Good morning, it’s Friday. Hopefully you’ve dug yourself from the latest round of snow, ice, etc. and made it safely to your intended destination – assuming that required leaving the house.
February is a heart-focused month – in more ways than one.
There’s the most obvious, Valentine’s Day, of course, which I’ll have something to say about at a later date. I do feel a little overwhelmed by pink and red heart-shaped everything these days, but thankfully, that’s a short-lived experience since the holiday comes at the midway point in the month.
More specifically related to the heart as an organ and not an emoticon, is the fact that February is National Heart Month, which was established to raise awareness about heart disease – the leading cause of death in the U.S., and educate Americans on how to take steps to improve their heart health.
Congress in 1963 passed a joint resolution requesting that the president issue an annual proclamation designating February as American Heart Month. President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first such proclamation a year later, and I believe every subsequent occupant of the Oval Office has followed suit. President Donald Trump issued his just a few days ago.
At the time of Johnson’s proclamation, he noted that “over one-half of the ten million Americans afflicted by the cardiovascular diseases are stricken during their most productive years, thereby causing a staggering physical and economic loss to the nation.”
Sadly, the numbers haven’t improved much over the past 60+years. According to the American Heart Association, nearly half of all U.S. adults have some kind of cardiovascular disease, though it should be noted that this is in part due to changes in the way that high blood pressure is defined.
Sadly, most people are not aware of the fact that heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the U.S. Go Red for Women Day, which falls on the first Friday in February – that’s today, for those who perhaps aren’t paying particularly close attention to the calendar – is part of a campaign by the American Heart Association to raise awareness about the threat heart diseases poses, specifically, to women.
Why the focus on women? Well, perhaps you’re not aware of the male dominated nature of the healthcare system? As the Go Red for Women Campaign notes:
“Historically, men have been the subjects of the research done to understand heart disease and stroke, which has been the basis for treatment guidelines and programs. This led to an oversimplified, distorted view of heart disease and risk, which has worked to the detriment of women.“
The point here is not just to educate people about what they can do to make their heart healthier – eat right, get exercise, don’t smoke, reduce stress levels, etc. – but also to support more inclusive research about heart health that can help ALL people – regardless of their gender or the color of their skin – not just white men.
I’m dangerously close to my soapbox again, I know. I’m finding myself here a lot these days. Not sure what that’s all about. Maybe it has something to do with passing into my fifth decade.
Sadly, another storm might be heading in our direction this weekend, starting Saturday night and lasting through Sunday morning. Three to five additional inches of accumulation are possible (more or less, depending on where you live). Saturday morning will be cloudy with temperatures in the 30s. Sunday, after the snow stops, will bring more of the same.
Today will be chilly (in the low-to-mid-30s) with party sunny skies. Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, there’s a catch: It will be very windy, with gusts up to 40 mph possible.
Hang on to your hats.
In the headlines…
The Trump administration plans to retain only about 290 of the more than 10,000 employees worldwide at the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to three people with knowledge of the planned cuts to the work force.
“That’s outrageous,” said J. Brian Atwood, who served as head of USAID for more than six years, adding the mass termination of personnel would effectively kill an agency that has helped keep tens of millions of people around the world from dying.
Hundreds of USAID workers posted abroad have had their lives upended and are waiting for answers on when and how they will return to the US – a massive undertaking expected to cost US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.
Dozes of USAID clinic trails have been abruptly frozen, leaving people around the world with experimental drugs and medical products in their bodies, cut off from the researchers who were monitoring them, and generating waves of suspicion and fear.
One hundred and sixty-eight employees at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice were placed on administrative leave yesterday, according to agency officials.
A federal judge yesterday blocked Trump’s plan to push out federal employees by offering them financial incentives.
The ruling came hours before the midnight deadline for workers to apply for the deferred resignation program, which has been commonly described as a buyout.
Only athletes who were assigned female at birth will be eligible to play women’s sports at N.C.A.A.-member colleges and universities, the organization announced yesterday.
That decision, effective immediately, came a day after Trump signed an executive order barring transgender girls and women from playing sports in the women’s category at federally funded educational institutions.
Users who search for abortion information on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) website are now directed to try searching for the word “adoption.”
Trump issued an executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its pursuit of war crimes cases against Israel’s prime minister and defense minister, accusing it of engaging in “illegitimate and baseless actions” against Israel and the U.S.
The US justice department has filed a lawsuit against Chicago, accusing local officials of impeding federal immigration enforcement efforts amid Trump’s drive to ramp up deportations.
The lawsuit – which mentions Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson – also seeks to block local laws it claims “interfere with and discriminate against” federal immigration policy.
Trump asked congressional GOP leaders to end tax perks for sports team owners and hedge fund managers to pay for his campaign-trail pledges to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits and lift the $10,000 SALT cap.
At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, Trump took a moment to speak of bipartisan comity. Just hours earlier, he torched the federal bureaucracy, the global order, the media and Democrats.
Democratic congressional leaders unveiled a bill aimed at pushing back against what they called improper snooping by aides to billionaire Elon Musk, who’s been enlisted by Trump to slash the federal budget.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the Taxpayer Data Protection Act would bar Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team from accessing Americans’ personal information at the Treasury Department and other federal agencies.
State Attorney General Letitia James and 11 other state attorneys general said that they would sue over a cost-cutting initiative that had afforded young aides to Musk broad access to the federal government’s computer systems.
A Musk deputy who accessed sensitive Treasury Department payment systems has resigned after social media posts of his came to light that espoused racist beliefs.
Trump said he would speak with members of Congress about legislation that would revamp the nation’s aging aviation safety infrastructure used by air traffic controllers.
Technology that would have allowed air traffic controllers to better track the movement of an Army helicopter before it collided with a passenger jet over the Potomac River last week was turned off at the time of the crash, Texas en. Ted Cruz said.
The NTSB is recovering and examining wreckage from the icy Potomac River. The safety agency is expected to publish a preliminary report in the coming weeks, but a more thorough accounting probably won’t arrive for a year or two.
Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to establish an economic development center in Albany’s Pine Hills neighborhood. The former College of Saint Rose campus will an ON-RAMP hub, she said, aimed at connecting New Yorkers to high-paying tech and manufacturing jobs.
Hochul’s Democratic rival , Rep. Ritchie Torres, is blasting Con Edison’s “outrageous” proposed rate hikes as he urged the state’s utilities regulator to reject any increase above the rate of inflation.
Hochul has called for criminal charges to be filed and arrests to be made after an autopsy report determined Black inmate Robert Brooks’ fatal beating at the hands of correctional officers in December to be a homicide.
The governor said that those responsible for the death of Brooks must be held “accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado won’t commit to endorsing his own boss, Hochul, for reelection in 2026, saying his focus right now is on “governing.”
Delgado also said he doesn’t have “any intention” of challenging Hochul in a primary next year, adding: “My focus right now is to do exactly what I’m doing.”
Hochul joined Superintendent Steven G. James in honoring 176 new State Troopers as they graduated from the 216th session of the Basic School of the State Police Academy. The ceremony was held at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany.
Twenty-two states, led by West Virginia, are suing to block a recently approved New York law that requires fossil fuel companies to pay billions of dollars a year for contributing to climate change.
State lawmakers are seeking to increase their oversight of the salaries of agency commissioners under legislation proposed this week by Democrats and Republicans who apparently learned recently that pay raises for those positions are outside their purview.
Respondents to a federal crime victimization survey in New York and other Northeast states will no longer be asked if they have experienced bigotry because of their gender identity after the regional office of the U.S. Census Bureau removed several questions.
The state comptroller’s office said an audit had uncovered $16 million in improper Medicaid payments made by the Department of Health, and found 10 Medicaid providers that had criminal violations that should have excluded them from the state’s program.
Attorneys general from three states are demanding that cable company Optimum automatically refund customers who paid for MSG Network cable channels, but who have been denied access to the programming since the start of January.
MTA Chair Janno Lieber all but dared state lawmakers to not fund the agency’s $65 billion construction plan, reminding them of the last time subway service collapsed.
The MTA chief declined to share ideas on how to plug the agency’s $35-billion budget hole, but suggestions from outside groups include taxing deliveries in the Big Apple.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Trump were both present at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., though the mayor and City Hall said little about who he rubbed elbows with while in the nation’s capital.
Nate Bliss, a senior aide to Adams, didn’t recuse himself for years from city government business dealings with his ex-employer — and is now blaming the slip up on a “miscommunication” with the city’s ethics agency.
City Comptroller Brad Lander lamented an underage kid’s access to puberty blockers in a tirade against Trump’s executive order banning federal funding for sex-change surgeries and other treatments.
A New York City councilmember wants to use artificial intelligence to strengthen enforcement of noise regulations that target rude drivers who lay on their horns or blast their bass.
If federal immigration officers show up on city property, a one-page memo distributed by City Hall lawyers has instructions for how city employees should respond: Take their information, ask if they have a warrant and call a city lawyer to deal with the matter.
The city’s public hospital system warned staff not to help patients avoid Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents — triggering Democratic politicians who want the order reversed.
Some New Jersey drivers say they’re having a harder time finding free parking on Upper Manhattan’s cramped streets since congestion pricing launched last month.
A New York City ferry captain discovered a suitcase drifting in the East River that turned out to have a human torso inside, according to an internal police report.
A four-alarm fire this week severely damaged a building in Harlem where the jazz legend Billie Holiday once lived.
A handful of New York City public schools were impacted by what appears to be the biggest-ever breach of American children’s personal information, education officials confirmed.
Rep. Claudia L. Tenney has temporarily closed her district offices after three separate incidents of threats of violence and intimidation against her staff.
The Albany Med Health System and insurance company CDPHP have reached a new contract agreement after months of negotiation and dispute over underpayments for health services.
Citing what she alleges is a pattern of bullying and strong arm tactics from chairs of Saratoga County’s Republican and Conservative parties, the chair of the town’s Republican committee stepped down earlier this week.
The Albany Common Council voted 14-0 during its meeting this week to override Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s veto of an ordinance designed to encourage more affordable housing in the city.
Two Albany County Legislators are calling for public documentation of official county policy on local immigration enforcement.
Three of the six declared candidates for Albany mayor gathered for a New York Working Families Party forum this week. The mayoral election is ramping up ahead of June’s Democratic primary with Sheehan not running for a fourth four-year term.
Students will be learning at the College of Saint Rose campus again soon, but only in one building. There, they will learn skilled trades and technical training for jobs at GlobalFoundries, Regeneron, Plug Power and other large local manufacturers.
The Capital Region’s first intercollegiate women’s flag football team is set to arrive in the spring of 2026.
In a major upset, Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was named the 2024 NFL MVP in a historically rare victory last night.
Allen’s win makes him only the second quarterback to be named MVP (excluding co-MVPs) without also being an Associated Press first-team All-Pro selection that season.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
