Good morning and welcome to Wednesday!
Yesterday was Teacher Appreciation Day, which began in 1953 when former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt proposed that Congress set aside a day to acknowledge the work of educators.
Maybe you thought I overlooked it. (The Google Doodle, sure didn’t). BUT, actually, this entire WEEK – Monday, May 2 through Friday, May – 6 is dedicated to teachers! So I’m not actually late whatsoever. (No detention or extra homework or lines on the proverbial chalkboard here!)
This week has been designated as such by the National PTA since 1984. There are a ton of freebies and specials and giveaways at a wide variety of stores and restaurants – really, too many of them for me to list out here, but a few of them include: Applebee’s, Sonic, Buffalo Wild Wings, Potbelly, and Texas de Brazil.
It has been a rough couple of years for teachers – I mean, for all of us, really, but especially for teachers, who had to turn on a dime to figure out how to do their jobs remotely while still engaging other people’s kids and (if they have them) caring for their own, too.
And that has been exacerbated by the fact that the country has been going through a teacher shortage for some time now.
In hopes of attracting more people into the profession, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona is calling for states to spend more money, recruit more and establish better teacher training programs.
According to the U.S.. Labor Department, 143,000 education sector workers quit their jobs just in December 2021. Substitutes are hard to come by, with some schools asking parents or even college students to step in. And in some cases, the situation has gotten so bad that National Guard members are filling the classroom gap.
This is occurring as America’s kids need teachers and role models more than ever, with a veritable pandemic of mental health issues and other challenges caused by the pandemic resulting in an increase of bad behavior among students returning to in-person leaning.
You think you forgot how to interact in the real world, and wear adult clothes and be civil to your colleagues? Think how kids who are navigating adolescence and death and loss all at the same time feel.
It doesn’t help matters that teachers don’t get paid remotely what they’re worth, on average. The average public school teacher salary for the 2019-2020 academic year was $63,645, according to the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
Of course, that also depends on what state you happen to be teaching in. New York actually has the highest average teacher salaries ($87,543), and spends $24,040, on average, per student. (By contrast, the lowest is Mississippi, which pays $45,192, on average, and spends $8,935 per pupil).
All the freebies and discounts in the world can’t make up for the lack of appreciation we tend to show our hard-working educators. And yes, I know there are bad apples out there, please do not lecture me. Still, if you know a teacher – or better yet, if you ARE a teacher – take some time out to thank them (or yourself) and do something nice.
We are in for another gray day with rain in the forecast. Temperatures will be on the cooler side, reaching into the high 50s.
In the headlines…
The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that a leaked draft ruling to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision was authentic but not final, even as the disclosure triggered political upheaval with potentially broad electoral and legal consequences.
Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation into the leak, which he called an “egregious breach of trust”.
In a statement, the Court said the 67-page draft decision by Justice Samuel Alito, “does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.”
President Joe Biden said that if the draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito suggesting the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade holds, it would represent a “radical” and “fundamental” shift in the rule of law.
Biden told reporters he hoped the draft wouldn’t be finalized by justices, contending it reflects a “fundamental shift in American jurisprudence” that threatens “other basic rights” like access to birth control and marriage.
The leak put a spotlight on Politico, an organization that has reshaped coverage of Washington with its blanket reporting on all things politics since it was founded 15 years ago.
The leaked opinion has set off a wave of conjecture that the justices could also roll back the right to same-sex marriage, erasing decades of activism by the LGBTQ community.
“As we’ve warned, SCOTUS isn’t just coming for abortion — they’re coming for the right to privacy Roe rests on which includes gay marriage + civil rights,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.
In the aftermath of a Roe reversal, about half of states would be likely to ban abortion or limit it heavily.
An NBC News analysis of Center for Reproductive Rights data found that 23 states would institute bans, with trigger laws on the books in 13 of them.
The UN secretary-general believes that women’s rights are “fundamental” to pursuing gender equality, according to a spokesman who was speaking about the U.N. chief’s response to the possible overturning of Roe v. Wade.
People on both sides of the abortion divide have been expecting the Court this summer to reverse the landmark Roe decision. But many said the draft opinion was still stunning, forcing them to reckon with the reality the nation is likely to enter soon.
More than a thousand demonstrators gathered at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan yesterday evening to protest the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning Roe, which has guaranteed the right to abortion for nearly half a century.
In the hours following the leak of the draft majority opinion that would overturn Roe, people across the country and the ideological divide mobilized to make themselves heard.
GOP senators met behind closed doors and reportedly lamented how the unprecedented breach of the draft opinion could damage the integrity of the court and mused about how the printer of the uploaded draft opinion could possibly be identified.
The leak has reignited the abortion issue across the New York congressional campaign trail, with Democratic candidate Max Rose planning to confront GOP incumbent Nicole Malliotakis outside her Staten Island office today.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins vowed to take action in the coming weeks to strengthen abortion rights in the Empire State.
“Everything has to be on the table,” Stewart-Cousins said, adding that she is not ruling out the pursuit of a state constitutional amendment to solidify the Reproductive Health Act passed in 2019, which codified the right to an abortion.
Pope Francis said that NATO “barking” at Russia’s door may have led to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — and said he has offered to meet the Russian president in Moscow.
Biden visited the Lockheed Martin Corp. plant in Troy, Ala., where the defense company is hunting for workers in the tightest labor market in 50 years to assemble Javelin antitank missiles for Ukraine.
Top Pentagon leaders warned Congress that Russia’s military is learning from its mistakes as the war shifts into a new phase, which will affect how the U.S. supports Ukraine.
Nearly 10 weeks into the war and with its troops making only marginal gains in Ukraine’s east, Russia is focused on cementing both military and political control over the territory it has taken so far.
Global companies have a critical role to play in isolating Russia and helping Ukraine restore its economy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said while addressing The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London.
The United Kingdom is sending a military support package worth £300 million to Ukraine. The package will include electronic warfare equipment, a counter-battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment, heavy-lift supply drones and night vision devices.
The European Union is proposing a ban on imports of Russian crude oil within six months and on refined oil products from the country by year-end, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The first civilians fleeing the besieged steel plant that has been Mariupol’s last holdout have reached relative safety in a Ukrainian-controlled city.
Biden is considering limiting his program to relieve student debt to Americans earning less than $125,000, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.
Biden has previously floated a figure of $10,000 per borrower, significantly lower than the $50,000-per-borrower Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and some progressive leaders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have called for.
Job openings and the number of times workers quit reached the highest levels on record in March, as a shortage of available workers continued to pressure the U.S. labor market.
Elon Musk, who has agreed to take Twitter private in a $44 billion deal, has told potential investors he could return the social-media company to public ownership after just a few years.
J.D. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, won Ohio’s Republican primary for U.S. Senate in a victory that demonstrated former President Donald Trump’s influence over GOP voters.
Vance, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author, beat a crowded field with the help of a Trump endorsement. He will face Representative Tim Ryan, a Democrat, in November.
ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reportedly tested positive for COVID-19 two days after he spoke on stage at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and shook hands with Biden.
Karl tested positive roughly 48 hours after the Saturday dinner. He sat next to Kardashian, 41, and one seat away from her boyfriend Pete Davidson, 28.
A handful of coronavirus cases have emerged among people who attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner over the weekend, the president of the correspondents’ association said.
Reporters and staffers from CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, Politico, and other participating news organizations have tested positive for the virus.
Beijing has closed around 10% of the stations in its vast subway system as an additional measure against the spread of coronavirus.
Pfizer posted better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, boosted by sales of its COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral Paxlovid.
Severe Covid cases may cause cognitive impairment equivalent to aging 20 years and losing 10 IQ points, according to a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.
To block infections entirely, scientists want to deliver inoculations to the site where the virus first makes contact: the nose.
Even with spotty reporting, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising again in the United States. The culprit this time appears to be a spinoff of Omicron’s BA.2 subvariant called BA.2.12.1, which was first flagged by New York state health officials in April.
New York State Public Health officials warned that the new variants are thought to have a 23%–27% growth advantage over BA.2, which itself had an estimated 30% growth advantage over the original Omicron.
Gov. Kathy Hochul selected Rep. Antonio Delgado as her new lieutenant governor, elevating a fellow moderate from outside New York City to be her second-in-command and running mate in June’s Democratic primary.
Now, Delgado — a 45-year-old Harvard Law School grad, former Rhodes scholar and lawyer– will serve as Hochul’s running mate in the June 28 Democratic primary after ex-LG Brian Benjamin’s indictment for allegedly participating in a campaign finance scam.
Delgado, 45, who has represented the central Hudson Valley in Congress since 2019, has proved he can win hotly contested elections and raise large sums of money. A Black rising political star, he will also help Hochul diversify her ticket.
Delgado was among a group of New York Democrats in Congress calling for Cuomo to step down last year in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and his handling of Covid-19 deaths at state nursing homes.
Delgado’s decision to depart Congress further reduces the Democrats’ steadily shrinking majority in D.C.
Delgado was set to face Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro in an election year that is expected to favor the GOP given current polling and the historical trend for parties in power. Delgado flipped the seat in 2018, unseating GOP Rep. John Faso.
Hochul called Delgado “a battle-tested campaigner who has the experience to serve New Yorkers and the work ethic to get our party’s message out to voters, unite communities, and lift up Democratic candidates statewide.”
“We share a belief in working together to get things done for New Yorkers, and (Delgado) has an incredible record of doing just that in Congress,” she added. “With (him) by my side serving as Lieutenant Governor, we will both make history, and make a difference.”
Even some of Hochul’s key supporters are against her administration’s “Green New Deal”-inspired plan that would bar new natural-gas service to existing and newly constructed buildings beginning in 2024 and ban gas appliances entirely by 2030.
Unions representing workers at National Grid protested at the Brooklyn headquarters of the State Climate Council, which is pushing the idea that the fight against climate change means New Yorkers’ gas stoves should be replaced with an electric model.
When Mayor Eric Adams showed up on the red carpet for his first Met Gala on Monday, it wasn’t only his statement tuxedo that made a splash — it was his elegant date, longtime girlfriend Tracey Collins, 53.
Adams named an ex-City Councilman, Republican Eric Ulrich, as his Buildings Commissioner and an ally of disgraced state lawmaker Hiram Monserrate, Anthony Miranda, to be the Big Apple’s next sheriff.
Adams’ office made out the best among the Big Apple’s more than two dozen major city agencies, scoring a 25 percent bump in his recently unveiled $99.7 billion city budget proposal, a Post analysis found.
While the mayor and the Council hammer out a budget before the June 30 deadline, the rapidly rising rate of inflation threatens to upend their assumptions about everything from their cost of borrowing money to how much they’ll put in pension funds.
New York City has eliminated the regulations it had tailored to govern the auction industry, an abrupt reversal in policy that is part of a sweeping effort to improve conditions for businesses after the economic damage brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
Video feeds from security cameras at a trio of Brooklyn subway stations failed as workers tried to fix problems with their hardware less than 24 hours before a crazed gunman lit up a train full of straphangers last month, MTA officials say.
NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine will no longer consider Dr. David Sabatini, a biologist facing accusations of sexual harassment, for a faculty position after news that he was in the running prompted a backlash among students and faculty members last week.
Norman Y. Mineta, who as a boy was interned with his family and thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II, then rose in government to become a 10-term Democratic congressman and a cabinet official under two presidents died at 90.
Families of the victims of the 2018 limo crash in Schoharie and others who lost loved ones in wrongful death cases were at the state Capitol calling for lawmakers to pass a bill that would allow them to sue over the loss of affection and companionship.
Nearly a dozen towns in Schoharie County are suing New York state over new rules governing how solar farms are taxed.
Cohoes’ proposed 8,000-panel floating solar array on its reservoir to generate electricity to power city buildings received another financial boost when National Grid donated $750,000 toward the $5.9 million first of its kind in the nation demonstration project.
Expanded sidewalk dining at Albany restaurants, a pandemic-era emergency provision that proved popular with businesses and the public, was made permanent by the Common Council on April 18 in an unanimous vote.
GlobalFoundries has entered into a $117 million agreement with the U.S. Department of Defense to supply semiconductor chips for the country’s national security systems.
Single-day tickets for reserved seats at the Saratoga Race Course meet from July 14 to Sept. 5 will go on sale at 10 a.m. today.
Starbucks interim CEO Howard Schultz announced new pay increases and benefits for employees but unionizing stores will be excluded from the changes.
The Seattle-based coffee giant said it would invest roughly $200 million in stores and employees, including higher hourly pay, fixing cafe equipment, increased training, perks for highly skilled baristas and an app for better workplace communication.
A wild fox sneaked into the flamingo habitat at the National Zoo and killed 25 American flamingos, the Washington, D.C., zoo announced.
