Good Thursday morning.
Today, my friends, is a very important day in history. On this day in 1943, George Washington Carver, one of the most prominent Black scientists of the early 20th Century, passed away.
We commemorate the day that Carver died and not the day he was born, though it’s believed that occurred sometime in 1864, because he was born into slavery and the exact date he entered the world was never formally recorded.
But Carver left his mark in a big way during his lifetime. He is known as the Father of the Peanut Industry, because his innovations involving the humble legume increased its popularity and made it a staple of the American diet.
Now, as I have said many times before in this space – probably far too many times for some people’s taste – I am a major fan of all nut butters, and peanut butter in particular. Rare is the day that I do not eat it. In fact, I’m snacking on some peanut butter toast RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE.
Now the savvy amongst you might be thinking: But Liz, George Washington Carver, contrary to popular belief, did NOT in fact, invent modern-day peanut butter.
True.
Technically speaking, it was the Aztecs who first reportedly ground roasted peanuts into a paste-like consistency, and much later, three different inventors – none of them Carter – were involved in the patenting of peanut paste and the equipment necessary to produce it.
And the U.S. Army also had a hand in popularizing peanut butter, as it was a staple in rations provided to soldiers during both WW I and WW II.
But Carver is crediting for significantly elevating the peanut by discovering more than 300 non-butter uses, including a number of inedible options like shaving cream, shampoo, wood stains, and plastics.
He also, after his appointment in 1935 to the Department of Agriculture by FDR to address the southern farming crisis, developed methods of improving soil quality that had been depleted by repeated plantings of cotton. He encouraged farmers to grow alternative crops like peanuts and sweet potatoes to help improve their economic opportunities and their quality of life.
So significant were Carver’s contributions to saving southern agriculture that he was awarded the Roosevelt Medal in 1939.
In 1945, President Truman signed a resolution declaring that flags should be flown at half-staff on government buildings on Jan. 5 of the following year to mark Carver’s death and his achievements during his life, and that the day would henceforth be known as George Washington Carver Day.
And here we are.
Fast forward. Peanuts, peanut butter and candy that contains peanuts are some of the nation’s most popular products. Americans eat more than 7.9 pounds of peanut products each year, which accounts for about $2 billion in annual retail sales. Peanut butter alone accounts for about half of that, which translates into some $850 million worth of sales a year.
And we have come full circle. Thank you, George Washington Carver, for making my life complete.
It’s going to be another wet and warm-ish day, with morning showers giving way to clouds in the afternoon. Temperatures will again be in the mid-40s.
In the headlines…
The U.S. House of Representatives adjourned for a second night this week without electing a new speaker after GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., failed in six consecutive votes to secure enough support to be elected to the post.
After suffering yet another stinging defeat, McCarthy proposed more key concessions in his push to get 218 votes – including agreeing to propose a rules change that would allow just one member to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker.
The historic deadlock — the first of its kind since 1923, when it took the House nine ballots to elect a speaker — effectively blocked Congress from functioning, preventing lawmakers from being sworn in and putting off the adoption of new rules.
President Joe Biden finally weighed in on the growing leadership crisis within the Republican Party, calling the situation “embarrassing” and urging Republicans to “get their act together.”
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refused to rule out supporting a possible compromise candidate for speaker of the House as Republican drama showed no sign of dying down.
A former shop clerk from Brazil who was allegedly defrauded by Rep.-elect George Santos commiserated with those who voted for the incoming congressman in an interview with CNN, calling Santos a “professional liar.”
Santos’ lonely life on Capitol Hill entered a second day yesterday after the truth-challenged Long Island congressman-elect spent his first day languishing in the back of the House chamber, looking forlorn and friendless.
Biden’s first public appearance of 2023 came alongside a Republican lawmaker reviled by progressives, someone opposed to much of the White House agenda and who once pledged to make the last Democratic president a one-termer.
Yesterday, a smiling Biden feted Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell as a friend, colleague and “man of his word”, as the two men promoted a major bipartisan legislative accomplishment they achieved together.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to uphold its decision to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt, arguing that it was acting within its executive authority and did not need new congressional authorization.
The nation’s highest court will hear oral arguments next month in a pair of legal challenges over that plan. Opponents, including six conservative states, say the Biden administration overstepped its authority by creating the debt relief plan on its own.
Biden said that sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine was being considered to help the that country fight Russia’s invasion.
Biden was asked during an exchange with reporters while traveling in Kentucky whether providing the tracked armored fighting vehicle to Ukraine was on the table. He responded “yes,” without offering further comment.
Biden professed his admiration for the late Pope Benedict XVI, who died on Dec. 31, recalling their meeting in which they discussed Catholic theology.
Biden said that he intends to visit the U.S.-Mexico border during his trip to Mexico City next week.
Amazon’s layoffs will affect more than 18,000 employees, the highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company as the industry pares back amid economic uncertainty.
Amazon plans to inform employees who will lose their jobs starting Jan. 18, and most cuts will come in the stores and People, Experience, and Technology (PXT) groups.
Salesforce is laying off 10% of its workforce and reducing its office space in certain markets, extending a brutal period for tech job cuts into the new year.
The coronavirus Omicron strain XBB.1.5, which has become the dominant strain in the U.S. in just a matter of weeks, could drive a new wave of cases, a World Health Organization official told reporters.
Over the month of December, the percentage of new Covid-19 infections in the US caused by XBB.1.5 rose from an estimated 4% to 41%. “That’s a stunning increase,” Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, wrote in a Twitter thread.
The WHO has accused China of “under-representing” the severity of its Covid outbreak and criticized its “narrow” definition of what constitutes a Covid death, as top global health officials urge Beijing to share more data about the explosive spread.
Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China’s capital Beijing.
South Korean authorities were looking for a 41-year-old Chinese man who went on the run after flying in the previous day, testing positive and being taken to a quarantine facility.
Walgreens expects to offer abortion pills after the Food and Drug Administration changed its rules for the drug. So does CVS.
It’s not clear which other pharmacies will seek certification or what impact it will have on abortion access in places where it’s banned or restricted.
The United States Postal Service can deliver prescribed abortion medication, even in states where abortion access is severely restricted, the Department of Justice announced.
On an occasion full of pomp and ceremony, tension still permeated the air in Albany on the first day of the legislative session.
The top Republican in the state Senate is not ruling out having some GOP lawmakers back the confirmation of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nominee to lead the state Court of Appeals after many Democrats have signaled they can’t support him.
State Senate Democrats are stacking the Judiciary Committee with progressives in order to block Hochul’s nomination of LaSalle. A resolution approved along party lines expands it from 15 to 19 members – three Democrats and one Republican.
Hochul must have known she was picking a fight with her fellow Democrats when she nominated Hector LaSalle, a mid-level appeals court judge, to be her state’s most powerful jurist. And now, she has one.
The Center for Community Alternatives, which has has been one of the leading organizations opposing LaSalle, consulted with former state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who resigned in 2018 following a sexual harassment and abuse scandal.
State Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs staunchly defended Hochul’s nomination of LaSalle and he referred back to primary election results as a barometer for how progressive the party should be.
The governor is expected to outline her agenda in a State of the State speech on Jan. 10. She said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she would continue to focus on public safety and rising housing costs.
Hochul announced the New York State Police issued 32,934 tickets and arrested 453 people for impaired driving during the National DWI Crackdown which started on Wednesday, December 14, 2022, and continued through New Year’s Day.
Addressing climate change, affordable housing and public safety are among the key issues for Democrats in the state Senate this year as Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins outlined the conference’s plans for 2023.
Democrats took no action against Republican Assemblyman Lester Chang yesterday as the legislative session kicked off despite concerns about his failure to meet the residency requirement.
The Dormitory Authority, responsible for a key component of the state’s cannabis retail program, missed its deadline to report to the governor, the Legislature and the public on its efforts in setting up a $200 million social equity fund.
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase agreed to pay a $50 million penalty to New York state’s Department of Financial Services to settle accusations that it allowed customers to open accounts without conducting sufficient background checks.
In an unprompted, seven-minute tirade, Mayor Eric Adams lashed out at former Mayor Bill de Blasio, accusing him of leaving the city in disarray, and insisting that de Blasio’s former top aides had no right to publicly criticize the way Adams is running the city.
Adams unleashed the extraordinary broadside against his predecessor’s team at the tail end of an unrelated press conference in Brooklyn — unprompted by any questions from reporters.
At a press conference yesterday, Adams doubled down on his assertion that there is “no more room at the inn” for additional asylum seekers, including those who are set to arrive in the city from Colorado.
“At one time we had to deal with Republican governors sending migrants to New York,” Adams said during an unrelated press conference. “Now we’re dealing with Democratic governors sending migrants to New York. This is just unfair.”
Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell says she and Mayor Adams’ deputy mayor for public safety, Philip Banks, see eye-to-eye on the issues facing the police department.
Adams and his 2021 mayoral race opponent Curtis Sliwa reached across the political aisle with one unifying goal in mind: Kill more rats.
“I know he’s probably looking for a job since he lost the job that he was trying to get,” Adams said of Sliwa.
For starters, Sliwa offered to help the mayor with his personal rat problem by deploying an army of feral cats. He and his wife, Nancy, share their home with 16 felines.
Adams joined the nonprofit PCNY in the Streets to provide food to people who are experiencing homelessness.
Frank Carone, who left his $251,982-a-year City Hall post in December, plans to stay involved in politics by launching a consultting firm and working for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries as the new Democratic Congressional leader looks to take back the House.
A police officer was suspended after a video showed him repeatedly striking a teenage girl on the head with a closed fist during a clash among several officers and at least a dozen young people near a Staten Island middle school earlier this week.
New York City will add 925 electric vehicles, including vans, pick-up and sanitation trucks, as well as hybrid plug-in street sweepers to its municipal fleet, to replace gas-guzzling vehicles.
Broadway, still struggling to rebound from the lengthy pandemic shutdown, is starting the new year with a sign of hope: Last week was, by far, the best for the industry since the arrival of the coronavirus.
Following a record year for high temperatures, warmer weather is expected in the Albany area for the next three months, according to the National Weather Service.
Over the course of the past year, Cairo natives Kristin and August Freemann and their four-year-old son, Kody, set out on a mission to visit all 358 Stewart’s Shops across 32 different counties.
North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik will open a district office in Rensselaer County’s new office building on Route 4, the county said.
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s Albany office is investigating conditions at the Bonacio Construction site in Saratoga Springs where a 52-year-old Bast Hatfield worker died.
The Albany Patroons announced Derrick Rowland will return as Head Coach for 2023. Rowland most recently coached this past season in The Basketball League (TBL) for the Potawatomi Fire in Oklahoma, leading the team to the TBL western division playoffs.
After Damar Hamlin’s collapse during an N.F.L. game, fans, coaches and players processed what it meant to love a sport that carries the risk of bodily harm for its participants.
Hamlin remains hospitalized in critical condition but showed “signs of improvement” that were observed Tuesday and overnight into yesterday, according to the team.
The Bills tweeted that Hamlin is still in critical condition “with signs of improvement noted yesterday and overnight”, adding: “He is expected to remain under intensive care as his health care team continues to monitor and treat him.”
President Biden spoke with Hamlin’s parents “at length,” he said.
“I think working like hell on the helmets and the concussion protocols, that all makes a lot of sense,” Biden said, regarding the dangers of football. “But…it is dangerous. We’ve got to just acknowledge it.”
After Hamlin’s collapse and hospitalization caused the suspension of a “Monday Night Football” game, his only available public fundraiser has hit $6 million.
Doctors are calling on the public to familiarize themselves with lifesaving CPR techniques after Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during a football game Monday night in Cincinnati.
Prince Harry wrote in his soon-to-be-released autobiography, “Spare,” obtained by The Guardian, that his brother, Prince William, “knocked me to the floor” during an argument about Harry’s wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
William “Rick” Singer, the mastermind behind a nationwide college-admissions cheating scheme that ensnared top universities, business executives and Hollywood celebrities, was sentenced to 42 months in prison.
