Good morning, it’s Thursday. One more day to slog through (not counting this one, of course) and then you’ve made it to the weekend.
The good news is that things are warming up ever so slightly, moving into the mid-20s, which, compared to what we’ve been experiencing of late, is going to feel like a heat wave. If we really make it into the 30s this coming Sunday, I might have to run in shorts. (Joke, but I might shed a layer or two and leave my hat at home).
In care you’re keeping track, we are 34 days into winter, and there are 56 days remaining until spring. Too soon to start counting? I need to be able to look forward to something.
That seems very far off in the future, though, especially when I’ve taken to wearing my coat indoors. (FWIW, this might seem weird here in the U.S., but it’s standard operating procedure in other countries – like South Korea, Portugal and Germany). As an aside, this is perhaps not a great habit to get into, because it might make your coat less effective at keeping you warm when you go back outside – especially if staying bundled up while inside made you sweat, even ever so lightly.
In short: The warmer your skin feels due to its surface temperature, the faster you’ll lose body heat when you step outside AND the colder exposed skin will feel. So, the next time someone tells you when you complain about the cold to “put on a sweater”, you are armed with some science to back up your push for them to turn up the heat.
The person who most often told me to quit complaining and bundle up was my mom, which provides me a segue – albeit somewhat weak – to note that today is Maternal Health Awareness Day. Unless you’ve been 1) trying to get pregnant, or 2) are currently pregnant, or 3) pay attention to public policy, you might not be aware that the U.S. has a significant maternal mortality crisis – particularly for mothers of color.
The rates of maternal mortality in this country. are, in fact, an outlier among industrialized nations, which, quite frankly, is an abject embarrassment. The number of women who die giving birth each year across America has DOUBLED – going in the wrong direction, in other words – over the past almost two decades.
Black women are three times as likely to die during childbirth or soon after (nearly half of maternal deaths occur between one week and one year postpartum) as their white counterparts, and Hispanic women are seeing their risk rise at an alarming rate.
The incredibly frustrating thing about all this is that maternal mortality is largely (about 80 percent) preventable, assuming that women have access/can afford/receive the pre and post-natal care they need AND their concerns are taken seriously. (If you’re not familiar with why this is a problem, click here to read tennis great Serena Willians’ harrowing story about how she nearly died giving birth to her daughter via c-section).
A variety of policies have been floated and put in place at the state and federal levels to try to address this crisis, but clearly, there is a lot of work to do. The Biden administration allocated millions of dollars to try to improve maternal health and child development through a wide range of programs. Whether the Trump administration will make this a priority remains to be seen.
We already dealt with the weather, which, quite frankly, is just too darn depressing to focus on any more. Let’s get to it, then.
In the headlines…
The Pentagon will send 1,500 active-duty troops to the southwestern border by the end of the month, a Defense Department official said, helping to fulfill one of President Donald Trump’s main goals to stem the flow of migrants into the United States.
The new troops will join 2,500 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers called to active duty in recent months to support federal law enforcement officials.
“This is just the beginning,” Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses wrote in a statement.
The State Department abruptly canceled travel for thousands of refugees already approved to fly to the US, days before a deadline that Trump had set for suspending the resettlement program that provides safe haven for people fleeing persecution.
The House of Representatives passed a Senate-revised version of the Laken Riley Act yesterday, sending the first piece of significant legislation to Trump’s desk for his expected signature.
Lawmakers voted 263–156 to approve the Senate-amended version of the bill dedicated to slain jogger Laken Riley, who was viciously strangled and beaten to death in February 2024 by an illegal immigrant charged with multiple past crimes.
Republicans made the legislation a top priority after winning the House, Senate and White House, but the bill would not have been able to advance to final passage in the Senate without support from key Democrats as Republicans control only a narrow majority.
The Trump administration threatened federal employees with “adverse consequences” if they fail to report on colleagues who defy orders to purge diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from their agencies.
The Trump administration, moving quickly to clamp down on health and science agencies, has canceled a string of scientific meetings and instructed federal health officials to refrain from all public communications, including upcoming reports on bird flu.
Trump this week revoked an executive order aimed at banning discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors as part of his sweeping effort to crack down on federal diversity programs.
The D.C. bishop who chided Trump about social justice causes during Tuesday’s National Prayer Service doubled down on her politically charged sermon, saying she “was trying to speak a truth that I felt needed to be said.”
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde said she has “heard from many people who are grateful that someone was willing to speak on their behalf” as well as those who “have said they do wish me dead, and that’s a little heartbreaking.”
“I had a feeling that there were people watching what was happening and wondering, Was anyone going to say anything?” she explained quietly in an interview with the New York Times. “Was anyone going to say anything about the turn the country’s taking?”
Former President Joe Biden told Trump “may God bless you and guide you” in a letter he left in the Resolute Desk of the Oval Office before his exit.
The UN climate change body will receive funding from the foundation of billionaire Michael Bloomberg after Trump declared the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement for the second time.
CNN boss Mark Thompson reportedly plans to announce mass layoffs today – just days after he warned top on-air talent including Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper that they ought to avoid “pre-judging” Trump.
A terrifying new wildfire burning out of control north of Los Angeles that torched 5,000 acres in just hours yesterday could “go nuclear,” a wildfire expert warned.
With high winds driving the flames, a fast-moving wildfire exploded to more than 8,000 acres near the Los Angeles County community of Castaic, prompting mandatory evacuation orders for thousands of people in the area.
Residents in the vicinity of Castaic Lake are under mandatory evacuations, the LA County Fire Department said. The unincorporated community of Castaic is some 15 miles northwest of the city of Santa Clarita, bordering the Angeles National Forest.
As the first embers of the Eaton fire began showering homes in Pasadena and Altadena, Calif., this month, evacuation orders went out within minutes. But one neighborhood did not get the order to leave for hours. The consequences appear to have been fatal.
Stephen K. Bannon’s trial on fraud charges will start in March, a week later than previously scheduled, and will include a high-profile lawyer after a judge granted Bannon’s request for new representation.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Latino Democratic lawmakers to sharpen the party’s strategy on immigration as Trump barrels ahead with a wide crackdown that includes using the military to secure the border and threats to deport millions.
A Texas man who pleaded guilty to fraudulently promising to get the criminal case against former Rep. George Santos dismissed was sentenced to a year-and-a-half in federal prison.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed phone ban in New York schools would launch at the start of the next school year and require most devices be stored away until dismissal.
Hochul announced that the state Department of Financial Services has posted proposed regulations to enhance consumer protections against unfair overdraft fees.
Hochul’s $252 billion spending plan includes an extra $1,200 bonus to pregnant welfare recipients when they have a baby. It would also boost monthly public assistance benefits by $100 for expectant mothers through pregnancy, for a total cost of $8.5 million.
New York is home to a staggering 470,100 undocumented workers, the Hochul administration said, as the governor worried that a coming crackdown on illegal immigrants could send the local economy into a tailspin.
Hochul tucked a ban on the words “addict” and “habitual user” as part of a plan to tackle the opioid epidemic in her $252 billion budget proposal, even though the state agency overseeing abuse treatment is called the Office of Addiction Services and Supports.
Hochul refused to advocate for an increase in charter schools in her $252 billion proposed budget, in what education-choice advocates say was ceding to the powerful teachers union ahead of her re-election campaign next year.
Education leaders and policy experts are continuing to digest Hochul’s proposal to update the Foundation Aid formula for New York’s schools.
A new report from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found that homelessness in New York state has grown sharply, more than doubling between January 2022 and January 2024.
Assemblyman Edward Gibbs, a Harlem Democrat who spent five-and-a-half years in prison on manslaughter charges in 1988, spent the night at the Marcy Correctional Facility this week in hopes that his calls for its closure will be heard.
The Board of Directors of the New York Gaming Association (NYGA), a trade association of racing and gaming venues throughout the state, has named Phil Boyle, the President/CEO of Suffolk OTB and Jakes 58 Casino and Hotel, as its next chair.
Prosecutors in Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case have responded to his claim that the charges brought against him last year were payback for his criticism of Biden’s handling of the migrant crisis.
Adams doubled down this week on his claims that federal prosecutors targeted him because of his criticism of Biden’s immigration policy, during an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.
Interim U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon said the claim of payback “disintegrated when discovery made clear that the investigation into Adams began more than a year earlier, based on concrete evidence that Adams had accepted illegal campaign contributions.”
A federal judge has rejected a request from Adams to throw out his corruption case because former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damien Williams, who brought the charges, recently penned an op-ed about New York City being in a state of “deep crisis.”
More than 20,000 illegal guns have been seized by the NYPD during the Adams administration, the mayor and police commissioner said.
Ingrid Lewis-Martin told investigators she was innocent and the Department of Correction would “take care” of her after her arrest last month, according to court filings from last month.
A new independent poll found that former Gov. Andrew Cuomo would clobber Adams even among Black voters if the pair ran against each other in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.
The poll, released by the opinion research firm Bold Decision, finds NYC Democratic likely voters deeply dissatisfied with Adams, and if the election were held today they would overwhelmingly choose Cuomo if he were to enter the race.
The city Department of Sanitation is considering whether to enlist a fleet of drones to help it enforce new trash rules and perform inspections alongside its human inspectors on the ground.
Council member Keith Powers is renewing his push to overhaul the city’s “archaic” scaffolding laws — following a Post report on the city’s worst stretch for sidewalk sheds on the Upper West Side and a poll that showed New Yorkers are ready for a change.
Disability groups are urging the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission not to do away with the current version of the Accessible Dispatch program — for letting riders call wheelchair-accessible cabs — by turning to a variety of e-hail apps for the service.
A man accused of shoving a stranger onto the subway tracks on New Year’s Eve pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and other charges in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday.
A former NYPD officer accused of punching an unarmed man 13 times while on duty is guilty of attempted assault, a Manhattan judge announced.
The former officer, Christian Zapata, was sentenced in a nonjury trial to time served, meaning he will not spend time behind bars. He was acquitted of a more serious charge, third-degree assault, which could have carried up to a year in jail.
A man who was charged with murder in the fatal stabbing of an activist on a Brooklyn street in 2023 has pleaded guilty to the killing, which prosecutors called “random and unprovoked.”
Yankees Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera and his wife, Clara, are accused of covering up the sexual abuse of a minor at their church and in their home, according to a lawsuit filed in New York.
Rivera, a Yankees closer for 17 seasons, and his wife “isolated and intimidated” a young girl into staying silent about her abuse to avoid causing trouble for a New Rochelle, N.Y., church, Refuge of Hope, which they helped found, the lawsuit said.
Sean Diddy” Combs filed a defamation lawsuit against a man who said in interviews that he had been given videos that showed Combs in sexual encounters with celebrities, including assaults of people he said appeared to be minors.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s much-memed 2023 trial in Park City, Utah, is now the subject of an off-Broadway musical.
“Gwyneth Goes Skiing” is on at the SoHo Playhouse through this Sunday. It debuted in London in December 2023 and sold-out shows there and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August before coming stateside this year.
A veteran prosecutor who spearheaded indictments of top-ranking members of the gang MS-13 has been appointed interim head of the Eastern District of New York — a powerful Justice Department office that covers Brooklyn and Long Island.
Nearly 100,000 ducks will be killed at Long Island’s last major commercial duck farm after bird flu was detected at the Suffolk County facility.
Crescent Duck Farm in Aquebogue has played host to numerous state and federal officials and inspectors after the discovery last week, Newsday reported.
A Watertown City Council meeting Tuesday night was stopped for more than an hour as a team of State Police investigators questioned council members in a back office in connection with a criminal investigation.
A developer is seeking the Town of Colonie’s permission to subdivide the vast 85-acre home of the Sisters of St. Joseph Cardondelet, Albany Province, and build a 292-unit apartment and condominium complex along Watervliet Shaker Road.
The son of a Saratoga Springs landowner has filed a federal civil lawsuit alleging city politicians, officials and developers have engaged in a decades-long conspiracy that is now robbing his family of the use of their commercial property.
The City of Troy had the former Haskell School razed for $414,116 and is foreclosing on the property after the owner failed to pay for demo costs, interest and back taxes, according to a tax foreclosure lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Rensselaer County.
To learn how to grow cannabis, Fulton-Montgomery Community College students are growing tomatoes as part of a one-year program preparing individuals for jobs in the burgeoning legal commercial marijuana market.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
