Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
I feel it’s only fair to warn you that there’s a semi-feminist rant ahead. Perhaps it’s too early in the morning for such things for you? If so, proceed at your own risk.
I think it’s a universally recognized fact that men and women are inherently different. Different biology. Different way of thinking. Just all around NOT the same whatsoever. If this is the case, then why does the medical industrial complex persist in systematically overlooking the fact that women need to be treated differently?
Things are getting better with the growing recognition that women are not simply men without penises, but actually have their own unique health challenges and needs that extend beyond reproductive and other gynecological care. But women continue to face greater barriers to access to care than men and funding for women’s health research remains comparatively low.
It wasn’t until the 1990s (!!!!!!!) that health research in this country shifted from excluding women from clinical trials to making it mandatory that they be included.
Clinical trials, by the way, are absolutely essential in determining the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs and treatment modalities. Women were historically excluded from them in part because, well, our bodies were seen as simply too complicated – hormonally speaking – for researchers to contend with.
In 1990, the NIH established the Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) and then one year later, launched the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI). But it wasn’t until 1993 that women were finally required to be included in clinical research, thanks to the passage of the NIH Revitalization Act.
According to the NIH, diseases affecting men received twice as much funding in the U.S. in 2020 as those affecting women, and only 1% of funding for healthcare research and innovation (beyond oncology) was invested in women’s health.
What’s at stake here, beyond women just, you know, feeling better?
Well, the WHO estimates that closing the healthcare gender gap could add an average of up to 500 days – just under a year and a half – to women’s lives worldwide.
That’s an extra week of life every year.
I don’t know about you, but I would certainly welcome that. It would also have a significant impact on the economy, adding up to $1 trillion (with a T) annually by 2040, according to a report by the McKinsey Health Institute.
Just when it seemed we were making some progress, along came the NIH cuts of 2025, in which grants that funded women-focused research – especially work focused on reproductive and sexual health – were terminated at higher rates and women researchers lost a larger percentage of their funds.
Adding insult to injury, Medicaid cuts disproportionately impact women (who live longer, FWIW), and widen the gender health gap.
I’m not depressed, you’re depressed. (If you’re not depressed by this, I’m not sure we can be friends).
There’s also a lot more where this came from, since this is National Women’s Health Week. Today, for the record, is Sex Differences in Health Awareness Day, the purpose of which, according to the Society for Women’s Health Research, is “to draw attention to biological health differences between women and men.”
I’ve done my part.
It will continue to be unseasonably cool for this time of year (usually, we would be holding steady with highs in the low 70s), with temperatures again topping out in the low 60s. Skies will be mostly sunny, so overall it will be a nice day – still jacket and/or light sweater weather, though.
In the headlines…
The ceasefire with Iran is “on massive life support,” President Trump said yesterday, and some aides confirmed that he is now more seriously considering a resumption of major combat operations.
Initially delayed by the war with Iran, President Trump leaves for a state visit to China today – a trip that he invited executives of some of the biggest US companies to join.
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, appears poised to lecture Trump on U.S. support for Taiwan, especially weapons sales, though the president and his aides have said the trip will be focused on trade and investment.
Trump revealed a new plan to bring down gas prices that have soared since he chose to start a war with Iran: He wants to suspend federal gas taxes.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Trump said in a phone call with a reporter from CBS News yesterday morning. “Yup, we’re going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we’ll let it phase back in.”
About 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner was staged, with a marked partisan divide, according to a survey published yesterday.
Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans, according to a survey published Monday by NewsGuard, a company that rates the reliability of online news outlets.
A historic preservation group filed a lawsuit seeking to halt Trump’s ongoing renovation to the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool, the latest in a string of court challenges to efforts to remake DC landmarks from the US president and former real estate developer.
Trump said his handpicked contractor would charge $1.8 million to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and paint it blue. The actual cost is more than seven times that, after the Interior Department nearly doubled the size of the contract late last week.
Trump nominated Cameron Hamilton, a former member of the Navy SEALs, as administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, seeking to install the organization’s first permanent leader of the president’s second term.
The Supreme Court has given Alabama the go-ahead to use a congressional map that will likely remove a Democratic incumbent from the state.
Alabama legislators are hoping to boost the GOP in November’s midterm elections in the wake of last month’s Supreme Court decision weakening the Voting Rights Act.
In a 6-3 ruling issued yesterday, the court’s conservative majority granted a request from Alabama’s Republican leaders to lift an injunction that blocked the state from using a map the Legislature adopted in 2023.
Democratic leaders in Virginia asked the Supreme Court to allow the state to use a congressional map drawn by Democrats and approved by voters in a referendum in April.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries guaranteed that Democrats would take the House of Representatives in the midterms despite recent court setbacks on redistricting.
Seeking to calm Democratic jitters, the House minority leader claimed the party is certain to flip enough seats to overturn a narrow Republican edge because President Trump is so unpopular with voters.
There were three New Yorkers aboard the cruise ship that was struck by hantavirus, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul, and it is not yet clear when they will be returning home.
One passenger is from New York City while the other two are residents of Orange County and Westchester County.
Hochul is poised to win a significant rollback of New York’s landmark 2019 climate law, leaving environmentalists furious with a governor they once considered a major ally in the battle against climate change.
Hochul announced significant changes to New York’s climate goals, including pushing back an already-passed date to adopt emissions reduction regulations, and replacing a 2030 economy-wide GHG emissions reduction goal with a new 2040 target.
Hochul defended the state budget process after brief conflicting messages from her and state Assembly Majority Leader Carl Heastie on where budget negotiations stood late last week, though a final deal remains unfinished.
“New Yorkers are excited about the policy probably more than they are to know exactly how many dollars are going into this X program,” the governor said, while acknowledging that fiscal conversations could perhaps start sooner in the process.
“There’s no rational expectation in the world that you can achieve a $260 billion budget with all the important policies that I want to see in there as well as other members do within two weeks,” Hochul added.
Hochul said that she’s committed to getting LIRR workers a “deal that is going to prevent a strike” just five days away.
Hochul, a Democrat, defended herself against criticism from labor allies and members of her own party over her intent to opt into the GOP’s federal tax-credit scholarship program, which would help families pay for private school and other educational expenses.
Hochul is making an early play for Jewish voters ahead in her reelection bid, coupling a major initiative to help families pay for yeshivas with tough-on-antisemitism legislation.
Hochul has endorsed incumbent East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez in her ongoing Democratic primary race with challenger Jerry Larsen, the mayor of East Hampton Village, according to a release sent out by East Hampton Democrats.
The state inspector general’s office has reportedly begun interviewing troopers about the alleged misuse of PGA credentials by members of the State Police who attended the Ryder Cup golf tournament on Long Island in September.
More than a dozen large air pockets have appeared beneath one of two reflecting pools at Empire State Plaza in recent weeks – the result of trapped air that formed under the liner when the pools were filled for the spring season.
With New York’s primary elections six weeks away, candidates are gearing up to be their party’s preferred choice in various state and federal election districts. But first, they need to get on the ballot.
Adam Bojak is an attorney and Buffalo DSA member running for state assembly in the 149th District in Western New York — an area once partially represented by Hochul in Congress. He previously ran for the seat in 2020 and lost.
Incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman enlisted the help of Gov. Hochul yesterday as the volatile NY 10th district race between him and challenger Brad Lander — who has the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — ramps up.
Goldman, facing what all parties agree is a very tough primary challenge from Lander in the congressional district spanning lower Manhattan and parts of brownstone Brooklyn, has sharpened his attacks, and his allies are readying to do so as well.
Mamdani could be forced to release his executive budget today with “placeholder” estimates on key sources of revenue, after he tried to rely on dysfunction-riddled Albany to reach a deal on its own spending plan and bail out the Big Apple, insiders revealed.
Mamdani took part in a soccer match with school kids in the Bronx, New York, while launching his “Soccer Streets” initiative, described as a “traveling series of field days visiting 50 schools across the five boroughs”.
The mayor is expected to release his housing plan this month, the timing of which has been dictated by city and state budget negotiations.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is welcoming Big Apple companies relocating or expanding to his state after Mamdani demonized billionaire hedge fund honcho Ken Griffin for being rich.
City Council member Chi Ossé filed a misconduct complaint against an NYPD officer who arrested him, advancing a case that stands to drive a further wedge between the police department and Mamdani.
A controversial real estate expo that advertises properties for sale in the occupied Palestinian territories returned to New York City on yesterday, less than a week after a previous event drew dueling protests on the Upper East Side.
Mamdani’s decision to build a park over part of an unused rail line in Queens could make it impossible, or at least very difficult, to build a transit line he’s long supported for the same route, according to the trajectories of similar efforts in Maryland and Georgia.
Robin Hood, the city’s largest and most influential charity, announced that it had received a $100 million gift, earmarked for early childhood education, from the Bezos Family Foundation, a philanthropy created by the parents of the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.
Councilmember Vickie Paladino has agreed to drop her lawsuit against the City Council, which will now end disciplinary proceedings against her — the latest step in an ongoing saga over a series of anti-Muslim tweets posted by the councilmember.
Under the settlement agreement, Paladino must delete the tweets, remove references to her position as a council member on her personal X account and put out a statement. She will not be required to publicly apologize.
New York City’s emergency management agency, which ran an alert network for alerting independent schools to nearby emergencies, has ceased to do so, saying it needed to free up personnel to help translate messages for the World Cup.
A study of 1.6 million children, published in JAMA Pediatrics in January, found that making pre-K freely available to four-year-olds may significantly reduce their chance of involvement with the Administration for Children’s Service.
State Assembly candidate Marie Mirville-Shahzada and her slate of Democratic district leaders can get axed from the primaries on Coney Island because 90% of her 5,258 total signatures have been invalidated by the city Board of Elections.
Two century-old bridges above a busy Brooklyn subway station have grown so corroded from a lack of maintenance that city officials have begun questioning their structural integrity, engineering records show.
A 1-year-old boy died when fire tore through an apartment in the Bronx yesterday afternoon, and twin 6-year-olds — a boy and a girl — were critically injured, the police said.
The death Emery Lynn Mizell, 17, could have been prevented if the city had better supervised the foster child accused of stabbing her and if Instagram had stopped the online bully who was tormenting her, her father says in a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit.
Several entities tied to Rep. Mike Lawler, New York’s most endangered House Republican, paid a political consulting firm he once owned $$720,000 before he sold it in 2023, raising ethics concerns.
The arrangement does not appear to violate the law. Even so, the appearance of Lawler using his political influence to lure business to his company has been seized on by watchdog groups and Democrats seeking to reclaim a seat that he won in 2022.
A wind-turbine installation vessel is on its way from Singapore to the waters off Long Island as Empire Wind developer Equinor moves ahead with construction for a contested project that is already two-thirds complete.
A state disciplinary committee has determined following a confidential investigation that there is “sufficient basis for a finding of professional misconduct” against First Assistant U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III.
A public meeting on Saratoga Springs Mayor John Safford’s proposal to loosen the city’s historic preservation rules is being moved to a larger venue after a previous gathering on the topic packed a meeting room at the local library.
A second person has died in a fire that burned a home on Fifth Avenue in Lansingburgh on April 29.
A crash on Western Avenue in Albany left a wide path of damage after police said a 13-year-old was driving a Honda CR-V with five other teens inside.
Residents in Dresden are still waiting on approval to fill a position on their town board. The town has needed a supervisor and two board members since March and is looking to the governor for assistance.
A major expansion is underway for The Darrow School in Columbia County, which wants to acquire another campus nearby in Canaan.
The Town of Colonie Farmers’ Market is making its return to the Crossings Park for the 2026 season. The first event of the year is set for May 16.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
