Good morning, it’s Monday – the last Monday in February. I know it’s hard to believe, but Spring is right around the corner. Really! I swear. It will be here on March 20, officially speaking.
Now, whether Mother Nature will recognize that date and quit it with the snow thing, I can’t promise. This is Upstate New York, after all, home of the late Spring blizzard.
When Spring does finally arrive, nature will start to wake up, emerging from its Winter slumber. That includes bears, who generally emerge from hibernation around mid-to-late March, and around a month later for females with cubs.
They are at this point understandably not in the greatest mood, having neither eaten, nor drank, nor defecated (crazy, but true) for up to seven-and-a-half months.
It’s a good idea to give bears a wide berth any time of the year if you happen to encounter one out in the wild – or in your backyard, which is happening with increasing frequency (back to that in a moment) – but especially in the Spring when they tend to be very ornery and in search of sustenance.
One thing bears are NOT likely consuming is cocaine, though you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, considering the wildly popular new movie that is VERY loosely based on a bear who reportedly ingested some of a stash thrown out of a plane by a convicted drug smuggler.
Actually, bears are kind of having a moment when it comes to the media. Did you hear, for example, about the Connecticut family that found a black bear hibernating under their deck? They recorded a video of the sleepy bear and posted it on Instagram, which – of course – it quickly went viral.
All this attention offers a good opportunity to educate the public about bears, which are members of the Ursidae family and classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. There are actually only eight species of bears in the world, the largest of which are Polar bears. Adult males can reach more than 1,760 pounds.
There are about 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears in the Arctic wilderness. They can also be found in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Russia, and Norway. They are in danger (though not formally endangered). According to a study published in Nature Climate Change, polar bear populations will decrease – and possibly even disappear – by 2100.
This is largely due to the rapid deterioration of their habitat as a result of global warming AND human interactions. This is, of course, concerning, and International Polar Bear Day (it’s today, in case you hadn’t figured that out yet) is held annually to raise awareness about this amazing animal’s plight.
The weather lately has been pretty fitting for Polar bears, though we don’t have any in our immediate area, and it’s also probably keeping those hibernating local bears snug in their dens for the foreseeable future.
We’re under yet another winter storm watch, starting this afternoon and running through tomorrow evening. Another 5 to 10 inches of snow is possible in some parts of the area. This is the storm that terrorized California, so brace yourself. (New York City might finally get some snow this winter).
In the headlines…
New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the coronavirus pandemic, though U.S. spy agencies remain divided over the origins of the virus, American officials said.
That’s according to a newly updated classified intelligence report. Yet two sources said that the department assessed in the intelligence report that it had “low confidence” in this theory.
Republicans are seizing on the new Energy Department conclusion pointing to a “lab leak” as causing the COVID-19 outbreak to call for swift action against the Chinese government, which has refused to cooperate with global probes into the pandemic’s origin.
Woody Harrelson took aim at COVID vaccine mandates during his return to “Saturday Night Live”, sharing some shared some anti-vaccine views during his opening monologue with a joke about a script he recounted reading before the pandemic.
Pfizer is in talks to acquire biotech Seagen Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, the latest potential deal for a big drug company aimed at adding a promising class of targeted cancer therapies
President Joe Biden in an interview that aired yesterday expressed skepticism about a Russia-Ukraine peace plan that China has floated.
“I’ve seen nothing in the plan that would indicate that there is something that would be beneficial to anyone other than Russia if the Chinese plan were followed,” Biden told David Muir on ABC’s “This Week.”
Biden and the leaders of the Group of Seven nations reaffirmed their “unwavering support” for Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Friday, as the Biden administration announced sweeping new sanctions against Russia.
The high court begins to pick through Biden’s $400 billion student debt plan over the course of several hours of oral arguments tomorrow.
The Supreme Court will consider sharp curbs to the power of the executive branch in the case, potentially diluting the influence of future presidents for years to come.
John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, said in a new interview with The Boston Globe that he told Biden that he will serve in his role through at least the United Nations climate summit in November.
First Lady Jill Biden gave one of the clearest indications yet that her husband will run for a second term, telling The AP in an exclusive interview on Friday that there’s “pretty much” nothing left to do but figure out the time and place for the announcement.
“He says he’s not done,” Jill Biden said in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, on the second and final stop of her five-day trip to Africa, which started in Namibia earlier this week. “He’s not finished what he’s started. And that’s what’s important,”
Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he will not attend the Republican National Conference (RNC) if former President Trump wins the party’s presidential nomination in 2024.
GOP leaders are sending warnings that they want Trump to play by the rules and put his party above his own interests as he embarks on a third campaign – that is, to behave in a way he rarely, if ever, has before.
Trump and his ex-United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are set to give dueling addresses at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) next week, putting a sharp focus on the ongoing tug-of-war within the GOP.
The group of Ron DeSantis’ top donors and supporters gathering in Palm Beach, Fla., this past weekend included some longtime Trump backers.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is requesting a major disaster declaration from the Biden administration, after that historic December storm that rocked western New York.
Controversial proposals by Hochul to increase the MTA payroll levy and override local zoning laws is worrying some Long Island Democrats that they could cost them their seats, with one lawmaker likening them to “extinction-level events.”
Hochul’s recently released financial report shows the state with a healthy $8.7 billion surplus. But fiscal watchdogs, as well as Republicans in the State Legislature, say that won’t last – and they are urging caution when it comes to spending.
Hochul on Friday announced an $2.2 million expansion of New York’s Fair Housing Testing Program.
Hochul also announced plans for an I LOVE NY Black travel initiative, designed to grow New York State tourism and encourage Black traveler visitation.
The governor singled out historical figures, including Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, who either lived or spent time in the state as she touted the new “I LOVE NY Black travel initiative.”
Hochul joined MTA leaders at a new station deep beneath Grand Central Terminal to mark the full opening of new LIRR service, which will operate up to 24 trains an hour. Officials said the new trains will increase weekday LIRR service by 41%.
The State Sheriffs’ Association wants to stub out Hochul’s planned ban on menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco while raising the tax on smokes by $1 — claiming it’ll fuel the black market, be hard to enforce and worsen police-community relations.
NYSUT’s fundraising arm lavished more than $400,000 on Democratic legislators championing its anti-charter school agenda — part of $8 million-plus it has poured into predominantly left-wing political coffers since 2017, records show.
The state teachers union has a long history of political donations to State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins — which could sink Hochul’s push for more charter schools in the Big Apple.
Mayor Eric Adams’ brother is leaving his volunteer post as a mayoral security adviser, a position he took after controversy over initial plans to hire him in a high-paid city job.
In an interview that aired Friday, Bernard Adams told PIX11 News that he’ll wrap up at City Hall this week. The mayor then publicly thanked his brother.
“When it comes to protecting my life, there was no one I trusted more than my baby brother,” the mayor said in a statement tweeted by a spokesperson.
Adams’ top public safety official, Phil Banks, refused to explain his role in the administration on Friday, disrupting the first in a series of briefings on the city’s efforts to protect New Yorkers.
Adams’ top public safety adviser signaled New Yorkers Friday that the administration needs feedback from city dwellers so it can be successful in making the city more safe — but the initial response he got was underwhelming, to say the least.
MSG boss James Dolan is fine with using facial recognition technology to ban his perceived enemies from the venue — but he refused to show face at a City Council hearing Friday to defend himself against mounting criticism over the controversial practice.
A top Madison Square Garden official says the World’s Most Famous Arena is willing to relocate — as long as they only have to move across the street.
Big Apple DOT officials botched a Queens road sign for the Jackie Robinson Parkway, misspelling the color-barrier-busting baseball Hall of Famer’s name.
A group called Save Maimonides has financed a relentless, monthslong campaign to disparage a struggling Brooklyn medical center. Is this the best way to fix the hospital?
Alexander Roque, who runs Ali Forney, a Manhattan center that serves L.G.B.T.Q. youth, said “they would have to shut us down and put me in handcuffs” before he would comply with a city directive to stop letting youth and young adults stay the night there.
They say that print is dead and local news is dying. But in the small patch of Lower Manhattan that is Greenwich Village, there are four local newspapers vying for supremacy. Here, print is very much alive. And local news is vicious.
Early yesterday evening, just after New York City Ballet’s final performance of the season, four soloists received the kind of postseason gift every dancer dreams of: Elevation to the rank of principal dancer.
Norman Seabrook, the ex-NYC correction officers’ union who sentenced to nearly five years in prison for taking a bribe, was granted release by a judge who noted an “unjust disparity” between his sentence and that of the businessman who paid him off.
Former NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly is speaking out publicly for the first time about a Rikers Island inmate’s plot to behead him and bomb police headquarters some 16 years ago.
Staten Island, the Big Apple’s most conservative and cop-friendly borough, leads the city with a 14% surge in major crime this year compared to the same time last year, NYPD data show.
Two top members of the NYPD have signed up to take the chief’s exam to work in Suffolk County.
Media companies across the country, including the New York Daily News, will no longer carry the cartoon “Dilbert” after the strip’s creator, Scott Adams, went on a racially charged rant telling fans to “get the hell away from Black people.”
Twitter laid off at least 200 of its employees on Saturday night, three people familiar with the matter said, or about 10 percent of the roughly 2,000 who were still working for the company.
The Musk-led SpaceX is set to launch another crew to the International Space Station, the latest human flight the company has handled for NASA since bringing such missions back to the U.S. about three years ago.
Last-minute technical trouble forced SpaceX to call off today’s attempt to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA.
WNBA star Brittney Griner and her wife, Cherelle, received a standing ovation at the NAACP Image Awards on Saturday, months after she was freed from Russian prison.
The SAG handed its top award for outstanding cast to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the hit sci-fi comedy that recently dominated the Directors and Producers Guild Awards and now appears to be a strong best picture front-runner at the Oscars.
Ward B. Stone, who as the state’s maverick wildlife pathologist pleased environmentalists but angered his bosses and corporate polluters by going beyond his mandate to expose the dangers that PCBs and other toxic chemicals posed to humans, died at 84.
