The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service did not change its grilling chart on Friday. Poultry — whole or ground or in pieces — reaches 165°F. Ground beef, pork, lamb and veal reach 160°F. Whole cuts reach 145°F with a three-minute rest. Fish reaches 145°F. Pre-cooked hot dogs and leftovers are reheated to 165°F. [1]

The paper's Thursday brief on the same chart framed the three numbers as the household-action stack. Friday added two distribution surfaces. Michigan's Department of Agriculture and Rural Development published its annual Memorial Day food-safety reminder Monday and distributed it Friday across the state's local-news network: handwashing, raw-meat separation, cooler discipline, and the 40-to-140°F danger zone for perishables. [2] Indiana Governor Mike Braun's Department of Health re-issued its drowning-prevention advisory for the holiday weekend — unintentional drowning is the leading cause of injury death for children one to four, and CDC's annual baseline is about 4,000 deaths a year. [1]

The service register the paper has been counting all week — heat and medicine storage, USDA temperatures, FDA recalls, drowning, backyard chicken Salmonella exposure, overdose, measles, hantavirus — held into Friday without expansion. The recurring eight-item list is the artifact. No central source pre-positions all of them. Households assemble the register on their own from local TV, state agriculture pages, and a CDC outbreak page that needs three clicks to find. The chart is the smallest piece of it, and the easiest. Color is not doneness. The thermometer is the read. [1]

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago