The Metro Editor for The New York Times has resigned following an investigation, according to an email sent to the newsroom on Monday.

The email, from Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joseph Kahn, says that Wendell Jamieson's resignation came "after an investigaton," and notes that Susan Chira will act as interim Metro Editor effective immediately. The email also includes a statement from Jamieson.

“Leading Metro for the last five years and working with the incredible Times team has been the high point of my professional life. I regret ​and apologize for ​my mistakes and leaving under these circumstances," Jamieson's statement reads.

Baquet and Kahn also note that, "To protect the privacy of those involved, we do not intend to comment further."

http://gothamist.com/2018/04/30/ny_times_metro_editor_wendell_james.php

Scary part : "Diverticular disease has been shown to increase with age – by 80, it is estimated that approximately 70% of individuals have diverticular disease.

The highest estimates suggest that approximately 20% of patients with diverticulosis (remember these are the people with the pouches, not the acute inflammation of the pouches) will at some point develop diverticulitis.

However, newer and more accurate estimates suggest that this rate is somewhere between 1 and 5%, depending on the strictness of qualifying criteria. This is important to note for those who have been diagnosed with diverticulosis but are currently asymptomatic – according to these newer estimates, it is unlikely that you will develop diverticulitis.

https://chriskresser.com/how-to-prevent-diverticulitis-naturally/

I know three people who have it, one relative. I don't want it. I'm approaching 80. For a good many years, knowing nothing about diverticulitis or diverticulosis I SEEM to have been following a regimen to prevent it, namely, eating a diet high in fiber, including nuts and grains, taking several anti-inflamatory supplements, reducing my fat intake. Among my supplements are garlic and turmeric.

I like and eat cauliflower and broccoli and I've recently been eating 2 -3 salads weekly, no romaine for a while! A year or so ago I got serious about drinking at least 60oz. water daily, me having stage 3 kidney disease. Two full RTIC 30oz . tumblers filled with water every day keeps it real.

I haven't noted much else about how to AVOID diverticulitis or diverticulosis, any thoughts?...

... rather than waiting for consumers to get sick...

After months of uncertainty over the future of the program, the Agricultural Marketing Service’s Microbiological Data Program, which tests produce for disease-causing pathogens like E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and Listeria, has officially gone into shutdown mode, a U.S. Department of Agriculture official confirmed Tuesday.

Department officials told states that participate in the $4.5 million program to stop pulling produce samples on Friday Nov. 9 to “ensure an orderly shutdown of the program by December 31.”

According to an analysis by Food Safety News, ending MDP will eliminate more than 80 percent of public produce testing for pathogens. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has jurisdiction over the safety of produce, also has a produce testing program, but it is significantly smaller.

“This ‘tiny’ program was launched in 2001 simply to collect data about fresh produce contamination, but it now regularly sparks produce recalls when participating state labs find pathogens,” read the report, published in July. “Perhaps more importantly, the labs upload any positive test results to the Centers for Disease Control’s PulseNet, which helps public health officials link foodborne illness cases to food products. MDP is also the only federal program that tests for non-O157 E. coli strains like the one that caused the deadly, high profile sprout outbreak in Germany last year.”

One AMS official said MDP was shutting down “due to budget cuts by Congress.” While it’s true Congress didn’t request funding for MDP, the Obama administration actually did not seek funding for the program in their last budget request, calling it a “lower-priority program because it is has a low impact and is not central to the core mission of AMS, which is to facilitate the competitive and efficient marketing of agricultural products.”

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/11/usda-begins-shutdown-of-mdp-cutting-80-percent-of-pathogen-testing-for-produce/

"... the Obama administration actually did not seek funding for the program in their last budget request, calling it a 'lower-priority program because it is has a low impact...'"

... White House Correspondents Dinner

Once upon a time, the White House Correspondents Dinner was cheek by jowl filled with stars. Movie stars, TV stars, media stars, singing stars.

Tonight there is exactly one big star in the room– comedian Kathy Griffin, who less than a year was in scandal when she posted a picture of Donald Trump’s decapitated head. Otherwise, the only two professional actors in the room went with the Creative Coalition. They are “Twin Peaks” star Madchen Amick, currently on “Riverdale,” and Steve Howey, from “Shameless.”

That’s it.

- - - - - - My view: - - - - -

Now, it's obvious that President Trump has zero interest in this phony gala of Lefty media and any number of Hollywood types, he didn't attend last year's and he skipped this years, and without his presence the whole thing just falls apart, but WHAT does our Lefty media claim, to blur that fact and to signal virtue?

- - - - - Continuing with Hollywood's view:- - - -

No star wants to be seen at the WHCD while Donald Trump is president. That’s not going to change even if Trump remains in office for 8 years. (Please, I’m wearing garlic to ward this off.) All the buzz is gone. All the glitz.

Just to compare: even in 2016, Obama’s final year, the guest list included Helen Mirren and Taylor Hackford, Aretha Franklin, Will and Jada Smith, Bryan Cranston, and Kerry Washington and Shonda Rhimes. The last time yours truly went, in 2015, the place was full of stars, many of whom went on to the now-defunct Vanity Fair party.

Trump has certainly sucked the life out of Washington, if not the rest of the world.

http://www.showbiz411.com/2018/04/28/starless-starless-night-comedian-kathy-griffin-is-the-only-recognizable-name-at-the-white-house-correspondents-dinner

At the end, an unintentional admission that without President Trump’s presence, they all might as well stay home and perm their cats...

The earlier thread turned mushy, here's a fresh thread...

Salem Media, owner of the influential conservative outlet RedState, froze the site on Friday and dismissed many of its writers.

Bloggers were locked out of their accounts -- some just temporarily, while the cuts were made, and others permanently. Erick Erickson, the site's longtime editor who left in 2015, tweeted about what he called the "mass firing" on Friday morning.

"Very sad to see, but not really surprising given Salem's direction," he wrote. "And, finally, after all these years, they've turned off my account."

Multiple sources told CNNMoney that they believed conservative critics of President Trump were the writers targeted for removal. "Insufficiently partisan" was the phrase one writer used in a RedState group chat.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/27/media/redstate-blog-salem-media/index.html

It seems the establishment "Conservatives," the "never-Trumpers" and Hillary preferrers whined and carped too much, largely echoing Democrats, so out they went...

... further notice unless they can confirm is not from the Yuma, AZ, growing region

Almost 100 people have been infected in an outbreak involving romaine lettuce, and more cases are expected. Federal officials said today they have identified one grower’s romaine as the source of eight of the infections, but a tangled web of supply chain records has significantly slowed their investigation into the other illnesses.

The ongoing outbreak is the largest of its kind since the deadly 2006 E. coli outbreak traced to fresh spinach, public health officials said. There are at least two dozen romaine growers who are being reviewed as federal officials work to pinpoint the source of the current outbreak.

As of today, there are 98 confirmed cases across 22 states, up from the 84 cases reported Wednesday. All of the victims are infected with the same strain of E. coli O157: H7, and it is a particularly dangerous one, said CDC’s Robert Tauxe. Ten of the sick people have developed kidney failure, including three children.

More than half of the ill people, 46, have required hospitalization. The illness onset dates range from March 13 to April 20.

The specific bacteria involved is referred to as an “STX2 only” form of E. coli O157: H7. It aggressively attacks blood vessels, particularly in the kidneys, digestive system and brain.

No one should eat, serve or sell any form of romaine lettuce “under any circumstances” until further notice unless they can confirm is not from the Yuma, AZ, growing region, said Matt Wise, deputy branch chief for Outbreak Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That warning is the same that the CDC posted April 20. Initially, only pre-chopped romaine was implicated.

Wise said the specific E. coli O157: H7 bacteria causing the illnesses is so dangerous that all people, not just the traditional high-risk groups, should avoid Yuma-grown romaine.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2018/04/e-coli-outbreak-growing-source-of-romaine-remains-unknown/

A Saudi-led coalition air strike has killed dozens of Yemeni insurgents including two commanders, state media said Saturday, in another blow to the rebels following the assassination of their political chief.

Yemen's Huthi rebels on Saturday staged a public funeral for Saleh al-Sammad, head of their Supreme Political Council and effectively the insurgents' second-in-command, who was killed last week in an air raid claimed by Saudi Arabia and its allies.

His funeral came hours after Saudi Arabia's state-run Al-Ekhbariya television said two high-ranking insurgents were among more than 50 Huthis killed in a new strike overnight in the capital Sanaa. The rebels have been locked in a war since 2015 with a Saudi-led military alliance fighting to restore the internationally-recognised Yemeni government to power.

https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/saudi-led-strike-kills-dozens-yemen-rebels-new-blow-doc-14e43x1

Police around Europe and North America have seized servers and data from Islamic State propaganda outlets in a multi-country operation aimed at tracking down radicals and crimping the group's ability to spread its violent message.

The two-day operation was the culmination of efforts started in late 2015, after coordinated IS attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, according to a statement from European police agency Europol.

Police notably targeted the IS-branded Aamaq news agency, as well as al-Bayan radio, and Halumu and Nasher news sites. Aamaq spreads information online in at least nine languages and has been used to claim IS was behind attacks in multiple countries, from the 2016 nightclub attack in Florida to a deadly supermarket hostage-taking in southern France last month.

While Europol said the operation "punched a big hole in the capability of IS to spread propaganda online and radicalize young people in Europe," it didn't shut down the propaganda altogether.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EUROPE_US_ISLAMIC_STATE?SITE=TXMCA&SECTION=INTERNATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2018-04-27-08-06-26

... or as breaking news warrants!..

A federal judge rejected the University of California at Berkeley's bid to dismiss a lawsuit claiming it discriminated against conservative speakers like Ann Coulter by imposing unreasonable restrictions and fees on their appearances.

In a decision late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in San Francisco said two conservative groups could pursue claims that the school applied its policy for handling "major events" and an earlier policy for "high-profile speakers" in a manner that unfairly suppressed conservative speech.

But the judge also said she was "unpersuaded" by claims by the plaintiffs that the school engaged in intentional viewpoint discrimination, and that the major events policy was too vague. She said the plaintiffs could not seek punitive damages.

The Berkeley College Republicans and the Young America's Foundation, a Tennessee group, had sued after the university canceled Coulter's scheduled speech last April 27, citing security concerns.

Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, was also named as a defendant.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uc-berkeley-must-face-lawsuit-alleging-bias-against-140227195.html