Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
Nw that Mother Nature has decided to play ball and gift us with seasonably appropriate weather, I suspect we’re all spending a lot more time outside. I know I am. This past weekend alone, there was yard work, a lengthy bike ride, a run, junior prom pictures, and a pre-gala photo shoot.
That’s a lot of sun exposure for one human. And it was sufficient to get a little color. Now, a little color looks good on a person, in my opinion. It makes you look healthy and robust. A LOT of color, to me, however, is off putting. It sort of reads: I don’t care/know enough about sun safety to recognize that protecting my skin from ultraviolet rays is important for my long-term health.
Your skin, after all, is your largest organ, and skin cancer is the most common cancer in this country. It’s estimated that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer at some point in their lifetime and roughly 9,500 people are diagnosed every day.
If it seems like you’re getting burned more easily these days, it’s not necessarily an illusion. The sun isn’t getting stronger, per se, but the ozone layer HAS been thinning, which means more of the sun’s rays are getting down to the Earth’s surface.
So what is the answer? Well, sun protection, of course, which can be achieved in several ways.
The first and most obvious approach is to keep your skin covered with long, light-colored layers. Yes, it’s true that then you don’t get the benefit of the Vitamin D the sun provides. Again, this is all about striking a balance.
Keeping the sun off your head and your neck is a big one. A wide-brimmed hat is key here, and if you’re feeling frisky – or not too terribly concerned about being fashionable (and really, there’s nothing fashionable about skin cancer) – you can get one of those hats with the side and back flaps that ensure full coverage.
If you’re planning on exposing your skin to the sun’s rays, don’t do so without a healthy application of sunscreen. When it comes to SPF (sun protection factor) more isn’t always more. There’s a limit to how high one should go – 100 SPF doesn’t really give all that more protection than 50 SPF (98 percent, compared to 99 percent), as long as you’re applying it correctly.
At a minimum, most experts agree, look for an SPF of 30 to ensure viability, and whatever you choose should be broad spectrum and water resistant. If you’re going to be outside and in and out of a pool, lake, river, stream, or ocean, reapply frequently – every two hours is the rule of thumb.
And if you’re concerned about the ingredients in your sunscreen and what’s safe – not just for you and your family, but also for the environment – click here or here. (This post is getting a little lengthy, and there’s still a lot to say).
Sunscreen should be part of your daily routine. As my skincare specialist says: Keep your sunscreen next to your toothbrush, and when you use the latter, make sure the former is next up.
Correct application involves shaking the product before opening and here’s the real key: DON’T SKIMP. Apply anywhere that skin will be exposed – including places you might not necessarily obvious, like the back of the knees, undersides of your arms, elbows, ears, and feet (sunburned feet are the WORST).
A thick layer that isn’t rubbed in is what we’re after. Apply with a liberal hand so you can still see the product on your skin. Then wait up to 30 minutes before venturing outside so the sunscreen has the chance to soak in and get activated. Also, don’t forget your eyes! Sunglasses aren’t just to increase your cool factor, but to protect the windows to your soul.
Oh, and happy National Safe Sun Week! Just in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
We’re in for a veritable heat wave, with temperatures soaring into the low 90s. Again, we’ll have a mix of sun and clouds. It’s a GREAT time to put your newfound sun safety tips into practice!
In the headlines…
The chief prosecutor at the world’s top criminal court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for the leaders of both Israel and Hamas on charges of crimes against humanity.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labeled the announcement “a disgrace” and “an utter distortion of reality.” He said the potential warrants would not change Israel’s intent to topple Hamas’s rule in Gaza.
Amal Clooney played an instrumental role in making the case for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to prosecute Netanyahu and Hamas leaders for suspected war crimes in Israel and Gaza.
President Joe sided unambiguously with Israel after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister.
“The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” said Biden, whom anti-Israel protesters have dubbed “Genocide Joe” for his forceful early support of Netanyahu’s invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Biden, at a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the White House, rebuffed widespread criticism from pro-Palestinian protesters, saying: “What’s happening in Gaza is not genocide. We reject that.”
The approval rating for Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war has dropped to its lowest point in a new poll, as the fighting continues in Gaza.
More than 800,000 people have had to relocate from the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip in the past two weeks, crowding into other parts of the territory without access to the most basic hygiene and infrastructure, a United Nations official said.
Faculty at Dartmouth College voted to censure the university’s president over her summoning of the police to remove a pro-Palestinian encampment, calling her action harmful to the community and disruptive to the university’s educational mission.
CUNY Law School is known for its diversity and activism, and lately for strongly worded pro-Palestinian commencement addresses. This year, the administration canceled its annual student speech. The decision has sparked backlash.
Biden declared this past weekend that things got “kind of bad” when he was vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic — even though the virus hit more than three years after he left office.
An amended transcript of his remarks distributed by the White House indicated it may have been a simple slip of the tongue, and the president had meant to reference the Great Recession.
Biden will be visiting New Hampshire today. He is expected to hold veterans’ events in Merrimack, followed by a visit to the YMCA in Nashua.
Biden’s political operation brought in more than $51 million in April, the campaign said yesterday — well short of the $76 million that former President Trump’s campaign said it raised with the Republican Party.
The pace of giving to Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party picked up in April, according to his advisers. But Biden still has far more cash on hand.
The Republican National Committee raised more than $32 million in April, its first full month under Trump’s hand-picked new leadership, a 55% increase from the previous month.
Biden plans to quickly choose a new leader to oversee the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, a bank regulator rocked by revelations of senior managers’ widespread harassment and abuse of junior employees, a White House official said.
The announcement came shortly after the agency’s chair, Martin Gruenberg, said he would resign from his post once a successor is confirmed.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who heads the Senate Banking Committee, is calling for a leadership overhaul at the FDIC following a scathing 234-page report that detailed pervasive sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying at the agency.
Trump’s reelection campaign plans to sue the filmmakers behind the new biopic film, “The Apprentice,” which follows the former president’s early years in the real estate business, for including what it calls “blatantly false assertions.”
Trump’s social media company reported taking in $770,000 in advertising revenue in the first three months of the year, largely from its Truth Social platform, as it continued to incur hefty losses.
Antarctica’s “doomsday glacier,” referred to as such for its potential to dramatically raise global sea levels, is melting faster than we thought thanks to warmer sea water passing below it, according to a new study.
The researchers, led by glaciologists with the University of California, Irvine (UCI), said in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the Thwaites Glacier may be breaking apart “much faster” than previously believed.
Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office have rested their case against Trump, bringing the first criminal trial of a U.S. president in the country’s history nearer to a close.
The star witness against Trump, Michael Cohen, took the stand for a fourth and final day at the former president’s criminal trial in Manhattan, fending off a fusillade of attacks from defense lawyers and acknowledging that he once stole from Trump’s company.
The judge overseeing Trump’s trial suddenly sealed his courtroom yesterday, kicking reporters out so he could engage in a brawl with Robert Costello, a lawyer who played a key role in the attempted backchannel between Cohen and the White House in 2018.
After Costello, a former prosecutor, was reprimanded for delivering outbursts in the court whenever he was interrupted or told not to answer a question that had been objected to and sustained, Costello began to stare down the judge.
Merchan cleared the courtroom about 14 minutes into Costello’s testimony over “proper decorum in my courtroom.”
Trump can expect both cheers and jeers Thursday night when he holds a campaign rally in the Bronx, with Democrats and liberal activists planning a counter-demonstration at the other end of Crotona Park from the 45th president’s event.
Rep, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who rarely wades into state politics, publicly backed a bill that could strip New York nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if their funds are used to support Israel’s military and settlement activity.
The Hochul administration has quietly put the brakes on a multimillion-dollar fund that was designed to help disadvantaged people open pot shops — and instead allegedly ended up predatory and potentially bleeding state cash.
New Yorkers can expect the state electrical grid to cover regular peak summertime demand, but a significant heat wave could bring potential blackouts and the need for emergency power sources.
Alison Esposito is facing a complaint filed by a progressive group accusing the congressional candidate of misusing campaign funds to pay for a personal parking spot.
As burning e-bike batteries wreak havoc across New York City, lawmakers in the state Senate are expected to pass a package of bills today aimed at snuffing out the troubling trend.
New York state Attorney General Letitia James announced a $2 billion settlement with cryptocurrency firms that she had accused of defrauding 29,000 New Yorkers, including nearly 8,000 Long Islanders.
Mayor Eric Adams said that his administration will conduct a “review” of the NYPD’s response to a pro-Palestine march in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn over the weekend after cops were caught on video punching demonstrators during the street protest.
Violent responses to pro-Palestinian activists follow a sweeping agreement aimed at striking an equilibrium between preserving public safety and the rights of protesters.
Adams played down scathing remarks former Gov. Andrew Cuomo made over the weekend about health issues in NYC public housing as the fallen governor continues a public speaking circuit many see as laying the groundwork for his political comeback.
“You don’t spend 35 years climbing to the top of the mountain and worry about the view,” Adams said. “You enjoy the view.”
“If this happened on Park Avenue, you would’ve heard it everyday. 1 reality for the rich &1 for the poor,” Cuomo posted on X, along with a video of a speech he made at the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights in Brooklyn.
An Adams aide who served as his longtime liaison to the Turkish community and whose home was searched by the F.B.I. has reportedly been cooperating with the corruption investigation into the mayor and his 2021 campaign.
Adams’s former liaison to the Turkish community, Rana Abbasova, had knowledge of some of the mayor’s dealings with Turkish officials.
With Adams facing a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising and low approval ratings, prominent Democrats have increasingly taken aim at the mayor and his policies — a potential foreshadowing of his contentious bid for re-election next year.
In the wake of a published Washington Post report claiming business leaders privately pushed Adams to crack down on pro-Palestinian college protests, the mayor called the story “antisemitic” while not explicitly denying he met with the powerful execs.
Adams defended the NYPD against outrage from fellow Democrats over viral footage of officers attacking pro-Palestinian demonstrators Saturday.
Police say they have charged one person with felony assault, and 24 others with disorderly conduct following a Saturday protest in Brooklyn against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
A Brooklyn pastor who calls himself an Adams mentee was sent to federal jail yesterday, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York confirmed.
Over a dozen Democratic elected officials criticized a New York City parent group that asked for a review of rules that let students play on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
New York City transportation officials yesterday unveiled the first Citi Bike docks with on-site charging for e-bikes — which will keep the bike-share program’s electric rides topped up throughout the day.
Three firefighters who nearly perished while battling a windswept inferno on Staten Island last year are suing the city over a staffing policy they say left them shorthanded as the blaze raged out of control.
Students, seniors and low-income New Yorkers will soon get a free or discounted OMNY card instead of a MetroCard, as the MTA seeks to speed up the long-delayed rollout of the tap-and-go payment system.
A top supervisor in the office of the Queens prosecutor derided a Black investigator using racially charged insults, a civil rights lawsuit alleges.
Transportation advocates say 2024 is one of the deadliest years for Queens streets in the Vision Zero era after five people were killed by cars over the weekend.
There is mounting evidence that Wells College administrators knew for months that the Cayuga County institution would close, even as they made public assurances that all was well.
For one week only, cheesy-cracker lovers can get their fix at the Cheez-In Diner in Woodstock decked out with all things Cheez-It, including a themed menu, a retro-Cheez-It convertible parked outside the restaurant and a jukebox that’s paid in crackers.
Hochul has announced 30 transformational projects across the Capital Region. Eleven projects were announced for the city of Cohoes, including transforming historic Cohoes Music Hall into a carbon-neutral building.
County Democrats are calling on Republicans to denounce Schenectady County Legislator Josh Cuomo for sharing what they said are homophobic social media posts prior to his voting against an LGBTQ+ Pride Month resolution.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer traveled yesterday to the Capital Region to deliver some welcome news to residents — $12.8 million in federal aid to help rid the city of its lead water pipes.
EMS, a longtime outdoors outfitter in the Capital Region, appears to be closing its store in Stuyvesant Plaza, the latest development for a brand that will soon face regional competition from new-arriving national chains Sierra, REI and Bass Pro Shops.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
