News

Stocks took a beating yesterday as fears of a recession and saber-rattling over tariffs continued to give Wall Street the jitters. The tech-heavy Nasdaq saw a drop of four percent for its worst session since September 2022. The S&P 500 dropped 2.7 percent, hitting its lowest level since last September. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 900 points, or just over two percent. WRCR market analyst Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management says there’s going to be a lot of pain in the short-term, something unexpected from a pro-business, anti-regulation administration…

Leading the declines Monday in the tech space, Tesla tumbled fifteen percent for its worst day since 2020, Alphabet and Meta, the parent companies of Google and Facebook, each fell more than four percent, and AI company Nvidia lost five percent.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is expecting mass layoffs as early as June, cutting more than 80,000 workers from the agency. That’s according to Reuters, which reported the department’s HR team will review the agency’s operations and eliminate thousands of civil service positions. Marc Carlo is the Director of Veteran Services at Bridges’ Joseph P. Dwyer Peer Support Program, and a former U.S. Marine Corps Sergeant. Carlo says there are sometimes non-veterans working at the VA who don’t quite understand veterans’ issues…

The campaign by the Trump administration has reportedly pushed more than 100,000 people out of the 2.3 million-member federal civilian workforce. The VA provides services to around 16 million U.S. veterans.

Two deaths in New Mexico and Texas are now linked to the measles, which is seeing a resurgence in the country and around the world lately. Rockland County Executive Ed Day says the experience of having gone through a measles outbreak back in October 2018 that lasted nearly a year has prepared the county well for any potential resurgence here, which so far, hasn’t been seen…

Day says the measles is a powerful virus that can be highly transmissible if precautions aren’t taken. Children who don’t get vaccinated risk serious illness, particularly those under age five, who are at highest risk for severe complications including pneumonia, encephalitis and death. Measles can also put children at higher risk for other potentially fatal childhood diseases by causing their immune systems to break down. For more information, click the links below.

https://www.rocklandcountyny.gov/departments/health/communicable-diseases/measles

https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/communicable/measles

www.Vaccine.gov

High winds Friday took down some power lines along Route 9W in Upper Nyack, causing the roadway to be temporarily closed as flames were sparking from the downed wires. The Clarkstown Police Department says the incident occurred just after noon on Friday between Christian Herald Road and Glenbrook Road. On Friday’s “Who Wants to be a Volunteer” program, Rockland’s Director of Fire and Emergency Services, Chris Kear, said Orange County appeared to get hit worse by the winds than Rockland did…

Kurt Mulligan of the Stony Point Fire Department said a fire also sparked up Wednesday night in Sloatsburg, causing an outage in western Ramapo… 

If you encounter downed or low-hanging power lines, do not touch them. Immediately call 911 to report the situation, and also call Orange & Rockland to alert them as well. Meanwhile, a brush fire out on Long Island has reportedly burned more than 400 acres is now over 80% contained. Governor Kathy Hochul declared a multi-regional burn ban due to the conditions including Rockland and the rest of the Hudson Valley. The ban prohibits outdoor fires for brush and debris disposal, uncontained campfires, and open fires used for cooking.