Good Wednesday morning. We’re midway through the week already.
I did a lot of extracurricular activities as a kid, including theater. I wasn’t very good, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was a fun outlet – especially improv, which provided an opportunity to be creative without the boundaries of a pre-existing script.
From time to time, my theater class would put on a show. One of these, which has really stuck with me, was a dramatization of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory tragedy – an inferno that killed 146 people, many of whom were young European immigrants, most of them women, and sparked a push to reform the (at the time more or less nonexistent) labor and worker protection laws.
When I say young, I mean teenagers – 14 of the victims were 17 years old and 16 were 16 years old. But there were some even younger than that who perished in the flames, including one 11 year old child.
My character in this play was a young girl whose job was cutting patterns. I loved my costume – it was a cute sailor suit-inspired dress. I did not love the experience of dying night after night during the play’s run, which did not help my anxiety level, but did get my thinking about how lucky I was to be alive in the modern era.
I was, of course, misguided in my belief that child labor was a scourge of the past. Quite the contrary, actually. According to this website, 152 million youngsters between the ages of 5 and 17 current work as child laborers around the world, which roughly translates into 316 million hours of child labor a year. (The UN puts the number even higher – at 160 million children, about one in every 10, engaged in child labor across the globe).
Though the number of children working has definitely decreased over the past several decades, that number is still shockingly high, and the downward trend has reversed in recent years due to a toxic combination of conflicts, crises, and the COVID pandemic, which forced millions of families into poverty.
If you think this sort of exploitation is not happening here in the U.S., well, think again.
Federal law generally prohibits the employment of anyone under the age of 14 in nonagricultural occupations, restricts the hours and types of work that can be done by those under 16, and prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from working in any hazardous occupation.
Yet according to the Economic Policy Institute, not only is child labor increasing across the nation, but a handful of states are trying to weaken standards and protections for minors in the workplace. Though children who are undocumented are particularly vulnerable, this phenomenon is not restricted to that population.
Today is the World Day Against Child Labor, and, as the UN notes, while low-income countries have the highest percentage of underage kids working, middle and high-income countries have the greatest number of children in this predicament. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of this problem and hopefully advance the effort to end it.
We’re in for a bit of a warming trend, with temperatures in the high 70s. Skies will be cloudy to partly cloudy.
In the headlines…
A federal jury, after deliberating for just under three hours, convicted Hunter Biden on all three federal felony gun charges he faced, concluding that he violated laws meant to prevent drug addicts from owning firearms.
The conviction marks the first time a president’s immediate family member has been found guilty of a crime during their father’s term in office, though his crimes predate Joe Biden’s tenure as president.
President Biden arrived in Delaware just before 5 p.m. to greet his son, Hunter, on the tarmac following his conviction on three federal charges. Biden hugged his son, and bent over to kiss the top of his grandson, Beau’s, head in the emotional scene.
Hunter Biden, 54, faces up to 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines call for a fraction of that penalty.
The president heralded the steps his administration has taken to strengthen the country’s gun laws and enhance the penalties for those who violate them, in an awkward political moment for a man whose son was convicted hours earlier on federal gun charges.
He also called for a ban on assault-style weapons and universal background checks for firearms purchases.
“It’s time once again, to do what I did when I was a senator: ban assault weapons,” Biden said, to large cheers from the crowd. “Who, in God’s name, needs a magazine which can hold 200 shells?”
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, long an outspoken advocate agains gun violence, endorsed Biden, saying: “it’s clear that President Biden is really interested in implementing gun-safety measures.”
The Biden administration proposed removing medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, making it easier for them to qualify for car, home and small-business loans.
Trump told a right-wing Christian group that has called for abortion to be “eradicated” and for the procedure to be prosecuted as homicide that it would “make a comeback like just about no other group” if he is re-elected.
Trump thanked the audience for their “tremendous devotion to God and Country” and said everyone needs to pull together to preserve their values, including religious liberty, free speech, innocent life and America’s heritage and traditions.
A UN commission investigating the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza has accused both Palestinian armed groups and Israel of committing war crimes, and said Israel’s conduct of the war included crimes against humanity.
A day after the UN Security Council endorsed a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal for the Gaza Strip, the focus shifted to the willingness of Israel and Hamas, under growing international pressure to end the war, to make a deal.
The US has received Hamas’s formal reply to a UN-backed Gaza ceasefire proposal sent to Qatari and Egyptian mediators, White House spokesperson John Kirby said. He declined to provide a detailed answer to the response, as it’s under evaluation.
It appeared the reply was short of an outright acceptance that the United States has been pushing for but kept negotiations alive over an elusive halt to the eight-month war.
Hamas’s response to a proposed Gaza ceasefire deal “opens up a wide pathway” to reach an agreement, Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the group’s political bureau, has said in a statement.
The Hamas response proposed amendments to the deal endorsed on Monday in a 14-0 Security Council vote that may prove to be another stumbling block to a cease-fire agreement.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and a member of the prosecution team that secured Donald Trump’s conviction for covering up a conspiracy to hide information from voters agreed to testify about the case before Congress next month.
“It undermines the rule of law to spread dangerous misinformation, baseless claims, and conspiracy theories following the jury’s return of a full-count felony conviction in People v. Trump,” a spokesperson for Bragg said in a statement.
An extensive search of Justice Department records uncovered no contacts between senior DOJ officials and Bragg’s office relating to their state prosecution of Trump, a top department official informed House Republicans in a letter yesterday.
Findings from documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that Bragg spent $1 million to respond to congressional oversight of his prosecution at a time New York City officials were demanding across-the-board budget cuts.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congressional subcommittee that he was unaware of a controversial directive issued by the state Health Department in March 2020 directing nursing homes to accept residents even if they had tested positive for COVID-19.
“It’s ironic today that you hear complaints about the weaponization of the justice system, when they nuclearized the justice system against Democratic states,” Cuomo said to reporters, pointing to federal investigations that “found no wrongdoing”.
The transcribed interview took place behind closed doors with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. The GOP-led panel issued a subpoena in March for Cuomo, a Democrat, to sit for a deposition.
“Today is an opportunity to actually get the truth and the facts out, and I welcome that opportunity,” Cuomo insisted before he testified.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander has assembled a collection of stakeholders to develop a legal strategy that would underpin one or more lawsuits seeking to get congestion pricing back on track.
“They are going to try to argue legislative precedent. They are going to argue the sanctity of the funding of the MTA and also the violation of the state’s commitment to zero carbon footprints,” Kean University Provost David Birdsell said.
Mayor Eric Adams, who has himself been lukewarm on congestion pricing, said that he supported Hochul’s decision and urged New Yorkers to “trust her leadership.”
“I’m not a fair-weather friend, I am a friend,” the mayor said. “We need to trust her leadership, trust her leadership. She has really knocked it out of the park. First female governor in the history of New York is showing what true leadership is about.”
As for when the governor gave the mayor a heads up, the mayor says that she called him about two weeks prior to “share her thoughts,” and then once she made her final decision, he says they spoke again that evening.
Car dealers were scheduled to throw a fundraiser for Hochul days after she killed a congestion pricing plan that they opposed.
“I spoke to (MTA CEO and Chairman) Janno Lieber yesterday, and he is been working hard with me, particularly since this announcement,” Hochul said. “So, we support, I’m joined at the hip with the MTA on all of their projects going forward.”
Hochul and the state Department of Motor Vehicles unveiled the New York Mobile ID, or MiD, which will be offered to any resident of the state who already has a state-issued driver’s license, learner’s permit or non-driver ID.
The state Cannabis Control Board formally adopted rules that will allow anyone 21 or older to cultivate their own marijuana plants at home.
New York’s new matching-funds campaign system rewards candidates who raise money from small donors, but weak oversight may already have led to abuses.
Adams joined relatives of the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack to decry what he described as a “despicable” pro-Palestine protest held a day earlier in Manhattan, where a flag with the group’s emblem and a sign lauding the massacre were displayed.
“That is pure antisemitism,” Adams tweeted in a three-minute video, referring to the protesters who waved Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist flags, unfurled a “Long live October 7th” banner and lamented that Adolf Hitler isn’t around to wipe out Jewish people.
“Our Constitution and our way of life in our city permits free speech and part of that free speech that is protected is some of the ugly things we heard. We have also the right to say, ‘This is not who we are as a city,’ and I’m exercising that right, right now.”
Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement: “The events at yesterday’s memorial to those murdered at the Nova music festival are outrageous and heartbreaking.”
Given an opportunity to take a shot at a potential political rival, Cuomo, Adams punted, declaring that he’s not interested in “cheap shots.”
The battle over whether to shift broker fees from renters to landlords landed on the City Hall steps yesterday, but only after some behind-the-scenes intrigue forced one group off that coveted piece of New York City real estate.
A key hearing for the bill, which would require whoever hires a broker to pay the fee, is scheduled for today.
The New York City Council may consider a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza at its upcoming meeting on June 20, but a draft has not yet been shared with members.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams is drawing up a cease-fire resolution on the Gaza war, but some of her fellow Democratic pols are reportedly furious over the notion they will be forced to vote on it.
The head of a charity called Modest Needs was charged with embezzling $2.5 million to rent a Columbus Circle high-rise, have cosmetic surgery and dine regularly at some of Manhattan’s most expensive restaurants.
“Bling Bishop” Lamor Whitehead should spend 12½ years in prison for several frauds, including swindling a parishioner’s mother out of her life savings, Manhattan federal prosecutors argue.
A Texas man was charged with selling firearms and parts through an online channel that promoted white-supremacist beliefs even as he was serving time in a Louisiana federal prison on previous gun charges.
An unhinged man armed with a hammer targeted a Brooklyn church’s beloved statues of Mother Teresa and a Catholic pope, smashing their faces in, police said.
Joey Chestnut has been kicked out of the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on July 4 at Coney Island for agreeing to endorse plant-based vegan hot dogs.
Major League Eating, which runs the contest, said Chestnut was booted for signing a sponsorship deal with a competing food company, reportedly the famously beef-free Impossible Foods.
George Shea, the indefatigable host and promoter of the annual Fourth of July contest in Coney Island, sounded distraught, saying he was “devastated” by the separation.
Albany Medical Center nurses, who said they were interviewed last week by state Department of Health inspectors, said they were told the hospital is facing a possible “State of Deficiency” over short-staffing levels.
The Republican candidate for Saratoga County treasurer, Acting Treasurer JoAnn Kupferman, has collected enough signatures to create an independent party ballot line for her November run.
Concerned citizens reporting an excessive odor of cannabis emanating from a town of Amsterdam property led to the arrest of a Brooklyn man accused of running a large-scale growing operation, Montgomery County sheriff’s investigators said this week.
For the “Everyday People” disappointed that legendary drummer Shelia E.’s concert was rained out last summer at the Empire State Plaza, fret not. She will return to Albany as part of the 2024 Capital Concert Series.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
