Latest news with #FordhamUniversity
CBS News
20 hours ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Fordham's WFUV is among hundreds of radio and TV stations to feel the pinch of federal funding cuts
Public radio and television stations across the country are bracing for major cuts after Republicans in Congress passed legislation that will strip more than $1 billion in federal funding. CBS News New York went to a station in the Bronx on Monday to see how the cuts will be felt there. Alisa Ali has been hosting a radio show at WFUV on the campus of Fordham University for 20 years, playing classics and shining a light on up-and-comers. "We're going to give artists who may not be heard on other outlets a chance to gain an audience," Ali said. The National Public Radio-member station also helps train the next generation of journalists, like student Lainey Nguyen. "It's incredibly valuable to be here and learn how to pitch stories, learn how to edit audio on industry-standard equipment," Nguyen said. The dual missions of music discovery and education are at risk at around 1,500 local public radio and TV stations. WFUV, for one, will lose more than $500,000 a year in federal funding. General manager Chuck Singleton said that will mean, "less public service, less music discovery, fewer live studio sessions with artists." President Trump called for the cuts, saying public media's news programming was biased against him and fellow Republicans. In a statement, the White House's Office of Management and Budget said, "The federal government will no longer subsidize this trash." Stations like WFUV are turning to listeners to try and make up for those cuts. "Hopefully our community will step up and realize that this is important and it is worth saving," Ali said. From the boroughs to back roads, public radio is not ready to go silent just yet.
Newsweek
a day ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
I Spoke With Our World's Greatest Minds on Division, Faith, and Rebuilding Community. Hope Is How We Must Move Forward
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. It's no secret: Our country is going through dark times. Extreme weather is devastating local communities. Families are struggling to put food on the table. Our children's health is rapidly declining. Meanwhile, Americans are becoming increasingly resentful of fellow citizens who don't look like them. We need a new path forward. I recently had the immense pleasure, and challenge, of interviewing some of America's great minds for PBS' new non-fiction series, Wisdom Keepers, exploring who we are, how we got here, and what it means to be human. I spoke with a broad range of influential leaders, from world-renowned philosophers and scientists to faith leaders and more. St. Marks Episcopal Church in Altadena parishioners hold candles during Great Vigil of Easter service on April 19, 2025, in Eagle Rock, Calif. St. Marks Episcopal Church in Altadena parishioners hold candles during Great Vigil of Easter service on April 19, 2025, in Eagle Rock, impossible to capture all they taught in a single op-ed, but I've taken away four important lessons that can help us move forward as a country, find common ground, and rebuild. 1. Look for meaning. Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas, African American Episcopal priest and womanist theologian, asked a simple, yet devastating question, "Are we going to be the authors of our own destruction?" We have traveled so deep into sin, into narcissism, thinking only about ourselves and competing against the "other." How do we escape this cycle and ensure lasting change? Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas on the set of Wisdom Keepers. Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas on the set of Wisdom Keepers. Photo Courtesy of Rengim Mutevellioglu/Fordham University To Reverend Douglas, a core part of this flaw in our humanity is our individualistic journeys to live a happy life, when, in reality, we need to think about how we can live a more meaningful life. Asking ourselves this question is inherently less selfish. It forces us to think about how we can do good for the community and not just ourselves. As Reverend Douglas put it, "Our pursuits must always be connected to the common good." 2. Use other people as your reference point. Franciscan priest and spiritual writer Richard Rohr took it a step further. He told me, "You have to get outside of your defended world." Rohr insists we aren't the same, we don't need to be, and we need to stop defending this notion that we are. We must embrace our differences and the collective. "When you can allow other people to be the reference point, at least as much as you are, you start in the school of compassion," he said. When we are the center of our world, we are choosing to guide ourselves with ego. In contrast, when we allow others to be our reference point, we are guiding ourselves with compassion. When it comes to building community and navigating our path forward, we must think less about "I" and more about "we." Less about what we like and more about what is. 3. Have humility in seeking out truth. For Former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, fake news and our country's push back on "fact" is at the center of our society's divisions. Our political polarization has created a crisis about what information to trust. He put it simply, "Willingness to accept objective truth as a reality is under threat." To reverse this dangerous path we're on, Collins believes we need to prioritize integrity, competence, and humility. We need to understand—and accept—what we know and what we don't know, what we're an expert on and where we have room to learn more. 4. Put love at the center. Pastor A.R. Bernard, who runs the Christian Cultural Center, a Brooklyn megachurch, explained the road ahead pretty simply: love is our path forward. After experiencing the devastating death of two sons only two years apart, Pastor Bernard told me his faith saved him and kept him from living in anger and surrendering to his suffering. Thanks to his faith, and at the center of that faith, love, Pastor Bernard knew that there was more to his existence than his grief. The first half of 2025 has brought so many of us immense pain and loss, from the flash floods in Texas to immigrant families being torn apart, daily shootings, and the ongoing wars. The list goes on. Dealing with these tragedies is no easy thing. But that doesn't mean there isn't a road ahead. What emerged from the hours of deep conversations, the persistent conclusion might be put this way: "Yes, we are broken. But the good news is we can be fixed." When Pandora of mythological fame opened the box and released all the troubles of the world, something important remained. The first human woman looked down and saw "hope still lay in the bottom of the box." My guests are clear-eyed, not starry-eyed. They live in the real world and see it for what it is. Yet, for all their willingness to talk with me about where we are in this post Great Recession, post-pandemic, Trump Redux, deeply divided country, and world, hope is still there. It's right there, waiting to be grasped and embraced. Ray Suarez is a journalist and host of the new PBS program Wisdom Keepers. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Time Magazine
3 days ago
- Politics
- Time Magazine
Roadblocks Cuomo Faces in NYC Mayoral Race, Per the Experts
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's decision to re-enter the race for New York City Mayor after his decisive defeat in the Democratic primary in June has prompted plenty of discussion. Cuomo, who conceded the race to progressive newcomer Zohran Mamdani of the Democratic Party, announced his return via a video statement on July 14, during which he shared he will now run as an Independent. 'I am in it to win it,' Cuomo said. 'Only 13% of New Yorkers voted in the June primary. The general election is in November, and I am in it to win it. My opponent, Mr. Mamdani, offers slick slogans, but no real solutions.' Mamdani responded to Cuomo's video by commenting directly underneath it with a link to donate money to his own campaign. As of Saturday morning, Mamdani's X response has over 180,000 likes, while Cuomo's original post has just 5.5k. Experts have queried if Cuomo has learned from the mistakes of his Democratic primary campaign and whether he can overcome the roadblocks facing him in order to stand a solid chance in the November election. If Cuomo is to have a fighting chance, Boris Heersink, a political science professor at Fordham University, says he'll have to find a new narrative for his campaign, decide the key issues upon which he wants to build his platform, and somehow fight back against the campaigns of Mamdani, Republican Curtis Sliwa, and current Mayor Eric Adams, who is also running as an Independent. It's a delicate balancing act. 'It's actually going to be a pretty tough thing for him to figure out how to present an aggressive Cuomo, that's also a gentler Cuomo, and a more policy-focused Cuomo, all in one package,' says Heersink. Furthermore, some of the high-profile billionaires who previously showed support to Cuomo have since decided to back current Mayor Adams in the general election, including hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman. Now, Cuomo will need to garner new support. Here is what experts say Cuomo's major roadblocks will be as he attempts to run a successful mayoral campaign. Campaigning amid the backdrop of previous sexual harassment allegations Cuomo re-entering this race comes four years after he resigned as Governor of New York after a report from the state Attorney General accused Cuomo of sexually harassing at least 11 women, most of whom had worked for him. The allegations ranged from groping and kissing to remarks about the women's appearances and sex lives. Cuomo denied the allegations. He then went on to acknowledge that he "acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable." He said it was "unintentional" and that he "truly and deeply apologised" over it. "I feel awful about it and, frankly, I am embarrassed by it," he said in a video statement, before doubling down on his statement that he "never touched anyone inappropriately." On Friday, July 19, the state of New York agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a lawsuit from Brittany Commisso, an ex-aide of Cuomo's who alleged he had sexually harassed and groped her while he was in office. In a statement, Commisso's lawyers referred to the settlement as 'a complete vindication of her claims' and said that Commisso is "glad to be able to move forward with her life." In response, lawyers for Cuomo said: 'The settlement is not a vindication, it is capitulation to avoid the truth," and once again referred to the allegations as "false." Heersink says that Cuomo has not addressed the allegations in his newly-relaunched mayoral campaign. "It's clearly not going to go away. If he's actually going to be actively out there campaigning, it's actually going to come up quite a lot in setups that he can't control,' Heersink says. 'It's a reason for a lot of people to never vote for Cuomo, [and] there's a decent number of people that I think are at least uncomfortable with it.' Cuomo has also come under fire over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic during his time as New York Governor and the testimony he gave in regards to the high number of deaths reported in nursing homes during that time. Cuomo can't have tunnel vision. He must not only defeat Mamdani, but Adams and Sliwa too If Cuomo, Adams, and Sliwa split the non-Mamdani vote, Mamdani will 'certainly' win, Heersink says, arguing that Cuomo needs to convince all those who say they are supporting Adams or Sliwa 'to transfer their support to him, so that he can prevent Mamdani from winning the election.' In order to do that, Heersink says Cuomo will need to posit Mamdani as a 'real threat,' but this could admittedly descend into a 'negative' campaign, something he may be keen to avoid. In an interview with the New York Magazine, published earlier this week, Cuomo appeared to be on board, at least partly, with a renewed approach, admitting that this time around he needs to be 'aggressive across the board.' For Laura Tamman, a professor of political science at Pace University, the issue is that Mamdani has often done better with someone to villainize against. So Cuomo's efforts on that front could end up backfiring. 'Cuomo is a good person for Mamdani to excite people against,' she says. 'It's helpful for fundraising. It's helpful for galvanizing volunteers.' (Cuomo's Super Pac battled hard against Mamdani in the primary, yet he didn't defeat him.) Tamman echoes Heersink's argument that Cuomo will need to consolidate all of the non-Democrat voters, as well as a 'healthy number' of people who are registered as Democrats, in order to claim victory in November. It's because of this that Brian Arbour, associate professor of political science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, argues that partisanship will be Cuomo's enemy. 'It's a partisan election, and you somehow have to get Democrats not to vote for the Democrat,' he says. Cuomo can't undervalue the importance of likeability Cuomo does not have the 'winner vibe' around him right now, experts tell TIME, so he will need to find a 'positive reason' for people to rally behind him, rather than just a 'negative reason' to not vote for the other candidates. Cuomo, in his latest campaign video and interviews, is seemingly trying to come across as more approachable, experts argue, with Heersink saying it perhaps shows that he has 'learned something' from the Democratic primary upset. 'The approach that he [Cuomo] took in the Democratic primary was, essentially, 'I'm gonna win this thing so I don't actually have to talk to you,'' says Heersink. 'In the primary, he barely campaigned—he was a candidate, but most of the actual campaigning on his behalf was being done by his Super PAC.' Cuomo could be seen shaking the hands of New Yorkers on the street, visiting subway stations, and engaging in more community-driven activities as he announced his re-entry to the race. But Camille Rivera, a political campaign strategist at New Deals Strategies, remains unconvinced this approach will resonate with voters after the primary. She argues that 'not being available for people or press doesn't work in New York City' and that it could feel 'disingenuous' and 'offensive to voters' to start now. Finding an issue to galvanize voters around Mamdani's success, in part, stems from his centering of the issue of affordability, and the popularity of his calls to 'freeze the rent,' make buses free, and provide free childcare in the city. Heersink says that Cuomo will need to find an equally compelling issue of his own to galvanize voters around. 'I think if you were to ask people what are the policies that Cuomo ran on in the Democratic primary, they would have a tough time summarizing that,' he says. 'To be fair, I think that's a criticism you can make of lots of candidates in the Democratic primary.' Yet, Mamdani differentiated himself in this sense, making sure that his policies stood out. When discussing his re-entry to the race, Cuomo told New York Magazine that combatting crime will be a core focus of his platform. 'We either stop the crime, stop the exodus, or we pivot now and start to bring the city back,' he said. 'But I believe it's A or B. You continue the decline and we have real trouble. Or we take a different path to start to make some changes. And I think Mamdani takes us in exactly the wrong direction.' Yet, with Adams in the race, Arbour says that it will be harder for Cuomo to "differentiate himself on this issue,' as it's a core principle of Adams' platform, too. "It's certainly the issue that Adams wants to talk about [also], and it fits with his background,' Arbour says, highlighting Adams' focus on combatting crime since his election in 2021.
Observer
3 days ago
- Politics
- Observer
A handshake in orbit 50 years ago transformed the space race
Some 140 miles above France, American astronauts opened a spacecraft hatch and found themselves face to face with cosmonauts from the Soviet Union. 'Glad to see you,' Col. Alexei Leonov spoke in accented English to Brig. Gen. Thomas Stafford of NASA. 'Ah, hello, very glad to see you,' Stafford responded in his own accented Russian. The two men then shook hands. Today, Russian and American astronauts routinely share rides to the International Space Station, no matter the geopolitical conflict that divides their nations. But in the summer of 1975, seeing two men from rival nations greet each other in orbit across a bridge between their docked spacecraft was a powerful and unprecedented gesture witnessed by millions on the world spinning below. The handshake, which occurred 50 years ago on July 17, defined the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first international human spaceflight. That simple symbol of partnership between bitter competitors remains an enduring legacy of the mission. 'It's amazing to think that two opposed countries with different systems and cultures, essentially ready to destroy each other, can somehow cooperate and do this highly technical, complicated mission,' said Asif Siddiqi, a professor of history at Fordham University and an expert on Russian space history. A generation after the orbital handclasp, the Soviets and the United States would come together to build the ISS. The aging space outpost's days are finite, and there are no immediate plans for Russia and the U.S. to sustain their cooperation in human spaceflight. The U.S. also sees itself as competing with China for dominance in space. But experts like Siddiqi see reasons for hope on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission. 'Whenever people tell me that this would never happen today, I always think, Well, that's what people said in the late '60s,' Siddiqi said. 'Androgynous' Dock Early in the space age, as America raced to catch up to the Soviet Union, a partnership in space had been proposed. In September 1963, speaking before the United Nations General Assembly two months before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy floated a joint mission to the moon. 'Why, therefore, should man's first flight to the moon be a matter of national competition?' he asked. 'Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries — indeed of all the world — cannot work together in the conquest of space.' This dream was deferred, and the U.S. would overtake the Soviets in the moon race with the successful Apollo 11 mission in 1969. Oddly, the American moon landing may have created a new window for cooperation. Public support for the Apollo missions fell, and the program was cut short after the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. That left the U.S. space program without an immediate objective. In parallel, both nations' reputations were tarnished abroad, the Soviet Union by its invasion of Czechoslovakia, and America by its involvement in the Vietnam War. That created an additional motivation to jointly reassert each country's status atop the global hierarchy. 'They needed to lift themselves and cooperate to show the rest of the world: We are as super and as great as ever before. We're doing things which no country can do in a similar capacity,' said Olga Krasnyak, an associate professor of international relations at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. This mutually recognized opportunity for prestige led to tentative talks between the country's officials in 1970. From the get-go, it was clear that the mission faced immense diplomatic, technical, and cultural obstacles. There was no smooth glide path to launch. 'How do we communicate with people who speak entirely different languages, and who think differently about engineering and problem-solving?' Brian C. Odom, NASA's chief historian, said. 'On paper, it seems easy. You launch, we launch, we come together, we shake hands, we go our separate ways. But making that happen, where you don't have five people dying in orbit, is incredibly difficult.' The sudden switch from enemies to partners, at least in this limited case, caused whiplash for the public and politicians alike (a scenario that was dramatized in the Apple TV alternative history series 'For All Mankind'). Zbigniew Brzezinski, who later served as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, criticized the Nixon and Ford administrations for the mission, calling it a 'technological giveaway.' Soviet space officials, who had long worked in secrecy, had to overcome wariness about loosening the flow of information to an adversary. The country's diplomats had to ensure that plans could be discussed without divulging anything sensitive to national security. Both sides were suspicious of the safety of the other's flagship spacecraft. The three astronauts selected for Apollo 1 perished in a fire during a rehearsal in 1967, while the three cosmonauts of Soyuz 11 died in space in 1971 when their cabin depressurized. Snipes about the superiority of one side's spacecraft over the other rankled insiders of the mission. American astronauts were used to a much more hands-on guidance system with Apollo, whereas Soyuz was largely automatic and controlled from the ground. The vehicles even used different atmospheres in their interiors. Soyuz simulates the familiar conditions of Earth, with a nitrogen-oxygen air mixture and a pressure equivalent to our planet at sea level. Apollo, in contrast, used a pure oxygen atmosphere at a much lower pressure. This discrepancy was solved by the development of a docking module with airtight hatches at each end. Once the module connected the two craft, crew members from one vehicle could enter, ensuring that both hatches were closed while it pressurized to match conditions of the other side. When that process was complete, the hatch to the other vehicle could be opened, allowing crews to safely enter without risking 'the bends,' a condition caused by rapid depressurization. For this particular mission, the Soyuz was kept at a lower pressure than normal to ease transitions between vehicles. The docking module was also purposefully designed to be androgynous to ensure that neither spacecraft was perceived as 'female,' or passive. As the mission planners navigated these headaches, a deep and abiding friendship flourished between the astronauts and cosmonauts. The Apollo side, headed by Stafford, also included Donald 'Deke' Slayton and Vance Brand. Leonov flew on the Soyuz side with Valery Kubasov. The crews learned each other's languages, though Leonov jokingly called Stafford's drawling pronunciation 'Oklahomski.' They trained together at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and Star City, the Russian space center outside Moscow. During these meetings, the space travelers hunted, drank and partied together. They shared steam baths and got into snowball fights. The two commanders remained particularly close for the rest of their lives: Leonov helped Stafford adopt two children from Russia, and Stafford gave a eulogy in Russian (or, rather, Oklahomski) at Leonov's funeral in 2019. The crews were 'setting an example, by being friendly and demonstrating cooperation,' said Brand, the last living member of the mission, in a 2000 interview with Rebecca Wright of NASA's Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. 'We actually came to have a very close relationship with the Soviet crew,' he added. Strawberry Juice and Borscht Against all odds, the crews finally reached their launch pads during the summer of 1975. On July 15, the Soyuz crew blasted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, followed by the Apollo crew, which launched about seven hours later from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The lead-up to docking was relatively smooth, though the Apollo crew discovered a 'super Florida mosquito' had stowed away with them, and Stafford joked that a juice spill had turned the Apollo into a 'strawberry-colored spacecraft.' The spaceships successfully docked at 12:12 p.m. Eastern time, July 17, high above the Atlantic Ocean. Hours later, the historic handshake was broadcast live to millions of viewers. The mission even inspired a cocktail called the Link Up, with equal parts Southern Comfort and vodka mixed with lime and ice, served at London's Savoy Hotel. The crew spent the next two days exchanging gifts, dining together (including borscht toasts), listening to music, and conducting experiments. The ships parted ways on July 19. After all the mutual worries about spacecraft safety, it was Apollo that ended up experiencing a serious incident, as toxic fumes filled the capsule during reentry. The brand lost consciousness, and the crew was hospitalized after splashdown. Despite this frightening conclusion of the mission, the astronauts quickly recovered and the mission was hailed as a diplomatic and technical success. 'A Little Bit Messy' A second Apollo-Soyuz mission was planned, but it never panned out. U.S.-Soviet tensions rose again during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. The countries did not directly team up again for years. However, both superpowers fostered new collaborations with their allies. During the 1980s, NASA space shuttle crews included Canadian, European, and Japanese astronauts, while the Soviet Union launched cosmonauts who came from Cuba, Poland, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and other countries. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans and Russians again joined forces in space, first aboard the Mir space station in the early 1990s. The American-Russian partnership is now the backbone of the ISS, which has remained continuously inhabited since the year 2000. That outpost is in its twilight years. Russia is discussing building its own separate successor space station, and the U.S. is seeding commercial outposts in orbit — efforts that can make Apollo-Soyuz seem like a distant memory. But Krasnyak, the Russian international relations expert, said that the legacy of this mission, and cooperative space exploration in general, remains important to Russians 50 years later. Whether the U.S. and Russia partner on future human spaceflights or not, she noted that the two powers continue to be world leaders shaping international deliberations on space. Siddiqi, the historian of Russian spaceflight, views the 1975 U.S.-Soviet mission as a forerunner for the complex international partnerships that characterize modern spaceflight, even if it's in a 'roundabout way.' 'It was a little bit messy, but the road leads back to Apollo-Soyuz,' he said. 'Other historians would see it differently, as a kind of rupture or as a one-off, but I see a lot of continuities.' Odom, NASA's chief historian, does not see Apollo-Soyuz as a direct progenitor of the ISS, or of other subsequent space collaborations. From his perspective, the mission's legacy is grounded more in the context of a time when two feuding powers extended an olive branch into orbit, with repercussions for how their citizens viewed each other back on Earth. 'The people who were involved come away from it thinking about what cooperation really might mean,' Odom said. 'If we can cooperate with the Soviet Union in this way, we can cooperate with anyone.' The direct communication and interpersonal relationships were a powerful spinoff from the mission, Odom added. 'The thing that they come away with is that 'oh, you're human beings just like us,' he said. 'You're not the monsters that we imagined or feared that you would be. You're just people trying to do a job and go about your daily life.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Surge of ticks in US Northeast sets off health concerns
STORY: In the woods an hour north of New York City, students are on high alert, not for bears or coyotes, but something much smaller: ticks, some the size of a sesame seed. They're dragging cloth through the terrain to collect the critters and hey're finding more arachnids than usual. Dr. Tom Daniels is the director of Fordham University's Louis Calder Center. 'It's been a really hot year for ticks. We're seeing numbers that are generally about 30 to 40% higher than we saw last year, for example.' The bulk of the students findings are blacklegged ticks, responsible for spreading Lyme disease. Other species included the American dog tick, which is linked to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and the invasive Asian longhorned tick. 'There's speculation, of course, that one of the reasons we're seeing more ticks, not just a number, but even a higher diversity, has to do with global warming. And that certainly is a factor. We're seeing ticks in areas that we hadn't seen them before. But the black legged tick numbers go up and down from one year to the next. And we don't always know why it is that that happens.' Scientists also point to a soaring deer population and people moving to more wooded areas. 'The wildlife is here, the ticks are here, and now we're here. And that raises our risk.' His lab also operates the Fordham Tick Index - tracking tick activity across the region. This summer it's consistently showing high risk for tick bites in the tri-state area: the region around southern New York, Connecticut and northern New Jersey. More tick bites means a greater risk for tick-borne illnesss like Lyme disease, which affects nearly half a million Americans annually, according to the CDC. Dr. Bruce Faber is an infectious disease physician. 'Only about three or 4% of ticks carry Lyme. Nevertheless, there's so many ticks and so many tick bites in certain areas. If you go hiking in the woods in the Northeast right now and you don't do anything to protect yourself, it would not be unusual to see that individual come back with five or ten ticks all over their body.' Experts are urging precautions like using tick repellents, wearing long sleeves and checking yourself and pets after activities outside.
