Good morning, it’s Monday.
I hope you had a chance to take advantage of some of the most amazing weather we’ve seen yet this spring – minus that 80-something degree day, of course, but that was a bit unsettling, truth be told. At least I thought so.
This weekend I did something I’ve never done before, and it was a revelation. Yard work. Yes. Stay with me here, people. I know what you’re thinking – she’s absolutely lost it. Struggling in the hot sun, pulling weeds, or, in this case, spending an hour+ digging out a mature rhubarb bed (those ROOTS!!!) is fun?
Not exactly fun, no. But rewarding. It was strenuous in a way I’m not used to, and actually putting the muscles that I work to build in the gym to use. Being outside. Feeling accomplished when it’s all done, and being able to see the results of your work.
It wasn’t something I want to do every day, mind you. But maybe once a week. And it’s a good thing I turned out to enjoy it, because I now have a very sizable yard that needs a a lot of attention.
We are already flying through May, which means we’re well into Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPI Heritage Month, for short), which celebrates celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders across the U.S.
We’re actually talking about individuals who hail from quite a wide array of places – all of the Asian continent, as well as the the Pacific islands, of which there are a lot. Check this out:
Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island).
In the 2020 Census, 1.6 million people identified as identified as Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, while 24 million people identified as Asian alone or in combination – 5.1 of which are Chinese, the largest group represented.
The contributions of this community to our country, our culture, our society etc. are vast, yet we are slow to collectively recognize this.
For example, it was only just this year that an Asian American woman won the Academy Award for best actress, when Michelle Yeoh took home the Oscar for her role in the psychedelic comedy drama “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Equally troubling is the face that anti-Asian American hate crimes are on the rise in a big way, increasing 339 percent (yes, you read that right) in 2021 compared to 2020.
So, this month, which is intended to raise awareness about the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, is incredibly important.
Its creation has roots in the efforts of a New Yorker – Rep. Frank Horton, a Rochester Republican, who joined California Democratic Rep. Norman Mineta in June 1977 to introduce a resolution to establish Asian Pacific Heritage Week, while Sens. Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga (both of Hawaii), did the same in their house.
The next year, the-President Jimmy Carter signed the resolution and the first celebration took place in 1979. In 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush signed a resolution that had passed Congress to officially extend the weeklong commemoration through the entire month of May. And here we are.
The month of May was chosen to recognize the immigration of the first Japanese to the U.S., which is believed to have occurred on May 7, 1843 (a 14-year-old fisherman named Manjiro, who arrived on a whaling ship).
It also marks the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, in observance of the fact that the majority of the workers who laid the tracks that made this feat possible – between 10,000 -15,000 individuals – were Chinese immigrants.
The work was extremely labor intensive and dangerous, and Chinese workers were not treated at all well, living in substandard conditions compared to whites. As many as 1,000 or more were killed during the railroad’s construction, due to accidental explosions or rock and snow avalanches.
Considerable resentment built up against the Chinese workforce from those who felt they could not compete. Violence and protest ensued, and laws limiting – and eventually prohibiting – Chinese immigrants from entering this country were passed, and it took a very long time for them to be reversed.
Of course, the debate over who has the right to come to this country and who doesn’t continues to rage today. But that’s a topic for another post.
It’s going to be another glorious day, weather-wise, with temperatures in the low-to-mid 70s and sunny skies. In fact, the whole week is looking pretty darn fantastic, and we might even see 80 degrees by the time Friday rolls around.
It was an incredibly busy weekend, headline-wise. A lot of not-so-great news. Some not-so-bad news. Let’s get to it.
In the headlines…
Former President Donald Trump leads Biden by 7 points in a hypothetical 2024 matchup between the two, according to a new survey.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 49 percent of Americans said they would definitely or probably vote for Trump or are leaning toward casting their ballots for him in a hypothetical matchup with Biden in 2024.
In hypothetical general-election matchups, Biden, who announced his re-election campaign last month, trailed the two leading candidates in the Republican primary, Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Just a third of Americans believe Biden has the mental acuity to serve as president, with 32% of respondents saying Biden has the “mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president.” Only 33% of respondents think Biden is also physically fit to serve.
Allowing for the fact that it was a single poll, the polling seemingly offered a number of reasons for Biden and his supporters to be nervous heading into the 2024 presidential election, though there were warning signs for Trump as well.
Biden’s re-election campaign is already trying to shift voters’ focus away from their reservations about him and instead make the 2024 general election a choice rather than a referendum.
At least seven people were killed in Brownsville, Texas, yesterday after the driver of a vehicle plowed into a crowd of migrants outside a center that serves homeless people, an official said.
A gunman stepped out of a silver sedan and started shooting people at a Dallas-area outlet mall Saturday, killing eight and wounding seven others — three critically — before being killed by a police officer who happened to be nearby, authorities said.
The motive of the gunman, identified as Mauricio Garcia, 33, so far remains a mystery. He was killed by a police officer on the scene. Authorities said they’re examining possible right-wing extremist motives.
The Dallas Stars canceled a watch party that was planned during their road playoff game last night in the plaza outside their home arena, which is less than 30 miles from a Texas outlet mall where an assailant killed eight people the previous day.
Among some Texans, the drumbeat of mass murder fueled rising frustration and a slight openness to more gun regulation in a state where even Democrats proudly discuss their firearms. But it hasn’t yet reshaped the political realities in the state Capitol.
The Texas massacre drew condemnation from elected officials across the country and prompted Biden to renew calls for gun control, even after recent mass shootings failed to result in action from lawmakers.
The Biden administration is preparing to lift an emergency health rule that has been used to prevent hundreds of thousands of migrants from entering the US, setting the stage for what could be a new immigration surge that inflames political tensions.
Biden is expected to deliver the commencement speech at Howard University this month, a historically Black university in Washington. The commencement is scheduled for May 13.
Social Security payments may come to a halt if Congress doesn’t soon raise the national debt ceiling, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that failure to raise the debt ceiling will cause a “steep economic downturn” in the U.S., and she reiterated her warning that the Treasury Department may run out of measures to pay its debt obligations by June.
“I know he wants to set up a process in which spending priorities and levels are discussed and negotiated but these negotiations should not take place with a gun, really, to the head of the American people,” Yellen said of Biden.
All but six Senate Republicans on Saturday vowed to oppose raising the debt ceiling “without substantive spending and budget reforms,” backing up House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s position.
Some House Republicans are fretting about whether they’d be able to pass a watered-down version of their debt ceiling bill once the terms are negotiated with Senate Democrats and the White House.
Former President Donald Trump rejected his last chance to testify at a civil trial where a longtime advice columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996.
Trump, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, was given until 5 p.m. yesterday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
A review of more than two dozen cases shows that in at least one sense, the indictment by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg of the former president stands apart.
Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will cease tracking community levels of Covid and the percentage of tests that come back positive, a metric used to calculate transmission rates, the agency announced on Friday.
But CDC officials stress that the information the agency will still continue to collect and routinely post on its website will still provide the necessary metrics to track the coronavirus and identify and respond to any new threats.
Rochelle Walensky, who played a key role in the Biden administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, announced she will step down as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Scientists say that explosive, hospital-filling COVID-19 waves are unlikely to return. Instead, countries are starting to see frequent, less deadly waves, characterized by relatively high levels of mostly mild infections and sparked by the churn of new variants.
The US Food and Drug Administration issued a warning on Friday to consumers and health providers to discontinue using and discard recalled Pilot COVID-19 At-Home Tests made by SD Biosensor, Inc. over “significant concerns” of bacterial contamination.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new strategy touting changes to the state’s bail laws and focusing on public safety could shape next year’s House races, and maybe even control of Congress. But it could also prove a tough and complicated sell to voters.
New Yorkers will soon be able to access birth control at their local pharmacies without a doctor’s prescription, but it will take at least a year for the Legislature and regulatory agencies to smooth out the details.
The number of firearms being seized by police from individuals found to be “likely” at risk of harm to themselves or others has soared so much that evidence rooms in some State Police barracks had to be reconfigured or expanded to store the weapons.
Attorney General Letitia James proposed draft legislation on Friday aimed at better regulating New York’s cryptocurrency industry, arguing that the futuristic financial sphere lacks sufficient state supervision.
James’ office said the legislation would give New York the strongest crypto regulations in the nation, clipping conflicts of interest, requiring audits of crypto exchanges and strengthening the Department of Financial Services’ oversight of digital assets.
In post-pandemic New York City, the subway has emerged as a politically prominent battleground.
Daniel Penny, the U.S. Marine veteran who was filmed placing Jordan Neely in a deadly chokehold position on a New York City subway train earlier this week released his first statement through his lawyers on Friday.
Lawyers for Penny, a 24-year-old was West Islip, Long Island who served in the Marines, said he never intended harm, but was defending himself. He offered condolences to those close to Neely.
Protesters took over the 63rd Street-Lexington Avenue subway station on Saturday evening, calling for justice for Neely.
Thirteen people were hit with charges after a group of protesters angry about Neely’s chokehold death took over the Manhattan subway station and jumped onto the train bed, cops said.
The Adams’ administration is trying to connect more homeless addicts with treatment and even controversial “safe” injection sites, as it surfaced that Neely used K2.
Adams is facing renewed criticism from progressive Democrats over his policies regarding public safety and mental illness after Neely’s death.
New York City will receive a fraction of the federal aid it applied for to manage the asylum-seeker crisis, a spokesperson for Adams said Friday — the same day the mayor announced a new program to send asylum-seekers to locations outside the five boroughs.
Adams is taking a page out of some Republican governors’ playbook: He’s sending a group of asylum seekers somewhere else for some other municipality to handle.
Although Adams said that he had consulted with the state and with local officials, at least two said they were caught off guard and vowed to fight the plan.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day declared a state of emergency on Saturday in response to Adams’ plans to relocate migrants from city shelters to hotels in the Hudson Valley.
The declaration by Rockland County Executive Ed Day, prohibits other municipalities from bringing and housing people in the county, according to the Rockland Report.
It also bars hotels and motels from housing migrants without a license and requires municipalities that wish to house migrants or asylum seekers in Rockland County to ensure they will cover their expenses.
Rockland County cops are “deployed” and “ready to react” if Adams tries to bus hundreds of migrants to the quiet suburban community, Day pledged.
Adams’ administration said up to 300 single, adult men under the city’s care will be transported on a volunteer basis to a hotel in Orangeburg in Rockland County and another in Orange Lake in neighboring Orange County.
A team of developers is turning a hotel near JFK Airport into more than 300 new apartments — putting the building on pace to become the city’s first such residential conversion under a stalled measure meant to spur affordable housing.
A building once meant to house Brooklyn’s “hippest” hotel has since been converted into an emergency shelter.
Zhan and Robert Petrosyants, criminally convicted twins with close ties to Adams, are facing a new lawsuit alleging they bilked a Long Island businessman out of a $150,000 restaurant investment — the latest in a string of legal headaches engulfing the siblings.
A feud between FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh and top chiefs has turned more bitter with new allegations that one of her decisions delayed a probe into the murder of an EMT and claims she’s pursuing an ageist vendetta against department leaders.
The amount of office space available for lease in Manhattan climbed to a record high during the first four months of 2023, according to the real estate firm Colliers.
Cars that have been booted on city streets will have to be towed within 72 hours under new legislation that’s expected to be introduced in the City Council later this week.
The Federal Highway Administration said on Friday that congestion pricing, which would charge drivers entering Manhattan, could advance to its next steps before final approval.
The president of Hofstra University is urging Long Island lawmakers to nix a plan for Las Vegas Sands Corp. to put a casino at the Nassau Coliseum near its campus — claiming it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth.
King Charles III was anointed and crowned on Saturday in Britain’s biggest ceremonial event for seven decades, a sumptuous display of pageantry dating back 1,000 years.
It was just a short trip back to the UK for Prince Harry, who attended the coronation of his father, King Charles III, in London on Saturday.
The lavish ceremony for Britain’s first new reigning monarch in 70 years was brimming with ancient traditions with a few modern touches.
Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Take That, and Nicole Scherzinger were among the artists to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III at a star-studded concert yesterday at Windsor Castle.
Mage, a 15-1 shot, crossed the finish line to win the 149th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday, overtaking Two Phil’s down the stretch to win the first leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown.
The 149th Kentucky Derby may be over, but questions about what led to a string of horse fatalities at its famed track have just begun.
Over the past week, a total of seven horses died in the lead-up to the final race on Saturday — prompting an investigation into the deaths and fueling outrage from animal rights activists.
The New York Racing Association’s mobile app was plagued by bugs and crashes prior to the running of the 149th Kentucky Derby on Saturday leaving some customers unable to place bets on one of the biggest horse racing day of the year.
The Adirondack Park Agency’s proposals to limit public comment and shorten its own time clock for reviewing draft policies drew more than 500 unsupportive comments, including a joint letter from four past agency leaders opposing the changes.
School officials called for an attendance policy at Albany’s middle and high schools, which would require students to be present most of the time in order to earn summer school and other assistance.
