Good Thursday morning. Welcome to a brand-new month – the last month of 2022.
It has been a crazy busy week on my end. When it rains, it pours. So I’m going to get right into it today, with a return to a more serious subject than all the holiday-related content we’ve been featuring here of late.
You might have heard that it’s World AIDS Day, an international day dedicated to raising awareness about the pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and remembering those who have died from the virus.
The WHO established this day in 1988 – just seven years after Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) was first recognized as a new disease when increasing numbers of young gay men succumbed to unusual opportunistic infections and rare malignancies.
The purpose of the day was to raise awareness about the virus and share information among organizations, governments, individuals, and health care providers. At the time it was estimated that 90,000 to 150,000 people were HIV-positive.
By contrast, some 1.2 million people JUST in the U.S. have HIV today, and about 13 percent of them are not aware they’re infected. Though new infections are declining, they are occurring, with the highest rate of new diagnoses occurring in the South.
Also, a big decrease in new infections occurred during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis, most likely because fewer people had access to testing.
Globally, about 38.4 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2021. An estimated 0.7% of adults aged 15–49 years worldwide are living with HIV. In absolute numbers, South Africa has the highest number of AIDS cases as the year draws to a close (7.5 million), followed by Mozambique (2.2 million), India (2.1 million) and Nigeria (1.8 million).
AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was, thanks to antiretroviral drugs that make it a manageable and livable condition. However, the stigma of the virus still exists, and the virus is disproportionately impacting Black and Latino communities, as well as gay and bisexual men.
More than 40 million lives have been lost to AIDS, according to the UN, which released a report to highlight how inequalities in access to care and testing, as well as poverty, are providing roadblocks to reaching the goal of eradicating the virus by 2030.
Communities across the state and nation will be holding events to commemorate World AIDS Day, and the White House issued a proclamation that recommitted to ending the epidemic and “fighting the discrimination that too often keeps people with HIV from getting the services they need and living the full lives they deserve.”
Yesterday was very wet and windy. Today will be dry and windy, with the possibility of a few flurries or showers and temperatures in the low 40s.
In the headlines…
House Democrats elected a new generation of leaders to take the mantle from the three octogenarians who have led them for two decades, installing a trio of top leaders that, for the first time in congressional history, includes no white men.
The party chose caucus chair Hakeem Jeffries of New York to succeed Nancy Pelosi as leader of the Democrats in the chamber next year, a historic move that will make him the first Black person to lead one of the two major parties in either chamber of Congress.
Jeffries ran unopposed as leader, with Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, current assistant speaker, running as whip and California Rep. Peter Aguilar, previously vice chair of the caucus, winning the spot to lead the House Democratic caucus.
Jeffries vowed to “get things done” in the new Congress, even after Republicans won control of the chamber. The closed-door vote was unanimous, by acclamation.
The strategy behind Jeffries’ yearslong ascent to House Democratic leader, as his top allies see it, focused on making the outcome feel inevitable. And in the end, it did.
Republicans blasted Jeffries for repeatedly denying the legitimacy of former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election.
Democrats are showing cracks of division over avoiding a railroad industry strike, with most House Democrats voting for Biden’s tentative labor proposal while progressives in both chambers insist that more be done to provide rail workers with paid sick leave.
There were no illusions inside the White House that the decision to call on Congress to impose a negotiated labor agreement on railroad workers and operators would be universally well received, several officials said.
The Biden administration will pay $75 in relocation costs to three Native American tribes whose homes are threatened by climate change, the Interior Department announced.
Biden pledged that he would preserve the Spirit Mountain area in southern Nevada, which contains some of the most biologically diverse and culturally significant lands in the Mojave Desert.
Biden plans to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales on Friday in Boston, the White House has said.
The Royal couple is visiting Boston for the second annual Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony, an ambitious initiative founded by Prince William to help tackle some of the planet’s most pressing environmental challenges, which is scheduled for Friday.
Prince William and Kate Middleton shocked basketball fans when they made a surprise appearance at the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat game last night.
Democrats considering shaking up the order of their 2024 presidential primary are waiting on Biden, anxious to see if he’ll endorse stripping Iowa of its traditional leadoff spot or discourage major changes while mulling his own potential reelection bid.
All three of the major cable news companies saw jumps in viewership this month compared to last November, thanks largely to the midterm elections.
U.S. stocks galloped ahead on the last day of November trading after comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell helped the Dow industrials exit a bear market.
Powell signaled that the central bank could slow its rapid pace of interest rate increases at its December meeting while making clear that borrowing costs have farther to climb as policymakers remain concerned about a sustained bout of inflation.
Economic activity in China contracted further in November, adding pressure to a global economy already losing momentum as the war in Ukraine drags on and central banks raise interest rates to combat high inflation.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who is attempting to become the next House speaker, warned the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack that members of his party planned to launch an inquiry of their own into the panel’s work.
The House Ways and Means Committee now has six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, ending a yearslong pursuit by Democrats to dig into one of the former president’s most closely guarded personal details.
“Treasury has complied with last week’s court decision,” Lily Adams, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, said.
Despite all the talk of fancy apartments, free Mercedes-Benzes and cash flowing at Christmastime, the criminal tax fraud trial Trump’s family business could come down to three mundane words: “in behalf of.”
Former top Trump White House aide Kellyanne Conway was questioned for hours this week by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
A federal judge has rejected Trump’s argument that he has “absolute immunity” in response to a lawsuit alleging he committed civil rights violations in his attempts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results.
Long Covid demonstrates that the virus is taking a lingering, pervasive and perhaps even more insidious toll. Medical experts have called it “the next public health disaster in the making.”
China’s most senior official in charge of its Covid response told health officials that the country faced a “new stage and mission” in pandemic controls, state media Xinhua reported – potentially indicating an adjustment to Beijing’s “zero-Covid” strategy.
The FDA said a Covid-19 antibody treatment from Eli Lilly & Co. is no longer authorized for use because it isn’t likely to be effective against certain Omicron offshoots now dominant in the U.S.
Former President Clinton, 76, announced on Twitter that he has tested positive for COVID-19 and is experiencing mild symptoms. He tweeted that he is “doing fine overall” and is grateful to be fully vaccinated and boosted.
Nineteen people including 17 New York City and New York state public employees were charged in a federal complaint unsealed Wednesday with submitting fraudulent applications for funds intended to help small businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic.
They include New York City Police Department workers and a jail official. The phony loans added up to more than $1.5 million, prosecutors said.
Deaths due to substance abuse, particularly of alcohol and opioids, rose sharply among older Americans in 2020, the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, as lockdowns disrupted routines and isolation and fear spread, federal health researchers reported.
Gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships would be allowed to donate blood without abstaining from sex under guidelines being drafted by the FDA, people familiar with the plans said.
The new plan would require men who have sex with men to fill out a questionnaire about condom use and recent sexual activity, among other risk factors. The idea, still under debate, would allow those with no new partners in the last three months to donate.
Gov. Kathy Hochul celebrated the start of construction on a 339-mile transmission line that will carry clean energy from Canada to New York City.
“And once complete in 2026, it’ll deliver 1,250 megawatts. What does that mean? Let me put it in words you’ll understand. One million, one million homes will be powered because of what we’re doing here. That’s extraordinary,” Hochul said.
Hochul signed legislation to make sure that 70% of New York’s energy comes from renewable sources by the year 2030, saying these goals to fight climate change are ambitious but they are doable.
Hochul announced that a total of $3 million will be administered over three years to provide immigrants arriving in New York City with free immigration-related legal services and assistance with critical application filings and required appearances.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing backlash after moving forward with a host of policy changes that crack down on the city’s homeless population.
Many New York City residents agree something needs to be done to remove people with severe mental illness from public places. But some experts say the mayor’s aggressive new approach may not help.
The NYPD was “blindsided” by Adams’ announcement that cops will start taking unhinged homeless people into custody for psychiatric evaluations and potential hospital committal — and scrambled to start making it happen.
Adams, who has made reducing the city’s rat population a top priority, is now hiring a director of rodent mitigation to oversee the killing of as many of the rodents in as little time as possible.
The lucky hire will report to Meera Joshi, deputy mayor of operations. The posting lists an annual salary range of between $120,000 and $170,000.
While Adams may have declared over a month ago that the tide of asylum seekers flowing into the city since the spring had slowed considerably, his administration announced the opening of eight new “Asylum Seeker Resource Navigation sites” across the city.
A pair of Albany Democrats from New York City want taxpayers to pick up as much as $300 million in legal fees to help illegal immigrants fight deportation – despite worries it could also help potentially “dangerous people” stay in the country.
A State Supreme Court judge sentenced a scooter driver to as much as three years in prison for fatally hitting an actress, Lisa Banes, after the man tried to avoid blame for the accident following an earlier admission of guilt.
There are “likely tens of thousands of illicit cannabis businesses” currently operating out of bodegas, smoke shops and other storefronts in New York City — with many of the pop-up shops selling bad or dangerously tainted weed, a new study reveals.
The state Thruway Authority will propose the first widespread toll hikes on E-ZPass holders since 2010 in a meeting on Monday with its board of directors.
During today’s MTA board meeting, officials presented the 2023-2026 November Financial Plan, which included a proposal to raise fares and tolls beyond the standard biennial increases to help offset the looming multibillion-dollar deficits the agency faces.
MTA officials say they may need 5.5% more money from transit passengers and toll-paying motorists — a bigger increase than the typical 4% fare and toll revenue hikes the MTA seeks every two years.
Experts agree the governor and state lawmakers need to step in to provide aid to the transportation agency heading into the next legislative session.
The New York City Police Department named Jeffrey Maddrey to the agency’s highest uniformed rank despite past disciplinary charges and drawn-out litigation dating back years, replacing Kenneth Corey, who retired earlier this week.
Dozens of nurses packed into a City Council hearing to sound the alarm over dangerously low staffing levels — shortages they’ve decried before, during and after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
New York City parents were left fuming after the website accepting their children’s public school applications buckled under high traffic — one day before the deadline.
The Big Apple and its environs are slated to get more snow than last winter, most of it after the turn of the year, Accuweather meteorologists predicted.
New York City kicked off the holiday season with the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.
New York University announced that it is investing $1 billion in its flagship engineering school in Downtown Brooklyn, in a bid to improve its ranking among competitors and raise New York City’s profile in the technology sector.
The U.S. Senate on Wednesday afternoon confirmed Anne Nardacci, a Colonie-based commercial litigator, to serve as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in a 52-44 vote.
The Albany County’s redistricting commission will hold a final public hearing as it prepares to resubmit proposed new legislative lines to the county legislature.
DEC and Albany County Animal Control are working to capture an otter, reported to be chasing visitors at the 6 Mile Waterworks Park.
More than a dozen teachers at a South Colonie middle school who were secretly recorded in a staff bathroom by a former longtime coworker are suing both the school district and their indicted colleague, who pleaded guilty to felony charges earlier this month.
CNN said it is laying off employees and paid contributors, the latest shake-up for the cable network after Warner Bros. took ownership of it from AT&T Inc. earlier this year.
Christine McVie, the singer, songwriter and keyboardist who became the biggest hitmaker for Fleetwood Mac, one of music’s most popular bands, died at the age of 79.
