Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
San Francisco Mayor shot to death; Gerald Ford named as Richard Nixon’s Vice President; Doctors perform world’s first partial face transplant; Playwright Eugene O’Neill dies.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.
Breakfast News
France’s Hollande, in Moscow, calls for anti-ISIL coalition
French President Francois Hollande told Russia’s Vladimir Putin on Thursday that world powers must create a “grand coalition” to combat Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters who control swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.
Hollande’s comments come amid calls from international leaders to ramp up efforts against ISIL in the Middle East and around the world following the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people.
ISIL has also said it downed a Russian plane on Oct. 31 over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board. [..]
Putin said that Russia was mourning for Paris victims and those who died in the downing of the Russian passenger plane over Egypt. He praised Hollande’s efforts to build a coalition and said that Moscow was open for stronger cooperation.
Pope: ‘Catastrophic’ if climate talks are derailed
Pope Francis warned Thursday that it would be “catastrophic” for world leaders to let special interest groups get in the way of a global agreement to curb fossil fuel emissions as he brought his environmental message to Africa on the eve of climate- change talks in Paris.
Francis issued the pointed warning in a speech to the U.N.’s regional office in Nairobi.
Thursday was the second day in a row that Francis had touched on environmental concerns after he arrived in Kenya for a six-day pilgrimage that also takes him to Uganda on Friday and the conflict-ridden Central African Republic.
A grim holiday season awaits America’s hungry
For households that struggle with food insecurity, November often marks the beginning of the particularly lean months. Cooler evenings mean bigger heating bills, putting more stress on grocery budgets. And school vacations mean children stay home, without access to the free or reduced-price school meals that help keep many households afloat.
When those households run out of money and food stamp benefits, many turn to food pantries and soup kitchens. At this time of year, emergency food assistance charities — often referred to as “the last line of defense against hunger” by the people who manage them — see a sharp spike in the number of meals they distribute per month.
That spike would be a challenge under normal conditions. The past few years, however, have been anything but normal for food assistance charities. Besides the usual ebb and flow of seasonal demand, soup kitchens and food pantries are now struggling to address skyrocketing year-round demand for emergency aid.
Farm recalls produce used in Costco salad linked to E. coli
A California farm is recalling a vegetable mix believed to be the source of E.coli in Costco chicken salad that has been linked to an outbreak that has sickened 19 people in seven states, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday.
Taylor Farms Pacific Inc. of Tracy, California, has recalled a mix of diced celery and onion used in Costco chicken salad and other foods containing celery, the FDA said in a statement.
The foods range from Thai-style salads to celery sticks and are sold at Costco, Target, Starbucks and many other outlets, the FDA said.
Costco says it uses one supplier for those vegetables in the chicken salad sold in all its U.S. stores.
Taylor Farms Pacific is a major producer of fresh-cut vegetables and bagged salads.
Russia accepts full, indefinite ban from world athletics over doping scandal
The Russian athletics federation has accepted its ban from international competition and has promised to cooperate with inspectors who will oversee changes to its drug-testing system.
The International Association of Athletics Federations confirmed the full suspension after a council meeting in Monaco and said the Russian federation (Araf) had not requested a hearing.
An IAAF statement said: “The IAAF council was today informed that written confirmation had been received yesterday from Araf accepting their full suspension without requesting a hearing as was their constitutional right.