By Sally French, NerdWallet

Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer in the U.S., but the days leading up to it tend to bring the biggest airport crowds. Some days around the long weekend are significantly busier than others, and if you can afford to be flexible when flying during Memorial Day weekend, you’ll save money and avoid the chaos at the airport.

The best and worst days to fly Memorial Day weekend

NerdWallet analyzed the past three years (2022, 2023 and 2024) of Transportation Security Administration checkpoint data for the six days before and six days after Memorial Day, which shows how many passengers were screened at TSA checkpoints.

For every year analyzed, the Friday before Memorial Day was the most crowded day to travel before the holiday, which is observed on the last Monday of May. For post-holiday travel, the Sunday after has attracted the largest crowds over the past three years.

We calculated the average daily number of passengers flying during this time frame in the past three years. Here are the most- and least-crowded days for the 13 days surrounding Memorial Day (including the holiday), ranked.

Flying before Memorial Day:

Most crowded:

Friday before Memorial Day (2.69 million passengers).
Thursday before (2.65 million).
Wednesday before (2.39 million).

Least crowded:

Saturday before (2.21 million).
Tuesday before (2.25 million).
Sunday before (2.26 million).

Flying on or after Memorial Day:

Most crowded:

Sunday after Memorial Day (2.62 million).
Memorial Day (Monday; 2.56 million).
Friday after (2.55 million).

Least crowded:

Saturday after (2.21 million).
Wednesday after (2.24 million).
Tuesday after (2.34 million).

Why flying the Friday of Memorial Day weekend isn’t ideal

Memorial Day weekend is often the first busy travel period of the year.

In 2024, the Friday before Memorial Day set a then-record for the busiest travel day at U.S. airports. However, that record was broken four more times in 2024 — three separate days during the summer and again on the Sunday after Thanksgiving (which currently holds the title of busiest travel day at U.S. airports ever).

The smarter, cheaper Memorial Day weekend itinerary

If you work a standard Monday-to-Friday workweek and have the holiday off, then leaving Friday after work and returning the Sunday after Memorial Day might make sense if you’re trying to maximize your vacation days. It would give you eight full days of vacation, and you’ll only need to request five days of vacation time.

But flying on Friday, Memorial Day Monday or the Sunday after Memorial Day means you’ll probably have to contend with higher flight prices and bigger airport crowds.

Try these travel days instead:

Travel on Saturday: Rather than rushing out from work Friday afternoon, take that evening to pack, spend Friday night in your own bed and take an early flight out Saturday. Morning flights are often more reliable than evening ones.

Fly home on the Tuesday or Wednesday after: A lot of people opt for traveling on Memorial Day itself, and many people fly the day after. But relatively few people extend their trip one more day and fly out on Tuesday, or even into Wednesday.

If you do, you’ll avoid the worst of the airport crowds. This can increase your chances of saving money on airfare. Plus, you’ll be home in time for a delightful two-day workweek — which might be just enough time to wrap up lingering tasks without getting fresh projects dumped on your desk.

Fly home the Saturday after: You can still have a weeklong vacation and avoid Sunday’s crowds by flying home the Saturday after Memorial Day.

Then you’ll have a full day at home to knock out laundry and meal prep before the next workweek starts. After all, sometimes the most relaxing way to end a trip is taking a vacation from that vacation.

Sally French writes for NerdWallet. Email: sfrench@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @SAFmedia.

“Grey’s Anatomy” was the second most-streamed show of 2024.  New episodes premiere on ABC and, 21 seasons in, the network shows no signs of stopping. It’s safe to assume that will extend the show’s popularity on streaming as well. So it makes sense that Netflix would want to capitalize on that audience with its own 10-episode original series called “Pulse,” a hospital drama so similar to “Grey’s,” the young medical resident at its center even looks a little like Meredith Grey. The show comes from Zoe Robyn, who has logged time as a writer on “Hawaii Five-0” and “The Equalizer,” and she puts those weekly network TV skills to work here.

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It doesn’t take a programming genius to wonder why it took so long for streamers to not only license these kinds of shows, but to create a few of their own. Max was first out of the gate with “The Pitt,” which is suffused with unvarnished realism and so grippingly done, woe to the hospital show premiering in its wake. And in this case, there are too many similarities to overlook. Both, for example, take place over a very long shift in the emergency room.

“Pulse” abandons this construct after the first five episodes and it’s a good thing, because the show isn’t up to narrative challenges and limitations imposed by the premise, and improves somewhat when it settles into a more traditional episodic rhythm. Overall, the series is not as bad as I anticipated. And chances are that the average Netflix viewer currently plowing through two decades worth of “Gray’s Anatomy” will give it a try and think: Sure, why not?

The series begins with a scandal: The ER’s chief resident, one Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell), has been suspended after a sexual harassment complaint is filed against him. He’s replaced by Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald), who is also the person who filed the complaint. That has everyone whispering.

What the ER staff doesn’t know? Danny and Xander have a messy romantic history that would make any HR department cringe. Their relationship was consensual but secret. Also, he pursued and seduced her, and then was apparently uninterested in how this affair between boss and subordinate might affect her career if and when the truth came out. If that’s not a soapy storyline designed to appeal to “Grey’s Anatomy” viewers, I don’t know what is.

It’s a problem, however, that Danny and Xander have no chemistry. As written, the roles lack the kind of magnetism that would justify putting these two at the show’s center. Their drama — seen in multiple flashbacks, as well as the tension that exists in the present day — is deeply uninteresting.

A quick note about flashbacks. Though always a tool used by screenwriters, they’ve become so pervasive in television that I would be happy to never see a flashback again because rarely do they complicate what we already know about the characters. Quit it already!

What “Pulse” does have going for it is an ensemble that’s just compelling enough to compensate for the Danny-Xander dead zones. Justina Machado and Néstor Carbonell play department heads, and as the two established actors here, they give the show a confidence it’s otherwise lacking.

Jessica Rothe, left, Jack Bannon, Jessy Yates, Jessie T. Usher and Willa Fitzgerald star in Netflix’s medical drama “Pulse.” (Anna Kooris/Netflix/TNS)

Like “The Pitt,” the show is primarily filled with new faces. Danny’s younger sister (Jessy Yates) is a doctor in the ER too, which makes for occasionally absorbing moments as the siblings navigate a shared professional setting. She’s a wheelchair user (as is Yates in real life) and it’s a breath of fresh air; rarely are disabled characters featured prominently on TV. Her disability isn’t her primary story but the show doesn’t shy away from the microaggressions she occasionally weathers from patients either.

There’s also the cocky senior resident played by Jack Bannon, the talented junior resident he constantly berates played by Chelsea Muirhead, and the wide-eyed, immaculately put together medical student played by Daniela Nieves. Danny’s best friend is another resident played by Jessie T. Usher  and he is the awkward outlier of the cast, stuck doing nothing because the show has no idea what to do with him. And in a role that deserves more screen time, the ER’s no-nonsense charge nurse who keeps all the plates spinning is played by Arturo Del Puerto.

The cases are appropriately unusual. An EMT is impaled. A woman has a baby on the ER’s bathroom floor. They do procedures they’re explicitly advised not to, but it all works out in the end. Sorry if I rolled my eyes.

The Miami setting means many of the characters are bilingual in English and Spanish. That feels right. The persistent and cloying underscoring does not; the music exists to gin up emotions that aren’t earned. There’s a weird, unexplained detail where the doctors sometimes wear white lab coats over their scrubs, then take them off to do procedures, and then put them back on. Is this a thing that really happens in ERs? I have no idea, but it looks ridiculous. Ditch the lab coats already! I suspect Xander — and Woodell’s performance — are meant to be McDreamy-esque rather than repellent. The latter wins out, but even that isn’t enough to liven up the show

Especially in the season’s first half, “Pulse” feels bland despite the chaos that’s unfolding. Never have I seen a show try this hard to generate drama and fail so spectacularly. No one mentions money or medical insurance — not the doctors or the patients — until Episode 8, and even then it’s treated as a footnote. The show’s not just dull. It’s visually dull. If “The Pitt” is caffeinated competence porn, “Pulse” is a carbonated drink gone flat.

But when it remembers that it’s supposed to emulate the kind of weekly medical dramas that still keep old school TV afloat —  and quits with the incessant flashbacks — it’s downright watchable.

“Pulse” — 2 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Netflix

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

A new report on the health effects of moderate drinking paints a mixed picture, with both positive and negative health effects — plus plenty of unknowns.

The studies included in the report, which will help shape the 2025 edition of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, defined moderate alcohol consumption as no more than one drink per day for women and two per day for men. (A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer containing 5% alcohol, 5 ounces of wine, or 1½ ounces of hard liquor.)

All the studies in the report come with some uncertainty: Scientists can’t randomize one group to drink alcohol and another to abstain for years or decades, and people don’t always keep track of how much they drink, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chair of the committee that compiled it and the associate dean for public health practice at the Colorado School of Public Health.

While the research did show lower death rates among moderate drinkers, the committee couldn’t rule out that they were healthier for some other reason, Calonge said.

“I do think that it would be wrong to recommend that someone start drinking for health reasons,” he said. “If a person chooses to drink, they should drink moderately.”

Here are five takeaways from the report:

Heavy drinking is unhealthy

Men who have more than two drinks per day and women who have more than one have a higher risk of heart attacks, strokes and “all-cause mortality” — essentially, all causes lumped together and adjusted for age. (While everyone will die of something, excessive drinking increases the odds it will happen prematurely.)

“Any potential decreased health risks (from moderate drinking) are wiped out if a person drinks heavily,” Calonge said.

Moderate drinking might have some benefits…

Both men and women who drank moderately had a lower risk of all-cause mortality than those who never drank. They also had a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Moderate drinking raises “good” cholesterol, which could explain why people who have one or two drinks a day might be less likely to develop heart disease, Calonge said.

…but not when it comes to cancer

Women who drank moderately had a higher risk of breast cancer than those who didn’t drink at all, and the risk was higher for those who averaged one drink a day than those who drank less frequently.

Alcohol breaks down into substances that can damage DNA when the body metabolizes it, which could explain an increased risk of cancer, Calonge said. The committee couldn’t determine if moderate drinking changes the odds of developing other cancers, he said.

Evidence is still lacking in some areas

One of the committee’s assignments was to determine whether someone’s decision to drink had any effect on their weight and body composition. It couldn’t reach any conclusions, because the underlying studies didn’t account for other differences between people who drink and those who don’t. (For example, maybe the drinkers were more likely to smoke, or a significant number of nondrinkers had a soda habit.)

Controversy isn’t over

A different report, compiled in 2020, came to the opposite conclusion on cardiovascular disease, finding no advantage to moderate drinking. It suggested that men also limit themselves to one drink per day, to minimize their risk of cancer.

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Critics of the current report told The New York Times they believed the committee cherry-picked studies that would support benefits from moderate drinking.

The number of studies was small because the committee’s task was to look at evidence since 2010 that compared moderate drinkers to lifelong abstainers, Calonge said. (Comparing current drinkers to people who gave it up for health reasons can make the drinking group look better.)

They used those criteria to exclude studies without knowing which way their results would point, he said.

Ultimately, the field needs more and higher-quality research on moderate drinking, Calonge said.

“I totally reject that (cherry-picking) criticism,” he said. “What I can say is it’s a small snapshot.”

Social Security in the crosshairs: We won’t take this lying down

For years we seniors have coasted along, feeling secure that no one would dare mess with our Social Security and Medicare.  Those programs were dubbed the “third rail” (anyone who touched them would be dead in the political water).  Well, folks, we are no longer secure.

House Republicans recently passed a “budget blueprint” that plans to cut hundreds of billions from the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid. But Social Security is also in the crosshairs. Elon Musk has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme.

The government is shutting down 47 branch Social Security offices and six regional offices — while at the same time people will no longer be able to verify their identity over the phone, and so many more will need to visit an office in person. The Social Security Administration has been ordered to fire 7,000 of its staff, even though they were already short-staffed and dealing with huge backlogs.

Social Security has never missed a payment in nearly 90 years. But incredibly, Trump’s Commerce Secretary Lutnick (net worth of $2+ billion) stated that if S.S. recipients didn’t get their checks one month, to most people it would be no big deal and they wouldn’t complain (as they “trust government”).  Lutnick said that Musk knows the “easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen …  Whoever screams is the one stealing.”

Forty percent of seniors living alone depend entirely on Social Security for their livelihood. This is how alarmingly out of touch this administration is.

When Musk and his muskrats (DOGE) demanded unfettered access to our personal Social Security information (which includes S.S. numbers, medical records, bank accounts, tax information, earnings history, birth/marriage records, employment information and more), a judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order.  In retaliation, the Trump-appointed SSA acting director threatened to shut down the entire system.

For decades the agency has been begging Congress for funds to update their IT system. Now staff cuts have already led to outages. Former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley recently stated, “Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits. I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

There are over 73 million of us. We will not take this lying down. Demand of your elected officials that our earned benefits be protected. Oh, and about that third rail? They can ride Musk out of town on it.

Carol Turnbull, Woodbury

 

Digging

Tim Walz doesn’t get it.  He continues digging himself a hole every time he speaks or goes on a podcast, even though I personally enjoy it.

Bobby Reardon, Pelican Lake Township

 

What we get from politicians who are for sale

Almost daily a Republican will brand Democrats as far-left Marxists or radical liberals responsible for all of society’s ills, tand here’s little response from a Democratic Party once proud of liberalism. Regardless of which party has been in charge, conservatism rules without accountability — over 40 years of policies that make sure the rich get richer. For 40 years we’ve heard how tax cuts for the 1 percent will create great jobs, the rest of us get the bill but not so great jobs. Ever hear Donald Trump boast about the wonderful jobs he’s created?

What’s worse, this Republican Party’s brand of conservatism brought us to an America that’s lost its soul, lost its ideals and credibility on the world stage. It’s brought us to Trump, again. They knew he couldn’t be bothered with honesty, ethics and morals or laws and the Constitution. He said he’d only be a dictator for one day but he loves it, said he didn’t know anything about Project 2025, now it’s his bible. For over 40 years conservatives have blasted government as an enemy. Trump accuses programs he doesn’t like of fraud and corruption, he would know both up close and personal. If there is fraud, who is being prosecuted? No program especially those that serve the common good is safe from being gutted, that includes Social Security and Medicare. Day by day it becomes clearer that Trump and his band of billionaires cannot be trusted.

Debate over size and function of government is legitimate but for every problem in government, there’s more, a lot more, that government does that’s good. Government isn’t the evil but the political system surely is. Fraud and corruption do exist but they’re found in the White House and halls of Congress. Politicians for sale gave us an economy for the few instead of the many. A political system controlled by big money is clearly in need of reform. It’s a system that does not represent us all.

Thomas L. Lenczowski, Mendota Heights

 

Bolshevik brainwashing

Several writers recently treated TDS (“Trump Derangement Syndrome“) lightly. It, however, appears to be quite widespread. I work with several area groups. Some days after the November 2024 selection, a member of one of those groups quietly entered and sat down at a place at a table. After a few moments they looked across the table and, in somewhat hushed tones stated, “We will be OK, won’t we?”

Some months later another person was sitting at their table, visibly agitated, and then stated that they had been calling their bank every day to assure that their money was still in there — that Musk was going to take it.

A statistician would say that two people is not evidence of an epidemic. But this is out of a group (sample size) of 8 or 10.  Maybe we should call it what it is –1917 Bolshevik Brainwashing by their party and their media.  And yes, it works. And apparently it traumatizes people.  I really felt sad that they had experienced such public mental abuse.

Art Thell, West St. Paul

 

Frustrated by process to select a new DFL chair

Ken Martin was elected chair of the Democratic National Committee on February 1. Less than an hour later, Tim Walz endorsed his deputy chief of staff, Richard Carlbom, to become DFL chair.

It’s no secret Tim Walz has an interest in running for president; he’s said so himself. The issue is that his deputy chief of staff would have wide control over DFL party resources as chair. Resources that could easily be given to Tim Walz when they would normally be given to our local candidates.

Many people have expressed their frustration with the process to replace Ken Martin. I would know, I’m running for DFL chair myself. A lot of people I’ve spoken with have privately said they worry Richard Carlbom cares more about Tim Walz’s political future than the futures of local candidates. We need a chair committed to all of Minnesota, not just one man.

Jack Lindsay, Eden Prairie

 

‘Domestic terrorism’

Since when is storming and vandalizing the United States Capitol building not considered domestic terrorism while spray painting a Tesla is?

John Wood, St. Paul

 

Remember the Cold War saying

It is good talks are happening about a cease fire. But in dealing with Putin, it reminds me of the old Cold War saying about the Russians, they would say, “what is mine is mine and what is yours we will negotiate.”

In the end, it very hard to take President Trump seriously when he said Ukraine invaded Russia. Trump’s supporters will say, “oh he is just being Trump” or “he is sly like a fox”, only history will tell for sure. This is a serious business. People are suffering and dying in Ukraine because of the Russian invasion, and this increased because of by the temporary cut off of intelligence and aid, the canceling of USAID programs and the reduction of support by this president. This should be black and white to everyone, not just those of us who have relatives in Ukraine.

Paul Malamen, Eagan

 

It’s not a crisis

I strongly object to the St. Paul mayor’s take on the City Council supporting the Fort Road Federation/District 9 Community Council’s appeal that took issue with city zoning administrator and planning commission findings. With the city’s legal team at her side, Councilwoman Noecker’s carefully reasoned and elegant rationale, that the council unanimously approved, was based upon a number of factors, not just the interpretation of a public works yard.

The mayor has ignored decades of (local) community input on the care for our environment and possibilities for both commercial and transit viability, specifically for our beautiful river corridor. He also ignored the testimony of his constituents that objected not only to what would have been its impending destruction, but also the potential loss of residential property tax income. A number of alternative sites could have been considered, and what is worse our community was given a fait accompli, specifically excluded from decision-making on locating this garbage-truck dispatch center. The mayor has fabricated a “crisis” where none exists: an alternative dispatch center already is in operation and will be for expanded service. I would like to encourage the mayor and his staff to read his citizens’ testimonies, even join us in a conversation on the issues we presented.

Jos F Landsberger, St. Paul

 

Checks

Where are the checks and balances so President Trump doesn’t become King Donald?

Thomas Good, Woodbury

 

What leaders who respect democracy do

Leaders who respect democracy follow laws. For the sake of a functioning nation, they respect established due process. If an agency or office was established by the legislature, they recognize its currency and work through the legislature to change or dismantle it.

Leaders who respect democracy respect the courts. The leaders certainly can raise legal challenges, but they abide by court decisions and neither flout rulings nor attack judges who rule against them. The statement by Chief Justice Roberts means that leaders who respect democracy appeal rulings they find disagreeable to higher courts.

Leaders who respect democracy do not fire, incarcerate or deport (“disappear”) individuals without due process. Innocent until proven guilty  is a cornerstone of democracy.

Leaders who respect democracy do not attack with vitriol and seek to suppress critics of their policies, whether individuals, private companies, news agencies, government offices (such as of Inspectors General), other government branches, or countries.

Leaders who do not respect democracy are fascists, authoritarians, dictators, virtual mega crime bosses — choose your term. If such labels don’t move you, these leaders are cruel.

My question is, do we as a people want to kowtow to cruelty?

Dan Gartrell, St Paul

 

Replace the word ‘deporting’

Let’s be absolutely 100% clear here: President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem aren’t simply deporting the “bad hombres” who entered the United States without authorization as they would like us to believe. They are actually creating a class of undocumented immigrants by removing the legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who were lawfully admitted into the United States and then calling for their removal.

Think about the difference here, folks, because it truly matters.

Those who entered the United States lawfully under parole programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans did so with U.S. sponsors, proper vetting and prior permission from the U.S. government to fly to and be lawfully admitted into the United States. In other words, they followed all proper channels and procedures, violated no laws to get here and committed no crimes since their arrival.

Nevertheless, the administration ruthlessly and at the end of the day on Friday — a cowardly tactic many of us immigration lawyers got used to during Trump’s first administration — announced it will revoke that legal status and commence removal proceedings against those who do not “self deport.”

Make no mistake. When you hear that “Trump is deporting hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens,” replace the word “deporting” with the word “creating.” That more accurately describes the situation.

John Medeiros, Richfield. The writer is an immigration lawyer.

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