Good middle-of-the-week morning, AKA Wednesday.
Here’s something pretty much everyone – except maybe very small children and nudists and people patronizing certain beaches and those who are bathing – has in common: We all wear clothes.
In modern society, it’s expected that you cover your nakedness – to some degree, anyway. This is a fairly widely accepted norm. And as a result, the clothing we choose says a lot about who we are, enabling us to send messages to the rest of the world.
Are we artistic? Minimalist? Preppy? Goth? Traditional? Retro? Hipster? Sporty? The list goes on and on.
Unless we make our own clothing, and if you do that, color me impressed, you have to get your clothes somewhere. You either buy them new, have them handed down or gifted to you, or purchase them used – I guess the trendy way to refer to this these days is “thrifted” or “vintage.”
The fashion industry, by the way, is a significant contributor to climate change.
Research conducted by McKinsey shows the sector was responsible for some 2.1 billion metric tons of greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions in 2018, which is about 4 percent of the global total.
Put another way, that’s about the same quantity of GHGs annually as the combined total produced by the economies of France, Germany, and the UK.
As far as waste is concerned, it’s estimated that every SECOND the equivalent of one garbage truckload of used clothing is burnt or buried in landfill, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
An estimated 92 million tons of textile waste is created annually by the fashion industry. And that is expected to increase by around 60% between 2015 and 2030, with an additional 57 million tons of waste being generated annually.
A lot of this has to do with what’s known as “fast fashion” – the rise of cheap, trendy, mass produced (or over-produced, if you prefer) clothes that are made overseas (frequently with child labor, even though this is forbidden in most countries) and not expected, or even designed, to last.
There is a rapidly growing backlash to fast fashion, which has led the to rise of so-called “sustainable” or “slow fashion” of “fair trade” brands, though there is some question as to what that really means, and if sustainable fashion is truly better for the environment.
Really the only guarantee you have that a piece of clothing isn’t going into a landfill, and to maximize the life of that garment, is to make sure it keeps getting used throughout the duration of its lifetime. And thrifting is a good way to do that.
Thrifting has, of course, been around for a long time, but it is getting more popular. According to the 2021 Resale Report, in 2020, 80 percent of consumers said they were open to purchasing secondhand products – a 16 percent increase from 2019. Also more than 40 percent of Gen Z and millennial shoppers said they had shopped secondhand over the past year.
Another benefit of thrifting is that it can help you stand out from the crowd. If you’re the sort of person who likes the thrill of the hunt, and enjoys digging through lots of potential duds to find a true fashion gem – something unique that other people aren’t likely to be sporting, then thrifting is for you. And you’ll be saving some money in the process.
Today, if you hadn’t already guessed, is National Thrift Shop Day, and it’s going to be a good day to spend some time indoors, because it’s going to be downright chilly – in the low 70s – with overcast skies and showers. Happy shopping!
In the headlines…
President Biden returned to Washington briefly to sign the Inflation Reduction Act, a sprawling bill that aims to lower prescription drug costs, address global warming, raise taxes on some billion-dollar corporations and reduce the federal deficit.
The president signed the newly renamed Inflation Reduction Act into law flanked by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va.; and Reps. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. and Kathy Castor, D-Fl.
While some analysis shows it won’t meaningfully reduce inflation, the so-called IRA will devote hundreds of billions of dollars toward fighting climate change, reducing prescription drug costs, and cutting the deficit.
Biden and others will fan out around the U.S. in the coming weeks to discuss the bill, according to the White House — with Cabinet members traveling to 23 states just this month.
The Department of Education announced that it was putting forward another round of loan cancellations for former students of a closed for-profit college.
The nearly $4 billion group discharge will wipe out loans for 208,000 borrowers who attended ITT from 2005 through its closure in September 2016.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is pushing against further broad student debt relief as the Biden administration weighs taking action, arguing it could risk undermining a Democratic effort to reduce the deficit and fight inflation.
First lady Jill Biden, 71, tested positive for COVID-19 on the last day of a family beach trip to South Carolina — just days after her husband fully recovered from a weeks-long illness.
The first lady, who is double vaccinated and twice boosted, is experiencing mild symptoms and taking Paxlovid, Pfizer’s antiviral drug.
When President Biden returned from vacation and arrived at Joint Base Andrews yesterday afternoon, he told reporters that his wife is “feeling well.” “She has to quarantine, then she’ll be home,” he added.
President Biden is back after Covid, vacation and legislative victories, and so are his signature aviator shades.
Investigators say there was so much fraud in federal Covid-relief programs that — even after two years of work and hundreds of prosecutions — they’re still just getting started.
The century-old B.C.G. tuberculosis vaccine may protect against Covid-19 and other infections by broadly bolstering the immune system.
As a remote nation in the Pacific, the Marshall Islands had been almost completely spared from Covid-19 during the pandemic. But in just over a week, more than 4,000 people have tested positive in a population of about 60,000.
An ambitious study of people with Long Covid, the mysterious, disabling symptoms that can trail a SARS-CoV-2 infection, has turned up a host of abnormalities in their blood.
Guidelines have changed for people in the workforce who have COVID, but that is not the case for child care programs in New York State.
COVID-19 antivirals just got easier to access in New York. With a new service from the telehealth platform Dr. B, COVID patients can conveniently get prescribed the drugs online.
State taxpayers poured $7 million into the New York State Fair last year to help expand the event from 13 to 18 days and deal with the Covid pandemic. Despite that huge cash injection, the fair still lost money.
New York City school kids will no longer have to fill out daily health screening questionnaires and schools will not test kids for COVID-19 on a weekly basis, the Education Department said.
CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell is rankling journalists at CBS News with her tweets about former President Donald Trump’s passports, with some griping that she played it fast and loose according to the network’s reporting standards.
Pat A. Cipollone and Patrick F. Philbin, the White House counsel and his deputy under Trump, were interviewed by the F.B.I. in connection with boxes of sensitive documents that were stored at the former president’s residence in Florida after he left office.
Michael Cohen, who was once Trump’s personal lawyer, believes Trump kept top-secret documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence as potential bargaining chips that he could leverage if he were ever at risk of going to jail.
Donald Trump Jr. got so worked up speaking about the FBI’s search to recover confidential documents from his father’s home last week that it even caused critics of the former president’s namesake to wonder about his well-being.
Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Kelly Tshibaka, her GOP rival who was endorsed by Trump, advanced in yesterday’s primary.
Also in Alaska, Republican Sarah Palin, seeking a return to elected office after more than a decade, was among the candidates moving ahead to the November general election in the race for Alaska’s only House seat.
In a watershed moment for the GOP, Rep. Liz Cheney, the most fearsome and resolute Republican opponent of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, was rejected by Wyoming voters in her own party last night.
Harriet Hageman, who defeated Cheney, ran with Trump’s support, was advised by Trump’s lieutenants, and was funded by his donors.
Cheney used her defiant concession speech, after losing badly in the GOP primary to Trump’s handpicked candidate, to kickoff a sustained campaign against the ex-president and his allies.
At least eight children in the U.S. have now tested positive for monkeypox, after health officials in Harris County, Texas, confirmed that a presumptive case had been identified in a child under the age of 2.
The first possible case of human-to-dog transmission of monkeypox – recently reported in two men and their pet in Paris – had been a theoretical risk up till now, said Dr. Rosamund Lewis, technical lead on the monkeypox response for the WHO.
A new study from the C.D.C. provides more details about a polio case detected in New York last month, and suggests the virus has been spreading elsewhere for a year.
Southwestern cotton growers are abandoning millions of parched acres that they planted in spring, prompting forecasts for the weakest U.S. harvest in more than a decade and sending prices sharply higher.
And amid the overuse of the Colorado River and the aridification of the region, the federal government is implementing new mandatory water cuts and asking states to devise a plan to save the river basin.
New York state officials expanded a drought watch designation to a majority of the 62 counties after continued stretches of dry weather this summer, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced.
New York is urging much of upstate to conserve water as weeks without soaking rains have put many areas into a drought watch.
Hochul stuck by her congestion pricing plan, saying the long-delayed toll to drive into Manhattan’s central business district was crucial to cutting car traffic and combating climate change.
Imitation weapons must be easily identified with bright colors or made entirely of see-through materials under a measure signed by Hochul.
The new law bars New York retailers from selling replica firearms that are black, blue, silver or aluminum-colored.
Republican gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin is hoping Trump will make it rain campaign cash next month in New Jersey — as the former president is scheduled to appear at a pricey fundraiser for the Long Island congressman.
Efforts to claw back $5 million from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a book he wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic by a defunct ethics panel were rejected by a state Supreme Court in Albany County in a ruling issued yesterday.
In her 16-page ruling, Judge Denise A. Hartman of State Supreme Court in Albany said the now defunct JCOPE overstepped its authority, stripping Cuomo of his rights in the process.
“JCOPE’s utter lawlessness in its treatment of Governor Cuomo has been exposed and the rule of law prevailed,” attorney Rita Glavin said in a statement. “JCOPE’s conduct was shameful, unlawful, and a waste of taxpayer’s funds.”
New York’s newest state government ethics commission, set to replace the infamously dysfunctional JCOPE, will soon take its first steps when its members are approved by a committee of law school deans. That could take place beginning as soon as this month.
State Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has struck a $200,000 settlement to close an inquiry into the party’s alleged abuse of its campaign “housekeeping” account, a sanction that could temper how soft money funds are spent by New York’s political parties.
The state’s Cannabis Control Board this week approved the first 15 companies that will design, manufacture and package the marijuana products that will be sold to consumers in various forms once the legal retail market opens.
The Upstate New York Poison Center is alerting the public after receiving an increase in calls for children and teens who have eaten marijuana edibles.
New York Attorney General Letitia James filed briefs opposing moves by Idaho and Texas to restriction abortion, leading a multi-state effort to oppose the measures.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s endorsement of Rep. Jerry Nadler over Carolyn Maloney in the new 12th Congressional District is reciprocation for Nadler sticking his neck out and backing Schumer in his first Senate run more than two decades ago.
For Maloney and her allies, the 12th Congressional District race has increasingly centered on women – both their electoral potential and the importance of protecting one of their own at a moment when reproductive rights are being rolled back.
Since 2007, campaign finance records show that Nadler, who’s locked in a tight congressional race with Maloney and attorney Suraj Patel, has raked in more than $60,000 from Related Companies’ Chair Stephen Ross and donors connected to Ross and the firm.
Patel is claiming primary rival Nadler has publicly turned his back on fellow Democrats like President Biden and former President Barack Obama.
Progressives in the 10th Congressional District are starting to freak out that it may be too late to stop Dan Goldman, fresh off an endorsement by The New York Times, and prevent a moderate Democrat from winning the primary.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams reportedly plans to throw her weight behind fellow Democratic Council member Carlina Rivera’s campaign for the city’s hotly contested 10th Congressional District.
Elizabeth Holtzman has been excluded from the PIX11 House debate tonight, triggering a protest from the former Brooklyn congresswoman and district attorney as well as one of her major supporters — the National Organization For Women.
A powerful FDNY union backed Rep. Nicole Malliotakis for reelection after sitting out the House race in 2020, when the Staten Island Republican unseated Democratic freshman Rep. Max Rose in the 11th Congressional District.
A Democratic state Senate candidate that New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently endorsed, Conrad Tillard, has a history of anti-Semitic, anti-abortion and anti-gay remarks.
The day after the Adams administration declared overcrowding in city homeless shelters an emergency, the official tasked with running the embattled housing system, Commissioner Gary Jenkins, went partying on a yacht with his top aide.
Controversial Republican Councilwoman Vickie Paladino got into a heated, caught-on-camera altercation with a weed-smoking constituent she claims has been squatting at a house in her eastern Queens district.
Adam Foss, a former Boston prosecutor who became a criminal justice reform advocate and frequent speaker on mass incarceration, was charged by the Manhattan district attorney with rape and sexual abuse.
Building owners are trying to figure out how to pay for upgrades needed to comply with New York City regulations intended to fight climate change.
The MTA is facing a $2.5 billion budget deficit for 2025, 12 percent of its operating budget. That has New Yorkers who remember past financial emergencies worried about service cuts.
The law enforcement takedown of a lucrative gambling ring shared by two Mafia families hooked a crooked Long Island cop and eight mobsters — including a guy known as “Joe Fish,” authorities said.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan has lifted the state of emergency over the city’s biggest eyesore after pieces of it came crumbling down, falling near railroad tracks.
The developers looking to take over the Central Warehouse are still interested in the project, Albany County officials said.
Travers Stakes winner and Saratoga track record holder Arrogate left one of his last calling cards at the closing session of Fasig-Tipton’s New York-bred sale this week when a colt he sired sold for $700,000.
The Barnes & Noble at Colonie Center remained closed yesterday as workers continued cleaning up and making repairs following a flooding incident over the weekend.
Perrin W. Dake, the son of Stewart’s Shops’ founders who died after a swimming accident on Friends Lake, will be honored with a service for family and friends Saturday.
Nationwide, school districts are dealing with what many administrators are calling the toughest teacher recruiting season they have ever experienced.
The FDA decided to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter without a prescription to adults, a long-sought wish of consumers frustrated by expensive exams and devices.
