Good morning, it’s Thursday. The end of the week is fast approaching.
Two more days (including today) and we’ll be free for a weekend that is shaping up to be…well, more of the same in the weather department. In other words, cold. Very cold. More on that a bit later.
I know I’m dating myself significantly when I say this, but I grew up in the pre-spellcheck era. When I was working on my homework and needed to know how to spell a word, I would yell out to my dad: “Dad! How do you spell (insert word here)?” And he would inevitably yell back: “You know where the dictionary is; look it up!”
(I know you’re reading this, pop. I hope it accurately reflects your recollection of the facts, but I am afforded some creative license here, right?)
We were big on looking things up in my family. We had a nearly full set of Encyclopedia Britannica that I think we inherited from my mother’s parents. I used to spend hours perusing these leather-bound tomes. Outdated as they were.
Of course, I didn’t realize that at the time, because remember, we didn’t have real-time updates and the internet didn’t exist.
One reference book I never really managed to get into, however, was the thesaurus.
A thesaurus, in case you’re not in the know, is a book (or these days, an electronic database) that lists words or phrases that mean the same thing – or darn well close to it. In short, it’s a book of synonyms.
I don’t know about you, but as someone who writes for a living, I have some significant pet peeves about the way something reads. One thing that really gets under my skin is echoes – words that are repeated in the same sentence or even in the same paragraph (assuming the paragraph is short).
So, I’m often in the market for synonyms, and yet for some reason, while I’m running around wracking my brain trying to come up with another word for, say, “apparatus”, I don’t often think: “Hey! There’s a tool for this; let my check my handy thesaurus.”
Still, it’s a pretty darn cool invention when you stop and think of it. And it was the brainchild of a guy who was born today in 1779 – Peter Mark Roget, as in “Roget’s Thesaurus”.
Actually, Roget had a successful first career as a doctor, motivated largely by the death of his father from pulmonary tuberculosis when he was very young – a tragedy that impacted his mother so significantly that she never fully recovered from subsequent paranoia and anxiety.
Roget himself struggled with obsessive compulsive disorder, which manifested in a love for lists – a habit that helped him bring order to a disordered world. (You can see where this is going).
As he got older, Roget started organizing his lists into groupings of words in hopes of someday creating a reverse dictionary that would help people who knew what they wanted to say, but not exactly the world they were looking for, to find that elusive word.
The first draft of Roget’s Thesaurus was published when he was just 26 years old. Interestingly, it wasn’t alphabetized, but rather arranged conceptually. Some versions still follow this approach, while others have abandoned it for the A-through-Z concept. Roget continued to work on subsequent editions until he died at the age of 90.
If you really want to do a deep dive on the history or Roget’s Thesaurus, you’re in luck, because there’s a whole book about that.
In honor of Roget’s birthday, today is National Thesaurus Day.
It’s a good day to stay inside with a good book or writing project. It will be cloudy with a chance of snow showers developing later in the afternoon. The high will only be around 30 degrees.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden warned Republicans that blocking vital US military aid for Ukraine threatened the “free world” as talks with congressional leaders at the White House failed to produce a breakthrough.
Speaker Mike Johnson threw cold water on the idea of striking an immigration deal with Democrats that could revive stalled legislation to send aid to Ukraine, hours before a meeting in which President Biden planned to make a renewed push for the plan.
Johnson said last night that he had talked about congressional border negotiations with former President Donald Trump, who urged him to oppose compromising.
Security experts at a White House meeting briefed Johnson and other leaders about the dire situation faced by Ukraine. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan were among those in attendance.
In an expansion of hostilities rippling out from the Israel-Hamas war, Pakistan said that it had carried out strikes inside Iran. The military action came a day after Iranian forces attacked what they said were militant camps in Pakistan.
The U.S has designated the Houthi rebel group as a terrorist organization, a move that comes after the Yemen-based militants launched scores of drone and missile attacks on U.S. military ships and commercial vessels operating in the Red Sea.
The U.S. attacked 14 Houthi missiles in its latest strikes against the rebels in Yemen, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.
A shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas arrived in Gaza as part of a France- and Qatar- mediated deal that marked the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong cease-fire in November.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, announced on X, formerly Twitter, that the shipment had crossed into Gaza, without saying whether the medicine had been distributed.
Hamas has stipulated that for every box of medication given to the hostages, Palestinians in Gaza must receive 1,000 boxes.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken dialed up pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu over the future of the Gaza Strip, laying bare the Biden administration’s growing frustrations with the Israeli prime minister’s rejection of a proposal last week.
House lawmakers held a solemn candlelight vigil on the steps of the US Capitol yesterday evening to mark 103 days since Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 240 hostage.
The Biden administration took another aim at slashing junk fees, proposing a rule that would cut banks’ overdraft fees as low as $3, a large upset to some bankers.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unveiled long-awaited changes to how the nation’s biggest banks structure overdraft protection plans.
The independent watchdog agency said the new rule closes a loophole that for decades has exempted overdraft loans from the consumer protections required by the 1968 Truth in Lending Act.
The White House personally apologized to Asa Hutchinson after the DNC released a widely criticized statement mocking the former Arkansas governor after he dropped out of the Republican presidential primary.
The DNC initially responded by calling his withdrawal “a shock to those of us who could’ve sworn he had already dropped out.” The statement drew immediate backlash from people who said it was a gratuitous attempt to humiliate Hutchinson.
More than a dozen House Democrats joined with the chamber’s Republicans in backing a resolution slamming the Biden administration for its handling of the southern border in a floor vote yesterday.
The non-binding resolution, which passed 225-187, “denounces the administration’s open-borders policies” and “condemns the national security and public safety crisis” it says results from them.
Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman has filed a resolution to censure Rep. Elise Stefanik, the chair of the House GOP Conference, her comments describing defendants in the Jan. 6 attack on Congress as “hostages.”
Goldman’s resolution marked the latest instance of a lawmaker moving to use what was once a rare form of congressional punishment to condemn the speech of a colleague.
Trump is reportedly eyeing “killer” Stefanik as a potential vice presidential running mate.
The Biden campaign raised more than $1.6 million in the 24 hours that followed Trump’s dominant victory in the Iowa caucuses this week.
Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Trump attorney Alina Habba’s move for a mistrial, arguing that E. Jean Carroll had admitted to deleting threatening messages, which would be part of her claim of damages.
Trump said he felt an obligation to attend “every moment of” the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial because, he argued without evidence, the judge presiding over the case is biased against him.
GOP rivals Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley are tied in New Hampshire, new polling shows, as the primary race heads into the Granite State.
The survey from American Research Group Inc. puts Trump and Haley at 40 percent each among the state’s likely Republican primary voters.
Ron DeSantis’s super PAC began layoffs on the same day he signaled he would largely bypass New Hampshire’s primary election and train his efforts on South Carolina.
A Maine judge put off deciding whether Trump’s name can appear on that state’s primary ballot, saying the Supreme Court needs to rule on the issue first in a similar case out of Colorado.
Judge Michaela Murphy of Maine’s superior court wrote that Secretary of State Shella Bellows’ decision to remove Trump from the primary ballot should remain on hold until there is federal level clarification on state’s roles.
The budget negotiations will include plenty of friction for the governor and her fellow Democrats over the next three months.
Hochul has amended roughly one out of every seven bills sent to her — twice as many as her predecessor.
Hochul is taking another crack at a replacement for the expired 421-a developer tax break to incentivize affordable housing construction in New York City. But she would leave most of the specifics for other people to figure out.
The budget would advance legislation that allows the state to close up to five prisons to “increase operational efficiency” of the correctional system.
Republicans in the state Senate aren’t happy with Hochul’s proposed budget and have some ideas of their own.
Republicans in Albany blasted Hochul as soft on crime one day after she released a budget proposal that included proposals to shutter up to five correctional facilities.
A leading environmental group is decrying reductions in a special fund for upgrading and replacing the state’s aging water and sewer systems — an initiative started almost a decade ago after contamination of the Hoosick Falls water supply.
Asian parents filed a federal discrimination suit against the New York State Education Department, claiming their kids are being unfairly kept out of a STEM summer program in favor of black and Hispanic students.
In the city and state budget battles, the Council has vowed to press Mayor Eric Adams for restored programs, while migrant and Medicaid costs are likely to be battlegrounds for Hochul and the state Legislature.
Adams will head to Albany in the coming weeks to fight for one of his biggest priorities this year: keeping control of the city’s public school system. But he’ll be facing a less-friendly Legislature.
Ahead of his likely veto of two law-enforcement measures, Adams is mounting a multi-pronged push to win over local lawmakers — an effort that is colliding with growing tension in the legislative body.
The mayor says his late-2023 program cutbacks were simply good management. Financial watchdogs say strategic projections of dire shortfalls tied to migrant aid created a distorted picture of city finances.
New York’s real estate and legal industries drove much of Adams’ latest campaign cash haul, new filings show, helping put the mayor ahead of any would-be competitors for his 2025 campaign.
Adams says he wants to extend a newly imposed curfew at four migrant facilities to other sites in the Big Apple — although New Yorkers remain lukewarm.
Pregnant migrants in their third trimester and women with newborn babies will get a reprieve from shelter evictions until their babies turn six months old, city officials said.
Three of the most progressive members of the New York City Council were stripped of their committee chairmanships, eroding the power of the body’s left-leaning faction and raising concerns that the moves by the speaker, Adrienne Adams, were retaliatory.
The City Council will confirm committee assignments at its stated meeting today, and preliminary conversations suggest there will be several changes in chair positions.
Councilman Yusef Salaam, a Harlem Democrat, is becoming chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee, according to four sources with knowledge of the appointment.
A total of 46 buildings are enrolled in NYC’s Office Conversion Accelerator, which kicked off in August. Four have already begun the conversion process, and are expected to create more than 2,100 housing units, a spokesperson for Adams’ administration said.
As the number of buildings in the city’s office-to-apartment pipeline has grown, so has the number of once well-known commercial addresses earning their own headlines announcing their journey to becoming housing.
A group of Lower East Side residents and merchants says it’ll sue to stop the MTA’s looming $15 congestion toll – claiming it’ll squeeze local businesses and create a traffic nightmare.
The president of the union representing New York’s City’s public sector clerical workers was expelled and ordered to repay members more than $30,000 for a car service he had used to go to and from work, following a ruling by an oversight panel.
In the middle of the school year, at least two CUNY colleges in Queens have slashed dozens of staff following the City University’s central administration mandates last month for eight campuses to make “enhanced deficit reduction plans.”
City and state officials are urging the federal government to improve conditions at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center after a federal judge wrote a scathing ruling earlier this month explaining why he refused to send a defendant there.
Hours after beginning a citywide manhunt focused on capturing the attacker in a series of random stabbings in Queens, the New York City police said last night that they had a person of interest in custody.
New York City firefighters responded to 267 fires caused by faulty lithium-ion batteries in 2023 — about 20% more than in 2022 — even as lawmakers have introduced new safety measures.
When Brooklyn Congressman Hakeem Jeffries met Brooklyn urban farmer Hakim Jeffrey, two worlds collided.
Long Island officials accused Hofstra University of colluding with a Queens casino bidder to try to halt a competing bid at the Nassau Coliseum.
A Long Island midwife falsified vaccine records for some 1,500 school-aged children, according to New York State’s Department of Health, which announced that it had fined her $300,000.
A union that represents dozens of police unions across the state sued Key Bank this week claiming cyber thieves stole $355,000 from one of its accounts last summer.
Albany International Airport will remove what remains of the pedestrian bridge connecting the parking garage to the main terminal this week, leading to periodic closures of driving lanes in front of the terminal.
Two of the most senior members of Britain’s royal family have been hit by health concerns, with Catherine, the Princess of Wales undergoing abdominal surgery in London Tuesday, while King Charles III will receive treatment for an enlarged prostate next week.
Kensington Palace did not offer details on Catherine’s diagnosis or prognosis, other than to say that the surgery had been planned and was successful, and that her condition was “not cancerous.” She will remain in the hospital for up to two weeks.
“In common with thousands of men each year, The King has sought treatment for an enlarged prostate. His Majesty’s condition is benign and he will attend hospital next week for a corrective procedure,” Buckingham Palace said in its statement.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
