Good morning, it’s Monday.
I know it’s still cold and the back roads are still icy, and you’re still tracking salt and dirt into the house like it’s going out of style. BUT, I could have sworn I caught a whiff of spring this weekend.
It was just a small whiff, mind you, a sort of change in the way the wind was blowing, more bird activity, and some blessed sun appearances from time to time.
It was enough to make me feel hopeful that this seemingly never-ending winter is indeed going to end…someday, hopefully soon. Officially speaking, we have 23 days remaining until spring gets here. And looking ahead, there are some 40+ degree days in the forecast this week, which is going to feel like a veritable heatwave.
I can’t wait.
I don’t watch a lot of TV these days, basically none, really, unless you count the occasional episode of something someone tells me about that I catch on my laptop. I stare at a screen all day long. When work is finally over, I just don’t have a lot of interest in additional screen time – even if it is recreational.
I did watch TV when I was growing up, but somehow I never got into “Twin Peaks,” which aired on ABC in 1990, when I was a senior in high school. I do recall my friends talking about it, trying to make sense of the strange plot twists and double entendres, but I must have been focused on other things, though I have no idea what they were anymore.
I had to look up the show’s plot to write this post, and must say that it sounds intriguing. The series was created by David Lynch and Mark Frost, and though it drew widely mixed reviews during its on-again, off-again run, it is viewed as a turning point for what was possible for television, setting the stage for future narrative shows like “The Sopranos” and “Breaking Bad.”
Basically, it starts out as a story about a murdered prom queen named Laura Palmer and the investigation into her death by a FBI special agent named Dale Cooper, and slowly devolves into a dark and bizarre treatise on the paranormal and the double lives of the residents of a seemingly mundane and quaint town near the Canadian border.
The show didn’t last all that long. ABC cancelled it in 1991 after ratings flagged in its second season – basically because the plot veered away from the murder investigation and things just got too weird and surreal for even the most dedicated of viewers to keep track of. In 2017, Showtime revived the show for a third season, set 25 years after the finale of Season 2. This run was also written by Lynch and Frost. It was supposed to have just nine episodes, but eventually stretched to double that.
Though the Washington State town in which the show was set is fictional, a number of real-life municipalities claim to be the “real” “Twin Peaks.” One of them is the one-time timber town of North Bend, located about 30 miles east of Seattle, where the show was largely filmed. The other is the City of Snoqualmie, which is about five miles from North Bend, and was also featured in Lynch’s film “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.”
Snoqualmie hosts an annual Twin Peaks event Feb. 21-24, (in the show, Agent Cooper arrives in the fictional town on Feb. 24 to investigate Palmer’s murder). This year will undoubtedly be particularly poignant as Lynch died earlier this year on Jan. 16 at the age of 78 after suffering from smoking-induced emphysema for many years.
We end this post where we started – with the weather. It will be considerably warmer, with temperatures soaring into the mid-40s, though skies will continue to be cloudy and it will still be on the windy side.
In the headlines…
Several federal agencies have advised employees not to respond to Elon Musk’s email demanding federal workers list five accomplishments from the past week by 11:59 a.m. today or risk losing their jobs.
The Department of Defense shared a message to its employees on the social platform X, noting it is responsible for reviewing employee performance.
Their instructions in effect countermanded the order of Musk, challenging the broad authority Trump has given him to make drastic changes to the federal bureaucracy. The standoff is one of the first significant tests of how far Musk’s power will extend.
Trump cracked a joke using an edited SpongeBob SquarePants meme to poke fun at outrage over Musk’s demand that federal workers explain what they did at work last week.
Retired Gen. George Casey said that Trump’s recent Pentagon firings are “extremely destabilizing” to the military “at a time that’s a lot going on domestically and a lot going on abroad.”
Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fired Friday alongside five other senior defense officials and top military lawyers.
The move prompted anger and alarm from Democrats and former national security leaders, who advised it marked a risky polarization of the military during a time of major geopolitical unrest.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backed Trump’s decision to dismiss the nation’s top military officer, saying that he was “not the right man for the moment.”
Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned right-wing pundit and podcaster, will be the next deputy director of the F.B.I., Trump said last night.
A federal judge in Boston continued, for now, the pause on a Trump administration policy to slash billions of dollars in funding from the NIH. Scientists and public officials fear the planned cuts would devastate critical scientific research.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy has emerged in the opening weeks of Trump’s second term as one of the most effective Democratic communicators pushing back against a president unbound.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky balked at signing any mineral-rights deal with the US, as Trump has demanded, that would be considered repayment for previous aid given under the Biden administration.
“I do not recognize [that Kyiv owes the US] even $100 billion,” Zelensky told reporters at a press conference a day before the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of his country.
Melania Trump made a glamorous return to the White House Saturday night — wearing an elegant tuxedo that matched her husband’s formalwear for a dinner with the nation’s governors.
An email making a bomb threat “to honor the J6 hostages” briefly interrupted a conference held yesterday by Principles First, a conservative group that has emerged as a vocal Trump critic.
Pope Francis is suffering from “initial, mild kidney failure” in addition to the serious respiratory illness that has left the 88-year-old pontiff in critical condition in a Rome hospital, the Vatican said yesterday.
Describing a “complex” clinical picture, the Vatican said that the kidney ailment was “at present under control,” and that there had been no repeat of the respiratory crisis that the pope had experienced on Saturday.
Looking right at Trump on Friday afternoon in the Oval Office, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she tried a different approach from telling him he was acting like a king for his attempt to end New York’s pay-for-entry congesting pricing system.
Hochul says she told Trump in the private meeting at the White House that congestion pricing tolls in New York City are necessary and working, yet the Democrat predicted the courts will likely decide the matter.
New York’s congestion pricing plan raised $48.6 million in tolls during its first month, a strong start for the program that exceeded expectations and kept it on track to raise billions of dollars for the region’s decaying mass transit system.
The Democratic governor also spoke with the president about immigration and energy policies during the Oval Office meeting, a spokesperson for the governor confirmed Saturday.
Hochul said that Democratic governors won’t “sit idly by” as Trump threatens to retaliate if state leaders don’t comply with his agenda.
Hochul is seeking to bolster oversight of prisons and jails in New York in this year’s state budget while affording herself the ability to close up to five state prisons over the next year.
An inmate at a New York State prison was pronounced dead on Saturday after being found unresponsive in his cell, state officials said. The inmate, Jonathan Grant, 61, was found on Saturday morning at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Cayuga County.
Current and retired corrections officers continued to demonstrate on Friday outside dozens of state prisons. Under New York’s Taylor Law, state employees are not allowed to strike, rendering the actions illegal.
A coach bus owned by a vendor of the DOCCS was set on fire last week in Cayuga County, as conditions are declining inside more than 30 New York prisons where thousands of correction officers have been on strike for six days.
New York’s top corrections official declared a “prison-wide state of emergency” last week and temporarily suspended parts of the HALT Act — which limits the use of solitary confinement — in response to a wildcat strike by corrections officers statewide.
Formal mediation aimed at ending this illegal strike will begin today, and the National Guard remains on duty securing several state prisons.
Advocates think that prison strikes are an attempt to distract from the arrest last week of officers charged with fatally beating an inmate at Marcy back in December.
Assemblyman Edward Gibbs, the first formerly incarcerated person to be elected to the state Legislature, said a heated exchange he had with a sergeant while visiting Marcy in January is being “shopped” by Republicans and the state correction officers union.
A decade after allegations first surfaced that schools operated by New York’s Hasidic Jewish community were denying children a basic education, the state government is for the first time cutting off funding for schools it says have refused to improve.
The State University of New York’s latest report shows continuing growth in enrollment, two years after the university system was in such decline that some campuses seemed on the edge of closure.
A review of filings maintained by Empire State Development, the state’s economic development agency, show that the vast majority of appeals that are denied are lodged by female business owners seeking a Woman-owned Business Enterprise certification.
A bill in the state Legislature would require manufacturers to tell consumers exactly how repairable their electronics are — not after the products break, but before they’re purchased.
A Hochul administration green rule requiring that 35% of 2026 model cars sold in the state to be “emissions free” is an unrealistic bust, auto dealers claim.
Hochul announced that State landmarks to be lit blue and yellow and flags on State buildings to be flown at half-staff today to bring recognition of the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
A state legislator is moving to outlaw the sale of flavored nicotine pouches, despite the federal Food and Drug Administration’s endorsement of the product’s potential health benefits in helping smokers cut back or quit cancer-causing cigarettes.
During a “Face the Nation” interview, Hochul once again reaffirmed that she has the power to oust Mayor Eric Adams and blamed much of the frenzy over a speculated quid pro quo on Trump.
“I will always stand on the fact that we are a nation of laws, and one individual, the governor of New York, should not use her voice and her will to override the will of the voters,” Hochul insisted.
Jumaane Williams, the New York City public advocate, is preparing himself to serve as interim mayor if Adams resigns or is removed.
Adams filed a lawsuit Friday against Trump and others in his administration over $80 million the White House removed from a city bank account without permission, after Musk threatened the withdrawal on X.
A federal judge on Friday canceled Adams’ corruption trial and appointed counsel to advise the court about the Justice Department’s controversial request to drop charges against the Democrat.
“In light of the Government’s motion and the representations of the parties during the conference, it is clear that trial in this matter will not go forward on April 21,” U.S. District Judge Dale Ho wrote Friday.
Ho then appointed a conservative attorney, Paul Clement, to develop counter-arguments to DOJ’s decision.
An attorney for Luigi Mangione said Friday she may seek to get evidence gathered during his Pennsylvania arrest thrown out — and said Adams and a top NYPD official improperly discussed evidence in the case.
The Charter Revision Commission, created by Adams, could give New Yorkers a rare chance to decide how the city deals with the housing crisis.
Adams was a no-show at a Black History Month event on Saturday while Council Speaker Adrienne Adams used the Staten Island gathering to rip Trump — and potentially raise her political stock while eyeing a mayoral run.
The Department of Education suddenly closed five daycare centers last month blaming poor enrollment — then had to reverse the decision in the face of massive backlash from parents and officials.
OMNY readers used to collect fares on MTA buses keep falling off their mounts, forcing the agency to spend $4.5 million to fix the problem, according to contract documents published Friday.
Hundreds of people gathered in Manhattan’s Central Park yesterday to hold one of their biggest rallies yet calling for all of the remaining hostages in Gaza to be freed.
A labor union of City University of New York professors repealed a controversial resolution supporting a boycott of Israel – as members cited voting “irregularities” and fierce backlash.
The controversial city sheriff accused of bypassing due process to lock up suspect pot shops has filed an “ironic” lawsuit claiming home contractors he hired are guilty of the same indifference toward procedure.
At least three people are dead, two are injured and another is missing after a boat capsized in a waterway between Brooklyn and Staten Island yesterday afternoon, officials said.
Emergency operators received a call about a boat taking on water a little after noon yesterday, according to a Coast Guard news release. It wasn’t immediately known how it overturned or what kind of boat it was.
On Feb. 28, for the first time, Losar, the Tibetan New Year, will be observed with a suspension of alternate side parking rules – no small honor in New York City.
One year ago yesterday, New York’s most famous Eurasian eagle-owl died by flying into a building. But Flaco’s memory lives on: Roughly 100 objects on display at the New York Historical Society tell the story of his brief life as a free bird.
A jury in western New York on Friday found a New Jersey man guilty of attempted murder in the stabbing of the author Salman Rushdie, which left him partially blind.
The state attorney general’s office on Friday announced that almost $1 million in state funds will be dedicated to preventing discriminatory housing practices in the Capital Region.
The Adirondack Park Agency’s executive director and her management staff have cultivated a “culture of fear” including “bullying, hurtful conflicts, and general abusive behavior,” according to a letter endorsed by 20 of 47 APA non-executive-team employees.
A Montessori-style charter school is being proposed in Schenectady. It would be the first such school in the region, though there are many Montessori charter schools elsewhere, including New York City.
The Vischer Ferry Nature & Historic Preserve reopened to the public Saturday, following its closure last week when an “aggressive” coyote bit a dog walker.
Bethlehem officials are concerned about the possible impacts of biosolids fertilizer on the town’s primary drinking water source, the Vly Creek Reservoir, after an Albany County DOH investigation found that private wells nearby were contaminated with E. coli.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Albany is weighing whether to allow multiple child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to go to trial to “jump-start” a languishing attempt to reach a global settlement with the church and its insurers.
Albany County District Attorney Lee Kindlon has hired the firm of his former campaign manager, Libby Post, to run external communications for his office.
Following losses, the Yankees will no longer play Frank Sinatra’s “(Theme From) New York, New York” as fans exit the stadium.
The change became apparent following yesterday’s 4-0 spring training loss to the Tigers at George M. Steinbrenner Field, as Sinatra’s “That’s Life” blared over the loudspeakers.
MSNBC’s president suggested that blindsided staffers of liberal host Joy Reid’s canceled show can apply for other jobs within the liberal network as she confirmed the group of employees would be canned, according to a report.
The revelation from MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler came during a contentious virtual meeting with “ReidOut” staff in which the network chief said the scrapped program is a “piece of a broader slate” of changes that will be unveiled today, according to Status.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
