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Leaked internal documents reveal that Google maintains a blacklist preventing certain news outlets from appearing in search results for news or other specific sections, according to the Daily Caller‘s J. Arthur Bloom. 

What this means is that while search results from blacklisted outlets will still appear in the generic “ten blue links” portion of search results – targeted sites will not be allowed in sections such as “top news” or “videos,” according to the report.

“The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether,” reads the policy document.  

Of note, Zero Hedge was removed from Google’s News category after the 2016 US election.

According to the Caller, the blacklist includes several conservative websites, including Gateway Pundit, Conservative Tribune (a subsidiary of the Western Journal), American Spectator and more, for violating the search giant’s “misrepresentation policy” and “good neighbor policy.”

Two official policies dubbed the “misrepresentation policy” and the “good neighbor policy” inform the company’s “XPA news blacklist,” which is maintained by Google’s Trust & Safety team. “T&S will be in charge of updating the blacklist as when there is a demand,” reads one of the documents shared with The Daily Caller.

“The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor and misrepresentation policies,” the policy document says. –Daily Caller

One week before Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 11 of last year, a memo about the deceptive news blacklist circulated which describes how a site can be put on the list manually. 

“The beginning of the workflow starts when a website is placed on a watchlist which is used for monitoring of sites to determine if they violate the Good Neighbor Policy. This watchlist is maintained and stored by Ares with access restricted to policy & enforcement specialists working on the Good Neighbor Policy. Access to the listing can also be shared at the discretion of pcounsel and legal investigations on a need to know basis to enforce or enrich the policy violations. The investigation of the watchlist is done in the tool Athena, the Ares manual review tool, and intakes signals from Search, Webspan, and Ares in order to complete reviews. … Once a domain is determined to be violating the misrepresentation policy or the Good Neighbor Policy, such patterns are then added to deceptive_news_blacklist_domains.txt by the Trust & Safety team.”

While the memo clearly states that there is a manual process involved, Google danced around the claim in a statement issued after the Caller‘s piece was published.  

“We do not manually determine the order of any search result, nor do our algorithms or policies attempt to make any judgement on the political leanings of a website,” the statement reads. “Our Google News inclusion policies are publicly available online. They provide guidelines on content and behaviors for matters like sponsored content, deceptive practices, and more. Sites that do not adhere to these policies are not eligible to appear on news surfaces or in information boxes in Search. These policies do not impact the way these sites appear in organic blue-link Google Search results.” 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Z3sf4O Tyler Durden

Following a spate of violence and harassment directed towards Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats, one man retaliated with a samurai sword. 

30-year-old Leor Bergland of San Francisco was arrested last Wednesday in connection with a March 29 incident in which an assailant who knocked his “Make America Great Again” hat off was slashed with a sword at around 10 p.m. according to NBC News.

Bergland has a criminal record and lives in a San Francisco supportive housing complex for formerly homeless people.

The slashing victim and a witness chased the attacker, only to back off after the sword-wielding man “turned and began advancing toward them,” according to police. 

Bergland and a 27-year-old resident of Berkeley, California, encountered each other outside of the popular Church of 8 Wheels, a roller-skating rink inside an old church in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, police said.

Bergland drew a sword and slashed the victim’s hand after the victim knocked Bergland’s hat bearing President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan to the ground, police said.

The victim and another man briefly pursued Bergland but stopped after Bergland turned on them and brandished the sword, police said. –NBC News

Bergland’s bail is set at $1 million according to jail records. The victim was treated at a local hospital and released. 

According to public records, Bergland – who appears to be homeless, has a history of arrests in Oregon; including a 2012 charge for criminal mischief, unlawful entry into a motor vehicle, and theft. 

The events started on Oct. 13, 2012, shortly before midnight, when a man went to unlock his van on a Portland street and found Bergland hunched over in the backseat, Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office spokesman Brent Weisberg said. The man removed Bergland from the van, threw him to the ground and held him down. Bergland pulled a knife from his pants pocket, opened the blade and waved it at the man, Weisberg said.

Passersby separated the pair and the knife from Bergland and held him until police arrived, Weisberg said.

Two days later, Portland State University police cited Bergland for trespassing in the second degree, Weisberg said, but he had no details of the events. The citation had the wrong date, so prosecutors asked the department to re-issue the citation, but that was not done, Weisberg said. –San Francisco Chronicle

Passerby Scott Sweeny told the San Francisco Chronicle that he was nearby where the attack took place around 30 minutes before the incident, and saw a man in a MAGA hat walking around with a sword tucked into the back of his jacket. The man, presumably Bergland, was shouting homophobic slurs at Sweeny. 

“In my mind, I didn’t think it was a real sword until we came out later and police were on the scene and there was blood and the hat on ground,” Sweeny added. 

Roller rink manager David Miles didn’t witness the attack but ran out to help the victim. Officers reportedly asked Miles if a man dressed as a pirate had come into the roller rink.

“The guy was cut, he was bleeding like you wouldn’t believe,” said Miles. “He was just gushing blood, so we got the first-aid kit from inside and tried to stop the bleeding.”

According to NBC, Trump supporters have been targeted because of their MAGA hats in Kentucky, Oklahoma, Florida and Arizona. We would add Massachusetts, California (more than once) and Texas to the list. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2GfK9tL Tyler Durden

Right out of the gate on Tuesday, it was obvious that today’s grilling of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin by Maxine Waters and the House Financial Services Committee would lead to fireworks. Waters used her first question to ask Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin whether he would comply with a Democratic request for copies of six years of the president’s personal and business tax returns by Wednesday’s deadline.

“I want to acknowledge we have received the request,” Mnuchin said, dancing around any solid commitment but repeating the jist of testimony he provided at another hearing earlier Tuesday. “As I said before, we will follow the law. We are reviewing it with our internal legal department and I would leave it at that.”

But while much of the hearing focused mostly on Trump’s taxes, and Mnuchin’s repeated refusal to submit them, it wasn’t until the end that tempers between Waters and Mnuchin boiled over as the two sparred over Mnuchin’s effort to end his committee testimony to meet with a foreign dignitary, and not come back before the committee for another day of political grandstanding by Waters et al.

Initially, Waters complained that Mnuchin had made another engagement tonight, warning him that if he doesn’t stay for the full hearing, she would compel him to return in May for multiple hearings. Then, after about three hours and 15 minutes of testimony, Mnuchin asked to leave the committee after Waters told Mnuchin that he was free to leave, but declined to end the hearing, where several members waited to question Mnuchin.

Waters had already criticized Mnuchin for scheduling a 5:30 p.m. meeting, which he said was with a senior member of the government of Bahrain, on the same day as an annual appearance before Congress.

“No other secretary has ever told us the day before that they were going to limit their time”, the top financial brain in the House said.

Then then escalated when Mnuchin at first said he would accept a request to come back and testify in May, then balked when Waters insisted he appear twice before the committee during that month. “This is a new way, this is a new day, this is a new chair, and I have the gavel,” Waters explained to Mnuchin, just in case he was unaware.

That, as the Washington Examiner notes, then led to an awkward stand off in which Mnuchin told Waters to end the hearing to avoid the appearances of him leaving while a hearing centered around his testimony continued.

“I believe you’re supposed to take the gavel and bang it,” said Mnuchin adding that “you’re ordering me to stay here …. that’s not what I want to do.”

In testy exchange, Rep. Maxine Waters tells Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, “no other secretary has ever told us the day before that they were going to limit their time.”

“You’re ordering me to stay here …. that’s not what I want to do,” Mnuchin says https://t.co/tFCpfQzXeL pic.twitter.com/H7je3oxk6G

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 9, 2019

At this point, the visible flustered and flushed Steve Mnuchin erupted. “If you wish to keep me here so that I don’t have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here, I will be very clear, if that’s the way you would like to have this relationship.”

However, after briefly conferring with a legal advisor, Mnuchin then quickly changed his mind when got some good news, namely that he could finally escape the circus: “I’ve just been advised that I’m under no obligation to stay … I’ve withdrawn my offer to voluntarily come back.”

Waters response: “You may choose to do whatever you want.”

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin after being asked to stay at hearing by Rep. Maxine Waters: “I’ve just been advised that I’m under no obligation to stay … I’ve withdrawn my offer to voluntarily come back.”

Waters: “You may choose to do whatever you want” https://t.co/tFCpfQzXeL pic.twitter.com/1ZCyGJPB6i

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 9, 2019

The good news: nobody was injured in the making of this circus: As WaPo’s Erica Werner reports, the hearing “ends on a relatively amicable note with Waters thanking him for staying til 5:30 and Mnuchin saying he looks forward to returning. Mnuchin then pushed through crowd of reporters and has now sped off, presumably for meeting with Bahrain person.”

And with that, we can’t wait for tomorrow’s interrogation of Jamie Dimon by both Maxine as well as AOC.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KpsPX2 Tyler Durden

During remarks early this week in a Fox News interview following Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) being formally designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed that the US will view Iran’s elite force just as it does ISIS. 

Specifically Pompeo agreed that the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Maj Gen Qassem Soleimani, is a “terrorist” on the level of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during a Fox News interview on Monday. 

Fox’s Bret Baier posed the question to the Secretary of State: The head of the IRGC, this man Qasem Soleimani, is by all accounts a bad character and has led all kinds of attacks. But are you saying that he now is equated to, let’s say, the head of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, in U.S. policy perspective?

Responding to whether Suleimani is now “equated” to notorious “caliphate head” Baghdadi, Pompeo affirmed, “Yeah. He is a terrorist.”

This introduced the next obvious question which has no doubt been on the minds of Pentagon planners since the designation was announced: will the US military now target Soleimani and other IRGC commanders the way it does ISIS, with airstrikes and targeted assassination and/or invasion of territory held? 

Baier asked: “So we as a country have a policy to target him or capture him?”

Pompeo explained, “Qassem Soleimani has the blood of Americans on his hands, as do the forces he leads,” according to the State Dept. read out of the interview.

This is insane. Mike Pompeo equates Iranian IRGC general Qasem Soleimani with the leader of ISIS. Pompeo’s thinking is pure lunacy and propaganda https://t.co/gTObYbFes7 pic.twitter.com/7p0S7UxsDB

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) April 9, 2019

“Each time we find an organization, institution, or an individual that has taken the lives of Americans, it is our responsibility – it’s indeed President Trump’s duty, and we have made tremendous progress in this administration’s first two years – to reduce the risk that any American will be killed by Qasem Soleimani and his merry band of brothers ever again,” Pompeo responded.

Whether the Pentagon will actually be given the order to go after Quds force and other IRGC officers is perhaps a different matter, given such action would spark a direct war which would necessarily lead to US invasion and occupation of Tehran. 

But legally it remains that US forces would be required to go after IRGC members wherever they are encountered in a foreign theater, which means the Persian Gulf and especially the narrow Strait of Hormuz — where IRGC speed boats are known to operate with regularity not far from US Navy ships (currently the US aircraft carrier John C. Stennis is deployed in the gulf) — is now a major flash point where exchange of fire between Iran and the US could erupt at any moment. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UIq477 Tyler Durden

Authored by Dagny Taggart via The Organic Prepper blog,

If you live in Florida and want the freedom to plant food on your own property, I have great news for you.

Late last month, the Florida Senate affirmed the right of self-reliant people statewide to grow vegetable gardens in their front yards.

Here are some details on the bill from the Miami Herald:

The 40-member Senate vote was 35-5.

Sen. Rob Bradley’s SB 82 prohibits a county or municipality from regulating vegetable gardens on residential properties, voiding any current regulations regarding the produce patches.

Local governments, however, can still adopt a local ordinance or regulation that doesn’t specifically target vegetable gardens, like regulating water during drought conditions, limiting fertilizer use or controlling invasive species.

A couple was forced to rip out their garden.

While it might seem odd that people would need government permission to grow food on their own property, the bill was passed in response to a legal dispute about an ordinance in Miami Shores that banned gardens from being planted in front yards.

In 2017, Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll, who had a vegetable garden in their front yard for 17 years, were told they could grow flowers in their front yard, but the fresh produce had to go, reports Treehugger:

Hermine Ricketts and Tom Carroll, indignant at the fact that vegetables were deemed more offensive than boats, RVs, jet skis, statues, fountains, gnomes, pink flamingoes, or Santa in a Speedo in one’s front yard, took their case to the Florida Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of Miami Shores’ right to control design and landscaping standards. In other words, it was a loss for Ricketts and Carroll. (source)

“It’s all about conformity. Miami Shores wants to be a mini Coral Gables,” Ricketts said. “What is the definition of edible? I can go into any front yard and find something edible because every plant has an edible part.”

“That’s what government does – interferes in people’s lives,” Ricketts told the Miami Herald in December 2017.

“We had that garden for 17 years. We ate fresh meals every day from that garden. Since the village stepped its big foot in it, they have ruined our garden and my health.”

The couple faced heavy fines for their front yard garden.

Ricketts and Carroll didn’t face jail time for daring to have a garden, but they did face $50 fines – DAILY – after the village amended its ordinance in 2013.

Back in 2017, the Miami Herald reported:

They had to dig up their garden, which won’t grow in their north-facing backyard because of a lack of sun. But they have continued to fight Miami Shores in court with help from the Institute for Justice, a national non-profit libertarian law firm.

“This decision gives local governments tremendous leeway to regulate harmless activities in the name of aesthetics,” said Institute lawyer Ari Bargil. “It gives government the power to prohibit homeowners from growing plants in their front yards simply because they intend to eat them.” (source)

An appeals court upheld a ruling that the couple does not have a constitutional right to grow vegetables in their front yard in November 2017.

In March of this year, the couple had a big win.

The front-yard garden ban got the attention of enough senators, and a new bill passed in mid-March that states that Floridians are now able to grow fruit and vegetables in their front yards without fear of local government fines.

The Miami Herald reports that Republican Senator Rob Bradley sponsored the bill and described it as a “vast overreach.” Given how many food deserts exist and how hard it can be for many families to access fresh and affordable food, such bans are an absurd step in the wrong direction. Bradley said,

“The world is changing when it comes to food. There’s a big interest when it comes to locally sourced food or organic products. It is our role, our duty to review decisions that are made in the courts that uphold local government actions that violate property rights in the State of Florida … When you own a piece of property, you should be able to grow food on that property for your family’s consumption.” (source)

Bargill, the lawyer who represented Ricketts and Carroll, said he is pleased with the new legislation, and added that he “looks forward to the day where no Floridian would worry about crippling fines for the offense of growing cabbage.”

This bill is a great start and may inspire others to follow suit.

The bill only preempts local government rules, not restrictions set by homeowners’ associations or other groups, but it is a move in the right direction, explains Treehugger:

But it’s a great start, and one that will hopefully inspire others to rip up their useless grass and plant some useful vegetables instead. The more front-yard vegetable gardens there are, the more normalized it will become – and the more secure the food system will be, too. (source)

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Ur98my Tyler Durden

Further to the ongoing divergence in the market, which has seen institutional and retail investors boycott the biggest market rally since 2009, with equity funds suffering their biggest outflows since 2008…

… even as buybacks, occasional short squeezes and gamma-imbalanced dealers keep bidding up the S&P500, a new variation on a theme has emerged.

As Nomura’s quant team lead by Masanari Takada writes, “with a euphoric mood prevailing, the S&P500 is approaching ~2,900, supported by buying inertia in a lower volatility environment.” Ah yes, but the question again is who is behind the buying, and as Takada notes, there has been no noticeable change in the exposure of major speculative players, “but we estimate CTAs or systematic trend-followers bought a small amount of US equity futures to passively follow the market trend.”

That said, as the chart below shows, even these systematic players are tentative at best, and furthermore, the buying speed of CTAs on S&P500 futures and NASDAQ100 futures seems to be gradually decelerating. However, as Nomura cautions, if the S&P500 does break above ~2,900 and its momentum increases further, CTAs will be compelled to return to their buying stance.

However, with most companies now in the buyback blackout window, few outright shorts left standing, and VIX net spec near record short positions, one key group continues to ignore the move higher. And as Nomura writes, the bank currently views how “discretionary” players such as equity L/S funds and global macro HFs – who maintain a cautious view on the sustainability of the US stock market rally – behave as an important factor. “Important”, mostly, because unlike their algo and quant peers, the carbon-based traders making the discretionary decisions whether to buy stock, refuse to drink the cool aid.

And this is where Marko Kolanovic’s bullish theory comes in: as a reminder, the JPM quant has been pounding the table on his 3,000 S&P price target because, as he repeatedly has claimed, it is only a matter of time before traditional long/short and macro investors jump into the market, leading to a blow-off top phase a la January 2018.

Only… that’s not happening. And as Nomura explains, echoing what Kolanovic has said, “depending on whether they pull out all the stops to trigger a US stock market sell-off with S&P500 at ~2,900, or they stop extending their current trades targeting a US stock market correction and switch to chasing the upward momentum” the fate of the market is in the hands of the “major” players.

And here is the problem: as shown in the chart below, having missed the move from 2,300 to 2,900 (plus or minus a few points), both the equity L/S and global macro crowd refuse to be dragged into this rally, which they clearly refuse to believe. In fact, their exposure is the lowest it has been in years, and instead of tracking the market, they are tracking the Citi US econ surprise index, i.e., at least to one group of traders, the market is not even the (Fed manipulated) market anymore, it is the economy.

In other words, absent a substantial rebound in economic indicators in the next few weeks, the historic post-Christmas and post-Mnuchin-calling-the-plunge-protection-team rally is on its last leg.

Finally, where it gets especially confusing is that while the US economy may indeed be bottoming, as the Citi US econ surprise index has little additional room to drop from here, the funds’ decision whether to jump into the market will come smack in the middle of the worst earnings season in 3 years…

… an earnings season which a very contrarian Morgan Stanley has predicted will not be the “one and done” poor quarter, but be the start of a protracted earnings recession (one which may mutated into a full-blown economic recession), something which will not give those investors who are on the fence confidence that they should be jumping into the stock market.

Incidentally, last year Morgan Stanley, while a sole voice of skepticism, was the most accurate predictor of what happened in the market. If they are right this time, we may have seen the highs for the year.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2Vyb3lN Tyler Durden

The U.S. casino industry has been in a 61-month slump since topping out in March 2014.

Alantic city has been hammered the hardest, with five of the city’s 12 casinos closing their doors between 2014-16.

New data Monday from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement show profits collapsed by 15% in FY18, to $582 million, at a time when the city’s gaming industry is contracting as two new casinos reopened, reported AP.

During the 40% reduction of the city’s casinos between 2014-16, the market stabilized with less competition. However, the gaming commission made a disastrous mistake last June by allowing Ocean Resort Casino and Hard Rock to open new gaming facilities, which, once again, saturated the market – leading to a decline in gross operating profits for five of the seven casinos.

The report said Tropicana and Golden Nugget were the only casinos that increased operating profits last year.

The reopening of the two casinos, in a declining market, has resulted in a smaller slice of the pie for the seven operators.

James Plousis, chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, told the AP that “profit margins were tighter” for the year.

Meanwhile, Golden Nugget had the largest operating profit for 2018, up 12.5% to $45 million. Tropicana was up 1.4% to $93.4 million.

The Borgata reported the most significant decline in profits, down 18.8% to $206 million. Caesars dropped by 15.4% to $79.6 million; Harrah’s was down 6.5% to $109.3 million; Bally’s was down 5.7% to $40.1 million, and Resorts was down 2.7% to $22.5 million.

Among online-only casinos, Resorts Digital was down 75% to $3.6 million, and Caesars Interactive-NJ was down 13.3% to $9.3 million.

Out of the gate, the new casinos [Ocean Resort Casino and Hard Rock] each reported an operating loss for the year.

During 4Q18, Atlantic City’s casinos collectively saw a decline in gross operating profit of 41.1%, to $75.1 million.

The report mentioned that hotels rooms were only 80% full in 2018.  Resorts had the highest occupancy rate at 86%; the Golden Nugget was lowest at 74%.

From Las Vegas to Macau, gross operating profits have been slipping, with JPMorgan analysts expecting that Macau could be hit the hardest in 2019.

A global synchronized slowdown could be responsible for declining profits at casinos stateside and overseas.

Casinos are not recession-proof. Their profits tend to rise in expansions and contract in recessions. So, maybe, Alantic City, is yet, another ominous sign that the global business cycle is turning. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2D4f75W Tyler Durden

Via Cliff Mass Weather and Climate blog,

Bountiful Precipitation and Full Reservoirs in California

It was not that long ago, that some folks were wringing their hands about drought in California, claiming that normal rains were a thing of the past.  The NY Times and other outlets warned of “permanent” and “unending” drought fueled by global warming.

2013-2015 were dry years, but 2017 was extremely wet, 2018 was near normal, and 2019 is turning out to be a real soaker.    The official U.S. Drought Monitor, which often lags behind facts on the ground,  officially removed drought status from California this winter.

This winter, the water situation is extraordinarily good for virtually all of California, with their very large reservoir system storing much more water than normal.   Let’s examine the situation.

Here is the difference from normal of the accumulated precipitation over the past six months.  Nearly the entire southwest U.S. was above normal, with parts of California being 8-20 inches above normal…that is a lot in California.

Water storage is everything in California, and unlike Washington State, they have multi-year storage capacity.  Why?  Because historically California experiences more variation between wet and dry years than the more reliably wet Pacific Northwest.

The current reservoir conditions are excellent, with all of the major reservoirs being well above normal.  Some are even near capacity (e.g., San Luis and Lake Shasta).

The other major water storage system is the snowpack….and CA has a HUGE snowpack this year, averaging about 165% of normal (see below).

Streamflow?   No worries.  Streams are running much above normal or high over the northern portion of the state ( blue and black colors) and near normal over most of the southern half.

Surface soil moisture is above normal for most of the state (not shown).

The bottom line of all this is that California has had an extraordinarily moist winter (and a very wet March) and there will be plenty of water for the urban centers and agriculture this year. 

To put things in perspective, below is the California precipitation for November-February 1920-2019 using the NOAA/NWS climate division dataset.  March 2010 was not ready yet.

The first thing you notice is that there is virtually no long-term trend.  Nada.   There are drier years (like 2013-2015) and wetter periods.  2019 was above normal but not exceptional.   If March was available, the current winter would have been one of the wetter ones.

This lack of trend in CA winter precipitation is consistent with most climate models simulations I have seen, which suggest no decline in precipitation for central and northern CA under global warming (see a sample from the UW high-resolution climate simulation project I am involved with).  In fact, precipitation over the northern portion of CA might even increase.

But that does not mean that California is entirely out of the woods.  Temperatures WILL rise under global warming and that will increase demand for water, particularly for agriculture.    And California is currently “mining” its ground water at an unsustainable pace.    So adaptations will have to take place, like growing less water intensive crops (e.g., almonds and cotton), using better irrigation technologies, and increasing the use of desalination plants on the coast.

California will not be facing an “existential” threat under global warming, but will have to take reasonable steps to adapt to a warming climate.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2UPy6LO Tyler Durden

A mysterious E. Coli outbreak outbreak of unknown provenance has now spread to five states, and infected 96 people, the CDC disclosed on Tuesday.

As of April 8, the states include Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia, according to law firm publication the Food Poison Journal.

The source of the outbreak has not yet been determined. Though late last year, another E. coli outbreak prompted supermarkets around the country to destroy supplies of romaine lettuce after the outbreak was traced to tainted lettuce tied to a California farm.

Illnesses tied to the current outbreak were first reported on March 2, 2019, to March 26, 2019. The infected have ranged in age from 1 to 81 years, with a median age of 17, just over half of whom have been women. No deaths have been reported, but 11 people have been hospitalized.

State and local public health officials have been interviewing the victims to try and determine what they ate and how they might have been exposed to the virus in the week before they fell ill. In addition to locals, the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the CDC have all been investigating the outbreak.

“This investigation is still ongoing, and a specific food item, grocery store, or restaurant chain has not been identified as the source of infections. State and local public health officials are interviewing ill people to determine what they ate and other exposures in the week before their illness started,” the CDC said.

People infected with E. coli typically start experiencing symptoms two to eight days after exposure, according to Newsweek. Most people take a week to recover.

While the infection typically doesn’t require hospitalization, E. coli can lead to a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can be deadly.

Symptoms include bloody diarrhea, as well as cramps and vomiting. Some might experience a low-grade fever. People can protect themselves by washing their hands and cooking meat, vegetables and fruit thoroughly.

They can also avoid smoking street marijuana, which has recently been found to contain a surprising quantity of human feces, the NYP reports.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WZXoUJ Tyler Durden