April 24, 2024

Wednesday, April 24, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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Breakin’ News. Senate Approves Aid for Ukraine and Israel, Sending It to Biden’s Desk.

An enormous victory for the President and Democracy. The President just got every dime of Ukraine aid and humanitarian relief he asked for despite Republican and Trump resistance and sometime madness. The Senate’s vote was 79 to 18.

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Joe is always busy.

Moving America forward.

"How a society treats its most vulnerable is always the measure of its humanity.”

This is also a big win for American workers.

Biden moves to shield patients’ abortion records from GOP threats.

A patient is accompanied to an abortion procedure at the Acacia Women's Center in Phoenix on April 12. The Biden administration moved Monday to protect the medical records of abortion patients and their providers.

The Biden administration on Monday announced new rules intended to protect the privacy of patients seeking abortions, and the health workers who may have provided them, from Republican prosecutors who have threatened to crack down on the procedure.


The rules strengthen a nearly 30-year-old health privacy law — known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — to offer more robust legal protections to those who obtain or provide reproductive health care in a state where it is legal to do so.

The final policy prohibits physicians, insurers and other health-care organizations from disclosing health information to state officials for the purposes of conducting an investigation, filing a lawsuit or prosecuting a patient or provider.

It covers women who cross state lines to legally terminate a pregnancy and those who qualify for an exception to their state’s abortion ban, such as in cases of rape, incest or a medical emergency.


Under previous rules, organizations were allowed to disclose private medical information to law enforcement in certain cases, such as a criminal investigation. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services said they had heard from patients and providers who were confused about their legal risks or had even deferred care amid GOP threats in the nearly two dozen states with abortion restrictions.

“People feel scared to confide in their providers. People are worried in this new climate about how their medical information might be used,” said Melanie Fontes Rainer, director of the civil rights office at HHS, which revamped the rules. “The goal here is to reinstate trust into the provider medical relationship. … The goal here is that people don’t stay home if they’re too scared to get care.”

Monday’s announcement is the latest effort by the Biden administration intended to safeguard reproductive health care, a central element of President Biden’s reelection bid. However, the swell of criminal prosecutions that many abortion rights advocates and Democrats feared hasn’t materialized since the Supreme Court’s ruling nearly two years ago in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. State abortion bans explicitly exempt those seeking abortions from prosecution.

But doctors can face steep fines and jail time, and many health-care workers have said they are confused about the current legal landscape governing abortion access, such as whether a federal emergency care law takes priority over state abortion bans, as the Biden administration has argued. HHS and reproductive rights advocates have also cited cases such as the arrest of Brittany Watts as examples of the need for stronger privacy protections. Watts, an Ohio medical receptionist, has said she miscarried at home last year and told a nurse, who then reported the situation to police.

Some GOP leaders have insisted they need access to patients’ reproductive health information to ensure that their states’ abortion restrictions are effective. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) this month said his state’s terminated-pregnancy reports, which offer some identifying information about individual abortions, should be released as public records.

Nineteen Republican attorneys general last year bashed the Biden administration’s efforts to overhaul HIPAA as unnecessary and unconstitutional.

Biden officials have “pushed a false narrative that States are seeking to treat pregnant women as criminals or punish medical personnel who provide lifesaving care,” the attorneys general wrote in a June 2023 letter to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “Based on this lie, the Administration has sought to wrest control over abortion back from the people in defiance of the Constitution and Dobbs.”

The White House has countered that federal privacy laws were insufficient for a post-Roe world.

Under new state abortion restrictions, “it’s going to be a crime, which means that it is very likely if law enforcement requests your personal and private medical records, they may be entitled to receive them,” Vice President Harris said at an administration meeting on reproductive health care last year. “Part of the conversation that we are having today is what we can do … to reinforce protections for patients’ privacy.”

Fontes Rainer said the effort is personal to her. The HHS civil rights official said she was pregnant last year with twins before miscarrying and needing an abortion.

“It is my absolute duty to share my story, and to do everything I can to [help] the millions of women across the country who don’t have a voice,” Fontes Rainer said in an interview Sunday, adding that her office worked “pretty quickly” to overhaul the federal health privacy rules.

heard of a problem that was happening. … And we wrote this rule in a way that allows for lawful reproductive health care,” she said.

During the summer, some congressional Democrats — including Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — urged the administration to go further than what it had proposed. They unsuccessfully pressed for the final rules to include a requirement that law enforcement agencies obtain a warrant before forcing doctors and pharmacists to hand over patients’ private medical information. Instead, HHS is requiring plans and providers to get an attestation in some instances from those seeking medical records that the information won’t be used for a prohibited purpose.

Requiring search warrants “as a condition of the use or disclosure of [protected health information] is beyond the scope of this final rule,” HHS wrote.

Biden’s ability to intervene in states with abortion bans is limited, so administration officials have focused on issuing guidelines, executive orders and legal interpretations aimed at offering piecemeal protections.

“We have no illusion that everything that the president has urged us to do with our authorities is going to undo Dobbs,” Becerra said Monday at a news conference.

The new rules won praise from abortion rights groups such as Reproductive Freedom for All, which called the measure an “important step in protecting reproductive freedom and ensuring all of us can make our own decisions about pregnancy and abortion.”

Conservatives characterized the rule as an overreach. Roger Severino, who led the HHS civil rights office during the Trump administration, criticized Biden officials for “threatening medical providers to prevent them from cooperating with law enforcement.”

“This puts medical providers in an impossible situation,” Severino added. “Either they comply with federal law with respect to a warrant or they violate the HIPAA rule, which could carry criminal penalties.”

A prominent antiabortion group slammed the rule, which arrives just over six months before the presidential election.

“It should surprise no one that the radical abortion lobby controlling the Biden Administration wants to interject itself between law enforcement and possibly law-breaking abortionists,” Kristi Hamrick, a spokesperson for Students for Life Action, wrote in an email.

“Elections have consequences, and this is one of them,” Hamrick wrote. “When Biden won, the stakes were not just one person at the top of the ticket, but an entire administration that can weaponize policy.” (The Washington Post).

Biden administration finalizes rule to grant overtime for millions more salaried workers.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Biden administration has finalized a new rule set to make millions of more salaried workers eligible for overtime pay in the U.S.

The move marks the largest expansion in federal overtime eligibility seen in decades. Starting July 1, employers will be required pay overtime to salaried workers who make less than $43,888 a year in certain executive, administrative and professional roles, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That cap will then rise to $58,656 by the start of 2025.

“Too often, lower-paid salaried workers are doing the same job as their hourly counterparts but are spending more time away from their families for no additional pay. That is unacceptable,” acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su said in a prepared statement.

She added that the administration was “following through on our promise to raise the bar.”

Tuesday’s news marks a significant jump from the current overtime eligibility threshold of $35,568, which was set under the Trump administration in 2019 — just three years after a more generous Obama-era effort was ultimately scuttled in court after facing pushback from some business leaders and Republican politicians.

Under the federal law, nearly all hourly workers in the U.S. are entitled to overtime pay after 40 hours a week. But many salaried workers are exempt from that requirement — unless they earn below a certain level.

The new rule also expands overtime eligibility for some highly-compensated workers. According to a Labor Department FAQ, the current $107,432 annual threshold for highly-compensated workers is set to increase to $132,964 on July 1 and $151,164 by the start of 2025.

The Labor Department estimates that 4 million lower-paid salary workers who are exempt under current regulations will become eligible for overtime protections in the first year under the new rule. An additional 292,900 higher-compensated workers are also expected to get overtime entitlements.

The July 1 increases update the current salary thresholds using methodology put in place under the Trump administration’s 2019 regulation. The new rule’s methodology takes effect Jan. 1, the Labor Department said, with salary thresholds set to update every three years based on the latest wage data.

The Biden administration first announced plans for its new rule in late August, and submitted a proposal in September. The Labor Department said it “conducted extensive engagement with employers, workers, unions and other stakeholders” and considered more than 33,000 comments as it developed the final rule.

Critics have argued that the new regulation could saddle companies with new costs and add to persistent labor challenges. In a statement, U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican and chair of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said that employers “are staring down the barrel of billions in annual costs to comply with the rule” while calling the regulation “excessive and heavy-handed.”

Meanwhile, advocates applauded the administration’s rule — with some noting that such a move is overdue. The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute says that the overtime threshold has not been updated properly for almost 50 years — leaving millions without such federal protections.

“The rule is an important step toward correctly valuing one of the most precious resources workers have — their time,” EPI president Heidi Shierholz said Tuesday. “This rule is an essential milestone in creating a stronger, fairer economy.” (Associated Press).

Statement from President Joe Biden on Passover | The White House.

Tomorrow night, Jews around the world will celebrate Passover, recounting their miraculous Exodus story from hundreds of years of enslavement in Egypt and their journey to freedom. This holiday reminds us of a profound and powerful truth: that even in the face of persecution, if we hold on to faith, we shall endure and overcome.
 
As Jews mark Passover with storytelling, songs, and rituals, they will also read from the Haggadah how, in every generation, they have been targeted by those who would seek to destroy them. This year, those words carry deeper resonance and pain in the wake of Hamas’ unspeakable evil on October 7th – the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. More than 1,200 people were brutally massacred. Women and girls were subjected to appalling sexual violence. More than 250 innocents were taken hostage, including Americans. We can never forget the horror of Hamas’ despicable atrocities.
 
Jews around the world are still coping with the trauma of that day and its aftermath. This Passover falls particularly hard on hostage families trying to honor the spirit of the holiday – a story centered on freedom – while their loved ones remain in captivity. Our hearts are with all the victims, survivors, families, and friends whose loved ones have been killed, taken hostage, wounded, displaced, or are in harm’s way.
 
My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad. My Administration is working around the clock to free the hostages, and we will not rest until we bring them home. We are also working to establish an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza as a part of a deal that releases the hostages and delivers desperately needed humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians. We will continue to work toward a two-state solution that provides equal security, prosperity, and enduring peace for Israelis and Palestinians. And we are leading international efforts to ensure Israel can defend itself against Iran and its proxies, including by directing the U.S. military to help defend Israel against Iran’s unprecedented attacks last weekend.
 
The ancient story of persecution against Jews in the Haggadah also reminds us that we must speak out against the alarming surge of Antisemitism – in our schools, communities, and online. Silence is complicity. Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant Antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country. My Administration will continue to speak out and aggressively implement the first-ever National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism, putting the full force of the federal government behind protecting the Jewish community.
 
This year, let us remember the central Passover theme that even in the darkest of times, the promise of God’s protection will give us strength to find hope, resilience, and redemption. To all those celebrating this Festival of Freedom: Jill and I wish you a Happy Passover, Chag Sameach.
 

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Kamala is always busy.

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The Trump Criminal Trial in New York.

From Joyce Vance -

For starters, some important news: The state of New York will make daily transcripts of the trial available. They announced each day’s transcript would be available by the end of the following day. You can also find key pleadings and orders at the link. Bookmark it and you can follow up on any specific parts of the day’s proceedings that interest you.

Joyce Vance’s description of the Opening Statements deserves our attention.

From Joyce Vance -

The Prosecutor, Jerry Colangelo.

As for today, we got opening statements from both sides and a few minutes of testimony from the first witness who, as expected, turned out to be David Pecker. We’ll leave his testimony for tomorrow, when we’ve seen more of it, and focus first on the opening statements.

The People

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo's first line: "This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a cover-up."

He told jurors that Donald Trump tried to corrupt the 2016 election, then he covered up that conspiracy by “lying in his New York business records over and over and over again.” This is the statutory charge that Trump created false business records to aid in the commission of or conceal another crime.

Colangelo walked the jury through the origins of the scheme with an August 2015 meeting Trump invited David Pecker to at Trump Tower, where they were joined by Michael Cohen. The catch-and-kill conspiracy was hatched shortly after Trump announced his candidacy. There were several successful catches and kills. One involved Playboy model Karen McDougal, who had a story about a long term affair with Trump. Colangelo previewed the evidence for the jury, telling them that, “Cohen went to the defendant and the evidence will show that the defendant desperately did not want this information to go public and he was worried about the effect on the election.” Apparently, Cohen made a tape of the call where they set up the scheme to catch and kill McDougal’s story, and the jury was promised they would get to hear it.

Then, the Access Hollywood tape was released. Colangelo told jurors, “the impact of that video on the campaign was immediate and explosive.” That led to the payment to Stormy Daniels, because of concerns that anything else would topple the campaign. He read the jury some of the now-notorious language Trump used in the Access Hollywood tape, including “grab them by the p*ssy,” explaining that as a result, endorsements of Trump were withdrawn, and the Republican National Committee considered whether they were too late to replace their nominee.

Colangelo called Trump’s scheme with Pecker and AMI “a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy to influence the 2016 election” by silencing people with something bad to say and doctoring the records. “We’ll never know, and it doesn’t matter,” Colangelo said, “if this conspiracy was a difference maker in the close election.” 

Colangelo rehearsed the details of how Cohen paid Stormy Daniels and was reimbursed, the core of the crime Trump is charged with. The people will offer both testimony and documents to prove their claims. Because he’s central to much of the story, prosecutors would have undoubtedly liked to have Trump’s CFO Allen Weisselberg as a witness. But second best is the damage he’s done to himself if he tries to testify for Trump—he’s currently serving a misdemeanor sentence for lying to protect him.

Of course, Cohen, too, is a convicted liar. But his story is different. He pled guilty, came clean, and has told a consistent story, corroborated by others, since then. The people will acknowledge Cohen is deeply flawed. “Cohen has made mistakes in his past … Michael Cohen has a criminal record,” Colangelo told the jury. But look for the prosecution to hammer home in their closing argument who picked Michael Cohen as a witness in this case: Donald Trump.

Everything Cohen says will be corroborated. Colangelo tells the jury that his backup will come from witnesses like David Pecker and Keith Davidson. They’ll also see emails, texts, phone logs, business documents, and, "Donald Trump’s own words on tape, in social media posts, in his own books and in videos of his own speeches”

Colangelo gave the jury a road map that will help them understand the evidence as it comes in and a framework for evaluating the crimes the people have charged. That’s the prosecution’s job in opening statement. It’s nothing flashy. It’s laying a solid foundation to build a case on, and they did a stellar job today.

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The Defendant

Trump’s attorney, Todd Blanche.

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, started with this: “President Trump is innocent. President Trump did not commit any crimes. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office should never have brought this case.”

Blanche’s job in opening was different than the prosecution’s. Instead of building a base to develop, he’s looking for one or more holdout jurors and hoping to give them a strong narrative they can hold onto, to refuse to convict. While there’s a chance the defense might be able to exploit some technical flaw in the prosecution’s case and seek a true acquittal, that would be unusual. Having two lawyers on the jury who may be in tune with technicalities, though, means that the prosecution will have to be extremely thorough. It’s as likely that Blanche was talking to those jurors as to anyone else when he began to set the table for a “not guilty” narrative.

There was an awkward moment when Blanche tried to present his client as just a regular guy. “He's not just Donald Trump that you've seen on TV and read about and seen photos of. He's also a man. He's a husband. He's a father. And he's a person, just like you and just like me.” Blanche also focused, perhaps at the request of his client, who repeated the same theme to the press as he exited the courthouse, on the idea that the conduct in this case occurred years ago: “Most of the documents are from 2015, 2016, 2017, years and years ago, pre-COVID. And you're going to hear witnesses talk about conversations, meetings, people they met with from 2015.” Perhaps this will become a subtle effort at jury nullification, with the argument being that this conduct is too old for jurors to care about. Legally, that’s irrelevant, and Trump’s team has been prohibited from arguing that this is a political prosecution, which is where this would seem to be headed. But this theme is worth keeping an eye on, but it seemed to be a focus.

The real question is whether Blanche overpromised. It’s one thing to dig away at the government’s proof and say there are questions about whether it’s adequate. Blanche went beyond that, “The story that you just heard, you will learn, is not true.”

But he did seem successful at flagging some potential areas for the jury to play close attention to. Blanche suggested that invoices were processed and records were made in ledgers by people who weren’t Trump, that he signed the checks because he was the signatory on the account, not because he was aware of the true nature of the transaction. It’s the same defense that kept Trump from being indicted when Weisselberg and the Trump Organization were convicted on criminal fraud charges. This is the reasonable doubt argument—Trump was just signing off on what looked like legitimate legal bills to him.

If prosecutors can make good on their promise that they have first-hand conversations, backed up by other documents that establish Trump’s knowledge and participation, this dog won’t hunt (as southern prosecutors say). Blanche’s promise to the jury was that “You'll learn President Trump had nothing to do with any of the 34 pieces of paper, the 34 counts, except he signed on to the checks, in the White House while he was running the country. That's not a crime.” That sounds good, but there’s no reason to believe prosecutors have overclaimed their evidence—that would be a foolish strategy, and these are not foolish prosecutors. In the end, it may well be Blanche and by extension, his client that the jury holds accountable for broken promises.

The defense theme in opening statement was that Donald Trump is not responsible for what Michael Cohen did. Trump’s problem is that the people appear to have receipts.

One final thought: Defendant Trump could survive a trial without the risk of going to prison if he is acquitted or if even one juror refuses to convict because they are convinced the people haven’t proved their case against him. But Candidate Trump needs more. He needs to be able to walk away and credibly claim that he’s actually innocent. That’s unlikely here. This case is far more likely to come down to the amount of proof, not some mysterious revelation that Trump did nothing wrong leading to exoneration. Absent some tale of innocence it’s likely that Trump will try to burn down the legitimacy of the legal system to save himself.

How the story of the case is told to the public will be critical, especially since it’s not televised. Having transcripts is great, but reading them every day is a major commitment. We know that people who aren’t following along will get much of their news from trusted sources, people who are close to them. So make sure you stay up to speed and talk with people around you. Make sure you share what you’re seeing, reading, and thinking. (Civil Discourse)

Day 2 of the Criminal Trial (aka as Day 6, depending on how you count).

NEW YORK (AP) — A veteran tabloid publisher testified Tuesday that he pledged to be Donald Trump ‘s “eyes and ears” during his 2016 presidential campaign, recounting how he promised the then-candidate that he would help suppress harmful stories and even arranged to purchase the silence of a doorman.

With Trump sitting just feet away in the courtroom, Pecker detailed his intimate, behind-the-scenes involvement in Trump’s rise from political novice to the Republican nomination and the White House. He explained how he and the National Enquirer parlayed rumor-mongering into splashy tabloid stories that smeared Trump’s opponents and, just as crucially, leveraged his connections to suppress seamy stories about Trump, including a porn actor’s claim of an extramarital sexual encounter a decade earlier.

Pecker traced the origins of their relationship to a 1980s meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and said the friendship bloomed alongside the success of the real estate developer’s TV show “The Apprentice” and the program’s subsequent celebrity version.

Their ties were solidified during a pivotal August 2015 meeting at Trump Tower involving Trump, his lawyer and personal fixer Michael Cohen, and another aide, Hope Hicks, in which Pecker was asked what he and the publications he led could do for the campaign.

Pecker said he volunteered to publish positive stories about Trump and negative stories about his opponents. But that wasn’t all, he said, telling jurors how he told Trump: “I will be your eyes and ears.”

“I said that anything I hear in the marketplace, if I hear anything negative about yourself, or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,” so that the rights could be purchased and the stories could be killed.

“So they would not get published?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.

“So they would not get published,” Pecker replied.

yourself, or if I hear about women selling stories, I would notify Michael Cohen,” so that the rights could be purchased and the stories could be killed.

“So they would not get published?” asked prosecutor Joshua Steinglass.

“So they would not get published,” Pecker replied.

Pecker painted Cohen as a shadow editor of the National Enquirer’s pro-Trump coverage, directing the tabloid to go after whichever Republican candidate was gaining momentum.

“I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me and direct Dylan Howard which candidate and which direction we should go,” Pecker said, referring to the tabloid’s then-editor.

In another instance, Pecker recounted a $30,000 payment from the National Enquirer to a Trump Tower doorman for the rights to a rumor that Trump had fathered a child with an employee at Trump World Tower. The tabloid concluded the story was not true, and the woman and Trump have denied the allegations.

“I made the decision to purchase the story because of the potential embarrassment it had to the campaign and to Mr. Trump,” Pecker said.

Pecker’s testimony Tuesday followed a hearing earlier in the day in which prosecutors urged Judge Juan M. Merchan to hold Trump in contempt and fine him $1,000 for each of 10 social media posts that they say violated an earlier gag order barring attacks on witnesses, jurors and others involved in the case.

Merchan did not immediately rule. . .

(Associated Press, to read the whole article, click on the blue highlighted link above).

New York Times - Tabloid Publisher Testifies Trump Asked Him to ‘Help the Campaign.’

Pecker will resume his testimony on Thursday. Tomorrow is a day off.

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Here is the transcript of Day 1- April 22 - of the Trump criminal trial.

https://pdfs.nycourts.gov/PeopleVs.DTrump-71543/transcripts/P.v%20Trump%20Transcript%20042244.pdf

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Worry Less. Do More.

Yes, plan to go to a swing state to register voters or go down the street and register voters. Or think of all the college kids you know and make sure they are registered to vote (especially if their school is in a swing state that allows college students to vote there), or just post this👇 on your social media.

Leave no vote behind!

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From Simon Rosenberg -

There have been three North Carolina polls released in the last few weeks and all have the Biden Trump race within margin of error, or essentially tied. But more importantly, two have our gubernatorial nominee there, Josh Stein, up by 8 and 9 points. While the Stein winning doesn’t guarantee that Biden wins in North Carolina, it makes it far more likely. And of course . . .our friend Anderson Clayton, with our help and support, is building the most ambitious and effective field operation the Tar Heel state has ever seen.

Friends, we’ve had a lot of good political news in the last few days. Biden’s rising poll numbers, Trump’s ongoing terrible April, the very strong first quarter financial reports, the big win on Ukraine, etc.

Ruben Gallego, Democratic candidate, running against Kari Lake, to be Senator from Arizona.

But to me, what is happening in Arizona and North Carolina may be the best news of all, and it’s why I hope you will consider making donations to Ruben Gallego and Anderson Clayton today. Winning Arizona and North Carolina has been our focus here, and will almost certainty continue to be through November. ___________________________________________

The Eclipse is not the only reason to look at the sky.

April’s full ‘pink’ moon rises Tuesday night. What you need to know.

April’s full moon, commonly known as the “pink” moon, is set to rise in Tuesday evening’s sky and remain nearly fully illuminated Wednesday night, as well.

The “pink moon” isn’t actually pink — it will look like any other moon. It is named for coinciding with the annual onset of blossoms in North America heralding the warm months ahead.

It won’t be alone in the night sky. The Lyrid meteor shower is ongoing, and several planets will also be visible.

When will the pink moon appear?

The pink moon officially becomes full at 7:49 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, near the time it rises above the horizon in the east-southeast sky in the eastern United States.

In Washington, moonrise is at 7:52 p.m.

In much of the United States, moonrise will also occur close to sunset. In Washington, for example, sunset is at 7:54 p.m.

Since the moon appears largest when it is near the horizon and the sunset period gives and appealing ambient light, Tuesday’s moonrise will offer an excellent photo opportunity.

Why is it called a pink moon?

The pink moon comes at a time of year that blossoms, such as the colorful pastel carpet of creeping phlox, are plentiful, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

Phlox grows in Silver Spring, Md., in 2014.

Most of the favored monikers for our stellar companion come from Native Americans, but other cultures use different names. The April full moon is also known as the egg moon, fish moon and grass moon.

What else can you see in the sky around the pink moon?

April’s Lyrid meteor shower is near its peak as the pink moon illuminates our skies. Unfortunately, the light of the moon will make it more difficult to see the relatively faint trails from any meteors, but keen and patient skywatchers could still be rewarded.

Up to 10 to 20 meteors per hour could be spotted, mainly away from city lights. If you’re out observing, NASA notes, it is best to look away from the constellation Lyra — where the meteors appear to originate — so any trails will appear longer and more vibrant.

Jupiter will also be visible low on the western horizon through the late evening hours on the East Coast. A planetary pairing of Mars and Saturn should also be viewable low on the eastern horizon during the pre-dawn hours.

After the pink moon passes, the next full moon — known as the flower moon — will rise May 23. (The Washington Post)

Sunset in NYC is 7:38 pm on Wednesday.

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