Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
Usually when an election rolls around, I’ve got a wastebasket full of discarded candidate mailers, a phone full of text messages asking me for political contributions, and a healthy disgust with the never-ending parade of robocalls and campaign ads popping up in my social media feeds and TV screens.
In advance of tomorrow’s presidential primary? Crickets. And I’m suspecting it’s not just because I’m a registered “blank” (not affiliated with any party), which means I can’t vote because New York has closed primaries. The reality is, we’re just going through the motions at this point.
Oh, what’s that? You didn’t even KNOW that New York’s presidential primaries were being held tomorrow? (The same goes for Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Wisconsin – a significant swing state and really the only one worth keeping an eye on today, but more on that later).
Well, don’t feel bad. It’s not like there’s much of a contest going on anymore for either major party line. The only Republican left in the running is former President Donald Trump, and the only Democrat still standing is President Joe Biden, and both have already secured enough delegates to win their respective party’s nomination.
That said, if you go to the polls today, you may see other candidates’ names on the ballot, which would be because they dropped out or suspended their respective campaigns after the deadline to be removed.
There are delegates at stake today – 436 on the Democrats’ side, and 179 for the Republicans. Voters in Connecticut and Rhode Island do have a semblance of a choice, as they can vote “uncommitted” to register protest vote against Biden, as some have done in other states to demonstrate their unhappiness with the ongoing war in Gaza, for example, or to express dismay about Trump.
Wisconsin voters have that option, too, though it’s known as “uninstructed delegation” in the Badger State.
Since there’s no “uncommitted” or “undecided” option here in New York, progressive advocates critical of Biden’s Israel policy – led by the Working Families Party – are planning to cast blank ballots today to demonstrate their displeasure with the sitting president, while some anti-Trump Republicans will reportedly be voting for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley or former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, both of whom have ended their respective campaigns.
There are also non-presidential primaries taking place in Arkansas and Mississippi, where a handful of legislative races were too close to call and will be decided in runoff elections.
There was at one time another state-level primary scheduled to be held today in Delaware, but that got scrapped when Haley finally called it quits in early March and had her name removed from the ballot, which left Trump the lone candidate whose name would be appearing.
Similarly, Biden was the only Democrat to file for Delaware’s primary ballot. So, the state basically decided to save its money – and voter headache – and just award all its respective delegates to Biden and Trump.
This actually makes a lot of sense to me, because holding an election – even one in which a very low number of registered voters bother to participate – is not cheap. Counties spend several thousand – if not hundreds of thousands of – dollars to put on a primary, which requires paid poll workers, moving voting machines in and out of storage, voter education etc. and so forth.
And how does that make sense if the end result is a foregone conclusion? (Obviously, interest in this non-contest is not terribly high, since only 100,000 New Yorkers bothered to participate in early voting before the period ended this past Saturday).
I guess you can say that democracy comes at a price, and usually I’m all about anything that furthers civic participation. But to be quite honest, this seems a little excessive – even to me.
Sadly, yesterday was the last nice day that we can expect for a while. Another storm is bearing down on the region, with the worst of it (rain and heavy snow) to hit Wednesday and continue into Thursday.
Today will be something of a warm-up for what’s to come, with considerable cloudiness in the morning and rain in the afternoon (this will not be helpful in the voter turnout department). Temperatures will top out in the mid-50s.
In the headlines…
Former President Donald Trump averted a financial disaster yesterday, reaching a deal that will spare him from paying a $454 million judgment in his civil fraud case while he appeals the penalty.
The lifeline came in the form of a bond that will prevent New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who brought the lawsuit that led to the judgment, from collecting the $454 million until Trump’s appeal is resolved.
Trump secured the $175 million bond through Knight Specialty Insurance Company, which is owned by the privately-held Hankey Group, whose chairman said he considers himself a Trump supporter.
Trump’s social media company plunged in the stock market after reporting a $58 million annual loss in yesterday’s regulatory filings.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Trump’s Truth Social platform, were down roughly 24 percent shortly after 1 p.m. EDT. The price of a share was down to about $47.
The New York judge overseeing Trump’s criminal trial later this month expanded a gag order to bar the former president from attacking the judge’s family members, who in recent days have become the target of Trump’s abuse.
Manhattan prosecutors expressed grave concern for the presiding judge’s daughter in Trump’s Stormy Daniels hush money case — and asked the jurist to make clear “family is off-limits” or consider expanding a gag order already in place.
The U.S. government is considering major new weapons sales to Israel of fighter jets, air-to-air missiles and guidance kits, as calls grow for the U.S. to withhold arms if Israel won’t do more to limit civilian casualties in Gaza.
President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran said Israel’s airstrikes on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, Syria, which killed three top Iranian commanders, will not go unanswered. Government supporters took to the streets and called for retaliation against Israel.
The Biden administration communicated directly to Iran today that the U.S. didn’t know about the strike on its consulate in Damascus and wasn’t involved in any way, according to two U.S. officials.
Seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen were killed in a strike on their vehicles in central Gaza late yesterday after they helped deliver food and other supplies to northern Gaza that had arrived hours earlier by ship, the charity said this morning.
The members were traveling in a “deconflicted zone” in a “soft skin vehicle” and two armored cars with the organization’s logo, it said in a statement.
The Israeli military has withdrawn from Gaza’s main hospital after a two-week raid. The Israel Defense Forces said its troops and tanks had withdrawn from Al-Shifa after killing hundreds of Hamas fighters, as well as seizing weapons and intelligence documents.
Thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Jerusalem, continuing a three-day protest against the Netanyahu’s government and demanding new elections.
Members of the Haredi community, known as Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, blocked the Route 4 highway in protest of forced military conscription, according to The Times of Israel.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is publicly laying out potential conditions for extending American military assistance to Ukraine, the strongest indication yet that he plans to push through a package that many Republicans view as toxic and sought to block.
Hospitals must obtain informed consent from patients before allowing physicians to conduct sensitive and invasive examinations, such as pelvic and prostate, particularly if the patients are under anesthesia, the Department of Health and Human Services said.
In new guidance and in a letter sent to teaching hospitals, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and other officials said they were acting based on “increasing concerns” about the absence of informed patient consent in educational settings.
A new study found that states with a higher percentage of Republican voters are seeing more reports of adverse side effects from COVID-19 vaccines.
The study published in the JAMA medical journal looked at 620,456 vaccine adverse events reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from adults 18 and older.
The Florida Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedent yesterday in ruling that the State Constitution’s privacy protections do not extend to abortion, effectively allowing Florida to ban the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.
In a pair of significant decisions, the Florida Supreme Court upheld a 15-week ban on abortion in the state while also allowing a proposed amendment that would enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution to appear on the November ballot.
Against all odds, Biden’s campaign says it has a shot in Florida, built in large part on the state’s unique place in the abortion debate, and it plans to contrast the administration’s policies with what it’s calling the GOP’s “toxic political agenda” there.
“Make no mistake: Florida is not an easy state to win, but it is a winnable one for President Biden, especially given Trump’s weak, cash-strapped campaign, and serious vulnerabilities within his coalition,” Biden’s campaign manager wrote in a memo.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued that Biden is a greater threat to democracy than Trump.
Under rainy skies, Biden yesterday hosted the White House Easter Egg Roll, a tradition so wholesome and old-fashioned that it often simply transcends Washington politics.
The state Education Department has blown past a deadline to release a critical report assessing the effectiveness of mayoral control over New York City schools.
The dropout rate increased at some schools, and graduation rates ticked slightly downward statewide for the 2023 graduation class, according to data from the state Education Department.
Recreational cannabis shops have to be at least 1,000 feet apart under New York’s current regulations, but a company that’s seeking to open two of them is suing the state to strike down that rule.
Thanks to a new law that took effect on March 20, homebuyers in New York must be informed of a property’s flood history and risk of flooding.
An outraged Manhattan clothing-store owner whose shop was ransacked twice by a violent mob says state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s refusal to toughen retail-theft laws is simply “ridiculous“.
Cara Castronuova, a former Golden Gloves boxing champ and celebrity fitness trainer on “The Biggest Loser,” filed a federal lawsuit accusing the New York GOP of having onerous rules that thwart her from qualifying for ballot status to run for the US Senate.
Life in the city has been especially grim for Latino New Yorkers these days, a recent survey revealed — laying bare the compounding obstacles Mayor Eric Adams faces in serving a key constituency.
Four of New York City’s five boroughs have lost a higher percentage of residents since COVID than any of the 40 largest counties in the country, a startling new review of US Census data shows.
Workers for apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub and Doordash will now earn $19.56 per hour making deliveries, or an increase of around $1.50 every hour, under a near 9 percent pay bump announced by Adams.
Prior to this wage increase, delivery workers for apps earned an average of $5.39 an hour prior to tips, according to city estimates.
Hispanics experiencing steeply deteriorating quality of life reported the sharpest drop in satisfaction of any race or ethnicity in the Citizens Budget Commission study — a 56 percent decline over six years to just 21 percent in 2023.
The City Council said it has found an additional $6 billion in newly identified city dollars to undo many of Adams’ spending cuts and make new investments in affordable housing construction and education.
Housing advocates and even some homeowners in wealthier neighborhoods say New York’s property tax system is unfair. A court case could force the city to make changes.
People held in New York City jails continue to have trouble getting their votes counted, according to a coalition of groups pressing the city for improvements.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority spent $1.42 billion on overtime last year, surpassing the 2018 record that resulted in investigations, indictments and promises of spending reforms.
A group of taxi dispatchers at JFK Airport allegedly took more than $12,000 in bribes from cab drivers over the last two years in exchange for allowing them to cut to the front of long lines to pick up passengers, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said.
A police officer saw the man accused of killing Detective Jonathan Diller carrying what appeared to be a gun before the confrontation that led to the fatal shooting last week, according to new details released by the Queens district attorney.
More than 200 of New York’s Finest packed a Queens courtroom as two career criminals were indicted in Diller’s killing during a traffic stop — with prosecutors revealing that the driver admitted, “I shoot people.”
Two men have been charged with providing fentanyl-laced heroin that killed Cecilia Gentili, a prominent transgender activist and actress who was found dead in her Brooklyn home in February.
A day after he was struck with a rock in a random attack on the Upper East Side, the actor Michael Stuhlbarg appeared in the first preview of the Broadway play “Patriots,” in which he stars as a Russian oligarch who helped facilitate Vladimir V. Putin’s rise.
Doctors should keep an eye out for patients with symptoms of bacterial meningitis, a rare but serious disease that is on the rise, the city health department said in a notice yesterday.
An unlikely cohort of six incarcerated men are suing the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, demanding they be allowed to view next Monday’s eclipse.
Protect the Adirondacks, Inc., a grass-roots environmental group, has filed a lawsuit against the state DEC seeking to compel the agency to conduct a study on the capacity pressures facing the numerous lakes and ponds the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest.
A portion of the public funds meant to support the sale of a building off of Washington Avenue Extension to Camino Nuevo appears to be in jeopardy.
The Schenectady County Public Library is exiting a cooperative that provides information technology services and a shared catalog.
Connecticut and NC State’s men’s and women’s basketball teams both reached their respective NCAA Tournament semifinals, marking the first time two schools have sent both of their teams to the Final Four in the same year.
In a game that lived up to the hype – a rematch of the 2023 women’s NCAA tournament championship game – only one star from a year ago could move on to the Final Four. And that is the biggest star of college basketball this season: Iowa’s Caitlin Clark.
Iowa and UConn will now face off in the national semifinal on Friday, with South Carolina and NC State facing off in the other semifinal in Cleveland.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
