will once again host NBC’s New Year’s Eve broadcast this year, an encore from last year when she rang in 2022 with Pete Davidson, the network announced during a presentation to advertisers.
