Good morning, it’s Friday. But you knew that already. You were likely counting down the days to the end of the week, right? Maybe even the minutes. Well, you can stop counting; it’s here.
Speaking of counting – it’s sort of related, I guess – lately I’ve been trying this technique called cognitive shuffling to help me get to sleep. I’ve written extensively about my sleep struggles, and I know I’m not alone. In fact, according to one study, about one in four Americans develop insomnia every year, and the CDC says that about 70 million of us suffer from chronic sleep deprivation.
This, of course, is not good for our individual or collective health. I’ve pretty much tried everything. Dark, cold rooms. Medication. Meditation. Supplements, Turning off screens. Blue light blocking glasses. Cutting out caffeine after noon. You know the drill.
Cognitive shuffling, though, which is a sort of brain game designed to combat the hamster wheel thing your mind does when you can’t sleep, is a new-to-me approach, though it has been around awhile. I’m not sure if it’s actually working, but it’s one more arrow in the quiver, so to speak.
My brain goes to weird places at night. Usually, nowhere good. But it does often scroll through my to-do list and helpfully remind me of all the unaccomplished tasks I have left after the end of a long day. Often this is a useless exercise, as I always mean to write these things down – but never actually do, and then forget them.
I did not forget, however, the mental note that I needed to do something about AAPI Month (formally known as Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month) before it was too late.
Well, here I am, slipping right under the wire on May 31.
This month was a long time in the making.
It started out in 1977, when Rochester-area congressman named Frank Horton teamed up with his California colleague, then-Rep. Norman Mineta; along with Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga of Hawaii, to call on the president to proclaim the first 10 days of May as Asian-Pacific Heritage Week.
A year later, President Jimmy Carter signed into law a resolution making this an annual celebration, with the first official observance taking place in 1979. Then 12 years after that, President George H.W. Bush extended that week to a month. The official designation of May as AAPI Heritage Month was signed into law in 1992.
So, why May? Well, several reasons, according to the interwebs. Primarily, May 1843 was when the first Japanese immigrant arrived in the U.S. in the form of a 14-year-old fisherman named Manjiro, who traveled here via whaling ship that rescued him and his crew after they were wrecked in a violent storm.
It wasn’t until two decades later, that larger groups of Japanese immigrants starting coming to America in search of work, which they initially found in the Hawaiian on island sugar cane farms and then later moved on to Washington, Oregon, and California.
May was also chosen to commemorate the work that thousands of Asian immigrants did to create the transcontinental rail system, which was difficult, dangerous work. It also marked the start of anti-Asian sentiment, leading to passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
And that’s just the beginning of this country’s controversial and prejudicial treatment of Asian Americans. Most notably, the U.S. government incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent – approximately two-thirds of whom were citizens of this country – to 10 concentration camps during WWII following a rise in suspicion and fear following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Sadly, anti-Asian prejudice and hatred continues to this day, most recently spiking during the COVID crisis. According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, anti-Asian hate crime increased by 339 percent in 2021 compared to the year before, with New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities surpassing previous records set in 2020.
The stories of AAPI people are as varied and complex and their histories, cultures, and contributions to this country. I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of it all, and so I won’t even try, and instead just say that I’m sorry it took me so long to recognize this month.
Yesterday started out kinda crummy and ended simply glorious. A gift of a day. Today will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the mid-70s. The weekend is looking not too bad – definitely warmer tomorrow, rising into the low 80s, and then into the high 70s on Sunday. It will be mostly sunny on Saturday and mostly cloudy on Sunday, but it looks largely dry.
In the headlines…
The Biden administration reportedly has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia — solely near the area of Kharkiv — using U.S.-provided weapons, a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city.
The decision marks an important shift from Washington’s previous position that Ukraine should not use US weapons to strike targets in Russia — and follows growing pressure on Biden from Kyiv and its allies.
White House officials said the president’s major policy shift extended only to what they characterized as acts of self-defense so that Ukraine could protect Kharkiv, its second-largest city.
Former President Donald Trump was found guilty on all counts in his New York criminal trial, which centered on allegations that he falsified business records to hide a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
The more-than six weeks-long trial against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was the first criminal trial in United States history against a former president. Trump is now the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime.
Trump sat stone-faced while the verdict was read as cheering from the street below could be heard in the hallway on the courthouse’s 15th floor where the decision was revealed after more than nine hours of deliberations.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” an angry Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”
“We’ll fight to the end and we’ll win,” he continued. “Because our country has gone to hell. We don’t have the same country anymore.”
The judge has set the former president’s sentencing for July 11, just days before Republicans are set to select him as 2024 nominee.
Trump was convicted on 34 counts, which means he could face a maximum of four years in prison for each count, totaling a maximum prison sentence of 136 years. But New York state caps prison sentences at 20 years for this type of offense.
‘Trump is registered in Florida, which requires felons to complete their full sentence, including parole or probation, before regaining voting rights. With Election Day just months away, it seems unlikely that he could fulfill his sentence before then.
However, Florida also honors the voting laws in the state where the felony conviction occurred. In New York state, convicted felons are not allowed to vote only when they are imprisoned.
Over six weeks and the testimony of 20 witnesses, prosecutors wove a sprawling story of election interference and falsified business records.
A tweet from a Fox News anchor falsely said that the jury would not have to settle unanimously on a charge to find the former president guilty.
When it comes to his felony conviction Trump won’t be able to turn to Biden for a pardon or be able to pardon himself if he returns to the White House. The conviction is on state charges, and the only person who could issue a pardon is Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Two-thirds of Americans say Trump’s conviction on charges of falsifying business records will not affect their decision on Election Day, according to a new poll.
Trump’s campaign sent out a fundraising appeal on Truth Social as soon as a Manhattan jury found him guilty, in which he proclaimed that is is a “POLITICAL PRISONER” and “DID NOTHING WRONG!” (Sic).
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who has steadfastly refused to comment about the presidential race or his long-running feud with former Trump, came to Trump’s defense last night.
For Democrats who have suffered through a cycle of tough news about Biden, Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts in New York offered a rare bright spot.
Biden himself declined to comment on the verdict, but his campaign said it proved that “no one is above the law.”
Trump’s conviction sent shockwaves through campaigns up and down the ballot. GOP candidates in races for governor, Senate and House largely aligned themselves with Trump, while Democrats largely avoided specifics of the case but said justice had prevailed.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams has vowed his city will not tolerate “lawlessness” and violent protests in the wake of Trump’s criminal conviction.
Trump can proceed with a lawsuit against Mary L. Trump, his estranged niece, over her role as a source for a New York Times investigation into his finances, a New York State appeals court said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declined requests to have Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. recuse himself from cases related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack after provocative flags flew on the justice’s properties.
The justices make those calls on their own, Chief Justice Roberts wrote in a letter to Democratic senators.
The Supreme Court sided with the NRA, finding that the group could pursue a First Amendment claim against a New York state official who had encouraged companies to stop doing business with it after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Hochul plans to introduce a bill banning smartphones in schools, the latest in a series of legislative moves aimed at online child safety by New York’s top official.
“Why are our young people on their devices all day long during school hours?” Hochul asked during an interview on MSNBC. “How are they learning?”
The call for the smartphone ban comes as the self-professed “first mom governor” of New York is pushing for a ban on “addictive” social media algorithms that she says target kids.
Hochul has added she understands parent concerns over maintaining a line of communication with their children during the school day and indicated the state may consider action that solely affects the use of smartphones.
The governor plans to officially bring up the bill later this year, aiming for it to be addressed in the next legislative session starting in January. If passed, students would be permitted only to carry simple “flip phones” capable of texting but without internet access.
Dozens of headline-worthy proposals remain up for consideration as the state Legislature nears next week’s scheduled end of its five-month session. Yet there are no big-ticket items legislators absolutely have to address before skedaddling from Albany.
Former state Sen. Jeff Klein, the subject of a long-running state ethics commission probe into allegations he forcibly kissed a female staff member in 2015, filed a petition seeking a court order declaring the panel lacks the constitutional authority to prosecute him.
The delayed dispersal of taxpayer-donated funds for veterans’ causes is facing additional scrutiny after weeks of complaints from lawmakers.
Starting this week, $39.6 million is available for New York’s low- and moderate-income families to upgrade their energy installation, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is poised this year to play a bigger role for New York Democrats than she has in a long time, although a May poll found nearly one-third of New York’s registered voters had no opinion of her.
Mayor Adams and city officials announced a proactive safety plan to keep residents stay safe from extreme summer weather.
NYC’s top attorney, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, has formally resigned from her post weeks after it emerged that the Adams administration was trying to replace her with the controversial litigator Randy Mastro.
Whether Mastro ascends to the job hinges on approval from the City Council though, and several members of the lawmaking body have already publicly described his potential nomination as a non-starter.
New York City is bracing for Canadian wildfire smoke to potentially roll in over the five boroughs again this summer, and Adams pledged his administration will engage in “greater outreach” with residents during future air quality emergencies.
Adams has issued a warning about what he views as radicalization infiltrating the United States during an event celebrating Jewish heritage earlier this week.
Adams was hit with a ticket earlier this month for a rat infestation at a Brooklyn apartment building he owns — the fifth rodent-related levy he has received since he took office two and a half years ago, according to a review of public records by the Daily News.
Brianna Suggs, a longtime Adams aide whose home was raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into his 2021 campaign, recently hired a new attorney who has defended accused mobsters and government officials swept up in corruption probes.
The NYPD failed to follow a public disclosure law in trotting out new high-tech surveillance gadgets like its robot dog and the robot deployed in the Times Square subway station, a new report by the city Department of Investigation has found.
In particular, investigators found NYPD brass did not create a so-called Impact and Use Policy for Digidog, a robotic dog that can be outfitted with cameras. The blueprint would have triggered a public comment period.
Two years after it lapsed, city officials are moving to reinstate a key tax break for multifamily buildings that could help co-ops stave off financial crises and assist landlords in complying with the major climate ordinance Local Law 97.
The City Council is pushing to provide more places for New Yorkers to do their business, by forcing the city agencies to finish adding 151 new public restrooms across the five boroughs, as signed off on in 2022.
Department of Education Chancellor David Banks condemned a citywide pro-Palestinian student walkout planned for today.
“Thousands” of students are expected to leave class today and gather outside Education Department headquarters to demand protections for students and teachers engaged in pro-Palestine activism, according to a release about the protest.
A group of Jewish firefighters say they have been ignored by FDNY brass and are not being treated like other ethnic groups at the city fire department, according to a scathing letter obtained by the NY Post.
The Trucking Association of New York filed a federal lawsuit against the MTA, which developed the toll plan, arguing the higher fees unfairly and unconstitutionally target the trucking industry.
The trucking association’s lawsuit is one of at least eight legal challenges filed against the congestion fee plan, which is slated to launch June 30.
The auction house Christie’s said it had alerted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the British police about the cyberattack that hobbled its website earlier this month, and began telling clients what types of personal data had been compromised.
A London-based developer is proposing a $250 million development at the former Kenwood Convent site, the location devastated last year by a massive fire.
Thousands of public sector retirees woke up yesterday to find two pension checks had been deposited in their bank accounts, a glitch that the state comptroller’s office said it is actively working to fix.
An Albany County judge was largely unmoved by affidavits signed by eight jurors saying they made a mistake when they found a former University at Albany student guilty of attempted assault at the man’s sentencing.
M&T Bank presented a $30,000 grant to the Affordable Housing Partnership of the Capital Region Homeownership Center as part of its 30 & 30 Giving Initiative.
A state Supreme Court justice assigned the Warren County DA to prosecute Kevin C. Miller, the former head of Rensselaer County’s Veterans Service Agency accused of threatening a judge who sentenced a man tied to the killing of his son.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
