Good morning, it’s Wednesday, which is moonlighting as Tuesday for some of us in this four-day workweek. I am admittedly having difficulty trying to remember what day it is and what I have to accomplish. First world problems, I know.
You’ve heard the saying “when the stars align”? Well, this week it’s more “when the moons align” – or rather, the lunar calendars. Three major holidays are converging this week – Lunar New Year, Ramadan, and Lent.
This multicultural mash-up is getting a lot of news coverage, because apparently it’s very rare, but I’ve been unable to determine the last time it happened. These are all multi-day observances.
- Lent, which starts today with Ash Wednesday, lasts for 40 days and will continue through Holy Thursday (April 2) or Holy Saturday (April 4), depending on your denomination. The three pillars of Lent are prayer, fasting, and charity.
- Lunar New Year, which started yesterday, begins with the new moon and ends with the next full moon – a 15-day cycle, though the accompanying travel rush (known to some as the annual Spring Migration, or Chunyun) can stretch up to 40 days.
- Ramadan, is expected to begin sometime tonight through tomorrow, depending on where observers are in the world, with the sighting of the crescent moon. It lasts between 29 and 30 days, depending on when the new moon is seen in the sky. During this time, Muslims fast during the daylight hours, eating and drinking only before dawn and after dark.
As mentioned above, these three holidays are connected to the phases of the moon, but there are some distinct differences.
Ramadan is governed by the Islamic calendar, which is a true or “pure” lunar calendar that is based solely on the moon’s 29.5 (give or take) day cycle. As a result, it drifts up to12 days earlier every year and is not tied directly to the seasons. The Chinese (also Hebrew, Buddhist, and Hindu) calendars, meanwhile, as “lunisolar”, which means they add an extra 13 month every two to three years to stay aligned with the seasons.
There’s an interesting parallel between the pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting, and charity, as mentioned above – and the main focuses of Ramadan – fasting (Sawm – includes abstaining from sexual activity and smoking as well as food and drink), spiritual reflection, and charity (Zakat). The fast for Ramadan begins at sunrise after the early morning meal (suhoor) and ends after sunset with Iftar.
The Lenten fast is somewhat less taxing, requiring abstaining from meat on Ash Wednesday as well as all Fridays, along with just one main meal and two snacks that don’t constitute a full meal consumed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
As a reminder, if you see people with ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads today, it is meant to be a reminder that, as the efficient says: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” And in a circular economy/environmentally sensitive manner, the ashes themselves are made by burning the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday.
Remember when I mentioned that winter wasn’t quite done with us yet? Well, today’s forecast makes that point.
Highs will only be in the mod-30s, and we’ll see rain and snow in the morning changing over to all snow in the afternoon, with accumulation of up to three inches likely. My disappointment with this cannot be overstated, as I was just starting to see some (albeit brown and dead) grass peaking through the snow in my yard. And there’s more where that came from, so don’t store those shovels away just yet.
In the headlines…
Ukrainian, Russian and American officials reconvened today for a second day of trilateral talks, the latest in a string of negotiations aimed at securing a peace deal that has proved elusive.
The talks are taking place after Moscow ratcheted up the pressure on Kyiv to accept a peace deal on the Kremlin’s terms and launched another massive missile and drone strike targeting Ukraine’s energy and critical infrastructure overnight.
While “progress was made” during discussions in Geneva, the US expects to receive detailed proposals from the Iranian government in the next two weeks to address gaps between their positions, US officials said.
The Department of Homeland Security remains shuttered amid a bitter policy fight over reforms to federal immigration enforcement. The White House rejected a Democratic counteroffer, with the two sides “pretty far apart” on any agreement.
DNA on a glove found near Nancy Guthrie’s home produced no matches in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). The Pima County Sheriff’s Department announced that “additional DNA evidence” found inside the residence is still being analyzed.
Investigators are looking into using investigative genetic genealogy, in which crime scene DNA is compared with consumer ancestry databases to build a family tree, to identify a suspect, a spokeswoman for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said.
The authorities are still sifting through an avalanche of tips related to Guthrie’s case. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department said it has received more than 28,000 calls since Feb. 1, the day she disappeared, and calls to its nonemergency line have nearly tripled.
The Rev. Al Sharpton said that Jesse Jackson was to him what Martin Luther King Jr. was to Jackson — a mentor and father figure who showed him how to effectively advocate for marginalized people.
Jackson’s death comes at a moment when Black voters are hugely influential within the Democratic Party and there are more Black senators than ever before — yet the future of Black representation in the House of Representatives is uncertain.
After more than 240 million gallons of sewage spilled into the Potomac River following a pipe bursting last month, politicians are both launching cleanups and playing the blame game.
Trump pressured Washington-area officials to get to work on fixing the Potomac sewage spill, saying the federal government would also be able to assist in the process.
Nine backcountry skiers remained missing early today after six others were rescued from the site of an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in a late-night operation, authorities said.
The group, which included four guides and 11 clients, was caught in an avalanche that struck around 11:30 a.m. local time at Castle Peak, a popular backcountry skiing area near Truckee, Calif.
The strict voter identification measure that Republicans have pushed through the House is part of a broader legislative effort aimed at keeping control of Congress and helping to amplify the president’s false claims of mass voter fraud in the event that they lose.
Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to work with House Republicans to ensure noncitizens and low-income New Yorkers continue to receive health care coverage beyond July. Finding any takers inside the Empire State’s GOP delegation hasn’t been easy.
Last year, after prison guards were caught beating an incarcerated man to death, Hochul allocated millions to a prison oversight body. This year, she doesn’t want to renew the grant.
The campaign to pass Daniel’s Law, or at least bolster funding for its gradual implementation, continues at the New York state Capitol.
Hochul announced that the Trump administration has released just over half of the $205 million in Gateway Tunnel funding it froze in October — but the rail project’s work stoppage will only end when the full amount is provided.
The federal government has disbursed another $77 million in previously frozen funding for the Gateway project, but work has yet to resume on the new set on Hudson River tunnels.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is hitting back at Trump as the pair escalate their feud over the $16 billion Gateway tunnel rail project connecting New York and New Jersey.
The state’s highest court ruled that videos purporting to show a child being sexually abused shouldn’t have been used as evidence in Family Court because federal agents did not prove they hadn’t been manipulated.
A State Police senior investigator has been placed on administrative duties amid an internal investigation into whether he may have improperly disclosed information about a criminal case involving an Albany police officer recently accused of drug dealing.
A new report paid for by an insurance industry trade group shows Florida has made life cheaper for its residents after implementing auto insurance changes similar to the ones Hochul proposed last month.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani proposed to raise property tax rates in New York City by nearly 10 percent, a measure he is casting as a “last resort” to be deployed if he cannot persuade Hochul to raise income taxes on the wealthy.
Hochul reiterated her commitment to New York City’s fiscal well-being, but said she would oppose raising property taxes. She has also repeatedly rejected the idea of raising income taxes, saying it would unnecessarily burden working New Yorkers.
“Raising property taxes would be no one’s preferred option, partly because the system is so flawed, riddled with inequality,” City Comptroller Mark Levine, a Democrat, said after exiting a closed-door briefing yesterday with Mamdani and his budget aides.
Faced with questions about what raising property taxes would actually look like – the political fallout, a City Council speaker that quickly staked out her opposition to the prospect – Mamdani repeated that it’s an option he doesn’t want to have to pursue.
If enacted, Mamdani’s proposed 9.5% property tax hike would lead to higher rents, housing industry officials say.
Mamdani’s preliminary budget plans to ramp up spending to comply with the state class size mandate and will continue to fund the city’s free summer program that combines academics and enrichment.
Mamdani will be able to appoint six members to the Rent Guidelines Board, giving him a majority of appointees to deliver his signature campaign proposal of a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments.
Mamdani is appointing a leader from the Working Families Party, Ana Maria Archila, as his international affairs head, rewarding a key political ally with a high-profile post as he see
Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, will observe Ramadan as he runs the nation’s largest city, blending his faith into his public life.
Mamdani has said little about how he would fix NYCHA, the sprawling public housing system that houses more than 300,000 people and has long been in crisis.
Mamdani, who won over voters with his approach to social media, is using the same strategy to try to connect City Hall to all New Yorkers.
Mamdani is reportedly bringing back homeless encampment sweeps — reversing course on another campaign promise following backlash for not getting people off the streets during the deadly cold snap.
An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Columbia University graduate student Mohsen Mahdawi, a pro-Palestinian activist detained last year at his U.S. citizenship test, his attorneys wrote in court documents.
Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres netted the support of a slew of Bronx elected officials as he seeks reelection, including Rep. Adriano Espaillat, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, state Sen. Jamaal Bailey, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and others.
Former Controller Brad Lander reportedly says he’s pulling punches in his challenge to Rep. Dan Goldman (D-Manhattan) because their potential Democratic congressional primary race could get shaken up by an ongoing redistricting court battle.
Lander said he doesn’t want to attack Goldman too hard because the incumbent might wind up running against Rep. Nicole Malliotakis if courts uphold a ruling that her district should be redrawn, possibly to include Goldman’s lower Manhattan home turf.
Civil rights groups are suing the Trump administration after the National Park Service removed the official Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village.
NYU Langone Health, a major Manhattan hospital, faced with threats of losing federal funding, has closed its prominent medical program for treating transgender youth.
The Justice Department’s latest release from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein detailed communications between the disgraced financier and people connected to several New York colleges.
Albany County Legislator Frank Mauriello announced he will run for a Colonie-area state Assembly district, seeking the Republican nominations in a bid to flip a seat that has been held by Assemblyman Phil Steck since 2013.
A former state auditor accused of stealing more than $400,000 from the town of Wallkill while reviewing its finances pleaded guilty to a felony public corruption charge.
Plug Power CEO Andy Marsh announced that shareholders finally crossed the finish line last week, approving a plan to double the number of stock shares the company has available to 3 billion.
Two retirees — the undersheriff and planning commissioner — both of whom received six-figure payouts for unused vacation and sick time during their long tenures, top the list of Schenectady County employees who earned the most money in 2025.
Newly sworn-in Schenectady Police Chief Brian Whipple pledged that community engagement, professionalism, making the department more efficient, and focusing on officer wellness and safety would be among his top priorities.
The quasi-Montessori charter school proposed for Schenectady has been rejected again. But the organizers are undeterred. Now they plan to apply directly to the Board of Regents, in hopes of finally getting a yes.
A former employee of the city school district is turning the former Ama Cocina in downtown Albany into RiiLaxx Tavern, which she describes as “college- and family-friendly”, plus a nightclub component, with name acts like DJ Funk Flex and rapper Jadakiss.
Saratoga County’s new DA Brett Eby is winning his case for change. In his first six weeks in office, he has sharpened his priorities to include an animal abuse registry, a new focus on human traffickers and established an in-house appeals bureau.
Officials in a tiny Hoosic Valley village are looking for hope in the form of $4 million. That is the price tag of a federal grant that the village would need in order to raze the asbestos-ridden remnants of an old three-story textile complex by 2029.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
