Good Friday morning. It’s Friday. Yes. Friday. It’s finally here. The extreme cold and long, dark nights seem to make time slow down somehow…or maybe it’s just me.
I tend to shy away from writing about politics in this space, which might come as something of a shock (or even disappointment?) to those of you who knew me in my former life.
That goes double for the debate over the war in Gaza, which is so deeply polarizing and personal to so many people that I have largely avoided weighing in – with the exception of that one post not long after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that sparked it all.
We’re now more than 100 days into the conflict with no end in sight, and it’s believed that more than 132 people of the roughly 240 originally captured continue to be held hostage.
About half the hostages were released after a very short-lived truce back in November. According to Israel, 25 have died in captivity. Negotiations over the release of hostages are ongoing, and progress reportedly is being made, but the process is painfully, agonizingly slow.
Medication was delivered this week into Gaza – some for the hostages, some in the form of humanitarian aid for Palestinians caught up in the violence that has unfolded since the Oct. 7 attack.
Why am I bringing this up now, breaking my streak of leaving this issue alone? On this day in history in 1981, the Algiers Accords were signed, which lead to the immediate release of the remaining 52 American diplomats and citizens of the 66 taken hostage when a group of militarized Iranian college students took control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Most of the hostages were held for 44 days (just over 1.2 years – YEARS). The incident, which took place in the wake of the Iranian Revolution, undermined the Carter administration’s foreign policy and emboldened the Russians. Ultimately, the whole mess spanned not one, but two administrations – Jimmy Carter’s and Ronald Reagan’s.
The initial 13 hostages – all woman and/or African Americans – were ordered released about two weeks into the crisis by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who believed they were unlikely to be spies. It took prolonged diplomatic efforts, with the Algerians acting as intermediaries (much like Qatar is today), to be the remaining hostages released.
As an aside, the infamous “Tehran Six” managed to avoid being taken to begin with and were about, with the help of the Canadians, to escape to Iran.
You may remember the Ben Affleck movie “Argo”? It was based on the so-called “Canadian Caper” and won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 2012. I loved that film, but it caused me endless anxiety. I could barely sit through it, though I found it fascinating.
There are still a few survivors of the Iran hostage crisis, and they are not terribly happy with the U.S. government, which paid them only a fraction of the $4.4 million apiece they were promised by Congress in 2015 as a result of their ordeal.
The Iranian hostage crisis and the hostage crisis in Israel are two completely different tragedies, with wildly disparate circumstances. I’m not posting about this today for any reason other than to bring attention to a situation that deserves to remain in the spotlight until every individual is safe at home with family and friends, and also to remember a really significant moment in our nation’s history.
It’s going to be cold. Again. Highs will only reach the mid-20s. There will be occasional snow showers throughout the day.
The weekend is looking, well, cold. With highs (can one even say that in this case?) in the teens on Saturday, and the low 20s on Sunday, during which the sun will make an appearance. Yippee Skippy.
In the headlines…
Congress cleared legislation extending government funding into March, ensuring federal workers stay on the job but doing nothing to alleviate political pressures stemming from high U.S. debt levels, record southern border crossing and the Ukraine war.
The Senate passed the measure 77-18, followed by House approval, 314-108. The two votes send the measure to President Joe Biden’s desk with time to spare ahead of the weekend deadline.
With some federal agencies, including those that oversee agriculture, transportation and veterans’ services, set to run out of funding Friday at midnight and a winter storm bearing down, lawmakers were under pressure to finish their work and leave town.
U.S. forces conducted a fifth strike against Iranian-backed Houthi rebel military sites in Yemen as Biden acknowledged the bombardment had yet to stop the militants’ attacks on vessels in the Red Sea that have disrupted global shipping.
Biden has pledged to continue strikes against Yemen’s Houthis. Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh also said that the US did not consider itself to be at war with the Houthis and that its actions are in self defense.
Democrats who want to cast a ballot for Biden in the New Hampshire primary will have to write his name in on Tuesday.
That’s left the state’s Democratic establishment trying to spread the word about an unofficial campaign to write in Biden’s name – but not spread it so loudly that they risk embarrassing the president, and themselves, if someone else wins.
Biden is the first president running for reelection to skip the Granite State primary in more than 50 years.
Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, has agreed to sit for a deposition on Feb. 28 in the House impeachment inquiry into his father, relenting after Republicans threatened to hold him in contempt of Congress for refusing an earlier subpoena to testify privately.
“The president’s son is a key witness in this investigation and he’s gonna be able to come in now and sit down and answer questions in a substantive, orderly manner,” Rep. James Comer, chair of the Oversight Committee, told reporters.
Chaos and a “lack of urgency” plagued the police response to the deadly 2022 mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the US justice department has found.
Teachers and students “were trapped in a room with an active shooter for over an hour”, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “That should not have happened.”
The 600-page report describes, in often-minute detail, the breakdown in leadership, training, coordination and communication among the large number of local, state and federal law enforcement agencies that arrived at the scene.
“There were multiple points of failure that hold lessons for the future,” Biden said. “My team will work with the Justice Department and Department of Education to implement policy changes necessary to help communities respond more effectively in the future.”
The notoriety that came with being subjected to an onslaught of abuse by Donald Trump and his hordes of followers is no measure of success, E. Jean Carroll told a Manhattan Federal Court jury.
“Yes, I’m more well known, but I’m hated by a lot more people,” Carroll testified as Trump lawyer Alina Habba grilled her about whether publicizing her claim that he forced himself on her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room has boosted her social “status.”
Trump urged the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling barring him from the primary ballot in Colorado and to declare him eligible to seek and hold the office of the presidency.
Trump’s brief in a case with the potential to alter the course of the presidential election, was a forceful recitation of more than half a dozen arguments about why the court had gone astray in ruling him an insurrectionist constitutionally barred from office.
Fani T. Willis, the district attorney prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against Trump, is trying to quash a subpoena seeking her testimony in the divorce proceedings of a special prosecutor she hired to manage the case.
Gov. Kathy Hochul reported raising an eye-popping $6.4 million in campaign funds in the second half of 2023, scoring large sums from wealthy pro-business donors and reinforcing her reputation as a formidable fundraiser.
A state comptroller’s audit found NYRA implemented some but not all of eight recommendations from an earlier audit that showed the nonprofit had questionable spending and procurement practices, including lacking controls to ensure all spending approval.
You wouldn’t know it if you checked the state or New York City Boards of Elections websites, but the Bronx has a special election to replace former Assembly Member Latoya Joyner on Feb. 13 – the same day as a congressional special election on Long Island.
Hochul announced that $7.6 million is available to eligible organizations through the second round of the New York Food for Families Program, which is funded through A US Department of Agriculture grant.
Some Long Island school districts could lose state aid under Hochul’s budget proposal.
Hochul went deep into Long Island to tout her $233 billion budget plan, trying to drum up support in the politically vital suburbs.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called on New York State lawmakers to support victims of sex-trafficking by doing away with the limit on how many years they have to come forward about the abuse.
Former New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, whose 2021 mayoralty bid was derailed by a sexual misconduct allegation, is taking the first steps to primary Mayor Eric Adams.
Stringer, a Manhattan Democrat, filed paperwork with the city’s CFB to launch an exploratory committee for a mayoral run, a move that will enable him to raise money for a campaign and could alter the city’s political landscape in the coming months.
The move caught much of the city’s Democratic establishment by surprise and signaled the start of a combative new phase of Adams’s mayoralty, as Stringer became the first Democrat to move toward directly contesting the mayor’s re-election.
Adams re-upped calls on Albany to pass a key housing plan during the new legislative session at a press conference yesterday where he also highlighted the city’s record-breaking affordable housing production — but stressed more needed to be done.
Adams announced that New York City financed more than 14,000 new affordable homes last year, a record number, and created nearly 4,000 homes for New Yorkers who formerly experienced homelessness and more than 1,500 supportive homes.
Adams is up for a bruising veto fight as he barrels towards killing a controversial bill pushed through by the City Council that will force NYPD officers to file more detailed reports after every street stop — even the most minor ones.
A small group of organizers rallied outside of New York City Hall this week to call on Adams not to veto a series of bills that would ban the use of solitary confinement in city jails and increase oversight over police stops and searches.
Adams has an unusual financial arrangement with his former chief fundraiser, a 25-year-old whose home was recently raided by the FBI. She was paid on commission by the mayor’s reelection team.
An active game of musical chairs in the City Council ended yesterday, with changes in store for nearly a dozen committee chair positions for the 2024-2025 session.
The full list of committee membership, which was approved by the rules committee yesterday morning, is expected to later be approved by the full council in the afternoon.
Speaker Adrienne Adams tapped newcomer Yusef Salaam to lead one of the chamber’s most high-profile committees, but kicked other, left-leaning members off their committee chairs in a move some saw as at least partially aimed at exacting political revenge.
New York City’s largest public employee union, DC 37, is testing out a four-day workweek.
MTA employees in agency-issued vehicles — cars, SUVs and pickup trucks — idle their engines too long, wasting money and sending pollution into the air, says a report released yesterday by the agency’s Inspector General.
The value of city buildings is sinking under the weight of high interest rates, crippling regulations and large vacancies caused by work-from-home and pandemic downsizing.
The Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan-based think tank, issued a list of 20 ideas outside the budget to generate needed new revenue for city parks.
It was supposed to be a mall, then ice rinks. Nearly 30 years later, a community group may have the best shot at revitalizing a fortress – the Kingsbridge Armory – in New York’s poorest borough.
A former State Department employee charged with a hate crime in November after he harassed a halal food vendor in Manhattan, calling him a “terrorist,” may have his charges dismissed if he completes a 26-week anti-bias course and fulfills other requirements.
Two New York City Madonna fans are taking the pop star to court over the late start to her Barclays Center concert last month.
An American Airlines plane slid off the runway and into the grass shortly after landing in snowy weather yesterday at New York’s Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport.
As New York experiences a new wave of COVID-19 and flu cases, Capital Region hospitals are changing their visitation policies.
Mission BBQ, a Maryland-based chain with more than 130 restaurants on the East Coast and in the Midwest, will be opening its second New York location in the spring in Northway Shopping Center.
Colonie-based fuel-cell maker Plug Power is selling up to $1 billion in stock as it tries to shore up its finances amid a torrent of spending and losses.
A leading supplier for the solar and wind-power industries is opening an office in Schenectady, a move driven partly by GE Vernova ramping up its onshore wind-turbine production in the Electric City.
Over 100 animals were seized this week from an unregistered animal rescue group after law enforcement found animals living in crowded and filthy conditions — as well as dead animals kept in a freezer, according to the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society.
George Woodard — a political adviser, mentor, and voice for Black City of Albany residents — died Monday at the age of 78.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
