Good Tuesday morning.
It was pointed out – rightly so – that I failed to mention the fact that yesterday was the 78th anniversary of D-Day, the day on which we remember a key date in WWII and the biggest sea invasion in history that took place on the beaches in Normandy, France.
The landings occurred on June 6,1944 after five years of war with Nazi Germany as part of “Operation Overlord.”
General Dwight D. Eisenhower was supreme commander of the operation, which ultimately involved the coordinated efforts of 12 nations.
Allied troops landed on the beaches code-named Omaha, Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried by 7,000 boats. On that single day, 4,414 Allied soldiers confirmed dead – 2,501 of them Americans – and more than 5,000 were wounded.
German casualties have been estimated at between 4,000 and 9,000 men.
It was an enormous price to pay. But British, Canadian, and American forces managed to take key points on the coast of Nazi-occupied France, signaling a beginning to the end of war in Europe.
Approximately 70 million people fought in WWII. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, about 240,000 U.S. World War II veterans were still living as of September 2021, though the number is quickly declining.
Lawrence Brooks, a World War II veteran believed to be the oldest man in the U.S., died in New Orleans this past April at the age of 112.
It is unusual for me to overlook D-Day. I’m usually fairly well attuned to date significant to veterans since my step-dad is a Vietnam Vet who is very active in that community. So please accept my sincere apologies for this oversight. Mea culpa.
As for today, we go from the somber and tragic to the sublime – it’s national Chocolate Ice Cream Day, which was likely started by some marketing-canny manufacturer who wanted to encourage people to eat more of this sweet treat.
Though why anyone would need any convincing is beyond me. If I still ate ice cream, which, sadly, no longer agrees with me terribly well, I would choose chocolate every time. Oh, and FWIW, 17 percent of American adults agreed with me as of 2020. So there.
According to no less an authority than the late former President Ronald Reagan, July is National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of that month is National Ice Cream Day.
But back to chocolate, which is the flavor of the hour, so to speak. It was actually created BEFORE vanilla, thank you very much, and was even considered a medical remedy for a number of conditions in the 1700s – including gout and scurvy.
Yes, there’s actually a trace of Vitamin C in chocolate, along with E and D. It also contains iron, phosphorus and copper, and if it’s made with milk – as traditional ice cream tends to be – it also contains high-quality protein, potassium, magnesium and calcium.
In moderation, as with anything, chocolate ice cream is indeed good for you. So eat up! It will be the perfect day for cold, sweet treats, with temperatures in the low 80s and partly cloudy skies. There might be a shower or two developing in the afternoon, but don’t let that get in the way of your ice cream enjoyment.
In the headlines…
President Biden used emergency authority in a bid to resolve a supply logjam that threatened the solar power industry, but the action drew complaints from U.S. manufacturers who say it will impede their efforts to build domestic production.
Biden authorized the Energy Department to use the DPA to speed up domestic manufacturing of solar panel components, energy-efficient heat pumps, building insulation, electric transformers needed for the grid and equipment like electrolyzers and fuel cells.
This comes amid complaints from the industry that the solar sector is being slowed by supply chain problems due to a Commerce Department inquiry into possible trade violations involving Chinese products.
The nation’s largest unions are mobilizing a last-ditch effort to convince Biden to go big on student loan forgiveness as the White House weighs a final decision on canceling debt.
Biden is likely to decide later this summer whether to partially forgive student-loan debt for millions of borrowers, after the president said more than a month ago that he would weigh in on the issue in the next couple of weeks.
Biden will hold a meeting with regional governments to sign a declaration that aims to address migration at the Summit of the Americans.
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that he is skipping this week’s Ninth Summit of the Americas, a blow to Biden as he tries to unite the region to address migration.
The Biden administration confirmed that Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have not been invited to the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas, a widely expected decision that led Mexico’s president to boycott the gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders.
Up to 15,000 migrants may soon join a massive caravan that set off from southern Mexico toward the US border yesterday, with its members calling on Biden to repeal the Title 42 health policy by the time they reach the frontier.
Biden views any legislation Congress might pass to address gun violence as better than no legislation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
Actor and Uvalde native Matthew McConaughey met last night with lawmakers amid their ongoing discussions on gun control following the recent string of mass shootings in the U.S.
In a new op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman, McConaughey, called for gun responsibility laws — which are, crucial to his point, not gun control laws — as a way to not infringe on the Second Amendment while making life in America a little safer.
Two people have been arrested in connection with a bloody mass shooting that left three dead and at least 11 injured in Philadelphia over the weekend.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention raised its monkeypox alert level and recommended travelers wear masks while cautioning that it was not on the same level of concern as COVID-19.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, the latest member of President Biden’s cabinet to be infected.
More than 29,000 people are hospitalized with Covid-19 across the country, an increase of 16 percent over the past two weeks, and more than 3,000 of those patients are in intensive care. But in the Northeast, hospitalizations are declining.
Don’t get too comfortable: In 2020 and 2021, New York saw case counts flatten out during the summer months, only to have the coronavirus mutate and resurface again in the fall.
Thousands of unvaccinated state workers will no longer be required to submit to weekly COVID-19 testing beginning today, according to a directive issued late last week by the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations.
Russia is facing mounting criticism that it is holding hostage millions of tons of Ukrainian wheat, a vital food supply, for political gain amid a worsening hunger crisis.
Russia has begun turning over the bodies of Ukrainian fighters killed at the Azovstal steelworks, the fortress-like plant in the destroyed city of Mariupol where their last-ditch stand became a symbol of resistance against Moscow’s invasion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the front lines of the fighting in the eastern Luhansk region over the weekend, miles from where a Russian general was killed, highlighting the shifting military situation in the area.
Fiji has handed over to the United States a $325 million superyacht that American investigators say is owned by a Russian billionaire on a U.S. sanctions list, the island nation’s top prosecutor said.
Enrique Tarrio, an ex-Proud Boys leader, and four other former members of the far-right group were indicted on seditious conspiracy charges related to the Jan. 6, attack on the U.S. Capitol, marking an escalation in the Justice Department’s probe.
The sedition charges came in an amended indictment. The men had already been charged in an earlier indictment filed in March with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 presidential election.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson survived a tense vote of no confidence, fending off a mutiny that nevertheless leaves him reeling and presages a volatile period in British politics, as he fights to stay in power and lead a divided Conservative Party.
Across the city and state, authorities are bracing for a ruling, expected from the United States Supreme Court this month, which could strike down a century-old New York State law that places strict limits on the carrying of handguns.
Mayor Eric Adams painted a dire portrait of how the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gun rights could exacerbate shooting crimes in New York City and the ability of the NYPD to police gun owners.
With the Supreme Court poised to overturn all or part of New York’s right-to-carry law, Adams is devising a plan to get lawmakers to pass federal, state and local laws to limit as much as possible the places where gun owners can bring their weapons.
Tonight is the first of two debates in which Gov. Kathy Hochul will face off against her Democratic primary rivals, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi.
A package of gun reform laws that include the licensing of semi-automatic rifles, a ban on body armor and an expansion of the state’s “red flag” provision was given final approval by Hochul.
Hochul called the package of gun control bills passed by the state Legislature “nation-leading.”
“This is a crisis, the scale of which requires a national response at the federal level and from each and every state. But here in New York, we don’t wait; we lead,” Hochul said. “Today is the start, and it’s not the end. Thoughts and prayers won’t fix this, but taking strong action will.”
The bulk of the laws will go into effect in 30 days, while the new age for purchasing rifles – rising from 18 to 21 for semiautomatic weapons – will go into effect in 90 days.
New Yorkers also face stiffer barriers to buying bulletproof vests and body armor like the ones that reportedly protected the Buffalo shooter during the rampage from a bullet fired by a heroic security guard.
A coalition of business organizations in New York called for federal action on gun reform legislation following a string of mass shootings across the country.
Hochul’s office kept no records documenting her conversations in late December with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as her administration was negotiating a deal to publicly subsidize a new stadium for the privately owned Buffalo Bills.
State lawmakers in New York concluded the six-month legislative session last week after passing more than 1,000 bills in both chambers of the Legislature — a rate of production that easily surpasses the last 25 years in Albany.
Adams lashed out at prosecutors and judges for cutting loose suspected shooters to unleash more gunfire on the Big Apple’s streets — saying the “bad guys no longer take them seriously.”
Adams revealed that a relative called him over the weekend to say she overheard some men plotting a shooting — and that both then alerted 911, prompting cops to rush to the scene.
The NYPD responded to Pier 79 near W. 39th St. and 12th Ave. in Hell’s Kitchen about 3 p.m. on Sunday. There was no immediate arrest, but detectives are still investigating the incident.
Adams, who made crimefighting the centerpiece of his campaign last year, linked a modest improvement in shooting rates over the last two months to his decision to reintroduce a modified version of the NYPD’s plainclothes units.
The city’s partnership with Evolv, a Massachusetts-based gun detection company, is raising hackles with one of its top competitors, whose honcho finds it “troubling” that the Adams administration didn’t contact his company with a similar offer.
Adams has made improving reading instruction across the nation’s largest school system one of his major education goals. In doing so, he is disbanding a key literacy program launched under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, raising questions about the strategy.
The detainees at Rikers Island have lost their liberty, but most still have the right to vote — so the city should open polling sites behind bars, advocates wrote.
An MTA worker claims he’s been demoted, subjected to random drug testing and forced to attend drug counseling four times a week — because he legally uses medicinal marijuana.
A 52-year-old female straphanger suffered multiple injuries when a man randomly shoved her onto subway tracks in The Bronx over the weekend, according to the MTA and transit sources.
Four New York charter schools and networks filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Education Monday alleging nearly $1 million in grant money was “stripped” from their classrooms.
Dr. Kevin M. Cahill, a close friend and senior adviser to Gov. Hugh Carey in the 1970s, helped shape the state’s health agencies and was considered the administration’s most influential voice on health policy. He is being accused of sexual assault.
Long Island’s newest pot farmer is a 91-year-old former Suffolk assemblyman who says he’s never used the stuff.
State officials had to urgently send out a message to school districts during a test yesterday, about an error on the eighth-grade state Science assessment.
The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the small Delaware County school district of Andes and its superintendent after receiving a complaint from a parent.
Chef Michael LoPorto was known for holding court outside his Fourth Street restaurant LoPorto Ristorante Caffe before he died at Albany Medical Center Hospital on Feb. 24. Troy will name that section of the street after him.
Elon Musk threatened to terminate his deal to buy Twitter in a letter accusing the company of not complying with his request for data on the number of spam and fake accounts on the social-media platform.
The Carolina Panthers have hired the NFL’s first openly transgender cheerleader.
