Good morning, it’s Tuesday.
I’ve written here before about my difficulty sleeping – a struggle for which I have tried, quite literally, ALL the things – drugs, supplements, white noise, meditation, deep breathing, visualization, brain games, reading – you name it.
There are a plethora of word-related games that are supposed to trick your mind into getting off its anxiety hamster wheel long enough for the body to do its sleep thing. Some of them work better than others.
A number of them involve things I learned at school and should remember but forgot long ago. That includes being able to name all 50 states and their capitols in order, the names of all the major U.S. rivers, and the names of the planets in our solar system.
Isn’t that what the internet is for – looking up trivia? (Not at night when you’re trying to sleep, of course, because blue light is definitely counterproductive in that department). But I digress.
I was never one of those space-obsessed kids. Sure, it interested me, kinda. But I liked dinosaurs more. Trips to the Museum of Natural History in New York City were exciting because of the massive dino skeletons, and not necessarily the time spent sitting in the dark, which I was scared of anyway, and starting up at a simulation of the night sky – a mere facsimile of the real thing.
There are a number of mnemonics for remembering the planets in order from the sun. One example: My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Nothing: My (Mercury) Very (Venus) Easy (Earth) Method (Mars) Just (Jupiter) Speeds (Saturn) Up (Uranus) Nothing (Neptune).
Notice something missing there?
Yes, the dwarf “planet”, Pluto, which was discovered on this day in 1930, doesn’t make the cut. Pluto was once known as the ninth planet, but due in part to its small size (although Mercury is smaller, but not a dwarf, we’ll get to that later), it lost its official planet status in 2006.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), in all its wisdom, decided that dwarf planets are not true planets because, while they’re in orbit around the Sun and sufficiently large to pull themselves into a nearly round shape, they can’t clear their orbital paths of debris. Ultimately, the IAU decided that to be classified as a full-sized and legit planet, an object must:
- Be in orbit around the sun
- Have sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape)
- Have cleared the “neighborhood ” around its orbit.
If you don’t understand what the big deal is, don’t worry, I don’t either, which is one of the many reasons I’m not an astronomer.
The loss of its planet status must have come as quite the shock for Pluto, and also for Venetia Burney Phair, who is credited with supplying the name “Pluto” after the Roman god of the underworld when she was just 11 years old. Apparently, she thought the name would be fitting for a planet so cold and far from the sun’s warming rays.
She suggested the name over the breakfast table to her grandfather, Falconer Madan, a former librarian at Oxford, who, in turn, sent the idea to Professor Herbert Hall Turner. It was Turner to made the final connection with the Lowell Observatory in the U.S., where Pluto’s existence was discovered.
And the rest, as they say, is history. Except, the world was not quite finished with Pluto.
Burney Phair lived to be 90 years old, dying in 2009, which means she lived three years after Pluto lost its planet status. She was reportedly philosophical about the change, saying that while she would have preferred that it did not occur, the commonly held belief that she copied the name from the Disney character bothered her more.
In a 2006 interview with the BBC, Burney Phair confirmed that the cartoon dog, Pluto, was named after the planet, Pluto, and not the other way around.
The weather will sadly not be particularly conducive to sky watching, as it will be cloudy and windy with temperatures only in the low 20s. Brrrr. Uncle, Mother Nature. You’ve had your fun. Please, can we stop this now?
In the headlines:
Protesters against President Donald Trump and his policies braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate yesterday at rallies corresponding with the Presidents Day holiday.
In Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, thousands of people gathered at the Capitol Reflecting Pool chanting “Where is Congress?” and urging members of Congress to “do your job!” despite nearly 40-degree temperatures and 20-mile-per-hour wind gusts.
In Florida and California, hundreds of protesters carried out “Not my Presidents Day” protests. The “No Kings” theme was orchestrated by the 50501 Movement, and marked the second set of protests criss-crossing the nation in less than two weeks.
On Saturday, Trump suggested on social media that he would not heed concerns that his sweeping actions could be breaking laws, posting a riff on a phrase often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
The leaders of many of Europe’s biggest countries came to Paris yesterday in an effort to forge a strategy for their own security, as President Trump’s envoys prepared for talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine without them.
The meeting in Paris was pulled together hastily after the first visit to Europe last week by Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which left European leaders alarmed by both the tone and message of the new Trump administration.
The leaders are seeking to align their position after the Trump administration said they would be excluded from talks with Russia to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
German Christian Democrat Norbert Röttgen, a longtime advocate for trans-Atlantic alliances, said the Trump administration had in effect declared an ideological war on Europe.
The US Education Department warned schools in a letter that they risked losing federal funding if they continued to take race into account when making scholarship or hiring decisions, or nodded to race in “all other aspects of student, academic and campus life.”
The announcement gave institutions 14 days to comply. It built on a major Supreme Court ruling in 2023 that found that the use of race-conscious admissions practices at colleges and universities was unlawful.
A federal judge last night declined to block Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from gaining access to Education Department data on student borrowers.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the University of California Student Association (USCA), which brought the lawsuit, had not shown sufficient irreparable harm to receive such immediate relief.
The top official at the Social Security Administration reportedly stepped down last weekend after members of Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency sought access to sensitive personal data about millions of Americans held by the agency.
Michelle King, a career federal worker who had been with SSA since 1994, quit over the DOGE disagreement Saturday and was replaced by Leland Dudek, the Washington Post reported.
Former Vice President Mike Pence is emerging as one of the last Republicans in Washington willing to publicly criticize the new Trump administration.
Trump said that he had nominated the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, Ed Martin, a far-right election denier who sat on a board that raised cash for the Capitol rioters and pushed for their mass reprieve, to run the office on a permanent basis.
Trump has re-entered the White House with a massively expanded portfolio of business interests, some of which require government approval or regulation, others of which are publicly traded, and still others involving foreign deals.
As Trump looks north and presses his case to make Canada the “51st state,” politically minded Democrats who are otherwise outraged by almost everything else about his agenda find themselves contemplating a potential electoral boon should it happen.
Mexico said it’s awaiting a new response from Google to its request that the tech company fully restore the name Gulf of Mexico to its Google Maps service before filing a lawsuit.
Pope Francis will remain in a Rome hospital after being admitted late last week following a series of tests that indicated a “complex clinical picture,” the Vatican said, raising fresh concerns about the 88-year-old pontiff’s health.
Diagnostic tests carried out after Francis was taken to Policlinico A. Gemelli on Friday presented “a polymicrobial respiratory tract infection,” and his doctors had changed treatment accordingly, the Vatican said in a statement.
Toronto Pearson International Airport reported yesterday afternoon that a Delta flight arriving from Minnesota was involved in an “incident” while making its landing. The plane ended up on the runway where it appeared to be upside down.
Airport officials posted notice that emergency teams were responding and all passengers were accounted for shortly before 3 p.m. Delta confirmed that the airline is monitoring the situation.
A window-seat passenger described the plane as skidding on its side and finding himself upside-down. At least 18 people were injured, officials said, but all 80 passengers survived.
John Nelson, a passenger, posted a video on Facebook as he and the other passengers stumbled out of the wreckage. Ashley Zook, another passenger, posted videos on Snapchat — including one while still strapped into her seat after the plane flipped.
The crash of a Delta Air Lines jet exacerbated travel disruptions at Toronto Pearson International Airport, which was already juggling a slew of flight delays and cancellations caused by major back-to-back snowstorms.
Delta Air Lines stood fast in its commitment to continuing its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts ahead of the Toronto crash — even as many major US companies have rolled back their own programs in deference to new Trump administration policies.
Southwest Airlines announced plans to cut 1,750 jobs, the first broad layoffs in the airline’s 53-year history. The company said the cuts would mostly focus on corporate positions, accounting to about 15 percent of that work force.
The leader of a Bay Area cult that is linked to six deaths, including of a Vermont border patrol agent last month, was arrested in Maryland on charges including having a handgun in a vehicle and trespassing, according to online court and booking records.
Bennie Thorpe, elevated by Gov. Kathy Hochul to bring a “fresh perspective” to running Marcy after guards beat a handcuffed prisoner to death, has a record of inmate rape and sexual assault accusations at a former workplace, records and interviews show.
Correction officers at two western New York prisons went on strike yesterday in an unsanctioned work stoppage that has disrupted operations at the facilities, including visitations.
By yesterday afternoon, additional strikes and protests – none of them sanctioned by the corrections officers union – were unfolding or in the planning stages at multiple other prisons across upstate New York, sources said.
Multiple correction officers who have been indicted by an Oneida County grand jury in the beating death of Robert L. Brooks will be arrested and arraigned on Thursday.
Hochul raised the prospect of removing Mayor Eric Adams from office and announced plans to meet today with “key leaders” in Manhattan to discuss “the path forward, with the goal of ensuring stability for the City of New York.”
Hochul announced the dramatic move in a statement last night and cited the “troubling” allegations swirling around Adams and the shocking resignations of his four crucial aides, including First Deputy mayor Maria Torres-Springer, earlier in the day.
“If they feel unable to serve in City Hall at this time, that raises serious questions about the long-term future of this Mayoral administration,” the Democratic governor said.
More Democratic politicians are joining calls for Adams to resign, or for Hochul to remove him if he doesn’t. Here’s what to know about how that would work – and what might come next.
Adams contended that renewed calls for his resignation over Trump’s Justice Department bid to drop his corruption indictment amounts to “a modern-day ‘Mein Kampf’ ” – a comment that his critics quickly blasted as offensive.
Adams — who delivered the speech to a group of about 50 supporters — also took a vicious dig at public advocate and potential successor Jumaane Williams, who would take over as mayor if the embattled, indicted mayor abdicated his office.
Adams delivered the remark while speaking at an event at Brooklyn’s Rehoboth Cathedral — a gathering billed as a rally for his reelection in June’s Democratic mayoral primary — and he was introduced by a handful of clergy members who sang his praises.
Four top New York City officials said they would resign after the Justice Department moved to dismiss Adams’s corruption case in apparent exchange for his help with President Trump’s deportation agenda.
The four officials – Torres-Springer, Meera Joshi, Anne Williams-Isom and Chauncey Parker – oversee much of city government, and their departure is poised to blow a devastating hole in the already wounded Adams administration.
In a joint statement, three of the officials pointed to the “extraordinary events” that have rocked Adams’ administration. “To stay faithful to the oaths we swore to New Yorkers … we have come to the difficult decision to step down from our roles,” they said.
“I am disappointed to see them go, but given the current challenges, I understand their decision and wish them nothing but success in the future,” Adams said in a statement announcing the resignations.
“This is an unmitigated disaster,” said Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. “Each one of these leaders is a seasoned, talented professional. Their loss will leave New York City government in a truly precarious position.”
Judge Dale E. Ho, who is overseeing the foundering corruption case against Adams, is facing a storm of demands that he look deeply into the federal government’s reasons for seeking to drop the prosecution.
A letter motion filed by a Common Cause attorney contends that the agreement gives the DOJ control over the mayor’s actions, noting that motion was made “without prejudice” and allows the case to potentially be reopened after the November election.
City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is running for mayor, called on Adams to prove he can continue to govern amid calls for his resignation after the DOJ dropped charges against the mayor in what prosecutors alleged was a quid pro quo deal.
Lander has issued a strong warning to Adams, threatening to initiate the process of removing him from office without the involvement or approval of Hochul.
Adrienne Adams, the speaker of the New York City Council and one of Mayor Adams’s principal partners in government, said yesterday that he should resign.
Adams has united Democrats in New York City. From across the boroughs and otherwise warring ideological factions, there is widespread agreement the mayor has little to no chance of winning the Democratic primary in June — and he shouldn’t even try.
There is no parallel in modern city history to the federal investigations into Adams and his inner circle and the wave of resignations. The last broad municipal scandal was in 1986 under Mayor Ed Koch, when the leaders of three city agencies were indicted.
The city paid out $206 million in 2024 to settle cases involving police and prosecutorial misconduct, including decades-old wrongful convictions – the most since at least 2018 and 27% percent of the $756 million paid in such lawsuits over the past seven years.
The president of the NYC probation officers union blasted the way Department of Probation leadership handled the case of the 5,000 bullets that went unaccounted for from the NYPD’s firing range at Rodman’s Neck in the Bronx.
Midtown residents paying $3,200 a month for one-bedroom apartments say they share their buildings with squatters and people using drugs in communal spaces, and their landlord isn’t doing anything about it.
The New York Public Library is opening up its archives of Joan Didion and her husband Gregory Dunne to the public beginning March 26.
Investigators have found no evidence that the torture and killing of a transgender man whose remains were found in a field in upstate New York last week was a hate crime, law enforcement officials said.
After almost 20 years under the same proprietor, the Park Pub in Troy’s Frear Park is closed. When it returns a year from now, or a little longer, the city-owned venue will be in an all-new structure – partially torn down, rebuilt and gut-renovated.
The attorney for the former Saratoga Springs commissioner of public works, who was charged with official misconduct after a city plumber spent a few minutes of city time to unclog a sink drain at the commissioner’s home, will request a trial.
Despite frigid temperatures and fierce winds, hundreds of protesters gathered outside at the New York state Capitol on Presidents’ Day, to voice their opposition to the policies and tactics of Trump and his budget-ax-wielding billionaire donor Elon Musk.
Another Washington, D.C., man was arraigned on Friday on felony charges tied to the Aug. 10 smash-and-grab break-in of Lola Saratoga, a luxury handbag boutique on Broadway in Saratoga Springs.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
