Good morning, it’s Thursday.
I recall having a conversation with my mother one day about why she named me “Elizabeth.” It’s traditional in Ashkenazi Judaism to name a child after a relative who has passed to honor their memory and ensure their legacy lives on. I am named for a great-grandmother, Ethel, I think.
Had I been a boy, my mother informed me, I would have been named “Ethan.”
I don’t feel terribly connected to my formal given name. No one calls me “Elizabeth” and while growing up I was often chagrined by the length of my full name “Elizabeth Marianne Benjamin”, which is a lot of letters for a young child to learn how to write, and also a lot to fill in on those bubble test form sheets we used to use.
I have always been “Liz” – not “Bitsy” or “Betty” or “Beth” or “Lizzy” or “Eliza” or any of the other nicknames that “Elizabeth” lends itself to. When I first started reporting, I used my full name in my byline and it always looked wrong to me – like a stranger had written the story.
I felt a lot more comfortable switching to “Liz” when I made the jump from print to broadcast, which also had the benefit of being easier to say on the air.
I also didn’t change my name after I got married – in part because that didn’t occur until I was 40 and had already established a fairly recognizable professional footprint as “Liz Benjamin.” (I do use “Elizabeth Benjamin Smith” on my driver’s license and other official documents).
Another problem was that there was already a fairly prominent person in the New York media landscape named “Liz Smith” (the venerable celebrity gossip columnist). I certainly didn’t want to get crosswise with someone who, at the time, was still pretty formidable.
Names are a funny thing. They’re so personal and yet – unless you decide to change yours – you don’t really get a say in the matter. You get what you get at the start of your life and then you deal with it for the rest of your days.
Names also go in and out of style. These days, people are apt to err on the creative side, but the truth is that the traditional names – including mine – remain pretty darn popular, according to statistics maintained by the Social Security Administration.
The name “Joseph” is a solid No. 8 on that list. According to one website, “Joe” is the 103rd most popular name for boys in the U.S., with just over 181 per 100,000 Americans bearing that name. Somewhere along the line, “Joe” became synonymous with everyman, “regular Joe” “average Joe”, “Joe shmoe”, “Joe average”, “Joe sixpack”, “Joe cool”, “Joe college”, etc.
But the name also figures in many more idioms, including but not limited to: Sloppy Joe, cup of Joe (as an aside, the theories behind where this originated are fascinating and worth a brief trip down the rabbit hole here, if you have a few minutes), GI Joe. The list is far longer than one might expect.
For some reason that I have been unable to discern despite deploying my best interweb sleuthing skills, today is National Joe Day, which, if nothing else, provides an opportunity to muse on names and how and why they exist.
Things are warming up, which is nice, though they’re still on the chilly side. Temperatures will top out in the high 40s today, and skies will be clear and sunny.
In the headlines…
President Donald Trump said he would impose a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts that were imported into the US, which is likely to raise prices for American consumers and throw supply chains into disarray as he seeks to bolster U.S. manufacturing.
The tariffs will go into effect on April 3 and apply both to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States and to imported parts that are assembled into cars at American auto plants.
“I think our automobile business will flourish like it’s never flourished before,” Trump said in remarks from the Oval Office. The United Auto Workers union praised the move, saying it could mean more shifts for workers at plants with spare capacity.
Separately, The EU expects the US to apply a double-digit tariff rate across the bloc when Trump announces reciprocal levies on April 2, people familiar said.
Tesla could be a winner from the auto tariffs announced by Trump – or at least suffer less than its competitors, because it makes all the cars that it sells in the United States in California and Texas.
Cox Automotive, a research firm, estimates that tariffs would add $6,000 to the price of a car made in Mexico or Canada, two of the top exporters of vehicles to the United States.
Top intelligence officials who were part of a Signal group chat that discussed U.S. military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen faced intense questioning at the House Intelligence Committee hours after The Atlantic published more messages from the group.
Members of Trump’s cabinet insisted at the House committee hearing that there was nothing wrong with using a consumer messaging app to discuss U.S. military plans to strike Houthi targets in Yemen.
Trump decried concerns over the Signal incident as a “witch hunt,” borrowing the language of persecution that he has applied to the many investigations that have targeted him and his campaign over the years as he sought to deny the seriousness of the leak.
While defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz for their roles in the Signal leak scandal, Trump took aim at the encrypted service, saying it could be “defective,” without specifying why he thought it had issues.
The Supreme Court upheld federal restrictions aimed at curtailing access to kits that can be easily assembled into homemade, nearly untraceable firearms, a rare move by a court that has taken an expansive view of gun rights.
In a 7-to-2 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch the justices left in place requirements enacted during the Biden administration as part of a broader effort to combat gun violence by placing restrictions on so-called ghost guns.
Congressional Republicans laced into PBS and NPR yesterday, accusing the country’s biggest public media networks of institutional bias in a fiery hearing that functioned as the latest salvo against the American press by close allies of the Trump administration.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene used a DOGE subcommittee hearing to call for the defunding and dismantling of the company that provides NPR and PBS with federal funds.
“NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical leftwing echo chambers,” said the Georgia Republican said during her opening remarks, accusing NPR of having a “communist agenda”.
A federal appeals court in Washington yesterday kept in place, for now, a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime statute to summarily deport Venezuelan migrants accused of being members of a violent street gang.
By a 2-to-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the Venezuelan migrants were likely to succeed in their claims that the government cannot use the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to summarily transfer them to a prison in El Salvador without a hearing.
Wall Street’s bonus pool hit a record high last year — with bankers on average raking in an eye-popping windfall of $244,700 on top of their salaries — as stock trading roared back to life.
The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.
As Congress works out the particulars of how it might roll back trillions of dollars in federal spending, New York and other states have been left to play a guessing game about how they might be affected.
With just days left to finalize the state budget, New York lawmakers are getting behind Gov. Hochul’s signature plan to ban cell phones all school day.
Hochul expressed strong support for the United States Supreme Court’s decision to uphold federal regulations on ghost guns, which are unregistered firearms designed to bypass gun safety laws.
A push to expand the state’s independent prison oversight body appears to have stalled in the Assembly.
The state Department of Health is asking government workers to assist in the beleaguered transition of a popular home care program, requesting “volunteers” from the agency to step up despite paying a private company millions of dollars to do the work.
The state commission that decides if gas and electric rates will go up and by how much is facing fresh scrutiny from Democrats in the state Legislature, who have begun talks on replacing and restructuring it.
New York Attorney General Letitia James is recommending that 23AndMe customers contact the company to delete their data.
In response to the Trump administration’s portrayal of the subway system as lawless, New York transit officials shot back: Crime is down, fare evasion is falling — and the nation’s largest transit system deserves far more money.
“We’re a fact-based organization, so we’ll just stick to the facts and hope that eventually they want to talk about what’s really going on,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board rubber-stamped nearly $250 million for consultants in its already colossally pricey, long-delayed Second Avenue subway extension.
Some Big Apple Dems are so furious over Elon Musk and DOGE that they’re vowing to try to divest city pensions from his lucrative, environmentally friendly company Tesla.
Dozens of lawmakers, residents and community groups are taking the Big Apple to court over its controversial “City of Yes” housing plan — seeking to unravel Mayor Eric Adams’ cornerstone initiative to overhaul decades-old regulations.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani are emerging as the top two candidates in this summer’s Democratic mayoral primary — and it’s Cuomo’s race to lose, according to three polls released this week.
The latest poll, conducted by Emerson College, PIX11 and The Hill, found 38% of registered Democrats in New York City would vote in the June 24 primary for Cuomo, who has cast himself as a political moderate since launching his mayoral bid on March 1.
Cuomo’s critics are hoping to short-circuit his rise by accusing him of being soft on the Trump administration in order to avoid federal prosecution over the former governor’s alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scott Stringer says he has a very particular set of skills: taking down ex-governors. The mayoral hopeful pitched himself as the sole candidate who can dethrone powerhouse frontrunner Cuomo — since he’s defeated a former governor once before.
Cuomo pulled in more than $500,000 last year from a legal consulting firm he established after leaving the governor’s mansion, a new financial disclosure showed. And he remains a multimillionaire.
A super PAC backing Cuomo’s mayoral bid has already raised massive donations totaling $2.3 million — including from real-estate interests and big shots in the past week, new records reveal.
Mayoral candidate Zellnor Myrie is floating a plan to push back against the Trump administration’s threats of withholding federal funds for New York City, as the president poses an increasingly looming presence over the mayoral race.
Sidewalk sheds, the widely reviled construction safety structures blighting public space in NYC, can only stay up for three months at a time under a package of bills passed by the City Council aimed at changing the look of the city.
Brooklyn State Sen. Simcha Felder is going back to the New York City Council. In the special election to fill Assembly Member Kalman Yeger’s vacant City Council seat.
The Coalition for the Homeless, VOCAL-NY, Community Service Society and other nonprofit groups have released a blueprint on how the next mayor can solve homelessness.
“We’re calling on every mayoral candidate to commit to the concrete actions outlined in our plan and make ending homelessness a cornerstone of their campaign,” said David Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless.
A Manhattan judge rejected a majority of motions by OpenAI and Microsoft to dismiss parts of a lawsuit accusing the tech companies of swiping stories from the Daily News, the New York Times and other newspapers to train their AI products.
Three male postal workers were charged with kidnapping a female co-worker whom they dragged into the back of a mail truck after a party at a Manhattan post office in 2023, prosecutors said.
Two heart-shaped notes were hidden in the cardboard packaging of argyle socks delivered to Luigi Mangione ahead of his court appearance in Manhattan last month, according to prosecutors. “Know there are thousands of people wishing you luck,” one said.
The New York state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) identified 15 people of interest who they said are involved in the investigation into the death of an inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Oneida County earlier this month.
At least one of the 15 correction officers who were placed on administrative leave earlier this month amid an investigation into the beating death of an inmate at Mid-State Correctional Facility has faced prior allegations of excessive force, court records show.
Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino is floating the idea of a third-party bid in the upcoming special election to replace former North Country GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik.
The City of Albany will issue yet another request for proposals for a transfer station to replace the Rapp Road landfill as the dump’s closure is now pushed back to 2028.
Schenectady Republicans will huddle in the coming days to discuss a potential replacement for City Council candidate Jacob Dobbs, who dropped out the race after revelations that he was charged last year with a misdemeanor after a domestic-related dispute.
The chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican party has filed an ethics complaint against Democrat and Saratoga County Supervisor Michele Madigan alleging she either did not file her county financial disclosures or did not file them in a timely fashion.
The Capital District Transportation Authority (CDTA) has appointed Frank Annicaro, a former MTA executive, as its new Chief Executive Officer, following a unanimous vote by the Board of Directors.
Former President Barack Obama is scheduled to speak at Hamilton College next week as part of the institution’s Great Names series.
The 77th annual Albany Tulip Festival will return to Washington Park this Mother’s Day weekend for its signature mix of music, blooms and Dutch traditions.
The University of Maryland announced that Kermit the Frog will deliver the university’s commencement address on Wednesday, May 21, 2025. (Kermit’s creator, Jim Henson, graduated from the university in 1960).
“I am thrilled that our graduates and their families will experience the optimism and insight of the world-renowned Kermit the Frog at such a meaningful time in their lives,” Darryll J. Pines, president of the University of Maryland, said.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
