LEGAL ABORTION BEGAN IN TEXAS AND WILL END UP IN TEXAS

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

By Councilman Rev. Ruben Diaz 18 District, Bronx 

 You should know that on January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court approved “Roe Vs. Wade” which made abortion legal throughout our nation. 

 

A woman named Norma McCorvey, under the pseudonym "Jane Roe" sued the State of Texas and its Attorney General Henry Wade, bringing about the infamous case known as "Roe-vs-Wade. 

 

Ms. McCorvey (Jane Roe) was represented by 2 female attorney’s Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee.

 

The Supreme Court in 1973 was in its majority composed of liberal, left-leaning justices which resulted in a 7–2 decision in favor of Norma McCorvey ("Jane Roe").  These justices were of the opinion that women in the United States have a fundamental right to choose whether or not to have abortions without excessive government restriction, and they struck down Texas's abortion ban as unconstitutional.

 

You should know that in recent years, U.S. President’s, George Bush and Donald J.Trump have appointed more conservative, and moderate judges to the Supreme Court. This has resulted in a Supreme Court that is composed of justices that lean conservative.  The view and fears of the liberal left are that the court now is prolife and anti-abortion and that it puts Roe vs Wade at risk of being overturned.

 

Thanks to those appointments by Presidents George Bush and Donald Trump, people of faith who support the sanctity of life and oppose abortion have seen a change in the decisions made by the Supreme Court.

 

The (9) Supreme Court justices this month upheld the Texas abortion Law that bans abortions after 6 weeks, known as the “Heart Beat Bill”. The Texas liberals were defeated and the Texas abortion bill stands. 

 

It is important for you to know, that this Supreme Court decision now begins a new fight of titanic proportions in the State of Texas and it will affect the future of abortions in America. In the near future, one way or another you may notice that the appointments of President George Bush and Donald Trump have opened a path for the Right to Life and Abortion to be decided once and for all that, therefore this infamous decision which began in Texas in 1973 will likely end in Texas. "

 

I am Councilman Rev. Ruben Diaz and this is What You Should Know.

State Senator Gustavo Rivera - New York’s Cannabis Leadership Confirmed

 

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Dear Community Member, Last week, New York took a critical step towards establishing a legal cannabis market in our state. I was proud to vote in favor of Governor Kathy Hochul’s nominations for the Cannabis Control Board Chair and Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) Executive Director. The Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), which we passed earlier this year, created the Cannabis Control Board and the OCM to oversee New York’s adult-use cannabis program, existing medical cannabis program, and existing cannabinoid hemp program. I want to congratulate our confirmed appointees, former Assemblymember Tremaine Wright, incoming Cannabis Control Board Chair, and Christopher Alexander, incoming Office of Cannabis Management Executive Director. I also want to thank Governor Hochul for recognizing the need to act on these previously delayed gubernatorial nominations after her predecessor neglected them and to our Majority Leader, Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, for leading our house to an expeditious confirmation. At my first virtual webinar in my series on Marijuana in New York, we discussed how you can be part of the business opportunities that the new law will create and the need to appoint leadership for the board and OCM to initiate the regulation-making process. Regulations will outline how to apply for licenses to participate in the retail sales and other cannabis-related businesses, set to begin in April 2022. I’ll keep you updated on the regulations and opportunities for public input as we follow developments regarding the cannabis market. When we passed MRTA this spring, we sought to ensure that communities impacted by decades of marijuana criminalization would have opportunities in the legal market. The law immediately decriminalized consumption and possession of marijuana in most places. Make sure you know your rights under these new laws by checking out the virtual webinar I hosted in August featuring legal experts.

Help me decide what our next webinar in my Marijuana in New York series should be!

What should be the topic of our next webinar? Cannabis Financing Select Medical Marijuana Select Licensing Part 2 Select

Submit your idea for consideration!

I hope this information is useful to you! My team is available if you need assistance by contacting 718-933-2034 or grivera@nysenate.gov. Sincerely, Gustavo Rivera New York State Senator 33rd District, The Bronx

Send me updates on Marijuana in NY

The Hemispheric Institute and BAAD! Present Naked Vanguard: The Arthur Avilés Archive in Motion

 

Streaming Live - September 13, October 13, and November 16, 2021 at 7 PM EST

  The Hemispheric Institute at New York University and the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) proudly present Naked Vanguard: The Arthur Avilés Archive in Motion — a series of conversations and performances in September, October, and November 2021 that will celebrate the publication of the Arthur Avilés Collection in the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL). The Institute is excited to welcome Arthur as Artist in Residence at NYU for Fall 2021. The Naked Vanguard series honors and recognizes the aesthetic and political legacies of this ground-breaking dancer and choreographer.

The Arthur Avilés Collection has been digitally remastered and includes video documentation spanning Avilés’ decades-long career. This invaluable choreographic archive will be preserved and made freely and permanently available to researchers, artists, and the broader public by New York University Libraries and the Hemispheric Institute.

Arthur Avilés is an internationally renowned gay New York-Rican dancer/choreographer. His work utilizes aspects of theater and dance, often taking the structure of stories from existing classics and reconfiguring them in order to express the felt, actual, and fantastical lives of queer Latinxs in the city.  Avilés was born in 1963 in Jamaica, Queens, and raised in Long Island and the Bronx. After graduating from Bard College, Avilés joined the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and toured internationally with the company from 1987 to 1995.  In 1998, alongside Charles Rice-González, he co-founded The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!). BAAD! is a performance space that blazed a path for professional art and dance in the Bronx and has garnered local and national attention for its work. Avilés has received numerous awards and honors, including an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from his alma mater, Bard College, as well as a Bronx Recognizes Its Own (BRIO) award, and multiple New York Dance and Performance (Bessie) Awards.

The Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library (HIDVL) is the first major digital video library of performance practices in the Americas. Created in 2005 in partnership with NYU Libraries, HIDVL began as an effort to preserve political performance works from the Americas, making these cultural documents available worldwide. This growing repository is a one-of-a-kind research archive that guarantees historical preservation and free access to over 1000 hours of video documentation.

 

Watch the conversations and performance on HemiTV.

Naked Vanguard: The Arthur Avilés Archive in Motion

All events are free and available to all and will be broadcast via Zoom on HemiTV.

 

Monday, September 13, 2021 at 7 pm ET

Origin Stories: A Puerto Rican Faggot from America

Join us for a conversation with Arthur Avilés, Lawrence LaFountain-Stokes (University of Michigan) and Ramón Rivera-Servera (UT-Austin) on the arc and significance of Arthur’s choreographic works, the politics of queer bodies in motion, and the relationship between community and the practice of dance and performance. Moderated by Ana Dopico.

Virtual Event

Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KeywYMckTZ2nvpsotg7Hhg

 

Wednesday, October 13 at 7 pm ET

Thinking Performance: The Maévas in Dialogue with Arthur Avilés

Listen in on an intimate conversation between choreographer Arthur Avilés and performers Elizabeth “Macha” Marrero and Rhina Valentin as they reminisce about the role of Bronx Ghetto Matriarch Maéva, a recurring character that appears across multiple dance works and whom the two performers have previously played. Moderated by Charles Rice-González.

Featured works include: Arturella (1996), Super Maéva de Oz (1998), Untitled #1 After Martha Graham (1994), 5 Star Dance (1994)

Virtual Event

Event and registration information:

https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/events/the-naked-vanguard.html#oct-13

 

Tuesday, November 16 at 7 pm ET

Legacy in Motion: Arthur Avilés Live!

Debut of a live (this performance will be live at BAAD!) performance of A Jamaican Battybwoy in America, with Nikolai McKenzie, a piece where Arthur Avilés revisits and reframes his signal work, A Puerto Rican Faggot from America (1996). The evening will reflect the original work and its new incarnation.

This live performance will be followed by a conversation between choreographer and dancer, who will discuss Avilés’ works and their continued resonance today. Featured works include excerpts of: A Puerto Rican Faggot from America (1996), Arturella (1996), Morning dance (2000), Untitled #1 After Martha Graham (1994), El Yunque (2004), Intoxicating Calm (1992)

          Virtual event

Event and registration information: https://hemisphericinstitute.org/en/events/the-naked-vanguard.html#nov-16

The Hemispheric Institute gathers artists, scholars, writers, learners, and activists from across the Americas. We focus on social justice and research politically engaged culture and performance. We share this work in digital archives and amplify it through dialogues and public scholarship, residencies, publications, and gatherings. Our dynamic, multilingual network crosses disciplines and borders, and is grounded in the fundamental belief that artistic practice and critical reflection can spark lasting cultural change.

The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance creates, produces, presents, and supports the development of cutting-edge and challenging works in contemporary dance and all creative disciplines that are empowering to women, Latinx and people of color, and the LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) community.

#NakedVanguard #ArthurAviles #ArthurAvilesDance #BAAD! #BAADBronx #NYU

08312021

 

NYS Office of Mental Health Announces Funding to Create 10 New Youth Assertive Community Treatment Teams Across the State

Teams will focus on youth age 10 to 21 transitioning from, or at-risk of entering, inpatient care

 The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has issued a Request For Proposals to award $9.4 Million in funding to expand Youth Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams throughout New York State. Youth ACT teams serve children ages 10 to 21 and their families, wrapping around services and supports in the home and community settings. Children and youth who are at risk of entering residential or inpatient psychiatric treatment, or transitioning home from inpatient or residential stay, can be served through Youth ACT while remaining with their families and in their communities.

OMH Commissioner Dr Ann Sullivan said, “Youth ACT teams engage young people with mental illness and their families in their own communities and provide services when and where the young person wants and needs them. The Youth ACT team is a one-stop shop for young people and their families. ACT teams work with individuals to help them develop the skills they can use to lead successful and independent lives, and we are excited to pioneer expansion of ACT to children in New York State.”

The RFP will award funding to create 10 new Youth ACT teams that will serve vulnerable 10 to 21-year-olds in the following counties:

• Monroe
• Erie/Niagara
• Onondaga
• Broome
• Warren/Washington/Saratoga
• Schenectady/Albany
• Westchester
• Nassau
• New York (Manhattan)
• Staten Island

OMH Funding Additional ACT Teams for Youth and Young Adults

In addition to these awards, OMH has already contracted with community agencies to develop four new Youth ACT Teams in Bronx, Kings (Brooklyn), Queens and Suffolk Counties, and recently issued an additional RFP to create a Young Adult ACT Team in New York City and another in Western New York. Young Adult ACT serves individuals 18-to-25 years-old who have not been successfully engaged by the traditional mental health treatment and rehabilitation system.

Youth ACT teams are multi-disciplinary with professional staff including psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, mental health clinicians, and peer advocates. By using a team approach, Youth ACT teams can deliver intensive, highly coordinated, individualized services and skilled therapeutic interventions to ensure the child and their family have the level of treatment and services to support their recovery.

Youth ACT teams are highly responsive and flexible to meet the individualized, changing needs of the child and family, and they offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The expansion of Youth ACT represents a commitment by the NYS Office of Mental Health to increase access to services in the home and community for children and youth with mental health issues and their families.

Proposals are due by September 28 and OMH anticipates notifying award winners by October 22. More information on the RFP can be found here on the OMH website.

 

Governor Hochul Updates New Yorkers on State's Progress Combating - SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

 

24,716 Vaccine Doses Administered Over Last 24 Hours

35 COVID-19 Deaths Statewide Yesterday 

 Governor Kathy Hochul today updated New Yorkers on the state's progress combating COVID-19.

"We are continuing to watch the numbers and while some metrics continue to be promising, others are moving in the wrong direction," Governor Hochul said. "With students back at their schools and colleges and increasingly more people returning to work in-person, it is more critical than ever that we double down on everything we can do to stop the spread of infection. The single best weapon that we have in this fight is the vaccine, which is free, safe and effective. If you still need your shot, please get it as soon as possible so we can all be better protected." 

Today's data is summarized briefly below:  

• Test Results Reported - 83,316 
• Total Positive - 3,322
• Percent Positive - 3.99% 
• 7-Day Average Percent Positive - 3.27% 
• Patient Hospitalization - 2,356 (+22) 
• Patients Newly Admitted - 271 
• Patients in ICU - 507 (-12) 
• Patients in ICU with Intubation - 261 (-2) 
• Total Discharges - 194,682 (+207) 
• New deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS - 35 
• Total deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS - 43,787
• The Health Electronic Response Data System is a NYS DOH data source that collects confirmed daily death data as reported by hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities only. 
• Total deaths reported to and compiled by the CDC -  55,768
• This daily COVID-19 provisional death certificate data reported by NYS DOH and NYC to the CDC includes those who died in any location, including hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, at home, in hospice and other settings. 
• Total vaccine doses administered - 24,034,920 
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 24 hours - 24,716 
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 7 days - 369,226
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose - 78.1% 
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series - 70.7% 
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) - 80.5% 
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series (CDC) - 72.3% 
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose - 66.0% 
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series - 59.4% 
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) - 68.0% 
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series (CDC) - 60.7%   

121 Days and Counting - The Sky is Falling

 

 We have a lot of work to do in the coming months especially in the Bronx. All I have to do is keep talking about what has to be done, so I can say 'Here Eric Adams it is now your problem'. Things are in such bad shape, we have to worry about the rain that is coming tomorrow. It is predicted to be one inch to one and a half inches, but the weather forecasters don't know what they are talking about anymore after Ida.

On the crime front, it is the court system that is not doing its job. we were able to have baseball in Yankee stadium, people back on mass transit, and reopen the city, but the courts are not doing their job. We are at one third the cases prosecuted compared to last year. 

Most of all, School starts next Monday, and I expect no problems. Let's see if I can pull that one off.

Emergency Executive Order 234 September 5, 2021 Declaration of Local State of Emergency

 

Emergency Executive Order 234

September 5, 2021

WHEREAS, the public safety is imperiled by a flash flood emergency caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida that has flooded roads, impacted mass transit, and stranded motorists;

WHEREAS, it is necessary to take all measures to protect life and property; and

WHEREAS, on September 1, 2021, I declared a state of emergency to exist within the City of New York, and such declaration remains in effect for a period not to exceed thirty (30) days or until rescinded, whichever occurs first; and

NOW THEREFORE, by the power vested in me as Mayor of the City of New York pursuant to law, including Executive Law § 24, I hereby order:

Section 1.  I hereby direct that the State of Emergency declared in Emergency Executive Order No. 230, dated September 1, 2021, and extended by Emergency Executive Order No. 232, is extended for thirty (30) days.

§ 2.  Any vehicle found to be blocking roadways shall be subject to towing.  This section shall be retroactive and deemed to have been in effect as of September 1, 2021.

§ 3.  The State of Emergency shall remain in effect for a period not to exceed thirty days or until rescinded, whichever occurs first. Additional declarations to extend the State of Emergency for additional periods not to exceed thirty days will be issued if needed. The remainder of this Order shall remain in effect for five (5) days unless terminated at an earlier date. This Order may be extended for additional periods not to exceed five (5) days each during the pendency of the local state of emergency.

                                                                                       
Bill de Blasio
MAYOR

Governor Hochul Announces $6 Million for Climate Justice Fellowships Benefitting Disadvantaged Communities and Priority Populations

 

Funding Will Support 150 Fellowships Over Three Years

Advances New York State's Commitment to Ensure an Equitable Clean Energy Transition for All New Yorkers; Announcement Comes in Advance of Climate Week

Applications Can Be Found Here

 Governor Kathy Hochul today announced $6 million is now available over three years to support 150 Climate Justice Fellowship opportunities for individuals across the state currently residing in historically disadvantaged communities or from priority populations. This announcement, in advance of New York's upcoming celebration of Climate Week from September 20 to September 26, helps support New York State's commitment to ensure an equitable clean energy transition for all New Yorkers as required by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. 

"These fellowships demonstrate how New York is working to foster new and creative ways to support climate justice and clean energy training for individuals in disadvantaged communities while stimulating rewarding career paths for future generations of New Yorkers," Governor Hochul said. "This funding will give New Yorkers from underrepresented backgrounds a fresh opportunity to participate in our economy. It's critical that we focus on creating an inclusive green energy marketplace by capturing the ideas, talent, and expertise of New Yorkers as we work to achieve the state's ambitious climate goals."            

The program, administered by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, is seeking applications from host employers to support the professional development, training, and mentoring of full-time fellows currently residing in disadvantaged communities or from priority populations—including individuals that are low income, disabled, homeless, formerly incarcerated, residents of environmental justice communities, veterans and Native Americans, among others. 

Selected fellows will work with community-based organizations, universities, municipalities, climate tech innovators/start-ups, and clean energy businesses to assist with and support community engagement activities, clean energy project development and implementation, partnership building, clean energy start-ups, or other projects that advance climate justice and clean energy priorities in disadvantaged communities.

NYSERDA President and CEO Doreen M. Harris said, "Those living in historically disadvantaged communities know the needs of their communities best. Our Climate Justice Fellowship program is unique in it allows for individuals to pair up with entities that want to facilitate clean energy and climate justice efforts in the very same communities - creating unique collaborations and helping ensure an equitable green transition in neighborhoods that have traditionally been underserved."    

NYSERDA will fund approximately 50 fellowships in 2021 and up to 100 fellowships through 2023, and will work with State and federal agencies, non-profits, foundations, and other partners to leverage existing resources and wrap-around services such as transportation and childcare services, training, and professional development opportunities.

Applications must be submitted by 3 p.m. EST on October 28, 2021. Host employers must apply to the program with a fellow candidate identified. Employers will need to provide an outline of specific activities the fellow will undertake over the 12-month period. The projected timeline for applications is: 

Fall 2021, Cohort 1; Winter/Spring 2022, Cohort 2; Winter/Spring 2023, Cohort 3.

NYSERDA will conduct an informational webinar on September 16, 2021 at 10:00 a.m. EST to review the solicitation requirements and answer questions. Interested attendees can register by emailing to WFinfo@nyserda.ny.gov with the subject line "PON 4772 Climate Justice Fellowship" to request further information.