Good Tuesday morning.
If you have spent time in the vicinity of Peebles Island over the past few years, odds are that you’ve been treated to some prime bird watching experiences when it comes to spotting Haliaeetus Leucocephalus, better known as the bald eagle.
The bald eagle has been America’s official national bird since 1782, chosen in part due to its majestic presence, long life (30 to 35 years, or up to 50 years in captivity), considerable strength (they can fly up to 30 miles per hour and dive at 100 miles per hour), and the fact that it native to North America.
At the height of the pandemic, my better half and his good buddy got bitten by the birding bug. They spent, quite literally, hours on end trolling various locales all across the state in search of specimens that they would then try to capture on film. Easier said than done.
I accompanied them on some of these trips, but was later discouraged from tagging along in part because I often brought Henry, our mini Goldendoodle, along for the ride, and he had a tendency to bark and scare off the birds. The eagles, however, were not at all bothered by Henry’s presence.
Actually, they weren’t bother by anything much, going about their daily routines without paying any attention to the many people following and chronicle their every move. The Peebles Eagles are famous. They’re the subject of lessons for local schoolchildren. They’ve even got their own Facebook page.
And seeing them has become pretty commonplace – I have on more than one occasion spotted one roosting on a branch outside the gym on Green Island. (Apparently, loud house music doesn’t deter them, either).
This wasn’t always the case. In fact, the bald eagle has come back from the brink and is a formerly endangered species, declared as such in 1978. In the mid-1900s, it came close to being wiped out due to a combination of hunting, habitat deterioration, and poisoning of its food source from the insecticide Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, known as DDT.
The Endangered Species Act, coupled with a federal ban on DDT and successful conservation actions enabled the bald eagles to make a remarkable recovery.
They were removed from the endangered species list in August 2007, when some 10,000 nesting male-female pairs were counted, but remain protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.
Even though they’re not a rarity anymore, seeing an eagle in the wild is still a pretty cool experience, even if all they’re doing at the time is preening on top of a telephone pole or snoozing on branch. Also, eagles mate for life, so watching their relationships mature over time is another interesting experiment.
The eagle gets a few days over recognition over the year, including one in June and another today, which is actually National Save the Eagles Day, if you want to get technical about it.
A pretty fitting day for the governor to be delivering her first State of the State address as a first woman elected to serve as New York’s executive. Historic, even.
It will be partly sunny today, but on the cold side again, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s.
In the headlines…
Several classified documents from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president were discovered last fall in a private office, Biden’s attorneys acknowledged.
A “small number of documents with classified markings,” were discovered at the Penn Biden Center by the president’s personal attorneys on Nov. 2, according to Richard Sauber, special counsel to the White House.
The documents were turned over the next day to the National Archives, and the White House said it is cooperating with the Department of Justice (DOJ) as it conducts a review of the documents.
The special grand jury investigating former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia has completed its work, and a court will soon decide whether to publicly release the panel’s findings.
Trump appeared to dodge another legal bullet yesterday, when a federal judge ordered large portions of his deposition in a rape case unsealed — only to abruptly reverse course and allow them to stay under wraps for the time being.
Biden was under growing political pressure to confront the surge of undocumented migrants at the southern border as he began two days of diplomacy in Mexico City to secure more help from Mexico to stem the tide of people fleeing toward to the US.
Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador challenged Biden to end an attitude of “abandonment” and “disdain” for Latin America and the Caribbean as the two leaders met, making for a brusque opening to a summit of North American leaders.
In his first trip south of the border as president, Biden will try to accomplish what his predecessors could not: Get Mexico to finally curtail the flow of drugs.
Biden declared an emergency in California after a barrage of deadly winter storms has prompted widespread power outages and flooding since last week.
Malibu, Hollywood and Beverly Hills were forecast to experience flooding last night. Along the coast to the north, evacuations were underway in a Santa Barbara County enclave.
The emergency declaration allows for federal assistance to supplement the local response efforts and it authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.
House Republicans are planning to launch a new subcommittee this week that will investigate communications between Big Tech companies and the Biden administration, a source familiar with the matter confirmed.
Republican Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson told Fox Business’ “Morning with Maria” that impeachment proceeding against Biden administration officials should be “based upon wrongdoing,” not failed policies.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, fresh off a contentious fight over whether he should wield the gavel, presided over his first session in the role. In a 220-213 vote largely along party lines, the House passed rules under which it will operate for the 118th Congress.
The rules package Republicans pushed through allows a single lawmaker to force a vote on “vacating” the speaker’s chair.
House Republicans also fulfilled a key campaign promise, passing legislation to rescind the bulk of an IRS funding boost signed into law last year, marking the first bill passed by the GOP-controlled House this Congress.
A nonpartisan watchdog filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Rep. George Santos, accusing the truth-challenged Long Island Republican of committing “serious” violations of campaign finance law.
China suspended visas for South Koreans to come to the country for tourism or business in apparent retaliation for COVID-19 testing requirements on Chinese travelers.
Moderna said it is considering pricing its Covid-19 vaccine in a range of $110 to $130 per dose in the U.S. when it shifts from government contracting to commercial distribution of the shots.
The Omicron-adapted COVID-19 vaccine booster developed by Pfizer and BioNTech sharply reduced hospitalizations among older patients, Israeli researchers said, in some of the first evidence of the jab’s real-world effectiveness.
Several vaccine companies say they are expecting breakthroughs as early as this year as they pursue new ways to protect people against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid.
The FDA is set to convene a panel of its outside vaccine advisers later this month to weigh key issues over the future of COVID-19 vaccines, including when and how to greenlight new boosters and changes to which strain the vaccines target.
Gov. Kathy Hochul will deliver her second State of the State address at 1 p.m. today in the Assembly Chamber in Albany’s Capitol Building, where she will outline her priorities for the legislative session, which began Jan. 4 and runs until June.
Hochul has talked tough in recent weeks about overhauling controversial criminal justice reforms to battle rising crime, but it remains to be seen whether her State of the State speech will satisfy critics on either side of the political aisle.
Part of her address will focus on an ambitious billion-dollar plan to close some of the many gaps in the health care system for New Yorkers with mental illness.
Transit workers are splitting from their union brethren by speaking up for Hector LaSalle, Hochul’s embattled pick to lead the state’s highest court – just months before their contract ends with the Hochul-controlled MTA.
Hochul was urged to withdraw her nomination of LaSalle by liberal lawmakers who claim he’s too conservative and would tilt the state’s top court too far to the right.
Union leaders held a press conference at the state Capitol to publicly express their opposition to LaSalle. One participant, Jimmy Mahoney, Iron Workers union general VP, was reportedly uninvited to the State of the State address today as a result.
“It’s wrong. We got her elected,” Mahoney said. “I’m not going to stand for it. She’s going to try to bully it through, but this has been done terribly. You have to talk to labor.
So far, about half a dozen labor unions have announced their opposition to LaSalle, citing an opinion he joined as an appellate judge they considered anti-labor.
Errol Louis writes: “The ugliest, least forgivable part of the fight is the willfully distorted interpretation of LaSalle’s more than 5,000 judicial rulings.”
Albany Law School Prof. Vin Bonventre takes a deep dive into LaSalle’s opinions over the years.
Despite her multiple pledges for transparency, since she assumed office 16 months ago, Hochul’s administration has continued a hiring practice that has long allowed governors to obscure the true cost of their staffs, records show.
Any plan to raise the minimum wage in New York – and the all-important details – will be part of a conversation among Democrats in the state Assembly, Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters.
A digital wage atlas launched by Cornell researchers shows that fewer than 40% of New Yorkers earn at or above a living wage, including less than one-third among people of color and younger workers.
Democrats did not underperform in the recent midterm election, a report released by the state party last week asserted, skirting criticism of Democrats’ get-out-the vote efforts and chalking up lackluster results mostly to an unusually robust Republican turnout.
Measures designed to make it easier to vote and reduce discrimination at the ballot box advanced in the Democratic-led New York state Senate – the first package of measures to be approved in the new legislative session.
Republicans in the state Senate spelled out their legislative priorities, which they are dubbing the “Rescue New York” agenda.
More than 7,000 nurses went on strike yesterday at two hospitals in New York City — Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center. They are demanding higher wages and better working conditions.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a fiery speech supporting approximately 7,000 nurses on strike at two Big Apple hospitals, asserted that the walk-out was not about money, but safety.
Describing himself as a “strong supporter of nurses,” Mayor Eric Adams urged hospital officials to reach a “fair” agreement with the striking nurses.
Adams released details of a plan to turn empty offices into brand new apartments to help relieve New York City’s affordable housing crunch.
Adams’ office conversion blueprint includes specific proposals to ease zoning restrictions and offer tax breaks to property owners. The plan could pave the way for up to 20,000 new apartments over the next decade, Adams said.
“The need for housing is desperate, and the opportunity offered by underused office space is clear — we know what we need to do,” said Adams in a statement.
Members of Mayor Adams’ administration faced jeers and hours of critical questioning during a City Council hearing on his controversial attempt to make retired municipal workers pay for some forms of health insurance.
The Adams administration’s humanitarian relief centers for migrants are so full that dozens of asylum seekers were reportedly turned away from them last week after being bussed to New York from Colorado.
New York City’s free preschool program is a national model, embraced by parents and praised for its high quality. But a year into a new mayoral administration, the influential initiative faces challenges that may threaten its standing and undermine its future.
The Big Apple wants to go green. First it needs to figure out where to put thousands of chargers needed for electric vehicles as the state phases out the sale of new gasoline-powered cars and trucks by 2035.
Electric vehicle startup Revel will build five new “superhubs” across New York City for EV charging in the coming years, the company announced.
Sayfullo Saipov may face the death penalty for a fatal truck rampage in 2017 that his lawyer did not dispute. His federal court case may last for months.
A Brooklyn judge accused of making racist and homophobic remarks about court workers, fellow judges and others has agreed to give up her seat on the bench, officials said.
Yolanda Vega will be on your TV screen once again, this time as a competitor on “Family Feud.”
One week after his terrifying collapse, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was discharged from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and has returned home.
Hamlin has been transferred to Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute to continue his treatment.
“Grateful for the awesome care I received at UCMC,” Hamlin tweeted. “Happy to be back in Buffalo. The docs and nurses at Buffalo General have already made me feel at home!”
Doctors in Cincinnati said that Hamlin was upgraded from critical condition yesterday morning and met several other requirements for transport, including no longer needing intensive nursing care or intensive respiratory therapy.
As western New York prepares to bury more than 40 victims of a catastrophic storm, Black residents are reeling from a year of grief.
The depleted ozone layer that shields Earth from harmful UV radiation will be healed by midcentury, a new United Nations report stated.
I am sad that I do not have a hibernating bear under my porch like these people do in Connecticut.
