Good morning, it’s Wednesday – you’ve made it to the middle of the week already! There are 45 days remaining until spring is officially here. Piece of cake.
Here’s a crazy statistic to wrap your head around: Every day, approximately 370,000 babies are born around the world, which works out to about four babies A SECOND. In the U.S., there are about 10,000 births a day, which seems like a lot, but the American birthrate is actually declining rather precipitously and fertility rates have dropped to new lows.
Replacement rates aside, each of these births represents an incredible possibility. Every day, someone is being born somewhere who might have the power to change the course of history – even if they are born into the most humble of circumstances.
Such was the case with a woman named Rosa Parks (nee McCauley), who was born on this day (Feb. 4) in 1913 in Tuskegee, Alabama, to a teacher mother and carpenter/mason father. Parks’ parents separated when she was very young, and she went with her mother to live on her maternal grandparents’ farm outside Montgomery, AL.
Growing up on the farm, Parks learned to sew – a skill that she later deployed professionally as a seamstress. She did attend school and did well, but had to leave during her teenage years due to a family illness. She later completed her high school degree with the support of her husband, Raymond Parks, who was a barber and also a civil rights activist.
When Rosa met Raymond at the age of 18 (he was 28), he was working to free the nine young men known as the “Scottsboro boys”, who had been falsely accused of rape and sentenced to death in 1931. She would later recall that he was the first politically active person she had ever met.
Rosa and Raymond had a varied and expansive life of activism, working to oppose the mistreatment people of color were subjected to in the deeply segregated South at the time.
You probably think you know what happened on the fateful day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in 1955, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott and earning herself the moniker “mother of the civil rights movement.”
That’s a VERY high level overview of what happened on Dec. 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested for violating the Montgomery municipal code. It doesn’t take into account all the work that lead up to that day, or the other women riders who had been arrested before Parks was for refusing to give their bus seats up to white riders.
The story is far more nuanced. Rosa Parks’ actions were necessarily premeditated, but did come amid an effort by the NAACP to spark a community-wide bus boycott by Black riders, who made up the vast majority of bus riders in the city, in defiance of the Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation of all public facilities.
Though her actions were historically and culturally significant, Rosa Parks and her husband played a significant price as a result of their activism. They were both summarily fired from their jobs due to the publicity and racial hostility the boycott and her legal case generated, which relegated them to poverty. Rosa Parks did land on her feet, however, thanks to the job she secured in office of another civil rights legend, Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers, who died in October 2019.
Rosa Parks died in October 2005 at the age of 92 at her home in Detroit, Michigan. She was the became the first woman and first African-American to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, which until then had been a tribute reserved for government officials and military leaders.
Rosa Parks Day is observed both today – the day of Parks’ birth – and Dec. 1, the day she sparked a movement by saying simply “no”.
Another seasonably appropriate – yet comparatively warm – day is on tap, with temperatures rising into the high 20s. We’ll see intervals of clouds and sunshine, with the possibility of snow showers and/or flurries.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump yesterday signed into law a massive funding package to end the brief government shutdown that began Saturday.
The legislation ensures full-year funding for the federal government through September, but puts the Department of Homeland Security on a two-week leash as Democrats insist on changes after federal agents fatally shot two Americans in Minneapolis.
Congress is staring down another partial government shutdown in 10 days unless Democrats strike a deal with Trump and Republicans over new restrictions on federal immigration authorities — and some key lawmakers in both parties are not optimistic.
Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro appeared to patch things up yesterday after having spent the past year trading threats and insults.
What started as a meeting between frequent foes ended with Petro walking out of the Oval Office with a MAGA hat, altered with a pen to say “Make Americas Great Again.”
Trump doubled down on his extraordinary call for the Republican Party to “nationalize” voting in the United States, even as the White House tried to walk it back and members of his own party criticized the idea.
House Republicans canceled a planned vote to hold Bill and Hillary Clinton in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, after they agreed to be deposed on camera this month.
A Manhattan federal judge said the Justice Department had agreed to quickly fix errors that led to the publication of victims’ names in the latest batch of documents related to Epstein, the sex offender.
The Justice Department revealed the identities of dozens of women who said they were sexually assaulted in the latest Epstein files, including the name of one in an active sex-trafficking trial, a series of errors the agency was still working to correct yesterday.
India Walton, a Democratic Socialist who garnered national attention when she nearly toppled Buffalo’s long-serving mayor as a political upstart, will return to electoral politics and run for lieutenant governor as LG Antonio Delgado’s running mate.
In selecting Walton, Delgado has chosen to align himself with the most progressive faction of the Democratic Party, which has been frustrated by Hochul’s refusal to raise taxes and her willingness to restart construction of natural gas pipelines in New York.
Hochul has reached the highest favorability rating of her tenure, a new Siena poll finds, as she holds a commanding early lead over Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican challenger who remains largely unknown to most New Yorkers.
The poll, released yesterday, shows 49% of registered voters view Hochul favorably compared to 40% unfavorably — a net seven-point improvement from December and the first time she has hit 49% favorability since becoming governor in August 2021.
State Attorney General Letitia James announced that her office would deploy legal observers to document raids conducted by federal immigration authorities across the state.
The observers, outfitted with purple vests, could be sent to where immigration raids are unfolding to serve as “neutral witnesses on the ground,” her office said in a release, adding that they would be instructed not to interfere with enforcement activity.
State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, chair of the Housing Committee, won’t seek reelection, which could set up a rematch between Assemblymember Grace Lee and former Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou for the open seat in lower Manhattan.
Kavanagh, 59, posted a lengthy statement on his Senate website announcing he will relinquish the seat after his term concludes at the end of 2026. He called the decision a difficult one and touted a length list of accomplishments from his time in office.
MTA honcho Janno Lieber shouted at Republican state Sen. Mario Mattera yesterday during a budget hearing over the agency spending $35 million to a private security contractor whose guards were caught opening emergency doors open for fare beaters.
The MTA shelled out a record mind-boggling $1.5 billion in taxpayer money on worker overtime last year, but Lieber said that the figure made him “proud.’’
New York and New Jersey sued the Trump administration yesterday in an effort to unfreeze federal funding for a new set of train tunnels under the Hudson River.
The joint lawsuit filed by both state attorneys general in Manhattan federal court came a day after the Gateway Development Commission, which oversees the $16 billion mega-project, filed its own lawsuit over the White House’s decision to halt the funds.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America racked up their first victory of the 2026 cycle last night, as Diana Moreno handily won the special election to represent Mamdani’s old Assembly district in western Queens.
“Welcome to the People’s Republic of Astoria!” Moreno said at her election night party, referencing the neighborhood’s left leanings. Mamdani introduced her at the Ecuadorian restaurant Barzola as “a fellow member of the Democratic Socialists of America.”
Like Mamdani, Moreno is a young immigrant who served in D.S.A. leadership and is committed to the organization’s growth. She shares his policy commitments to enact government-funded child care and stronger protections for tenants and immigrants.
On Manhattan’s West Side, Councilmember Erik Bottcher won 92% of the vote against nominal Republican opposition in the race for the state Senate seat previously held by Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
On the east side of Manhattan, Keith Powers won 82% of the vote to win election to the Assembly, taking over the seat previously held by New York City Council Member Harvey Epstein.
In Buffalo, Democratic nominee (and chair of the local Democratic party) Jeremy Zellner won 60% of the vote, according to election night results, for a state Senate seat that was previously held by Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan.
The Trump administration wants to stop large cities that receive federal funds from providing free bus transit, a move that would hit programs across the country — and could be a setback to New York City, in particular.
The city announced it will open a long-stalled shelter for more than 100 street-homeless New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan, as Mayor Zohran Mamdani faces mounting pressure to move people out of public spaces and stop a rising cold-related death toll.
Mamdani announced a crackdown on predatory fees in the tax preparation industry, part of an affordability agenda taking shape over the first five weeks of his administration.
According to the Siena poll, Mamdani’s favorability rating is 48 percent versus a 32 percent unfavorable rating. His favorability rating in December was 46 percent versus a 31 percent unfavorable rating.
The NYPD released body-camera footage from last week’s police shooting of a 22-year-old man whose family says he needed emergency mental health support, not a police response.
The video shows Jabez Chakraborty appearing to help his family in the kitchen when officers are let into the home. Immediately upon seeing the officers, he picks up a knife and moves toward them, ignoring calls from his family to stop.
Mamdani said that he does not believe the Queens district attorney should prosecute Chakraborty, who was shot by police as he allegedly ran toward officers with a knife, arguing that the individual needs mental health treatment instead.
Mamdani pushed his vague “Department of Community Safety” again after the NYPD’s recent shooting of a mentally ill Queens man – but couldn’t say how the newfangled agency would’ve responded.
Local pols are urging the Mamdani administration to map out how the city will deal with snow removal in the future — as mountains of week-old flakes continued to block crosswalks, cover bus stops and even thwart emergency responders.
Dozens of city cyclists had their day in court this week as part of a continuing wave of NYPD criminal summonses for basic moving violations; many noted Mamdani has said he would end a policy that is resulting in a lot of dismissed tickets and wasted time.
A small but long-powerful New York City agency helped to construct the High Line, build a new Yankee Stadium and plan the glittering skyscape of Hudson Yards. Mamdani wants its new mission to be advocating for economic justice.
As New Yorkers enter tax season with federal free-filing options shrinking, City Hall paired a renewed push for its long-running Free Tax Prep program with a stepped-up crackdown on tax preparers who overcharge or hide fees.
Nurses on strike in New York City have started to see new movement in contract negotiations with hospitals in recent days as they have traded proposals across the bargaining table at the Javits Center in Manhattan.
Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor who was arrested last week after covering a protest in a Minnesota church, told an audience in New York last night that he felt vulnerable but was determined to defend what he saw as an attack on free speech.
A Utica-area judge resigned last week as state investigators looked into allegations he drove with a suspended license and then mentioned his judicial title when confronted by police, according to the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Brad Karp, a member of the Union College Board of Trustees, exchanged many seemingly friendly emails with Jeffrey Epstein, despite having said last year that his only interaction was to negotiate a bill for a client.
After seven years of reporting in the Capital Region — including four as Nexstar’s New York State political reporter — Jamie DeLine has announced she is leaving News10ABC and moving south to begin a new chapter in Raleigh, North Carolina.
DeLine’s husband, meteorologist Reid Kisselback, is leaving WNYT NewsChannel 13. He announced the news as well as in a post on Instagram,, saying his departure was one of the toughest things he’s had to share with viewers.
A mother is preparing to sue Schenectady schools, claiming her 8-year-old son suffered physical injuries and emotional trauma when a librarian placed her foot on his back as he lay face down on a classroom floor at Lincoln Elementary Community School.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
