Fogbow

Kirby Nardo, a spokesperson for Albertsons, which owns Safeway, told NBC News “the nationwide surge in omicron cases has put a strain on businesses.”

“We appreciate our associates ongoing commitment to serving customers,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to keep our associates safe and ensure stores are appropriately staffed.”

Some retailers have rolled back policies introduced earlier in the pandemic, including enforced social distancing and mask wearing, and companies such as Rite Aid dropped hazard pay. At the same time, grocery and retail trade groups are reluctant to support widespread vaccination requirements across their work forces. Unionized Kroger workers in Denver walked off the job Wednesday after talks with the company broke down about increased pay, benefits and safety.

“Employees want to feel safe; they want to feel protected,” Debbie Berkowitz, a labor fellow at Georgetown University, told NBC News. “This is going to be with us for a long time, so employers need to change how they do things instead of fighting science.”

On the ground, workers say they are flailing as cases rise and people call out sick nearly every day. Mike Hendrick, a Shoprite worker in Shelton, Connecticut, told NBC News that last Saturday he worked collecting shopping carts in the parking lot from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. to cover for a colleague who was out sick with Covid, and another who was quarantining after being exposed. With both workers out, it left Hendrick alone to gather carts for the day. The store had to pull another worker from the store to help, he said.

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:14 pm I am making my famous cheese dip and bierocks for tomorrow's Chiefs win over the squeelers

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 10:53 pm you are right. I should say HOPEFUL win

sad-cafe wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 5:14 pm I am making my famous cheese dip and bierocks for tomorrow's Chiefs win over the squeelers

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:07 am I’ve found a place nearby that has FABULOUS jambon-beurre baguettes and I am gonna get so fat!

There’s a French bakery in Claremont. Not only the sammiches but pastries! Breads! And sweet, sweet bouquets of pale, pastel flowers.

Sigh. Happy camper, me.

Kriselda Gray wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 6:12 pm

Phoenix520 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:07 am I’ve found a place nearby that has FABULOUS jambon-beurre baguettes and I am gonna get so fat!

There’s a French bakery in Claremont. Not only the sammiches but pastries! Breads! And sweet, sweet bouquets of pale, pastel flowers.

Sigh. Happy camper, me.

Sounds wonderful - Enjoy!!!!

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 4:51 am https://www.ksby.com/news/local-news/te ... ach%20year.

in above wrote:The U.S. temporarily halted the import of avocados from Mexico after a U.S. official safety plant inspector received a threat via a phone call.

John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:56 pm This looks kinda tasty, except for the half cup of salt dumped into the rice/egg mix:

https://youtu.be/DEyskuDemx0

John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:56 pm This looks kinda tasty, except for the half cup of salt dumped into the rice/egg mix:

https:// youtu.be/DEyskuDemx0

With clever Super Bowl ads, an irresistible fruit and apparently insatiable appetite from U.S. consumers, Mexico’s avocado producers have so far been able to separate avocados from the conflictive landscape that produces them — at least until a threat to a U.S. agricultural inspector essentially shut down their exports last week.

But as producers continue to suffer extortion from organized crime, and loggers continue to chop down pine forests to clear land for avocado orchards, another threat looms: Campaigns for greener competition and perhaps even a boycott.

“They (avocados) are a very large portion of either their country or regional economy and, you know, banning them entirely would not be advantageous” for already struggling local farmers, said Gareth Elliott, a New Jersey restaurant manager who runs the Facebook page “Blood Avocados.” “But if there were more environmental studies and they were grown in a responsible manner, we could solve this together.”

So far, the association of Mexican avocado producers and packers has taken little action to solve the problems, nor has its U.S. promotional arm, Avocados from Mexico, even as growers in Mexico report having to pay thousands of dollars in protection payments to drug gangs for each acre of orchard.

The fruit is one of several industries that organized criminal groups in Michoacán — the only Mexican state authorized to export to the United States — have terrorized and extorted over the past two decades.

“We’ve been seeing for the last 15 to 20 years a mutation of how conflict is fought in a way that places civilians increasingly in the crossfire of these foods,” said Falko Ernst, an analyst with the conflict resolution organization International Crisis Group, in an interview.

Ernst said that in addition to illegal drugs, criminal organizations in Michoacán and elsewhere in Mexico have taken to extorting legal enterprises such as lime production and iron mining as an easy way to make money.

Fostered by a culture of rampant state corruption, collusion and impunity, extortion has become a convenient business model for criminal groups.