Good Tuesday morning.
On this day in 1944, almost five years after the start of WWII, the Allied Forces, led by the US and the UK, conceived and executed one of the largest military invasions in history in what turned out to be the bloodiest and costliest war in human memory.
I’m speaking, of course, of D-Day, (also known as The Invasion of Normandy, or Operation Overlord), which involved more than 5,000 vessels and nearly 160,000 US, British, and Canadian troops.
(BTW, the answer to the question “why is it called D-Day?” is a bit murky, though it appears that the term stands for “departed date”, and while there were other such days throughout the war, Normandy was the biggest of them).
The invasion, which was originally supposed to occur on June 5, but changed at the last minute to due bad weather over the English Channel, came with a significant price – more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were killed or wounded in the first 24 hours. However, it is widely viewed as the beginning of the end of Hitler’s deadly reign.
General Dwight Eisenhower, who would go on to become the 34th U.S. president, was in charge of the operation.
Prior to the operation, he scribbled a note accepting responsibility for the decision to launch it, as well as shouldering the full blame should the effort fail. He then issued a printed Order of the Day for June 6, 1944, which was was distributed to the 175,000-member expeditionary force the night before the invasion itself.
Planning for D-Day was informed by intercepted German codes that gave the locations of the Nazi fighting units in the Normandy area. These codes were encrypted by the German code machine Enigma, which was secretly cracked by a team of British and German experts, providing a significant advantage for the Allied forces.
According to the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation 4,414 Allied personnel died in the attack – 2,501 from the US, 1,449 Brits, 391 Canadians, and 73 from other countries.
American casualties were the most severe at Omaha Beach where it is believed the 1st & 29th Divisions alone suffered 2,000 casualties.
If you really want to go deep on D-Day, visit the National D-Day Memorial website (or, if you’re in the neighborhood of Bedford, VA, stop by and check the memorial out in person). The site estimated in 2021 that fewer than 3,000 veterans who survived the invasion were still living – a number that undoubtedly has gone down considerably since then.
According to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive in 2022.
If you happen to know a WWII veteran – especially a D-Day veteran – today would be a good time to reach out and thank them for their service and maybe sit with them (or talk on the phone, or over Skype or what have you) to get a few details of what they lived through as a member of the Greatest Generation…before it’s too late.
Today we will be getting some much-needed rain – my grass is just parched, like crunchy – so that will be good. There will be rain in the morning, followed up by showers and clouds in the afternoon. It will be on the cooler side, with temperatures in the mid-to-high 60s.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden plans to use the bipartisan debt limit deal to pivot back to his shadow reelection campaign, pointing to the achievement to burnish his image with voters as a consensus–builder who’s making strides on his promise to unite the country.
The lifting of the debt ceiling might not seem like bumper sticker material for a campaign. But Biden’s aides believe voters will reward him for working across the aisle to do it. And now, they’re putting cash behind that theory.
Biden’s Democratic allies are planning a private Chicago fundraiser with billionaire Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker as soon as this month, two people briefed on the president’s plans say.
A spark of initial interest in forcing a vote to remove Kevin McCarthy from his position as Speaker over the debt limit deal has not caught on in the House Freedom Caucus, the hardline conservative group known for exerting pressure on GOP leadership.
House Republicans are escalating their standoff with the FBI over an unreleased document they say ties then-Vice President Biden to a “bribery scheme,” but has links to a Trump-era inquiry that ended with no apparent further action.
The head of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said he would initiate contempt proceedings against the FBI for the first time in history in a dispute over a document lawmakers say accuses Biden of wrongdoing as vice president.
Biden thanked Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for Denmark’s role in a Western alliance “standing up” for Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia’s 15-month-old invasion.
Biden hosted the Super Bowl LVII champions at the White House in Washington DC yesterday, nearly four months following the Chiefs’ thrilling 38-35 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles in February.
Speaking on the South Lawn, Biden praised the Chiefs for playing with “the real joy of the game and love for each other and the great city you represent.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence yesterday filed paperwork launching his 2024 Republican presidential race as New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu said he is not running.
Pence is set to formally announce his candidacy tomorrow ahead of a CNN presidential town hall that evening.
Pence, who filed the necessary papers to run with the Federal Election Commission, has polled in the single digits in every public survey taken so far, well behind his former boss Donald Trump, who has reshaped the Republican Party over the last seven years.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is also set to launch his bid for the Republican nomination for president at a town hall in New Hampshire tonight.
Any race that pits Christie against Trump is bound to be especially personal. Trump seemed to find joy in belittling Christie from the White House; Christie blamed Trump for giving him a bout of Covid that left him gravely ill and hospitalized.
Trump ranted over the possibility of being hit with charges after his lawyers met personally with special counsel Jack Smith and as the investigation into classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago appears to be entering its final stage.
Attorneys representing Trump — John Rowley, James Trusty and Lindsey Halligan — met with special counsel Jack Smith and federal prosecutors at the Justice Department at around 10 a.m. yesterday, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The meeting, which lasted an estimated 90 minutes, comes as the special counsel’s investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents and possible obstruction appears to be nearing its final stages. Trump’s attorneys did not comment to reporters.
Trump told a judge last night that he could not have defamed E. Jean Carroll by denying her decades-old rape accusation because a jury had found him liable only for sexually abusing her.
Progressive activist Cornel West announced his 2024 campaign for president with the People’s Party.
“I have decided to run for truth and justice, which takes the form of running for President of the United States as a candidate for the People’s Party,” West said in a video announcement on Twitter launching the third-party presidential bid.
In the announcement video, West, 70, claims that he cares more about voters and their quality of life than other political parties.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic families, in a two-hour online audio chat yesterday dived into the full embrace of a host of conservative figures who eagerly promoted his long-shot primary challenge to Biden.
Long Island Rep. George Santos would rather go to jail than reveal the names of the people who secured the $500,000 bond in his criminal case, his lawyer said in a filing last night.
Lawyer Joseph Murray urged a judge to deny media requests to unseal the names of Santos’ bond suretors, or guarantors, suggesting they could “suffer great distress,” including possible job losses and physical harm, if they’re identified publicly.
Murray also blamed CNN – which first reported that Santos had been charged by the Department of Justice – for the media being present at the congressman’s arraignment, saying it caused a “frenzy” which he claimed led to one of the suretors backing out.
Gov. Kathy Hochul joined NFL and upstate officials at a groundbreaking ceremony for the new Buffalo Bills stadium, a polarizing taxpayer-funded project that she declared would benefit New Yorkers “for decades to come.”
The 60,000-seat stadium is expected to cost $1.54 billion, making it the largest economic development project ever in Western New York, according to Hochul’s office.
Although Hochul suggested that more than 100 dispensaries would be operating by this summer, just 12 have opened. The state solicited entrepreneurs with cannabis convictions to open the first legal dispensaries, but the effort has fallen behind.
Hochul’s administration, under fire for leaving struggling farmers in the lurch with massive stockpiles of marijuana, plans on allowing the sale of weed and other cannabis products at farmers markets, festivals and concerts this summer.
New Yorkers could have an easier time determining whether a lead service line is bringing water to their home under a measure that will head to Hochul’s desk.
The measure passed by state lawmakers in the final days of the legislative session will also give policymakers a better understanding of how many lead service lines exist in New York.
Housing policy to address a spiraling affordability problem and a measure that would seal criminal records after a number of years for potentially millions of New Yorkers have become the top-tier issues ending the legislative session in Albany.
With the legislative session set to end later this week, advocates are pressing for bills that they say will help reduce climate change over the next decade. But there’s also stiff opposition to the measures from the industries that would be affected.
Months after being accused of sexual misconduct by two women, Assemblyman Juan Ardila is issuing a categorical denial that he sexually assaulted anyone and releasing a self-funded report documenting witness accounts of what transpired.
New Yorkers are struggling to get public benefits — and the workers tasked with helping them say they’re mistreated by the same system.
New York state officials should take on a more careful accounting of how $1 billion in aid and resources for migrants is being spent, Republicans in the state Assembly said.
A delegation of City Council members is planning to travel to Washington today to meet with administration and legislative officials amid growing concern over fraying relations between Mayor Adams and Biden over the ongoing migrant crisis in New York City.
New York City will now begin housing migrants in houses of worship — its latest attempt to manage the more than 72,000 people who’ve flowed into the city since last spring. The next step could be enlisting residents to host migrants in their homes.
The new, two-year partnership with New York Disaster Interfaith Services (NYDIS) will allow up to 50 houses of worship or faith-based spaces to offer overnight shelter for up to 19 single adult men at each location.
Is there room in your home for an asylum seeker? The mayor is working on a plan to pay city homeowners to house them, perhaps $100 per night or more.
The Federal Aviation Administration has signed off on Port Authority plans to open an emergency shelter for arriving migrants in an old postal warehouse at John F. Kennedy International Airport, the agency said.
A security guard who worked at a federal building in Manhattan has been accused of forcing an asylum seeker to perform oral sex on him, violating the migrant’s constitutional rights, federal prosecutors said.
Adams’ NYPD Neighborhood Safety Teams tasked with keeping illegal guns off the streets carry out a high number of unlawful stops that largely target Blacks and Latinos, according to a federal monitor’s report filed in the landmark NYPD stop-and-frisk case.
The monitor’s audit — which looked at videos, reports and supervisors’ reviews of the 184 encounters made by the Neighborhood Safety Teams in the second quarter of 2022 — found that 24%, or 45, did not have a reasonable cause.
In a stunning rebuke to the Adams administration, five members of the Board of Correction held an emergency meeting yesterday and overruled an effort by the current chair to unilaterally appoint his own executive director.
The city’s Campaign Finance Board has hit Assemblywoman Latrice Walker with $3,300 in fines for violating the Big Apple’s political spending regulations during her ill-fated 2019 run for public advocate, records show.
A former Fordham University student has used new sexual assault legislation to renew a lawsuit accusing administrators at the Bronx campus of ignoring repeated warnings and allowing a roommate with a violent history to rape him in his dorm room.
Amid a drumbeat of demand for the creation of more housing in New York City, the mob is staging a potentially hazardous and costly comeback in the city’s construction business, where it has long been a sinister factor.
Last week, smoke from a massive fire in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia worsened air quality levels from New York City to Washington, D.C. Now, the smoke is coming from Quebec, where more than 100 wildfires are still burning.
The Capital Region and the entire Hudson Valley are among regions around the state that will have air designated as “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” according to an advisory issued by the state departments of Health and DEC set to take effect early today.
Park Police will no longer be a presence at many upstate parks. Instead, State Police will have jurisdiction – in many cases, on an as-needed basis.
A state trooper was charged by the New York attorney general’s office with killing an unarmed man in downtown Buffalo by shooting him after a high-speed highway chase.
Hundreds of journalists for Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper chain, walked off the job yesterday, accusing the company’s chief executive of decimating its local newsrooms. The walkout was the biggest labor action in Gannett’s century-old history.
Ten colleges in New York were among the 50 most expensive institutions in the United States during the 2021-2022 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
