Good morning, it’s Monday.
The weather made headlines again over the weekend, with both extreme heat and a tornado watch.
For the record, as per the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory:
A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground. Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. Tornadoes can be among the most violent phenomena of all atmospheric storms we experience.
Also, in case you were wondering, as I was, about the difference between a watch and a warning.
The former is issued when conditions are favorable for a severe weather event, and indicates that residents in a potentially impacted area should be on the alert. The latter (a warning) means said severe weather event is either imminent or already under way, and those in the impacted area should act accordingly.
In the case of a tornado warning, if you’re not terribly familiar with the best practices since we don’t get these too often around here, one should take shelter right away in a basement, safe room, or an interior room without any windows.
Never a dull moment.
Things appear to have settled down, with temperatures dropping significantly – down into the low 70s – with partly cloudy skies and showers developing in the afternoon. Nothing too out of the ordinary, and I, for one, am not sorry for the reprieve.
A political storm of sorts took place on this day two years ago when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, upending some 50 years women’s ability to make choices about their own bodies and futures.
On Jan. 22, 1973, the court protected a woman’s constitutional right to choose, protecting their ability to make deeply personal decisions without government interference, enshrining a fundamental right to privacy and bodily autonomy.
All of that has been called into question and left women across the nation less safe and less free, disproportionately impacting women of color, and also those who lack resources and are unable to travel to seek abortion services if they happen to live in a state when those services are no longer readily available.
Here in Democrat-dominated New York, where state lawmakers legalized abortion within 24 weeks of pregnancy and at any time if the woman’s life was at risk three years before the procedure became legal at the national level, protecting and preserving choice continues to be a top priority.
The Equal Rights Amendment, which would amend the state constitution to bar discrimination based on “gender identity” or “pregnancy outcomes”, which supporters say will protect both abortion rights and transgender individuals, has been restored to the November general election ballot.
But women across the nation aren’t nearly as lucky. According to an ABC News report, since the court overturned Roe, 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services and three states have enacted six-week bans.
Advocates today will mark the two-year anniversary of the overturning of Roe with a nationwide women’s strike. Organizers are asking participants to stay home from school (if it’s still in session) or work, wear red, and not spend any money unless it’s to patronize a women-owned business. A variety of events – from walkouts to protests – have been planned.
There has been some good news on the choice front of late, thanks to the recent – and unanimous! – Supreme Court decision that preserved access to mifepristone – a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year. This was the court’s first abortion-related decision since the infamous day it undercut Roe.
Still, preserving women’s right to choose remains an uphill battle in many senses, and the best way to make your position heard by the powers that be – whatever that position is – is to exercise your right to vote.
Yesterday was the last day for early voting in the upcoming June 25 primary, which will take place tomorrow.
I’ll have more to say on the subject, of course, but if you’re going to exercise your small-d democracy responsibility to vote, remember that New York has closed primaries. That means you can only participate if you’re registered with a major party – and if you’re a blank, like yours truly, you have to sit on the sidelines and wait until November.
If you are a member of a political party, please do get out there tomorrow. If you aren’t sure where to go, click here or here and find out.
Since we already dispensed with the weather up top, let’s get right to the good stuff.
In the headlines…
The debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump this week will be the highest-stakes moment of their rematch, plunging two presidents into an extraordinarily early confrontation before a divided and angry nation.
Trump told reporters at a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Saturday that he knows who his running mate will be and that the person would “likely” be in Atlanta during the debate.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a top contender to be Trump’s running mate, sought to raise expectations of Biden’s debate abilities ahead of CNN’s presidential debate.
Burgum jousted with CNN host Kaitlan Collins in discussing his repeated use of the word “dictatorship” to described President Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump said in an address to an evangelical group that he had suggested starting a sports league for migrants to fight one another.
Speaking first to a crowd of conservative Christians at a Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering in Washington, D.C., Trump said he had shared the idea with Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Trump proposed “automatically” giving green cards to foreign nationals who graduate from a US college, braking from his efforts to curb both legal and illegal immigration in office and contrary to his inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric on the campaign trail.
Democrats largely downplayed Trump’s new financial lead in the same way Trump’s allies had when Biden was ahead in the money race — saying the president would have enough to compete. But privately, several Democratic strategists and donors were reeling.
Bob Bauer is Biden’s personal attorney and has had a long career as one of the Democratic Party’s top campaign lawyers. But these days, he may be best known for playing Trump during Biden’s mock debate sessions.
In a survey, published by CBS News, 82 percent of registered voters said they think it is more difficult to purchase a home than it was for previous generations, while 76 percent said the same for raising a family.
The majority of voters under 30 said it has become harder to buy a house, raise a family and get a good job in comparison to the previous generations, according to a new poll.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel aired new grievances yesterday over the Biden administration’s supply of munitions for the war in Gaza as his minister of defense arrived in Washington for meetings with senior U.S. officials.
Israel’s defense minister was scheduled to meet with two top U.S. officials in Washington today, a day after Netanyahu said that the intensive phase of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip was “about to end.”
More than 1,300 people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as the faithful faced extreme high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, Saudi authorities announced.
A couple from Maryland were among the more than 1,300 people who died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, Democratic Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has halted construction projects at two Queens rail stations to put pressure on Gov. Kathy Hochul after she knocked down the unpopular congestion pricing plan, sources said.
The loss of congestion pricing revenue will affect more than just the long-term expansion of the MTA’s transit system — it could leave aging subway cars to run on poorly maintained tracks and sideline normal repair and replacement activities for years.
Hochul defended the congestion pricing pause, saying: “We can’t be tone deaf to our citizens.”
Local youths descended on Brooklyn’s Barclays Center yesterday morning to call on Hochul to reverse course and allow congestion pricing to proceed, as they expressed disquiet for a future that will be defined by climate change.
Hochul pushed back on some criticism of the new social media laws that she signed last week to address the impact it could have on children’s mental health.
The governor said the Supreme Court is “living in the 1700s” after it overturned a Trump-era ban on gun bump stocks.
“I mean, they are so out of touch,” Hochul said on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday. “They go back to what our Founding Fathers said about guns at a time when we had muskets. We didn’t have bump stocks. We didn’t have machine guns.”
A group of New York state educators is calling on Hochul to sign a classroom heat bill into law, which would require that districts address heat conditions when classroom temperatures hit 82 degrees and vacate classrooms at 88 degrees.
Several State Assembly contests have become contentious as the June 25 primary nears, with the party grappling between moderate and progressive forces.
Within New York’s L.G.B.T.Q. community, whose members hail from every ethnic and social background and tend to be highly attuned to issues of social justice, the war in Gaza has touched off some especially raw conflicts.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders rallied with Jamaal Bowman on Saturday, three days before he faces off against Westchester County Executive George Latimer in one of the state’s most hotly contested primaries.
Bowman faces Latimer in a House primary in New York that will test the party’s views on Israel and the strength of its left-wing faction.
Hochul told CNN she hasn’t taken sides in the race between Bowman and Latimer, but made clear she disagrees with Bowman’s view on the Israel-Hamas war when asked about the congressman accusing the Jewish military of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Anti-Israel vandals targeted Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks’ Queens home yesterday, writing that he had “blood” on his hands, according to law enforcement sources.
A former senior adviser to Harlem Assemblyman Eddie Gibbs alleges in a new lawsuit that the uptown politician abruptly and illegally fired him last summer, a day before he was set to undergo amputation surgery related to diabetes.
Mayor Eric Adams is backing Queens Assemblyman Rom Kim, a Democratic state pol who called for defunding cops, while two suburban police unions made a rare endorsement outside their counties to fight the candidate’s dangerous “leftist tactics.’’
Adams announced last week that his administration plans to pour $1.2 billion into contracts designed to provide jobs for public housing residents and people living in low-income neighborhoods.
Junior’s Restaurant proprietor Alan Rosen — upset with crime and quality of life complaints in the Big Apple — wants to bring his cheese cake making skills to City Hall and is mulling a mayoral run.
As budget negotiations between the New York City Council and the mayor’s office continue, council members and library officials planned to rally yesterday and call for the full reversal of $58.3 million in cuts to the city’s public libraries.
New York City deputy sheriffs have seized so much cannabis from unlicensed pot shops amid a crackdown that the agency’s offices have become a weed wonderland, with pot stowed in every free nook and cranny they can find.
United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew has withdrawn support for controversial changes to health care plans for thousands of city retirees in a stunning reversal after his slate of allies got trounced in union elections last week.
More than 100 Big Apple residents and elected officials rallied outside Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field yesterday, calling on city leaders to shut down a troublesome migrant tent city at the federal site.
A watchdog group representing 9/11 survivors and first responders sued New York City over its blocking the release of documents that may reveal what officials knew about the toxic air and health risks in Lower Manhattan in the months after the terror attacks.
Columbia University placed three administrators on leave last week – little more than a week after images emerged showing the school officials sharing disparaging text messages during a panel discussion about antisemitism on campus.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office cited a lack of evidence in deciding not to prosecute 31 of the 46 people charged in the takeover of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall.
A ritzy Greenwich Village restaurant was forced to close its doors after a $45,000 payroll cyberscam – and now it’s co-owner is warning other businesses to be on the lookout.
Three people were stabbed, one fatally, yesterday evening in the East Village in Manhattan, and a man was in police custody, police officials said.
A fatal stabbing inside a bodega in Queens on Saturday night reignited calls from some shop owners for more state and federal assistance with security measures.
A crackdown on toll-dodging drivers with “ghost’’ license plates just netted a career criminal with a loaded pistol who also is being eyed in a 2005 Brooklyn murder, authorities say.
The state Department of Health issued a public health alert after nonprofits in Schenectady and Syracuse detected a harmful mix of substances in drug samples, including a synthetic sedative used to treat animals.
Rail service in the Northeast was disrupted for a second day on Friday, with Amtrak trains into and out of New York City delayed or canceled and service on the commuter line NJ Transit suspended during the morning rush.
Capital Region counties will receive nearly $7 million to fund underage vaping prevention programs under a settlement between multiple states and the prominent electronic cigarette company JUUL Labs.
Friday was the College of Saint Rose’s last day of summer session, marking the end of the college as an educational institution. The college will officially cease operations on June 30 and could have a buyer as early as this fall.
A surprise presentation meant to “shock” and “delight” the Malta Town Board has its members annoyed and skeptical about a proposed plan to build 700 units of apartments and townhomes where the historic Albany-Saratoga Speedway sits.
City of Schenectady police officers would receive a 14 percent pay raise over the next 5 years and get a higher pension payout for staying on the force past 20 years under a proposed contract that must still be approved by City Council members.
In recent years, Hudson Valley lawmakers and suicide prevention advocates have pressured the Bridge Authority to install fencing on its five Hudson Valley bridges: Bear Mountain, Newburgh-Beacon, Mid-Hudson, Kingston-Rhinecliff and Rip Van Winkle.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
