Good morning, it’s Thursday, which, in case you’re keeping score at home, is one day away from Friday.
But who’s counting?
Today, my friends, is Shark Awareness Day. And while I know I wrote about these supposed monsters of the deep not all that terribly long ago, the subject of whether or not they are actually a significant threat keeps resurfacing (so to speak), and so I feel compelled to revisit the issue.
Just yesterday, swimming at a Smith Point, Long Island beach was suspended for the second time this month after a surfer was the apparent victim of a shark attack. The surfer said he punched the shark repeatedly, though it kept circling him after knocking him off his board and biting him. A wave eventually carried the surfer to shore safely.
The shark in question was reportedly a sand tiger shark, which strikes me as a little odd, because that particular species is not known to be aggressive – though they look really scary. Lots and lots of big teeth.
Regular tiger sharks, though, are very aggressive, and responsible for more recorded attacks on humans than any shark except the great white. (Also up there on the aggressive scale: Bull sharks).
Sharks, writ large, are indeed the top predator in their ecosystem, but they are NOT really into hunting humans. They play a key role in keeping the seas healthy and productive.
According to researchers who specialize in this sort of thing, the increase in shark sightings is actually a GOOD thing (relatively speaking), because it indicates there’s enough food for them to eat and everything is working the way it should.
Conservation efforts have helped clean up the local waters, drawing more sharks and allowing those here to thrive, (experts) said. A resurgence of bunker fish, formally called Atlantic menhaden, has served up a veritable buffet for predators. The warming of the oceans has drawn sharks to more northern locations.
Last year, there were 73 confirmed unprovoked cases of shark attacks GLOBALLY – yes, around the entire WORLD, that is – which is in keeping with the recent five-year average of 72 annual incidents. (The numbers might be skewed a bit due to pandemic-related lockdowns in 2020).
Of course, no one wants to be No. 74, and that’s where the whole shark fear thing comes in. The U.S. does lead the world in cases of unprovoked shark bites, most of which occurred in Florida, and most of those were related to surfing and other board sports. (Something about paddling and/or splashing maybe attracts a shark’s attention?)
For the record, the surfer who was attacked yesterday has a gash on his leg, but is expected to be OK.
The other day, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman made a big show of swimming at a Long Island beach to demonstrate how safe it is. He was not at the beach yesterday, to my knowledge.
He did suggest, though, that swimmers steer clear of fishermen, because, in his words: “The shark chase the fish. They really aren’t interested in human beings. They are interested in fish.” He also (smartly) told people not to swim when lifeguards aren’t on duty. The lifeguards weren’t on duty yesterday when the surfer was attacked.
Generally speaking, swimming while a lifeguard isn’t on duty – be it at the ocean or on a lake – is not smart. Full stop. I mean, people do it all the time. I do it. But it’s still not smart.
We’ll have showers early this morning and then partly cloudy skies in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the low 80s.
In the headlines…
U.S. consumer inflation accelerated to 9.1% in June, a pace not seen in more than four decades, adding pressure on the Federal Reserve to act more aggressively to slow rapid price increases throughout the economy.
Soaring food prices contributed significantly to the surge with the category seeing increases of 1% over the month and 10.4% annually, the biggest 12-month increase since the period ending February 1981.
The fresh Consumer Price Index report contained particularly worrying signs for the Federal Reserve, providing evidence that price pressures are broad and stubborn in ways that may make them difficult to wrestle under control.
Gasoline prices, on an upward tear for months, have reversed course in recent weeks, giving consumers a welcome break.
After months of failing to accurately predict the inflationary crisis, the White House was back on a tightrope from which it has often toppled, trying to show President Biden feels Americans’ pain but confidently predicting relief is around the corner.
A majority of US voters across nearly all demographics and ideologies believe their system of government does not work, with 58 percent of those interviewed for a New York Times/Siena College poll saying major reforms or a complete overhaul are needed.
Just 18% of Americans say Biden should run for reelection in 2024, according to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll — the lowest number to date. Nearly two-thirds (64%) say he should bow out.
Biden said that he wouldn’t be disappointed if there was a rematch between him and former President Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
When Biden walked off Air Force One yesterday, he did something he hasn’t done in a while. Instead of shaking the hand of the first politician to greet him on the red carpet — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid — he gave him a fist bump.
A year and a half after Trump left the White House, Israeli leaders welcomed his successor with a rapturous embrace, as if to prove that their love affair with the former president would not stand in the way of a close relationship with the new president.
Biden blasted progressive fellow Democrats who criticize Israel, calling them “isolated and wrong”.
Former President Barack Obama sent an email to Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician who went on to become a GOP congressman, expressing his “disappointment” for his criticism of Biden’s cognitive health in 2020.
The missive from the 44th president came after Jackson, a Texas Republican, retweeted a video of one of the “mental gaffes” Biden made on the campaign trail, Jackson writes in his memoir “Holding the Line.”
The Biden administration warned the nation’s 60,000 retail pharmacies that they risk violating federal civil rights law if they refuse to fill prescriptions for pills that can induce abortion.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights released guidelines that spell out examples when a pharmacist’s refusal to dispense a drug to a patient might be a violation of federal antidiscrimination law.
An Ohio man has been arrested and charged with the rape of a 10-year-old girl, whose travel across state lines to receive an abortion captured national attention.
Sen. Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, expressed serious concern over the claim by the House select Jan. 6 committee that former President Trump attempted to call one of the committee’s witnesses, who had not yet appeared in its public hearings.
Tokyo’s Metropolitan Government raised the Covid infection alert for the Japanese capital to its highest level amid a surge in new cases.
Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, is facing a return to a broad indoor mask mandate later this month if current trends in hospital admissions continue, county health Director Barbara Ferrer said this week.
The spread of drug-resistant infections surged during the coronavirus pandemic, killing nearly 30,000 people in 2020 and upending much of the recent progress made in containing the spread of so-called superbugs, according to an analysis by the CDC.
The White House’s Covid-19 response team sent a clear message to the nation this week on the spread of the Omicron subvariant BA.5 and the importance of second vaccine booster doses for adults over the age of 50.
For the first time since May, COVID-19-related hospital admissions are forecasted to increase again in the U.S., as highly infectious omicron subvariants continue to spread, according to updated forecasting models used by the CDC.
The former mayor of Stonecrest, Ga., a small city outside Atlanta, was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal money intended to help his city cope with the pandemic, the authorities said.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Novavax’s COVID-19 shot for emergency use, adding a fourth vaccine to the U.S. arsenal.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office formally appealed a state Supreme Court ruling that tossed out regulations mandating people who are infected with or exposed to highly contagious communicable diseases be quarantined.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Rep. Lee Zeldin is vowing to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes on “day one” if elected over Gov. Kathy Hochul this November.
Hochul vowed to nominate “a thoughtful individual” to lead New York’s highest court and the state judiciary branch.
Hochul announced the successful implementation of 988 in New York State as the new three-digit number to call or text to be connected to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Soaring inflation costs have led to New York’s cap on property tax increases to be set at its upper most limit of 2%, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office announced.
Lax oversight led to $292 million in overpayments from the state Medicaid program to never be recovered by New York officials, the comptroller found in a new audit.
New York’s plan for renovating and expanding Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan will produce only enough revenue to cover about half of the improvements to the shabby station, a new financial analysis concluded.
Bigshot real estate developers — including one whose CEO is a major donor to Hochul — are poised to receive $1.2 billion in tax breaks through the plan to reconstruct Penn Station.
Several local elected officials gathered with advocacy groups to announce they’ll press state lawmakers to adopt robust protections for tenants in the wake of a recent state Supreme Court ruling that struck down the city of Albany’s “good cause eviction” law.
New York City, the largest municipal employer in the country, is facing an exodus of city workers that has led to a surge in job vacancies and difficulties delivering basic municipal services.
Mayor Eric Adams and a top deputy have outfitted offices in a highly secure tower near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, availing themselves of a private hideout with sweeping skyline views that’s both minutes and worlds away from the bustle of City Hall.
Adams defended his use of an office outside of City Hall, hours after the public was made aware for the first time of the secret working space.
Adams and Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks have been working out of the Verizon Building at 375 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, which claims to be “the most secure and resilient building” in the borough.
Adams, 61, got behind a street musician’s set for a quick drum lesson that turned into an impromptu jam session at a COVID-19 testing site in the Big Apple.
The majority of New York City council members are now demanding that Adams “immediately restore” hundreds of millions in funding slashed from next year’s school budgets.
Adams announced that pharmaceutical company Pfizer awarded the city’s middle and high schools with a $1.5 million grant.
Despite Adams’ campaign promises, closed housing complex playgrounds have gone up on his watch – from 89 last year to 98, according to NYCHA. His administration has also not added any additional funds for repairs so far, according to budget records.
Actress-turned-onetime gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon got into a “heated” back-and-forth with Rep. Carolyn Maloney at a political club meeting in Manhattan last week over the Democratic congresswoman’s past controversial views on vaccines.
A former Central Intelligence Agency software engineer was convicted by a federal jury of causing the largest theft of classified information in the agency’s history.
The average Uber trip costs more per mile in the Big Apple than any other US city, according to a new study.
A 40-year-old homeless man was arrested on murder and attempted murder charges in the stabbings of three other homeless men in Manhattan, one fatally, the police said. The men were all sleeping outdoors when attacked over the course of the last week.
The captain of the ferry that rescued a woman from a boat that capsized in the Hudson River, killing two people, said that the scene of terror would become an indelible memory.
There are “no immediate signs of criminality” in the Hudson River boat accident that left two dead, sources said, as ferry officials denied reports that a wake caused the apparently overloaded vessel to capsize.
After initially declaring the NYPD would follow a city Law Department memo stating that random marijuana testing of cops is no longer legal, police brass backpedaled, saying they will maintain current policies prohibiting officers from ever lighting up.
Congress needs to plug a looming $3 billion funding shortfall in the World Trade Center Health Program by any means it can, said New York Democrat Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Sweet & Vicious, a Manhattan bar and restaurant, has been a nest of sexual, racial and gender-based harassment where workers endured racial slurs, had tips taken by the management and went unpaid, according to an investigation by AG James.
As part of a settlement brokered by the attorney general’s office, the owner, Hakan Karamahmutoglu, will pay $500,000 to be split among at least 16 employees for violating state and city human rights and labor laws, James said at a news conference.
Mark Fleischman, the owner of legendary Midtown nightclub Studio 54, died by assisted suicide in Switzerland. He was 82.
Western New York Congressional candidate Carl Paladino has a convicted sex offender on his company payroll who also now works as “assistant treasurer” of his campaign.
A Massachusetts attorney who oversaw the settlement of 552 cases of sexual abuse against the Archdiocese of Boston and a New York City attorney will mediate hundreds of claims filed against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany under the Child Victims Act.
The former Fort Edward village police chief and a sergeant each pleaded guilty recently to a misdemeanor crime to settle multiple felony charges alleging they had falsified training records involving nearly a dozen police recruits.
The attorney general’s office has released a video of a police shooting last month in Saranac Lake that left a man dead after he charged at an officer with a knife.
Backstretch workers arriving in Saratoga Springs for the 2023 race meet will see a new medical clinic providing health care to those who spend their days and nights caring for horses.
The New York Racing Association has a lineup of three premium giveaways for the 2022 meet at Saratoga Race Course. All giveaways are free with paid admission, while supplies last.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has honored 14 members of the government team that took down NXIVM leader Keith Raniere but a major contributor was missing from that list: the lead prosecutor.
The Cirque du Soleil touring show “Crystal,” announced at the end of May for a four-day, six-performance run at MVP Arena in Albany from Aug. 4 to 7, was canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
Crossgates Mall is suing online retailer Amazon for closing one of its experimental 4-star retail stores at the mall in March.
Biden nominated Jorge Alberto Rodriguez, an Albany-based litigator who currently works for AG James, to fill a pending vacancy in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of New York.
The trial of Brittney Griner resumes today in a courtroom outside of Moscow, and the world is watching to see what happens to her, as she has unwillingly become one of the world’s most famous prisoners, spending more than 140 days in custody in Russia.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates announced he’s donating an additional $20 billion to The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of an effort to boost the charitable organization’s spending.
