Tausi Insider

Romaine lettuce in Simi Valley, Calif., in 2018. Wholesale produce distributors say demand is exceeding supply of iceberg and romaine lettuce. Mark J. Terrill/The Associated Press The cost of lettuce is spiking amid a shortage that’s leading some restaurants to temporarily stop offering leafy greens on their menus. Wholesale produce distributors say demand is exceeding supply of iceberg and romaine lettuce, and pricing pressures are expected to continue throughout the month. Restaurants Canada COO Kelly Higginson said a major lettuce-growing area in California was hit by some kind of virus, after a year that’s already been rife with difficulties thanks to heat and drought. “That particular area has had crops decimated. So there’s a massive shortage,” said Higginson. From fast-food joints to fine dining establishments, “everybody’s just pulling lettuce off the menu,” she said. That’s because not only is lettuce in short supply, but the available product has in some cases quadrupled in...

Photo : Antonio Guillem ( Shutterstock ) Netflix might be doing away with free password sharing soon , but until then, the passwords are still flowing freely. If you’re generous with your Netflix account, you’ve no doubt found yourself saddled with moochers . Maybe you loaned your password out to a friend to catch up on Stranger Things , or you’re still logged into an ex’s TV and notice a lot of content you did n’ t watch. No matter the case, there’s now an easy way to kick anyone off your Netflix account. In the past, the only way to deal with Netflix moochers was the nuclear option: sign out of all devices. Sure, this feature kicks any unwanted users off the account, but it also kicks you off the account on every device you’re signed into. The price for Netflix justice is to sign back into Netflix on your TV, iPad, smartphone, and anywhere you watch. In short, it wasn’t fun. Netflix now allows users to remove select devices off of the account , which makes this process so m...

A home burns as the Camp Fire rages through Paradise, Calif., on Nov. 8, 2018. Noah Berger/The Associated Press Every year, millions of people are forced to leave their homes due to a variety of climate or natural disasters, ranging from floods – one-third of Pakistan was inundated last summer – to droughts and topical storms. The term “climate refugee” has entered the environmental lexicon and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) has said there could be 1.2-billion such refugees by 2050 as the planet turns into a frying pan. The number is a guess, but perhaps not a wild one. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that an annual average of 21.5-million people have been displaced by extreme weather events since 2008, though it’s an open question whether global warming specifically can take the blame. Typically, we consider climate-induced movements – “disaster displacement” or “cross-border disaster displacement,” to use the technical terms – to be a southern hemisphere phe...

Back in the old days, when theaters still made actual money showing movies that weren’t part of a “cinematic universe,” December was the best time of year to be a cinema junkie. That was when, in the final weeks of the year, studios would release all of their most lavishly produced, high-minded star vehicles, in the hopes they would be fresh in voters’ minds come awards season. And even if franchise films and the shift to at-home viewing has basically killed the concept of blockbuster movies for grownups, Netflix’s December slate is still keeping the spirit alive with a trio of new films from lauded creators. First up is Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro’s passion project, a new stop-motion animated adaptation of the classic novel Pinocchio that looks, from the trailer, to be a more wide-ranging and emotionally wrenching take on the all-too-familiar story . The character designs are singularly arresting and oh-so-slightly creepy, as you would expect from the helmer of Pan’...

People like Wednesday , it seems. The series, from Smallville masterminds Alfred Gough & Miles Millar (with a bit of help from executive producer Tim Burton, who directs several episodes) has been a massive, record-breaking hit for Netflix. No joke: Stranger Things 4 once held the crown for first-week hours viewed with… Read more... https://www.tausiinsider.com/11-hit-tv-series-no-one-saw-coming/?feed_id=331138&_unique_id=6451d0a293cbe

Unboxing Giant Uterine Fibroids If you’re embarrassed by your all-too-human desire to gawk at atrocities and anomalies, perhaps you’d enjoy Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia’s collection of medical abnormalities is housed in a stately, sober environ that feel more like a 19th century academic institution than a carnival freak show tent, but rest assured, the place is crammed with freaks and freakiness. Among its huge collection of medical esoteria is the thorax of John Wilkes Boothe, the “ Hyrtl Skull Collection ,” a “large collection of conjoined fetal specimens” (including the liver of the original “Siamese twins,” Chang and Eng), thousands of objects that people swallowed, and the amazing 9-foot long “ megacolon .” To the Mütter’s credit, the place does not shy away from or apologize for the “would you look at this 74-pound ovarian cyst!” appeal of its strange exhibits. It leans into the macabre instead—its YouTube channel is awesome and...

Image : That ‘90s Show/Netflix Like a narrative embodiment of one of those “do you want to feel old?” memes, That ‘90s Show —the decades- later followup to the hit Fox sitcom That ‘70s Show (which actually premiered in the ‘90s)—arrives on Netflix on Jan. 19. As I was basically an adult throughout the entire run of the original series, I am not OK with this. Though the ‘90s don’t really seem that long ago in my head, I must admit they do feel that way sometimes as I look back on my teenage years . Back then, for example, going online meant dialup AOL and accidentally huge phone bills. No one had cell phones. Politicians could actually be shamed out of office . That ‘90s Show | Official Teaser | Netflix What I’m saying is, I could use some nostalgia, so bring on the further adventures of Kitty (Debra Jo Rupp), Red (Kurtwood Smith), and their assorted grandkids, because obviously Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis weren’t coming back for this. Here’s everything else coming to Netflix in...

The U.S. government’s highway safety agency said Thursday it will send teams to investigate two November crashes in California and Ohio involving Teslas that may have been operating on automated driving systems. The probes bring to 35 the number of crashes investigated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration since 2016 in which either Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” or “Autopilot” systems likely were in use. Nineteen people were killed in the crashes. The California crash occurred on Thanksgiving Day involving eight vehicles on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. The driver told authorities that the Tesla TSLA-Q Model S was using the company’s “Full Self-Driving” software, according to Highway Patrol report obtained by CNN. The Ohio crash happened Nov. 18 near Toledo, when a Tesla Model 3 crashed into an Ohio Highway Patrol SUV stopped on a roadway with its emergency lights flashing. A message was left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla on the latest NHTSA action. The co...

Photo : Poppy Pix ( Shutterstock ) If your festival experience is enhanced by taking psychoactive substances, be smart about it. Don’t take drugs you’re not familiar with—festivals generally aren’t the best setting for experimentation. Also: If the drugs you enjoy aren’t legal where the festival is being held, understand the risks you are taking by possessing or using them. Festivals usually search you at the entrance, and some festivals even employ drug-sniffing dogs . Undercover police work festivals and are drawn to people acting suspiciously. Speaking of drug dealers: Strangers selling illegal drugs are rarely people you should trust, and sometimes potentially lethal substances laced with fentanyl are encountered. That said, of the 250,000 attendees of Coachella in 2020 , there were no deadly overdoses, and only 112 festival-goers were arrested—85 for intoxication, three for selling drugs, and the rest for property crimes and fake IDs. https://www.tausiinsider.com/dont-ma...

There's a growing rift in the U.S. over the perceived economic impact of the green movment. Philip Cheung/The New York Times News Service Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for Tausi Insider. The push by a group of state lawmakers in Wyoming last week to introduce a bill banning the sale of electric vehicles by 2035 elicited as many sarcastic snickers as concerned frowns. Even the backers of the bill admitted the effort was mostly symbolic, a supportive nod to the state’s oil and gas industry – a huge job-creation machine and revenue generator. And even if the proposed bill becomes law, its six Republican authors concede it will be difficult to enforce and unlikely to make an impact. But as a direct response to recent moves by 15 states, including California and New York, to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035, the bill points up the increasingly desperate attempts by small jurisdictions who tie their economic prosperity to fossil fuels to have their voices heard over...

Photo : Paul Brady Photography ( Shutterstock ) With the cost of renting a home remaining high , some renters are considering purchasing a home of their own, and taking on mortgage payments instead. If you’re ready to make the leap, you may be interested in a report from experts at Realtor.com , which identified the 10 best markets for first-time homebuyers in 2023. Here’s what to know. That best markets for first-time homebuyers in 2023 To come up with this list, real estate analysts at Realtor.com ranked 659 cities with a population of more than 5,000 located within the country’s 100 largest metro areas, limiting their picks to one spot per metro area. The rankings are based on how well each city met the following criteria , consisting of features considered attractive to first-time homebuyers: The share of 25 to 34 year olds in the local population. The availability of homes for sale, measured by active listings per 1000 existing households, to ensure that homebuyers have a ...

Screenshot : Everything Everywhere All at Once/A24 If the nominations for the 2023 Academy Awards tell us anything, it’s that the movies are back, baby: After two years of pandemic disruption, and following last year’s ceremony, during which a film released by Apple on its streaming service took home Best Picture, the vast majority of this year’s Oscar nominees played first in theaters. Also telling: For the first time in two years, you actually have to venture out to theaters if you want to see all of the Best Picture nominees in advance of the ceremony on March 12. A handful of Best Picture nominees— Top Gun: Maverick; Avatar: The Way of Water; Elvis; Everything Everywhere All at Once —were even box office hits, which is more than you can say for the likes of many recent contenders, even before COVID threatened to kill moviegoing forever. It’s anyone’s guess if the excitement over populist favorites will result in stronger ratings for the Oscar ceremony itself, which is coming o...

Screenshot : Your Place or Mine/Netflix The trailer makes the comparison clear: Your Place or Mine (Feb. 10), the upcoming Netflix rom-com starring Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher as transatlantic best buds who swap cities for a few weeks, is aiming for When Harry Met Sally... in 2023. Your Place Or Mine | Official Trailer | Netflix From Aline Brosh McKenna ( The Devil Wears Prada , Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ), the star vehicle might have been a big screen hit in the ‘90s when Nora Ephron ruled the rom-com world, but these days it has to settle for straight to streaming. When is You Season 4 coming to Netflix? Also arriving this monthcomes the return of Penn Badgley in the first half of the   fourth season of the “I’m a bad person and also the protagonist” drama You , which looks to be channeling The Secret History. YOU: Season 4 Part 1 | Official Trailer | Netflix Here’s everything else coming to Netflix in the month of romance. What’s coming to Netflix in February 2023 Arriving ...