Good Wednesday morning. Another short week, which means we’re speeding right along to the weekend – already more than halfway there, depending on what time you’re reading this.
Did you know that less than 3 percent of the earth is covered by rainforest?
That seems like a pittance, considering the outsized role these ecologic powerhouses play in safeguarding human health – literally making it possible for us to breathe safely – and playing host to a dizzying array of flora and fauna.
Before we go any further, it might be helpful to revisit the definition of a rainforest.
They’re characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes (a plant that grows on another plant, but isn’t parasitic) and lianas (a woody vine that is rooted in the soil and uses trees as support) and the absence of wildfire.
Rainforests are, generally speaking, either tropical or temperate, though there are a few deviations from that. They are the oldest living ecosystems on the planet, and some have survived in their present form for at least 70 million years.
With no help from the human race, I might add. No, we are a direct threat to the rainforest, destroying it at a rate of one and a half hectares per second and 78 million hectares a year. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest alone has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and the pace of that destruction is accelerating.
Needless to say, the impact on the planet if the rainforest disappeared entirely would be devastating – more greenhouses gases, more flooding (as if that’s not happening at an alarming rate now), loss of biodiversity and all the untapped medical discoveries that we have yet to discover, and more.
Today is World Rainforest Day, which was created in 2017 by the Rainforest Partnership to raise awareness about this incredibly important resource and how it is crying out for protection. The organization works with indigenous peoples to try to restore and regenerate the rainforest at the grassroots (vineroots?) level.
As the WRD website so aptly puts it: “World Rainforest Day recognizes standing, healthy forests as one of the most powerful and cost-effective climate change mitigation tools we have — and creates a global movement to protect and restore them.”
Locally, we’ve got another cloud day on tap, with temperatures continuing to be on the cool side – in the low 70s – and a chance of a stray shower or two.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visited a Washington vaccination clinic where children under the age of 5 are being immunized against Covid-19 – part of the first cohort of young kids immunized against the virus following theCDC director’s sign-off.
“The United States is now the first country in the world to offer safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as six months old,” Biden said at the White House.
A group of prominent doctors and educators has asked the Biden administration to lift pandemic-related measures that could be causing children to miss school and other activities.
“We strongly urge you to revise the CDC’s COVID-19 guidelines with regard to testing, isolation, and vaccine recommendations for children to ensure that public health policies are not doing more harm than good,” says a letter sent by Urgency of Normal.
Biden ratcheted up his public back-and-forth with the US oil and gas industry as he looks to spread around the blame for the nation’s soaring gas prices.
In a pointed back and forth, the head of Chevron complained that Biden has vilified energy firms at a time when gasoline prices are at near record levels and the president responded that the oil company CEO was being “mildly sensitive.”
Biden signed two bipartisan bills into law aimed at enhancing federal, state and local governments’ cybersecurity measures.
The Senate cleared the first hurdle to passing a bipartisan measure aimed at keeping firearms out of the hands of dangerous people, agreeing to take up a compromise bill whose enactment would break a yearslong stalemate to address gun violence.
Senators easily cleared the simple majority threshold required to advance the package, 64-34; final passage will need at least 60 votes. Debate on the proposed legislation is expected to continue through the week.
Student-led organization March for Our Lives praised the Senate bipartisan gun safety bill, saying the new bill is “what progress looks like.”
The head of the Texas State Police offered a pointed and emphatic rebuke of the police response to a shooting last month at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, calling it “an abject failure” that ran counter to decades of training.
Officers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last month had nothing barring them from entering a dual classroom where a shooter was actively gunning down students and teachers, the chief of the Texas Department of Public Safety said.
Organizers of “Moechella” expressed their condolences over the deadly shooting that occurred in Washington, D.C. over the Juneteenth weekend festivities.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack directly tied Donald Trump to a scheme to put forward fake slates of pro-Trump electors and presented fresh details on how the former president sought to invalidate his 2020 defeat in states nationwide.
Election official after election official testified to the House Jan. 6 committee in searing, emotional detail how Trump and his aides unleashed violent threats and vengeance on them for refusing to cave to his pressure to overturn the election in his favor.
Republican voters in Alabama selected Katie Britt as their nominee for Senate in a runoff primary election, after she received Trump’s endorsement.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she thought the Federal Reserve’s efforts to combat inflation could be effective, without significantly increasing the unemployment rate.
U.S. stocks rallied off their worst week since March 2020, offering investors a reprieve from a recent stretch of whipsaw trading that had sent stocks and cryptocurrencies falling.
The four Republican candidates for governor of New York made their closing pitch to voters last night, voicing devotion to President Trump and his policies, disdain for gun control and abortion, and worries about crime and immigration.
The third and final gubernatorial debate devolved into a round of finger-pointing over conservative cred as putative frontrunner Rep. Lee Zeldin insisted he was the best choice to defeat Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul this fall.
Zeldin was the object of numerous attacks from his opponents during the debate.
Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and Zeldin clashed over secretive flights bringing migrants from the southern border.
Zeldin added some extra flavor to the final debate of the gubernatorial campaign when he dismissed Andrew Giuliani as a former “Chick-Fil-A” runner at the White House outranked by the Easter Egg Bunny.”
Bad blood is brewing between Rep. Elise Stefanik and the head of her home-state GOP. And the hotter it runs, the more it threatens to monopolize a Republican congressional primary in her backyard.
WNY GOP House candidate Carl Paladino told a radio host in late 2016 that Black Americans were kept “dumb and hungry” so they could be conditioned to only vote for the Democratic Party, saying, “You can’t teach them differently.”
Hochul’s decision to tap Antonio Delgado as her replacement lieutenant governor could cost Democrats a House seat, according to a new poll that shows Republican Marc Molinaro in the lead for NY-19.
Hochul appears to be cruising to a likely win in next week’s primary, but allies worry that she is not doing enough to excite voters for November.
The governor has sometimes floated above the fray as two long-shot challengers — Rep. Tom Suozzi and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — rip her over rising crime and support she received from the National Rifle Association a decade ago.
The Hochul campaign has declared a week prior to the Democrat gubernatorial primary that her “imminent … victory was no glide path.”
A New York City panel that regulates the rents for roughly one million rent-stabilized apartments approved the highest increases in almost a decade yesterday, after property owners said they were being pinched by taxes and rising expenses.
At a raucous meeting at Cooper Union in Manhattan, the Rent Guidelines Board voted 5 to 4 to raise rents on one-year leases by 3.25 percent in rent-stabilized homes, and on two-year leases by 5 percent.
Mayor Eric Adams promised to review regulations after press reports that bureaucratic snafus and union rules are exacerbating the Big Apple’s lifeguard shortage, which has already limited operations at city-run outdoor pools.
NYPD officers have begun patrolling city subway lines solo, Adams said, crowing that he conducted the work himself years ago when he was a young transit cop.
The solo patrols are underway over the objections from the city’s largest police union.
With crime still crushing the city, Adams has kicked off the start of summer with a number of new initiatives to make the subways and streets safer.
Adams joked that his efforts to get healthier foods into New Yorkers’ diets is “political suicide” because city residents are so enamored with eating junk food.
The mayor defended public school lunches after many students spoke out about the less-than-appetizing meals — claiming those complaining just aren’t used to “healthy” food.
NY1 “Inside City Hall” host Errol Louis questioned in a New York magazine op-ed whether Adams is all talk and failing to fulfill his promises to fix New York City.
City officials crushed nearly 100 dirt bikes yesterday, with Adams saying he’s determined to eradicate the menacing vehicles from local streets.
The cab that barreled into a Manhattan building Monday and left six people injured had racked up 18 road violations since late 2019, including for speeding in school zones and running red lights, records show.
New York City’s coronavirus alert level has ticked down to “medium” following a drop in known infections and hospitalizations — but a key variable is left out of that picture since the city doesn’t have a system for tracking at-home test results.
Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio personally ordered the Sheriff’s Department to crack down on a Staten Island pub that was flouting COVID protocols during the height of the debate over pandemic restrictions, new court papers reveal.
Broadway theaters will be allowed to drop their mask mandates starting July 1, the Broadway League announced. The new policy is described as “mask optional,” and will be re-evaluated monthly.
A Tony-winning, gender-swapped, Sondheim-blessed revival of “Company” will end its Broadway run on July 31.
The first visitor center within the national park system dedicated to L.G.B.T.Q. history will honor and explore the history of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a galvanizing moment in the fight for equality, the center’s managers announced.
Uber is bringing back shared passenger rides in several U.S. cities, including New York City and San Francisco, for the first time in more than two years, as high fares pinch riders’ pockets.
A criminal suspect died eight days after he tried to hang himself at a Bronx court holding cell — but the city won’t count his passing as a death in custody because the man was granted compassionate release as he lay on his deathbed.
City of Albany police charged a 29-year-old Madison Avenue man with felonies after he allegedly fired a bullet through his apartment floor, sending it through the ceiling of his downstairs neighbor’s home.
The State Department is confirming the death of an Amsterdam, Montgomery County native in Ukraine who is believed to be only the second American to have been killed in the conflict there.
The Port of Albany has apparently gotten in a bit of hot water with the federal government after allowing tree cutting at an 82-acre Hudson River site being developed for an offshore wind turbine tower assembly facility.
The focus of an FBI investigation that led to the recent guilty plea of a Troy councilwoman is shifting to Jason T. Schofield, the Republican Rensselaer County Board of Elections commissioner, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Stewart’s Shops has closed its location near the Albany Medical Center campus, citing anemic business and an inability to expand.
In another blow against Cambridge Central School District’s “Indian” mascot, a judge said the state Education Department commissioner acted legally when she said the mascot must be replaced.
After giving an emotional performance of a self-penned song on the piano, Burnt Hills native Kieran Rhodes avoided elimination and advanced on “America’s Got Talent.”
The FDA is planning to require tobacco companies to slash the amount of nicotine in traditional cigarettes to make them less addictive and reduce the toll of smoking that claims 480,000 lives each year.
The plan, unveiled as part of the administration’s agenda of regulatory actions, likely wouldn’t take effect for several years.
A jury found that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted Judy Huth in 1975, when as a 16-year-old girl she accepted his invitation to join him at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, awarding her $500,000 in compensatory damages, but declining punitive damages.
