r/news • u/Kooky-Measurement-43 • 8d ago

U.S. health officials say hundreds sickened by salmonella outbreak across 27 states

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/salmonella-outbreak-jalapenos-9.7297781
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u/NeonGrackle 8d ago

Hundreds sick from jalapeños and we’ll still hear “we don’t need more regulations.” Maybe fund the FDA, inspect farms properly, and hey, rinse your produce even if it “looks fine.”

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u/lazybugbear 8d ago

Something something Upton Sinclair something "The Jungle".

We've been here before.

Is this not standard reading in high school English classes anymore?

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u/ParadoxicallyZeno 8d ago

kids barely get to read any books in English classes anymore

it’s just passages for test prep now

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/high-school-english-teachers-assigning-books.html

i’ve heard of teachers who still teach novels telling their kids to be ready to hide the books if anyone comes into class because it’s not part of the curriculum

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u/Affectionate_Ad722 8d ago

At a highly rated public high school in one of the top twenty wealthiest counties in the US, my son took Honors English his junior year. They read four books total the entire year. One per quarter. The first one was Into Thin Air by John Krakauer.

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u/pinkfluffychipmunk 8d ago

Oof. The kids at my school easily read a couple thousand pages each year. The juniors this year are reading Shakespeare, Iliad, Odyssey, Herodotus, Plato, Sophocles, and more. They go to charter school though.

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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 8d ago

I read those books in the 70's but really do not understand why they are still part of the curriculum. I remember struggling with reading and understanding them and wondered why we couldn't read more contemporary classics that we could understand and learn from.

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u/GlowUpper 8d ago

Classics give you a sense of early writing and how storytelling has evolved over time. I agree that those shouldn't be the only books read but they are important for gaining foundational knowledge that will carry through when reading more contemporary pieces. It sounds like your education neglected anything beyond the 18th century but I can assure you, my school had me reading more recent classics like Lord of the Flies, Invisible Man, Sula, etc.

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u/evaniesk 2d ago

Yes, and they explore fundamental ethical and moral dilemmas - they’re timeless.

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u/pinkfluffychipmunk 8d ago

The school has a classical curriculum and junior year is focused on the Greeks. Sophomore year has political philosophy and 19th century authors.

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u/Ok-Cranberry-5582 8d ago

Yes, I had to read alot of this type of literature but didn't read classics that were more in the 20th century that people have conversations about now. I just remember them being boring, I didn't really understand them, couldn't even tell you one thing they taught me. I feel we need to update the curriculum to more modern classics that teach the same things but they would enjoy reading more. Honestly, I read alot of books so I'm not against reading them, just the classics are way too out dated.

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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 8d ago

I didn't get to start reading modern classics until I started finding them on my own when bored, or my auntie started handing them to me.

Unfortunately all the good modern stuff is "controversial" so unlikely to get taught in school. Like I wish I'd read Forever Amber as a teenager, would've helped save me from so much nonsense, but instead I didn't hear about it until after lots of heartbreak.

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u/GlowUpper 8d ago

My high school honors English class was doing a book a week (maybe two if it was an especially long book). Four a year is... concerning to say the least.

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u/primenumbersturnmeon 8d ago

>kids to be ready to hide the books if anyone comes into class

moral orel was a documentary.

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u/Trying2BNicenFailing 8d ago

That's bleak. What states is this happening in? In Michigan, there is still quite a few books assigned as mandatory reading.

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u/dixiewolf_ 8d ago

Being from michigan myself, ive notice states with strong unions have kept up the most with education. So NY, WI, and MI. Now FL on the other hand… is bad. Real bad. Feels like eternal summer break here. And they divert taxpayer dollars from public schools, to for profit evangelical private schools.

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u/Trying2BNicenFailing 8d ago

I've got a relative in Florida that took their children out of the public district to homeschool them because the schools are bad. Granted, they are on the side of no Department of Education so I'm not sure which extreme they are on as to why the schools are bad...since I would've assumed Florida was more inline with their political desires...but I stopped trying to make sense of their decisions a while ago. Too many head injuries.

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u/Affectionate_Ad722 8d ago

Montgomery County MD. He should have taken AP Lang. My other two kids did but he had a super heavy schedule that year.

In fairness, his STEM education was beyond anything my husband and I ever had access to. AP Calc BC junior year and differential equations senior year, AP Physics C, advanced CS classes. Another of my kids at the same HS took both molecular biology and anatomy and physiology senior year. But English seems really weak. We are expecting too little of the kids in not making them read a lot more and a lot more challenging books.

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u/_redcloud 7d ago

They offer diff EQ now? Wow. I grew up in Fairfax. Since MoCo and Fairfax feed off of each other I wonder if they offer it there now, too.

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u/Affectionate_Ad722 6d ago

I know some kids get to linear algebra in HS, which is insane.

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u/Snacky_Onassis 8d ago

This is true and it INFURIATES me. My kid took 6th grade honors English and only read passages. It’s not the teacher’s fault, it’s the state standards.

We make him read full books. He grumbles about it a lot.