Good Thursday morning.
Happy 232nd Birthday to the U.S. Coast Guard! Perhaps some celebratory chocolate chip cookies are in order? It’s always a good time for cookies, especially chocolate chip, which are, of course, the best cookies on the planet.
Come at me.
The Coast Guard, if you weren’t aware, is one of the oldest organizations of the federal government. (FWIW, I wasn’t aware of this fact and found it really interesting, but I guess if you already were in the know – bully for you! – and you can skip this section and go right to dessert, so to speak).
The Coast Guard was established in 1760 and served as the nascent nation’s only armed maritime protector until the U.S. Navy was launched (get it, launched?!) by Congress eight years later.
On Aug. 4, 1760, specifically, the new nation’s first Congress authorized construction of 10 vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws, prevent smuggling, and protect federal revenue collection (If you really want to go down the historical rabbit hole, click here).
Over the years, additional responsibilities were added to the Coast Guard’s purview, including humanitarian duties and adding distressed mariners.
It’s easy to confuse the Coast Guard and the Navy. They both are military entities and they both are water-based fighting forces. There are a few key differences, however.
For example, the Coast Guard mainly operates domestically, patrolling US waters and shorelines and enforcing maritime laws. The Navy, meanwhile, is a worldwide operation and a war-ready fleet, and is also considerably larger than the Coast Guard, with about 12 times more active-duty personnel.
The Coast Guard is actually the smallest active-duty military branch, with 41,700 full-time members 7,800 part-time reservists, 8,300 civilians, and 31,000 auxiliary volunteers. It is the only military branch within the Department of Homeland Security.
Lest you think that the Coast Guard’s footprint is small. it protects and defends more than 100,000 miles of US coastline and inland waterways, and safeguards the world’s largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) encompassing 4.5 million square miles (from North of the Arctic Circle to South of the equator, from Puerto Rico to Guam) and nine time zones.
Today is also, as I not-so-subtly hinted at earlier in this post, National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day. That Toll House recipe that you find on the back of the chocolate chip bag actually has some very deep and historic roots.
The original recipe was created in the late 1930s by Ruth Wakefield, operator of the successful Toll House restaurant in Whitman, MA. The resulting Toll House Crunch Cookie’ recipe was published in a Boston newspaper and also got a boost when The cookies became instantly popular, especially after Marjorie Husted (a.k.a. Betty Crocker) featured Ruth’s recipe on her popular radio show.
Interestingly, the world’s best-selling commercially produced cookie is the Oreo, but many non-scientific random internet searches reveal that the chocolate chip cookie is America’s favorite flavor (type?) of cookie overall.
An aside: if you happen to run into former President Barack Obama today, be sure to wish him a happy 61st birthday.
We’re headed back into historically hot territory, with temperatures flirting with 100 degrees. (Heat index, I’m sure, is going to make it feel quite a bit above the mid-to-high 90s). As is usual for these sorts of sultry temperatures, there is a threat of severe thunderstorms as the day progresses. Stay hydrated. Keep those pets indoors. Check on vulnerable neighbors. Be safe.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden signed an executive order to help ensure access to abortion in light of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer to eliminate the constitutional right to the procedure.
The order directs the Department of Health and Human Services to “consider” allowing Medicaid funds to be used to assist people traveling between states to get abortions.
The order also directs HHS to ensure that health care providers comply with federal anti-discrimination laws so women receive “medically necessary care without delay.”
But Biden and other officials provided few details about how the change would work – or a timeline for it to be implemented.
Democrats displayed a newfound sense of optimism about the election-year political climate after voters in traditionally conservative Kansas overwhelmingly backed a measure protecting abortion rights.
The decisive vote to defend abortion rights in Kansas reverberated across the midterm campaign landscape, galvanizing Democrats and underscoring for Republicans the risks of overreaching on one of the most emotionally charged matters in American politics.
The sweeping victory for abortion rights in Kansas – the country’s first post-Roe vote on the issue – relied on a broad coalition of voters who turned out in huge numbers and crashed through party and geographic lines to maintain abortion access in the state.
Biden continues to test positive for Covid-19 – for the fifth straight day since his post-Paxlovid rebound infection – and will stay in isolation, his physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor said in a new letter released yesterday.
Biden is still experiencing an occasional cough, but less frequently than yesterday, O’Connor wrote. “He remains fever free and is in good spirits,” he wrote.
O’Connor said that Biden will continue to follow strict isolation measures, but it’s not clear if he will go beyond the recommendations laid out by the CDC – as the White House vowed to do the first time he tested positive.
The CDC is expected to update its guidance for Covid-19 control in the community, including in schools, in the coming days, easing quarantine recommendations for people exposed to the virus and de-emphasize 6 feet of social distancing.
The pace of COVID-19 deaths has remained relatively steady since May, despite an uptick in July to about 400 a day. “We’re sitting on this horrible plateau,” said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist with Pro Health Care in New York.
There are three different kinds of long COVID all with their own set of symptoms, according to researchers.
If you aren’t up-to-date on your Covid vaccines or booster shots, Dr. Anthony Fauci has a stark warning for you: Get those doses now, or prepare for a harsh Covid fall and winter.
Eli Lilly & Co. said it plans to begin commercial sales of its Covid-19 monoclonal antibody treatment to states, hospitals and other healthcare providers this month, as the federal government’s supply of the drug is nearly depleted.
Moderna Inc. sales rose 9% in the second quarter, but costs tied to a surplus of Covid-19 vaccine doses contributed to a profit decline.
There have been 6,326 cases of monkeypox infection reported in the U.S., according to the CDC.
In a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers compiled information about symptoms from 528 monkeypox virus (MPV) infections from 43 sites in 16 countries. Overall, 95 percent of the people had rashes or skin lesions.
For most people, the risk of getting monkeypox remains low. Almost all cases in the current outbreak — 98 percent — have been in adult men who have sex with men.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected growing concerns over monkeypox during a press conference, arguing that the media and politicians were unnecessarily stoking fear about the illness.
As monkeypox continues to spread across the U.S., the number of children infected with the virus is growing as well. At least five children have tested positive for monkeypox since July, including two each in Indiana and California.
Advocates and lawmakers are calling for the Biden administration to remove barriers to access for a promising medication called tecovirimat, or TPOXX, as New York’s monkeypox outbreak worsens.
The shortage of vaccines to combat a fast-growing monkeypox outbreak was caused in part because the Department of Health and Human Services failed early on to ask that bulk stocks of the vaccine it already owned be bottled for distribution.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney backtracked on comments she made during a debate that she doubts Biden will renew his bid for the presidency in 2024 – a highly unusual break from the party’s standard-bearer.
Maloney said at first that it was her “personal opinion” that Biden wouldn’t run, but later said she would support him if he does.
Her husband’s low standing with the public and November elections that could put Republicans back in control of Congress — have set First Lady Jill Biden on a fresh mission: working to help elect Democrats who can help her husband.
OPEC+ is set to raise oil output by a tiny 100,000 barrels per day in what analysts described as an insult to Biden after his trip to Saudi Arabia last month to persuade OPEC’s leader to pump more to help the U.S. and global economy.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi concluded her whirlwind 19-hour visit to Taiwan yesterday, leaving behind fevered messaging on both sides of the Taiwan Strait about the significance of her visit.
China is escalating tensions with the US Pelosi visited Taiwan this week, but the White House will not be deterred in defending its interests in the Western Pacific, according to the President’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
China’s leading electric-vehicle battery maker put on hold plans to announce its first North American plant as political fallout from Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan further complicates business tied to the world’s two biggest economies.
Pelosi’s husband pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in Northern California wine country over Memorial Day weekend.
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly ratified the addition of Finland and Sweden as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a move leaders of both parties portrayed as key to American security around the world following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The lopsided bipartisan vote demonstrated broad support in the United States for one of the most significant expansions of the military alliance, amid Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine.
Gov. Kathy Hochul affirmed that it’s very unlikely students returning to school this year will be required to wear masks, noting that having students out of the classroom for more than a year may had also led to a “generational impact.”
Flights records obtained by The NY Post through the Freedom of Information Law show that state police added 60 more flights since April to the approximately 200 they have flown on behalf of Hochul since she replaced ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo last August.
Members of New York state’s largest public-sector labor union, CSEA, have ratified a 5-year contract that includes raises and bonuses, Hochul announced.
New York has awarded $31.5 million to seven projects in order to expand and build permanent supportive housing units across the state.
Hochul says judges — and not the current bail laws she backed with fellow Albany Democrats — should be held to blame for the ongoing surge of violent crime.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams doubled down on his claims that changes to state bail laws are driving an increase in crime and recidivism, following weeks of back-and-forth with state lawmakers over the issue.
More than 80% of pistol-packing perps were put back on the streets after getting busted for gun possession in New York City this year, Adams said.
“Our criminal justice system is insane. It is dangerous, it is harmful, and it’s destroying the fabric of our city,” Adams said.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pushed back after Adams called the state’s bail reform laws “insane” and “dangerous” in a press conference.
Hours before Adams held a news conference to argue that an “insane, broken system” allowed repeat offenders to keep getting arrested and then released without bail in New York City, Hochul issued something of a pre-emptive strike.
“I am aware of the mayor’s press conference and I absolutely support his interest in getting the judges to follow the law,” Hochul told reporters during an unrelated presser at her Manhattan office.
Adams anointed himself the city’s first hip hop mayor when he unveiled $5.5 million in additional city funding for the construction of the Universal Hip Hop Museum, which is expected to open two years from now in the South Bronx.
Adams vowed to “immediately” reopen a playground inside a Bronx public housing complex that closed in early 2019 because of drug dealing in the area, but four days later the kids’ park is still closed and nowhere near ready to open, according to a city official.
Two pedestrians were killed after cars collided in northern Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood early yesterday morning, just two days after New York City announced that speed cameras would operate around the clock to stem traffic fatalities.
A lawsuit cobbled together in just a few weeks by advocates, parents and educators outraged by Mayor Adams’ budget cuts to city schools faces a high-stakes hearing today that could result in a court-ordered do-over.
Hate crime charges have been dropped against the suspect accused of an unprovoked caught-on-camera slashing of an Asian woman with a box cutter in Times Square, prosecutors said.
A fire in a Harlem apartment sparked by the lithium-ion battery on an electric scooter killed a 5-year-old girl and a 36-year-old woman, and left the child’s father in critical condition, the police and fire officials said.
New calls to cut back pandemic-era outdoor dining in New York come as the city’s rat population is soaring. This year has seen the most reported rat sightings in at least a decade — with as many through July 2022 as in all of 2020 or 2019.
Rats bedding down under car hoods is nothing new for New Yorkers, but over the last two years, many of the city’s auto body shops have seen the number of drivers coming in with rodent-related issues climb significantly.
State health officials aren’t doing enough to ensure local health departments are implementing air quality education, outreach and services in communities with high levels of asthma, according to a new audit from the state Comptroller’s Office.
The office of state Attorney General Letitia James is actively investigating the handling of sexual assault allegations and complaints against Harvey Weinstein by the Manhattan district attorney and the special victims unit of the New York Police Department.
Former President Trump’s two children sat for depositions in the New York attorney general’s probe into Trump’s business and finances.
Ivanka Trump’s behind-closed-doors deposition took place yesterday and Donald Trump Jr. had his deposition last Thursday. The Trumps were originally supposed to sit for questioning last month, but the death of their mother Ivana postponed their testimony.
Suraj Patel, who is running for Congress against Rep. Jerry Nadler and Rep. Maloney, just got engaged. Patel, 38, popped the question to his girlfriend, Emily Bina, a producer at The Atlantic.
The state’s stretch limousine passenger safety task force is meeting today to discuss details of its final report on the 2018 limo crash in Schoharie that killed 20 people.
As Rudy Giuliani comes under intensifying scrutiny for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, another legal threat is quietly fading: the criminal inquiry into his ties to Ukraine during the presidential campaign.
Dennis Drue, the driver whose drug-and-alcohol-fueled crash on the Northway in Saratoga County killed two teenagers and severely injured two others in 2012, has once again been denied parole.
An inmate at Coxsackie Correctional Facility who tried to smuggle food out of the mess hall prompted attacks that resulted in the injury of 10 security personnel, in what officials and employees said is the latest episode of escalating violence at state prisons.
Walmart is cutting hundreds of corporate roles in a restructuring effort, according to people familiar with the matter, a week after the retail giant warned of falling profits.
Weeks before the first day of Autumn, a slew of food brands have announced new offerings based on the seasonal pumpkin spice flavor profile that is beloved by some, and maligned by others.
