Good Tuesday morning, and welcome to a whole new month!
For the record, 2022 is NOT a leap year (when we add an additional 29th day to the shortest month of the year, which, even then, is still shorter than every other 30-day month in the calendar).
I had to Google that one, because I can never remember the schedule for that.
Leap year makes no sense to me, and I can never remember why we have it. So, in short: February has only 28 days because of the Roman superstition that even numbers are unlucky. It’s really too long to go into, unless you really want to go down a rabbit hole, in which case, click here and/or here.
For the record, the next leap year is 2024. Apparently, the extra day is traditionally a time for women to propose to men instead of the other way around (for cisgender folks, anyway).
For a short month, February really packs a lot in – including but not limited to Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14), Groundhog Day (Feb. 2), Presidents Day (Feb. 21), the Super Bowl (Feb. 13) and the start of the Lunar New Year (Feb. 1-15).
Sometimes, Mardi Gras also falls in February, but this year it will be on March 1.
February is also Black History Month, and has been officially designated as such by every president since 1976.
We kick things off with National Freedom Day, which commemorates the day in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln signed what would later become the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the U.S., though it wasn’t ratified until Dec. 18, 1865.
Maj. Richard Robert Wright Sr., a college founder and banker who was born into slavery, led the effort to create National Freedom Day when he was in his eighties.
His effort wasn’t realized until one year after his death, when both houses of the U.S. Congress passed a bill to make the day a reality. President Truman signed the bill into law 1948 and this helped give rise to national recognition for both Black History Week and Black History Month.
It is also the start of the aforementioned Lunar New Year, (also known to some as Chinese New Year, although it is celebrated across a number of Asian cultures, each of which has its own traditions and customs). It’s the Year of the Tiger, and NYC schools are closed, (this has been the case since 2016).
Food plays a big role in the celebration of Lunar New Year. Dumplings bring wealth. Noodles represent longevity and happiness. Fish is eaten to increase prosperity.
And on a totally unrelated note that will make my fellow Gen Xers feel really, REALLY old…on this day in 1982, David Letterman launched his first evening talk show, Late Night with David Letterman, featuring inauguration guest, comedian and actor Bill Murray.
If you happen to run into singer Harry Styles, be sure to wish him a happy 28th birthday.
It’s going to warm up to a downright balmy 35 degrees in the Albany area today, while here in the Keys, the mercury will be headed into the mid-70s – just in time for me to head home. Isn’t that always the way?
In the headlines…
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called President Joe Biden’s commitment to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court “offensive” and said that by doing so the President is telling other Americans “you are ineligible.”
Former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard attacked Biden for making key personnel decisions on the basis of race and gender.
Three Republican senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — have all voted to confirm at least 60 percent of Biden’s judges since his term began.
But Collins said while she welcomes diversity on the Supreme Court, Biden’s handling of replacing retiring Justice Stephen Breyer so far “has been clumsy at best.”
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker drew outrage from the White House, a member of his own party and beyond for a comment that compares Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court to affirmative action.
Georgetown University’s law school placed a newly hired administrator on leave after he said on Twitter that Biden would nominate not “the objectively best pick” but a “lesser Black woman” to be the next Supreme Court justice.
Former President Donald Trump announced that his political committees raised more than $51 million over the second half of last year, to buttress what is now a massive $122 million war chest.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, has answered questions from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Some Trump White House documents that have been handed over to the House select committee investigating January 6 had to be taped back together by National Archives staff because they had been ripped up, the agency said in a statement.
New accounts show that the former president was more directly involved than previously known in plans developed by outside advisers to use national security agencies to seek evidence of fraud ion the 2020 election.
A Georgia prosecutor investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the state has requested FBI security assistance after Trump at a weekend rally decried investigations of him and called for protests if “prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal.”
The Fulton County prosecutor, Fani T. Willis, a Democrat, made her request for a security assessment in a letter on Sunday to J.C. Hacker, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Atlanta field office.
There is more optimism that the worst of the pandemic may be ending. As other nations lift certain Covid-19 restrictions, some public health experts question whether US counties and cities should consider easing mask-wearing or social distancing guidance.
Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine has received full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration, according to news releases from the FDA and Moderna.
Pfizer and its partner BioNTech are expected to ask the Food and Drug Administration to authorize a coronavirus vaccine for children 6 months to 4 years old as a two-dose regimen while they continue to research how well three doses works.
Early research is pointing to factors that may raise a person’s risk of long Covid, such as low levels of certain antibodies, reactivated viruses in the bloodstream, and existing conditions such as diabetes or asthma.
The omicron BA.2 subvariant is inherently more contagious and better at evading vaccines than any other Covid strain, but vaccinated people don’t transmit it as easily as the unvaccinated, according to a Danish study.
The San Francisco Department of Public Health sanctioned a second booster dose for everyone who got J&J as their first shot, making it the only known place in America where a third shot is officially allowed for those with normal immune protection.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada has tested positive for the coronavirus after an exposure last week. He said on Twitter that he was not feeling ill. Two of his three children also tested positive.
Trudeau denounced abusive behavior and racist imagery at a protest against vaccine mandates that saw lines of big-rig trucks blockade the downtown core of Canada’s capital.
Joe Rogan is sorry “if I pissed you off” by spreading COVID-19 misinformation and blamed his massive popularity on just how far that misinformation spread.
New York’s statewide mask mandate will remain in place for now, after an appeals court judge granted a motion to pause a decision made by a lower court that lifted Gov. Kathy Hochul’s edict for businesses.
As the omicron COVID surge ebbed the final two weeks of January, New York State saw its daily case count drop by 80% and its hospitalization tally sink by almost 40%, according to data released by Gov. Hochul’s office.
Hochul announced that SUNY Upstate University Hospital and Rochester’s Strong Memorial Hospital (URMC) will receive assistance from two U.S. Department of Defense Military Medical Teams (MMT) in February.
Mayor Eric Adams urged constituents to shift their pandemic mindset to “winning” instead of “getting the L.”
Adams announced the appointments of his climate leadership team to focus on environmental protection and justice across the city.
Marking the first environment-related announcement of his administration, Adams said Rohit Aggarwala, a longtime adviser to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will be his chief climate officer – a newly created post.
A coalition of New York City business and civic leaders backed Adams’ recently released anti-gun violence plan — declaring the blueprint “courageous” and vowing to rally behind his strategies.
Adams reaffirmed that he will keep NYPD safety officers at city public schools, pointing to a Manhattan middle-schooler caught with a backpack full of knives and other weapons last week as an example of why the officers are needed.
Adams met with embattled Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the city’s four other DAs amid outrage over the deadly ambush of two NYPD cops — and concerns that lenient prosecution policies are fueling gun violence.
A New Jersey man already accused of berating an Asian-American NYPD detective with racial slurs last year has posted a new video to social media saying he can’t wait to cause mayhem at the next police funeral, according to a police union.
The Adams administration has pulled the brakes on Hochul’s plan to rebuild Penn Station – at least for now.
Adams said that he’s confident Biden, who is coming to NYC this week, would dub him his “favorite mayor” in the country if anyone cares to ask about it. He called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn.”
Manhattan’s former top prosecutors announced they had joined private law firms after years overseeing some of the most high-profile cases in the country.
Nearly 100 female and transgender inmates who were forced to move to an upstate prison amid a staffing crisis on Rikers Island will be returning to the troubled jail complex, the Department of Correction announced.
The last of five criminal investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo ended with the Oswego County district attorney joining his peers in concluding that there were insufficient legal grounds to bring criminal charges.
Oswego County District Attorney Gregory Oakes said in a prepared statement that there was “not a sufficient legal basis” to bring charges against Cuomo based on the allegation of unwanted physical contact made by Virginia Limmiatis.
“In no way should this be a positive reflection on Andrew Cuomo. This decision is not an exoneration,” the DA said.
Limmiatis, a Syracuse-area woman and energy company employee, told investigators last year that Cuomo groped her and touched her chest at a 2017 event. Cuomo denied the accusation.
Democrats in New York have redrawn a key congressional district to give former congressman Max Rose a big advantage in his bid to reclaim the seat from Republican incumbent Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, political observers said.
State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, who has led his chamber’s redistricting efforts, asserted that his party did not engage in gerrymandering despite proposing a new congressional map that clearly benefits Democrats.
A village of Fort Edward police sergeant, already suspended for another matter, is now suspected of twice allegedly using a stun gun or a Taser to electrically shock a 36-year-old man who was handcuffed and in police custody over the summer.
The brother of a 29-year-old Greene County man who died 47 days after he burst into flames when police fired a Taser at him, causing critical wounds to his lungs, has filed a wrongful death claim against the village of Catskill.
Rochester-area Starbucks workers announced their intentions to join hundreds of others across the country in their effort to unionize.
A. DeFazio’s Imports, the Troy specialty grocer open since 1951, this week will play a co-starring role as an Italian market in 1950s New York City, when a 100-member cast and crew for a Hallmark movie will descend to shoot a scene or two there.
Saratoga Hospital president and CEO Angelo Calbone will retire at the end of the summer, capping a 16-year run in the hospital’s top spot.
A court date for one of the most well-known Black Lives Matter activists in the Capital Region has been moved two months after his new attorneys asked for an adjournment to give them time to examine evidence authorities have collected.
A federal judge rejected plea agreements with the Justice Department for two of the three white men facing hate crime charges in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery after his family expressed fierce opposition to the deal.
The sudden hit Wordle, in which once a day players get six chances to guess a five-letter word, has been acquired by The New York Times Company and will remain free to play – at least “initially.”
Wordle was acquired from its creator, Josh Wardle, a software engineer in Brooklyn, for a price “in the low seven figures,” The Times said.
“Since launching Wordle, I’ve been in awe of the response from everyone that has played,” Wardle said. “The game has gotten bigger than I ever imagined (which I suppose isn’t that much of a feat given I made the game for an audience of 1).”
Rachel Maddow, the top-rated anchor on MSNBC and one of the most influential figures in liberal media, is set to take a hiatus from her nightly cable program at least until April, though no return date has been specified.
Whoopi Goldberg issued an apology for saying that the Holocaust was “not about race” on the show.
