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Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014
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The First Family at play:
The House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee last week approved a bill that would let school districts get waivers to opt out of the healthier school lunch guidelines mandated by 2010's Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act if they're struggling financially to meet them. Fresh produce costs more than processed food, and many school districts are losing income because fewer kids are buying school lunches.
Yesterday, First Lady MICHELLE OBAMA fought back at a White House roundtable of school and nutrition officials, calling efforts in Congress to scale back school nutrition standards "unacceptable to me not just as first lady but also as a mother."
The School Nutrition Association originally supported the regulations but is doing an about-face. In a statement yesterday it called the regulations "overly prescriptive." An SNA survey found that in 2012-13, 47 percent of school meal programs said their revenue declined.
Editors' notes: If you or someone you know volunteers in a public school lunch room, you see or hear about horrible waste as kids toss out perfectly good fruits and veggies untouched. Will they eat it at school if they don't have to eat it at home --or do they spurn it at school BECAUSE they have to eat it at home? (Kaye)
--A good friend of mine teaches at a local suburban high school. He tells me that at least half of the purchased food at lunch under the new guidelines is tossed out, causing tremendous waste. There's also been significant blowback from high school athletes and coaches, who say that the new requirements don't allow for enough old-fashioned "white" carbs, which leaves many athletes sluggish before, during and after daily practices. (Pacelli)The Internet:
Victory for privacy! ...sort of. Facebook wants to limit over-sharing!
And by that, we mean that Facebook wants to lower the amount of automatically shared posts from apps like Instagram, Pinterest, and Spotify. The move comes after the company received a number of complaints from users about these posts, most of which were marked as spam. Facebook's goal is to de-emphasize posts like items pinned on your Pinterest board or what songs you've been listening to, and emphasize posts like your statuses or that hilarious cat video you had to share.
This doesn't mean the downfall of automatic posts on Facebook, though. Facebook is keeping the capabilities available for the time being.
Editor's note: So go ahead, Instagram that Frappuccino. You know you want to. (AB)Trash talk and satellite dish:
JENNIFER ANISTON and COURTENEY COX are besties no more. Sources tell RadarOnline.com the ladies have grown apart after 20 years of friendship and the golden girl would much rather spend time with CHELSEA HANDLER. Unfortunately, Courteney can't stand the late-night talk show host, Jen thinks she's acting like a "jealous teenager" and their relationship has gone up in smoke.
Phone starter: Have you lost a buddy you swore would be there forever? Was it a big blowout or slow meltdown due to life getting in the way? Would they like to be reunited on the air? (Lee)Broadcast, cable and video news:
It'll be Discovery vs the SYFY network this August.
That's because SYFY says they'll be doing a "Sharknado Week" for the first time ever. It runs from Jul 26 to Aug 02 and will include the debut of "Sharknado 2" on Wed, Jul 30. But there'll also be big-bite movies including "Mega Shark vs. Mecha Shark," and "Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda."
And don't get your bathing suit in a wad --Discovery's Shark Week 2014 doesn't start until Aug 10 --so there's no overlap.DAVID HASSELHOFF told a group of Cambridge University students exactly why he created those slo-mo running sequences in "Baywatch" --he was cheap.
It wasn't because he thought the sexy jiggling would boost the audience --he said the production company didn't have enough money to film all 50 minutes, so he came up with the idea of the slowed-down running shots to stretch the budget. -
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