Dear friends,
There is a lot of indisputably bad news, but there are a few little rays of sunshine, and I’m hoping you can feel them shining on you. It’s Tuesday, after all, and I promised you some good news.
First of all, NYS passed legislation to forestall evictions and home foreclosures. I’m planning to take a victory lap on this one, even though it’s not the bill we were pestering our legislators about. Senator Zellnor Myrie introduced the legislation and it replaces the confusing array of ‘protections’ that were ineffective at preventing evictions from going forward.
What makes New York’s new law exceptional is its reach: It eases the process for tenants and small landlords to claim financial hardships and eliminates hurdles for disabled and older homeowners to renew tax exemptions.
The hardship declaration would not only cover financial hardship but also a “significant health risk” of moving in the pandemic.
The law also seeks to address the plight of landlords who own 10 or fewer apartments, allowing them to file similar financial hardship declarations with their mortgage lenders, to delay foreclosure proceedings.
The bill does not solve the problem of how folks will pay back rent, but it sees people through the winter and hopefully the worst of the pandemic.
I’m reaching here, but this op-ed that points out that Trump isn’t serious about running in 2024 is a ray of sunshine. Jennifer Rubin argues that Trump’s destructive rage — the pointless delay in signing the relief bill, the pardons of war criminals and perpetrators of fraud, the veto of the military authorization bill, the sabotage of Senate candidates in his own party — is not a strategy for remaining a “viable presidential contender.”
And finally, to fill a gap I know some of you are feeling, here is some happy news from the natural world: unusual whale song was first detected in 2017, off the coast of Madagascar. The same calls were later recorded in the western Arabian Sea and in the Indian Ocean.
These new recordings belong to a previously unidentified population of blue whales.
with love,
L