Good morning, it’s FRIDAY. And, in a bit of a departure, we’re going to focus this post entirely on fun, uplifting, positive things.
There are two religious holidays occurring today, (more or less, and also into tomorrow, depending on your time zone), both of them joy-filled and encompassing a lot of noise, laughter, and hijinks.
The first is Holi, which is the Hindu “Festival of Colors,” which not only marks the arrival of spring but also celebrates the triumph of good over evil, in connection with the legend of Hiranyakashipu, a demon king in ancient India. Holi is also about love – notably, the bond between the god Krishna and his consort, the milkmaid Radha – and unity and lots and lots of color.
Legend has it that Krishna, who had a playful nature, would apply colors to Radha’s face – perhaps to demonstrate his affection for her, or maybe to make her look more like himself. (He had dark blue skin, and her skin was comparably fair). Again, this depends which internet source you’re reading.
Holi traditions also might depend on where you happen to be in India – or here in the U.S., where the holiday is also observed.
In some places, a giant pyre is lit on the night before Holi to kick off the festivities. On the holiday’s primary day – Rangwali Holi – crowds gather in public places and pelt one another with water balloons and water guns and smear each other with colored powders. There’s also music, dancing, and the consumption of treats like gujiya (a flaky pastry filled with nuts and milk solids), malpua (a sweet pancake), and thandai (a drink made from nuts, spices, and milk).
The second holiday is Purim, the Jewish festival commemorating the Book of Esther, which tells the story of the survival of a Jewish community marked for death in ancient Persia. Purim – one of the most jubilant holidays on the Jewish calendar – started last night at sundown and runs through sundown this evening.
Purim is traditionally and primarily observed by reading the Megillah, which is a parchment scroll containing the Book of Esther. This is a non-negotiable from a religious standpoint, and is done on both the night and day of Purim. Whenever the name of the villain, Haman, is uttered, listeners are encouraged to jeer and make noise using a small device called a grager.
Dressing up in costume as characters from the Purim story – usually one of the following: King Ahasuerus, Queen Vashti, Queen Esther, Mordechai, and/or Haman – participating in parades, and enjoying a large meal with family and friends is also standard.
A Purim-specific treat of which I am personally very fond is a triangle-shaped cookie called a hamantaschen, which, in Yiddish means “Haman’s pockets” The Hebrew name for these delicacies is oznei Haman, AKA “Haman’s ears.” I am particularly fond of apricot hamantaschen, but I also wouldn’t turn down prune. I’m not a big fan of poppyseed, though, and chocolate seems a little too decadent – even for me.
Another amazing day is on tap, with sunny skies and temperatures hovering around 60 degrees. The weekend looks like it’s going to be a mixed bag, with a mix of sun and clouds and temperatures again in the low 60s on Saturday. Sunday will start out nice, but skies will grow increasingly cloudy and there’s a chance of wind, rain, and even thunder. Temperatures, however, will again be in the mid-60s, which is OK by me.
In the headlines…
In an about-face, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer broke with his party and lined up enough Democrats to advance a GOP-written bill to keep federal funding flowing past a midnight deadline, arguing they could not allow a government shutdown.
Schumer delivered a lengthy speech explaining his decision to support the stopgap plan, known as a continuing resolution, or CR. Speaking from the Senate floor, he argued that a shutdown would give President Trump more power and “is a far worse option.”
“I respect my fellow Democrats for that. Unfortunately, this Republican Party is the party of Trump,” Schumer wrote in the New York Times. “As bad as passing the continuing resolution would be, I believe a government shutdown is far worse.”
The decision hit like a shockwave among House Democrats. “I think there is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal and this is not just progressive Democrats — this is across the board, the entire party,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters.
“We are in a perverse, bizarro land where we’re having to decide between letting Donald Trump wreck the government this way or wreck the government that way,” New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker said of Democrats’ predicament.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) was reportedly heard “screaming” yesterday during a meeting with her Democratic Senate colleagues on how to deal with the looming government shutdown.
The New York Democrat was yelling so loudly during the private lunch on Capitol Hill that her voice could be heard through the room’s “thick wood doors,” according to Fox News.
House Democrats feel like they “walked the plank,” in the words of one member. They voted almost unanimously against the measure, only to watch Senate Democrats seemingly give it the green light.
Two judges ordered federal agencies yesterday to reinstate tens of thousands of workers with probationary status who had been fired across 19 agencies as part of Trump’s government-gutting initiative.
One of the judges, James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, also temporarily restrained the government from carrying out any planned “reductions in force” across the 18 agencies affected by his order.
A federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Trump’s administration to rehire probationary workers let go in mass firings across multiple agencies, blasting their tactics as he slowed the new president’s dramatic downsizing of the federal government.
A federal judge in Washington has ordered Elon Musk and operatives involved with his Department of Government Efficiency to hand over documents and answer questions about its role in directing mass firings and dismantling government programs.
A majority of voters are unhappy with the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) handling of federal workers, according to a new poll.
When asked about “the way Musk and DOGE are dealing with workers employed by the federal government,” 60 percent of respondents in the Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters said they are not supportive of it.
Johns Hopkins University, one of the country’s leading centers of scientific research, said that it would eliminate more than 2,000 workers in the United States and abroad because of the Trump administration’s steep cuts, primarily to international aid programs.
Trump said at a meeting with the NATO secretary general that he didn’t plan to “bend at all” in an escalating round of tit-for-tat tariffs with America’s biggest trading partners, recognizing there could be “a little disruption” ahead.
The world’s most widely followed stock-market benchmark slid into a correction yesterday, a drop that underscores how the two-year-long bull market is running out of steam in the early days of the Trump administration.
The S&P 500 fell 1.4 percent. After weeks of selling, the index is now down 10.1 percent from a peak that it reached less than one month ago and is in a correction — a Wall Street term for when an index falls 10 percent or more from its peak.
Trump expressed confidence the United States would annex Greenland, even suggesting the head of the NATO alliance could be a key player in facilitating the acquisition.
Trump met with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) yesterday at the White House for what the Democratic governor described as a “productive meeting.
Trump said he would meet with Gov. Kathy Hochul tomorrow at the White House to discuss plans for a natural gas pipeline, among other topics.
“We’re working on one project. It should be very easy,” Trump said. “It’s a pipeline going through a small section of New York. New York held it up for years, actually.”
Hochul wrote on X that she’s looking forward to a “productive” conversation with the president.
State officials want to grant New Yorkers broader protections against harmful business practices, a move that comes as the Trump administration has begun to constrain the federal agency in charge of enforcing similar consumer-friendly laws.
The New York sheriffs’ association hopes Hochul will reverse course on an executive order she issued this week that prohibits more than 2,000 state correction officers who were terminated at the end of a recent prison strike from working for a county agency.
Led by state Attorney General Letitia James, a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration two days after the Education Department fired more than 1,300 workers.
New Yorkers with disabilities and the people who support them fear that they could be left out of a key Medicaid-funded caregiver program by April 1. They are pleading with Hochul to delay or disrupt the plan.
New York’s cannabis farmers are pleased with the state Legislature’s one-house budget proposals, which are calling for millions of dollars to be spent on the state’s cannabis industry.
The city has failed to meet legally required benchmarks for redesign streets for bikes, buses and pedestrians due to to a lack of resources and political interference, according to a DOT report that leaves a trail of breadcrumbs leading directly to Mayor Adams.
Comptroller Brad Lander is demanding more information from the Adams administration about a probe of migrant shelters, as the mayor is facing increasing calls to take a tougher stand against Trump’s increasingly aggressive immigration actions in the city.
A criminal investigation by Trump’s Justice Department targeting migrants who sought asylum in New York City has spread alarm about a potentially dark new chapter in the president’s brutal crackdown on immigration.
Lander wants to pave over public golf courses to build much-needed homes to ease the Big Apple’s housing crisis — to the chagrin of many golfers.
Nearly 100 protesters were arrested as they stormed Trump Tower in Midtown yesterday, demanding the release of Palestinian Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil.
The protesters held aloft cloth banners printed in red and black lettering. One read: “Free Mahmoud, Free Palestine.” They chanted, their words reverberating against the coral marble tiling. “Fight Nazis, not students,” they repeated.
Sporting bright red shirts reading “Jews say stop arming Israel” and “Not in Our Name,” protesters chanted “Free Mahmoud! Free them all!” by the golden escalators inside the lobby of Trump Tower, President Trump’s home base on Fifth Ave. in Midtown.
The Trump administration yesterday demanded that Columbia University make dramatic changes in student discipline and admissions before it would discuss lifting the cancellation of $400 million in government grants and contracts.
Department of Homeland Security agents executed search warrants on two Columbia University residences last night – just days after anti-Israel agitator Mahomoud Khlil was arrested by ICE at an off-campus apartment, the Ivy League school announced.
Interim President Katrina Armstrong revealed the raids in a letter to the Columbia community and noted that nobody was arrested or detained when the feds searched the rooms of two students.
Khalil, the Columbia University graduate detained by the Trump administration last weekend, and seven current students asked a federal court to block the school from producing student disciplinary records to a House committee that demanded them.
Khalil added Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio to a lawsuit demanding his release, arguing that Trump administration officials have violated his constitutional rights and are engaging in a “hostile campaign” against pro-Palestinian advocates.
Columbia University has expelled several students for occupying Hamilton Hall last spring, as the school faces enormous pressure from the federal government to crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters.
In a university-wide email yesterday, Columbia announced the outcomes of a months-long investigation also included multi-year suspensions and the temporary revoking of some graduates’ degrees.
The series of punishments were doled out by Columbia’s judicial board, the Ivy League revealed nearly a year after keffiyeh-clad agitators caused chaos over Israel’s battle in Gaza after Hamas terrorists’ deadly attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
The City Department of Education’s mammoth $41.2 billion budget proposal for next year is a whopping third of the entire city’s spending plan — but it still won’t be enough, school officials claimed,
Second nightlife mayor Jeffrey Garcia’s own businesses were embroiled in financial disputes that date back to before his appointment to the role, and he hasn’t been required to file financial disclosure reports until this year.
Moped riders would be legally authorized to use the roadways on the Brooklyn Bridge and the lower level of the Queensboro Bridge under a rule change proposed by the city transportation department yesterday.
The NYPD has awarded a contract worth more than $700,000 to a New York horse veterinarian with a history of violations for writing an improper prescription, keeping bad records and being dishonest about his care of animals.
A grand jury indicted a Lower East Side man for killing his roommate last month, dismembering the corpse and dumping the pieces in the East River, according to prosecutors.
This year’s inflated price of the beloved St. Patrick’s Day staple corned beef is making New Yorkers’ wallets bleed green — and is so expensive one supplier named after the product is no longer selling it.
Spring is nearly here, and so is the chance to observe the circle of life for majestic peregrine falcons in the Big Apple. A livestream of a peregrine falcon nesting tower near the Bayonne Bridge will launch at 8 a.m. today.
Nassau County officials want a full audit of the Long Island Rail Road – saying taxpayers are forking over $36.5 million a year to prop up the transit system with questionable results.
Suffolk County health officials say they are working with Northwell Health’s Cohen Children’s Medical Center to prevent the spread of measles after a Long Island child who visited the hospital was diagnosed with the virus this week.
Health officials confirmed the first two cases of rabid raccoons in Amityville since 2009 — and warned the disease could be spreading.
The founder of beloved cheese-puff brand Pirate’s Booty claims to be the mayor of a newly formed Long Island town-within-a-town in a “legal” maneuver that is being brushed off by officials of the already-existing enclave.
More than 50 missing and runaway children have been successfully located after a three-day operation involving the police departments of Albany, Schenectady and Troy.
Some Albany County employees will begin moving to the former College of Saint Rose campus as soon as today.
After more than a decade of appeals for earlier bar closing hours from Saratoga Springs officials, Saratoga County supervisors voted to consider legislation to require bars to close at earlier hours depending on the time of year.
Seth Goldstein, the fired Niskayuna systems administrator, has filed a lawsuit seeking $3 million in damages claiming he was defamed by the company that erred in setting up the town’s telephone system to record incoming and outgoing calls at Town Hall.
Like many of their colleagues across the country, the federal employees still working in the downtown Schenectady Social Security field office face an uncertain future.
A former mechanic in the Hadley-Luzerne School District’s transportation garage was terminated 16 days after he sent a letter to the Board of Education alleging wasteful spending and harassment.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
