Good morning, it’s Thursday, which is one day away from Friday – in case you needed a reminder. You feel better now, right? Of course you do, it’s almost the weekend!
You’re welcome.
This week cannot end soon enough for my taste. Watching the RNC take place in Wisconsin this week, I’m reminded of a thought I’ve had not infrequently pretty much for as long as I’ve been paying attention to politics: They just don’t make leaders like Nelson Mandela anymore.
I can’t begin to fathom holding our current slate of elected officials – federal, state, local, you name it – up to compare with Mandela. It just doesn’t compute, mentally.
Don’t get me wrong, Nelson Mandela, (born Rolihlahla Mandela; the name “Nelson” was given to him by a primary school teacher years after his birth), the anti-apartheid activist, politician, and statesman who served South Africa’s president from 1994 to 1999 – the first Black individual to lead the country and the first to be democratically elected to that post – was not an angel.
His personal life, for example, was fraught – to say the least. Though he is best known for espousing nonviolence and was eventually even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1993, which he shared with Frederik Willem de Klerk), he did experience frustration stemming from the lack of apparent impact of that approach.
This led him early on to support civil disobedience campaigns that included elements of violence – like the bombings and/or sabotage of infrastructure. And it was this work that eventually landed him in prison.
All told, Mandela spent 27 years behind bars, and stayed there even though the South African government periodically made conditional offers that would enable him to get out – one of which would have required him to renounce the use of violence. (He rejected this overture on the premise that he was not a free man, and so therefore was unable to truly negotiate).
On Feb. 11, 1990, the South African government, under President de Klerk, released Mandela from prison.
Though the government had largely hidden him from the public eye all the years he was behind bars, Mandela managed to rise to an almost mythic worldwide status. He was at the time of his release an international symbol of the fight against apartheid, a system that had long allowed South African’s white minority to subjugate its Black majority.
Mandela and de Klerk went on in the years that followed to work on the negotiations that resulted in an end to apartheid. This laid the groundwork for the 1994 democratic general election in which Mandela was elected South Africa’s first Black president.
Today is Nelson Mandela International Day, which is celebrated each year on what would have been his birthday. (Mandela was born on this day in 1918 in Mvezo, South Africa). It was officially declared by the United Nations in November 2009. As an aside, Mandela actually was known by a variety of names, including “Madiba,” which is the name of the Thembu clan to which he belonged, and also “Tata,” which is the the Xhosa word for “father”.
The theme for this year’s Mandela Day is #itisinyourhands – in other words, everyone has it within themselves to make a difference in the world, starting with small actions in your own community.
Apparently, it used to be a thing to call on people to spend 67 minutes on this day serving others in the spirit of Mandela, but the campaign proved problematic – if for nothing else than the fact that the “67” figure, which was supposedly the number of years Mandela had dedicated to fighting for social justice, had been miscalculated – and was abandoned.
I’ll leave you to meditate on one of Mandela’s most famous – or at least oft quoted – statements:
It is easy to break down and destroy.
The heroes are those who make peace and build.
It took Mandela a while to get to the point where he was able to say those words and mean them. But he got there. I can only hope that our leaders everywhere stop and think about this for at least a moment sometime today. Maybe they can get there as well – some day.
It looks like a lovely day is on tap, with sunny skies and temperatures topping out in the low 80s. Balmy!
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden tested positive for COVID-19 while traveling yesterday in Las Vegas and is experiencing “mild symptoms” including “general malaise” from the infection, the White House said.
The president’s doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said Biden, 81, presented with upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose and a cough and was given his first dose of Paxlovid.
“I feel good,” Biden, who is fully vaccinated and boosted, told reporters in Las Vegas, flashing a thumbs-up before boarding Air Force One yesterday.
In his first speech since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Biden lamented about how heated politics have become, but pivoting back to fiery attacks Trump’s claims and policy proposals – avoiding personal attacks accusing him of “lying like hell.”
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, accepting his party’s nomination for vice president, denounced “Wall Street barons” and illegal immigration as the convention’s previous unity message shifted to more aggressive attacks on President Biden.
The 39-year-old Ohio senator, who was greeted with thunderous applause, was officially nominated as Trump’s VP on Monday but had been saving his remarks until the end of the night on the third day, building up eagerness from the crowd.
The Republican vice-presidential candidate is the first major party nominee with facial hair in 75 years.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats said Biden should step aside and allow the party to select a different nominee, according to a new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Biden has become more receptive recently to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid, Democrats briefed on his conversations said, after his party’s two top congressional leaders in Congress privately expressed deep concerns.
California Rep. Adam Schiff became the 21st Democratic member of Congress to call for Biden to abandon his 2024 run, adding to the mounting pressure on the president following a disastrous debate performance and bungled media interviews.
On Saturday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Biden that he is concerned about Democratic losses in November, according to one person close to both men who was granted anonymity to speak freely about the private conversation.
Top Democrats including Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have increased pressure on Biden to withdraw from his reelection campaign over concerns he cannot defeat Trump.
Just days before, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries sat down with Biden and offered a similar message, voicing concerns that the president could put Democratic chances in the House at risk if he remained atop the ticket.
Vice President Kamala Harris denounced the assassination attempt on Trump as “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act” in her first public remarks on last Saturday’s attack.
Authorities discovered pictures of Biden and Trump on the would be assassin’s phone, according to three US officials.
US Secret Service and FBI briefers told House lawmakers that the man who attempted to assassinate Trump visited the rally site twice after it was announced, including on the day of the shooting.
“July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” the 20-year-old gunman allegedly wrote on Steam, a popular online platform where gamers communicate with one another.
Law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt told lawmakers that 20 minutes passed between the time U.S. Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and the time shots were fired at the former president.
Even though local police were on the lookout for a suspicious man, critical minutes ticked by, allowing a would-be assassin to slip past, a Times analysis found.
It’s becoming increasingly clear the assassination attempt was a complicated failure involving multiple missteps and at least nine local and federal law enforcement divisions that were supposed to be working together.
Four senators confronted Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle yesterday evening at the Republican National Convention — demanding that she “resign tonight or start answering our questions.”
“This was an assassination attempt. You owe the people answers. You owe President Trump answers,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn can be heard saying in a clip shared on X, in which she and another senator appear to follow Cheatle through the convention halls.
New York’s PSC relied on outdated data and made miscalculations about the state’s ability to reach the energy mandates of the CLCPA, including failing to develop a backup plan for not meeting those goals, according to a state comptroller’s audit.
A judge temporarily blocked a law that would limit how much income New York state lawmakers can make outside government work, dealing a win to Republicans who are trying to strike it down.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie called up a labor group after it laid off his lobbyist girlfriend last month, dialing Mike Hellstrom, co-chair of Greater New York LECET, to ask about why Rebecca Lamorte had been let go, the organization confirmed.
Comptroller Brad Lander’s promised lawsuit against Gov. Kathy Hochul for halting congestion pricing now has a legal team to carry the case forward, Lander said yesterday.
The ruling from state Supreme Court Justice Alison Napolitano of Suffolk County will prevent the cap from taking effect while a lawsuit led by GOP lawmakers continues, unless the state attorney general’s office successfully appeals.
Attorneys from Emery Celli, Earthjustice and Mobilization for Justice have inked a joint defense agreement to, as Lander said, “explore legal action against the governor’s illegal and ill-conceived decision to cancel congestion pricing.”
The MTA has quietly cut bus service in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan by 10% due to Hochul’s pause of congestion pricing, the transit workers union and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams allege in a new lawsuit.
Hochul and the legislature will face pressure to lift the cap on charter schools in New York City next year after state education officials yesterday doled out the last of the 14 “zombie” slots begrudgingly approved by lawmakers last year.
The tornado that struck Rome Tuesday afternoon was by far the worst natural disaster to ever hit the community, and it was “miraculous” that no one died, Hochul said while touring storm damage in the area.
“We are committed to doing whatever it takes to rebuild, these services, these communities, the buildings. Because in a moment of crisis, New Yorkers always unite. We come together,” Hochul stated.
Hochul, Mayor Eric Adams, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban, and MTA CEO Janno Lieber held a press conference to announce safety improvements and crime reduction in the subway system.
Adams said transit crime has gone down by nearly 27% over the last four weeks. He added there has not been an increase in crime since more cops were put at subway stations back in January.
Straphangers could see weapons scanners in the subways in the next few days, Adams said yesterday, as officials touted a dip in crime in the city’s beleaguered transit system.
The mayor said during a news conference at Fulton Transit Center that the technology will be set up “in a few locations” within “the next few days.”
Adams has reduced his spending on defense attorneys in the last three months, but he got defensive when asked for an update on a federal investigation into his 2021 campaign.
Adams yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of Eric Garner, a Black man who was killed by police in 2014, calling his death a “painful chapter in the history” of the city.
Council Member Susan Zhuang and a number of other southern Brooklyn residents were arrested early yesterday morning during an impromptu protest at the future site of a homeless shelter in Gravesend.
Zhuang allegedly bit a deputy NYPD chief during a scream-filled clash with cops at the protest.
The councilwoman, whose district covers swaths of southern Brooklyn, including Sunset Park, Dyker Heights and Mapleton-Midwood, was arraigned yesterday evening in Brooklyn criminal court on one count of second-degree assault.
Amid the backdrop of sweltering temperatures and back-to-back heat waves, a city councilmember is poised to introduce a bill that would require landlords to provide tenants with air conditioning units during the hot summer months.
The idea behind the bill, proposed by Councilman Lincoln Restler from Brooklyn, is to update the existing housing code so that building owners are just as responsible for keeping people cool in the summer as they are for keeping them warm in the winter.
As the city’s wide-ranging City of Yes housing initiative continues through public review, Bronx community boards appear to be largely rejecting the proposal.
A 36-year-old inmate at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn died yesterday after he was injured in a fight at the jail, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.
The MTA was found to be mostly responsible for a deadly 2015 Metro North crash in which a train plowed into an SUV that errantly drove onto the tracks in Westchester County.
America’s second-largest teacher’s union, the UFT, has drafted a group of resolutions calling for the end of US military aid to Israel — and defending the anti-Israel protests that have rocked campuses across the country.
As The College of Saint Rose faced millions in operating losses and on a path that ultimately led to its closure, the Board of Trustees increased some administrators’ salaries by double-digit percentages, according to tax filings from the college.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares will wage a write-in campaign to keep office after losing the Democratic primary decisively to Lee Kindlon.
The man accused of beating the co-owner of Shogun Sushi & Sake Bar on Madison Avenue was formally charged in the attack. An indictment charges Lucas Healey, 42, with first- and second-degree assault and robbery for the May 29 incident.
After 18 months of litigation, Saratoga Mayor John Safford said the city is no closer to resolving a dispute with the city school district in which the district is seeking more than $200,000 after the city’s Accounts Department made an error in the 2022 tax rolls.
The United Group broke ground this week on its $42 million City Station North project, bringing to more than $100 million it will have invested in building housing, office, retail and parking along Troy’s Sixth Avenue between Ferry and State streets downtown.
Saratoga Springs Public Works Commissioner Jason Golub will be step down to become counsel and deputy commissioner of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, sending both parties scrambling to find a replacement candidate.
“The Bear” went on a tear at yesterday morning’s Emmy nominations with a comedy-series record 23, and “Shogun” led all nominees with 25 in a dominant year across categories for FX.
Caitlin Clark made more WNBA history last night. The Indiana Fever rookie sensation recorded 19 assists against the Dallas Wings, a new WNBA record for most assists in a single game.
After multiple delays caused by a combination of torrential rain and torrid domestic politics, Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, took to the cleaned-up waters of the Seine yesterday, fulfilling a promise that has become a symbol of the Paris Olympics.
The full list of nominees is here.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
