As ever, stories come whooshing over the transom, and fly right on by, with no time to deal with them properly in these hectic times. We’ll try to play catch-up here, with yet another AAA version of an “omnibus bill,” compiling several small stories (and some big ones) in a comprehensive review of the doings of late. Topics include the Hungarian elections, a shooting at a Mexican archeological site, and a federal investment in a failing airline.
No siree, Spring 2026 will not be one for the books! I suppose, for a gardener, anytime a plant’s performance isn’t quite up to snuff, there’s a bit of a let-down, knowing you’ll have to wait another year in hopes of improvement. But when the plants are spring-bloomers, heralding the return of life after a long, barren winter, the pill is a bitter one to swallow indeed.
It’s been a head-spinning few weeks, with rising gas and energy prices, increased inflation, and the war with Iran, but somehow, America’s sweethearts, Donald and Melania Trump, have managed to keep us entertained.
After a fashion. From threatening genocide to profane tweets on the holiest day of the Christian calendar, ramshackle ceasefires and blaspheming memes, and vigorous denials of accusations of wrongdoing that haven’t been made, the Trumps have outdone themselves in this first half of April 2026. What follows is a barebones overview of the high jinks and shenanigans.
Well, this is one for the books! On March 22, 2026, Dayton Webber of La Plata, Maryland, a quadriplegic amputee and a professional cornhole player, shot and killed his friend Bradrick Wells with a revolver while driving his Tesla, with Wells in the passenger seat and two other friends in the back. The shooting stemmed from a heated argument between the two men, with Webber accusing Wells of having stolen something from his house. After the shooting, Webber asked his remaining passengers to help him dispose of the body, but they refused and fled the scene on foot, alerting police. Wells’ body was recovered from the yard of a private residence some twenty miles away, in Charlotte Hall, Maryland; Webber himself was arrested in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The name may be unfamiliar to many of you, but for fans of the cult horror classic series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Nicholas Brendon’s passing on March 20th left a gaping hole in our collective unbeating hearts. Brendon played wisecracking sidekick Xander Harris for seven seasons of what I still consider one of the best-written shows TV ever produced, in any genre. Clever, witty, groundbreaking (it featured the first long-term LGBTQ relationship between two main characters in TV history, portrayed in a positive light), the millennium-straddling series (1997-2003) is eternally entertaining, chockfull of Easter eggs and grace notes for diehard fans.
We’ve got a fairly full cosmic field in the race for the Best Supporting Actress award, but Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”) is scratched at the starting post, with no celestial referent. Of those remaining, there is one referent each, asteroid Ella 435 for Elle Fanning (“Sentimental Value”), asteroid Inge 2494 for Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (“Sentimental Value”), Amy 3375 for Amy Madigan (“Weapons”) and Taylor 2603 for Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”). As with Best Supporting Actor, the circumstance of having two performers nominated in the same category for roles in the same film tends to split the voting and reduce the chances of success.
Mars has been working overtime of late! The planet associated with war, weapons and armed conflict sparked two conflagrations in the Mid-East as it moved to conjoin the degree of the February 17th Solar Eclipse, activating its potential for evoking world-shaking events. On February 26th, long-simmering tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, heated by the unchecked use of Afghanistan as a safe haven for terrorist groups operating in Pakistan, boiled over into cross-border fighting. On the 28th, the US and Israel began joint military operations against Iran, even as ongoing peace talks showed signs of progress in obtaining Iranian assurances that they would not develop nuclear weapons.
In a shocking development, on 19 February 2026, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Royal formerly known as Prince, was arrested at his home on the Sandringham estate, for suspicion of misconduct in public office. The potential charges stem from Andrew’s time as Britain’s special envoy for international trade, during which he allegedly sent sensitive trade information to noted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. While not a sex crime per se (of which he has also been accused), the investigation was prompted by information revealed at the latest release of a tranche of three million documents from the Epstein Files, weeks before the arrest.
Like the Best Actor category, not all nominees for Best Supporting Actor have celestial referents to rate. And like Best Actress, there’s no clear frontrunner among those who do. Delroy Lindo (“Sinners”) and Stellan Skarsgard (“Sentimental Value”) have no valid asteroid markers, and so cannot be considered in this analysis. Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn do, but since both are nominated in the same category for work on the same film (“One Battle After Another”), conventional Oscar wisdom says their votes will cancel each other out, leaving each statuette-less (but we’ll take a look at their chances nonetheless).
On 11 February 2026, US Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, ostensibly to answer questions related to the latest document dump of three million pages from the Epstein Files. Bondi, in an erratic, combative performance, did little but harangue her Democratic questioners with insults culled from a binder of opposition research-type non sequiturs, and try to deflect with claims about the magnificence of the recent Dow performance. When asked if she would apologize for the names of Epstein survivors which weren’t redacted from the files released (while the names of many perpetrators were), she refused to so much as acknowledge the presence of many of these women, who were standing behind her.
Unlike the Best Actor race, which shows a clear cosmic frontrunner, Best Actress could turn into a literal celestial catfight, with asteroid Kitty 9563 at 9 Scorpio at station, trine Mars at 10 Pisces, indicating potential feline (Kitty) fisticuffs (Mars) at the 98th Academy Awards, set to commence at 4 PM PDT in Los Angeles on 15 March 2026. Leading the pack are Emma Stone, Kate Hudson and Jessie Buckley, all of whom have impressive resumes for victory.
Two winter-weather-related stories caught my attention in late January and early February 2026, in the form of a paralyzing storm that shut down much of the US; and a beloved folk tradition come to life in a prognosticating rodent.
Asteroid Church, that is, though both stories chronicled below do involve actual physical structures used as houses of worship. Back-to-back displays on January 28th & 29th of asteroid Church, conjoined the manifestation-evoking Quasar at 8 Cancer, pumped up by Jupiter at 17 Cancer, ran the gamut from groundbreaking promotions to Constitution-threatening arrests, as Sarah Mullally was elevated to become the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, and journalist Don Lemon was indicted for reporting on an anti-ICE protest in a St. Paul, Minnesota church.
On Saturday, 24 January 2026, federal ICE agents shot and killed another US citizen in the snowy streets of Minneapolis. And the term ‘agents’ is correct – unlike the killing of Renee Good two weeks previously, where a single agent discharged his weapon, Alex Pretti, 37, was set upon, wrestled to the ground, pepper-sprayed and shot by at least six ICE officers. Pretti, an ICU nurse at a VA hospital, had attempted to help up a woman who had been shoved to the pavement by the same agents; his last words, addressed to her, were “Are you OK?”
Film fanatics, it’s that time again! The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were announced on January 22nd, and as always, there’s a crop of cosmic contenders for Oscar gold. The awards will be held on Sunday, 15 March 2026 at 4 PM PDT in Los Angles, California, but with celestial foresight we might not have to wait to see who takes home the statuette. But one quick caveat before we start – with asteroid Victoria 12 at 25 Taurus on Awards night, named for the Roman goddess of victory, conjoined Uranus at 28 Taurus, ruling shocks, surprises and upsets, literally anything is possible!
On 13 January 2026, popular cartoonist and “Dilbert” creator Scott Adams passed away from complications of stage IV prostate cancer which had spread to the bone. Adams drew on years of employment as an office worker for “Dilbert,” known for its satirical humor about a white-collar, micromanaged office. The successful comic led to dozens of books, an animated television series, a video game, and hundreds of themed merchandise items.
It’s another catch-up edition of Cosmic Grab Bag, where AAA delves into previously skipped stories, to set the celestial record straight! This issue is all about protest and insanity, with a successful, bloodless revolution in Bulgaria, and an ongoing, bloody protest in Iran; and two Trumpian moments of note.
It was bound to happen, sooner or later. With tensions high, and ill-trained (1), heavily armed, masked ICE agents roaming the country, someone was going to get hurt. That someone was Renee Good of Minneapolis, MN, an American citizen who lost her life on January 7th when an ICE agent shot her in the face three times at point-blank range, as she was attempting to move her vehicle, which she had positioned to partially block the street.
In the wee hours of Saturday, 3 January 2026, US special forces bombed military and power facilities in the Venezuelan capital, raiding the presidential palace in Caracas and abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, his wife and son, and transporting them to the US, where they face federal narcotics charges. A build-up of US naval power in the region, as well as frequent strikes at sea on alleged drug-runner boats and the seizure of two tankers supposedly carrying contraband oil, presaged the military operation on the mainland. Trump has been applying increasing pressure on Maduro to leave office, and has now stated that the US will “run” Venezuela while an interim government is established.
2026 got off to a tragic start in Crans-Montana, a Swiss alpine ski resort, where a New Year celebration took a deadly turn, sparking a fire that killed upwards of 40 people, with an additional 115 wounded. At about 1:30 AM CET, patrons at Le Constellation, a popular regional bar in Switzerland’s Sierre district, watched in horror and scrambled for the exits as a champagne bottle, topped with either sparklers or a lit candle (reports vary) was hoisted to the rafters by a staffer resting on another staffer’s shoulders. The wooden ceiling caught fire, with flames spreading rapidly to create an inferno. Pandemonium ensued, with guests smashing windows to make their escape.
The world’s most-visited museum has had a run of bad luck this autumn, with the Louvre in Paris losing some $102 million in royal jewelry after a daring theft in broad daylight in October, and a leaky pipe that flooded an Egyptology reference library in November, damaging hundreds of rare books.
On December 14, 2025, the world was shocked by the news of the brutal stabbing deaths of famed actor/director Robert Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner. Within hours, authorities had arrested the Reiners’ second son, Nick, for the crime. Two days later, he was formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of multiple homicides; if found guilty, Nick Reiner could receive the death penalty.
‘Tis the season, and it’s Year Two of my Yuletide décor rotational scheme. A couple years ago, I realized I now had way too much in the Yule collection to display everything every year. Rather than delegate some cherished pieces into the outer darkness of nonuse, I devised a three-year plan, where I would pick a theme and then rotate these, repeating every third year. At least this way, everything gets its moment in the sun, even if it has to wait for it.
I chose traditional red Santas for the inaugural year in 2024 – in 2025 it’s the turn of white and burgundy Santas, backed up by a display of holly and poinsettia-themed china. It’s been a fun project, getting my creative juices flowing, and I’m enjoying the process.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has come under scrutiny for his orders relating to the recent attacks on supposed Venezuelan drug-smuggling ships in the Caribbean, even suffering friendly fire from Republicans. Reportedly, at the first such attack on September 2, 2025, Hegseth gave the order to “Kill them all,” leading to a “double tap,” a second bombardment of the already destroyed vessel, when survivors were seen clinging to the wreckage in the aftermath.
It’s time for another installment of Cosmic Grab Bag, AAA’s catchall collection of smaller stories that were skipped in real time, but deserve honorable celestial mention. In this issue we deal with a royal “first” in religion, a World Series outcome, a royal demotion, and a Supreme Court hearing.
On the evening of 3 November 2025, former US Vice President Richard “Dick” Cheney passed away at his home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, of complications related to pneumonia and vascular disease. He was attended by Lynne, his wife of 61 years, their daughters Mary and Liz, and other family members.
Cheney’s career in politics spanned decades, from his early work in the late 1960s as an aide to Donald Rumsfeld, later Defense Secretary, to his stint as Chief-of-Staff for President Gerald Ford; U.S Representative for Wyoming; Defense Secretary for President George H. W. Bush; and Vice President for his son, George W. Bush. He made a brief foray into the private sector as CEO of Halliburton, a Fortune 500 company, during the Clinton administration.
This year’s Halloween display is one for the books, for sure! I’m afraid I went way over budget, a sort of last hurrah as I turn 65 and am shifted from essentially free healthcare via Medicaid, to rather expensive Medicare. Before this milestone becomes a headstone, I made a final foray into seasonal tchotchke.
At a “No Kings” rally in Fairhope, Alabama on Saturday, 18 October 2025, a 61-year-old-woman in a huge inflatable penis costume, draped in an American flag, carrying a sign reading “No Dick-Tator,” was arrested by police, after refusing to remove the outfit, which authorities deemed “obscene.” Jeana Gamble was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after it took three policemen to wrestle her to the ground and apply the cockring. Errr, handcuffs. There is no reporting on whether pistols were pulled out and cocked. Bystanders suggested the cops had bitten off more than they could chew.
On the last weekend of September 2025, two mass shootings unfolded, within 13 hours of each other, on the East Coast and in the Heartland, both allegedly perpetrated by 40-year-old former marines, and both employing unorthodox means to enact their crimes. On Saturday, 27 September, at about 9:30 PM EDT, Nigel Max Edge approached a popular waterfront bar in Southport, North Carolina by boat, and fired indiscriminately into the business, killing 3 and wounding 5 more. The following morning at 10:25 AM EDT Thomas Jacob Sanford drove his truck, huge American flags waving, straight into a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sanctuary in Grand Blanc, Michigan, leaping from the vehicle to spray the attendees with bullets, and tossing accelerant into the church, then lighting it, causing a massive fire. Four were killed, 10 injured.
Donald Trump’s 2025 Retribution Tour kicked into hyperdrive on September 25th, with the two-count indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, a frequent Trump critic whom the thin-skinned president blames for the “Russia hoax” investigations in 2017. Out on the stump in 2024, Trump was fond of stating that retribution would come in the form of his success in office. Perhaps, with Americans’ cost of living on the rise, his tariffs adding to consumer burdens, and his failure to end, or even ameliorate, the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, he figures, ‘Screw it, I’ll just do payback.’
Stories frequently cross the digital transom that catch my eye, but don’t necessarily merit a full article on their own. But the celestial correspondences are worthy of notice, so from time to time I compile these unrelated stories into an asteroid omnibus bill, if you will. In this edition, we’ll tackle a challenge to same-sex marriage, a disturbing melding of government with the private sector, a Senate grilling for a Cabinet Secretary, and a record-making Royal visit.
The Lunar Eclipse of September 7, 2025 in Pisces brought out the best and worst of mankind, in the elevation of a gifted youth to the hierarchy of Catholic Saints, and the assassination of a popular conservative activist by a troubled underachiever. AAA does a double dip into the cosmic whys and wherefores during this extreme eclipse season.
On 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk, conservative activist, podcaster and founder of Turning Point USA, was killed with a single shot to the neck at an open-air appearance on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, attended by some 3000 people. Close to President Trump, JD Vance, and the next generation of the Trump family, Kirk was instrumental in rallying young men to support Trump in his 2024 electoral victory. He is survived by his wife Erika and two young children.
Swifties the world over were gob smacked by the announcement on 26 August 2025 that pop icon Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, were engaged. The couple had been dating for just under two years, a record for Swift, who is noted for the brevity of her entanglements, and the fodder her failed relationships have been for her music career. No date has yet been set for the wedding, but it is not expected to occur before the 2026 Super Bowl, due to her tour commitments and his playing schedule.
Well, we’ve passed Labor Day in the US, the unofficial end to summer, so perhaps a review of the season of bloom and fruitfulness is in order. After a very wet spring, July and August have more or less reverted to form in these climate-change times, coming in considerably drier than was the norm in my youth. With a few notable exceptions, however, the summer enjoyed average to somewhat-below-average temperatures, which made the drought seem less … droughty?
Shortly before 8:30 AM CDT on 27 August 2025, a black-clad individual approached the Annunciation Catholic Church school, while elementary students were celebrating a school-wide mass to commemorate the start of the academic year. Robin Westman, 23, began shooting through the stained-glass windows of the church, firing dozens of rounds before committing suicide. Two children, aged 8 and 10, were killed, and 17 others injured, including 14 children and 3 octogenarians.
In his new royal biography, “Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York,” released 14 August 2025, author Andrew Lownie thoroughly exposes and consistently trashes HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth II’s second son. Andrew is mercilessly depicted as arrogant, self-serving and in denial about his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In 2021, one of Epstein’s many victims, Virginia Guiffre, brought a civil suit against Andrew, to whom she alleged Epstein had trafficked her at age 17. The suit was settled out of court in March 2022 for a reported $16 million, with a substantial portion of the award to go to Giuffre’s sex trafficking charity.
The Sun’s annual opposition to Pluto (in 2025 extending from July 15 to August 5) cast a bright spotlight (Sun) on themes of death and mortality (Pluto), showcasing the passing of two iconic ‘80s figures, and the unveiling of a memorial to commemorate the passing of a third. On Sunday 20 July, actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, part of the ensemble cast on the megahit “The Cosby Show,” accidentally drowned while on holiday in Costa Rica. On Thursday 24 July, WWE pro wrestler Hulk Hogan died at his home of cardiac arrest. And on Saturday, 19 July, a mural was unveiled in Paris to honor Jazz era American-French dancer, singer and actress Josephine Baker, marking the fiftieth anniversary of her passing.
Keeping up with the latest Trump-related mishigas is a fulltime job these days, as the Distractor-in-Chief writhes and squirms in the white-hot spotlight of the Epstein files debacle. Like vermin desperately crawling from beneath an overturned rock, stunned by their exposure to sunlight, Trump is throwing everything he has at the wall, hoping something – anything – will stick long enough to shift focus from the dumpster fire that is the MAGA rebellion to his Attorney General’s assertion that the Epstein case is closed, with no further revelations of elite pedophile wrongdoing to come.
“Who’s Sorry Now?” Legions of Connie Francis fans, that’s who, mourning the death of the singer whose signature tune that became. Francis herself hated the song, but it was her breakout hit from 1958, and she paid homage to its importance in her life and career by using the phrase to title her 1984 autobiography. Francis was translated to the celestial choir on 16 July 2025, aged 87.
One of the main pillars of the MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement, and a major component of that coalition, has been conspiracy theories and theorists. From the JFK and MLKJ assassinations to the moon landing and Clinton-sponsored pedophile rings run out of pizza shops, conspiracy is the air many MAGA folks breathe. And one of the most popularized conspiracy theories involved Jeffrey Epstein, credibly accused of having sex with underage girls, and sharing this illicit activity with numerous well-heeled, famous friends and acquaintances. Epstein never came to trial, having died in prison of an apparent suicide, but was rumored to have a secret client list naming his cohorts; his manner of death was also judged suspicious in MAGA world.
Perhaps not everyone will remember where they were the day that the Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez wedding redefined “conspicuous consumption,” but as these things go, the day was surely memorable. Or perhaps we should say “days,” since the nuptial celebrations sprawled across three days in Venice, Italy, with pre-and post-ceremony festivities, though the actual union came on Friday, 27 June 2025. It was then that billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the fourth-richest man in the world, wed his bride Lauren Sanchez, a former journalist, in what was likely the fourth-costliest wedding in history, with a price tag coming in somewhere around $55 million. Just a drop in the bucket for Bezos, however, with an estimated net worth of $244 billion.
Rain-sodden remnants of Tropical Storm Barry dumped more than 6” of precipitation on Kerr County, Texas, USA in the early hours of 4 July 2025. Rainfall rates of 2-3” per hour prompted the Guadalupe River to overflow its banks in a surge of more than 29 feet, causing devastating flash flooding across hundreds of acres of Texas hill country. At least 84 were killed, including 21 children, with search and rescue efforts for more possible victims ongoing, including 10 girls missing from a summer camp in Hunt.
On Tuesday, 24 June 2025, 33-year-old State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party structure when he won the primary in the New York City mayoral race, besting frontrunner Andrew Cuomo, a former New York governor, by some twelve points, in a stunning upset. Mamdani, who describes himself as a Democratic Socialist and entered the race last November with 1% support in polling, ran an effective grassroots campaign based on making the Big Apple more affordable for working class families, presenting himself as a populist fighter. If elected in November, he will be the first Muslim and naturalized citizen to serve as New York City’s mayor.
I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “It never rains, but it pours.” Well, that was May 2025 in the garden. After a dry, showerless April, the May flowers were distinctly lacking, but 9” of rain that month brought on the vegetation like gangbusters, and by summer solstice, the garden had become a tangled jungle.
Between the incessant rains and then a physical setback when a burst water cyst behind the newly replaced left knee kept me in pain and off my feet for two weeks, there was no curb on the ambitious plans for world domination clearly hatched by my local weeds during their dormancy. I hadn’t even finished the last of the winter cleanup when the deluge began, and that boat has now sailed, with the eastern bank of the sand mound a revolting mix of old and new weeds. Well, there’s always 2026.
OK, Tesla makes electric vehicles, which don’t run on gasoline, but you get the idea. Once valued in excess of a trillion dollars, Tesla Motors stock has plunged in 2025, shedding some $380 billion in value since January, which, not coincidentally, is when founder Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, began his stint with the second Trump administration, as head of the now notorious DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency. The extra-governmental task force, with no statutory authority beyond the President’s fiat, attempted to trim $2 trillion from the federal budget, but came up a bit short.
US President Kim Jong Don will be celebrating his 79th birthday on Saturday, 14 June, 2025, with a North-Korean-style military parade in the nation’s capital, while simultaneously, 3000 miles away, US National Guard and Marines patrol the country’s largest city, ostensibly to quell “insurrectionists” protesting his administration’s immigration policies. The dual displays of military power, both unprecedented and controversial, well encapsulate the leading feature of Dear Leader’s Solar Return, which occurs the day before: a square between Mars, planet of the military, violence and war, and Uranus, planet of shocks, upsets, controversy, volatility, and extreme reactions.
On 1 June 2025 more than 100 Ukrainian drones struck at air bases deep in Russia, targeting long-range bombers with nuclear capacity, in an attempt to cripple Moscow’s ability to prosecute the war on Ukraine, now in its third year. Code-named “Spider Web,” the attacks, eighteen months in the planning, were carried out by drones smuggled into Russia in wood structures carried on trucks, whose local drivers were apparently unaware of the contents, and activated remotely. Drivers had received their destinations by phone, and were stunned when the drones emerged; some tried to incapacitate them with rocks. Moscow has downplayed the attacks, citing simply “some damage,” but Ukrainian sources allege 41 bombers were struck, and at least 13 destroyed, in locations across five Russian regions, as far as 8000km from Ukraine’s border.
On 30 May 2025, American actress Loretta Swift passed away at her home in New York City, at the age of 87. Best remembered for her performance as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the smash 1970s TV hit series M*A*S*H, Swit effortlessly grew that character from one-dimensional, strait-laced, traditionalist army nurse having an extramarital affair with an inept doctor, to a married, then divorced, fully emancipated modern woman. The metamorphosis was stunning to behold, and Swit’s character became an icon of feminism for the time. Swit won two Emmy Awards for her portrayal, appearing in all but 11 of the series’ 256 episodes, only one of two actors to appear through the run of the show, from pilot to finale (the other being Alan Alda, Captain Hawkeye Pierce).
Hard to believe, but on June 16th, it will be ten years since Donald J. Trump rolled down that golden escalator in Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for US president, setting in motion a disruption in our political life as a nation the likes of which we’ve never seen before (to use one of Trump’s favorite catch phrases). As always, the moment encapsulates the future, crystalizing latent potential into manifestation.
By now, most Americans have heard of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who was illegally deported from the United States on March 15, 2025, in what the Trump administration initially admitted was “an administrative error.” He was imprisoned without trial in the Salvadoran maximum security Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), despite never having been charged with nor convicted of a crime in either country, under an agreement to imprison U.S. deportees there, in exchange for payment. The administration quickly withdrew its mea culpa, defending Abrego Garcia’s deportation, and publicly accusing him of being a member of the MS-13 gang, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The accusation was based on a bail determination made during a 2019 immigration court proceeding, contested by Abrego Garcia.
They said it couldn’t be done, but on May 8th, 2025, a conclave of 133 Catholic Cardinals, largest in history, elected an American as Pope! 80% of those qualified to vote (only Cardinals under age 80 were eligible) had been elevated by Pope Francis, including the Vatican sweepstakes winner, Cardinal Robert Prevost. The conclave was also the most international in composition, with roughly two-thirds drawn from nations outside Europe, and 71 countries represented in total.
At 7:35 AM CEST on Monday, 21 April 2025, Pope Francis passed away, apparently from a stroke, in his apartment at the St Martha House in Vatican City. The notoriously down-to-earth pontiff eschewed the luxurious papal penthouse in the Apostolic Palace, preferring the humbler surroundings of the Vatican’s adjacent guest house. Francis had recently battled bilateral pneumonia and other respiratory complaints during a weeks-long hospital stay, but returned to the Vatican a month ago, where he resumed some of his papal duties. On the day before his death, Francis went out to greet the Easter Sunday crowds in St Peter’s Square, also meeting with US Vice President JD Vance, so, although he was still in ill health, his passing just hours later was unexpected.
“Investors of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your gains!” – Trumpunist Manifesto
If anyone doubted Donald Trump’s repeated campaign promises in 2024 that, if elected, he would impose sweeping, massive tariffs on foreign imports, all such doubts evaporated on April 2, 2025, when the US President kicked off a global trade war. Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” appears to be working just fine, if the goal was to liberate more cash from Americans’ pocketbooks. With tariffs applied to virtually every country on Earth, even some unpopulated South Pacific islands (but excluding Russia – surprise!), increases in costs from 10% to 49% have roiled global financial markets.
On March 21, 2025, former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman passed away peacefully at a Houston, Texas hospital, surrounded by family and friends. No cause of death has been released. Foreman dominated professional boxing in the 1970s; claiming the championship from the then-undefeated Joe Frazier in 1973, he held the tile for just a year before his loss to Muhammad Ali in “The Rumble in the Jungle.” Foreman retired three years later, but made a brief comeback in 1994, becoming the oldest world heavyweight champion after defeating Michael Moorer. In later life, Foreman became a household name for his endorsement and promotion of the eponymous “George Foreman Grill,” a small double-sided cooking appliance. He is also remembered for his eccentric habit of naming each of his five sons after himself, merely adding regnal numbers to distinguish them.
The 97th Academy Awards were presented on 2 March 2025, commencing at 4 PM PST in Los Angeles, California. Thirteen of the nominees were first-time honorees, a record showing, and no more than appropriate, with a first-time host, Conan O’Brien, as well. Newbies grabbed three of four acting awards, and among the record setters were Best Actor winner Adrien Brody (first person to have two wins for just two nominations, as well as the longest acceptance speech in Oscar history), and “Anora” director Sean Baker (first to win four Oscars for the same film, scooping up Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and Film Editing).
On Wednesday, 26 February, 2025, Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife were found dead at their Santa Fe, New Mexico home, following a wellness check by authorities. Also deceased was a German Shepherd, one of several dogs owned by the couple. Foul play was initially ruled out, but evidence at the scene was inconclusive, and police now classify the deaths as “suspicious.” Search warrants were issued for the property to resolve the cause of death, which could extend to accident or suicide, but reporting indicates that the couple may have been dead for some time before discovery.
Donald J. Trump’s second administration, taking power at noon on 20 January 2025 (by constitutional fiat, whenever the oath itself is taken), is likely to be a replay of the first term, only more so. In 2017 when he first assumed office, Trump was a newbie novice to the Washington scene; he appointed persons with experience and relative competence to help him run the government, individuals who had a respect for its institutions and norms, who served as guardrails on Trump’s wilder, wackier impulses.
On Sunday, 29 December 2024, former US president Jimmy Carter passed away peacefully at his home in Plains, Georgia; at age 100, he was the longest-lived chief executive in US history. Carter had been in hospice care for nearly two years, since February of 2023, and had lost his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, that November. He also enjoyed the longest post-presidency, which was viewed, rightly or wrongly, as considerably more successful than his administration, with the Carter Center promoting democracy, advancing human rights and assisting disease eradication globally. Jimmy and Rosalynn also partnered with Habitat for Humanity in an annual home-building blitz, which the Carters joined personally.
On Sunday, 8 December 2024, Syrian rebels occupied the capital of Damascus, effectively overthrowing the government and ending half a century of rule over Syria by the Assad family. Dictator Bashar al-Assad, in power since 2000, hot-footed it to exile and asylum in Russia, under the protection of bestie Vladimir Putin. His overthrow also represents the end of a civil war that began in 2011 with a pro-democracy uprising against Assad’s entrenched rule, and cost the lives of half a million Syrians, with 12 million more displaced from their homeland.
Actor James Earl Jones passed away on 9 September 2024, at the age of 93. Jones was a member of the exclusive EGOT club, meaning he had won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, but ironically, most people know him best from three roles where he never appears on camera: as the voice of Darth Vader in the original “Star Wars” trilogy; the voice of Mufasa in Disney’s animated feature “The Lion King;” and as the voiceover announcer who for decades declaimed the tagline, “This is CNN” at the cable news network’s commercial breaks. It was Jones’ basso profundo vocal range that set him apart from the competition, though his 6’2” height and substantial frame also gave the actor a stage presence and gravitas few could rival.
On August 3rd, 2024, aspiring Olympian Anthony Ammirati coined a whole new meaning for the term “cockblocked” after failing to qualify for a pole vault event when his penis collided with the bar on the way down, knocking it to the ground (the bar, not his penis). The embarrassing footage of the phallic fail immediately went viral, and though Olympic authorities later confirmed that Ammirati would have been disqualified regardless, as other, less intimate portions of his anatomy had touched the bar prior to its dickish dislodgment, there was no stopping the cock-a-hoop hilarity that ensued. The French athlete, with no apparent irony, later described the incident as “a big disappointment.” Cheer up, Anthony – a manly manhood has its compensations!
Ah, June! That middling month ‘twixt spring and summer, not properly belonging to either, albeit the time when summer officially begins. Spring is a distant memory, but summer’s promise has not yet come to full fruition. As the month commences, there’s a sea of green in the garden, punctuated at odd intervals by a stray splash of color. But as July dawns, more and more of the landscape unfolds into the panoply of tones, both fiery and cooling, which will dominate the next six weeks, until August’s mid-month slump robs us of nature’s palette once again.
On Friday, 21 April 2024, just across the street from the Manhattan courtroom where jury selection in Donald Trump’s hush money trial had recently concluded, a man set himself alight, first dousing himself with a liquid accelerant. Police responded immediately, being onsite for courthouse protection, but were unable to stop the flames for several minutes; the man was later pronounced dead at a local burn center.
Katharine Hepburn is among the most-honored and best-loved American actresses of all time, with 12 Academy Award nominations and 4 wins as Best Actress. Hepburn’s tally of Oscar gold has yet to be surpassed, and is only equaled by Meryl Streep (though one of her four was for Best Supporting Actress, she far eclipses Hepburn in nominations, with 21 to date). Her sixty-plus year career spanned the Great Depression to the edge of the new millennium, with 44 feature films to her credit; she also acted extensively on the stage, in no less than 33 productions (garnering two Tony Award nominations, but no wins). Hepburn didn’t work often in television, but managed six Emmy nominations and one win regardless.
Avid avian admirers worldwide were saddened on February 23, 2024, by the news of the untimely passing of Flaco, a Eurasian eagle owl that had become a celebrity bird-about-town after escaping from New York’s Central Park Zoo a year prior. Concerns that Flaco, who was hatched at a bird park in North Carolina in 2010 and had spent his life in captivity, would not be able to survive in the wild, having never developed hunting skills, prompted various attempts at his recapture, all unsuccessful.
Taylor Swift, in case you’re unfamiliar with the name, is the latest in a string of global female superstars in the music industry. At just 34, Swift has a list of smash hits to rival the best, and is only the third female vocal artist to garner a net worth in excess of a billion dollars. Not just a pretty face and a lilting voice, Swift is a canny businesswoman as well – and she’s got moxie! In 2019, an ownership dispute between Swift and her former label, Big Machine Records, resulted in Swift rerecording her first six albums, to ensure control of her creative output.
When it comes to Old Hollywood glamor, style and chic, nobody does it like Bette Davis. Which is ironic, because, unlike most actresses of her era, Bette never shied away from unglamorous parts, unlikeable characters, and unflattering makeup, even agreeing to aging techniques that had her convincingly playing a 60-year-old Virgin Queen when she was barely 30 herself.
What can be said of Meryl Streep? One of the most talented and versatile actresses of our day, Streep leads the pack in the race for the little gold statuette, with twenty-one Academy Award nominations and three wins. Only Kate Hepburn has more Oscars, with four victories, but considerably less nominations (just twelve). Streep is a skilled character actress, able to don a new guise in every film; a gifted mimic, assuming accents and dialects with ease; noted for dramatic work but able to turn out a good comedic performance when called for. Streep’s honors peak with her Oscar wins, but don’t stop there. Nominated collectively for more than 400 awards, when Emmys, Golden Globes, Grammys, Tonys and SAG awards are factored in, she has won over 200, about as good a batting average as anyone in the business.
Grace Kelly has always been one of my favorite actresses, despite a thin body of work, with just ten films to her credit over her truncated, five-year career. But what credits! “High Noon” with Gary Cooper; “Mogambo” with Clark Gable; “The Country Girl” with Bing Crosby and William Holden (which garnered her an Oscar); and three Hitchcock classics: “Dial M for Murder” with Ray Milland; “To Catch a Thief” with Cary Grant; and “Rear Window” with Jimmy Stewart. Kelly abruptly left show business at the peak of her career for a higher calling: to become a princess as the wife of Prince Rainier III of Monaco. The connection to royalty didn’t hurt one bit in my admiration of her.
Only today’s GOP could take a bad situation and make it worse. After weeks of wrangling following the ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with multiple abortive attempts to install at least four nominees, the Republican caucus unanimously chose Mike Johnson (R-LA) as their new Speaker on October 25th. Johnson is a MAGA diehard, one of the architects of the attempt to override the 2020 election results; his elevation is a clear signal that the Party has no desire to reform its ways, and is intent more on obstructionism and culture war posing than true governance.
The spectacle of a British royal coronation is something we haven’t seen in 70 years, but there’s one on deck for 6 May 2023, when King Charles III finally comes into his long-awaited inheritance. The United Kingdom may be in financial tatters, made worse by Brexit, but nobody does panoply, pomp and circumstance like the Brits, and the coronation at Westminster Abbey in London promises to be a sight to remember.
At 11:24 AM EDT on March 21, 2023, in Nazareth, PA, my dear girl Ashes passed peacefully into eternity. We had been together 15 years, with never a cross word between us, a wonderfully close and affectionate relationship. I brought Ashes in off the West Philly streets in 2007, along with two of her kittens, one of the first beneficiaries of Leo’s Cat Rescue, which I ran with my friend John Mignone for over ten years.
On November 14, 2022, Charles III of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will celebrate his 74th birthday, the first as King. Having served the longest apprenticeship in British royal history, Charles had been heir apparent for seventy years before his mother passed away in early September and the Prince of Wales finally came into his inheritance. It had been a long road. Once the world’s most eligible bachelor, Charles became half of the fairytale wedding of the 20th century, followed by scandal and divorce, and a second, controversial marriage with the love of his life. While kicking his heels for three-quarters of a century, Charles established The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, founded in 1979, which awards money to grant applicants in six categories: heritage and conservation, education, health and wellbeing, social inclusion, environment, and countryside. He is also a noted proponent of efforts to combat climate change and species extinction.
On 21 September 2022, New York State Attorney General Letitia James won the race to be the first to charge Donald Trump with a crime. The former US President faces legal jeopardy on a variety of fronts, and the civil suit brought against Trump, his adult children Don Jr, Eric and Ivanka, and the Trump Organization may be the least harrowing, though, if successful, would devastate his business. A civil suit carries no threat of incarceration, but AG James stated in her press conference announcing the indictment that both state and federal laws were broken, and she will be making criminal referrals to both the US Attorney’s office at the Southern District of New York and the IRS.
Although national mourning and celebration of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s life has been protracted for more than ten days after her passing, the official State Funeral ceremony is slated to begin in Westminster Abbey at 11 AM BST on Monday, 19 September 2022. Much of the passing chart remains in effect, but there are significant changes and additions which reflect the funeral itself.
She advised 15 Prime Ministers, interacted with 14 American presidents and 7 popes, but the long life and seventy-year reign of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II came to a peaceful close on 8 September 2022, when the 96-year-old sovereign passed away in her sleep at her private estate of Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Most of the United Kingdom’s population – indeed, most of the world – cannot recall a time when Elizabeth was not Queen; her reign spanned the post-World War II era to our post-Modern society, and her life saw massive technological change, from telegraphs to Twitter.
It didn’t quite make it to fifty, but for almost half a century legal abortion has been the law of the land here in the US. No more.
On June 24, 2022, the gavel fell on Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 decision guaranteeing reproductive rights, overturned 5-4 by the current US Supreme Court. The test case which led to Roe’s reversal was Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which sought to prevent a Mississippi state law virtually eliminating abortion after 15 weeks from conception. That law was upheld 6-3, but Chief Justice John Roberts joined the progressive minority on the Court when Roe itself became the target of his conservative colleagues.
Vladimir Putin has dominated Russian politics for almost a quarter century. A former KGB officer, Putin entered politics after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, an event he describes as the greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century. In 1996 he joined Boris Yeltsin’s administration; appointed as prime minister in 1999, he filled the role of acting president when Yeltsin resigned later that year, being elected to the office in 2000. At the time, Russia had a prohibition on an individual serving more than two consecutive terms as president, so after being reelected in 2004, in 2008 Putin swapped jobs with then prime minister Dmitry Medvedev for a term, only to assume the top spot again in the following election, four years later. That would have entitled him to two more terms, but Putin changed the law to allow himself to run for an additional two terms uninterrupted, potentially continuing his occupancy of the presidency indefinitely.
On Thursday, 24 February 2022, at approximately 5 AM local time, Vladimir Putin’s Russian Army invaded Ukraine, accelerating a process of intimidation and aggression that had begun eight years before with the illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea, and had continued with support for separatist movements in Ukraine’s easternmost sectors, bordering Russia, specifically portions of the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, in the Donbass region. Since the beginning of the year, a series of planetary stations had reflected the inexorable march to war, eight cosmic turning points which built upon each other like tumblers in a lock, eventually unleashing the conflict.
Not since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 has a freshman congressperson made such a stunning impact in the House of Representatives as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), quickly emerging as an avatar for the extremist fringe of her Party. Greene latched onto the Trumpist base with all the furor of a Sarah-Palin-inspired “pit bull in lipstick”, hawking every conspiracy theory to come within range while endorsing the lynching of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump strongly supported her candidacy, calling her “a future Republican star.” Since his departure from the Oval Office, he and Greene have exchanged phone calls frequently, with the newly minted Representative planning a visit to Mar-a-Lago soon, to kiss the ring: “Great news is, he supports me 100%, and I’ve always supported him,” tweeted Greene.
By Constitutional fiat, all US administrations begin at 12 Noon on the January 20th following a general election, regardless of when the oath of office is actually sworn. This provides a celestial continuity from decade to decade, with all administrations having an early Aquarius Sun conjunct a late Capricorn MC, and a mid-Taurus Ascendant (unless begun by the death or resignation of the previous office holder). But within that rigid framework, the permutations are virtually endless, especially when asteroids are considered.
On Wednesday, January 6th, 2021, the Feast of the Epiphany, Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to prevent Congress’ counting and certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, preparatory to his inauguration two weeks later. Doors were forced, windows broken, as insurrectionists fresh from a Trump rally mere blocks away which featured an in-person address from the President took control from Capitol Police and security, who offered minimal resistance to the crowd, estimated in the tens of thousands. The Senate and House were evacuated, put on lockdown, as legislators cowered in safe spaces or barricaded themselves in their offices to avoid the mob.
On Thursday 25 April 2019 former Vice President Joe Biden entered the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Biden’s Macbeth routine, “letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’,” was wearing thin, and at his announcement Biden joined an already crowded field of some twenty rivals who dove into the political (cess)pool ahead of him. Before officially becoming a candidate, Biden’s name recognition kept him at the top of most polls; now that he’s an actual contender, that may change. Fast.
On Sunday, 27 January 2019, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) officially kicked off her 2020 presidential campaign in her home town of Oakland, California, before a crowd estimated at some 20,000. Harris is the former Attorney General of California, elected to the US Senate in 2016. As a mixed race child of a Jamaican father and a Tamil Indian mother, Harris is the first potentially viable candidate who is a woman of color to run for president. Her candidacy will electrify liberals and promote progressive goals, such as universal pre-K, debt-free college, and Medicare for all, and a long career in law enforcement may help to remove the “soft on crime” sting that many conservatives will attempt to apply.
Hekate was a Greek goddess associated with the wisdom of age, healing, medicinal and herbal knowledge, women’s mysteries, sorcery, witchcraft and necromancy.
