Good Monday morning. Welcome to the last full workweek before the Thanksgiving holiday.
We’re entering the time of year when things slow down – people focus less on work and more on enjoying family, friends, travel, a little well-earned R-and-R.
And also, unless you happen to be a big fan of winter sports, when it’s dark and cold and snowy/icy, most people are less inclined to be outside exercising.
Due to a combination of holiday gatherings with lots of festive food not typically on the menu (hello, Christmas cookies and pecan pie, and stuffing,I’m looking at you) and getting less exercise, this is the time of year when the focus on healthy eating tends to slip.
That’s not altogether a bad thing. Enjoying yourself and breaking out of the routine once in a while is good for the heart and the soul. Necessary, even. And apparently, all the grim predictions about holiday weight gain are perhaps a bit overstated. Average weight gain is about a pound – not eight or 10 or whatever the sensationalist headlines proclaim.
That said, a consistently unhealthy diet and increasingly sedentary lifestyle is definitely NOT good for your health. And as a country, we are collectively trending in the wrong direction. Particularly concerning is the rise of illnesses related to weight again – especially Type 2 diabetes, which spiked considerably among kids during the coronavirus pandemic.
Across the globe, the number of people who suffer from diabetes has been steadily growing – especially in low-to-moderate income countries. According to the WHO, between 2000 and 2019, there was a 3% increase in age-standardized mortality rates from diabetes. But in lower-middle-income countries, the jump was much higher: 13%.
More distressing statistics:
In 2014, 8.5% of adults aged 18 years and older had diabetes. In 2019, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.5 million deaths and 48% of all deaths due to diabetes occurred before the age of 70 years. Another 460 000 kidney disease deaths were caused by diabetes, and raised blood glucose causes around 20% of cardiovascular deaths.
So what is diabetes, anyway? It’s a chronic disease that occurs either when the pancreas cannot produce sufficient insulin – the hormone that regulates the glucose (sugar) level in the blood – OR the body is unable to make good use of the insulin it is able to produce.
Untreated, diabetes can led to hyperglycemia, which is elevated blood sugar, and that can cause significant damage to blood vessels, organs, and the nervous system.
There are a variety of different kinds of diabetes. More than 95% of those who suffer from this disease have have Type 2, which is usually the result of a physical inactivity and an unhealthy body weight. Type 1 is also known as juvenile or childhood-onset diabetes. (Symptoms include excess urination and thirst, unexplained weight loss, fatigue and vision changes).
You may have also heard of gestational diabetes, which occurs in pregnant women.
Some people can manage their diabetes through a combination of diet and exercise. Others need medication or insulin therapy, which might involve a pump, a port, injections or even an inhaler.
Today is World Diabetes Day (WWD), and the International Diabetes Federation using this moment to call for an increase in access to diabetes education to help improve the lives of the more than half a billion people living with the disease around the globe.
WWD was created in 1991 by IDF and the WHO in response to the escalating health threat posed by diabetes. The UN passed a resolution in 2005 to make the day official.
Interesting historical factoid: WWD is observed on Nov. 14 to mark the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922. Banting was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine in 1923. He was the first Canadian and the youngest person – 32 years old – to receive that specific honor.
(As an aside, the youngest person EVER to win a Nobel Peace Prize was Malala Yousafzai, who received the honor “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education” in 2014 at the age of 17).
Things are looking a little dicey in the weather department…I cheated and looked ahead to the holiday week and, well, maybe things will take a turn for the better. One can always hope. In the meantime, today will be mainly sunny, but also on the chilly side, with temperatures only in the mid-40s.
The Capital Region may get its first dusting of snow as early as tomorrow night.
Time to break out the woolies.
In the headlines…
With the Senate now in hand, Democrats are hoping for something that was almost unimaginable a week ago: keeping the House.
The GOP appeared on track toward winning the barest of House majorities, nonpartisan analysts said. The contest for the House could last well into this coming week or longer if control ends up hinging on only one or two uncalled races.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, of Nevada, was declared the winner over Republican Adam Laxalt late Saturday night, securing Democrats at least a 50-50 split in the upper chamber even before the Georgia runoff in early December.
“The election is a great win for the American people,” Chuck Schumer said in a briefing late Saturday night. “With the races now called in Arizona and Nevada, Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, and I will once again be majority leader.”
Every election denier who sought to become the top election official in a critical battleground state lost at the polls this year, as voters roundly rejected extreme partisans who promised to restrict voting and overhaul the electoral process.
John Fetterman’s decisive victory in Pennsylvania’s Senate race — arguably Democrats’ biggest midterms win — was achieved in no small part because he did significantly better in counties dominated by white working-class voters compared with Biden in 2020.
While Senate Democrats may be breathing a collective sigh of relief, their slim majority would get an important boost from a Sen. Raphael Warnock win in the Georgia runoff race Dec. 6. The ability to pass key legislation and fill court vacancies may depend on it.
Even a bare-minimum majority preserves Democrats’ ability to confirm President Biden’s nominees and would allow them to stop Republican legislation in its tracks should the G.O.P. win the House.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Senate Republicans should delay leadership elections set for Wednesday, joining other GOP lawmakers pushing for a pause at least until the Georgia Senate race is decided.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, long considered a frontrunner to replace House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, may have his moment as minority leader if Democrats lose control of the chamber and Pelosi steps down.
Pelosi said that she is being asked to stay in Democratic leadership after the party performed better than expected in the midterm elections.
“I’m not making any comments until this election is finished and we have a little more time to go,” Pelosi said. “I wish it would be faster, but it isn’t.”
Pelosi said that losing four seats in New York was a “setback” and conceded that it could be the reason why Democrats lose control in the House.
How did Democrats stop a red wave in 2022? The short answer: Donald Trump appears to have helped them.
As election deniers continued losing, many Republicans saw their party’s performance as evidence that Trump was a political liability.
While in office, Trump repeatedly told John Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Kelly said.
Former Vice President Mike Pence said then-President Trump “endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building” with his words and actions during the Jan. 6 riot in 2021.
Pence said Trump’s rhetoric was “reckless” as a mob of his supporters ransacked the Capitol last year – with Pence and others temporarily forced into hiding.
Trump filed a lawsuit Friday night to avoid cooperating with a subpoena from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Trump’s lawyers say they’ve communicated with the House as the subpoena deadlines neared, offering to consider answering written questions while expressing “concerns and objections” about the bulk of the document requests.
Trump tore into Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell again, declaring it was the Kentucky congressman’s “fault” for the GOP setback in the Senate.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley has declared that his party “is dead” and it’s time for something “new” after a string of deflating midterm losses ensured Democrats will control the Senate for at least another two years.
Tiffany Trump and Michael Boulos, whose wedding was almost derailed by Hurricane Nicole, treated their guests to an American-Lebanese celebration at her father’s private residence.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama said she thinks Biden is “doing a great job,” but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement for another White House run in a recent interview.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for stabilizing the US’ rocky relationship with China and reopening regular lines of communication between the two largest economies ahead of a global gathering next week where leaders are expected to meet.
U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said “a few” countries are resistant to mentioning a 1.5 degree Celsius global warming goal in whatever agreement emerges from the COP27 summit in Egypt.
Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet today for another honest exchange in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit. But the mood in the room is unlikely to be as balmy as the surrounding location.
It’s their first in-person meeting since Biden took office. U.S.-China relations are at their lowest point in decades amid tensions over tech competition, cybersecurity, China’s support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan, and its military build-up.
The United States will keep in place the public health emergency status of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing millions of Americans to still receive free tests, vaccines and treatments, two Biden administration officials said.
A temporary tax break for small businesses has spawned a cottage industry of advisory firms tapping into federal pandemic aid, raising alarms at the Internal Revenue Service that some claims are going beyond what the law allows.
The exodus from the labor force in the pandemic’s early months has mostly reversed, but one group remains oddly absent: people in their early 20s.
A cruise ship with hundreds of Covid-positive passengers docked in Sydney, Australia, after being hit by a wave of infections.
The Majestic Princess, which returned from New Zealand, is carrying more than 4,000 people. Princess Cruises, the cruise line,said in a statement that all guests onboard took a rapid antigen test within 24 hours of disembarking.
With the results of this year’s midterm elections now mostly set in stone for New York, Democrats around the state have begun the bitter process of trying to understand what went wrong.
The Working Families Party, which lambasts moderate Democrats at every turn ended up helping to salvage the campaign of Hochul – a centrist who stands against some of its core principles.
Conservative critics of newly re-elected Hochul tore into her on Twitter after a recent video showed her happily dancing unmasked surrounded by dozens of masked kids in a Puerto Rican school.
Both former New York governor David Paterson and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Hochul would do well to think about bringing more people into the discussion.
Former GOP New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin discussed his candidacy, how the crime surge impacted the election, and his plan for the future.
While Hochul secured a full term as New York governor, leading with more than 320,000 votes against Zeldin, all counties in the state reported an increase in Republican Party margins compared to the 2020 presidential election.
Hochul has Black voters to thank for saving her job as governor against Zeldin, an election results analysis shows.
Republicans nationwide leaned hard on crime in the midterms — and mostly fell flat. But it did gangbusters in New York.
Now New York Republicans say they see a path forward to end their long years in the wilderness.
Registered Republicans are becoming an increasingly rare breed in New York. Republicans as a share of the state’s electorate have dropped from 33 percent in 1988 to 22 percent in 2022, state Board of Elections Data shows.
A handful of counties in New York had some issues reporting election results when the polls closed on election night. The delay in results is prompting a call for updated voting technology.
Errol Louis warns Hochul not to forget “the most important policy victory of the election: the resounding electoral defeat of Zeldin’s much-hyped claim that crime is raging out of control and requires a top-to-bottom reworking of the state’s criminal-justice system.”
Over the next two months, Hochul has to sign or veto more than 400 bills, likely make changes to her administration and select a new chief judge of New York. In January, when she will have to map out a strategy for a new Legislature and state budget.
Republicans chipped away at the Democrats’ control of the State Senate and Assembly, reflecting the difficulty the Democratic majorities face in pursuing a progressive agenda while trying to protect their more moderate members.
Mayor Eric Adams said that fellow Democrats’ inability to talk about crime is driving some immigrant communities into the arms of Republicans. His home borough of Brooklyn could serve as a prime example.
“New York is the safest big city in America, but this statistic means nothing to a mother mourning a child lost to gun violence,” Adams wrote in USA Today, contradicting his past claim that the stats show crime fears are mostly about “perception.”
Two days after watching his party suffer key congressional losses and a too-close-for-comfort margin of victory in the governor’s race, Adams renewed his call for Hochul and state lawmakers to make another round of changes to the bail laws.
The city will spend at least $596 million a year to provide shelter, education, health care and legal aid to thousands of asylum seekers who’ve arrived in recent months, its Independent Budget Office said.
Adams insisted that state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs is doing a great job, joining Hochul who previously said she wouldn’t call for the resignation of the embattled leader.
That hasn’t stopped members of the state Democratic Party committee from drafting a letter calling for Jacobs’ resignation, which has garnered hundreds of signatures – including from sitting state Assembly members and senators.
The letter says Jacobs “failed to commit the time, energy and resources necessary to maintain our deep-blue status: 4 Congressional seats flipped to Republican control, and Governor Hochul won by a slim majority — the smallest in two decades.”
The mayor pledged an additional $14.5 million for a multi-agency trash pickup at a conference in Borough Park.
The NYPD spent nearly $3 billion on surveillance technology in a 12-year stretch but continues to flout the law requiring it reveal details of each contract, according to two advocacy groups.
The City University of New York doled out fat raises to top administrators, with two honchos getting an extra $90,000 a year.
While some states have no minimum age for receiving a tattoo if a parent allows it, New York State forbids anyone younger than 18 from getting tattooed with or without parental consent.
A small crowd of about 100 hearty spectators braved a rainy morning to lay eyes on the 50-foot-wide tree as it pulled into Rockefeller Center around 7 a.m. in a 115-foot-long trailer after a more than 200-mile journey from upstate Queensbury.
The new top spokesman for New York City’s Department of Social Services, Stephen Witt, an editor at the Schneps Media-owned PoliticsNY website, once wrote a since-retracted editorial that compared car reduction efforts in the city to the Holocaust.
Health officials have determined that five people who died at an Upper Manhattan nursing home this summer were felled by Legionnaires’ disease, representing the deadliest outbreak of the airborne infection in New York City in seven years.
When correction staff failed to aid an asthmatic older man struggling for life in a Rikers Island jail, two of his fellow detainees acted themselves, picking up Herminio Villanueva, 61, and carrying him to the medical clinic. They were turned away and he died.
New York State Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy announced the state will sell more than 1,300 items of FEMA-supplied inventory from decommissioned COVID-19 alternate care facilities at two auctions taking place on consecutive days.
In six-and-a-half months, Dennis Drue could be released from the Erie County prison where he has served nearly all of his time for killing two teenagers and gravely injuring two others on the Northway in Halfmoon on Dec. 1, 2012. Is he remorseful?
Out of more than 40 high needs school districts in New York, Schenectady posted the worst math test results for Black students this year.
A retired APA staff member’s stymied attempt at submitting input during the agency’s open public comment period could lead the CELG to consider the matter and what it could mean for past and present state employees’ participation in solicited feedback.
Mayor Kathy Sheehan ordered city flags to be flown at half-staff to mark the passing of veteran Albany firefighter Ed Verhoff, who died Saturday at the age of 46.
Alec Baldwin has sued colleagues on the set of “Rust” whom he blames for putting the loaded gun in his hand that sent a fatal shot into the chest of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” took in a superb $180 million at North American cinemas over the weekend, ending one of the worst box office droughts on record and reaffirming Disney-owned Marvel Studios as Hollywood’s reigning blockbuster factory.
