It’s Wednesday, and this week feels a little like it’s dragging to me…maybe it’s the weather? Right around this point every year, winter just seems like it will never end.
And in case you’re keeping count, there are 39 days until the first day of spring.
It’s National Umbrella Day. (I am not sure who thinks this stuff up and why umbrellas, which are undeniably handy and also frequently never around when you need one, require a whole day of appreciation, but the interwebs tell me that this is what we’re doing today, and so I believe them).
Umbrellas are not a modern invention. There is evidence of them in the ancient art and artifacts of Egypt Assyria, Greece and China, where the traditional of using a substance, in this case lacquer, to rain-proof an umbrella originated.
The word umbrella comes from the Latin word umbra, meaning shade or shadow. I personally prefer the term “bumbershoot” and am chagrined that it never caught on in modern parlance.
I am fairly certain that if you went into the street today and found someone willing to speak to you and tried out the word “bumbershoot” on them they would have no clue what you were on about.
It’s sad that we have so many amazing and descriptive words available to us in the English language (171,146 currently in use, according to the Oxford English Dictionary – the most of any language – not to mention 47,156 obsolete words) and only use a fraction of them.
The average active vocabulary of an adult English speaker is around 20,000 words, while their passive vocabulary is around 40,000 words. Some linguists say that you need to know just 10,000 words of any language to be considered fluent. (Although, of course, there’s debate about that).
On a completely unrelated note” I’m not sure if the whole “Queens Gambit” chess craze has died down, but it seems worth mentioning that this week in 1996, IMB’s Deep Blue became the first computer to win a chess match against a reigning world champion – Russia’s Garry Kasparov, who then proceeded to win the match by 4-2 games.
There was a rematch in 1997, and that didn’t go well for Kasparov.
More snow showers are on tap this morning, following by partly cloudy skies for the afternoon. Temperatures will be in the mid-to-high 20s.
In the headlines…
The Senate wrapped up initial arguments yesterday afternoon and is set to begin hearing evidence today in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial after rebuffing arguments by the former president’s lawyers that the entire proceeding was unconstitutional and lacked due process.
A divided Senate voted to proceed with the second impeachment trial, narrowly rejecting constitutional objections after House prosecutors opened their case with a harrowing 13-minute video capturing the deadly Capitol riot he stands accused of inciting.
Only six Republicans joined Democrats in agreeing to allow the trial to proceed, signaling there was not enough support for a conviction, (none of them were from New York).
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the Maryland Democrat who is the lead prosecutor in the second impeachment trial, choked back tears in his presentation.
Trump was reportedly unhappy with his impeachment lawyer Bruce Castor’s opening argument on the Senate floor yesterday.
Trump, who is no longer able to post on social media, has been reduced to quietly watching the proceedings unfold against him on TV while in Florida.
Twitter added users through the holiday quarter and said it continued to add more in January, a month it booted Trump from its platform.
Two members of the Proud Boys, an extremist group with ties to white nationalism, pleaded not guilty to charges that they conspired to interfere with police officers assigned to protect the Capitol during last month’s deadly riots.
The self-proclaimed shaman who donned horns, face paint and a fur hat while storming the U.S. Capitol last month issued a half-baked apology through his lawyer.
The Biden administration began requesting the resignations of remaining Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys, but not David Weiss, the chief federal prosecutor in Delaware overseeing a continuing tax investigation involving the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Also spared: John Durham, the Connecticut federal prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General William Barr to investigate the origins of the Russia inquiry.
Biden pressed business leaders to back his $1.9 trillion economic aid package, but received no public declarations of support for a $15 minimum wage that is part of the legislation and that the president has said is vital to providing relief for struggling Americans.
Eight minority correctional officers at a Minnesota county jail filed a racial discrimination lawsuit claiming they were barred from guarding the former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death.
Business software provider Salesforce plans for most of its employees to work remotely part or full time after the pandemic and to reduce its real-estate footprint as a result, showing Covid-19’s lasting impact on how companies manage their workforces.
It is “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus leaked from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where Covid-19 first emerged, according to the head of a team of experts that released the first details of its fact-finding mission into the virus’s origins.
The number of known coronavirus variant cases in the U.S. has surged 73% in the last week alone, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released late yesterday.
The most severe surge of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. has weakened significantly, according to key metrics, though public-health experts and epidemiologists urge caution, given the spread of highly contagious new variants.
Experts argue more must be done to protect society’s vulnerable populations after a study revealed that individuals with dementia – in particular Black Americans – are at an increased risk of getting COVID-19.
Federal health officials are struggling to gather accurate data on the race and ethnicity of people being vaccinated against the coronavirus, hampering Biden’s push for racial equity in a pandemic that has taken a disproportionate toll on communities of color.
The CEO of Johnson & Johnson said that people may need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 annually for the next several years — similar to seasonal flu shots.
The city’s First Lady Chirlane McCray received a COVID vaccine at Kings County Hospital, an effort to encourage New Yorkers who are wary of getting jabbed. “It was so easy,” she said. “It was just a pinch.”
The majority of New York City’s COVID-19 vaccination hubs are only staying open four days a week as the Big Apple battles dwindling supplies.
Officials are warning New Yorkers with underlying health conditions to expect a mad “crush” of people trying to sign up for vaccine appointments when state eligibility opens up to them next week – an influx that may mark the biggest stress test the already taxed and still young system has seen so far.
New York will be getting an additional 5% bump in COVID vaccine shipments from the federal government in the coming weeks, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced.
“That is a big deal. This vaccine is the weapon that will win the war,” Cuomo said. “We know the vaccine is successful, and it’s now a question of production and supply. So there is reason to be optimistic and hopeful. The numbers are coming down, the vaccines are going up.”
A group of state Senate Democrats fed up with Cuomo’s handling of nursing homes during the COVID-19 pandemic have advanced bills that would bolster accountability and oversight of the facilities as well as of the state Health Department.
Rep. Tom Reed, a Corning Republican, took his criticisms of New York’s Covid nursing home fatalities’ controversy to the state Capitol yesterday and one floor above his chief target in the matter: Cuomo.
Republican lawmakers from across New York stood unified in their continuing calls for investigations of Cuomo’s policies governing the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in nursing homes.
Cuomo deflected blame for the use of an unproven COVID-19 treatment administered at a state-run nursing home in Queens.
Fifty Long Island school districts could be losing state aid under Cuomo’s executive budget proposal.
Forty percent of New Yorkers said they would support a recall procedure to boot Cuomo from office before his term expires in November 2022, a new Zogby poll reveals. (The state does not actually have such a procedure).
A federal judge has struck down an executive order by Cuomo that instituted percentage-based capacity limits on houses of worship in his state’s COVID-19 cluster zones where cases were increasing.
The Oneida County Executive, Republican Anthony Picente, is calling on Cuomo to fire two elections commissioners whose errors came to light in the NY-22 race, which finally concluded earlier this week.
The restaurant and arcade chain Dave & Buster’s has sued Cuomo for refusing to let arcades reopen although similar entertainment facilities including movie theaters, bowling alleys and casinos have been allowed to again welcome patrons.
An ultra-Orthodox Jewish organization that last summer battled local officials over COVID-19 closures and restrictions is suing Schoharie County in federal court alleging they were targeted for their religious views.
New York City will put about 62,000 more middle school students back in classrooms, meaning that a quarter of the city’s 1 million public school students will be learning in person by March.
Tuxedo, a stray cat, was “the mayor” at the Brooklyn housing complex where he lived and was killed by two dogs after being knocked out of a tree. A man accused of torture in the death says he is innocent.
Condé Nast is withholding $2.4 million in rent at One World Trade Center for January 2021 and could withhold further sums in the coming months as part of a rent dispute with its landlords, according to a recent bond document filing.
In 2020, startup funding in New York City broke records. Depending on which report you read, investors injected between $12 billion and $20 billion into area startup companies.
The MTA is behind schedule on a state-mandated report meant to encourage transit leaders to make sure they are properly spending the public’s money.
Benches have returned to a Manhattan subway station days after the seats were yanked in what the MTA initially characterized as an attempt to prevent homeless people from hunkering down on the seating.
The New York Stock Exchange may leave New York State if Albany imposes a transfer tax on stock sales, the president of the Intercontinental Exchange-owned exchange operator said.
The five female reporters who settled a gender discrimination suit against NY1 now claim the station has retaliated against them by refusing to nominate their work for Emmy Awards, according to a complaint filed with the city Commission on Human Rights.
An Albany appeals court heard arguments in the cases of 46 certified state Supreme Court judges who argue New York’s judicial branch unlawfully terminated their time on the bench to protect its billion-dollar budget.
Attorney General Letitia James is aiming to muzzle two protesters who routinely harass women entering a Planned Parenthood clinic on Bleecker St. in NoHo.
Seven more Capital Region residents have died due to complications from COVID-19, pushing the region’s known death toll from the disease closer to the 1,000-mark, data published yesterday show.
Siena men’s basketball coach Carmen Maciariello revealed he tested positive for COVID-19 and experienced symptoms that included fever, chills, back pain and headaches.
An accomplice of convicted fraudster Michael P. Fish illegally hacked into computer accounts to steal naked photographs and videos from dozens of unsuspecting female students at SUNY Plattsburgh, court papers showed.
Fish is now charged with fabricating six self-serving letters to a federal judge – including ones attributed to his mother, grandparents and a woman he briefly dated.
Albany International Airport announced the start of a two-year effort to update its master plan.
Stockade residents are seeing red after city police issued a flurry of parking tickets following last week’s snowfall.
Pop star Britney Spears shared a message last night after a New York Times documentary about her life debuted last week, saying she’s taking time to “learn to be a normal person.”
The legal battle over who should control Spears’s finances and personal life returns to the courtroom this week amid a renewed discussion of how she was treated during her meteoric rise and during her subsequent mental health struggles.
Aunt Jemima has a new name: the Pearl Milling Company. Pearl Milling Co. was the creator of the original self-rising pancake mix, first marketed as “Self-Rising Pancake Flour” before it was trademarked in 1890 under the Aunt Jemima brand.
Princess Eugenie and husband Jack Brooksbank welcomed their first child, a baby boy, yesterday. The royal couple announced the news with an Instagram post, captioned with blue heart emojis.
A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon has stepped up and offered to remove the Gorilla Glue from Tessica Brown’s hair for free.
