We’re back at it. Good morning, it’s Monday.
On this day in 1918, in Mvezo, South Africa, a great man was born.
Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, the first Black head of state and the first chosen by the voters in a fully representative democratic election.
Mandela spent 27 of his 95 years behind bars. His story is very long and rather involved. As a young lawyer in 1944, he joined the African National Congress (ANC), the oldest Black political organization in South Africa, and became a leader of its youth wing in Johannesburg.
Eight years, later Mandela has risen through the ranks of the ANC to the position of deputy national president – a perch from which he advocated for nonviolent resistance to the South American system of white supremacy and segregation known as apartheid.
He changed his approach in the wake of the 1960 massacre of peaceful Black demonstrators at Sharpeville, helping to organize a paramilitary branch of the ANC to engage in guerrilla warfare against the white minority government. He was subsequently arrested for treason, acquitted and arrested again, this time for leaving the country illegally.
This time, Mandela was convicted and while imprisoned and serving a five-year sentence on Robben Island, he was put on trial yet again, facing sabotage charges. He was convicted in 1964 and this time, sentenced to life. Mandela remained a symbolic leader of the anti-apartheid movement, and eventually was moved to be under house arrest.
He was released from prison after 27 years on February 11, 1990. F.W. de Klerk had become South African president the year before, and set about dismantling apartheid. He ordered Mandela’s release, and the newly freed former revolutionary rejoined the cause that had cost him so many years of freedom. Three years later, the two shared a Nobel Peace Prize.
The ANC won an electoral majority in the country’s first free elections in 1994, and Mandela was elected South Africa’s first Black president.
Mandela retired from politics in June 1999 at the age of 80, but remained an outspoken advocate for peace and social justice. He died in 2013.
In honor of Mandela’s birthday, the UN officially declared Nelson Mandela International Day in November 2009, with the first official celebration held on July 18, 2010. Madiba (Mandela’s clan name and a term of endearment and respect) urged the people of the world to honor him by giving back to their respective communities.
As Mandela said: “It is in your hands to make a better world for all who live in it.” (Another good one: “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.”)
We are paying the price for a weekend of nice weather with some rain, which I guess we should welcome, given how dry things are out there. Be prepared for scattered thunderstorms and temperatures in the low 80s.
In the headlines…
With congressional legislation to address climate change in jeopardy, President Biden is coming under pressure to curb greenhouse-gas emissions by using his own executive powers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders accused Sen. Joe Manchin of “intentionally sabotaging” Biden’s agenda after the West Virginia Democrat pulled his support from legislation that included initiatives to battle climate change and raise taxes on corporations and the rich.
Biden pledged to take “strong executive action” to “tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry.”
Biden’s trip to the Middle East sparked renewed concern about global oil supplies, which momentarily retreated last week as fears grew over a looming global recession that could reduce demand.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has hit out at Biden’s trip to the Middle East, telling his Syrian counterpart that the region’s future should be decided by its people.
A federal judge has blocked a directive from Biden’s administration that allowed transgender workers and students to use school restrooms matching their gender identities.
The ruling sided with 20 state attorneys general who sued the Biden administration over guidelines on rights for gay and transgender workers and students.
An electorate already struggling with inflation, exhausted by Covid and adjusting to tectonic changes like the end to constitutionally protected abortions may give the climate defeat a resigned shrug. And that may be why it’s still an issue with little political power.
First lady Jill Biden on Saturday voiced frustration about the stalled progress of her husband’s tenure in the White House during a private Democratic National Committee fundraiser.
Covid precautions created a global slowdown in human activity — and an opportunity to learn more about the complex ways we affect other species.
More than 2,000 tourists have become stranded in a resort town in southern China after authorities imposed a snap lockdown to curb a coronavirus flare-up, as the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy continues to upend businesses and daily life.
Protection offered by Covid-19 vaccines against infection with the novel coronavirus is “short-lived,” according to a new study that says up-to-date booster doses are essential for “dependable” immune defense against the virus.
Starting today, BART riders in San Francisco will no longer have to wear face coverings in the system however the agency is still encouraging riders to wear their masks.
An analysis published Friday in the journal Science Advances found that 42% of people with regular menstrual cycles said they bled more heavily than usual after vaccination for Covid-19.
The new study — the largest to date — expands on research that has highlighted the temporary effects of Covid-19 vaccines on menstrual cycles, but until now focused primarily on cisgender women who menstruate.
Biden has ended his plan to nominate an anti-choice Republican lawyer as a federal judge in Kentucky following last month’s reversal of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
The White House quietly agreed with the Senate Republican leader to nominate Chad Meredith for a federal judgeship, but opposition from his fellow Kentuckian Rand Paul scuttled the deal.
The ordeal of a 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio shed light on an uncomfortable fact: Such pregnancies are not as rare as people think, and new abortion bans are likely to have a pronounced impact on the youngest pregnant girls.
Surgical procedures and medication for miscarriages are identical to those for abortion, and some patients report delayed or denied miscarriage care because doctors and pharmacists fear running afoul of abortion bans.
The first comprehensive assessment of the law enforcement response to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, TX, found officers from local, state and federal agencies all failed to take swift action, a broad indictment of police action at Robb Elementary School.
More than 350 responding police officers took a “lackadaisical approach” to the Uvalde school massacre that may have cost victims their lives, according to the preliminary report from the Texas House.
The lieutenant who was acting police chief the day of the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, has been placed on administrative leave after a damning state report about the response to the May 24 massacre.
Ivana Trump, the first wife of former President Donald Trump, died in an accident as a result of suffering blunt impact injuries to her torso, New York City’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner said.
State Attorney General Tish James agreed to temporarily delay depositions for former President Donald Trump and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, due to Ivana Trump’s death.
Trump, his son Donald Jr. and daughter Ivanka were set to begin their testimony as early as Friday in a probe of allegedly fraudulent business practices at the Trump Organization. No new dates have been scheduled.
Ivana Trump’s funeral will be held Wednesday at a historic Catholic church in the Upper East Side neighborhood where she lived.
As the monkeypox outbreak grows in the United States, demand for the vaccine is outstripping the nation’s supply, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news briefing.
Monkeypox, the previously rare virus in humans that has been slowly spreading around the globe this year, doubled in confirmed case counts in New York over a five-day span – and the state now far leads the nation in cases.
As the city and federal government strain to supply enough monkeypox vaccines, patients face a private battle to find treatment and relief from serious symptoms.
The feds, city and state must quickly step up their response to the monkeypox outbreak in New York, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine said.
Albert Vann, a Brooklyn political dynamo who served in the City Council and the state Assembly, and was a mentor to a generation of African-American elected officials, has died. He was 87.
New York Senate staffers have begun organizing a labor union, a step that could eventually allow them to collectively bargain a contract.
The the 79 card-holding members of the New York State Legislative Workers Union made their announcement via a social media campaign and public letter to Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign has a large monetary advantage over her Republican challenger, Rep. Lee Zeldin, as the general election gets underway in New York.
State campaign finance reports due Friday show Hochul has $11.7 million in the bank, compared with the $1.6 million reported by Zeldin, a U.S. representative from Long Island.
Zeldin submitted roughly 13,000 invalid signatures in an effort to appear on the ballot as a third-party candidate, New York’s Board of Elections determined.
New legislation regarding bicycle safety will come into effect as Hochul takes measures that will require new drivers to learn about pedestrian and bicycle safety when on the road.
The law makes pedestrian and bicyclist safety awareness a mandatory component of the pre-licensing course for driver’s license applicants, and adds the topic to the written exam required for getting a license.
Hochul is giving New Yorkers a breath of fresh air by banning smoking at state beaches and parks.
“Smoking is a dangerous habit that affects not only the smoker but everyone around them, including families and children enjoying our state’s great public places,” Hochul said in a press release.
Hochul announced that any New York household enrolled in SNAP will receive the maximum allowable level of food benefits for the month of July, from a $234 million infusion of federal funding into the New York State economy.
Thousands of Black and Latino former teachers in New York City stand to collect more than $1 billion after the city recently stopped fighting a decade-slong discrimination lawsuit that found a licensing test was biased.
Rep. Mondaire Jones said he was returning thousands of dollars donated to his campaign by a nightclub owner currently being sued for allegedly imposing racist and sexist entrance policies and allegedly ignoring illegal drug use.
Individual donors contributed more than $1.2 million to the three candidates running for the 19th Congressional District seat during three months this spring.
Prominent GOP activists, including former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, are calling on state Republican Party chairman Nick Langworthy to step down while he runs for Congress.
Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of Staten Island and Brooklyn came under fire from a Democratic rival, Max Rose, for voting against abortion rights legislation.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he has never seen crime at this level, but shootings and murders are down this year. Some see his comments as fear mongering.
Adams crowed about the decrease in city murders and shootings last month compared to June 2021 — even as other major crimes soared — and vowed “to turn this crime thing around.”
“Crime has really taken all of the oxygen out of the room but once we do that, they’re going to see what we’re doing around education, around housing and some of the other important issues,” he added.
The mayor raised more than $850,000 for his 2025 re-election campaign barely six months after taking office, according to filings with the city’s Campaign Finance Board released on Friday night.
Adams addressed a report about 311 odor complaints Friday, saying he smells a lot of marijuana these days. “The number one thing I smell right now is pot,” he said. “It seems like everyone is smoking a joint now, you know. Everybody has a joint.”
Complaints about outdoor smells to 311 soared 54% in the first six months of the year compared with the first six months of 2021, with 5,746 reported between the start of 2022 and June 30, 2022, the Post analysis of city data found.
The campaign haul is a result of Adams’s traveling across the country to raise money for a second term, even as he is confronting major issues at home, from crime to soaring rents.
Another Rikers Island detainee died of a suspected drug overdose Friday, marking the 11th in-custody death for the Department of Correction this year.
The convictions of three men found guilty in the 1995 killing of a New York City subway token clerk were thrown out after the Brooklyn district attorney said they had been pressured into falsely confessing to the crime by rogue detectives.
The Staten Island Ferry system is temporarily running less frequently during rush hours because of a surge in coronavirus infections among staff members, a spokesman for the city’s transportation department said.
Family members and other supporters of the late Eric Garner gathered on Staten Island on Saturday to honor him with renaming a street.
Parents who attend the City University of New York are getting some financial relief this summer thanks to a new $3 million fund dedicated exclusively to supporting New Yorkers taking college classes while raising kids.
“Mr. Saturday Night,” Billy Crystal’s musical about an aging comedian trying to reboot his career, will end its Broadway run on Labor Day weekend.
What town police described as an explosion at a substation off Forrest Pointe Drive yesterday knocked out power on a humid evening to more than 11,000 people in Rensselaer County.
Amazon workers at ALB1 Schodack, the fulfillment warehouse that opened in September 2020, rallied with other supporters in an effort to copy the recent historic unionization at the global company’s largest U.S. warehouse in Staten Island.
The state Department of Conservation says it has now found a mysterious disease killing beech trees in 35 counties across New York state.
The first round of checks from a $65 million class-action settlement involving the pollution of hundreds of properties in and around the village of Hoosick Falls are scheduled to be distributed beginning July 28.
Albany County’s independent redistricting commission intends to create two new majority-minority legislative districts in the city, bringing the total to seven, the most in county history.
Customers of the region’s two largest credit unions, SEFCU and CAP COM, will soon be doing their banking under the name Broadview.
After ironing out some safety concerns around student pickup and drop-off, a proposal to open a charter school in downtown Schenectady won approval from city planners, and now must obtain a certificate of occupancy before it can open up next month.
Employees of the Joseph’s House homeless shelter and social services agency in Troy are set for a union vote later this month.
University at Albany scientists are in the vanguard of a new effort to finally see what has never been seen before: dark matter.
The Hart Cluett Museum’s resources have been a treasure trove for the crew of HBO’s “The Gilded Age,” and now the non-profit is counting on its “Gilded Age Gala” to raise funds for its own programs and to restore some its buildings’ late 19th century luster.
Relatives of people killed on Sept. 11 are urging former President Donald Trump to cancel a Saudi-backed golf tournament set to be held this month at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck reportedly got married in Las Vegas.
The superstar couple, who got back together last year, waited in line and went to a chapel that Lopez said “graciously stayed open” a few minutes past midnight so they could wed.
Lopez, in her fan newsletter “On The JLo,” confirmed the nuptials, calling it “the best possible wedding we could have imagined.”
