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Editorial: Students need better, healthier meals at school

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Less sugar, lower sodium and more whole grains are among the new guidelines for school meals under consideration by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These are reasonable, necessary changes considering that about 1 in 5 U.S. children are obese, a condition that can lead to serious lifelong health consequences if it continues into adulthood.The USDA’s goal is to more closely align school meal standards with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which details ingredients for a healthy diet. For example, these guidelines call for limiting added sugars to less than 10% of daily calories. In comparison, added sugars provide about 17% of calories in school breakfasts and about 11% in school lunches. Currently, the USDA does not have guidelines limiting sugar in school meals.Meeting the new nutritional standards will mean that schools will have to cut some products, replacing them with ones that meet the new sugar and sodium guidelines. The International Dairy Foods Association earlier t...

Author goes behind the scenes of iconic WWII movie ‘The Dirty Dozen’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

“The Dirty Dozen,” first released in 1967, stands as an enduring – if still controversial – game-changing WWII movie.In a starry movie year that included “Bonnie and Clyde,” “The Graduate,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Cool Hand Luke” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” it ranked as the Number One film at the box-office.Dwayne Epstein’s “Killin’ Generals: The Making of The Dirty Dozen” (Citadel Press, $28) takes its title from the last line in Robert Aldrich’s now-classic film and considers its roots in a bestselling 1965 book, the ensemble cast led by Oscar-winner Lee Marvin and its legacy.Was it based on an actual assignment – or not?  No one really knows whether a group of American soldiers imprisoned in the UK, some slated for execution, were given a suicide mission: To parachute behind enemy lines in France just prior to D-Day. Any who survived would be pardoned.Beyond Marvin, the diverse dozen included Charles Bronson, Ernest Borgnine, TV’s hulking Clint Walker, pro footballer...

Lack of a job description a red flag for interviewees

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Q. The company I’m interviewing with doesn’t have a job description. They did when I applied, but now it’s basically a blank sheet — they say the job is what I make of it. But shouldn’t I know what the job is about? When I ask them, they talk about the company perks and stuff, but not the job itself. Help!A. Run, do not walk, away from this company. They’re vague with you now, so I can’t even imagine what the job would be like. Considering they had a job description and it’s now completely changed into everything-yet-nothing, that also feels like a bait-and-switch situation. Be thankful this glaring red flag emerged sooner rather than later.Companies should always have a job description and the ability to talk articulately about the job. If you don’t even know what the role is you’re interviewing for and ultimately potentially working in, how would they be able to determine what your annual salary increase should be? And th...

Hotel Commonwealth makes a great base camp for Boston sports fans

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

If you feel like Boston is the center of the sports world right now, you’re on point. While we’re still waiting for our Rex Sox to amp it up, the Boston Marathon just wowed the world, the Celtics are making the post season look great and the Bruins? Well, we don’t want to jinx things, so we’ll just talk in the now: No one can deny their current greatness.They may be no better time to head to Boston, set up base camp and spend a night – or more— to be in the thick of things.The Hotel Commonwealth (https://www.hotelcommonwealth.com) is just the place to put yourself in position with the winners.From its location – in the shadow of the Citco sign on Commonwealth Avenue (steps from Fenway and a quick Uber or train to the Garden – to its beautiful rooms (including suites with a distinct Boston POV), the Hotel Commonwealth delivers.I arrived at the Hotel Commonwealth for an epic sports day – Marathon Monday – early. The streets to get there would be closed, since they are smack dab on the...

Cat’s test results could just be a fluke

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Dear Dr. John,My husband and I own three cats that are all in good health. Recently they had their annual exams and two were determined to need dental cleanings and an extraction or two. Bloodwork was done to assess their suitability for anesthesia, and it turned out that one of the cats had a high total bilirubin. What is bilirubin and what does the high value mean? I asked my vet, and he talked about doing something called bile acids and some other diagnostic tests if a recheck in a few weeks’ time did not show a normalization of the increased value. My vet said that all the other bloodwork seemed relatively normal and since my cat showed no sign of being jaundiced then it may have been a fluke finding. Should I be concerned? S.M.Dear S.M.,Bilirubin is something that the body makes upon the breakdown or destruction of red blood cells. Red blood cells in cats have a life of about two to three months before they stop functioning and are broken down for elimination by the body as a c...

Bel Powley illuminates story of Holocaust hero in ‘A Small Light’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Bel Powley “didn’t know anything” when she was cast as Dutch Resistance heroine Miep Gies in “A Small Light,” the new 6-episode NatGeo and Disney + series.In 1942 Amsterdam when the Nazis took began rounding up Jews to send to death camps, Otto Frank’s family went into hiding in a hidden attic above his business they called the Annex.  Their story became known after the war when Otto, the family’s sole survivor after they were discovered, published his daughter’s “The Diary of Anne Frank.”Anne’s diary was found and saved by Miep Gies (pronounced Meep Geez) who had worked for Otto and kept them fed when they hid in the Annex. If discovered, she would have been executed on the spot.“Obviously I had read the ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ when I was younger, kind of educationally,” Powley said in a Zoom interview. “And I know a lot about this part of history. But I didn’t really know anything about Miep Gies. So I had a lot of learning to do.“And the more I discovered what she accom...

King: From plumbers to mechanics, U.S. gasping for skilled workers

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

There is a terrible shortage of people who fix things. I am thinking of electricians, plumbers, glaziers, auto mechanics and many more skilled workers who keep life livable and society running.It is frustrating if you can’t get a plumber when you need one. But the skilled worker shortage has much more significant consequences than the inconvenience to the homeowner. The very rate of national progress on many fronts is being affected.More housing is desperately needed, but architects tell me some new construction isn’t happening because of the skilled worker shortage. Projects are being shelved.The problem in electric utilities is critical — and interesting because the utilities offer excellent pay, retirement and healthcare, and still, they are falling short of recruits. They are aware that many of their workers will be retiring in the next several years, adding to the problem.Auto dealerships are scrounging for mechanics, now euphemistically called “technicians.” Skilled workers ar...

Active Xavier wants to be a construction worker

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Xavier is a charming teen boy.  Xavier has a very curious and kind personality. His many interests include art, electronics, LEGOs or anything having to do with building, SpongeBob and Disney movies. Xavier loves spending time outdoors, especially if that means shooting hoops at a local basketball court, swimming, building sandcastles, riding his bike, or playing “Dr. Dodge.” His dream job is to be a construction worker.Xavier is described as very caring, a hard worker who is eager to succeed, with a great sense of humor. When you first meet Xavier, there is a good chance he will share a smile and make you laugh.Xavier loves learning, especially if it’s interactive. He’s a very inquisitive child who is very happy to have conversations and ask questions about how different things work. Xavier is described as very bright academically.Xavier holds great hopes about growing up in a loving family with similar interests. He has remained very patient and open-minded about the k...

Western Mass. band High Tea serves up indie-folk-roots

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

High Tea went looking for a way to represent the themes of new album “The Wick and The Flame” that felt artistic and off kilter. The folk-roots-indie duo decided to set a dollhouse ablaze.“We ended up lighting this dollhouse on fire for the cover art,” singer-guitarist Isabella DeHerdt told the Herald. “But before we lit it on fire, we decorated it. We put fake moss on it. We covered it in glitter. We painted it. We put pinecones on it. We put in TLC before burning it down.”“It felt like an apt metaphor for creation and music and life,” DeHerdt added. “You create something and then you have to let it go.”“The Wick and The Flame” starts off with a tender, introspective tune about staring into the void. The Western Mass-based duo’s second LP rolls on with angry blues stomps and furious love songs and gentle ballads of survival. So, yeah, creation and music and life feels about right.DeHerdt and singer-percussionist Isaac Eliot struck up a friendship at a Berklee College of Music summe...

Dear Abby: Fiance’s shocking reveal puts wedding on hold

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:08:59 GMT

Dear Abby: My daughter and her fiance are intelligent, successful professionals in their early 30s. Her fiance just informed her he was a sperm donor for a friend and his wife a few years ago, resulting in two biological children with one more on the way.He never mentioned this to my daughter before. She suspected that something wasn’t right because he would hide his phone (he keeps the children’s pictures on it), and she finally confronted him last week.He bonded with the children during the first year of their lives with frequent visits, then tapered off because the friends had become uncomfortable with his being around (the children both closely resemble him).Her fiance says he hasn’t seen the children since my daughter began dating him two years ago. He says he tried to put the situation behind him, but confessed that he misses them and didn’t realize he would feel this way at the time he donated. Neither he nor the children’s parents have legal doc...