Red 40

That orange dust doesn’t grow on trees: The “chief food innovation officer” for Taco Bell and Pizza Hut says the chain restaurants will be eliminating all artificial ingredients from their offerings.

But the ban doesn’t apply to highly artificial “co-branded” products such as Doritos Locos Tacos, presumably because nothing in nature even remotely resembles the color and flavor of Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch Doritos.

Land shark: The highest-paid CEO in America is the guy who runs Discovery, the cable TV network that edifies America with programming like “Shark Week.”. He was paid more than $156 million in 2014.

Discovery also produces “Dirty Jobs,” which should do a segment on the CEO’s accountant.

Don’t know much about history: On this day in 1944, “No Exit,” the existentialist play about three damned souls punished by being locked into a room together for eternity, was staged for the first time.

If the play were updated for 2015, the room would be equipped with a video screen that plays nothing but “Shark Week.”

— Mark Carlson, Herald staff

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