Supreme Court’s mifepristone case: Abortion, FDA’s authority and return to 1873 obscenity law

• March 25, 2024

By Sarah Varney | KFF Health News

Lawyers from the conservative Christian group that won the case to overturn Roe v. Wade are returning to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday in pursuit of an urgent priority: shutting down access to abortion pills for women across the country.

The case challenges the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone, a prescription-only drug approved in 2000 with a stellar safety record that is used in 63% of all U.S. abortions.

Viewed across decades of anti-abortion activism, the case brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom represents a “moonshot” couched in technical arguments about pharmaceutical oversight and the resuscitation of an 1873 anti-obscenity law. A victory would lay the groundwork for a de facto nationwide abortion ban.

Abortion is illegal in 14 states, but abortion pills have never been more widely available.

During the covid-19 pandemic, the FDA suspended — and later formally lifted — the requirement that patients be at a health care facility when taking mifepristone, the first of two pills used in medication abortion. Physicians can now prescribe the drug online through telemedicine and pharmacies can dispense it through the mail.

“You don’t need to be handed the pill in the office,” said Linda Prine, a family medicine physician, sitting on a couch in her Manhattan apartment answering texts and calls from patients about abortion care.

“It’s very effective,” she said. “I don’t even have medications that are 98 to 99% effective. Our blood pressure medicines aren’t effective like that.”

Prine, a co-founder of the Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline, works with other doctors operating under New York state’s shield law to prescribe and send abortion pills to people across the country. A review of Prine’s call log, stripped of personal information, showed hundreds of requests for pills from Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and other states where it is illegal for women to stop a pregnancy.

File – The Supreme Court is seen on Friday, April 21, 2023, in Washington. The Supreme Court will again wade into the fractious issue of abortion when it hears arguments Tuesday, March 26, 2024, over mifepristone, a medication used in the most common way to end a pregnancy, for a case with profound implications for millions of women no matter where they live in America and, perhaps, the race for the White House. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Anti-abortion groups unsuccessfully petitioned the FDA at least twice before, in 2002 and 2019, to revoke mifepristone’s approval and curtail its availability. But in November 2022, following its victory in overturning federal abortion rights, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit in Amarillo, Texas, claiming the FDA’s safety review of mifepristone was flawed.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and openly opposes abortion, ruled to invalidate the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. An appeals court later said the drug should remain available, but it reinstated restrictions, including prohibitions on telehealth prescriptions and mailing the medication. That ruling was put on hold while the Supreme Court considers the case.

The Biden administration and a manufacturer of mifepristone, Danco Laboratories, have argued in legal filings to the Supreme Court that federal judges do not have the scientific and health expertise to evaluate drug safety and that allowing them to do so undermines the FDA’s regulatory authority.

That view is supported by food and drug legal scholars who wrote in court filings that the lower courts had replaced the “FDA’s scientific and medical expertise with the courts’ own interpretations of the scientific evidence.” In doing so, they wrote, the courts “upend the drug regulatory scheme established by Congress and implemented by FDA.”

In his ruling, Kacsmaryk cited two studies purporting to show an increase in emergency room visits and a greater risk of hospitalizations from medication abortion. They were retracted in February by medical publisher Sage Perspectives. The journal said the researchers erred in their methodology and analysis of the data and invalidated the papers “in whole or in part.”

The research, supported by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, an anti-abortion group that filed a brief in the mifepristone case, “made claims that were not supported by the data,” said Ushma Upadhyay, a professor of reproductive sciences at the UC San Francisco.

Legal scholars say the Supreme Court’s conservative justices have demonstrated a willingness to accept discredited abortion-related health claims. Justice Samuel Alito, writing the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the constitutional right to abortion, cited statements about harm to maternal health presented by the state of Mississippi that contradict mainstream medical consensus.

“If this case is successful, it will be because the Supreme Court decided to ignore evidence that demonstrated mifepristone’s safety and said to a federal agency, the expert on drug safety, ‘You were wrong,’” said Rachel Rebouché, dean of Temple University Beasley School of Law.

The mifepristone case crystallizes “the politicization of science” in abortion regulation, Rebouché said. “But the stakes are getting higher as we have courts willing to strip federal agencies of their ability to make expert decisions.”

Rebouché said that if the Supreme Court overrides the FDA’s expertise in regulating a 24-year-old drug like mifepristone, anti-abortion groups, like Students for Life of America, could find judges receptive to false claims that birth control pills, intrauterine devices, emergency contraception, and other forms of hormonal birth control cause abortion. They do not, according to reproductive scientists and U.S. and international regulatory agencies.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion in Dobbs that the Supreme Court should reconsider the 1965 decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to contraception, Griswold v. Connecticut, and decide whether to return the power to allow or regulate access to birth control to the states.

Tucked into the Alliance Defending Freedom’s filings is what scholars describe as an audacious legal strategy once on the fringes of the conservative Christian movement: an appeal to the Supreme Court’s conservative members to determine that the Comstock Act, a dormant 1873 anti-vice law, effectively bans medical and procedural abortion nationwide.

Passed at a time when the federal government did not give women the right to vote and the prevailing medical literature summed up women’s sexuality by saying that “the majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with sexual feelings of any kind,” the long unenforced law carried a five-year prison sentence for anyone mailing “every article, instrument, substance, drug, medicine or thing which is advertised or described in a manner calculated to lead another to use or apply it for producing abortion.”

References to the Comstock Act appear throughout anti-abortion legal filings and rulings: Kacsmaryk wrote that the act “plainly forecloses mail-order abortion in the present”; the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote if Comstock was “strictly understood” then “there is no public interest in the perpetuation of illegality”; Republican attorneys general threatened legal action against Walgreens and CVS last year citing Comstock as did anti-abortion cases in New Mexico and Texas.

“State attorneys general need to go after and prosecute those who are illegally mailing abortion drugs into their state,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America.

“It’s very simple. If your state has passed a law saying that preborn human beings deserve, at the very minimum, the right not to be starved and killed,” she said, “then those who are committing those crimes and violating the federal Comstock Act by shipping chemical abortion pills over state lines, there should be consequences.”

Tracking abortion pills by mail is difficult — and that’s the point, Rebouché said.

“These more diffuse and mobile ways to terminate a pregnancy,” she said, “really threaten the control that anti-abortion advocates seek to exercise over who and where and how someone can seek an abortion.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

​ Orange County Register 

Feds’ abusive antitrust lawsuit against Apple

• March 25, 2024

The U.S. Department of Justice and 16 state attorneys general – including California’s – last week filed a far-reaching and dubious antitrust lawsuit against Apple accusing it of monopolizing smartphone markets. The legal action is less an indictment of Apple’s business practices and more of an indictment of the Biden administration’s anti-business philosophy – and its ignorance of how the market economy functions and benefits consumers.

“Apple illegally maintains a monopoly over smartphones by selectively imposing contractual restrictions on, and withholding critical access points from, developers,” the feds allege in a statement last week summarizing its legal complaint. The government accuses one of the tech industry’s most innovative companies of stifling innovation. The first obvious point is our government doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “monopoly.”

The iPhone has a 60-percent market share in the United States, which hardly makes it a monopoly. Across the globe, Android phones have a much higher share, approximately 70 percent. A monopoly suggests that a company has total control of a commodity or service – not a dominant share. For comparison’s sake, Harley Davidson controls 50 percent of the above-600cc motorcycle market in the United States, but buyers can still choose from dozens of other brands.

Specifically, the complaint claims that Apple charges too high of a price to app developers for access to their Apple App Store. It says Apple blocks companies that offer apps that can be used on other types of smartphones, blocks mobile cloud-streaming services, excludes cross-platform messaging, limits the functionality of non-Apple smartwatches and halts third-party payment processes (digital wallets). As a result, the lawsuit alleges, this harms competition.

But how does this differ from how any business operates? “When I walk into Target, I know I’m going to be presented with a finite number of products that Target bigwigs somewhere have approved for sale,” explains Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown. “Not just anyone can walk into Target and start selling their own stuff. Nor are rival retailers like Walmart or Kohl’s able to set up shop within Target stores.”

That’s exactly right. Apple has every right to determine who sells what products on its device. If it allows payment systems that don’t conform to its security standards, it will upset consumers and undermine the trustworthiness of its iPhones. If it allows its store to be inundated with trashy apps, then its consumers will lose confidence in its system. Consumers have myriad choices in smartphones, so there’s no governmental interest here.

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Brown argues that the lawsuit stems from a radical point of view. She’s entirely right, as it assumes that “Apple should be legally obliged to help random developers – including those competing directly with Apple Messages – expand their user base.” Should the feds force Toyota dealers to sell Fords in their showrooms, or Harley Davidson to sell Kawasaki’s? Since there are other choices in the market, this is indeed a radical interpretation of antitrust law.

The Biden administration has long shown a misunderstanding of the tech industry, and its big-government interventions are sometimes supported by Republicans. Politicians from both parties have various grievances with tech firms, which encourages them to pursue such nonsense.

The lawsuit will increase costs for consumers and potentially make iPhones less secure. Once again, the government’s economic ignorance comes at a high price.

​ Orange County Register 

Ron Paul: Congressional omnibus is like a bad Hollywood sequel

• March 25, 2024

This weekend’s late-night spending vote in Congress seems like another in an endless series of sequels to a bad suspense movie. Just at the brink of “disaster,” just before the stroke of midnight, Congress pulls off a miracle and passes an omnibus bill to save us from a “government shutdown!”

The heroes have saved the day!

Unfortunately, this latest sequel is as bad as the previous ones, as the American people are left with a massive $1.2 trillion dollar spending package to add to our already $34 trillion in debt. Military spending will, of course, be increased yet again, as the military-industrial complex demands more of our wealth to feed its ever-increasing appetite. And if this military spending increase is not enough, Congressional leadership is promising another huge supplemental bill to further fuel proxy wars in Ukraine and Gaza – with some money to provoke China as well.

Republicans like to talk a good game about reining in spending – especially during election season – but as we learned with this “compromise” and all previous “compromises, it’s all talk. At the end of all the dramatic warnings about shutting the government down, we are left with a Washington-style compromise, meaning the leadership of both parties gets to throw anything and everything they want into the massive bill. Because it is only presented to the rank and file at the last moment before “disaster,” none of the Members get a chance to even read it, much less shape it through amendments and debate.

The Republican House leadership promised the Members 72 hours to read any new bill before a vote, but they broke their promise without hesitation. Members would not have the chance to read the more than 1,000 page bill, which was worked out in secret behind closed doors

There is likely a reason that Congressional leaders did not want Members to get the chance to read the bill. As Rep. Thomas Massie discovered, buried in the bill is funding for 13 year old children to get help with gender transitioning without consent from their parents. He also pointed out that although nowhere was it in the authorization bill, just hours after the omnibus passes the Department of Justice announces the creation of a Federal “Red Flag” center to attack our Second Amendment rights.

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Who knows how many more items like these – and far worse – are deeply buried in the “must-pass” spending bill. Keeping these items from the American people by secretly embedding them in “must pass” legislation increasingly looks like a feature, not a bug. No wonder Congress enjoys such a low approval rate among the American people.

In the end, the bill only passed the Republican-controlled House with the support of Democrats, fueling a growing rebellion against Speaker Johnson among House conservatives.

The media-celebrated “bipartisanship” is not all it’s cracked up to be. It means that both parties embrace policies that are leading to our financial bankruptcy. This further threatens the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and will result in catastrophic changes worldwide that nearly no one in Congress seems capable of imagining.

Republicans capitulating to Democrat demands to “save us” from a government shutdown may temporarily keep the appearance that “this is fine,” but in the end they are making the coming crash all the worse.

Dr. Ron Paul is a former member of the House of Representatives. This article was written for and published by the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. 

​ Orange County Register 

Nearly $2 billion up for grabs as Mega Millions, Powerball soar

• March 25, 2024

By Scott McFetridge | Associated Press

The stars have aligned in the lottery universe like never before, with two jackpots totaling nearly $2 billion.

With an estimated $1.1 billion Mega Millions prize and an estimated $800 million Powerball jackpot, it’s the first time the two nearly national lottery games have each grown so large at the same time.

Both massive prizes are the results of months without a big winner, but the larger jackpots entice more people to play the games, increasing the chance that someone, somewhere, will finally hit it rich.

WHEN ARE THE DRAWINGS?

Up first is the Powerball drawing on Monday night, followed by Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing. If there isn’t a winner, the next chance to win Powerball will be Wednesday night and the next drawing for Mega Millions will be Friday night.

TWO MASSIVE PRIZES

Lottery prizes have been larger than the current jackpots, but it’s the first time both games have offered top prizes of $800 million or more since the games were created decades ago.The prizes have grown so big because it has been months since anyone has won a jackpot.

The last Mega Millions jackpot winner was on Dec. 8. Since then, there have been 30 consecutive drawings without a winner of the grand prize. No one has won the Powerball jackpot since Jan. 1, making for 35 consecutive drawings without a big winner of the game, which holds three weekly drawings.

The Mega Millions prize ranks as the 10th largest in U.S. lottery history and is about half the size of the largest jackpot, a $2.04 billion Powerball prize won in November 2022.

“There’s always an air of excitement around the country when the Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots soar simultaneously,” said Gretchen Corbin, president of the Georgia Lottery Corporation and lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium.

THE DISMAL ODDS

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It’s no mystery why months have passed without a jackpot winner — the odds of snagging the big prizes are terrible.

For Mega Millions, the odds of matching all six numbers are 1 in 302.6 million. Powerball has slightly better odds of 1 in 292.2 million.

To put those odds in perspective, lottery officials note that after a win when jackpots reset at $20 million, total ticket sales typically cover less than 10% of all the possible number combinations. As jackpots climb to $1 billion or more, sales increase dramatically but still usually cover only about half of the possible combinations.

That means, there is still a good chance no one will hit a jackpot.

Of course, millions or people do win smaller prizes that range from $2 to $2 million. Players of both games have about a 1 in 4 chance of winning some kind of prize.

And remember, regardless of how large jackpots grow, the odds of an individual ticket winning never changes.

THE WINNINGS

As massive as the jackpots are, winners should brace for much smaller payoffs than the figures advertised on billboards.

That’s because the state lotteries that run the games promote the total payoff if the prize is paid through an annuity over 30 years. That figure is now roughly double the cash prize, which nearly all winners choose because they want to invest the money themselves rather than opt for a defined payout.

For Mega Millions, that means the $1.1 billion jackpot actually would pay out an estimated $525.8 million cash prize. For Powerball, the $800 million annuity prize would mean an estimated $384.8 million cash prize.

Those prizes will be subject to federal taxes, and many states also tax lottery winnings. There also is a chance that multiple players will hit a jackpot, which would then be split between the winners.

THE GAMES

Mega Millions is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Powerball also is played in those states as well as Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

The Mega Millions numbers are drawn at a TV studio in Atlanta and Powerball draws numbers at a Florida Lottery studio in Tallahassee.

Profits from the games fund state programs.

​ Orange County Register 

FBI warns of a ‘disturbing’ rise in online groups extorting children into self harm

• March 25, 2024

Laura Esposito | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

PITTSBURGH — The FBI is asking parents and caregivers to be on the watch amid a “disturbing” rise in online groups extorting children into performing acts of self harm and taking their own lives on camera.

The predators are meeting juveniles through video games and online chat rooms. They use threats and manipulation to coerce victims into live-streaming violence against themselves, animals, and their families, with the ultimate goal of having the victim commit suicide.

“The (group’s) goal is pure chaos and the death of a person,” Christopher M. Giordano, the assistant agent in charge at the Pittsburgh office, said at a news conference Friday.

The predators are victimizing minors across the country, including in the Pittsburgh area. Agents said they are investigating several cases in the region, but none that has resulted in a death. They declined to release additional details.

After a decline during the pandemic, reports of child abuse and neglect in Pennsylvania are on the rise again — though not reaching pre-pandemic levels yet.

Agents first warned the public about the harmful groups in November, and since then, they said they had seen a rise in cases.

“These groups don’t care how many dead bodies they leave in their wake,” Special Agent Giordano said.

Assistant special agent in charge Chris Giordano speaks about cyber predators and child sextortion case concerns during a news conference at the FBI facility on the South Side on March 22, 2024, in Pittsburgh. Giordano urged parents to keep an eye on their children’s activities on social media and online gaming. (Sebastian Foltz/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

Coercing minors into committing the such acts is how predators elevate their status within the group, Special Agent Giordano said, calling the trend the most horrific thing he’s seen during his more than 20-year career.

Special Agent Giordano asked parents, school administrators and other concerned adults to familiarize themselves with several warnings that their children are being targeted, such as signs of self-harm, suicide ideations, or a newfound fascination with cults. They also cautioned parents to monitor children’s online activity and the applications they use.

“It is happening here,” Special Agent Giordano said. “Recognize these signs or we will lose these kids.”

While many of the predators are overseas, agents said in November that they had identified suspects in the Pittsburgh area and hoped that identifying more victims would move the investigation forward.

It’s estimated that “tens of thousands” of people are members of these groups, but few have been arrested, agents said.

Last month, a 47-year-old man in Michigan was arrested and faces numerous sexual exploitation charges after it was discovered he was affiliated with a group known as 764.

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Under the username “Rabid,” Richard Anthony Reyna Densmore was involved in creating a chat room on Discord to stream minors engaging in self harm and “fansigning,” in which victims cut the predator’s online username into their skin, according to the United States Attorney’s Office.

“As the allegations in this case demonstrate, the online threats to our children and teenagers evolve and grow every day,” Mark Totten, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Michigan, said in February.

“Perpetrators can reach kids anywhere, anytime, with devastating effects on our families and communities.”

According to the Global Network of Extremism & Technology, 764 recruits victimizers from online communities “interested in obscene material and celebrating mass shooters, terrorists, and violent extremists.”

Then, they identify likely victims in online communities where “vulnerable individuals may be found,” such as in spaces used by members of the LGBTQ+ community, minorities, and those with mental illness.

Minors are prominent members of these groups, agents said, falling in line with an increase in juvenile violence and extreme behavior they’re seeing across the country.

“It’s rare (for the FBI) to charge someone as an adult because there are no mechanisms in place,” Special Agent Giordano said. “That’s why it’s important to work with state and local authorities.”

If a child exhibits any troubling behavior, parents, school administrators and others should report it to local police and follow up with the FBI, agents said.

©2024 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Boeing CEO out in broad management shakeup

• March 25, 2024

By David Koenig | The Associated Press

Boeing CEO David Calhoun will step down from the embattled plane maker at the end of the year as part of a broad management shakeup Monday after a series of mishaps at one of America’s iconic manufacturers.

Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit, will retire immediately. Stephanie Pope, the company’s chief operating officer for less than three months, has taken over leadership of the key division.

The company said board Chairman Lawrence Kellner, a former airline chief, won’t stand for re-election in May and will be replaced by a former Qualcomm CEO.

Boeing has been under intense pressure since early January, when a panel blew off a brand-new Alaska Airlines 737 Max. Investigators say bolts that help keep the panel in place were missing after repair work at the Boeing factory.

The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up its scrutiny of the company, including putting a limit on production of 737s. An FAA audit of Boeing’s 737 factory near Seattle gave the company failing grades on nearly three dozen aspects of production.

Airline executives have expressed their frustration with the company, and even minor incidents involving Boeing jets have attracted extra attention.

Also see: Boeing explores shedding some defense assets amid crisis

Fallout from the Jan. 5 blowout has raised scrutiny of Boeing to its highest level since two Boeing 737 Max jets crashed in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia. In all, the crashes killed 346 people.

In a note Monday to employees, Calhoun, 67, called the accident “a watershed moment for Boeing.” that requires ”a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.”

“The eyes of the world are on us, and I know we will come through this moment a better company, building on all the learnings we accumulated as we worked together to rebuild Boeing over the last number of years,” he said.

Boeing’s most significant effort to improve quality has been the opening of discussions about bringing Spirit AeroSystems, which builds fuselages for the Max and many parts for that and other Boeing planes, back into the company.

Mistakes made at Spirit, which Boeing spun off nearly 20 years ago, have compounded the company’s problems. Bringing the work of key supplier Spirit back in-house would, in theory, give Boeing more control over the quality of manufacturing key airplane components.

Calhoun said the two companies are making progress in talks “and it’s very important.”

Calhoun said the decision to leave was his. Calhoun was a Boeing director when he became CEO in January 2020, replacing Dennis Muilenburg, who was fired in the aftermath of the Max crashes. In 2021, Boeing’s board raised the mandatory retirement age for CEO to keep Calhoun in the job.

The company has chosen former Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf to become the new board chairman and to lead the search for Calhoun’s replacement.

The growing pressure on Boeing took some of the surprise out of Monday’s news. Citi analyst Jason Gursky called the shakeup “both predictable and thoughtful.”

Some analysts had viewed the fast-rising Pope a likely successor to Calhoun. Gursky said her move to lead commercial airplanes opened the way for an outsider to become CEO.

Pope, 51, was promoted to Boeing chief operating officer only in January. Before that, she was president and CEO of Boeing’s services business, where she dealt with both airline and military customers, and she was chief financial officer of the airplanes division before that.

Richard Aboulafia, a longtime aerospace analyst and now a consultant at AeroDynamic Advisory, said the management shakeup “is likely to be a pivotal moment in Boeing’s history, and probably a very positive one,” but the outcome depends on the next CEO. He said Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive and acting U.S. Defense secretary who has led Spirit AeroSystems since last fall, would be “a great choice.”

Cai von Rumohr, aerospace analyst at Cowen, said the management changes are “a partial step toward changing its culture to underscore safety and rebuild investor confidence in the company.” He said the fact that Calhoun gave more than eight months’ notice will help the Boeing board make “a considered decision” instead of “a knee-jerk reaction.”

Shares of The Boeing Co. rose about 1% in midday trading.

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​ Orange County Register 

Recipe: Here’s why you should serve a turkey dinner in the spring

• March 25, 2024

Save turkey for holiday feasting? Not anymore. A boneless turkey breast, roasted in just over an hour, can be a midweek entrée, or the cornerstone of a company dinner.

Lean and lovely boned turkey breasts, 1 1/2 to 2 pounds, require very little of the cook’s attention. Once the flavoring ingredients are added and the bird is in the oven, most of the work is done. It’s the perfect amount for a small family, with four large or six small servings. For smaller families, there will be luscious leftovers, perfect for next-day lunches.

Mediterranean Turkey Breast

Yield: 6 servings

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 boneless turkey breast, skin on, about 1 1/2 pounds; see cook’s notes

1 tablespoon olive oil

8 large cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 1/2 cups dry white wine

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced “ready-cut” tomatoes, partially drained

1/3 cup pitted imported black olives

3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano (or 1 teaspoon dried)

Pinch dried red chili flakes

1 tablespoon tomato paste

Salt and pepper

For serving: Fettuccine or penne, cooked al dente and drained

Optional: 1/2-1 teaspoon finely minced lemon peel (zest), colored part only

Optional garnish: 1 tablespoon drained capers

Optional garnish: Sprigs of fresh basil

Cook’s notes: If the turkey breast has a pop-up timer, gently remove it.

To save time, you can substitute a large jar of your favorite prepared tomato-based marinara pasta sauce, such as arrabiatta or tomato with basil and skip Step No. 2.

DIRECTIONS

1. Lightly dust turkey with flour. Heat olive oil in a 5-quart Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Add turkey breast, skin down. Brown well on both sides, about 5 minutes. Remove pan from heat. Remove turkey from pan.

2. Add garlic to pan; the oil in the pan will probably be hot enough to lightly brown the garlic after 1-2 minutes; stir it frequently. Add wine and tomatoes to pan. Return to medium-high heat. Scrape the sides and bottom of pan to loosen any brown bits. Add basil, oregano, chili flakes and tomato paste. Stir to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a simmer.

3. Place turkey breast in center of sauce. Cover and simmer on low heat for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Test turkey breast for doneness using an instant-read thermometer. It should register 170 degrees in thickest part of breast. Taste sauce; adjust seasonings as needed, adding more salt or pepper. If it needs a boost, add a little finely minced lemon zest.

4. If desired, remove skin from turkey. Place hot, cooked pasta on a platter with a lip or in a large, shallow pasta bowl. Place sliced turkey on top, overlapping slightly like a fan. Spoon sauce on top. If desired, sprinkle capers on top. Garnish with sprigs of fresh basil.

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at @CathyThomas Cooks.com.

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​ Orange County Register 

Salt & Straw series spotlights ice cream that tastes like breakfast cereal

• March 25, 2024

Salt & Straw ice cream’s Snap & Crackle Marshmallow Treats flavor returns for the final weekend of the shops’ Cereal-sly Delicious series. Only available this month, the collection includes other flavors inspired by nostalgia-inducing childhood cereals: Pots of Gold & Rainbow, Peanut Butter Brownie Cereal Puffs, Cornflake Cookies with Marionberry Jam, and OffLimit  Zombie with coconut and pandan. The ice cream that Chrissy Teigen inspired is reminiscent of marshmallow cereal treats.

“The hype around this flavor is all thanks to our friend, Chrissy Teigen,” said Tyler Makek, co-founder and head ice cream maker at Salt & Straw. “We first launched this flavor in 2019, and Chrissy became obsessed. She tweeted that she wanted even more brown butter treats inside, so of course, I went straight to our R&D test kitchen to spin and handpack custom pints with double the treats that we named, fittingly, ‘Rice Chrissys.’ ”

Snap & Crackle Marshmallow is Malek’s rendition of marshmallow brown butter treats mixed and toasted into a florentine cookie. It’s churned into a malty, toasted graham-flavored ice cream.

“We love taking a high-brow, fine-dining pastry approach to a low-brow, nostalgic ingredient like Rice Krispies,” adds Malek. “Our fans fell in love with the flavor and the fun story that ensued, so we launched it again in pints during COVID to bring a little joy back into the world. We bake the cereal into a florentine cookie recipe that is an almost perfect homemade replica of the old Rice Krispie Treat Cereal (a personal fave of mine)  and then fold it into this malty, salty ice cream.”

Snap & Crackle Marshmallow Treats is among the ice cream varieties inspired by children’s breakfast cereal being offered at Salt & Straw this month as part of the chain’s “Cereal-sly Delicious” series. (Courtesy of Salt & Straw)

Teigen shared on social media that at the time, her family (she currently has four kids with singer John Legend) were rationing half-bites of ice cream because she savored it so much. Teigen’s enthusiasm led to the ice cream being featured on “The Today Show.” Demand skyrocketed. Salt & Straw was urged to churn more.

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“When it wasn’t on the menu the following years, fans were so upset so of course we had to get back in the kitchen. All together this recipe has a subtly decadent texture and is oozing with nostalgia, and we can’t wait to share this with all the SNAP stans out there for a limited time!” he said.

Salt & Straw announced that Snap & Crackle Marshmallow Treats will return on Friday, March 29. The chain has 13 Southern California locations including Anaheim, Culver City, Glendale, Manhattan beach, Newport Beach, Pasadena, West Hollywood and several in Los Angeles.

Information: saltandstraw.com

​ Orange County Register