Good Monday morning.
Today is Ashura, an important holiday for many Muslims that, according to the interwebs, occurs on the tenth day of Muharram – the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar – and memorializes the role that Allah played saving Moses and the Israelites from the Egyptian pharaoh.
Except, it’s actually not quite so simple. It turns out that how you observe Ashura and what it means depends on which of the wo major branches of Islam you hail from.
It is a holy day for Shia Muslims, and also a fasting day for Sunni Muslims (actually, it’s recommended that those who chose to observe in this fashion fast for up to three days, not just one).
For Shia (or Shiite) Muslims – about 15 percent of the global Muslim population – Ashura is the most solemn and significant date on the calendar, and is an opportunity to mourn and remember the martyrdom of Hussain, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in 680 C.E.
For Sunni Muslims, the majority of Muslims worldwide – including here in the U.S. – Ashura is a New Year celebration that also commemorates miraculous events from the Quran, such as Moses parting the Red Sea and Noah landing the ark on dry land.
(Sounds familiar, fellow Jews, right? But I digress).
So these two branches of Islam were founded immediately following the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 C.E. If you really want to do a deep dive on the hows and whys and wherefores of this split, click here.
On a completely unrelated note, here’s something I would feel really guilty (somewhat irrationally, I know) for overlooking: It’s International Cat Day.
As those of you who have been following along here – thanks, by the way! – for some time, you are already well aware that I am a reformed (recovering?) cat person who has morphed into a full-in dog lover. Well, lover of my dogs, anyway. The jury is still out on those belonging to other people.
(BTW, the law makes a distinction between “owning” and “harboring” and “keeping” or “sheltering” a pet…why is this, do any of our lawyer friends out there know?)
While I still very much appreciate cats in all their slinky, fuzzy, purry, aloof and inexplicably maddening glory, my days of scooping liter boxes are on hold for he foreseeable future. I do very much enjoy a good bodega cat, though, or a cafe cat, for that matter.
Why is the health department in the U.S. so against this sort of thing? In my opinion, all good bookstores and coffee shops should have a resident cat or dog about.
Again, I digress.
So, back to cats.
They are believed to have first been domesticated in the Near East via a process that might have begun up to 12,000 years ago. It’s pretty well documented that the ancient Egyptians worshiped, mummified and revered cats. In fact, if one was convicted of killing a cat at the time, the sentence was death.
Meanwhile, cats did not fare so well in Europe, where they for some reason became associated with witches and the devil (especially felines who had the unfortunate trait of being black) and were often killed in a misguided attempt to ward off evil.
If you are sharing your home with a cat, or a dog, or a ferret, or even a parrot, today would be a good day to keep them inside, as it’s going to be hot – again – with temperatures in the low 90s, clouds and sun in the morning and a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon.
OH! A short public service announcement: Today is the last day to request n absentee ballot online, by mail or via fax ahead of the upcoming Aug. 23 primary elections. Otherwise, you have to go to the Board of Elections in person up to the Aug. 22 deadline.
In the headlines…
After hours of debate and votes on a nearly endless stream of amendments, U.S. Senate Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping climate change, health care and tax bill that delivers on many of the key priorities of the Biden administration.
The roughly $740 billion measure – which includes the largest investment to fight climate change in U.S. history – now heads to the House of Representatives, which is expected to take it up this week and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk.
The final, party-line vote was 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris breaking the tie. The package is the product of painstaking negotiations. Its final passage would give Democrats a chance to achieve major policy objectives ahead of the midterm elections.
The legislation, while scaled back, fulfills multiple longstanding Democratic goals, including countering the toll of climate change, taking steps to lower the cost of prescription drugs and to revamping portions of the tax code in a bid to make it more equitable.
“We’ve had an extraordinary six weeks,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview, calling the climate, health and tax measure “the most comprehensive piece of legislation affecting the American people in decades.”
The Inflation Reduction Act may not actually cut the cost of living. It upset progressives who wanted more. Its final passage may come too late to save Democrats in the midterms. But it’s still a big win for the party that seemed impossible just weeks ago.
Biden was in good spirits as he emerged from COVID-19 isolation and left the White House to head to Delaware. “I’m feeling great,” he said before he hopped on Marine One outside the White House.
Biden’s approval rate bounced back on Friday, with 44 percent of U.S. citizens being satisfied with the way the president he’s handling his job, according to a new poll.
Former President Donald Trump strongly indicated he is preparing to run for president and suggested an announcement will come soon.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference Texas on Saturday, Trump overwhelmingly won an unofficial straw poll of attendees who were asked who they preferred as the Republican nominee for president in 2024.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Trump should “focus on problems Americans are living with” instead of continuing to rail against the 2020 election, which Trump claims without evidence was stolen from him.
As Trump weighs a new campaign for the White House in 2024, many GOP lawmakers aren’t ready to throw their support behind him.
Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney says her crusade to stop Trump will continue — even if she loses her primary next week. Restoring a “very sick” G.O.P. will take years, she says, “if it can be healed.”
Washington state Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Trump in the wake of the Capitol insurrection, has advanced to the general election in the state’s 4th Congressional District.
Around 80,000 tourists are stranded in the popular resort city of Sanya on China’s tropical Hainan island after authorities announced lockdown measures to stem an outbreak of Covid-19.
Hong Kong will reduce the mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from a week, the city’s leader said.
The Biden administration released two reports this past week to initiate a whole-government effort to prevent, detect and treat long Covid. Two new studies also try to gather some of the small pieces of the puzzle that is long Covid.
A new study found there may be more than one variation of long COVID.
People who have a Covid-19 rebound after treatment with the antiviral drug Paxlovid can be contagious and may not know it because they might not have symptoms, researchers warn.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is almost certainly here to stay. Another wave is all but inevitable as new variants and subvariants mutate, compete for dominance and find new transmission pathways.
A person who works at a day care in Illinois has tested positive for monkeypox and potentially exposed children, who are at higher risk for severe outcomes from the virus, state officials announced.
“It was only a matter of time” before monkeypox made it to congregate settings, a pediatric infectious disease specialist said, after Illinois state officials announced that a daycare worker had been diagnosed with the smallpox-related virus.
State and city governments are walking a fine line as they move to confront the monkeypox outbreak, trying to spread awareness of the disease — which has thus far predominantly affected men who have sex with men — while avoiding stigmas.
Doctors who want to prescribe tecovirimat, or Tpoxx, which is the one drug used to treat monkeypox, must navigate a gantlet of bureaucratic hurdles that experts say could be quickly lifted.
Police in New Mexico asked for the public’s help in locating a “vehicle of interest” in their probe of four fatal shootings of Muslim men whose slayings in Albuquerque over the past nine months are believed by investigators to be related.
Biden denounced the killings of four Muslim men in New Mexico state that police say may be linked and could be a hate crime. “I am angered and saddened by the horrific killings of four Muslim men in Albuquerque,” he said on Twitter.
As the authorities appeal to the public for help in their investigation, many Muslim residents are experiencing a “managed panic.”
A federal team has been deployed to New York to investigate the state’s one positive case of polio — found in an unvaccinated adult in Rockland County who suffered paralysis.
New York state health officials have found indications of additional cases of polio virus in wastewater samples from two different counties, leading them to warn that hundreds of people may be infected with the potentially serious virus.
Mayor Eric Adams’ ongoing effort to roll back the state’s bail reform law has sparked a war of words between Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York’s judges over who’s to blame for the state’s revolving-door justice system.
Ex-NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller blasted the state’s bail-reform measures as “all ideology over common sense,” saying the laws were pushed by “advocates for people who commit crimes.”
Hochul’s reelection campaign is blasting her Republican challenger over allegations of petition fraud.
Republican lawmakers, alongside the New York Farm Bureau, are mounting their latest round of opposition to state officials approving a plan to require farm laborers to be paid overtime for work after 40 hours in a week.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis is arguing that violent crime driven by repeat offenders released under the state’s controversial bail reform law won’t turn around unless New York voters elect Republican candidate Lee Zeldin over incumbent Hochul.
Rep. Jerry Nadler leads Rep. Carolyn Maloney by 9 percentage points in New York’s 12th Congressional District primary, according to an Emerson College Polling-PIX11-The Hill survey released Friday.
The survey found that 40 percent of very likely Democratic primary voters planned on voting for Nadler, compared to 31 percent who said the same for Maloney. Attorney Suraj Patel received 11 percent, while 17 percent said they were undecided.
The epic Democratic primary fight between Maloney and Nadler could be determined by absentee ballots as many of their constituents are away vacationing for the summer, political pundits say.
An independent poll shows the Republican primary in Western New York’s new 23rd Congressional District between Carl Paladino and Nick Langworthy to be a dead heat, with each candidate receiving 32 percent of the vote.
Levi Strauss & Co. heir Dan Goldman poured $1 million of his fortune into his congressional campaign ahead of the Aug. 23 Democratic primary, campaign records reveal.
The Daily News “proudly” endorsed Liz Holtzman in the crowded NY-10 Democratic primary.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine is endorsing Councilwoman Carlina Rivera in the packed Democratic primary for New York’s 10th congressional district.
Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan, a Democratic frontrunner in the Aug. 23 primary for the seat representing Long Island’s northern shore, had a billionaire couple cover at least $50,000 of his college tuition payments.
Since April, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, has been shipping newly arrived asylum seekers to immigrant-friendly Democratic cities on the East Coast like New York to try to pressure the Biden administration into cracking down at the border.
Adams tried to greet the latest busload of migrants to get shipped in from Texas early yesterday, but was horrified to find the vast majority had already skipped, admitting it was likely through “fear” of the city.
Adams blasted Abbott yesterday after a second bus full of illegal migrants arrived at the New York City mayor’s doorstep.
After welcoming the families to New York City, Adams slammed Abbott for using the families as political pawns.
Albany County David Soares called on Hochul and the state Legislature to conduct a special session to amend what he said was the “failed legislation” that changed state bail statutes and raised the age of adult criminal responsibility in New York to age 18.
The director of a CUNY program that exposes city kids to college coursework apparently made a different kind of exposure — in a pantless photo posted to social media.
Ever-growing exodus figures show 2,465 NYPD officers have filed to leave the department this year — 42% more than the 1,731 who exited at the same time last year, according to the latest pension fund statistics.
Black New Yorkers are more likely to fall ill during heat waves due to “structural racism,” the city’s Department of Health says.
A veteran city prosecutor who investigated police corruption over a three-decade career will become the next inspector general for the New York City Police Department, taking on a crucial oversight role under a mayor who has made aggressive policing a priority.
A lawsuit brought by the family of Herman Diaz, 52, who choked on an orange slice and died at Rikers Island, relies on data created by the city, which acknowledges it can’t adequately care for the people in its jails, and could be a blueprint for many other suits.
Street traffic in New York City has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but city data show authorities are doing far less to crack down on reckless drivers than three years ago.
Civil rights activist Al Sharpton is locked in a nasty dispute with his landlord over the Harlem building where his National Action Network headquarters are located.
New York City is experimenting with new ways to tackle trash, including rat-resistant receptacles and social media campaigns.
A man charged with murder last month in the killing of a Chinese food delivery worker amid a dispute over duck sauce was found dead on Friday after shooting himself in his Queens apartment. His lawyer confirmed his client appeared to have killed himself.
Child sex abuse victims say the wheels of justice have ground to a near halt in New York City, where 5,000 lawsuits brought under a state law meant to give them justice have languished for years.
The spotted lanternfly, an invasive pest that ecologists have urged the populace to squish on sight, is back, infesting the New York City area.
Capital Roots workers rallied Friday at the Urban Grow Center on River Street in Troy over what they say is a delay in getting recognition for unionizing with Service Employees International Union Local 200United.
Bob Kovachick is retiring. The veteran meteorologist who has been with WNYT/NewsChannel 13 for more than 40 years made the announcement Friday.
A horse named Life Is Good won the Whitney at Saratoga.
There’s a new baby zebra at the Utica zoo.
RIP Pat M. Casale, one of the Capital Region’s most popular politicians who served seven terms in the state Assembly and was Rensselaer County clerk, who died Friday at home. He was 87.
RIP Francis J. Pordum, who represented parts of Erie County’s Southtowns and South Buffalo as a seven-term Democratic Assemblyman from 1982 to 1996. He died Saturday in his home in Derby after a long battle with cancer. He was 76.
Human remains were found at Lake Mead for the fourth time in about three months amid an alarming drop in water levels at the United States’ biggest reservoir.
