We made it to Friday. Good morning.
I think it will surprise no one who even casually follows this morning newsletter that I like my candy – on the rare occasions that I eat candy – packed with peanuts and/or peanut butter and covered in chocolate.
I’m a fairly simple person, so I’ll take more or less anything with some version of that combination. Peanut butter cups are, of course, the holy grail, closely followed by a nice and simply Mr. Goodbar and also peanut M&Ms.
A Snicker’s isn’t bad, though I could do without the nougat and caramel getting in the way of the nut-chocolate mix, and I wouldn’t turn down a Hershey’s with almonds in a pinch. (My Dad used to keep one in the glove compartment in case of emergencies; he also liked the fruit-and-nut mix bar. I have adopted his habit and always keep snacks in the car, because one never knows).
A flavor I could really take or leave, though? Peppermint. It just leaves me cold. I mean, chewing gum is OK, but I kicked that habit a long time ago. Peppermint hard candy? Candy canes? I don’t see the point. Those gummy candies dusted with sugar and shaped like leaves? Hard no.
Though maybe, on second thought, those are actually spearmint? Meh. A difference without much of a distinction.
When peppermint is enrobed in chocolate – especially dark chocolate – it comes up slightly in my estimation, but just a hair. At the end of the day, I don’t have a hard time saying “no” to peppermint patties.
And yet, I somehow felt compelled to tell you that today is National Peppermint Patty Day. Go figure.
There’s a family-owned candy-making business called Quiggin’s that has been around since the 1840s and claims to be the original creator of something called the Kendal Mint Cake, which sounds like a cross between candy and an energy bar. The website says:
“Borne (sic) in the small Cumbrian town of Kendal, Mint Cake has become known throughout the world. It accompanied the first expedition to reach the summit of Mount Everest, been to the North and the South Pole and its reputation has continued to grow since.” (Aside: These folks need a proofreader…but then again, we could all use one of those).
Apparently this Mint Cake is popular with endurance athletes and is known in some corners as the world’s first energy bar. But I like to think I fall into the endurance athlete category, and I’ve never heard of a Mint Cake. Nor does the idea of eating something that sounds awfully like a York Peppermint Pattie sound appealing mid-race.
It seems to be made of milk, glucose, sugar, a little salt, and peppermint essence – maybe chocolate if you want to gild the lily. And that’s it. The exact recipe is secret, though, because you don’t get to be famous for making a thing by sharing how you do it.
Also, did you know that being at high altitudes dulls your sense of taste? This is apparently part of the reason why airplane food (back when you could actually get a meal on a plane and weren’t treated to a bag of three pretzels and a warm soda) is so bad. And it’s also why the sharp minty tang of a Mint Cake is not off-putting to climbers. Or so they say.
Anyway, as for the York Peppermint Pattie, which is far more mainstream than the Kendal Mint Cake, it was invented in 1940 by a guy named Henry Kessler, who owned a factory in – you guessed it – York, PA. The candy is now manufactured by Hershey’s.
And for the record, it is a peppermint “pattie” not Peppermint Patty, which is the name of an iconic Peanuts cartoon character.
It’s the 10th anniversary of the tragic death of singer Whitney Houston.
Some folks might have seen snow last night. But this morning that is giving way to a mix of sun and clouds and, get this, temperatures up near 50 degrees. Don’t get too used to it.
In the headlines…
Nearly 6 in 10 Americans disapprove of how Joe Biden is handling his presidency, with most of that group saying there’s literally nothing Biden has done since taking office that they approve of.
Biden’s approval rating in a key average of major polls dropped below 40 percent this week, the first time that had happened since he took office.
A relentless surge in U.S. inflation reached another four-decade high last month, accelerating to a 7.5% annual rate as strong consumer demand collided with pandemic-related supply disruptions.
American consumers are kicking off 2022 with some big price increases in everyday purchases. The price of food and utilities surged in January from the previous month. Prices for healthcare and housing have also started to creep up.
Democratic lawmakers are acknowledging that rising inflation is becoming a significant political problem that is adding to the difficulty of reviving Biden’s agenda.
Meanwhile, Biden touted wage growth and forecasts for tapering inflation even after a new report showed that prices are still rising at their fastest clip in 40 years.
Biden issued a warning to any Americans who remain in Ukraine as Russia continues to threaten an invasion: Leave.
“It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization,” Biden said of Russia, which has massed troops on its border with Ukraine. “We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation and things could go crazy quickly.”
Biden said that he won’t send US troops into Ukraine to evacuate Americans if Russia invades — saying that the action could trigger a “world war” and “things could go crazy quickly.”
Russia kicked off large-scale military exercises in Belarus on its western borders with Poland and Lithuania and along its southern flank near Ukraine, an escalation of the standoff between Moscow and Western powers and a possible precursor to an invasion.
Biden traveled to Virginia to argue that his plan for lowering prescription drug prices would ease one of the largest financial burdens American families face at a time when they are coping with rising costs of food, gas and other necessities.
The Biden administration rolled out a plan to allocate $5 billion to states to fund electric vehicle chargers over five years, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure package that includes $7.5 billion to build a network of EV charging stations across the country.
100 Republican members of Congress sent Biden a letter calling for fentanyl-related drugs to be permanently labeled schedule one substances.
The House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of official records following news that 15 boxes of material were recently recovered at the former president’s Florida estate.
Some of the White House documents that Trump improperly took to his Mar-a-Lago residence were clearly marked as classified, including documents at the “top secret” level, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has discovered gaps in official White House telephone logs from the day of the riot, finding few records of calls by Trump from critical hours when investigators know that he was making them.
Sparse call records and missing documents hinder the House panel as it tries to piece together what Trump was doing during the attack on Congress.
Maggie Haberman’s new book “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America” reveals that staff in the White House during Trump’s presidency say they found documents periodically flushed down the toilet in the White House.
Trump quickly denied the flushing report as “categorically untrue.”
Republicans once attacked Hillary Clinton for her handling of government records. But few showed outrage over news about Trump’s White House records.
First-time unemployment filings came in lower in the latest weekly data, continuing a recent downward trend in jobless claims as Omicron-related pressures on the labor market begin to abate.
Jobless claims fell by 16,000 to 223,000 last week, from 239,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported.
Biden said that Democratic governors ending COVID-19 indoor mask mandates are “probably premature” — before hedging and adding “it’s a tough call.”
The president said that requirements for children would likely to start to fall away given federal plans to begin vaccinating children under the age of 5, but said it was probably premature to drop COVID mask requirements entirely.
Health officials and epidemiologists are working out how quickly they think the U.S. should dial back Covid-19 restrictions while also preparing for an uncertain future living with the virus and its variants.
Amazon will allow fully vaccinated employees to go maskless inside of its warehouses and is taking steps to adjust its paid time off policies after several states lifted indoor mask mandates this week.
Attorneys for dozens of parents of schoolchildren who have filed lawsuits challenging the state’s mask mandate in educational settings contend the cases should move forward even if Gov. Kathy Hochul ends the directive in March.
The lifting of statewide mask mandate sparked confusion yesterday, as some Big Apple shops still had signs in their windows citing the controversial order.
Brooklyn’s prestigious Poly Prep Country Day School became the first NYC school to make masks optional, but state officials call the move a “violation.”
About 20 percent of the senior class at Ballston Spa High School staged a mask protest yesterday morning, the day the state’s indoor mask mandate was dropped for businesses but not schools.
Effective immediately, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany will no longer require masks to be worn in diocesan churches and offices.
New COVID cases are plunging all across America, and Omicron’s death toll is also slowing down.
At one point at the beginning of the pandemic, there was hope that a popular and inexpensive over-the-counter heartburn drug might hold promise for treating Covid-19, but a newly published study shows mixed results.
A Canadian judge delayed a bid by the Canadian border city of Windsor, Ontario, to obtain a court order to remove demonstrators who for four days have blocked most traffic on a crucial U.S.-Canada trade corridor.
Turkey’s president, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week, has since tested negative and will likely resume his normal schedule in coming days.
Queen Elizabeth is currently being monitored after her son, Prince Charles, tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday.
The Adams administration is poised to dismiss 3,000 to 4,000 municipal workers today for refusing to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, in what could be the nation’s most drastic example of a work force reduction tied to a vaccine requirement.
“We’re not firing them. People are quitting,” Adams said. “The responsibility is clear. We said it: if you’re hired, if you get this job, you have to be vaccinated. If you are not following the rules, you are making that decision.”
Adams struggled to hold back tears as he blamed the recent shooting death of a teenage Bronx rapper on a “broken system” that “continually fails” Black and Brown New Yorkers.
In a rousing speech delivered to New York City’s faith leaders, Adams urged the city to serve as a beacon of hope for the rest of the country and the globe in what he cast as a spiritual journey away from the darkness of the COVID pandemic and its fallout.
Adams declared that his rise to the mayoralty was driven by God as he launched a new City Hall office for faith-based initiatives. “God told me, ‘Eric, you’re going to be mayor,'” he said.
Adams took part in a slice of New York City history last night as he swore in Eddie Gibbs, an East Harlem community leader, as the neighborhood’s next assemblyman, making him the first ex-con to ever get a seat in the state legislature.
Hillary Clinton is scheduled to speak to a gathering of top New York state Democrats next week — amid speculation that she could seek the White House again as Biden’s poll numbers continue to plunge.
Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, eager to rehabilitate his image after he resigned in disgrace, will address the volley of sexual harassment allegations against him “relatively soon,” his lawyer teased, but a spokesman says Cuomo won’t run for AG.
“I do expect you are going to be hearing from the governor relatively soon on this issue,” Cuomo’s attorney Rita Glavin said. “He will not let this go.”
Cuomo plans to file a complaint with a state Supreme Court attorney grievance committee targeting Attorney General Letitia James and her report last year alleging Cuomo committed extensive sexual harassment.
Hochul’s office will comply with a subpoena asking for records about unpaid “volunteers” that her disgraced predecessor, Cuomo, used to help work on New York’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman and other Nassau County Republican elected officials endorsed fellow Long Islander, Rep. Lee Zeldin, for governor.
Since a surprise win on Long Island, Blakeman has been on a seemingly single-minded mission to challenge and defy Hochul over mask mandates.
Despite unanimous support from lawmakers in the State Senate and Assembly, Hochul pocket vetoed a bill that would have made the judge recertification process in New York nearly automatic.
In what may be the oddest coupling in radio history, former Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner will be co-hosting a New York show with Guardian Angels founder and former Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa.
Long Island Rail Road president Phil Eng will resign on Feb. 25 — and he’ll turn over the reins to Metro-North president Catherine Rinaldi, MTA officials announced.
Fordham, one of the nation’s most prominent Jesuit universities, announced its new president, unveiling a choice that breaks with tradition in two ways: For the first time in its nearly 200-year history, the school will be led by a laywoman instead of a priest.
Union efforts that began late last year at three Starbucks locations in Buffalo have spread across the country, and now they have landed in New York City.
A new bill proposed in the City Council would lift the city’s ban on restaurants using propane heaters in their outdoor dining set-ups in hopes of bolstering business through the colder months.
The next variant of the coronavirus may come courtesy of NYC’s rat population.
Federal grand jury subpoenas seeking a trove of materials from the Rensselaer County Board of Elections were served on the county, part of a widening FBI investigation examining the handling of absentee ballots in elections last year and in 2020.
Federal safety regulators are investigating the construction accident that killed a Brunswick man Wednesday at DeCrescente Distributing’s warehouse.
New York state recently broke ground on its first offshore wind project on Long Island. But construction couldn’t start until attorneys from an Albany law firm beat back a challenge by Long Island property owners to the project.
Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and Hochul will be joined by representatives from Ørsted and Eversource to celebrate a milestone announcement in the development of offshore wind today.
The results of the team figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics are in doubt after sports officials confirmed that the 15-year-old superstar of the Russian Olympic Committee team tested positive for a banned substance in December.
The skater, Kamila Valieva, was found to have used trimetazidine, a heart medication not normally allowed in competition, according to a statement from the International Testing Agency.
In Shaun White’s farewell performance, Ayumu Hirano of Japan won an elusive Olympic gold in the halfpipe with a boundary-pushing final run. White finished fourth after falling on the final run of his career.
Anderson Cooper announced the birth of his second son live last night on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
Sting has sold his entire songwriting music catalog — both as a solo artist and with The Police — to Universal Music Publishing Group.
Shortly after Bob Saget’s family announced his cause of death, medical professionals in Florida confirmed that the beloved actor died from blunt force trauma to the head after experiencing an “unwitnessed fall backwards.” He also had COVID.
