
From Alcor to Zappafrank: How the stars and other celestial objects got their names
CNN
Step out the door on a clear, dark night and you'll spot countless objects up there in the sky: planets, stars, comets, constellations, moons. And for every one of the ones we can see, an Earthling has named it. Here's how they did it.
You might even be able to pick out a small star there, in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper. It's called Alcor, a binary star paired with the nearby, brighter Mizar, Arabic for "cloak." In Arabic, the former star is called al-Khawwar, "the faint one," and finding it made for a good eye test in the days before wall charts. "He can see Alcor," an Arabic proverb has it, "but not the full moon," akin to not being able to see the forest for the trees.
Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani bitterly clashed over age and experience Thursday in the final debate before New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, as Cuomo warned that electing the progressive state assemblyman is unprepared for the job and Mamdani hammered the former governor over scandals during his time in Albany.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a striking graphic on its official X account. Uncle Sam, a symbol of American patriotism, is depicted nailing a poster to a wall that reads, “Help your country… and yourself.” Written underneath the poster is the sentence, “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS,” and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement hot line.