Good Monday morning. The workweek is upon us, again. And for those keeping score at home, we still have no state budget.
I think we can all agree that I am a bona fide animal lover. Since I became a dog mom – a title I wholeheartedly and unabashedly cop to; I’ve even got the t-shirt – I have grown incredibly sensitive to the suffering of our furry friends.
So much so, in fact, that I inevitably tear up when I see roadkill. I immediately think terrible thoughts of Manny or Henry (these are the resident Doodles, in case you missed that intel in a previous post) getting hit by a car. This is very inconvenient – and even potentially downright dangerous – when I’m riding my bike.
Where is this going, you might be wondering? Today happens to be the World Day For Animals In Laboratories, which is part of World Week for Animals In Laboratories – neither of which, I’m ashamed to admit, I had any idea actually existed until I started researching this post.
As of earlier this year, thanks to the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 (sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, and signed into law last December by President Joe Biden), the U.S. no longer requires that drugs in development undergo testing in animals before they can be given to those participating in human trials.
The law does not, however, outright ban the testing of drugs on animals altogether. Companies can simply opt not to do so if they so choose, using alternatives like computer modeling, for example, and there’s a new $5 million line in the FDA budget to help them develop other testing methods.
However, the National Association for Biomedical Research argues that animal testing – in conjunction with human trials – remains the best way to determine the safety and efficacy of new drugs. Animal activists refute this.
Lots of companies – including some brand names that might surprise you – engage in the practice regularly, according to animal activists. It’s a fairly standard practice in the U.S. military, at the NIH (though apparently they’re retiring some of the chimps previously used in biomedical research), and in the automotive and aeronautic industries.
As of last December, 10 states – California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York (as of 2022) and Virginia – had passed laws banning cosmetics animal testing.
A number of countries, including Israel, Mexico, Columbia, and the UK, have done the same. The U.S., where an estimated more than 1 million animals are used in lab experiments every year, thus far, has not. (Note: I used the word “estimated” here because there’s really no way to know the exact number as labs aren’t required to report data on the sort of animals most often used in experiments – fish, rats, mice, and birds.
In fact, this country just has one federal law – The 1966 Animal Welfare Act (AWA) – that regulates the treatment of animals in research, teaching, testing, exhibition, transport, and by dealers – though it has been amended on several occasions. It’s enforced by USDA , APHIS , Animal Care
As alluded to above, most of the animals used in testing are mice or rats. But in a limited fashion, dogs (I can’t with this, I just can’t!), ferrets, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters and monkeys are also employed, at least that’s what Pfizer says on its website.
The public is growing increasingly aware of – and not happy about, in many cases – animal testing. Hence, the popularity of the cruelty free label, which, according to the FDA, can only be used by manufacturers on products not “currently” tested on animals.
This might be a bit of a downer of a subject with which to start off your week. But it is important, and I personally will be paying more attention to labels from here on out – not that I buy much makeup now that my TV days are firmly behind me.
Hopefully, you didn’t pack up your sweaters and light jackets in a place where you can’t access them, because after a spate of nice, warm weather, we’re in for a stretch of temperatures in the mid-to-high 50s and low 60s. This is OK in my book. But 70s would be preferable.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden said late Saturday that U.S. military evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel in Sudan has been completed and called for end to the “unconscionable” violence.
Biden released a statement following the evacuations of U.S. Embassy personnel from violence-torn Sudan, calling the ongoing civil war “unconscionable” and exhorting “belligerent parties” to an immediate ceasefire.
At a summit this week with South Korean leader Yoon Suk Yeol, Biden will pledge “substantial” steps to underscore the U.S. commitment to deter a North Korean nuclear attack on South Korea, a senior U.S. official said.
Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to invest in disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by pollution and climate change, the White House said.
“Under this order, environmental justice will become the responsibility of every single federal agency – I mean, every single federal agency,” Biden pledged at a White House Rose Garden signing ceremony just before Earth Day.
Congress has yet to pass an immigration overhaul, but Biden has used his executive authority to significantly expand the number of legal immigrants entering the U.S.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that Biden is “afraid” to negotiate about the budget and debt ceiling, blaming him for the U.S. potential default on loans.
McCarthy will put his shaky control of the thin Republican majority on the line this week with a bid to pass a bill slashing spending that is designed to jam Biden.
With the danger of default looming, some centrist Democrats are slowly splitting from Biden over his apparent refusal to negotiate on the debt ceiling.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she believes Biden should sit down with McCarthy and negotiate Republicans’ proposed spending cuts, but she insisted those talks should be in relation to the federal budget – not raising the debt limit.
Amid the simmering standoff over spending with the ticking time bomb of the debt ceiling in the background, the Republican leader and Biden are negotiating — if you want to call it that — in public. There is no backchannel.
Biden is poised to name Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser, to oversee his reelection campaign – a decision that paves the way for his announcement as early as this week that he’s seeking a second term.
Chavez Rodriguez, one of the most prominent Latinas in the administration and a granddaughter of the late labor leader Cesar Chavez, is a senior adviser to the president and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Biden’s advisers are moving quickly to finalize staffing and operational details of his reelection campaign ahead of what’s widely expected to be a bruising 19-month effort to convince the public of his accomplishments and his ability to serve well into his 80s.
The WSJ’s editorial board: “The public understands what Mr. Biden apparently won’t admit: that electing an octogenarian in obvious decline for another four years could be an historic mistake.”
Biden currently has a higher job approval rating among Democrats than the past two presidents from his party had at the same point in their presidencies, according to a new poll.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who last week launched his 2024 bid for the White House, is taking aim at an area that has been viewed as a weakness for Biden – the economy.
As states, Congress and the Supreme Court weigh abortion restrictions, GOP presidential hopefuls are divided over how far to go on limits that are demanded by their base but unpopular with the voters who decide general elections.
Donald Trump, stinging from a rebuke by the nation’s leading anti-abortion group, used a speech Saturday before influential evangelicals in Iowa to spotlight his actions as president to try to restrict abortion rights.
A whopping two-thirds of Republican primary voters say they stand behind Trump and dismiss concerns about his electability, despite his recent criminal arrest and other legal investigations into his past conduct, a new national NBC News poll finds.
In contrast, 26 percent of Republicans said it’s more important to nominate “a candidate who will not be distracted and can beat Joe Biden.”
A civil trial is set to begin this week concerning advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s allegations that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A former prosecutor who once helped lead an investigation of Trump will testify before Congress next month, ending for now a legal dispute between Republican lawmakers and Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, who had sought to block the testimony.
Chief Justice John Roberts has declined to directly respond to a congressional request to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas’ alleged ethical lapses.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Senate Democrat and the chairman of the committee, sent a letter to the chief justice, asking him to consider testifying before the panel on May 2 regarding potential changes to the rules.
The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the abortion pill mifepristone to remain broadly available as litigation plays out in a lower court.
The court’s decision – a 7-2 vote with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissenting – preserves access to mifepristone as the Biden administration and the pill’s manufacturer appeal a lower court ruling that would impose restrictions on the drug.
Delaware Gov. John Carney on Friday said he would let bills to legalize marijuana and create a recreational industry become law without his signature, standing down from his opposition to recreational weed that put him at odds with his party.
Thousands of people say they’ve developed tinnitus after they were vaccinated against Covid. While there is no proof yet that the vaccines caused the condition, theories for a possible link have surfaced among researchers.
Under government pressure, Chinese scientists have retracted studies and withheld or deleted data about Covid-19. The censorship has stymied efforts to understand the virus.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said yesterday that he had tested positive for COVID-19, the third known infection, adding that while he was not seriously ill he would take a few days off.
Three years after the start of the pandemic, some 16 million Americans have long COVID, meaning their symptoms continue well after the initial infection.
New York state lawmakers has the weekend off after they failed to reach an agreement on the state budget, which is now three weeks late. Before they left Albany last Friday, they passed another spending extender to keep the state going until today.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the death of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Housing Compact.
Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris said housing proposals are just too difficult to negotiate in the budget, which is already three weeks late.
Hochul and the two Democratic supermajorities in the Legislature are divided over how to fund critical state functions and new priorities as pandemic-era federal aid dries up.
The Hochul administration is quietly trying to fire up support for a complete ban on the sale of tobacco products in New York.
A proposal to make New York the third state to ban menthol cigarettes has created a furious and expensive lobbying war, and has divided Black leaders.
Genealogists are roundly criticizing the state Department of Health over the time they are taking to respond to record requests.
The number of motorists charged with driving under the influence of narcotics, including marijuana, has risen steadily over the past five years in New York. It’s unclear whether marijuana legalization is having a direct impact on the increase.
New York’s efforts to curb the explosion of unlicensed weed shops have been largely ineffective due to a tangle of limited laws, agencies with overlapping responsibility and spotty enforcement.
Hochul’s plan to clamp down on illegal weed shops with stiffer fines is doomed to go up in smoke because the shadowy owners of the unlicensed stores hide behind legal loopholes, multiple lawyers said.
After months of delays and political infighting among Democrats, the Court of Appeals finally has a full bench, a new chief judge and, some hope, a new direction.
Rep. Dan Goldman, a multimillionaire Democrat and heir to the Levi Straus & Co. fortune, has made more than 500 trades worth between $10 million and nearly $31 million since being sworn in as a congressman in January.
Will Murphy, a Democratic law professor from St. John’s University, has officially launched his campaign to challenge scandal-plagued Long Island Rep. George Santos for the House seat he won in a special election last year.
Mayor Eric Adams took his fight against the city’s vermin on stage Saturday night, smashing “rats” with a hammer in a comedy sketch during the annual Inner Circle charity show in Manhattan.
Ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, sat next to one another at the annual Inner Circle Show.
Asked the next day whether he and his ex-wife were back together after the pair was spotted dining next to each other in Manhattan’s Ziegfeld Ballroom during the city’s Inner Circle show, the former congressman tersely replied, “No.
An apparent emotionally disturbed woman got hit in the face Saturday by an unidentified man roughly 10 feet away from Adams during a “Car-Free Earth Day” celebration he hosted in the South Bronx.
Adams says his haters can criticize him all they want because he has something they don’t: Swagger.
A board game challenges players to decarbonize New York City, and energy experts are paying attention.
Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh did not show up at a recent deadly parking garage collapse in Manhattan because of medical reasons, officials said.
Top officials said that it still isn’t clear whether the 47 SUVs parked on the roof of a downtown parking garage had anything to do with the structure’s collapse, but that the probe into the calamity is ongoing.
A Brooklyn Democratic district leader is in hot water after allegedly tapping a local tenant leader as a judicial delegate against her will, sparking an election complaint, a flurry of legal challenges and an accusation of fraud by a top Brooklyn Democratic leader.
The city’s plans for a controversial “safe haven” homeless shelter on the Upper West Side recently drew heat from a pair of lefty pols — including a City Council member who originally gave the facility a hearty endorsement.
Mentally ill detainees on Rikers Island and in other city jails have become more likely to deliberately hurt themselves in recent years, data obtained by the Daily News shows.
An emaciated alligator that was rescued from Prospect Park in February and had ingested a four-inch-wide bathtub stopper is dead, Bronx Zoo officials said on Friday.
Aiming to protect the Hudson River’s aquatic life, OGS and the DEC have unveiled a new “wedgewire” screening system designed to keep fish from being sucked into a water intake that cools the Empire State Plaza and surrounding buildings during the summer.
A newly released study of Rensselaer’s waterfront could lead to new bike and walking paths, reconfigured roads and better access to the Hudson River.
The Capital District YMCA Camp Chingachgook has been named one of the country’s best summer camps of 2023 by the magazine Newsweek.
A four-story residential building of one-bedroom luxury apartments with retail stores on the ground floor will soon replace the now vacant sliver of land on one of the City of Schenectady’s more high-profile corners.
Plans to close and revegetate a popular Fulton County beach on Great Sacandaga Lake drew about three dozen people to a meeting with state officials last week.
A magnitude-3.6 earthquake shook up residents in upstate New York yesterday, officials said. The small earthquake happened in Jefferson County shortly after 2 p.m., according to the United States Geological Survey.
Its epicenter was in Adams Center in Jefferson County, south of Watertown. More than 1,100 people reported feeling the tremor from Ontario, Canada to New York’s Southern Tier.
NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell is stepping down after admitting to an “inappropriate relationship” with someone in the company. Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, said Shell and the company “mutually agreed” that he’d leave the post, effective immediately.
“I had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in the company, which I deeply regret,” Shell said in a statement.
Bed Bath & Beyond has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after it failed in several last-ditch efforts to raise enough money to keep the company alive.
Closing sales will begin Wednesday at the Bed, Bath & Beyond and buybuy BABY locations in Colonie as the bankrupt home goods retailer prepares to shutter its remaining stores.
