Source of fall romaine outbreak a mystery, US regulators say

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I have been writing this column twice a week for a long time, so I have a finely developed sense for when the audience is sick of a subject. We have definitely crossed that boundary with regard to the wars currently being fought up and down the strip of land between the longitudes of 40°E and 50°E (Eastern Ukraine/Persian Gulf/Israel, Gaza and Lebanon).

It’s not just that they are stupid wars, launched by men who were too ignorant or too arrogant to realize that they could not win them (Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu), and it’s certainly not because they are harmless wars.

Not only are they killing thousands of people every week, but in every case the country that started the war also has nuclear weapons. In each case there is a small but real possibility that the leader in question might resort to using at least one “tactical” nuclear weapon as a final warning rather than accept the blame for a humiliating failure to achieve his aims.

Yet nothing much new and interesting is happening from one day to the next in any of these wars, and the audience would really like to move on. I have been trying to write about something else at least once a week, so I thought: maybe I could do a piece about Kim Jong Un’s teenage daughter’s chance of being North Korea’s next dictator.

BRANDON — A 35-year-old man from The Pas was sentenced to 90 days in jail after he admitted to smashing a garage window in the ambulance bay of the Brandon hospital while intoxicated.

James Constant pleaded guilty in Brandon provincial court on Thursday to mischief under $5,000 and breaching a probation order that prohibited him from possessing weapons. Two additional charges, involving failing to comply with a probation order and possessing a dangerous weapon, were stayed.

On July 15, Constant was taken to the Brandon Regional Health Centre by ambulance after he overdosed and became “aggressive” and “unco-operative” with paramedics, says an agreed statement of facts read in court by Crown attorney Rich Lonstrup.

“He took a piece of wood and smashed the garage-door window within the ambulance bay,” Lonstrup said.