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I'm sorry, but the lede on this broke me to the point of uncontrollable laughter. This is just so profoundly stupid, I don't think Monty Python at their peak could parody this.

It's also a lot of water to waste in the West, which is unfortunate.

This will end well. Definitely brings down the price of eggs.

https://archive.ph/lFN0q

archive link

this is unfortunately a pretty much standard practice in the run-up to large tourist-attraction events like the Super Bowl. from The Enduring Tragedy of the Atlanta Olympics:

The solution to the city’s poverty and homelessness was to sweep people into prisons, conveniently located far from the Olympic Village. In addition to the Red Dogs, Atlanta police and another privately-funded unit called the Olympic Ambassadors were targeting and locking up the unhoused. Officers were allegedly mass-producing blank arrest citations with the pre-printed information, “African-American, male, homeless.”

That may not have been the flu that you caught back in late December. FGF Foods decided to go all 'Boars Head' for the holidays is all.

Major food recall last month effects 2,017,614 cases of product due to possible contamination with Listeria Monocytogenes.

[Mlive copy n paste]

The Food and Drug Administration quietly announced a recall last month involving more than two million cases of doughnuts and other baked goods sold under various brand names, including Dunkin. Data from the FDA says 2,017,614 cases of products are part of the recall and involve doughnuts, fritters, and cake rings.

The products were distributed and sold nationwide. While the recall was issued on Jan. 7, the FDA never made a public announcement regarding it.

The recall involves any of the items listed “within expiration produced 12/13/2024 and prior” according to the FDA. Sixty different items are involved in the recall.

The recalled goods were produced by Indiana-based FGF, LLC and are being recalled over possible contamination involving listeria monocytogenes.

The FDA gave the recall a class II designation which according to the agency’s website means the recall is “a situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.”

Listeria monocytogenes can cause “serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems,” according to the FDA. Symptoms include: high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.

The East Bay city of Fremont is set to vote on a new ordinance that would make it illegal to camp on any street or sidewalk, in any park or on any other public property. But, in an apparent California first, it also would make anyone “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an illegal encampment guilty of a misdemeanor – and possibly subject to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

That unusual prohibition — the latest in a series of crackdowns by communities following a Supreme Court decision last summer — has alarmed activists who worry it could be used against aid workers who provide services to people living in encampments. While Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan told CalMatters that police won’t target outreach workers handing out food and clothing, the ordinance doesn’t specify what qualifies as “aiding, abetting or concealing.”

Fremont’s proposed ordinance, which passed an initial city council vote 4-2 and is set for a final vote on Feb. 11, is part of a recent statewide trend toward more punitive anti-homelessness measures. Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court in Grants Pass v. Johnson ruled cities can ban camping on all public property, even if they have no shelter beds available. Since then, more than two dozen California cities and counties have passed new measures banning camps or limiting where people can camp, brought back previously unenforced ordinances, or updated existing camping ordinances to make them more punitive.

(Mods please feel free to delete if not ok for this group. Apologies.)

https://apnews.com/article/trump-musk-gsa-terminate-office-leases-f8faac5e2038722f705587c8dd21ab26

Last week, regional managers for the General Services Administration, or GSA, received a message from the agency’s Washington headquarters to begin terminating leases on all of the roughly 7,500 federal offices nationwide, according to an email shared with The Associated Press by a GSA employee.

The order seems to contradict Trump’s own return-to-office mandate for federal employees, adding confusion to what was already a scramble by the GSA to find workspace, internet connections and office building security credentials for employees who had been working remotely for years.

But it may reflect the Trump administration’s belief that it won’t need as many offices due to its efforts to fire employees or encourage them to resign.

Remember how everyone was grousing that Harris wasn't tough enough about Israel's genocide? Well, you reap what you sow. Trump's fine with full extermination, and how anyone didn't see this coming is ... um, interesting.

Union members are building protections against threats from the Trump administration’s recent authorization of raids targeting places such as schools. In January, members of Saint Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) Local 28 organized an Immigration Defense Committee to take action and stand in solidarity with the immigrant community in St. Paul, Minn. They are planning know-your-rights trainings and emergency resources for teachers and families.

According to a union spokesperson, SPFE has been educating members on the agenda of another Trump administration, including its threats against immigrants and working people. In a slew of executive orders during the first week back in office, the administration overturned a 13-year-old policy banning immigration enforcement from interfering in essential services at schools, hospitals, and churches.

At least four cases of measles, including two involving school-aged children, have been reported in Texas in less than two weeks, putting state health agencies on alert.

For some communities, this is the first case of measles in more than 20 years.

Laura Anton, spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the agency sent out an alert to health providers statewide once measles were confirmed to be found in two adult residents in Harris County last week.

The alert stated that both individuals reside in the same household and were unvaccinated against measles. These were the first confirmed cases of measles reported in Texas since 2023, when two were reported.