Good Thursday morning.
Having a phone connected to the internet in my pocket has certainly changed my life – for both the better and the worse.
On the better side: I am no longer crummy at trivia (though, yes, I know that’s cheating), I no longer get lost when traveling (assuming I enter the correct address into the GPS app), and I am never out of reach.
That last one perhaps belongs in both the “better” and “worse” column. I am eminently reachable by the people who need me in the case of an emergency, which is a good thing. I am also eminently reachable by pretty much everyone in my life, all the time, even for seemingly trivial things. I am, in short, a slave to my phone.
The 100 percent available thing has certainly had a negative impact on my exceptions related to communicating with others. I distinctly remember the days when I would come home from work to find messages on my answering machine. (Yes, I am THAT old), as well as the upset over missing important calls and the anticipation of waiting for calls that never seemed to come.
These days, if I send a text or call someone who doesn’t answer and they don’t get back to me within a space of minutes, if not seconds, I 1) wonder if they’re screening my calls, and/or 2) immediately start worrying that someone terrible has happened to them.
I’m sure I’m not alone in this. And since we are, as a society, incapable of waiting mere minutes to get important information, imagine what it would be like to have to wait YEARS to learn about something critically important – like the fact that you and your family and friends were no longer enslaved.
That is exactly what happened to enslaved individuals who were living in Galveston, Texas. They had to wait two years AFTER President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, declaring all people in Confederate states were free, to receive the news – delivered on this day in 1865 by Union troops under the leadership of General Gordon Granger – that they, too, along with the state’s roughly 250,000 enslaved individuals, were no longer slaves.
Galveston was last place in all of the Confederacy to receive this news, marking the official end of slavery in the U.S. The anniversary of General Granger’s announcement was known as “Juneteenth” and was celebrated for decades by formerly enslaved Americans and their descendants.
In fact, Juneteenth is considered the longest-observed African American holiday in U.S. history. But it wasn’t until 2021that then-President Joe Biden signed into law legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Biden is going to be attending a Juneteenth celebration at an historic church in Galveston tomorrow.
The current president, who has launched an all-out assault on DEI efforts, has not yet taken aim at Juneteenth and hasn’t said (publicly at least) that he plans to do so. It would be difficult for him to do so on his own, anyway, as Congress would have to pass a bill to eradicate the holiday and then he would have to sign it into law.
Out of fear of coming into the Trump administration’s crosshairs, however, some communities across the nation are scaling back or canceling their Juneteenth celebrations altogether. The federal government is still giving employees off today, since Juneteenth continues to be a federal holiday (see above), but the administration won’t be doing anything special in celebration.
From one extreme to another – weather-wise, we just can’t catch a break. There’s a heat advisory in effect today from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with heat index values of up to 98 degrees expected.
What does that mean? A combination of high humidity and high temperatures is going to make it uncomfortably – and for some people, even dangerously – hot outside. Take precautions if you have to be outside (wear light-colored clothing, drink fluids, keep that sunscreen on, try to stay in the shade, etc.)
In the headlines…
Israel’s defense minister warned today that the Israeli military would intensify its strikes on “strategic targets” in Iran, after a barrage of Iranian missiles hit several locations including the largest hospital in southern Israel.
The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential diplomats and their families from the U.S. embassy in Israel as hostilities between Israel and Iran intensify and there is the possibility that the United States could become directly involved in the conflict.
The U.S. yesterday still had not directly stepped into the conflict between Israel and Iran, as Trump urged Tehran to make a nuclear deal.
The US Navy’s newest and biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is set be deployed to the Mediterranean, according to a report. It’s the latest public movement of military hardware to the region as the Iran-Israel conflict ratchets up.
Israel has said it does not target Iranian civilians, but hundreds have died in the violence. Every day since the war began, a new face, a new name, a new story of a life that ended violently and abruptly has emerged.
The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a jolting setback to transgender rights.
The justices’ 6-3 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges efforts by Trump’s administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to Tennessee’s.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the court’s three liberals, wrote a scathing dissent criticizing her conservative colleagues’ decision to uphold a state ban on some medical treatments for transgender youths.
Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas.
The State Department plans to review the social media accounts of foreign citizens who apply for student and visiting scholar visas as it resumes processing those applications.
The Justice Department plans to slash the number of inspectors who monitor federally licensed gun dealers by two-thirds, sharply limiting the government’s already crimped capacity to identify businesses that sell guns to criminals.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued an urgent warning about the potential for certain jet engines, when damaged, to allow smoke to enter the cockpit or cabin.
The NTSB safety bulletin warned about CFM International LEAP-1B engines but encouraged evaluation for LEAP-1A and -1C engines. These engines are used on Boeing 737 Max narrow-body passenger jets and on certain Airbus A320neos.
A study published in the medical journal JAMA, which followed more than 4,000 children across the country, arrived at a surprising conclusion: Longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later.
Instead, the authors found, the children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become “addictive” — that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more.
A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in a huge fireball on a test stand late yesterday during preparations for its next launch at the Elon Musk-led company’s base in South Texas.
Starship experienced a “major anomaly” before starting a test at around 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media.
Elon Musk’s X sued to try to stop New York from requiring reports on how social media platforms handle problematic posts — a regulatory approach that the company successfully challenged in California.
New York’s highest court upheld statewide educational standards governing nonpublic schools, particularly drawing the ire of some yeshivas.
The ruling by the New York Court of Appeals was unanimous and delivered a win to yeshiva reformers who believe the ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools are failing to teach the basics in reading and math.
New York’s crossbow hunters are celebrating after the state legislature approved a bill permitting the use of crossbows for taking big game in any area longbows are allowed.
New York state lawmakers have introduced legislation to rename the Capital Region’s Patroon Island Bridge after Army Sgt. Henry Johnson, a Black Medal of Honor recipient from Albany.
A state-run program intended to clean up “brownfields” across New York has allowed many of the contaminated sites to fester, according to a new audit from the state comptroller’s office.
Gov. Kathy Hochul took a moment this week to flaunt state spending on immigrant legal services that was already announced and secured in this year’s budget after City Comptroller and mayoral hopeful Brad Lander was detained by ICE.
Hochul directed state agencies to prepare for severe weather, including thunderstorms and extreme heat, starting today in the eastern part of the state.
New York consumers could be protected from “unfair, abusive and deceptive” business practices under a measure passed by the state Legislature.
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik will open a political void upstate if she decides to run for governor. Republican Assemblyman Robert Smullen thinks he could be the right person to fill it.
Joined by SUNY and government officials as well as community and labor leaders, Hochul gave some details about a more than $1 billion investment in SUNY Downstate Hospital in Brooklyn.
State lawmakers passed more than 600 bills in June. This period was full of intense fights and expensive lobbying efforts over actual life-or-death issues.
Janno Lieber, the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, predicted that lawsuits challenging the transit agency’s congestion pricing program are destined for the same fate: Failure.
Simmering Democratic disagreements over the war in Gaza burst to the forefront of New York’s mayoral primary this week, rattling the final days of an already chaotic contest.
Andrew Cuomo is criticizing Zohran Mamdani for refusing to reject the slogan “globalize the Intifada,” which some have viewed as threatening language against Jews.
Mamdani, a leading candidate in next Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary, refused to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” during a new podcast interview with The Bulwark released this week, arguing the phrase is an expression of Palestinian rights.
“I think what’s difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” Mamdani replied.
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum lashed out at Mamdani, stating that “exploiting the museum and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising to sanitize ‘globalize the intifada’ is outrageous and especially offensive to survivors.”
Mamdani is closing in on front-runner Cuomo in the race for the Democratic mayoral primary, according to a new Marist poll released yesterday.
Hochul shut down Mamdani’s plan to hike taxes on some New Yorkers — as she admitted high costs were pushing residents to move out of state. “I’m not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue,” she told PIX 11.
The Albany Times Union urged New York City voters not to rank Cuomo for mayor.
A major donor to Cuomo’s mayoral campaign is urging the U.S. military to join Israel’s war with Iran. It’s hard to believe Cuomo won’t fall in line.
Cynthia Nixon said Cuomo, eyeing a political comeback, was “empowering Republicans” during his time leading New York during an Editorial Lunch discussion at Newsweek‘s Manhattan office.
The billionaire former mayor Mike Bloomberg contributed $3.3 million to a super PAC supporting Cuomo’s attempted comeback in the nation’s largest city — a donation that comes just days after Bloomberg gave $5 million to the group.
The main super PAC boosting Cuomo’s mayoral campaign is launching a field operation in the final days of the mayor’s race to the tune of nearly $300,000 — including more than $14,000 spent just on T-shirts for volunteers, new filings show.
Billionaire John Catsimatidis threatened to close or sell his Manhattan-based grocery chain Gristedes if Democratic Socialist mayoral candidate Mamdani is elected the next mayor of New York City.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams joined ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss his handling of the anti-ICE and ‘No Kings’ protests in his city and his efforts to seek reelection.
After years of legal battles, Mayor Adams’ administration got a green light from New York’s highest court to shift hundreds of thousands of retired municipal workers into a controversial, cost-cutting Medicare Advantage plan.
Kaz Daughtry, a freewheeling deputy mayor, has emerged as a crucial ally for the Trump administration and its border czar in easing ICE’s path into the city. So has Dr. Phil.
A New York State judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Adams administration’s plans to remove a protected bike lane from Bedford Ave. in Brooklyn.
A group of Brooklyn elected officials say it’s time for New York state to collect millions of dollars in monthly fines from the owner of the Atlantic Yards development over its failure to deliver nearly 900 affordable apartments by a legally required deadline.
Several of the federal agents who arrested city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander in an immigration court were wearing face coverings — a practice that’s become increasingly common by federal law enforcement officers across the country.
A growing number of volunteers and activists have begun showing up to escort immigrants out of courthouses amid President Trump’s month-old campaign to arrest people showing up for routine hearings.
A Queens high school student who had just tried out for the varsity soccer team, was training to become a lifeguard, and had been studying for his Regents exam was apprehended by ICE at immigration court, his legal team told Gothamist.
A man armed with a knife confronted and chased U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III Tuesday night outside a downtown Albany hotel, according to law enforcement officials.
Multiple people were shot in an incident last night in Grafton in which a suspect was taken into custody following a short standoff with police.
A new $166 million mixed-use development near Old Route 146 in Halfmoon is seeking tax exemptions of more than $9 million to offset rising construction material and labor costs.
Community members are invited to kick off their summer at The Hot Yoga Spot’s inaugural Summer Block Party this weekend to raise money for the Alzheimer’s Association.
As Plug Power’s finances faltered and the hydrogen fuel cell company’s stock suffered, the firm’s board of directors dramatically reduced the compensation of CEO Andy Marsh as it also laid off more than 250 local workers this spring.
In a city with a fair amount of renters, Schenectady leaders this week debated the merits of adopting the state’s Good Cause Eviction Law — in what would be only the second Capital Region municipality to do it.
A five-mile stretch of U.S. Route 9 around the Rensselaer-Columbia county line is getting a shot in the arm.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
