DOE inspector who blew lid on tainted food in NYC schools: Retaliation ‘destroyed’ career

 A veteran New York City Department of Education food inspector who was among those to blow the whistle on tainted food being served to public school kids claims he’s been the victim of retaliation that’s “destroyed” his career and reputation.

Reneto Serro, 43, alleges he was abruptly sidelined and stripped of his duties in the DOE’s School Food division after it emerged he leaked photos of the dodgy lunches — including chicken tenders laden with plastic, bones and metal — to the media in October 2016.

The employee, who has worked in the division for more than two decades, spoke of his ordeal after former DOE executive Eric Goldstein was convicted last Wednesday of taking bribes in exchange for turning a blind eye to the spoiled food Serro helped expose.

“I did it to save children,” Serro told The Post. “I paid the consequences because I stood up.”

“Honestly, I never thought the Department of Education would concentrate to destroy the person who did [the whistleblowing]. I would think they would stop what happened … and they’re going to change the way they do business,” he added.

Serro said he started going to his bosses in early 2015 to informally flag his concerns about improper purchasing practices and multiple complaints of moldy pizza and tainted chicken fingers being served up in city schools.

Reneto Serra said he’s been the victim of retaliation after he called out the DOE for serving tainted school lunches.

Matthew McDermott

He called for his bosses to put the food, which had been contracted in by outside companies, including the Texas-based meat supplier Somma Foods, on hold until an independent probe was carried out.

But Serro alleges those above him ignored his concerns and told him it wasn’t his decision.

At the time, Serro said he was “afraid” to launch a formal complaint with the school district’s Special Commissioner of Investigation because others had told him cases were often referred back to the DOE to be probed.

“I was afraid to get punished,” he said.

Former NYPD sergeant and DOE food vendor, Pat Russo, reached out to SCI anonymously on his behalf in 2015 but they wouldn’t take up the case because Serro wouldn’t give up his identity.

Former DOE executive Eric Goldstein was convicted last Wednesday of taking bribes in exchange for turning a blind eye to the spoiled food.

DOJ

Serro said he was so “concerned” someone would get hurt that he opted to expose the rotten food saga publicly.

Immediately after the photos of tainted food surfaced in media reports in October 2016, an investigator with the DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation was brought in to probe the source of the leaks.

“They got that investigator to come down to open an investigation. Not to fix the problem, but to find out who was the rat,” Serro said, adding that they trawled through his emails and computer to find proof.

Serro claims the alleged retaliation against him started that day — and hasn’t stopped since.

For the past seven years, he insists he’s had zero job responsibilities — despite retaining his food inspector title and salary — and that he has been subjected to hostile working conditions.

Serro said he started going to his bosses in early 2015 to flag his concerns about improper purchasing practices and complaints of moldy pizza and tainted chicken fingers being served up in city schools.

DOJ

“I sit at my desk, I clock-in-clock-out, that’s what I do all day,” Serro said.

“They put me in the corner. They don’t give me any work,” he continued. “I’ve been asking for work, they don’t want to give it to me. They’re refusing to give me work.

“That’s retaliation. Everything happened after the first article came out.”

He also accused his bosses of urging coworkers to file a flurry of workplace complaints against him in November and December of 2016 after the media leaks, including for stealing time and one for sexual harassment.

A subsequent probe by the DOE’s Office of Special Investigations ruled that Serro was found to have sexually harassed the employee, though the other complaints were unsubstantiated, according to records reviewed by The Post.

Serro alleges he was abruptly sidelined and stripped of his duties in the DOE’s School Food division after it emerged he leaked photos of the dodgy lunches.

DOJ

After the harassment allegations were made, Serro said he approached SCI — the school district’s watchdog — in March 2017 to officially probe the alleged retaliation against him.

SCI, however, turned down the case and ruled he wasn’t eligible for whistleblower status because, in part, he’d only made an official complaint to the watchdog about the tainted food after he had already been sidelined.

“The whistleblower statute requires that the report of wrongdoing to one of the designated agencies precede the allegation of retaliation,” the SCI said in their ruling. “In other words, one can’t claim that a prior act by a supervisor was in retaliation for a claim of wrongdoing reported after the action took place.”

The SCI also said the sexual harassment claim against Serro was a “plausible alternative explanation” for his reassignment.

Serro, however, alleges the sexual harassment complaint was completely false and that he wasn’t ever given an opportunity to respond to the allegations, or be interviewed by investigators, before the determination was made.

“I’ve never harassed anyone in my life. I’ve been working for the Department of Education for 20 years. Never in my life,” he said.

Serro said he agreed to undergo sexual harassment and sensitivity training in 2019 to avoid being fired.

“They gave me two options – take the class or we get you fired,” he claimed, adding that he needed “to pay the bills.”

Serro subsequently filed a joint lawsuit in 2019 against the DOE alleging he had been retaliated against. Russo, the ex-NYPD cop, and Debra Ascher, a former supply manager for school foods division, are also plaintiffs in the suit, which is still pending.

SCI turned down Serro’s case and ruled he wasn’t eligible for whistleblower status because he’d only made an official complaint to the watchdog about the tainted food after he had already been sidelined.

DOJ

He has also submitted a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is currently under review.

Like Serro, Ascher claims she was punished after complaining to superiors about tainted chicken being served up at schools. Ascher, however, was granted whistleblower status because she lodged an official complaint about the dodgy food before she was pulled from her job.

She was among those to testify at last week’s bribery trial where Goldstein — the former head of the department’s Office of School Support Services — was found guilty by a Brooklyn federal jury of extortion, conspiracy and bribery charges for the kickback scheme linked to Somma Foods.

Somma owners Michael Turley, Brian Twomey and Blaine Iler were also convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion and bribery.

The DOE didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment regarding Serro’s retaliation.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/doe-food-inspector-who-blew-lid-on-tainted-food-in-nyc-schools-claims-retaliation-destroyed-his-career/

Memo to critics: Only folks who don’t qualify will lose their Medicaid

 Medicaid advocates are demanding the federal government to stop states from removing people from the program after 25 states and the District of Columbia dropped more than 1.5 million enrollees in less than three months.

The activists claim most of these are “procedural disenrollments” due to states’ failure to contact beneficiaries because of outdated contact information or because the enrollee did not complete a renewal due to poor state instructions.

Yet of those who’ve been “disenrolled,” most will lose Medicaid for a simple reason: They’re not eligible for it, and huge numbers are no longer even getting care via Medicaid — even as taxpayers send millions each month to HMOs, etc. to “cover” them.

The disenrollments are coming after the resumption of an eligibility redetermination process after a three-year pandemic pause.

States normally perform periodic redeterminations to account for changes in beneficiaries’ circumstances that could change their eligibility.

People die, move out of state, get a new job that provides health insurance or higher income that exceeds Medicaid thresholds.

Or they have changes in their family circumstances.

Most people who’ve been “disenrolled” will lose Medicaid because they’re not eligible for it, according to Zinberg.

AP/Alex Slitz

The March 2020 Families First Coronavirus Response Act offered states enhanced Medicaid matching funding (a 6.2% increase) in return for ceasing the removal of ineligible enrollees during the public-health emergency — the “continuous enrollment” condition.

Every state took the cash.

Enrollments surged by 23 million people. The increase was not due to increased poverty.

Even as unemployment fell following an early pandemic spike, Medicaid enrollment continued to grow.

Many current enrollees are likely ineligible for Medicaid benefits.

Medicaid’s improper payment rate was already 21%, or $86.5 billion in annual federal misspending before the pandemic and annual redeterminations were suspended.

The problem with ineligible recipients is not merely that some people receive health insurance to which they are not entitled.

About 90% of beneficiaries are enrolled in managed care, mostly in comprehensive managed-care organizations that receive a per-member, per-month payment to provide services.

States are making monthly premium payments for people with duplicate coverage from employer insurance, insurance in another state or enrollment in a non-group plan or for people who are dead.

Insurers are receiving payments for beneficiaries who will never use services.

This fails to preserve resources for legitimate Medicaid beneficiaries or other state priorities.

It also wastes the federal dollars that fund most Medicaid expenditures.

Congress ended the continuous-enrollment requirement as of March 31, 2023, and began to phase out the enhanced federal Medicaid payments to states over the course of 2023.

States have up to 12 months to initiate, and 14 months to complete, a renewal (or disenrollment for those determined to be ineligible) for all Medicaid enrollees.

The Urban Institute estimates nearly 18 million people could be pared from the rolls.

Some states, anxious to end wasteful spending, prepared.

In a recent Paragon Health Institute program, representatives from Arkansas and Iowa described years-long programs to update addresses and other enrollee information and to alert providers and enrollees that eligibility redeterminations were coming.

Both states started redeterminations focused on those likely ineligible and have begun disenrollments.

Other states seem less concerned.

The activists claim most “procedural disenrollments” are due to states’ failure to contact beneficiaries because of outdated contact information or because the enrollee did not complete a renewal.

Getty Images for SEIU Care Campaign

Oregon will not start removing anyone until Oct. 1.

While Florida has already disenrolled 303,000, New York will not start disenrollments until July.

Advocacy groups and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services claim most coverage losses are due to states’ failure to contact enrollees or enrollees’ difficulty navigating the renewal process.

These administrative problems are likely minimal.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that all states are now updating enrollee contact information and instituting new administrative measures to diminish mistaken Medicaid terminations.

Iowa and Arkansas officials reported that the primary reason people are not responding to renewal inquiries is that they’re already covered by other insurance.

Florida officials have told my Paragon colleagues that most non-responders have not used any Medicaid services in the past year.

Nearly all those no longer eligible for Medicaid will qualify for other coverage through employer plans, subsidized ACA exchange plans or other non-marketplace insurance.

Even those who remain eligible but are mistakenly removed from coverage have little risk of experiencing gaps in care.

Beneficiaries are eligible for three months of retroactive coverage if it is later determined they are eligible.

Hospitals are allowed to assume presumptive eligibility without verifying eligibility information.

Finally, a robust appeals process is in place for renewal denials.

The sky is not falling. In fact, the sky is clearing as wasteful expenditures finally end.

Joel Zinberg is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and director of the Paragon Health Institute’s Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/memo-to-critics-only-folks-who-dont-qualify-will-lose-their-medicaid/

Hunter Biden filmed himself smoking crack behind the wheel, driving 172mph to Vegas

 Hunter Biden apparently filmed himself smoking crack behind the wheel of a car in 2018 — the same year he took a picture of himself driving 172mph in a Porsche, according to thousands of newly uploaded photos from the first son’s abandoned laptop.

Biden, 53, is seen flashing what looks like a crack pipe and smoking it while driving through a residential neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, on June 12, 2018, according to the photos uploaded by Marco Polo, a nonprofit firm headed by former Donald Trump aide Garrett Ziegler.

Less than two months later, he was seen racing to Las Vegas on August 1, when he took a snap of the car’s dashboard, revealing that he was going at least 172mph.

The pictures were found on Biden’s infamous laptop, which also contained messages to multiple women waiting for him to arrive in Sin City for a hot tub party, The Daily Mail reported Sunday.

“I don’t have a bathing suit and I really really wanted to wear a cute bathing suit,’ one woman named “Cheryl,” wrote to President Biden’s troubled son. “But I don’t have any money to buy one so then I’m just going to have to be naked right?”

The Vegas party, however, appeared to be more than some of the women expected, with another writing: “Honestly babe the problem is you have too many girls there.” 

She added: “I understand you like a lot of girls. That’s fine do one at a time.”

The Vegas trip appears to have taken place during the weeks-long bender Hunter Biden admitted to partaking in during a January 2019 conversation with a hooker, which was caught on film when he forgot to turn off his laptop camera after having sex with her.

A picture from Hunter’s infamous laptop shows him speeding down a highway to Las Vegas at 172mph.

Marco Polo

Another photo shows him flashing a crack pipe while driving in an Arlington, Virginia, neighborhood.

Marco Polo

The speeding incident was only one of several where Biden appeared to disregard traffic and safety laws while snapping photos of himself.

The aforementioned Virginia incident shows Biden driving down Old Dominion Drive, near the Washington Golf and Country Club, showing off a crack pipe in hand.

Biden was driving himself to the Washington Dulles Airport after missing his flight to Los Angeles the day before, according to the records uploaded by Marco Polo.

Biden was seen allegedly smoking crack.

Marco Polo

While the two incidents didn’t end in accidents, Biden was not so lucky in the past, with his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” recounting one such case.

The first son wrote that on October 27, 2016, he “nodded off behind the wheel” while high and driving on a highway outside Palm Springs, California.

“Waking up an instant later, I found myself in midair, the car having jumped a soft curb on the passing lane and soaring at eighty miles an hour into a cloudless blue sky, heading into the gulch that divided I-10,” he wrote.

Hunter was driving a Porsche during the Vegas trip on his way to meet multiple hookers at a hot tub.

Marco Polo

“The car spun into the westbound lanes–the same direction as the oncoming traffic. Miraculously, there was a gap in the traffic until my car stopped dead in the emergency lane, hissing and coughing.”

While Biden has since gotten clean, the consequences of his drug use and laptop photos and files continue to plague him, with the first son currently facing a civil lawsuit from Delaware computer repair shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac.

Isaac filed a defamation suit last year, alleging Biden left the store owner to twist and turn for years while falsely insisting that the laptop was not his, but that it had been stolen or hacked instead.

Biden has also agreed to plead guilty to federal tax and firearms charges stemming from US attorney for Delaware David Weiss’ years-long investigation into his tax affairs.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/02/hunter-biden-filmed-himself-smoking-crack-behind-the-wheel/

CytomX in $30 Million Private Placement from BVF Partners

 Financing is expected to extend cash runway into the 2nd half of 2025 based on current operating plans, enabling the Company to reach multiple clinical milestones -

- $30 million initial investment and up to $90 million in total potential funding -

CytomX Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: CTMX), a leader in the field of conditionally activated, localized biologics, today announced that it has entered into an agreement with BVF Partners L.P. (“BVF”) for a private placement that is expected to result in initial gross proceeds of approximately $30 million. In the private placement, CytomX is selling pre-funded warrants to purchase up to 14,423,077 shares of common stock, accompanying Tranche 1 warrants to purchase up to 5,769,231 shares of common stock and accompanying Tranche 2 warrants to purchase up to 5,769,231 shares of common stock, at a combined price of $2.08 per share of pre-funded warrant and accompanying common warrants, representing a premium of 25% to volume weighted average price over the prior 30 trading days through June 28, 2023.

Each pre-funded warrant will have an exercise price of $0.00001 per share of common stock, will be exercisable immediately and will be exercisable for 20 years. The accompanying Tranche 1 common warrants will have an exercise price of $4.16 per share of common stock, will be immediately exercisable and expire on July 3, 2025 and the accompanying Tranche 2 common warrants will have an exercise price of $6.24 per share of common stock, will be immediately exercisable and expire on July 3, 2026.

CytomX anticipates aggregate initial gross proceeds from the offering will be approximately $30 million, which are expected to extend the Company’s cash runway into the second half of 2025, based on CytomX’s current operating plan. CytomX also has the potential to receive up to an additional $60 million if all warrants are fully exercised for cash.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cytomx-therapeutics-announces-30-million-120000376.html

Zelensky Begs Military "Show Results" Pre NATO Summit As West's Ardor Wanes

 In a rare public sign of desperation, Ukraine's President Vladimir Zelensky is pleading for his military to "show results" ahead of the major NATO summit to be convened in Lithuania on July 11. This comes amid rumblings out of Washington that US arms to Kiev could slow or be cut if Ukrainian forces are incapable of advancing. 

Over the weekend Zelensky spoke to several journalists and addressed the past several days of headlines out of the West which have suggested the counteroffensive could be failing. He explained that "torrential rains" had "slowed down some processes quite a bit" - but that the reality still is that "every kilometer" of liberated territory and gains "costs lives".

He urged more Western weapons while blaming that gains from last fall had been lost in part because of the late arrival of artillery. His top generals have also been complaining about lack of air superiority, while continuing to press for F-16 fighter jets.

"We stopped because we couldn’t advance. Advancing meant losing people and we had no artillery," he asserted in the press briefing. "We are very cautious in this aspect. Fast things are not always safe."

He then emphasized that he has a duty to his troops and to not take risks that are unnecessary: "If they tell me that two months will pass and thousands of people will die, or three months and fewer people will die, of course, I will choose the latter," Zelensky said. "Between time and people, the most important thing is people."

Related to the pressing urgency of more and continued Western military support, Zelensky specifically called out Republicans in US Congress. Again this comes against the backdrop of Kiev's concerns over waning enthusiasm for the war effort out of Washington and the West at a sensitive moment of NATO's annual summit.

He slammed the "dangerous messages coming from some Republicans" - but praised the Thursday visit of former Vice President Mike Pence. 

"Mike Pence has visited us, and he supports Ukraine. First of all, as an American, and then as a Republican," Zelensky said. "We have bipartisan support. However, there are different messages in their circles regarding support for Ukraine. There are messages coming from some Republicans, sometimes dangerous messages, that there may be less support."

He stressed that maintaining bipartisan support is "the most important thing for Ukraine" regardless of who wins the 2024 US presidential election. He also at one point said, "NATO without Ukraine is not NATO." The UK has meanwhile remained the most outspoken advocate of Kiev's entry into NATO, while Germany and the US have voiced caution and reluctance on the question of eventual full membership. 

With the NATO summit now less than ten days away, the race is on for Ukraine's forces to "show results".

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/zelensky-implores-military-show-results-nato-summit-amid-waning-enthusiasm-west

Stroll demands change at Spa after teenager's death

 Aston Martin Formula One driver Lance Stroll called for changes to Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps circuit after Dutch racer Dilano van't Hoff died in a junior series race.

The 18-year-old, who was involved in a multi-car collision during a wet Formula Regional European Championship race on Saturday, was the second single-seater fatality in four years at the Belgian grand prix circuit.

"It's a tragic day for motorsport. We lost a driver today, so I just want everyone to think about that," said Stroll after finishing fourth in a Formula One sprint race at Austria's Red Bull Ring.

"It breaks my heart what happened and I think Eau Rouge at Spa needs some looking into because we've lost two drivers now in the span of four or five years.

"I think that corner has to change. I think it's way too dangerous and I think every time we go through there there's an accident waiting to happen. Today it happened again and we lost a young kid and it's not fair."

Spa hosts the Belgian grand prix on July 30.

Eau Rouge is the name given to the most famed corner on a circuit with a deadly record spanning decades but that left-handed kink leads into the fast and steep Raidillon right-hander and crest.

French racer Anthoine Hubert died in August 2019 in a multi-car accident at the exit of Raidillon in an F2 race at Spa-Francorchamps, with his car hitting barriers and bouncing back onto the track.

Organisers made changes to that part of the circuit after that crash, notably by enlarging run-off areas and moving back barriers.

Van't Hoff won the 2021 Spanish F4 championship and was racing for the Dutch MP Motorsport team on the ladder that leads to Formula One.

Media reports said his car crashed on the long Kemmel straight that follows on from Raidillon.

https://au.sports.yahoo.com/stroll-demands-change-spa-another-172744121.html