Food

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      How Philando Castile’s mother helped pioneer Tim Walz’s free school lunch program

      by

      When the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, named the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her running mate two weeks ago, the public lauded Walz for bringing free breakfast and lunch to all students throughout the state. Ever since, the topic of universal school meals has become a nationwide discussion. But it’s little known that the work of Valerie Castile, the mother of Philando Castile, helped drive Walz’s legislation.After Philando was fatally shot by Minnesota police during a traffic stop in July 2016, Castile learned from her son’s co-workers about his passion for reducing school lunch debt – the amount of money that households owe to school districts for covering meals they can’t afford. As a school nutrition supervisor in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Philando was intimately familiar with food insecurity. He often paid for students’ meals when they couldn’t afford them and interjected when kids were bullied for receiving free lunch. Affectionately deemed “Mr Phil” by students, he knew the names of all 500 children at JJ Hill Montessori school, their food allergies and how to keep them safe.Students would “try to be slick, and get something they’re not supposed to have. If they were lactose-intolerant, [Philando would say] ‘you want that chocolate milk, but you can’t have it,’” Castile said.In 2017, she launched the Philando Castile Relief Foundation in her son’s honor to help pay off lunch debt and to support other families who lost their loved ones to gun violence.For years, she worked with lawmakers to ensure that all Minnesota children had access to nutritious meals at school. Due to Castile’s advocacy, as well as the work of Hunger Free Schools Campaign, last spring Walz signed legislation to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of their qualifications. Castile and other advocates hope that the spotlight on Minnesota will lead to the passage of similar laws throughout the nation.“It’s been great to see that early work come to full fruition,” Leah Gardner, the campaign manager of Hunger Free Schools Campaign and the policy director of the non-profit The Food Group, said about the Philando Castile Relief Foundation. “The ideal is that the federal government should just make this be a thing across the country.”At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the federal government provided free meals to all children. But that program ended in 2022, leaving states to draw from state funds if they wanted to continue the initiative.In Minnesota, before the passage of the free school meals legislation, about a third of students received free and reduced lunches, “and that doesn’t count low income families that are just over the qualifications required for free and reduced meals”, said Minnesota state senator Heather Gustafson, the bill’s author, during a committee hearing. At the time, lunch debt in Roseville area schools, one of more than 300 school districts in the state, totaled $120,000.Black and Latino families in Minnesota are twice as likely as white households to lack access to nutritious food, according to Gardner. The Hunger Free Schools Campaign, which is composed of 30 organizations, saw free meals as an opportunity to address racial inequality throughout the state. “When they’re at school and can have two of their three meals at school at no cost, that goes a long way to making sure that they’re getting access to food,” Gardner said.So far, eight states including Michigan, California, Maine, New Mexico, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Colorado and Vermont have passed universal school meal programs. And on the national level, the representative Ilhan Omar from Minnesota introduced legislation to provide free breakfast and lunches throughout the nation last year.View image in fullscreenThough the Hunger Free Schools Campaign is still analyzing the impact of the Minnesota program’s first year, Gardner said that participation in breakfast had increased by 41% and lunch by 19% since 2023.Castile said she was grateful that fewer students are going hungry in the state, but wished that the legislation also forgave students’ prior lunch debt. “Unfortunately, there was no retroactive thing in place when the bill was passed … to wipe all this away,” Castile said. Still, school districts are prohibited from denying children free meals based on their unpaid lunch debt.“The ultimate goal was to get them guys to see it our way and actually do something about that issue,” Castile said about the legislation’s passage. “It was a hidden burden on family.”Since Minnesota launched its meal program, the Philando Castile Relief Foundation has pivoted to helping single mothers find housing. “There are quite a few parents that are dislocated because of the economic problems that we’re having,” Castile said.Over the past seven years, the foundation has donated goods totaling upwards of $250,000 through its various initiatives, including providing turkeys on Thanksgiving, backpacks with school supplies to children, and $50 gift cards to families during the holiday season.For other states that are considering similar legislation, politicians who worked on the bill recommend centering the voices of people who are personally affected by food insecurity. “This was always about Philando and Mr Phil and why I voted yes on this bill,” the Minnesota state senator Clare Oumou Verbeten said.Ultimately, Castile wants to see free school meals throughout the nation and has considered taking “this show on the road and go and speak with other legislators and representatives and let them know how important it is”, she said. “Children, they don’t learn to their full capacity when they’re hungry.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      How Food Prices Have Changed During the Biden Administration

      by

      Grocery prices are no longer rising as rapidly, but food inflation remains a top issue for voters, polls show.A central issue has plagued the Biden administration for most of its term: the steep rise in grocery prices.Polls have consistently found that inflation remains a top concern for voters, who have seen their budgets squeezed. A YouGov poll published last month found that 64 percent of Americans said inflation was a “very serious problem.” And when it comes to inflation, several surveys suggested that Americans were most concerned about grocery prices.Despite the gloom about grocery costs, food price increases have generally been cooling for months. On Wednesday, new data on inflation for July will show if the trend has continued.Economists in a Bloomberg survey think that inflation overall probably climbed by 3 percent from a year earlier, in line with a 3 percent rise in June. That sort of reading would probably keep officials at the Federal Reserve on track to cut interest rates in September. Investors, who were recently rattled by signs of an economic slowdown, have looked to rate cuts as a support for markets.Some voters have blamed President Biden for rising prices, pointing out that food costs have soared over the past four years. Former President Donald J. Trump, when accepting the Republican nomination last month, highlighted grocery costs and said that he would “make America affordable again.”In the year through June, grocery prices rose 1.1 percent, a significant slowdown from a peak of 13.5 percent in August 2022. Many consumers might not be feeling relief, though, because food prices overall have not fallen but have continued to increase, albeit at a slower rate. Compared with four years ago, grocery prices are up about 20 percent.

      .dw-chart-subhed {
      line-height: 1;
      margin-bottom: 6px;
      font-family: nyt-franklin;
      color: #121212;
      font-size: 15px;
      font-weight: 700;
      }

      Annual change in grocery prices for U.S. consumers
      Year-over-year change in average for “food at home” index, not seasonally adjusted.Source: Bureau of Labor StatisticsBy The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Free meals v hungry children: is this the school lunch election? | Marcus Weaver-Hightower

      by

      The humble school meal is having a moment. With the nomination of Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, as Kamala Harris’s running mate, many voters and pundits are suddenly talking about school meals. And that’s good, because the stakes are high for the national school lunch and school breakfast programs since the campaigns and their parties have very different records and plans.Since Walz became the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, an image of him has frequently circulated. In the photograph, he’s surrounded by smiling children hugging him after he signed a 2023 bill making school meals universally free for all Minnesota children. His was the fourth state to commit to feeding all children at school; now nine states have done so, and more are considering similar measures. No more forms to fill out to prove your income, which busy parents can forget or that get crumpled in a backpack. No more penalizing children when their parents fall behind on lunch accounts. Every kid gets fed, powering them up for their day’s work learning and growing.By most measures, the Minnesota program has been successful and popular. Participation in the meals program soared, increasing 15% at lunch and 37% at breakfast compared with the previous year. Due to those increases, the economies of scale improved, and some districts have been able to invest more in scratch cooking with ingredients from local farmers. It turns out that relieving cafeteria staff of the duty to go after parents who fall behind on lunch payments leaves them more time to focus on food quality.Minnesota’s registered voters are overwhelmingly happy with the program, too. A KSTP/SurveyUSA poll showed that 72% agreed with the legislation, including 90% of liberals and 57% of conservatives. Even 59% of Trump voters in 2020 agreed. In online forums, Minnesota commenters tend to be remarkably supportive of feeding all children, even if they don’t have any themselves or if they think the food could be better. Parents rave about the convenience and savings.Minnesota’s success isn’t an outlier, but a consistent feature of free meals for all. A 2022 study of the national Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which provides universally free meals nationwide in districts that have a poverty rate of 25% or more, found that more kids eat when the meal is free. That’s true even among kids who were already eligible for free or reduced-price meals, suggesting that stigma is keeping many from accepting assistance. Even more helpful, families with children in schools that provide meals tend to spend less at the grocery store while still improving the quality of their diets. And, perhaps most important, research consistently shows that school meals improve students’ academic performance, behavior and health outcomes.It’s not assured that a Harris-Walz administration would push such legislation nationally. Harris has mentioned school meal programs at least twice, once in a 2017 Facebook post deploring lunch shaming and recently on X, when she touted Walz’s school lunch program as a sign of support for the middle class. But if the Democratic ticket does put the issue on its platform or list of priorities, school meals would at least have a knowledgable champion in Walz. He has seen it work on the ground, and he knows the benefits that it brings to the vast majority of families with children in his state.Meanwhile, Minnesota Republican lawmakers have criticized the free meals program. State representative Kristin Robbins’s complaint is typical: “All the low-income students who need – and we want to provide, make sure no one goes hungry – they were getting [meals] through the free and reduced lunch program. This [new legislation] gave free lunch to all the wealthy families … Is that really a priority?” Walz’s reply to this argument dripped with irony: “Isn’t that rich? Our Republican colleagues were concerned this would be a tax cut for the wealthiest.” The year before, the Minnesota GOP proposed a $3.5bn tax cut that largely would have benefited the wealthiest 20%. Feeding all the state’s schoolchildren, even after going over budget because it was so popular, costs only about one-seventh of that.Republicans at the national level, too, disdain expanding access to free meals and improving nutrition standards. In March, the Republican Study Committee, a caucus to which roughly three-quarters of all Republican House members belong, released its 2025 budget proposal. It called for ending the CEP for high-poverty districts. Doing so would snatch school meals from millions of children currently receiving them, shifting that cost back to their families. It would also probably increase the bureaucracy for schools, though Republicans claim that this administrative system is rife with “fraud and abuse”. While there have been high-profile cases of fraud in the school meals programs (for instance, a Chicago area nutrition director was recently convicted of stealing $1.5m, largely in chicken wings), most identified “abuse” entails clerical errors like giving wrongly categorized meals (free or reduced-price) to kids very near the income cutoffs or ringing up a meal without one of the required components on the tray, like enough vegetables. I would also point out that, if all children got the meals free, there would be no “fraud” in giving a hungry child a school meal, and we could save the labor and cost of all that paperwork.Reducing access to free school meals is also a priority of the now-infamous Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the next administration. Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but his ties to it are indisputable and a second Trump White House would probably be well populated with its adherents.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRegarding school meals, Project 2025 repeats the willful deception that the federal lunch and breakfast programs are “specifically for children in poverty”. In truth, from their beginnings, these programs were meant for all children. But they always made allowances for impoverished children’s access – not only poor children, but inclusive of poor children. The authors of Project 2025 argue that any expansion of free meals is against the “original intent” and creates “an entitlement for students from middle- and upper-income homes”. (I wonder what they think of all those wealthy children getting free textbooks?) Their stated policy goals are to “work with lawmakers to eliminate CEP” and to “reject efforts to create universal free school meals”.While Trump himself may know little about school meals policy (I have never found an instance of him directly talking about it), his first administration set out immediately to relax nutrition standards set under President Obama. The very first policy announcement from Sonny Perdue, Trump’s secretary of agriculture, was that his department would seek to bring back higher-fat chocolate milk, reduce whole grain requirements and stop sodium reductions. And despite the US Department of Agriculture’s own research findings that Obama-era rules had made school meals significantly healthier and debunking claims that plate waste was increasing, one of the last acts of the Trump USDA was to propose a further weakening of nutrition standards to require fewer fruits and allow yet more usually high-salt items such as pizza and hash browns. But the clock ran out on that proposal, and the Biden-Harris administration then increased school meals’ nutrition standards.Given the Republicans’ legislative goals and the direction of one of the GOP’s leading thinktanks, a second Trump administration would almost surely unravel access to school meals and gut hard-won, incremental gains that have made them healthier. All this despite nationwide polls that indicate a majority of US voters agree that all kids should get universally free school meals. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      ‘I Was a Childless Cat Lady’: Women Respond to JD Vance

      by

      More from our inbox:Clearing Homeless EncampmentsFood and Gas PricesThe Roger Maris FireThe selection of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate was supposed to appeal to women, voters of color and blue-collar voters, but a stream of years-old comments has threatened to undermine that.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Past Comments Fluster Vance as Democrats Go on Offense” (front page, July 29):JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said in 2021, “We’re effectively run, in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”I would say this to Mr. Vance:I was a childless cat lady: three cats, no kids.I thought fertility was a given. There was no medical reason I couldn’t have children. Yet it did not happen. Three cats. A great career. No kids.I was, in effect at 38, a “childless cat lady.”I pursued fertility treatments. Treatments that many Republicans want to ban.I had painful tests, surgeries, running to the lab — five vials of blood drawn every day at 6 a.m. — then rushing to work for a minimum 12-hour day.Childless cat lady lawyer. Meow.I had one fabulous child at 38 with I.V.F. She was a triplet, but I lost my daughter’s siblings.I was pregnant three other times. I lost two other babies at four months. I needed a D and C: same procedure as an abortion. If I didn’t have the surgery, I would have died.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Restaurant Near St. Louis Bars Patrons Under 30

      by

      Customers generally support Bliss Caribbean Restaurant’s ban on male customers under 35 and women under 30. But some legal experts say there may be a problem.When Tina and Marvin Pate travel to Cancún or the Dominican Republic, they enjoy the bliss created by the good music, delicious food and the absence of children.So in May, when they opened Bliss Caribbean Restaurant in St. Louis County, Mo., the couple decided to give their customers the same joy — by requiring that all female customers be at least 30 years old, and all men 35.“We decided to come up with a whole restaurant where adults could pretty much go on vacation for a fraction of the cost,” Mr. Pate said.This rule has drawn widespread attention to Bliss through social media, resulting in packed dance parties and what the restaurant calls a “grown and sexy” vibe.But the requirement has also raised some legal questions, as experts point out that the restaurant is treating men and women differently.“My knee-jerk reaction is that it is technically illegal,” Sarah Jane Hunt, the owner and managing partner of the St. Louis-based law firm Kennedy Hunt, P.C., said in an interview. Ms. Hunt specializes in discrimination lawsuits.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      How E. Coli in Food Makes People Sick

      by

      The bacteria sickens an estimated 265,000 Americans each year.Last week, federal officials announced recalls of ground beef and organic walnuts because they were potentially contaminated with E. coli bacteria that can make people sick.The recalls involve more than 16,000 pounds of ground beef distributed by Cargill Meat Solutions and sold at Wal-Mart stores in 11 states, as well as organic shelled walnuts sold in bulk in natural food and co-op stores in 19 states. So far, the recalled walnuts have been associated with 12 illnesses, including seven hospitalizations, in Washington State and California.No illnesses have been reported from the ground beef recall, although ground beef remains one of the most common sources of illnesses from these bacteria, which are responsible for an estimated 265,000 illnesses annually. Most of these, however, are not diagnosed or tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because people often recover on their own without visiting a doctor, said Matthew Wise, chief of the C.D.C.’s Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch.Here’s what you need to know about E. coli to stay safe.Where You’ll Find the BacteriaThere are many different kinds of E. coli, and most of them are harmless to humans, said microbiologist Edward G. Dudley, director of the E. Coli Reference Center at Pennsylvania State University.Some types do, however, make people sick, he said. Those that most commonly cause illness in humans, known as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, primarily reside in cow intestines, which is why they often contaminate ground beef. The E. coli implicated in the ongoing walnut and ground beef recalls are a type of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli.Because these bacteria eventually work their way out of animal intestines and into feces, they can also contaminate farm soil, which is why E. coli outbreaks are also often tied to produce, Dr. Dudley explained. They can also contaminate ponds, lakes and rivers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      White House correspondents’ dinner weekend: top five parties, by food

      by

      The annual White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington is ostensibly about the dinner poking fun at the president. But like the Oscars, or the Met Gala, it’s also about the parties.But how to decide which parties to attend and which ones to skip? Every day of the White House correspondents’ dinner weekend is now inundated with competing events.The conversations and the people, for the most part, are fun, until it inevitably gets boring. And then the most interesting thing about the parties becomes the food.Like stock tips, past performance is not an indicator of future performance. But it could be – so here are the Guardian’s top five parties of 2024, in terms of food:1. Politico Sunday brunch (Sunday 28 April)The party: Hosted at the Allbritton residence in Georgetown by Politico and the Allbritton Journalism Institute. Essentially the detox brunch the morning after the White House correspondents’ dinner. This year was Swiss-themed with a large wooden-frame pavilion in the huge back garden, with various food stations dotted around the perimeter. Heidi would have felt at home, walking past two Alphorn players in the front, a toy cable car contraption against a giant wall with a painting of the Matterhorn behind the bar, and flags of various Swiss cantons on each pillar. But it was very warm, and the two St Bernard dogs wearing Politico-branded scarves seemed to be slightly overheating.The food: Towards the side there was a pastry station, absolutely stacked with viennoiserie. Your reviewer sampled the marmalade buns, which were fluffy on the top and firm in the middle, on which the jam sat. Seemed to be freshly baked. Perfect breakfast food. Your reviewer also sampled the relatively mini-waffles, adding the optional caviar and smoked salmon toppings. After the pastries, that triple-decker was divine: the sweetness of the waffle, balanced by the savory caviar and salmon. Pretty much a perfect pairing. There was also a coffee station, raclette station and a Läderach chocolate station that were all sampled but not reviewed.Score: Marmalade buns scored 9/10. Mini-waffles scored 9/10 (a highlight of the weekend). Total: 18/202. Semafor house party (Friday 26 April)The party: Hosted at the Kalorama home of the Semafor co-founder Justin Smith. In addition to the ground-floor spaces in the house and the patio, Semafor constructed a platform next to the mini-pool with a bar area, complete with a step-and-repeat wall with obligatory Semafor logos. Semafor’s DC parties have always been well executed and well catered. On this occasion, two chefs slaved away in Smith’s objectively beautiful kitchen, laying out the food on the kitchen island. Smith’s house also just works as a venue because it is large enough that it could probably fit a hundred people comfortably but also breezily intimate. It all added up to an easy ambience that made the party, well, pleasant. The food: Your reviewer first tried the jerk pork skewers with a sweet mustard dip sauce on the side. The pork was charred on the outside – having just been fired on the grill – and perfectly soft on the inside. It was slightly spicy but it was balanced out if dipped in the sauce. Your reviewer also sampled one of the Bajan ham and cheese sandwiches. These were small finger-food sandwiches with puffy slider buns for the bread. The honey topped off the Bajan-pepper mustard layered between the ham and white cheddar. Score: Pork skewers were 8/10 (spicier than advertised). Finger sandwiches were 8/10 (could have been more imaginative). Total: 16/203. Politico-British embassy reception (Thursday 25 April)The party: Hosted at the British ambassador’s residence, by the British ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce, and the Politico CEO, Goli Sheikholeslami. One of the busier and consequently noisier events of the weekend. The reception was on-brand: British foods, British drinks and, for the first time, free cigars. Winston Churchill would have approved of the cigars and, presumably, the deputy head of mission, James Roscoe, gliding through the hundreds of people there with the most elegant sherry glass. Politico got its branding on the cocktail napkins and projected a big logo on to the side of the redbrick building.The food: Your reviewer was on the hunt for dinner-esque foods seeing as the reception started at about 7pm – and found the half-sized fish and chips station in the main hall with the columns. Your reviewer has tried many fish and chips over the years. These were some of the best your reviewer has tried, even if they were slightly over-salted. Each fish was about the size of a hand, and came in little baskets that also contained a handful of fries. Your reviewer also sampled the sliders in the next room over, which were not quite as great as the fish and chips. The beef was slightly overcooked and the buns were slightly firm.Score: Fish and chips scored 8/10 (pretty salty). Sliders were 7/10 (could have been better). Total: 15/20.4. NBC-French ambassador’s residence after party (Saturday, 27 April)The party: Hosted at the residence of the French ambassador, Laurent Bili, by NBC Universal. In the way that the British embassy does quintessentially British food, the French embassy naturally does very French foods. After parties can be hard to cater because guests have already eaten at the White House correspondents’ dinner. Mainly offering desserts in literal bite-size portions, carried around on white platters by servers in white jackets was a smart move and appropriately elegant for the grandeur of the residence. The gothic-exterior house, protected by heavy security from NBC, opens up inside to several interconnected rooms and a large back garden space covered by a marquee. The dimly lit, wood-panelled rooms are decorated with 18th-century oil portraits, presumably of French aristocrats, which gave the space a cosy European atmosphere when guests got tired of the brightly lit rooms off to the side with either a Paris 2024 Olympics theme or a Saturday Night Live theme.The food: Your reviewer first sampled what appeared to be red-wine flambéed pear tarts. The tarts were literally bite-size, they fit into your palm. It was unclear whether they were actually flambéed, but the tarts were warm and it tasted like lightly burned sugar on the top. The tiny pieces of pear, though, were oversaturated with wine. Swallowing more than a few and your reviewer would have failed a field sobriety test. It was slightly too strong. Your reviewer next tried the bite-size chocolate eclairs. The choux pastry was firm and the filling was well executed. Those were good desserts.Score: Pear tarts scored 6/10 (swimming in wine was a bit much). Chocolate eclairs scored 8/10 (nothing special but well done). Total: 14/205. AAJA Saturday brunch (Saturday, 27 April)The party: The Asian American Journalists’ Association hosts a brunch on the Saturday, which this year was held on the roof of the Hall of the States building where NBC, MSNBC, C-Span and Fox News have their studios. It’s the sleeper brunch of the weekend that starts a couple of hours after Tammy Haddad’s much more well-known garden brunch over at Beall-Washington House gets going. AAJA’s mission is championing Asian American and minority figures in Washington political reporting, but the speeches can take a long time – after which your reviewer was hungry. Fortunately, AAJA always seems to find remarkably creative and appropriately Asian caterers.The food: On a rooftop with no formal cooking facilities, AAJA’s caterers magicked up dumplings with either a vegetable filling, a garlic shrimp filling, or a pork and kimchi filling. Your reviewer sampled the garlic shrimp, which was crispy in all the right places and soft on the underside. The garlic was more of an undertone and yet, it was sufficient enough to balance out the saltiness of shrimp. (Shrimp and garlic butter of course is a classic pairing.) As far as savory breakfasts foods go, it was delicious. Your reviewer also tried the cold glass noodles, which were fine but bland. The noodle plate was disappointing.Score: Shrimp dumplings scored 8/10. Glass noodles were a 5/10 (could have been missed). Total: 13/20.
      The rules were as follows: two food options were chosen at random at each party, and given a score out of 10 based on taste and execution. The parties reviewed were cocktail parties only; sit-down dinners were not included. Where the primary reviewer could not attend, a secondary reviewer sent notes. The final list was submitted to a three-judge “appeals panel” made up of longtime MSNBC contributors, though the ranking could only be overturned in the event of plain error by the reviewer. The rankings were not overturned.

      Events not reviewed: Washington Women in Journalism awards ceremony, White House Foreign Press-Meridien party, WME-Puck party, Washingtonian/embassy of Qatar soiree, Politics and Inclusion dinner, Washington AI Network-TGI Friday lunch, Substack New Media party. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      One in Five Milk Samples Nationwide Shows Genetic Traces of Bird Flu

      by

      There is no evidence that the milk is unsafe to drink, scientists say. But the survey result strongly hints that the outbreak may be widespread.Federal regulators have discovered fragments of bird flu virus in roughly 20 percent of retail milk samples tested in a nationally representative study, the Food and Drug Administration said in an online update on Thursday.Samples from parts of the country that are known to have dairy herds infected with the virus were more likely to test positive, the agency said. Regulators said that there is no evidence that this milk poses a danger to consumers or that live virus is present in the milk on store shelves, an assessment public health experts have agreed with.But finding traces of the virus in such a high share of samples from around the country is the strongest signal yet that the bird flu outbreak in dairy cows is more extensive than the official tally of 33 infected herds across eight states.“It suggests that there is a whole lot of this virus out there,” said Richard Webby, a virologist and influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.Dr. Webby said that he believed it was still possible to eradicate the virus, which is known as H5N1, from the nation’s dairy farms. But it will be difficult to design effective control measures without knowing the scope of the outbreak, he said.The findings also raise questions about how the virus has evaded detection and where else it might be silently spreading. Some scientists have criticized the federal testing strategy as too limited to reveal the true extent of viral spread.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More