Kushner, Bannon met Friday
Compiled from news services
PALM BEACH, Fla. –– Two of the top officials closest to President Donald Trump — Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner — met Friday in an attempt to reconcile their differences and put an end to the infighting that’s plagued the administration in recent days.
Mr. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, and Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump’s adviser and son-in-law, met at the urging of Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who asked them to set aside their disagreements and focus on pursuing the president’s agenda, a senior administration official said.
News stories this past week exposed the civil war within Mr. Trump’s inner circle, with sources describing factions led by Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner as locked in perpetual battle.
Trump, Andres lawsuit
The news came as a surprise to those following the nearly two-year-old legal fight between the Trump Organization and celebrity chef José Andrés, who was once supposed to open a high-profile restaurant in President Donald Trump’s hotel in downtown Washington. The lawsuit between them was suddenly settled on Friday.
The settlement terms were not disclosed. No one would comment about the agreement.
Death march survivors
SAN FRANCISCO — Ramon Regalado was starving and sick with malaria when he slipped away from his Japanese captors during the infamous 1942 Bataan Death March in the Philippines, escaping a brutal trudge through steamy jungle that killed hundreds of Americans and thousands of Filipinos who fought for the U.S. during World War II.
On Saturday, the former wartime machine-gun operator will join a dwindling band of veterans of the war in San Francisco’s Presidio to honor the soldiers who died on the march and those who made it to a prisoner of war camp only to die there.
They’ll also commemorate the mostly Filipino soldiers who held off Japanese forces in the Philippines for three months without supplies of food or ammunition before a U.S. army major surrendered 75,000 troops to Japan on April 9, 1942.
Few Americans are aware of the Filipinos who were starving as they fended off the more powerful and well-supplied Japanese forces, said Cecilia Gaerlan, executive director of the Berkeley, California-based Bataan Legacy Historical Society organizing the event at the former military fort.
“Despite fighting without any air support and without any reinforcement, they disrupted the timetable of the Imperial Japanese army,” she said. “That was their major role, to perform a delaying action. And they did that beyond expectations.”
More than 250,000 Filipino soldiers served in World War II, when the Philippines were a U.S. territory. But after the war ended, President Harry Truman signed laws that stripped away promises of benefits and citizenship for Filipino veterans.
Only recently have they won back some concessions and acknowledgment, including the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal. The veterans also received lumpsum payments as part of the 2009 stimulus law.
Gluten-free dining halls
Out with pizza, in with poke bowls. That’s the new culinary strategy at Kent State and Cornell University, which this school year rolled out the first certified gluten-free dining halls.
An estimated 5 to 10 percent of college students have celiac disease or other gluten-related disorders, according to Dr. Alessio Fasano, director of the Center for Celiac Research and Treatment in Boston. For them, avoiding gluten — wheat, rye, barley and crosscontaminated oats — isn’t a fad diet but a medical necessity. Even a breadcrumb in the communal cream cheese could wreak gastrointestinal havoc.
A 2016 survey by the New England Celiac Organization concluded that “college students with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity face overwhelming complications in their social and academic lives.”