Good morning. It’s Wednesday and a brand new month is upon us.
It’s May Day, also known as International Workers Day. This holiday has its roots in an infamous strike – the Haymarket Affair – which took place in Chicago in 1886 and involved a violent, deadly clash between police and protestors who were involved in a national campaign to establish an eight-hour workweek.
Three years later, in 1869, socialists and trade unions in Paris introduced May Day as a holiday, similar to the American Labor Day, to honor both the ideals behind the strike and those who lost their lives as a result of it. Today, May Day is observed in many countries across the globe, but it’s not officially recognized here in the U.S., which celebrates its Labor Day in earlier September.
Why is this? I’ve found a number of explanations on the interwebs. Generally speaking, though, most experts and historians seem to agree that May Day was the victim of a combination of anti-communist views that intensified during the Cold War and an elitist/ruling class fear of working-class unity.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower event went so far as to declare May 1 “Law Day“, which, according to the American Bar Association, “provides an opportunity to understand how law and the legal process protect our liberty, strive to achieve justice, and contribute to the freedoms that all Americans share.”
Interesting aside that I’ve never really though of before: May Day, when written as “mayday” is a word internationally recognized as a distress signal.
Apparently the two have nothing to do with one another, but I find it hard to ignore that workers across this nation – and the world, for that matter – are crying out for “help” as it were – more humane treatment, better wages, a share in massive profits, health care etc., leading to a resurgence in the power and popularity of labor unions.
Just last month, for example, workers at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, Volkswagen plant overwhelmingly voted to join the United Auto Workers union- the first time that employees of a foreign car manufacturer in the South (the least-unionized region of the country) have unionized. This was a very big win for the UAW – the latest in a string of successes for its president, Shawn Fain.
Long before labor came into the picture, the dawn of the month of May was cause for celebration. This aspect of May Day has its roots in the pagan custom of welcoming the beginning of spring.
Celebrations traditionally included the gathering of flowers to weave into garlands, the erecting of a beribboned “May pole” around which revelers would dance, and maybe some fertility rituals – livestock and human alike – thrown in for good measure.
It’s not a bad day, weather-wise, for ushering in a new season, which, technically speaking, started back in mid-to-late March on the vernal equinox. We’ll see mostly cloudy skies today with a slight chance of a shower. Temperatures will top out in the low 70s.
In the headlines…
Police officers in riot gear arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University in Manhattan last night and cleared a building that protesters had seized about 20 hours earlier.
A lead student negotiator for protesters at Columbia University said that protests will continue on the campus despite the school’s request for a police presence. The university has asked NYPD to maintain its presence on campus until May 17.
The New York City Police Department arrested dozens of people as they attempted to clear out protest encampments at the City College of New York and at Columbia University last night, hours after Mayor Eric Adams urged students to walk away.
Adams insisted that people who “have no affiliation with Columbia University” and have sinister motives have overtaken the mostly peaceful protests in support of Palestinians on the Upper Manhattan campus.
Earlier in the evening, protesters tried to take over an administrative building at City College. Police officers chased the crowd, which had been running toward the Howard E. Wille Administration Building just after 7:30 p.m.
The White House condemned the forcible takeover of a Columbia University academic building by pro-Palestinian protesters and the use of the term “intifada,”, seeking to push back against “antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric” as a part of college protests.
“President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life,” the White House statement said. “He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he “encouraged” Biden to see the “virus” of antisemitism at Columbia University firsthand after Johnson visited Morningside Heights with his GOP colleagues last week.
Among those pushing Columbia to crack down demonstrators before the arrests of dozens of protesters was a group of 21 House Democrats who urged its board “to act decisively” or resign, lending bipartisan support to similar calls from Republicans.
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters could be seen on the steps of New York City’s Penn Station and later swarming the train hall, video shows.
Columbia University is threatening to expel pro-Palestinian students who charged a campus building early yesterday morning and continued to occupy it throughout the day.
Gov. Kathy Hochul offered support for Columbia and other college commencements in the state to proceed in a statement addressing the campus protests.
“It is my expectation that every college and university in New York will celebrate commencement safely in person,” she wrote in a letter to every campus president in the state.
Hochul said the line “has been crossed” when actions cross over into harassment and destruction of property. She called for accountability, either through disciplinary action or through law enforcement.
Columbia University got blasted from all sides yesterday for refusing to call in police to roust the anti-Israel mob that illegally took over a campus building.
Hundreds of Columbia University alumni led by high-profile graduates demanded that cops end the pro-terror protests, and faculty who support them be suspended.
As pro-Palestinian protests continued to escalate across the country, officials and students at Brown University set a rare example yesterday: They made a deal.
Officials at the University of California, Los Angeles, declared a pro-Palestinian encampment illegal for the first time last night and warned protesters that they faced consequences if they did not leave.
The Justice Department said that it had recommended easing restrictions on marijuana in what could amount to a major change in federal policy.
The proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs.
Even though the move, which kicks off a lengthy rule-making process, does not end the criminalization of the drug, it would be a significant shift in how the government views the safety and use of marijuana for medical purposes.
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan held him in contempt, fining the former president $9,000 for repeatedly violating a gag order and warning that he could go to to jail if he continued to attack witnesses and jurors.
Merchan warned in the decision that he would not tolerate further violations of the order and said “if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances,” he would impose “an incarceratory punishment” on the former president.
Jurors heard from the attorney who negotiated both the Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal hush money agreements, Keith Davidson, who detailed his tribulations with Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen in the final days of the 2016 campaign.
A law firm that has long defended Trump’s campaign and businesses from employment lawsuits has abruptly asked to withdraw from a yearslong case over what it calls an “irreparable breakdown in the attorney-client relationship.”
Rep. Elise Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against special counsel Jack Smith, asking federal investigators to launch a probe into claims that the former prosecutor is unlawfully interfering with the 2024 election.
Hochul referred Rochester-area District Attorney Sandra Doorley to a state misconduct commission that isn’t operational, and even if it was, would lack disciplinary power — thanks to a lawsuit brought by the state’s district attorneys.
Hochul announced that more than $34 million has been awarded to support 23 projects across New York state through the Regional Economic Development Council initiative.
The longtime president of the PEF — one of the state’s largest public sector unions — is running for an unprecedented fourth term, fresh off of a state budget that granted many employees modest changes to their long-vilified pension system.
Former state Sen. Mark Gristani, now a judge, who was caught-on-video shoving a cop during a shirtless brawl in 2020 with his neighbors over a parking spot, could get off with just a slap on the wrist.
Adams dismissed the notion that Hassan Naveed, his former director of hate crime prevention, was fired for being Muslim, suggesting instead that Naveed got shown the door for performance-related reasons.
The city’s largest police union is suing the NYPD and Adams over a new “zero-tolerance” policy regarding officers’ use of anabolic steroids without approval from NYPD district surgeons.
Adams’ lawyers are playing hardball with the woman accusing him of sexually abusing her while they served in the NYPD together decades ago.
The City Council’s top tech official said the Adams administration must by law publicly release all information gathered as part of a new “engagement form” system, which requires local elected officials to ask permission before speaking with senior city officials.
A New York City panel yesterday signaled that it would allow rents across nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments to continue to go up.
The nine-member panel, the Rent Guidelines Board, backed increases on one-year leases of between 2 and 4.5 percent and increases on two-year leases of between 4 and 6.5 percent.
The typically raucous meeting culminated in the board’s two tenant representatives exiting the stage ahead of the vote to oppose an increase. About 200 tenants joined them.
A pair of Republican House members representing the Big Apple’s northern suburbs are demanding the MTA expand a congestion pricing-related program to discount Metro North and Long Island Railroad rides.
App-based food delivery workers in New York City face high rates of injury and assault, especially those who rely on app delivery as their primary job, according to a new academic study by a team of CUNY researchers.
The homeless man accused of fatally shoving Michelle Go into an oncoming subway train in Times Square in 2022 exploded in Manhattan court yesterday, after prosecutors argued he has been deemed mentally fit to stand trial.
About 150 people filed lawsuits this week against New York City — including the Administration for Children’s Services and the Department of Correction — for the abuse they said they endured while in the city’s custody as minors.
Disgraced former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is expected to appear in Manhattan Supreme Court today for a hearing that could be the first step toward his being tried again on sex crimes in New York after his 2020 conviction was overturned.
Paul Auster, the prolific novelist, memoirist and screenwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s and became one of the signature New York writers of his generation, died of complications from lung cancer at his home in Brooklyn yesterday at the age of 77.
Timothy M. Kennedy, a Democratic New York State senator, easily won a special House election on Tuesday to replace a retiring congressman in western New York, according to The Associated Press.
The victory was hardly a surprise. Democrats have controlled the Buffalo-area district for decades. And Mr. Kennedy outspent his Republican opponent, Gary Dickson, by an eye-popping 47 to 1.
Kennedy’s victory will have an immediate impact on the House at a time when Speaker Johnson of Louisiana is laboring to hold onto a narrow Republican majority and fend off a rebellion on his right flank.
The 47-year-old state senator will serve out the remainder of former Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins’ term in the House of Representatives, which expires at the end of the year. Higgins retired in February to take a private sector job.
A coalition of more than a dozen Schoharie County towns is suing the state, contending the method for taxing solar and wind farms is unconstitutional as it usurps the authority of local assessors and shortchanges municipalities of needed property tax revenue.
Sullivan County town leaders say the state AG’s office erred when it accused them of adopting zoning regulations that allegedly discriminate against “places of worship” and seem designed to block development proposed by Hasidic Orthodox Jews.
A New Jersey real estate investment group that owns the Kohl’s Plaza on Central Avenue in Colonie has acquired the portion of Colonie Center that includes Whole Foods.
For the first time in nearly 15 years, dinner is again being served at Cafe Madison in Albany.
The northern entrance to the Port of Albany at Church Street will be closed between May 3 and 6 as workers replace railroad tracks there
Albany County and its contractor did not follow the same process for a group of grants meant for local nonprofit organizations that they used to review other county grants funded with federal American Rescue Plan money.
A national company selling blinds, draperies, shutters and other window products has expanded its presence to the Capital Region, with a local couple working as consultants from their home in Glens Falls.
Tickets for the Berkshire Flyer summer train service, running between New York City’s Penn Station and Pittsfield, Mass., are now available, according to Amtrak and state transportation officials this week.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
