Good Thursday morning! Today’s an easy one: Happy Cinco de Mayo!
I know, predictable, but necessary.
This day might mean nothing more to you than margarita specials, but in fact, it does commemorate an historical event – the Mexican victory over Napoleon III’s French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, during the Franco-Mexican War.
The win wasn’t significant from a strategic standpoint, but did provide a symbolic victory for Mexico that helped strengthen the resistance movement. It wasn’t until 1867, thanks partly to military support and political pressure from the U.S. after it was finished with its own Civil War – that France finally withdrew from Mexico.
The day is a minor, regional holiday in Mexico. It’s mainly observed in the state of Puebla, of which the City of Puebla is the capital, with military parades, speeches, and battle reenactments.
Veracruz and Mexico City also observe this day, but it’s really not a big deal in many other parts of Mexico.
Here in the U.S., on the other hand, Cinco de Mayo is sort of a big deal, and celebrates both Mexican culture and heritage. It started gaining popularity in the 1940s – around the same time that the Chicano movement was gaining steam.
Chicano activists further raised awareness of the holiday in the 1960s, identifying with the victory of Indigenous Mexicans over European invaders.
Today, it is marked by parades, music, dancing parties, and festivals – especially in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston – as well as copious drinks, which actually has drawn criticism from some corners.
For the record, though the two dates are often confused, Cinco de Mayor is NOT Mexican Independence Day, which is held on Sept. 16 in observance of when Catholic priest Miguel Hidalgo called for independence from Spain in the “Grito de Dolores” in 1810.
If you are going out to (responsibly) celebrate Cinco de Mayor, there are numerous drink and food specialities available, including at usual suspects like Chipolte, Chili’s and Moe’s.
It’s going to be a decent day for sitting outside and enjoying a taco – or two. Temperatures will be in the low 70s, with partly cloudy skies. No rain in the forecast thus far, though, at least not in the Albany area.
In the headlines…
The U.S. has surpassed 1 million Covid-19 deaths, according to data compiled by NBC News — a once unthinkable scale of loss even for the country with the world’s highest recorded toll from the virus.
Many Americans are resuming their pre-pandemic habits: traveling, rocking out at crowded concerts, doing deadlifts next to strangers at the gym and stocking a standard supply of toilet paper.
The number — equivalent to the population of San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the U.S. — was reached at stunning speed: 27 months after the country confirmed its first case of the virus.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken tested positive for Covid-19, after attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and related events over the weekend.
Blinken, who is fully vaccinated and boosted against the coronavirus, is feeling only “mild” symptoms, the department said. The top U.S. diplomat is not considered a close contact to Biden, it added.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, responded to a man claiming COVID vaccines give people AIDS by telling him “everything you say may be true.”
Several international corporations warned in the last week the drag from China’s Covid controls will hit their entire business.
Covid-19 cases are spiking in South Africa, and public health experts in the United States are following the data closely, waiting to see what it might reveal about how immunity from previous infections behaves over time.
The Long Island mother who was arrested and charged after allegedly giving a COVID-19 vaccine shot to her son’s friend — without the parent’s permission — will avoid jail time after accepting a plea bargain.
The COVID-19 subvariant estimated by New York health officials to be more contagious than the first descendant of the Omicron strain now accounts for up to 70% of all virus in the region that encompasses the Empire State, according to new CDC data.
New York COVID-19 hospitalizations topped 2,000 for the first time since late February this week, rising nearly three-fold in just a month as highly contagious subvariants of omicron trigger pleas for renewed caution from officials locally and nationally.
President Joe Biden sharpened the contrast between his policies and what he derided as an “ultra-MAGA agenda” on the right as he looks to hone his midterm message heading into a high-stakes campaign season.
The revelation of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would overrule Roe v. Wade has caused many Americans to express doubts about whether the justices are guided by the law rather than by their political beliefs.
Democratic and Republican leaders are weighing their next political steps on abortion.
The threat to the landmark Roe decision represents a singular challenge for Biden as he tries to put aside a long history of evident discomfort with the issue of abortion and be a champion of the constitutional right that may soon be erased from the law books.
Canada’s minister of families, children and social development said that Americans are welcome to cross the border for abortions, as the Supreme Court looks set to overturn Roe.
“Don’t think for a second this is where it’s going to stop,” said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, speaking outside of a Planned Parenthood building in Los Angeles, flanked by women wearing pink shirts. “Pay attention, America. They’re coming for you next.”
Former President Obama and his wife Michelle issued a strong condemnation of the potentially overturning of Roe, saying such a ruling would “relegate the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James has revealed that she chose to have an abortion during the early days of her political career.
Pregnant as a newly elected New York City Council member, “I chose to have an abortion,” James told protesters who gathered in Manhattan, adding: “I walked proudly into Planned Parenthood, and I make no apologies to anyone.”
The Federal Reserve approved its biggest interest rate increase since 2000, detailing a plan to shrink its massive bond holdings and signaling that it will continue working to cool the economy as it tries to tamp down the fastest price increases in four decades.
Stocks on Wall Street had their best day since 2020, after Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said that central bankers weren’t considering exceptionally large increases in interest rates.
Oil giant Shell reported its highest quarterly profit since 2008 on soaring commodity prices, fueling calls for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas companies to help U.K. households with spiraling energy bills.
Biden tried to cast his administration as spending hawks, touting sizable reductions in the federal deficit this fiscal year as a key departure from what he characterized as rampant spending by his Republican predecessor.
Besides the quarterly reduction in the national debt, the Treasury Department estimates this fiscal year’s budget deficit will decline $1.5 trillion. That decrease marks an improvement from initial forecasts and would likely put the annual deficit below $1.3 trillion.
Temporary changes to the troubled Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program have resulted in more than 110,000 people with student debt getting around $6.8 billion in relief.
Biden hailed Team USA for bringing a bit of unity to a pandemic-weary nation as he hosted a White House celebration with about 600 athletes from this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing and the coronavirus-delayed Summer Games held in 2021 in Tokyo.
Eight attorneys general, including those of New York, Illinois and Washington state, wrote a letter to Biden, requesting that he forgive federal student debt for every borrower.
Ukrainian forces are ousting Russian troops from a string of villages that were used to strike the country’s second most-populous city, Kharkiv, regaining strategic terrain that could blunt Russia’s attempt to conquer the eastern Donbas region.
In the latest update from the Ukrainian military, its spokesman said Russian forces “are focusing their efforts on blocking and trying to destroy Ukrainians units in the Azovstal” steelworks where soldiers and civilians have been holed up for up to two months.
Russian incursions have occurred for two days and “there are heavy, bloody battles,” Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Ukrainian Azov regiment, said in a video posted after the Kremlin denied its forces were trying to storm the plant.
The United States has provided intelligence about Russian units that has allowed Ukrainians to target and kill many of the Russian generals who have died in action in the Ukraine war, according to senior American officials.
Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo could still play spoiler if he runs as an independent in this year’s governor’s race, according to a new poll released yesterday.
The poll shows Hochul is the preference of 45% of likely Democratic primary voters. About 12% picked Congressman Tom Suozzi, 7% selected NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and 22% remained undecided.
Another new poll suggests embattled Hochul is the most popular public official in the five boroughs – with higher approval ratings than local officials like Mayor Eric Adams.
Hochul’s selection of Rep. Antonio Delgado to replace her indicted former lieutenant governor and running mate could cost national Democrats a seat in their already razor-thin majority in the House of Representatives.
Working Families Party lieutenant governor candidate Ana María Archila received some key endorsements from fellow Democrats after Hochul announced her selection of Delgado as her new running mate.
Endorsing Archila were Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, Senate Health Committee Chairman Gustavo Rivera and Sen. James Sanders.
Hochul was scheduled to attend a campaign fundraiser in Massachusetts hosted by a Boston construction magnate, John Fish, who won a lucrative contract under Cuomo that raised questions for a rival bidder. The event was abruptly cancelled.
The New York state comptroller’s office released its analysis of the recently enacted state budget. According to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the big question is whether the state can sustain this record-setting spending from year to year.
In his first months in office, Mayor Eric Adams could oversee rent increases of up to 9 percent for the city’s roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments.
An upcoming vote of the city’s Rent Guidelines Board has tenants and housing advocates jittery that the higher payments made to landlords will be financially unsustainable for renters already struggling to make ends meet.
Support among New Yorkers for Adams’s handling of crime, one of his central campaign issues, has declined in recent weeks, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published yesterday.
The new poll found that 37 percent of city residents approved of Adams’s performance on crime, compared to 54 percent who disapproved, a stark contrast from the 49 percent who approved and 35 percent who disapproved in a February survey.
The poll also found that the vast majority of New Yorkers want more cops in the subways and do not feel safe riding the trains at night.
Crime was named as the most urgent issue facing New York City by 49% of voters polled. The city has experienced a spike in serious crimes since Adams took office in January.
Moderate Democratic leaders such as Adams and Hochul are pushing for a more robust return to the office that they say is crucial for the city’s economic recovery, while Democrats to their left argue they should accept that many workers prefer to be remote.
A 16-year-old Bronx girl walking to school was fatally struck by a beverage delivery truck driver. The city is on pace to see more traffic deaths in 2022 than any calendar year since 2014, when “Vision Zero” launched with the goal of reducing fatal car crashes.
In many of the dozens of homeless encampments that the police and sanitation crews have cleared around the city, tents reappear after a day or two. But in and around Tompkins Square Park, the refusal to be evicted has taken on an explicitly political tone.
Adams’ encampment sweeps are prompting an average of less than one homeless New Yorker per day to enter the city’s shelter system, new figures released by City Hall reveal.
Comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked onstage by a man armed with a replica handgun that contained a knife blade during a show in Los Angeles Tuesday night, according to law enforcement and footage from the event.
Adams said he was with Chappelle later in the night after the comedian was tackled onstage, calling the attack “horrific” but added that Chappelle was handling it in his typical manner.
A new bill expected to be introduced today at the City Council would jack up fines for motorists responsible for excessive honking, loud exhausts and using “illegal sound-producing devices.”
Nathaniel Glover, AKA Kidd Creole, a member of the pioneering hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for killing a homeless man in 2017.
Five New York City employee pension groups that own stock in Activision Blizzard are suing the company, saying it failed to turn over financial records as the groups try to investigate whether Activision secured a fair price in its planned sale to Microsoft.
An estimated 174,000 New Yorkers should be getting restitution of about $30 from TurboTax, which charged people to file federal tax returns that should have been done for free.
A federal judge denied Democrats a request for an emergency injunction to have New York use Democratic-drawn district lines for congressional elections. Then the judge proceeded to relentlessly mock every aspect of their request.
Activist Gary Greenberg filed a motion in state Supreme Court in Steuben County this week seeking to delay all of New York’s primary elections until at least August and to reopen the ballot-petition process, including for potential new candidates.
The state Office of General Services announced that Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo will headline the July 13 performance of the 2022 Summer at the Plaza’s Capital Concert Series Presented by Miller Lite and DeCrescente Distributing Company.
Albany International Airport, among others across the country, will require all travelers to have a federally approved Real ID card, such as an enhanced New York state driver’s license, to board commercial flights starting a year from now after May 3, 2023.
The Sidney Albert Albany Jewish Community Center was evacuated yesterday morning after the facility received a bomb threat – a scene that has played out at the facility multiple times in the last five years.
After being ordered to close by the city of Saratoga Springs and having its liquor license suspended by the State Liquor Authority, the bar and nightclub Gaffney’s said it wanted to work with officials with an eye toward reopening.
A federal judge is set to accept a plea deal in the civil rights trial against ex-Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd.
Chauvin will be sentenced to 20 to 25 years behind bars, in addition to time imposed in his prior convictions related to Floyd’s street corner murder. He had previously pleaded guilty to the federal charges in December 2021.
Kim Kardashian, 41, went to far greater lengths to channel Marilyn Monroe at the Met Gala than just three weeks of “starving” herself. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! also gifted the SKIMS founder a lock of Monroe’s hair.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s class 2022 includes first-time nominees Eminem, Duran Duran, Lionel Richie, Carly Simon and country singer Dolly Parton — who originally asked in March that her name be removed from consideration.
