Good morning. It’s Monday.
Let’s begin with a public service announcement. In case you forgot, Daylight Savings time started at 2 a.m. yesterday, which means we were supposed to “spring forward” by setting the clocks ahead an hour before we went to sleep Saturday night. (Unless, of course, you happen to live in Hawaii or the parts of Arizona that don’t engage in this outdated practice).
So, as I write this, it’s 3 a.m., not 2 a.m. This will take some getting used to, and I’ll likely be running late for a while until I fully adjust.
Oh, fire safety advocates also like to use this twice-a-year time change thing to remind folks to test their smoke detectors and change the batteries, if needed. (Some models have a 10-year battery that requires the whole unit to be switched out when they expire). If your smoke detector has been chirping at you and you disconnected it because you couldn’t stand the noise, now is the time to get that new battery in place.
On to our regularly scheduled programming…Today marks an important moment in history that is often overlooked. On this day in 1862, Congress passed the Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves, more or less annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required that escaped enslaved people be returned to their owners, even if they were apprehended in a free state.
The Fugitive Slave Act was part of the Compromise of 1850, which was intended to try to settle outstanding slavery issues and avert the threat of dissolution of the Union. This worked for about a decade or so, but in the end wasn’t enough to avert the Civil War, which started in April 12, 1861.
Also part of the Compromise, California was admitted to the Union as a free state; the land still in dispute after the Mexican cession was divided into the two territories – New Mexico and Utah – which were organized without mention of slavery, and the buying and selling of slaves was abolished in the District of Columbia, thought the practice of enslaving people was not banned outright.
The Compromise bought a modicum of relief to a nervous nation, which was on edge over the addition of new territories to the Union and the ongoing debate over slavery, which had caused deep divisions.
The Fugitive Slave Law, however, was a source of ongoing tension as it did not sit well with abolitionist-minded Northerners, who didn’t want any part in returning humans they did not consider rightly owned by anyone. Some actively – and in a few cases violently – sought to prevent slaves from being repatriated, and the Underground Railroad thrived.
The passage of the Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves set the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued less than a year later (Jan. 1, 1863), by then-President Abraham Lincoln and declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the Confederate states battling the Union in the Civil War would “henceforward…be free.”
The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves was fairly straightforward, stating the following:
All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
Thus ends our daily dose of half-forgotten history. Class dismissed.
We are not yet quite out from under winter’s thumb, even though spring is technically just a week away. Today will be in the low 40s, but with rain and snow in the morning that transitions later in the day to all rain.
That looks to be the start of yet another storm, which meteorologists say could bring the Capital Region its highest snowfall levels in more than two years. A winter storm watch will be in place from 5 p.m. tonight to 8 a.m. Wednesday, with travel being “difficult to impossible,” and the governor is advising people to avoid being on the roads unless absolutely necessary.
We’ll keep you posted as things develop.
In the headlines…
As President Joe Biden prepares a final decision on the huge Willow oil project in Alaska, he will prevent or limit oil drilling in 16 million acres in Alaska and the Arctic Ocean, an administration official said.
Biden’s allies in the climate movement are bracing for their biggest setback from his administration as he moves closer to approving an Alaskan oil project that would pump as much carbon into the atmosphere as 60 coal-burning power plants.
If Congress doesn’t raise the country’s borrowing limit, the results will be “catastrophic,” a top White House official said yesterday, the latest in a series of warnings from the Biden administration.
Biden spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday about the Silicon Valley Bank failure and efforts to address the situation, the White House said after the bank’s collapse.
Federal regulators announced another bank closed and the government would ensure all depositors of Silicon Valley Bank would be paid back in full as DC rushed to keep fallout from the collapse of the institution from sweeping through the financial system.
The feds won’t bail out Silicon Valley Bank, but they will try to help worried customers who have money deposited in the failed institution, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
As the fallout of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank continued to spread over the weekend, it became clear that some of the worst casualties were companies developing solutions for the climate crisis.
DFS has taken possession of Signature Bank, a state-chartered commercial bank and is FDIC-insured with total assets of approximately $110.36 billion and total deposits of approximately $88.59 billion as of December 31, 2022.
Signature foundered after the crypto sector imploded and banking regulators cracked down on lenders’ exposure to digital assets. The failure is the third-largest in U.S. history.
Banking regulators said depositors at Signature Bank will have full access to their deposits, a similar move to ensure depositors at the failed Silicon Valley Bank will get their money back.
Regulators said keeping open the 24-year-old institution, which held deposits from law firms and real estate companies, could threaten the financial system’s stability.
Biden hoped to ease a serious source of tension with Europe when he met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the White House last week.
In a potential boost for electric vehicles, Biden and von der Leyen said Friday they’ve agreed to open negotiations on the use of European minerals critical in the production of batteries for EVs that are eligible for U.S. tax credits.
Biden meets today with the leaders of Australia and Britain at a California naval base for an expected announcement of a nuclear submarines deal aimed at stabilizing the Asia-Pacific region as it faces a rising China.
A new poll has found that 62 percent of Americans support Biden’s plan to wipe away or reduce student loan debt.
Biden approved the livery for the new Boeing VC-25Bs, which will be delivered to the US Air Force in 2027 and 2028.
At a Washington dinner event, Mike Pence criticized the president he served under as well as Republicans who are minimizing the Capitol riot.
Pence rebuked Donald Trump for his role in the attack, saying he was “wrong” for claiming Pence had the authority to overturn the results of the 2020 election in his role presiding over Congress that day, saying “history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”
The remarks by Pence were some of his sharpest condemning the former president, after Trump waged a pressure campaign to get Pence to interfere with the certification of the 2020 election results.
While Trump holds a tight grasp on much of the GOP base, there is a notable minority of Republican voters who do not consider themselves MAGA members.
Trump should quit the presidential race if he’s indicted, one of the former Republican president’s potential competitors, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, says.
Congressional lawmakers ramped up pressure on Biden to declassify intelligence about the origins of COVID-19, sending a bill to his desk that would require his administration to do so.
US health agencies have sent a letter to the surgeon general of Florida, warning that his claims about Covid-19 vaccine risks are harmful to the public.
Dr. Anthony Fauci lashed out at Twitter CEO Elon Musk after the billionaire suggested Fauci should be “prosecuted” as critics blasted his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Discovering the origins of COVID-19 is a moral imperative and all hypotheses must be explored, the head of the World Health Organization said, in his strongest comments yet that the U.N. body remains committed to finding how the virus arose.
Three years into the pandemic, a select group of people have achieved something some once thought impossible: They have never tested positive for Covid.
This past weekend marked three years since the WHO officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic.
Japan’s easing of coronavirus guidelines on mask-wearing had little apparent effect today, with many keeping their faces covered despite government efforts to normalize aspects of daily life that were subject to public health restrictions during the pandemic.
State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is urging lawmakers to reject portions of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $227 billion state budget, arguing the plan impairs the ability of auditors to scrutinize billions of dollars in spending while offering a “misleading picture” of state debt.
More than two dozen Long Island elected officials teamed up to show a united front against Hochul’s proposal for high density housing in single-family neighborhoods on Long Island last week at the Port Washington Train Station.
A Chinese official linked to Hochul, who praised China’s ruling Communist Party as “great” and dismissed reports of systematic persecution against minorities inside China as “lies,” amplified a tweet saying it’s crucial for the US and Russia to improve relations.
Rep. Marc Molinaro, a first-term Republican congressman and a former county executive, claims Hochul’s proposed budget for the next year would steal $1 billion from counties and put safety net programs in jeopardy.
Now, after 125 years, the state will make the first addition to the roster of honorees on the Million Dollar Staircase, and it will again be a woman: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the trailblazing Supreme Court justice, feminist icon and Brooklyn native.
Efforts are underway to create a “Moderate Party” in New York state and elsewhere in a scheme to aid Democrats punished at the polls in last year’s midterm elections over what critics claim are left-field, soft on crime policies.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has reportedly invoked the specter of a potential Andrew Cuomo comeback bid while hitting up donors for her re-election campaign, warning he may challenge her for her seat.
The operators of Mayor Eric Adams’s favorite Manhattan restaurant still owe the government hundreds of thousands of dollars as part of a decade-old criminal case, court records show.
In a previously unreported letter filed in Brooklyn Federal Court Dec. 5, prosecutors wrote that the Petrosyants, together with their co-defendant, Lasha Goletiani, remain jointly on the hook for $582,590 as part of a judgement they entered in 2015.
After surviving the worst of the pandemic, the city now faces budget cuts that seem to promise even more disruption.
New York City is taking steps to make a busy stretch of Broadway more pedestrian friendly, Adams announced. Construction on two “pedestrian plazas” and other changes to Broadway from Madison Square to Herald Square begins today.
Adams chided New Yorkers for being “too stationary” and said they should be getting out of their cars and onto their feet.
A veteran NYPD cop who was fired by Commissioner Keechant Sewell over drug test is suing to get his job back.
Adams refused to explain Friday why Sewell wasn’t looped into the controversial decision to invite Cardi B to a police event — and instead praised the NYPD’s former Chief of Training Juanita Holmes for making the move.
Adams and the City Council are mulling changes to the zoning law to make opening as many as three casinos in New York City a sure bet.
An argument ended with a gunshot fired near the Upper Manhattan home of First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright and Schools Chancellor David Banks.
FDNY brass is nixing requests for demotions from some veteran chiefs who asked to be knocked down in rank following Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh’s controversial shake-up in the department.
Former New York Gov. David Paterson blasted the federal government for failing to reimburse the Big Apple over its migrant crisis — while calling some southern states “welfare recipients.’’
The owner of a Brooklyn real estate company pleaded guilty last week to paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks to a homeless-shelter operator in a yearslong scheme to profit from programs meant to help homeless people.
A former New York City police officer was convicted of several crimes for her role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, during which, prosecutors said, she pushed against and slapped the arms of police officers, all while yelling and wielding a tambourine.
Many New York City apartment buildings have less than a year to get in line with an ambitious climate mandate, or risk facing millions of dollars in penalties.
New Yorkers for Parks is so concerned that the parks budget could be vulnerable that it is releasing a 43-page document titled the “1 Percent for Parks Impact Report.”
The SLA has initiated proceedings that could strip Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theater of their liquor licenses, due to their banning of lawyers from the venues who are in active litigation against James Dolan or the Garden.
The need for robust services that communicate directly with the Capital Region’s undocumented Latino community was on display as access to COVID-19 vaccines became available.
Cannabis might now be legal in New York for adults 21 years and older, but parks in the City of Schenectady might soon be off-limits for smoking marijuana under a proposed revision of the municipal code.
Clifton Park Center, one of the largest retail properties in the Capital Region, has a new owner. Longtime owner Donald Greene of DCG Development sold the mall for $55 million to CPC Development I, led by principal Faraz Khan.
Caimbridge, a historic Washington County village, would seem to perfect for those wanting to escape the sensory onslaught of city noise and lights. But for the last three years, one local woman says she has been assaulted by LED lights installed on village streets.
In unwelcome but not exactly unforeseen news, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band have postponed tomorrow’s concert at MVP Arena in Albany, again due to illness, and still no word on who in the band is sick.
The Capital Region’s legal community has lost two longtime prominent figures whose combined experience spanned more than a century: James Conboy and Jim Long.
Amtrak is planning to re-launch its beloved Adirondack route that carries passengers from New York City to Montreal, a 10-hour, 380-mile trip that includes some of the best scenery on the Amtrak network, especially during the fall during leaf-peeping season.
Glenn Close, 75, tested positive for COVID and so was unable to present at the 2023 Academy Awards.
This year’s red carpet at the Oscars was champagne, not, in fact, red, for the first time in six decades.
Tom Cruise skipped the Oscars, despite his film Top Gun: Maverick being up for six honors, including Best Picture, because he is filming Mission: Impossible 8 overseas. James Cameron, star of Avatar: The Way of Water, didn’t attend, either. Neither actor won.
After originally not even being set to perform, Lady Gaga made a big impression when she took the stage make-free and wearing jeans, not a gown, to sing the Oscar-nominated “Hold My Hand,” which she wrote with BloodPop for “Top Gun: Maverick.”
As expected, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” dominated with five wins, with “All Quiet on the Western Front” right behind it with four.
Michelle Yeoh capped her prolific awards season with a historic win at the 2023 Academy Awards, picking up a best actress statuette for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – the first Asian actress ever to win for leading role.
