Good morning, it’s Wednesday, which is technically Friday in this short holiday workweek. (Unless, of course, you’ve taken the entire week off, in which case, why are you even here? Turn the computer/phone OFF and go do something fun/relaxing).
For those who ARE here, let’s kick things off with a programming note.
In honor of the holiday, there will be no “Rise and Shine” tomorrow OR Friday, July 5. Enjoy your time off, and remember to take a moment to think about the meaning of tomorrow – they call it “Independence Day” for a reason. We are all damn lucky to be living in this country, in all its screwy and dysfunctional glory.
For those who cannot for the life of them recall their grade school history lessons, on this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, which called for the 13 colonies to secede from Great Britain.
Here’s something I didn’t know until I started researching this post – New York abstained from the vote that eventually declared our independence from the King because its representatives had not received guidance from Albany as to how they should be casting their ballots.
All I can say to that is…typical Albany to be holding things up. We were stalling for time even all the way back then. Amazing.
Also, it took multiple votes over a series of days to muster sufficient support to pass the Declaration of Independence, and AFTER it was approved, some final wordsmithing occurred, tinkering with Thomas Jefferson’s original draft before the final version was sent to the printer.
While we are gearing up for our nation’s birthday – laying in all manner of loud, bright, exploding devices as well as plenty of hot dogs, hamburgers, and beverages – residents of the U.S. Virgin Islands are already getting a jump on celebrating. Today is V.I. Emancipation Day, which commemorates the release of enslaved people from Danish rule in the West Indies.
I’m not sure how much you know about the Virgin Islands, probably not much. Can you even locate the territory on a map? I couldn’t until I worked on some press related to the so-called Insular Cases, which is a series of more than century-old rulings that disenfranchise members of the U.S. territories, basically relegating them to the status of second class citizens.
To make a long story short, our nation’s highest court has long held – in some decisions that were, quite frankly, racist in nature – that the territories are not formally incorporated into the greater U.S., And that means their residents don’t enjoy the same constitutional rights as those of us who live in the 50 U.S. states or Washington, D.C.
Though these residents DO pay taxes and ARE eligible for the military draft, they aren’t represented by voting members of Congress and they also don’t qualify for certain federal benefits.
Does this seem fair and equitable to you?
So, while you’re exercising the freedom to overeat ice cream, forget to put on sunscreen, lounge around in your bathing suit, take long afternoon naps, and other holiday-type indulgences that we regularly take for granted, spare a thought for the residents of the five permanently inhabited U.S. territories – Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands – and remember just how good you have it.
Of course, they have island weather and all that, but, then again, they also have storms, blackouts, rising sea levels and other climate-related challenges.
We’ll have intervals of clouds and sun today, with temperatures in the mid-80s. The rest of the holiday weekend is looking not too bad, though hot, with the likelihood of scattered thunderstorms highest on Saturday, but pretty much a foregone possibility this time of year.
Be safe and enjoy yourselves. I’ll “see” you next week.
In the headlines…
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial approved a delay of the former president’s sentencing after his lawyers asked for more time to argue that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision calls for a new trial.
The sentencing hearing, previously scheduled for July 11, will now take place on September 18 at the earliest, according to a letter posted on the court’s docket.
Trump escalated his vows to prosecute his political opponents, circulating social media posts invoking “televised military tribunals” and calling for the jailing of Biden, VP Kamala Harris, Sens. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and former VPMike Pence.
Adult film actress Stormy Daniels posed a question in an interview about how widespread the concern for a second term for Trump in the White House should be. “Shouldn’t we all be worried about that?”
The special counsel Jack Smith plans to pursue his two criminal cases against Trump through the election and even up until Inauguration Day if Trump wins the presidential race, according to a person familiar with Smith’s thinking.
A handful of President Biden’s 2020 White House rivals are calling for him to step down from the 2024 race.
In the weeks and months before Biden’s politically devastating debate performance, several current and former officials and others who encountered him privately noticed he increasingly appeared confused or listless, or would lose conversations’ thread.
During White House meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings they’ll deliver to Biden, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information being presented in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction.
Hunter Biden has joined meetings with President Biden and his top aides since his father returned to the White House from Camp David, Maryland, on Monday evening, according to four people familiar with the matter.
Journalist Carl Bernstein is calling President Biden’s debate performance last week a “horror show” and said his sources close to the commander in chief say what happened is not a one-time problem.
President Biden blamed foreign travel for his poor debate performance, saying that he almost fell asleep on the stage last week.
“I wasn’t very smart,” Biden, 81, told donors at a fund-raiser in Virginia. “I decided to travel around the world a couple times, I don’t know how many time zones…it’s not an excuse but an explanation.”
Democratic anxiety over Biden’s fitness to run for re-election broke out into the open in a spike of panic, as the first sitting member of Congress called him to withdraw and a slew of other prominent officials who have backed the president vented their concerns.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, a veteran progressive lawmaker, issued a statement saying that Biden’s debate performance had disqualified him from running again.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw,” Doggett said in his statement. “President Biden should do the same.”
Biden will sit down with ABC News on Friday for his first television interview since last week’s presidential debate.
ABC will air parts of George Stephanopoulos’ interview with Biden on Friday at 6:30 p.m. ET on “World News Tonight with David Muir.” The extended interview will air Sunday on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
Pro Publica released video from a 21-minute interview conducted with the president on Sept. 29, unedited as seen from the view of the single camera focused on Biden.
Rudy Giuliani — the former mayor of New York, top federal prosecutor and a longtime Trump ally — has been disbarred from the practice of law, a New York State appellate court ruled.
The Manhattan appeals court ruled Giuliani, who had his New York law license suspended in 2021 for making false statements around the election, is no longer allowed to practice law in the state, effective immediately.
In a lengthy report by Vanity Fair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family express their concern that his run as an Independent presidential candidate could lead to a “political disaster” and result in him being remembered as “one of the great villains in American history.”
The profile accuses the presidential hopeful of sexually assaulting a former babysitter and features a photo that appears to show him posing with a barbecued dog.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has banned a soda additive starting next month over health concerns. The agency pointed to studies conducted with the National Institutes of Health that “found the potential for adverse health effects in humans.”
The FDA said it revoked its regulation that allowed brominated vegetable oil (BVO) to be used in food because it “is no longer considered safe.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed a rule outlining steps employers must take to protect indoor and outdoor workers from the risk of heat illness, the first major regulation aimed at preventing heat-related deaths on the job.
The rule, if finalized, could add protections for 36 million workers nationwide. But it will face opposition from industry groups and major hurdles beyond that, including the possibility that Trump could win a second term and block the rule from becoming final.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo is behind a new advertising campaign that condemns Hamas’s actions on Oct. 7 and takes aim at demonstrators who have protested Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza.
“Do they really know who they’re protesting for?” asks the ad’s unseen narrator. Cuomo does not appear in the ad, which also highlights Hamas militants’ pledges to kill Jews. “If you stand with Hamas, you stand with terror,” the spot concludes.
A source close to the pro-Israel group running the ad, Never Again, NOW! , which Cuomo helped found and chairs, said the “significant ad buy” will run after the Fourth of July.
Gov. Kathy Hochul put to rest any doubt about her plans for 2026, telling reporters unequivocally that “2026 may be a long way off, (but) I’m running; I’m preparing for that race.” She also plans to keep LG Antonio Delgado as her running mate.
Some of the state’s top Democrats slammed the governor when she paused congestion pricing indefinitely, while others supported the pause or stayed mum. Republicans want the whole thing killed altogether.
Hochul kicked off July in a big way with a new campaign encouraging families to “Get offline, Get outside.” All summer fees associated with swimming pools at state parks, including the Saratoga Spa State Park, are waived.
The state will also chip in $1.5 million in transportation grants to help get disadvantaged kids to swim lessons at the pools, she said.
Employers across the state want Hochul and federal officials to implement an expected new tax on health providers in a way that will not lead to increased insurance premiums for New Yorkers after it takes effect.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Hochul announced that the U.S. Commerce Department and New York are awarding nearly $50 million to an upstate New York computer chip manufacturing consortium based out of Syracuse.
Hochul and Westchester County Executive Ed Day are at an impasse over an MTA Board nominee.
The MTA’s top honcho said he’s in the dark about talks between Hochul and lawmakers to potentially revive congestion pricing with a toll lower than $15.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and two other state entities owe $76.5 million in unpaid city water bills at a time when the city is raising water rates.
Hochul announced a new $2 million marketing initiative. The project will promote than 50 county and local fairs across the state. It will launch TV, radio, digital ads and billboards, along with other promotions.
The measures Cuomo fought for to make it easier to find and remove ineffective teachers have been eliminated. A repeal, signed by Hochul, returns tenured teachers to their previous nearly untouchable state.
Ten months ago, Mayor Eric Adams warned of the need for “painful” cuts to the city’s budget, affecting everything from early education to trash pickup. Turns out, those fears were dramatically overstated.
New York City’s new budget increases its support for CUNY, by $77.6 million, from Adams’ earlier proposal — helping to make up for $95 million in cumulative cuts in previous years of his administration and bringing the city’s total support up to about $1.3 billion.
Adams said he had “no knowledge” that Robin Mui, the executive of a Chinese-owned media company, was a registered foreign agent when he met with top members of Adams’ staff in 2022.
Adams eagerly shared a supportive op-ed from Al Sharpton yesterday — signaling to an emerging field of rivals that prying away his Black support will not be easy.
“I really want to thank Reverend Sharpton,” Adams said at the beginning of his weekly, wide-ranging press conference. “He really just laid [it] out. When you read how this administration is covered, you’d think you’re living in a different city!”
Adams announced a new Midtown Community Improvement Coalition to clean up the vital source of tourism dollars.
The cash-strapped New York City Housing Authority has begun to accelerate removal of tenants who have racked up significant rent arrears, evicting 62 households in the first quarter of 2024. That’s more than the 58 households evicted during all of last year.
In a departure from penalty guidelines, NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban has ruled a police officer in Brooklyn who lied to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau while under investigation for submitting two fake COVID vaccination cards can keep her job.
Adams defended Caban’s decision to save the job of a police officer who admitted to submitting a phony COVID-19 vaccination card and then lying about it, saying Tuesday the cop in question ultimately suffered a “huge penalty.”
Four Columbia University administrators dismissed concerns about campus antisemitism in an explosive series of texts during a recent alumni event, according to transcripts released yesterday by the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee.
Federal law says nursing homes are supposed to be inspected by state health authorities at least once every 15 months. But in New York City, a severe shortage of inspectors has delayed most inspections beyond the legal limit, a review by THE CITY finds.
New Jersey is heating up faster than any other state in the Northeast, pacing a region with rapidly rising temperatures, according to data gathered by a nonprofit research organization.
An unprecedented partnership of four of the Capital Region’s leading news organizations will host a series of debates among the candidates competing in New York’s 19th, 20th and 21st Congressional Districts, as well as this year’s U.S. Senate race.
Even after a stinging Democratic primary loss for Albany County DA David Soares, there could be a path to reelection through the support of independents and some Republicans. He hasn’t yet ruled out what would be a challenging write-in campaign.
New York’s ban on the sale and purchase of body armor enacted two years ago after a deadly mass shooting in Buffalo is being challenged in federal court as unconstitutional in a new case filed by a national gun rights group.
The Albany Common Council this week unanimously approved legislation that lowers the speed limit on most city streets from 30 mph to 25 mph.
A Georgia family killed in a plane crash Sunday in Delaware County likely experienced rain and turbulence as a series of summer thunderstorms moved into the flight path, officials say.
Add Schenectady’s historic Stockade neighborhood to the list of places in the Capital Region that will be featured in HBO’s popular television series, “The Gilded Age.”
A fundraiser will be held Sunday to honor the life and memory of Col. Edward Ryan, a retired military veteran and longtime firefighter in Rensselaer who used to his obituary last month to come out as gay, attracting wide media attention.
The New York State Park Police have issued a traffic advisory for July 3, 5 and 6 for Saratoga Springs. Large concerts at the SPAC are anticipated to cause traffic jams in the area, and some areas of nearby roads will be closed during the concerts.
Legendary rock band Heart is canceling the remainder of its 2024 tour, including the Aug. 10 concert at Albany’s MVP Arena. Lead singer Ann Wilson announced she recently underwent an operation to remove a cancerous mass and is undergoing chemotherapy.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
