After New York State Supreme Court Judge Tingling struck down the soda ban on Monday as "arbitrary and capricious," the administration confidently filed a notice the following day to get this whole thing sorted out. And it looks like we have a time frame: an appeals court has agreed to hear the soda ban case in the first week of June. Restaurants have, like, four months to gorge on fizz.

Moving on. Yesterday, we went into some detail about a little law making its way through the Mississippi statehouse; the legislation, deemed the "Anti-Bloomberg" act, would revert the power of consumer regulation back into the legislature's hands.

By doing so, no Mississippian municipality can ban sodas or put those pesky letter grades on restaurants. Take that, Big Government!

"You know, Saturday Night Live couldn't write this stuff."

Enter Bloomberg.

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Yesterday afternoon, we were seriously busy writing up a post entitled "The Basics To Today's Soda Ban" a la the one we wrote for the recent MetroCard hike. It was meant to be a symbolic post, an end to the drama revolving around this damn ban and a settlement on its intended enactment this fateful morning in March. But then yesterday happened.

As you probably have heard by now, a New York Supreme Court judge named Milton Tingling Jr. (who just happened to preside over a case involving fizz) struck down the soda ban, arguing that the bill was "fraught with arbitrary and capricious consequences." Yes, the day before the soda ban was to take effect, it was struck down for its obvious loopholes - all of which led Bloomberg to demand Albany take on a statewide ban.

So what happens next? How long do we have our Big Gulps for now? Is all hope lost for City Hall to have its anti-pop way?

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The only way you haven't heard about the flu outbreak is if you are still indoors fighting last year's flu. It's here, it's disgusting, and it's a big fan of the film Contagion. While a new flu vaccine called "Flublok" was just approved today an FDA spokesperson told the NYTimes that the timing of the approval is unrelated to the current flu season.

However, just because you will most likely get the flu that doesn't mean you have to do it without flare. Here's how to do the flu New York-style.

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The New York City Health Department yesterday renewed a recommendation to gay men who've had sex with a man they met via-a digital "app": get a meningitis vaccine.

In the last 12 months, there have been a total of 11 cases of meningitis within the City's gay community, two of which were diagnosed within the last five weeks.

According to the Health Department, the disease is prevalent amongst men who've met their sexual partners "through a Website, digital application ('app'), or at a bar or party since September 1."

The recommendation is specifically geared towards those who had sex with a man they met in the Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Bushwick, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, Dumbo, East New York, Prospect Heights or Williamsburg neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

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If you're a man who's had "intimate contact with another man" whom you met on the Internet, the New York City Health Department recommends that you get a meningitis vaccination following a recent spike in the rare/potentially fatal disease.

In addition to Internet rendezvous, the Health Department says that any man who's had intimate contact with another man he met at a bar, party or via-a mobile app should also get the vaccine.

If you have HIV and fall under any of the aforementioned categories, the Health Department says you run an even higher risk of contacting the disease.

As we reported last week, there have been four cases of the disease in several boroughs, including one fatality, in the past four weeks. 

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Today is World Rabies Day, and to celebrate we're going to hit you with a pretty alarming statistic: Rabies, a disease for which there has been a vaccine since 1885, kills 55,000 people every year.

Granted, only two of those deaths happen in the United States, but that's still two too many, veterinary officials say.

Dr. Charles Rupprecht, chief of the rabies program at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, says rabies is 100 percent preventable, noting that "your local veterinarian plays a key role in controlling rabies."

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The New York City Health Department just issued a health alert for "gay men and men who have sex with men."

We're not experts, but "men who have sex with men" probably would have covered all bases.

Regardless, if you're a man having any type of sex with a man -- gay, bisexual, whatever -- you run the risk of contracting meningitis, according to Health officials.

The Health Department says there have been four cases of the disease in several boroughs, including one fatality, in the past four weeks. 

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Mayor Mike Bloomberg has declared war on sodium, baby formula, sugar and, most recently, soda. But if Hizzoner is so concerned with your health, where's the war on Wheaties?

Wheat is actually pretty horrible in terms of its ability to turn people into unhealthy fatsos. And unlike soda, it apparently has crack-like addictive properties that can turn the average person into a wheat-aholic.

The problem with wheat isn't just the gluten it contains -- wheat apparently has "hidden" qualities that make it "a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and so many other modern ills."

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As SUNY Downstate Medical Center reels from recent management changes and layoffs, area pols are demanding that Gov. Andrew Cuomo help the hospital.

Today, a group of Brooklyn electeds sent a letter to Cuomo asking for immediate assistance so that critical services and medical training could continue at the Center -- which has a bigtime operating deficit -- as well as at associated clinics.

Downstate's Long Island College Hospital has already shed 150 employees, and some 1,000 layoffs are probably going to happen in the next year.

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A few days ago, we wrote about the U.S. whooping cough outbreak -- which is the worst in 50 years.

Pertussis can prove deadly to infants and toddlers, but healthy adults aren't likely to succumb to this illness. (However, it's still a good idea to get a booster shot! Details here.)

Whooping cough cases have outright ballooned in Washington; state health authorities actually declared epidemic status earlier this year, there has been a 13-fold increase in diagnoses since 2011.

Washington -- though home to a lot of highly-educated, tech savvy people -- is also the epicenter of the U.S. anti-vaccination movement. Over the last few decades, more and more parents there have opted out of inoculating their kids against preventable illnesses. As some 90 percent of any population must be inoculated for vaccines to work -- AKA "herd immunity" -- many are blaming Washington's anti-vax camp for spurring the disease's spread.

Of course, this brings up some questions: What the hell is the anti-vax movement, anyway? Where does it come from and, perhaps most importantly, why don't people want to protect their kids?

To answer your queries, we've prepped a brief history...

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