Good morning, it’s Monday, and I have to confess that my mood – like the weather – is distinctly gray and moody.
There’s a rant building here, I can feel it. You’ve been forewarned.
I did not take part in the anti-Trump/Musk rallies that took place across the nation, including right here in Albany. I have never been the marching type – a hangover from my many years as a political reporter when I covered the news but was barred from making it myself. For some time, I didn’t even exercise my right to vote, believing that to do so would somehow be a show of favoritism and/or bias when I was supposed to be a supposedly neutral observer.
I came to realize, however, that such neutrality is completely impossible. We all bring to our worldview our own experiences and cultural biases. We are all inherently skewed one way or another. The best a reporter can do is to try to present the positions of the individuals and issues they cover as fully as possible and without judgement. But even that is sometimes a tall order.
Anyway, I haven’t been a reporter for some time now, and while I vigorously exercise my right to vote whenever the opportunity presents itself, and I contribute to nonprofit organizations in which I strongly believe, I still am reluctant to do the whole protesting thing. The fact that it was cold and wet Saturday didn’t make standing outside for a prolonged period of time any more attractive.
This is not to say that I do not support the views – at least some of them – that were expressed by the protestors. I am deeply dismayed by what is occurring in D.C., and though I am not an economist or an expert in global affairs, I know enough to understand that the current administration is steering us is a very dangerous direction.
For proof of this, look no further than the fallout from the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Just this past weekend, more disturbing news about the ongoing decimation of the aid agency broke, with word that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had fired several workers who had been sent to Myanmar to assess how the US could help with earthquake relief efforts there. These workers received notice of their termination via email AFTER they had already arrived in the quake zone.
A public health expert at Harvard, which is itself in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, among many others in the field, have sounded the alarm that the staffing and programmatic cuts at USAID – the principal U.S. agency responsible for providing nearly half of global development assistance – could have devastating impacts, including millions of deaths.
And, in case you thought this was a problem that other countries will have to contend with, but surely not an issue here in the US, think again. The definition of public health is wide-ranging, basically encompassing everything from disease prevention and ensuring access to quality care for everyone to promoting good health through education.
In other words, cuts to NIH, which funds healthcare research, and HHS itself (though some layoffs are now being rescinded and programs reinstated as they were, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “should not have been cut” as part of a massive streamlining effort) are going to have significant impacts on the health and wellbeing of many Americans.
This is a rather dismal backdrop against which to celebrate World Health Day, but here we are. The date, by the way, was selected because it marks the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization in 1948.
The theme of this year’s observance is “Healthy beginnings, hopeful futures,” and the goal is to encourage governments and the healthcare community to ramp up efforts to end preventable maternal and newborn deaths, and to prioritize women’s longer-term health and well-being. (As an aside, this is not a third world problem; New York has a dismal maternal mortality rate, which has reached crisis levels).
The HHS cuts, for the record, did initially include multiple maternal and child health programs, though as of a few days ago, a full accounting of the reductions had not yet been released.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, there is SNOW in the forecast this morning – just scattered showers, but still. COME ON! Someone turn on the spring, please?! It will be partly to mostly cloudy and temperatures will top out in the mid 40s. Brrr.
In the headlines…
Financial markets in Asia fell sharply this morning and the S&P 500 was poised to slide again, as President Donald Trump doubled down on global tariffs that have made investors increasingly pessimistic.
Stock markets in Europe opened sharply lower. The FTSE 100 in London and the Stoxx Europe 600 are both down about 5 percent.
The Trump administration committed a “grievous error” that “shocks the conscience” by inadvertently deporting a Salvadoran migrant to a notorious prison and then declaring there was little it could do to bring him back, a federal judge in Maryland said.
China’s leaders have sent a clear message about the effects of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs: Things will be painful, but it is nothing that the country cannot handle.
A commentary yesterday in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, said Beijing had prepared for a trade war with the United States and that China could potentially come out stronger as a result.
Trump said America’s trade deficit with China must first be resolved before he considers making a deal regarding his sweeping tariffs against the country.
While speaking with reporters on Air Force One yesterday, Trump said he didn’t crash the stock market on purpose and that he doesn’t know what will happen to the market, but believes the country will come out stronger.
Trump said he didn’t want global markets to fall, but also that he wasn’t concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
Trump’s top aides raced to defend his expansive global tariffs yesterday, downplaying the prospect that his new taxes on imports could cause a significant spike in prices or tip the U.S. economy into a painful recession.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that about 50 nations have reached out to the US to discuss Trump’s sweeping tariffs, however, he said that nothing will stop the levies from going forward.
Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam, has asked Trump to delay the imposition of tariffs for at least 45 days so the two sides can avert a move that would devastate the Vietnamese economy and raise prices for American consumers.
Elon Musk appeared to split from the Trump administration on tariffs overnight — as he lashed out at trade adviser Peter Navarro and said he hoped for a “zero tariff situation” between the US and Europe.
Rep. Don Bacon’s office confirmed that the Nebraska Republican plans to introduce legislation aimed at reining in Trump’s authority to issue new tariffs.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is set to meet with Trump at the White House today, the prime minister’s office said in a statement late Saturday, in the second such visit by the Israeli leader since the president’s inauguration in January.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was revoking the visas of all South Sudan passport holders because the country’s transitional government had refused to accept in a “timely manner” citizens being deported by the Trump administration.
Rubio also said in a social media post that he would “restrict any further issuance to prevent entry” of South Sudanese, blaming the “failure of South Sudan’s transitional government” to accept the repatriations.
At least three dozen more international students and recent alumni of pristine California universities have had their visas revoked by the Trump administration as it continues to zero in on anti-Israel protesters.
Stanford University and several colleges part of the University of California system all confirmed that members of their school communities were caught up in the ongoing crackdown that began last month.
Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has expressed skepticism about the idea of Trump serving a third term in the White House, saying that when her boss’s current presidency ends on 20 January 2029, he is probably “going to be finished”.
A nonpartisan government watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, also known as CREW, has sued the Trump administration for dismantling the Freedom of Information Act office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Pope Francis surprised those gathered yesterday in St. Peter’s Square with his first public appearance in the Vatican since he was released from the hospital two weeks ago.
Francis, 88, arrived in a wheelchair and briefly greeted the crowd before making a short statement and watching as an archbishop delivered his weekly blessing.
A landmark Art Deco movie theater that closed 20 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul should ramp up New York enforcement against illegal-flavored cigarettes and vapes coming from China that end up in the hands of New York’s teens, a rival Democrat, Rep.Ritchie Torres, said.
Hochul is making lawmakers, who aren’t getting paid until a final spending plan is agreed on, choose between their Easter/Passover vacation and the state budget.
New York state officials have told the Trump administration that they will not comply with its demands to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in public schools, despite the administration’s threats to terminate federal education funding.
First responders and survivors of the Sept. 11 attacks may lose or receive delayed health care benefits from the World Trade Center Health Program after the Trump administration fired thousands of staff at the nation’s public health agencies this week.
A new bill would ban cops in the state from stopping and searching drivers over a slew of low-level violations — including the one that ended up nabbing serial killer Joel Rifkin.
A temporary restraining order partially blocking the administrative overhaul of CDPAP will be extended until April 14, allowing state officials to work with agencies to craft a plan for caregivers who have struggled to get paid for providing home care services.
A two-stop ride on the B train Friday wasn’t enough to change the mind of Sean Duffy, the head of President Trump’s Department of Transportation, about how dirty and dangerous he thinks the New York City subway system is.
In announcing that he will forgo party lines to run for reelection as an independent, Mayor Eric Adams embarks on uncharted territory that political observers tell the Daily News all but kills his hope of winning a second term at City Hall.
Adams assailed Democrats on Friday for not focusing on “items that are crucial to working class people” like affordability — but he stayed clear of criticizing Trump’s hardline tariff policy, which is driving up prices on various popular consumer goods.
Adams and a slew of New York pols were lampooned at the 101st Inner Circle dinner held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom Saturday night – but the mayor had the last laugh.
The Adams administration unloaded on Councilman Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn lawmaker who championed the closure of Rikers Island then complained about the construction of a new borough-based jail in his own district.
Many political, business and union leaders who castigated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and pressed him to resign have done an about-face and support his run for mayor.
More than one-third of elected officials who’ve endorsed Cuomo’s bid for mayor thus far previously demanded or welcomed his resignation as governor following his dueling sexual misconduct and COVID nursing home death scandals.
The average price to buy a NYC home soared a whopping 77% during the nearly 11 years Cuomo was governor, while the cost to rent an apartment grew by 52%, according to a new report blaming the mayoral frontrunner for the Big Apple’s housing crisis.
Nearly 7,000 Jewish city voters recently registered as Democrats ahead of the June mayoral primary — a potentially ominous sign for Zohran Mamdani and other lefty candidates viewed as soft on antisemitism.
A term-limited Queens pol claims a political operative is conspiring with “disgraced” ex-honchos of the borough’s Republican machine to help a Democrat win his City Council seat — at the expense of two candidates he’s backing.
Over the past few years, New York’s leaders have presided over a gradual weakening of the city’s No. 1 corruption-fighting agency, the Department of Investigation, records and interviews show.
Disgraced ex-Congressman George Santos should be sentenced to more than seven years in prison for fraud and identity theft, federal prosecutors said in Brooklyn late Friday.
In a court filing on Friday, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York asked for a sentence of 87 months for Santos to reflect the “seriousness of his unparalleled crimes.”
More than 80,000 homes on Staten Island and in southeast Queens and the suburbs east of New York City could be lost to floods over the next 15 years, according to a new report that warns of how climate change could make the housing crisis even worse.
The report by the Regional Plan Association, a nonprofit civic organization, said that swaths of land in every borough were likely to become impossible to develop, helping push the area’s housing shortage to a staggering 1.2 million homes.
New York City has expanded a policy that critics say allows officials to enter into expensive contracts with little oversight, according to city officials and a recent lawsuit challenging the practice.
Four young girls were slashed with a meat cleaver in Brooklyn yesterday morning when a relative went on a deranged and bloody rampage — before he was shot by cops, officials said.
The man may be an uncle to the girls, who all survived, the police said. An 11-year-old called 911, and officers rushed to the house in Brooklyn where the children lived.
Miriam Yarimi, the wig-making influencer charged with manslaughter after a Brooklyn crash that killed a mother and two of her small children, was the victim of sexual assault for years by an NYPD cop at age 14, according to a lawsuit against the city.
Consumers across the country – including in the Capital Region – are rushing to make substantial purchases in anticipation of rising costs as a result of the U.S. tariffs on imported goods.
The federal government abruptly canceled funding for tutoring and counseling services for children throughout the country Friday, a move that will affect hundreds of students in the Capital Region.
Data from the Albany Police Department shows a drop in both the total number of car crashes and crashes involving injury since the city speed limit was lowered to 25 mph at the beginning of the year.
Police are investigating how a flag pole bearing an LGBTQ Pride flag came to be bent over and knocked to the ground last week outside the Rotterdam Community Center.
The University at Albany’s mascot has pulled off a narrow victory in the 2025 State University of New York Mascot Madness competition. It was the mascot’s first win in the annual showdown of costumed boosters.
As summer approaches, a giant question mark hangs over the hospitality industry. The Trump administration’s comments and policies have angered Canadians, and foreign travelers fear they might be turned away or detained by US border patrol agencies.
Bob McManus, the wry and eminently fair voice of the New York Post for over a decade, died Saturday at NYU Langone Hospital. He was 81.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
