Back to it, because it’s Monday. Good morning.
I do a lot of reading, and I’m more or less agnostic about genre. That said, I’ve never been much of a history buff.
I really enjoyed The Power Broker, but couldn’t make my way successfully through the Lyndon Johnson trilogy by the same author. (Sorry, Robert Caro; I tried, I really did). Team of Rivals has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages, and I have been meaning to read it for so long that I actually bought a second copy without realizing (until I got home) that I already owned it.
I’ve read quite a bit of nonfiction about World War II, in part due to its significant impact on my personal history as a Jew. But most of that was assigned in either Hebrew school or regular K-12 and beyond. It wasn’t by choice or for pleasure.
I have, however, really enjoyed some fiction set in the WWII era, most notably The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is just a flat-out show stopper – if you happen to be in the market for some beach reading and aren’t daunted by the idea of working your way through 630+ pages. (The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by the same author, Michael Chabon, is also worth a read).
According to statistics maintained by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II were alive in 2022. That number likely has dwindled quite a bit further by now, as an estimated 180 vets from that era are dying every day.
That club gets even more exclusive when you break it down by specialty. Consider, for example, the Navajo Code Talkers, a group of U.S. Marines who used their Native language to transmit messages during World War II. As of July 2022, only three of them were still living, though more than 400 ultimately enlisted.
Originally, 29 enlisted Navajo Marines were given the task of coming up with a code based on their own language, which is both extremely complex and also unwritten, that the Japanese would be unable to break. The last of that group – Chester Nez – died in June 2014 at the age of 93.
The code was actually deceptively simple – if you happened to speak Navajo. It primarily assigned everyday words with key military phrases and tactics, enabling the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in less than a minute – a fraction of the time that it took code breaking machines to do the same thing.
And their code was never broken. Never. That is unique in the history of warfare.
The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific. They sent out thousands of messages without a single error – more than 800 during the month-long battle for Iwo Jima alone – and are credited with helping the U.S. win the war. (Kind of ironic when you think about the way this country has mistreated indigenous people, forced off much of their land by a government that they ended up fighting to protect).
The Codetalkers story was memorialized in a 2002 movie called “Windtalkers” that starred Nicholas Cage, Adam Beach, and Mark Ruffalo among others. The film got a few good reviews, but it didn’t too terribly well at the box office. It was also criticized in some corners – including by some Code Talker veterans – for featuring only three Navajo actors, who only had supporting roles.
Today is National Code Talkers Day, which was first established in 1982 through a presidential proclamation issued by Ronald Reagan. The day also honors members of other Native tribes associated with the war effort.
There will be sunny skies this morning, with clouds gathering in the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the low 80s.
In the headlines…
Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) announced he filed articles of impeachment against Biden on Friday.
Steube’s office said he filed the articles against the president for “for high crimes and misdemeanors.” The articles feature accusations of fraud, obstruction of justice and bribery stemming from allegations of illegal business dealings and tax crimes.
Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat, put forward the names of two governors that he would like to see run primary challenges against Biden in 2024: Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer or Minnesota’s Tim Walz.
Phillips, who is considering challenging the president himself for the Democratic presidential nomination, suggested that the Hunter Biden investigation has compromised the president’s image.
“I would like to see Joe Biden, a wonderful and remarkable man, pass the torch — cement this extraordinary legacy,” Phillips said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”.
With Attorney General Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel Friday to investigate the criminal case, the legal drama over Hunter Biden is sure to hang over the entirety of Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection bid.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said that he thinks the appointment of special counsel David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, in the Hunter Biden investigation is “camouflage,” and a “cover-up.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence said he is “hopeful” that the special counsel overseeing the investigations into Hunter Biden will fulfill his role appropriately.
Officials updated the death toll to at least 93 lives lost in the Maui wildfire, making it the deadliest wildfire in modern United States history.
Maui County officials announced in an update Saturday that the death toll climbed to 93, surpassing the total killed during the 2018 Camp Fire in northern California, which left 85 dead.
Lawyers investigating the cause of massive Maui wildfires that killed 93 people claim the blaze was the result of damaged equipment owned by Hawaiian Electric.
A sweeping series of plantation closures in Hawaii allowed highly flammable nonnative grasses to spread on idled lands, providing the fuel for huge blazes.
None of the 80 warning sirens placed around the island were activated in response to the devastating Lahaina fire, a spokesman for Hawaii’s emergency management agency confirmed.
Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert’s attack on Biden over the devastating wildfires on the island of Maui in Hawaii has sparked a backlash on social media.
Atlanta-area prosecutors have indicated that they will go before a grand jury early this week to present the results of their investigation into election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies.
Trump asserted his dominance at the Iowa State Fair on Saturday as he squared off against his closest rival, Ron DeSantis, in the Super Bowl of retail politics.
Fewer migrants have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, but even more are coming to New York, fueling the city’s eye-popping new spending projections on asylum-seekers services – over $12 billion through the end of June 2025.
The Biden administration is refusing to sign off on using Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field to house migrants, leaving Gov. Kathy Hochul red-faced after she made a personal pitch to the feds.
Democratic ex-New York Gov. David Paterson blasted the Biden administration for having “really done nothing’’ to control the border crisis and said the Big Apple should be taking care of its own first.
Hochul’s office announced the deployment of additional New York National Guard personnel and assets to asylum seeker sites in Erie County, saying the move builds on more than 1,800 members already assisting this issue across the state.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, a previous vocal supporter of housing migrants upstate, now says he will refuse additional resettlements, after a second alleged sex assault at a in Cheektowaga hotel involving an asylum-seeker.
Mayor Eric Adams has urged New Yorkers to join him in raising their voices about the migrant crisis. More of them are — including one of his own city commissioners – against him.
A Manhattan soccer club headed by one of the mayor’s own commissioners is petitioning to block the temporary migrant housing his administration is constructing on Randall’s Island.
Adams pleaded for White House officials to expedite work authorization permits for migrants, arguing that barring tens of thousands of new arrivals in the city from legal work was “anti-American.”
A trendy four-star hotel in Long Island City has now become a migrant shelter as the Big Apple scrambles to house the swarm of asylum seekers arriving in the city.
The publicly traded DocGo, which received a $432 million no-bid contract from New York City to handle migrant relocations, reported its most successful financial quarter during an earnings call last week.
New York taxpayers will dole out $20 million a month to house migrants on Randall’s Island, according to a state source — or $10,000 per asylum-seeker if the site fills all of its 2,000 beds.
This weekend marked the 10th anniversary of a landmark federal court decision that found the NYPD’s use of a controversial policing tactic known as “stop and frisk” routinely violated people’s constitutional rights and discriminated against people of color.
A judge on Friday extended a restraining order for two weeks that temporarily blocks New York’s retail marijuana licensing program pending a second hearing in the case filed last week by four military veterans.
The Hochul administration’s slow rollout of New York’s legal cannabis trade was a real buzzkill — and the market is still far from recovered from it, an industry group says in a stinging “report card.”
Parks across New York have inaccessible entrances and restrooms, obstacles on trails and paths and limited parking for people with disabilities, according to an audit by the state comptroller’s office.
Across the state, soaring Medicaid rates are bringing into sharp focus the scarcity of dental care options for low- and middle-income people on public health insurance.
A trial court judge has blocked Adams from switching hundreds of thousands of retired city workers to a cost-saving Medicare Advantage Plan, a decision city plansto appeal. City Hall immediately vowed to appeal.
Adams’ administration is launching a new “vaccine equity” campaign aimed at persuading thousands of older and disabled New York City residents to get their updated COVID-19 and flu shots this fall and winter.
Adams directly compared a ceremony welcoming luminaries of hip-hop to Gracie Mansion, celebrating the genre’s 50th anniversary, to late ex-Mayor Dinkins hosting deceased South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela in the city over 30 years ago.
Adams was part of the 2023 Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Saturday.
Newly single Bill de Blasio was spotted out and about with a former staffer in his administration to whom he said he was providing career advice.
The city has stepped up shark-monitoring efforts after a rare attack at Rockaway Beach, but many swimmers and surfers are undeterred.
The 17-year-old charged with murder as a hate crime in the fatal stabbing last month of a gay Black dancer at a Brooklyn gas station pleaded not guilty at an arraignment on Friday.
An ice cream company based in Brooklyn has issued a recall of all flavors of its soft serve ice cream and sorbet brand after two people who ate its vanilla chocolate flavor fell sick and were sent to the hospital, according to the company and health officials.
Eight New Yorkers were killed in seven grim days while riding motorcycles, e-bikes, scooters or mopeds — the deadliest week of 2023 for those traveling on two wheels.
We Shall Overcome” replaced “Try That in a Small Town” in Saratoga as progressive activists and supporters rallied against the anti-democratic and racist messaging of the Proud Boys who appeared downtown and in two other Capital Region communities Aug. 5.
A group of people representing Horseracing Wrongs stood outside the entrance to Saratoga Race Course this weekend to protest the continuing reality of horses dying during track season.
A city man who has been in and out of prison on robbery and other convictions for the entirety of his adult life has been charged with the armed robbery of a Broadview location on Albany’s State Street last month.
