Spring has sprung, my eye! What in the name of all that’s holy was THAT!
What did we do to incur Mother Nature’s wrath this time? I’m still living in fear after a number of ice-laden trees in the backyard came down and caused an awful mess. Parts of the fence were taken out in the process and the basketball hoop (don’t ask) was broken. No great loss, since no one around here uses it, but cleaning that up is going to be a trick.
We didn’t lose power, unlike a lot of other people, so I guess I’m counting my blessings there. And, as springs storms go, it was hardly the latest weather disturbance in the season that we’ve seen, historically speaking.
Still, it wasn’t fun. Oh yeah, happy Monday.
I realize that when I wrote about Palm Sunday last Friday, I neglected to note that another holiday – one observed by my own people – was taking place over the weekend: Purim. Sorry, I know. I’m not a very good Jew. I do enjoy a nice prune or apricot hamantaschen, but that’s generally about the extent of it when it comes to my Purim celebrations.
If I had kids, it might be different. But these days, it’s all I can do to get up and get dressed in a semi-respectable fashion. Trying to come up with a Purim costume and going to synagogue to march around and spin a grager (AKA gragger, grogger gregger) – especially in the middle of a snow/ice/rain storm is just beyond me at this point.
Purim is a bit of a mixed bag in that it’s described as both a minor AND a major holiday. (If you want to go down that rabbit hole, click here). It is a joyous holiday filled with music and feasting and gaiety, and celebrates a triumph of good over evil and the ability of Jews to thrive in spite of repeatedly efforts to rub them out.
That means more than ever before, given the state of the world these days, with an unprecedented rise in antisemitic incidents, which has only grown in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack that spurred the ongoing war in Gaza.
There is another holiday that I haven’t yet missed because it’s taking place today, and it’s one that I have long wanted to experience in person. It’s called Holi – the Hindu festival of colors held to celebrate the arrival of spring. Hard to think of at the moment, as we’re digging out from multiple inches – feet? – of snow.
Holi is observed with dancing, music, food, and the lighting on bonfires that signify the triumph of good over evil. (Sometime of a through-line between religions emerges, yet again).
But its best-known tradition involves white-clad revelers throwing colored powders – and sometimes balloons filled with colored water – at one another, creating a riot of color and joy. The exact date of this two-day festival is dependent on the lunar calendar, but usually falls sometime toward the end of March.
Different colors symbolize different things – red for marriage and/or fertility, and also auspiciousness, along with yellow (just that last aspect, though); green for rebirth, new beginnings, and spring; and blue for the color of Lord Kirshna’s skin.
A number of special foods are associated with Holi, including Gujiya , which is a deep-fried sweet dumpling that is often filled with a mixture of khoya (dried evaporated milk solids), coconut, dry fruits, and sugar.
Now that the storm is behind us, we’re heading into a warming trend. Temperatures today will be in the mid-to-high 40s, and skies will be mostly sunny. A welcome switch, if ever there was one, I’d say.
In the headlines…
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared yesterday a day of national mourning for the 137 victims in Friday’s attack on a Moscow concert hall. Putin vowed to punish the perpetrators and expressed condolences to those who lost loved ones.
“The whole country, our whole people, mourns with you,” he said. The attack is Russia’s deadliest in two decades.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, a top law-enforcement body, said 137 bodies had been recovered from the charred premises, including three children. It said that 62 victims had been identified so far and that genetic testing was underway to identify the rest.
The search for survivors ended on Saturday, as details about the victims began to emerge. Many of the more than 100 people wounded in the attack were in critical condition.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement published by ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq on Telegram. US intelligence officials said they believe it was specifically the work of the group’s Afghan affiliate, the Islamic State in Khorasan (ISIS-K).
In a video statement released Saturday, Putin said that 11 people have been arrested, including the four perpetrators of the attack, who had fled the scene. Authorities in Moscow say the four were not Russian citizens. Putin hinted the attack was linked to Ukraine.
Biden on Saturday signed the massive spending package that the Senate approved overnight, avoiding a partial shutdown of the government and ending a months-long fight over spending that persisted six months into the fiscal year.
“This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden said in a statement.
The package fully funds the government through September. The Senate approved the $1.2 trillion package, which was unveiled early last Thursday, in a vote of 74 to 24. Hours earlier, it advanced out of the House in a 286 to 134 vote.
The government spending bill Congress passed to avert a partial government shutdown includes a number of provisions that have left both parties complaining, from a ban on pride flags at U.S. embassies to no additional funding for border security.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Washington to meet with senior U.S. leaders yesterday, the Israeli government announced, as tensions continue to rise between the Biden administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned on Friday that Israel’s blockade of Gaza had put the territory on the brink of severe famine, saying publicly for the first time that the nation’s wartime actions amounted to an “unfolding genocide.”
Seven days after Israel’s military began a raid on the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, a picture of the sustained assault on the complex and its surrounding neighborhood emerges in fragments.
The United Nations said Israel is now blocking its main agency helping Palestinians from sending food aid to the enclave’s devastated north.
“Despite the tragedy unfolding under our watch, the Israeli Authorities informed the UN that they will no longer approve any @Unrwa food convoys to the north,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the agency, said on X.
Vice President Kamala Harris suggested there could be “consequences” for Israel if it moves ahead with a planned invasion of Rafah in its pursuit of Hamas fighters.
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) in the occupied West Bank as state land, in a move that will facilitate the use of the ground for settlement building.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is facing bubbling anger from his right flank after a bill to keep the government funded passed the House with support from fewer than half of Republicans.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has taken the first step towards a vote to oust Johnson as speaker, and some hardliners aren’t ruling out supporting his removal.
“This is not personal against Mike Johnson. He’s a very good man. And I have respect for him as a person. But he is not doing the job. The proof is in the vote count today,” Greene told reporters.
Former Rep. George Santos announced he’s leaving the “embarrassing” Republican Party on the same day that Congress passed a $1.2 trillion bipartisan spending bill to keep the federal government running.
After announcing earlier this year that he would not seek a fifth term in Congress, Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher on Friday moved up his departure date to next month.
The GOP will hold a 217-213 majority after Gallagher leaves the chamber, meaning Johnson will be able to lose just one Republican vote on any measure that doesn’t have Democratic support.
Harris deflected on why Biden’s campaign has a TikTok account and encourages Americans to follow it given the White House’s security concerns with the platform — and support for legislation that could lead to it being banned in the U.S.
Harris vowed that the Biden administration does “not intend to ban TikTok,” though the president has said he would sign legislation that could potentially lead to that result.
Donald Trump’s legal team and the New York Attorney General’s office are working hard ahead of the former president’s deadline today to secure a bond for the multimillion-dollar civil fraud judgment against him.
Trump is expected to spend this morning in the courtroom of a New York judge who might soon preside over his criminal trial and, ultimately, throw him behind bars. And that’s not even the legal predicament that worries him most that day.
With a deadline fast approaching to secure the bond in his civil fraud case or risk seizure of his assets and flagship properties, Trump sent an email on Saturday to his campaign’s supporters. The subject line: “Keep your filthy hands off Trump Tower”.”
Eric Trump has come out railing against the $454m fraudulent property valuations judgment against his father, saying bonds the size of the half-a-billion dollar one the former president is being required to put up “don’t exist in this country”.
Trump’s social media company — and the parent of his favorite communications platform, Truth Social — became a public company Friday through a merger that will raise his wealth by billions of dollars and potentially help pay his mounting legal bills.
Shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded shell company, approved a deal to merge with the Trump’s media business. That means Trump Media & Technology Group will soon begin trading on the Nasdaq stock market.
Jeff Yass, the billionaire Wall Street financier and Republican megadonor who is a major investor in the parent company of TikTok, was also the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that recently merged with Trump’s social media company.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) suggested she is not ruling out leaving the GOP, pointing to its shift toward Trump.
In and interview that Murkowski gave to CNN, she said that she would “absolutely” not support Trump in the general election in November.
One week out from the nominal deadline to approve the next state budget, Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature are heading into a few days of furious negotiations, with school funding and tenant protections seen as likely sticking points.
As lawmakers work toward finalizing a state budget by their April 1 deadline, the so-called 100-foot rule is emerging as a key issue when it comes to New York’s decarbonization push.
Hochul recently announced the start of a $5 million bridge replacement project on the New York State Thruway.
The head of the Assembly ethics panel is holding a re-election fundraiser just days before she and other pols are set to submit the state budget — raising eyebrows even in Albany’s jaded pay-to-play culture.
From public funding for guardians to more scrutiny of nonprofit providers, experts say policymakers could take several actions to bolster the state’s foundering system for caring for its most vulnerable.
The state Cannabis Control Board voted Friday to waive licensing fees for the next two years for New York’s 279 cultivators, many of whom have experienced extreme financial hardship during the beleaguered rollout of the retail marijuana market.
Hochul this week announced the approval of more than 100 new state licenses to sell pot — even as New York’s embattled cannabis program is in the midst of a complete overhaul, and illegal shops continue to thrive.
A state law requiring drivers to move over or slow down for any vehicle parked on the side of the road — not just emergency vehicles — takes effect this week.
Far-left Albany Dems want all drugs — including deadly fentanyl — to be decriminalized in New York State, oddly comparing their pursuit to Oregon’s disastrous experiment that lawmakers rolled back this year.
Cute critters such as field mice, sparrows and other birds will breathe a sigh of relief if a ban on glue traps in New York State goes into law.
State Sen. James Tedisco is pushing for answers on New York’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as the state nears the 4-year anniversary of a controversial nursing home directive that was issued by the administration of former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Housing advocates in New York have created a super PAC that aims to spend tens of thousands of dollars to help elect political candidates who welcome development in their districts.
Mayor Eric Adams nixed a planned trip yesterday to the U.S.-Mexico border over security concerns. He planned to meet with Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande, and other leaders to discuss the migrant crisis.
“Due to safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to visit in Mexico flagged by the U.S. Department of State we have decided to pause this visit at this time,” a City Hall spokesperson said.
Adams unveiled a zoning proposal to enable faith-based organizations and other mission-driven nonprofits to construct affordable housing in New York City.
The retired NYPD sergeant accusing mayoral adviser Timothy Pearson of sexual harassment and retaliation says she spoke three times with a City Hall investigator but decided not to pursue her complaint because of a concern about Pearson’s influence.
Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark made an impassioned funding plea to the City Council with a difference: She asked for more money for housing and mental health services rather than making a routine request for additional funds for her own office.
A Staten Island power couple made up of the district attorney and a state Supreme Court judge are under scrutiny for “double dipping” by taking in hefty taxpayer-funded salaries and pensions.
Crime on the subways has become significantly more violent since the pandemic with the number of felony assaults soaring when compared to pre-pandemic levels, an analysis by The Post revealed.
The first case of measles outside of New York City in 2024 — and the third in the state this year — was confirmed by the state Department of Health Friday.
The Port Authority Police Department is investing in a multimillion-dollar technology upgrade that will streamline response times and improve communication.
A study to offer three alternatives to making Troy’s Burdett Avenue a safer road will be offered to the public by a Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute study group at meeting to be held tomorrow.
One year after the former Kenwood Convent and a surrounding building burned to the ground in a suspicious fire, there is little movement to redevelop the site located between South Pearl Street and Southern Boulevard.
First New York Federal Credit Union will be merging with the Schenectady-based Mohawk Progressive Federal Credit Union, First New York said Friday.
The Saratoga Race Course summer meet will include 71 stakes races worth $20.75 million in total purses.
A little more than a day after Catherine, Princess of Wales, posted a video explaining her absence from public view was due to a cancer diagnosis, Kensington Palace released a statement attributed to the future Queen and her husband, Prince William.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
