Good Wednesday morning. As most of you read this, I will be on a train headed for New York City.

I caught the very early train, about which I have mixed feelings. I’ve taken it so many times that I’ve started to have a familiar relationships with certain crew members and regular passengers – the folks who appear to be commuting downstate on the regular.

I’m not sure how they do it. The down and back wipes me out every time.

The early train is generally not terribly crowded at the outset, which means there’s less traffic on the WiFi and you have a better shot at actually getting some work done. Between that and my hot spot, I can sort of cobble together a reliable signal at least until we hit upper Manhattan.

Why, in this modern age, can we not get the WiFi on the train to work? Why is that? Someone? Anyone? It’s a modern day mystery.

I have to admit that the lack of reliable connectivity on the train stresses me out. I try to tell myself: “It’s 6 a.m., it’s 2-and-a-half hours out of your day. Relax. You can catch up on emails and work when you get to the city and settle in.” But being unable to send emails at that hour still makes me itchy with anxiety.

And you know what elevated stress and anxiety isn’t good for (among other things)? Your heart.

Stress may lead to high blood pressure, which elevates your risk for a heart attack and stroke. And women consistently report higher stress levels than men (go figure), which might have something to do with the fact that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women in this country.

February is American Heart Month, when all people – but especially women – are encouraged to get educated on cardiovascular health and, more importantly, what steps to take to prevent heart disease.

This month has been around since 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson issued the first proclamation making it so. His proclamation was closely followed by the release of the Surgeon General’s first official report on the impact of smoking on your health, which, of course, is good for neither your lungs nor your heart (among other things).

The steps toward improved heart health aren’t terribly surprising – or difficult (conceptually speaking, anyway) – eat a healthy diet, don’t smoke, get exercise, get your blood pressure and cholesterol checked regularly, and minimize your stress.

It’s nice that February also happens to be the month in which Valentine’s Day falls – a holiday centered around love and all things heart-related. I can’t find any indication that this played into President Johnson’s decision when selecting a month for Heart Month, but its a nice serendipitous connection, at the very least.

I missed Wear Red Day, which is the first Friday in February, (Feb. 2 this year), but this is the last day of Women’s Heart Week and the first Day of Congenital Heart Defect Awareness Week, so there’s still plenty of time to elevate the importance of the organ responsible for pumping blood through your body.

One thing that is undeniably good for your health – and your heart – is to get outside and get moving more. The next few days are going to be unseasonably warm, which presents a perfect opportunity to give your heart (and the rest of you) the gift of fresh air and exercise.

Today will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-40s. In the coming days, we might even hit 50 degrees! I’ll keep you posted.

In the headlines…

A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals has rejected former President Donald Trump’s claim of presidential immunity as it pertains to his federal election interference case.

“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the judges wrote in their 57-page decision.

“We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the opinion says. “(Trump) lacked any lawful discretionary authority to defy federal criminal law and he is answerable in court for his conduct.”

Trump has talked about two Republicans who could end up as his running mate if he becomes the GOP nominee for the 2024 election.

In an embarrassing setback, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley lost the Nevada GOP presidential primary yesterday to “none of these candidates,” while President Joe Biden cruised to an easy victory.

The loss is largely meaningless, because Trump decided to skip the Nevada presidential preference primary and instead is expected to win the GOP-run caucuses tomorrow night. That victory will give him all 26 of the state’s delegates.

Haley has applied for US Secret Service protection because of threats she is facing as the only remaining GOP presidential candidate competing with Trump for the party’s nomination, Haley’s campaign spokesperson confirmed.

House Republicans failed to pass articles of impeachment for Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, scuttling an effort that was widely seen as an opportunity to deliver on a key promise to GOP base voters.

Republicans had been sweating on what was expected to be a close vote, and so it proved – as three members of the party sided with Democrats in a vote that ended 216-214 in Mayorkas’s favor.

Rep. Al Green, Democrat of Texas, appeared at the last moment to cast a surprise ballot — from a wheelchair, wearing blue hospital clothing and tan socks as he’s recovering from abdominal surgery. He voted no, which tied up the measure.

Republican lawmakers quickly predicted they will bring it back up once Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is undergoing treatment for blood cancer, returns.

The House rejected a bill to provide $17.6 billion in aid for Israel, sinking Congress’s latest effort to help its embattled Middle Eastern ally and throwing the fate of future foreign aid into question.

The tally was 250-180 — short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure — with critics in both parties joining forces to quash it. 

The legislation faced fierce opposition from multiple corners and required significant bipartisan support as Republican leaders put the bill under suspension, a procedural tactic that fast-tracks a bill for a vote but requires two-thirds support to pass.

Biden urged Congress to pass the bipartisan border bill in a pointed speech, accusing Republicans of “caving” in to Trump’s demands to block the legislation from advancing.

Biden said one person is to blame for the seeming collapse of a bipartisan package to change immigration policy and provide aid to Ukraine and Israel: Trump.

Former Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie warned that if Trump is reelected, his White House will face a “huge personnel problem” during a “vendetta presidency.”

Trump is the latest conservative urging followers to dial back their opposition to Anheuser-Busch and their products.

The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, has told Trump she is planning to step down shortly after the South Carolina primary on Feb. 24. He will likely promote North Carolina Republican Party, Michael Whatley to replace her.

The judge presiding over Trump’s civil fraud case — set to issue a potentially earth-shattering verdict against him any day — wants to know if it’s true that the former president’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, is preparing to admit he lied on the stand.

The New York Board of Elections voted to keep Trump on the state’s GOP primary ballot, rejecting arguments that he should be barred under the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause.

The move from the state Board of Elections comes after several state Democratic lawmakers sent the board a letter in December urging election officials to ban Trump from the ballot for his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said she is pushing officials at SUNY Upstate Medical University to explain their plans for a boarded-up Syracuse apartment tower and eight acres of land, both of which have been vacant for more than a decade despite the housing crisis.

Out-of-state gun owners filed a federal lawsuit this week in the U.S. District Court in Albany arguing that the state’s ban on concealed carry permits for non-New Yorkers violates their Second Amendment rights.

New York Republican lawmakers are calling on Hochul to remove Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after several migrants accused of mobbing two NYPD cops in a Times Square attack were set free without bail.

Hochul continues to clash with upstate lawmakers over her approach to the migrant crisis in New York City — including with representatives in the Hudson Valley.

Hochul has released initial recommendations from the Inter-Agency Fire Safety Working Group, which was formed six months ago to outline safety standards for the growing number of battery energy storage systems (BESS) cropping up across New York state.

A man with a distinctive neck tattoo that was part of the migrant attack on two cops in Times Square was indicted yesterday, the same day he pleaded not guilty to a pair of unrelated low-level charges.

Andrew Cuomo’s attorneys want U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s office to review what they deem a deeply flawed Justice Department investigation that found the ex-governor “engaged in a pattern or practice of sexual harassment and retaliation.”

New York City Mayor Eric Adams kept cool during his annual budget testimony in Albany as lawmakers from around the state grilled him on his response to the migrant crisis, crime in the city, mayoral control of public schools and housing.  

Testifying at the State Capitol in Albany, the mayor told lawmakers that the state would need to pony up at least half the cost of caring for migrants to keep the city from making drastic budget cuts, a figure his team put at $4.6 billion.

Adams said he “would love to entertain” cooperating more with federal immigration authorities in situations involving migrants who’ve committed “dangerous crimes” — a departure from past statements he’s made on New York City’s sanctuary status.

Adams asked the state to shoulder half the city’s costs for sheltering tens of thousands of migrants, and told state lawmakers that he’s all but given up on convincing the federal government to pick up a greater share.

Adams told state lawmakers that he’s done a great job building bus lanes, despite missing legally required mileage targets for both years of his administration as city buses remain the slowest in the nation.

Local leaders from across New York – including Adams – came to Albany for “Tin Cup Day” yesterday to tell state lawmakers what their cities need.

Adams and New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams refused to support the state’s controversial congestion pricing proposal when put on the hot seat in Albany, with the mayor telling lawmakers he wants a “different version” of the program.

Rapper 50 Cent says he talked to Adams about the city’s migrant debit cards and is no longer mad at him — instead turning his sights on Hochul.

Adams, who has struggled with the city’s unprecedented influx of migrants and faces an FBI investigation into his mayoral campaign, told a town hall in Brooklyn last week he’s being attacked just like New York City’s first Black mayor, David Dinkins.

Adams likened himself to Jesus and claimed that critics are attacking his administration because it is largely made up of people of color, a video of the mayor’s Brooklyn speech showed.

Law enforcement authorities launched a massive takedown of NYCHA corruption, busting 70 current and former mid-level bureaucrats they allege pocketed $2 million in bribes to award $13 million in small no-bid “micro contracts”.

The corrupt micro-contract workaround — which prosecutors say dates back to 2013 and involved work at nearly 100 developments citywide — is a scheme that’s been hiding in plain sight for years.

The city has poured funding into a program to aid severely mentally ill people while doing little to ensure it was getting results, an audit shows.

Jonathan Braun, whose sentence for drug smuggling was commuted in the final hours of the Trump presidency, was fined $20 million over separate accusations that he bilked and threatened borrowers.

A former executive at a prominent New York City development firm that collapsed amid investor lawsuits and foreclosures was reportedly arrested this week and is expected to be charged in connection with a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.

The Biden administration has rejected the city’s applications for $800 million in infrastructure grants to redesign and reconstruct the crumbling triple cantilever section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

The union representing City Council staff is closing in on a tentative agreement with Council management that would enshrine just-cause protections, create a standardized grievance procedure, provide staff with some overtime pay and raise wages. 

Manhattan prosecutors announced charges against four people who called themselves the “Grinch Boys” and targeted intoxicated clubgoers, stole their credit cards and phones and used them to purchase more than $400,000 worth of luxury goods.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan has renewed her call for state lawmakers to make Capital City Funding permanent.

Taylor Swift’s attorneys have threatened legal action against a student who has been tracking the celebrity’s private jet use via social media.

Photo credit: George Fazio.