Good morning, it’s Friday – need I say more? This, combined with the fact that it isn’t sub-zero outside, should be enough to put anyone in a good mood, comparatively speaking.
I, however, am experiencing a tiny bit of stress about Valentine’s Day. The stress of a person who has been married a long time is not the same stress of someone in a new relationship – or aspiring relationship – I know.
I’m not worried that if I get the wrong card or gift that he’ going to stop returning my calls. But, assuming I remember it at all (I have been known to completely forget birthdays, anniversaries etc.), I struggle to figure out the right balance to strike here.
Should I go all-out and get something expensive? (These gifts generally fall flat in my experience because I get the wrong size or buy something that just sits in its box and never gets worn). Send candy or cookies to the office? Leave something on his pillow?
One thing I will definitely not try to do is make a dinner reservation to eat out on Valentine’s Day proper, which falls on a Saturday this year, making it extra high stakes.
Valentine’s Day is among the top five highest-grossing and busiest days of the year for restaurants, with more than 20 million Americans eating out on this day ALONE, generating more than $9 billion in sales.
It is second only to Mother’s Day in this regard, in part because it’s seen as a time to pull out the stops, with orders for high-end items like steak doubling the daily average (steak sales tend to be high on this day in supermarkets, too). Wine, which has been on a slow decline overall, also tends to do well on Valentine’s Day. Ditto anything made with chocolate.
If people do opt to dine out on Valentine’s Day, they generally trend toward so-called “romantic” spots – Italian and French cuisine is particularly popular, according to research by Eater.com. Those who purchase their food but order in are more likely to go with something a little more international, like sushi or Indian.
If you’re reading this and you’re like, “Crap, Valentine’s Day totally crept up on me and I am NOT ready,” your best bet is to call around and see if there are any cancellations at your preferred dining establishments, or be prepared to eat very early or very late. Reservations for coveted – and limited – Valentine’s Day tables tend to open as many as 60 days in advance, with prime-time slots from 7 to 9 p.m. selling out within a matter of days.
Valentine’s Day has become very commercial – no news flash here – and this year Americans are expected to break a new spending record, shelling out $29.1 billion in celebration of this more-or-less made-up holiday, dropping an average of $200 per person on gifts, cards, flowers, candy, meals, etc., according to the National Retail Federation.
That’s kind of mind-boggling for a day that has its roots in the ancient Roman ritual of Lupercalia – a pastoral health and fertility festival – and was co-opted by the Catholic Church into a feast day for St. Valentine, who has a murky – and dare I say somewhat romantic? – origin story.
However you plan on celebrating – or even if you don’t plan on celebrating at all – you’re at least not going to totally freeze your butt off while doing it. Today, (AKA Galentine’s Day), will still be a bit on the chilly side, with highs in the low 30s (I’ll take this, compared to negative double digits, FWIW), but skies will be sunny and clear.
Tomorrow, Valentine’s Day proper, will see high flirting with 40 degrees!!! Skies will be partly cloudy. Sunday brings more of the same, though highs will only reach into he mid-30s.
In the headlines…
The Trump administration revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the most aggressive move by the president to roll back climate regulations.
The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.
The administration says the move will save companies more than $1 trillion, but critics argue that ignores the much greater costs of climate change from extreme weather, sea level rise and heat-related health impacts.
Members of Congress departed DC without funding the Department of Homeland Security, putting it on a near-certain path to a shutdown this weekend amid a deep partisan divide over Democrats’ demands to place new restrictions on ICE agents.
Senate Democrats voted yesterday to block a motion to advance a House-passed bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security, putting Washington on the brink of a partial government shutdown that will affect more than 260,000 federal employees.
Congressional Democrats say they will approve no money for the Department of Homeland Security without guardrails on immigration agents. Their voters in Minnesota are demanding no less.
The Trump administration said that it was ending its deployment of immigration agents to Minnesota, unwinding an aggressive operation that has stretched for more than two months despite loud opposition from residents and local officials.
Approval of Trump’s immigration agenda has seen a decline among independents, with most saying that the administration has overstepped with its deportation efforts, according to an AP-NORC poll released yesterday.
Polling found that 23 percent approved of Trump’s handling on immigration, down 14 points since March 2025. About 6 in 10 independents said the president’s deportations of immigrants living illegally in the U.S. has “gone too far.”
Kathy Ruemmler, the chief legal officer at Goldman Sachs, said last night she is resigning amid fallout from the Justice Department’s release of millions of pages of Jeffrey Epstein documents. Her resignation is effective June 30.
Ruemmler, a former top Obama administration lawyer, is out at Goldman Sachs after emails showed a friendship with the sex offender Epstein spanning many years, contrary to her claim that their relationship was strictly professional.
Lawyers for GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis asked the U.S. Supreme Court to block a state court ruling that would result in the redrawing of her district and would most likely endanger her seat.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is getting roasted for saying she spent the day “in” Long Island — a gaffe that’s like nails on a chalkboard on the Queens side of the Whitestone.
Hochul wants a provision in this year’s state budget to bar medical providers in New York from exercising a process created a decade ago that’s allowed them to receive higher payments from Medicaid by disputing the amounts paid by the state.
Hochul is recruiting help from everyday New Yorkers in the war she is waging against the overly burdensome regulatory state.
Hochul’s proposal to cut auto insurance rates and make the state more affordable starts from a simple premise: If fraud and legal abuse are driving costs, the incentives need to change.
Motorists in New York who choose to drive recklessly, impaired or at alarmingly high speeds will soon face much steeper potential penalties, including more points on their licenses that could result in the swifter suspension or revocation of their driving privileges.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani nominated Nadia Shihata, a former federal prosecutor, to be the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Investigation, a corruption-fighting agency that in recent years has seen its power dwindle.
If confirmed by the City Council, Shihata would be the first woman of color to lead the DOI, according to Mamdani. “There will be zero tolerance for self-enrichment or corruption in my City Hall, but words are not enough,” he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey met with Mamdani yesterday, telling reporters ahead of his sit-down that he expected to talk about making sure “that what happened in Minneapolis does not happen in other cities
Mamdani confirmed the meeting. His press secretary, Joe Calvello, noted afterward that the mayors had “discussed their shared values when it comes to keeping our cities safe as well as standing up for our vibrant immigrant communities.”
Mamdani has told organizers of a Feb. 25 “Tax the Rich” rally in Albany that he is unlikely to attend because he does not want to antagonize Hochul.
For Mamdani, the dismal state of bathrooms is symbolic of a larger failure to build and sustain public goods in America.
Mamdani broke a long-standing New York tradition when he missed the Feb. 6 installation Mass for Archbishop Ronald Hicks at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and met with the archbishop four days later.
City Hall admitted that a 19th person died outside in the brutal cold and that seven others perished of hypothermia in their own homes, but dismissed questions about the tragedies.
Mamdani is expected to announce that he is reversing two of former Mayor Eric Adams’s transit decisions – installation of offset bus lanes on Fordham Road, the busiest bus route in the Bronx and a a two-way, protected bike lane on Ashland Place in Brooklyn.
Mamdani is staffing his administration with longtime advocates of making it easier to build in the city — a clear sign that the pro-housing YIMBY movement has established a strong influence over New York housing policy.
Manhattan rents hit their third-highest level on record at the start of the year — up nearly 8% from 2025 and more than double the annual inflation rate.
Rep. Dan Goldman yesterday morning became the first lawmaker to tour the previously secretive holding cells used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants in lower Manhattan.
Hundreds of people lined up yesterday for a chance to shop at the city’s “first free grocery store” – launched by Polymarket as it and other prediction betting platforms face increased scrutiny from state regulators.
Hundreds of people gathered outside the Stonewall National Monument yesterday to witness local elected officials and activists raise a Pride flag in the same place where federal officials removed one just days before.
The plan to re-raise the flag in the center of the small park outside the historic Stonewall Inn had been widely publicized on social media, and hundreds of spectators cheered as its rainbow colors made their way back up the flagpole under a cloudy winter sky.
Nurses at NewYork-Presbyterian are calling for hospital management to quickly return to the bargaining table to continue negotiating over the outstanding issues in their contract, after rejecting a deal that would have ended their monthlong strike.
NewYork-Presbyterian nurses rejected a tentative agreement by an overwhelming margin this week, voting to extend their strike — now 31 days running — against the hospital system.
The former head of the NYPD’s School Safety Division solicited and accepted bribes from the CEO of a Florida-based tech company in a bid to snag a multi-million deal to put his panic button software in New York City’s public schools, federal prosecutors charged.
John A. Sarcone III, the first assistant U.S. attorney in New York’s Northern District, will remain in charge of the office after the White House fired a new interim U.S. attorney less than five hours after a panel of federal judges had appointed him to the position.
New York’s senators condemned the Trump administration for firing an upstate U.S. attorney just hours after he was appointed by a panel of federal judges.
Synthetic cannabis, also known as K2 or Spice, is in part responsible for an increase in non-lethal overdoses in the Capital Region.
An Albany nursing home that cares for some of the state’s most vulnerable children will pay $1.3 million after investigators found it had neglected its young residents for years while fraudulently billing Medicaid for care it failed to provide.
Union College is cutting back on staff after missing its enrollment goals for two years. On Feb. 2, staff were sent a memo offering incentives to take early retirement if they had worked at the college for at least 10 years and were at least 60 years old.
Bending to the Rensselaer County Legislature’s request to have department heads return to committee meetings would be akin to nourishing nestlings, according to County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
Russell Sage College students helped police identify a man who Elmira police believe killed a 12-year-old girl named Mary Theresa Simpson in 1964.
Many people who were hopeful the Ballston Town Board would bring back the Farmland Protection and Preservation Committee this week learned they will have to wait a little longer for the group’s return.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
