Month: October 2024

The president of McDonald’s USA said Wednesday that customers should feel confident ordering from its restaurants as the company seeks to minimize the damage from an E. coli outbreak linked to the chain’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers in multiple states.

Per The Associated Press, the Centers for Disease Control says that at least 49 people in 10 states have gotten sick and one older adult in Colorado has died. Ten people have been hospitalized, including a child who developed a kidney disease called hemolytic uremic syndrome. The CDC opened an investigation on Oct. 15 after the first case of the outbreak occurred on Sept. 27, and Colorado health officials alerted the CDC to an uptick in E. coli cases on Oct. 10. It said infections were reported between Sept. 27 and Oct. 11 in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. One person in Colorado died, with 10 people were hospitalized.

Joe Erlinger, president of McDonald’s USA, told NBC’s “TODAY” show: “We are very confident that you can go to McDonald’s and enjoy our classics. We took swift action yesterday to remove the Quarter Pounder from our menu. This was swift and decisive action by us,” adding that the company is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Erlinger said: “You know, our founder famously said, ‘If you take care of our customers, the business will take care of itself. And so on a day like today given the news we’ve had over the last 24 hours, that’s really our focus. We’re confident that, that we’ll see our way through this and we’ll restore confidence for the American consumer to come to McDonald’s.”

State and local public health officials interviewed people about the foods they ate in the week before they got sick, and of the 18 interviewed, all reported eating at McDonald’s – with 16 people reported eating a beef hamburger, and twelve reported eating a Quarter Pounder.

McDonald’s said it serves 1 million Quarter Pounders in the affected areas every two weeks, and a preliminary investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggests fresh onions that are served raw on Quarter Pounders were a likely source of contamination. McDonald’s said its initial findings from an investigation point that “a subset of illnesses may be linked to slivered onions used in the Quarter Pounder and sourced by a single supplier that serves three distribution centers” adding that the company is searching for a new regional supplier for fresh onions, with Quarter Pounders being removed from menus in one-fifth of its U.S. restaurants.

Officials say it’s possible more illnesses may be reported, as it takes three to four weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak. Symptoms of E. coli infection include high fever over 102 degrees, severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting.

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Officials say that at least four people were killed and 14 injured in a reported “terrorist attack” at the headquarters of one of Turkey’s top defense companies on Wednesday. Turkish media reported explosions and gunfire from the site around 20 miles north of the country’s capital Ankara.

Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya condemned the attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) facility as “heinous.” The facility manufactures fighter jets and other equipment for NATO’s second largest military after the United States.  Speaking to members of the media, Yerlikaya said four people had been killed, and added that 14 people had been injured, three of whom were in critical condition. Yerlikaya said: “May our martyrs rest in heaven, I wish a speedy recovery to our wounded. Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”

There was no immediate information on who might be behind the attack, which comes as Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in Russian city of Kazan, where he is attending the BRICS summit along with leaders from other nations from the global south. The incident happened as Erdogan was meeting Vladimir Putin at a summit in Kazan, with the Russian leader expressing his condolences over the attack.  In a statement Wednesday, Erdogan called the incident “a despicable attack” and confirmed that both attackers had been killed — a man and a woman — with Turkish authorities working to identify them.

Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler alleged the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was behind the attack. The Kurdish separatist movement is labeled a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Güler said in a statement on X.: “We give these PKK scoundrels the punishment they deserve every time, they do not come to their senses. I repeat what I always say, we will not let go of them until the last terrorist is eliminated. NATO stands with our Ally Turkey. We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and are monitoring developments closely.”

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Former film producer Harvey Weinstein has been diagnosed with a form of bone marrow cancer while in jail. Weinstein, 72, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (per NBC News) while serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault at New York City’s Rikers Island prison.

According to the American Cancer Society, chronic myeloid leukemia is a type of cancer that starts in the blood-forming cells of the bone marrow and invades the blood. The organization says approximately 15% of leukemias in adults are CML.

The Hollywood Reporter said that Weinstein is undergoing treatment while imprisoned at Rikers Island. Weinstein’s authorized legal healthcare representative in New York, Craig Rothfeld, refused to confirm reports of Weinstein’s condition and instead expressed “profound dismay at the speculation surrounding Mr. Weinstein’s medical condition. It is both troubling and unacceptable that such private and confidential health matters have become a subject of public discourse. Out of respect for Mr. Weinstein’s privacy, we will offer no further comment.”

Weinstein has experienced multiple health issues amid his ongoing sexual assault trials — in July, Weinstein’s representatives said he was hospitalized for a “myriad of health conditions,” including COVID-19 and double pneumonia, and this past September, he was rushed to Bellevue Hospital for emergency heart surgery after experiencing chest pains, his representatives told ABC News. Weinstein also suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions.

Weinstein has denied all claims of sexual misconduct, saying his encounters were always consensual. The former movie mogul is being prosecuted again for sex crimes after a New York court of appeals overturned Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction and ordered a retrial. He had been found guilty of criminal sexual assault and third-degree rape and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

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Prosecutors announced on Tuesday that former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and engaging in interstate prostitution. The investigation involved the FBI and the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit.

The FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said that Jeffries and two co-defendants, Matthew Smith and James Jacobson, were arrested Tuesday morning as part of a criminal sex trafficking investigation.  Smith and Jeffries are in a relationship. Jeffries, who was the chairman and CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch from 1992 to 2014, has been accused in civil lawsuits of exploiting young men for sex at parties he hosted at his Hamptons estate in New York, London, Venice and elsewhere along with Smith.

An indictment containing more than a dozen counts, and includes allegations of sex trafficking between December 2008 and March of 2015. The three men are accused of operating an international sex trafficking and prostitution business, with Jeffries allegedly leveraging his position as CEO of the company to recruit young men for parties in the U.S. and abroad by suggesting they could become models for the fashion company, according to the indictment.

Breon Peace, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said: “Powerful individuals for too long have trafficked and abused for their own sexual pleasure young people with few resources and a dream – a dream of securing a successful career in fashion or entertainment. To anyone who thinks they can exploit and coerce others by using the so-called ‘casting couch’ system, this case should serve as a warning. Prepare to trade that couch for a bed in federal prison.”

The indictment alleges that the trio paid dozens of men to travel around the world to engage in sex acts, and mentions 15 alleged victims, identified as John Does #1-15.  The indictment said many of the men were coerced, led to believe that attending the events would yield modeling opportunities with Abercrombie or otherwise benefit their careers, and that not complying with requests for certain acts during the sex events could harm their careers.

The defendants are expected to make appearances in the jurisdictions where the men were arrested in Florida and Wisconsin before they’re brought to Central Islip in Long Island, New York, at a later date for arraignment.

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The five men who comprised the “Central Park Five” (and now call themselves the ‘Exonerated Five’) have filed a defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, accusing him of spreading “false, misleading and defamatory” statements about their 1989 case during the Sept. 10 presidential debate. The lawsuit states: “Defendant Trump’s conduct at the September 10 debate was extreme and outrageous, and it was intended to cause severe emotional distress to Plaintiffs.”

According to a new court filing filed on Monday in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Trump said that the five men — Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise — pleaded guilty when they were tried in connection with the assault and rape of a woman who had been running in Central Park on April 19, 1989, and that the victim had died.

During the debate, Trump responded to a statement from Vice President Kamala Harris in which she revisited his full-page ad in The New York Times in the wake of the incident that called for the execution of the Central Park Five when he said the following: “[T]hey come up with things like what she just said going back many, many years when a lot of people including Mayor [Michael] Bloomberg agreed with me on the Central Park Five. They admitted — they said, they pled guilty. And I said, well, if they pled guilty they badly hurt a person, killed a person ultimately. And if they pled guilty — then they pled we’re not guilty.”

However despite Trumps statements, the five men (who were then teenagers) accused of the crime always maintained their innocence, despite being convicted and serving years in prison. A decade after the attack, a different man confessed to the crime which was confirmed through DNA analysis, and the men’s convictions were vacated in 2002. Wise (who was still in prison at the time) was released early and the group went on to sue New York City in 2003. Ten years later the suit finally settled for $41 million, while the city never admitted to any misconduct by its police department or prosecutors.

Attorneys representing the five men are seeking monetary damages over Trump’s statements, which they say have caused them “severe emotional distress and reputational damage.” Shanin Specter, an attorney for the five, said Monday: “Unfortunately the civil justice system doesn’t permit us to require Mr. Trump to apologize or retract his statement. The most that we can obtain are money damages both to compensate these five men for Mr. Trump’s damaging their reputations and for punishment of Mr. Trump for making these statements.”

In response to the lawsuit, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, said Monday: “This is just another frivolous, Election Interference lawsuit, filed by desperate left-wing activists, in an attempt to distract the American people from Kamala Harris’s dangerously liberal agenda and failing campaign.”

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On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an attempt from ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen to sue Trump and other federal officials.

The high court ruled in favor of a lower court decision that says Cohen is not able to pursue a lawsuit which asserts that then-President Trump, then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr and other federal prison officials had allegedly violated Cohen’s civil rights by putting him in solitary confinement for writing a tell-all book about the former president.  Cohen had been released to home confinement during the pandemic while serving his prison sentence, and said one of his release conditions was to refrain from criticizing Trump. He contends he was thrown back in jail and then into solitary confinement after questioning the legality of that condition.

Cohen initially asked the Supreme Court to review his retaliation claim against Trump in July, after a panel with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Cohen’s legal effort to hold Trump accountable for his 2018 imprisonment (Cohen was serving a three-year sentence after pleading guilty to coordinating payoffs to buy the silence of women who said they had sexual affairs with Trump before he was elected).  New York’s U.S. Southern District Judge Alvin Hellerstein later ordered Cohen’s permanent release from federal confinement, saying his return to prison had been in retaliation for his criticism of the former president.

Cohen recently told NBC News that if Trump is re-elected and without a deterrent or other safeguard in place that a second Trump presidency will be about “just locking people up.”  In his filing, attorneys for Cohen say he was trying to stop other U.S. citizens from “being imprisoned because they refuse to waive their First Amendment right or because they express criticism.”

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