Category: Business Wires

ATLANTA — Federal health officials have identified lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations across five U.S. states as a source of a widespread outbreak of diarrhea-causing parasite cyclospora.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late Thursday warned consumers not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. A record number of cyclospora cases have been reported in more than 30 states, and experts have said not every recent U.S. illness might be caused by a single source.

A Food and Drug Administration investigation so far has identified a single supplier of the lettuce. The federal warnings to consumers did not identify the company, but Taylor Fresh Foods, of Salinas, Calif., said FDA testing indicated it was “a specific independent farm” affiliated with the company.

The FDA was working with the supplier “to determine if potentially contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce remains on the market,” including in other states, the CDC said. “Taco Bell has committed to stop using any lettuce from the supplier identified by FDA’s traceback investigation.”

Taylor Farms has been tied to foodborne outbreaks in the past. The company said in a statement Friday afternoon that it was voluntarily removing all iceberg lettuce sourced from central Mexico from the U.S. market.

“As a family owned and operated company, we are deeply concerned for those who became ill, their families, and the many Americans whose trust in the safety of their fresh produce has been shaken,” the statement said.

Taco Bell says it will use a different supplier

CDC, FDA, and public health officials in several states have been investigating a multistate outbreak of cyclospora infections.

The illness is not usually life threatening and is typically treated with antibiotics.

On Thursday, ahead of the federal government’s confirmation, Taco Bell issued a statement saying that it had taken “immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states. The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states.”

It’s possible other businesses could be linked to outbreak

In a statement, federal health officials stressed that other “brands, restaurants, retailers, or distribution channels” could be tied to the outbreak as the investigation continues.

Michigan investigators are trying to figure out if the lettuce went to other restaurants or stores because many of the ill people said they didn’t eat at Taco Bell, state health officials said Friday.

There is no evidence the outbreak “is related to poor food handling or preparation at any single restaurant or fast-food chain,” Michigan health officials said in a statement.

For that reason, they continue to recommend that consumers purchase whole heads of lettuce instead of pre-washed, bagged lettuce or premixed salad kits. Taylor Fresh Foods said in its statement that no Taylor Farms-branded salad kits contain iceberg lettuce.

Some past outbreaks linked to the company involved products sold under different brand names.

North Carolina health officials on Friday reported their count has now surpassed 300 cases, but said the recent illnesses there are not considered to be linked to the outbreak in and around Michigan. They said the most commonly reported foods include parsley, cilantro, and lettuce, but it’s not clear if those ingredients were the source of the infections, they said.

Cyclospora cases have been rising for years

Cyclospora is a microscopic, spherical parasite that commonly causes watery diarrhea “with frequent and sometimes explosive bowel movements,” according to the CDC. Outbreaks tend to occur most often in the late spring and summer.

The heat-loving parasite infects the bowels and spreads through feces. In the past, people have been infected by consuming fruits or vegetables that were exposed to feces-contaminated irrigation water.

The illness, called cyclosporiasis, is less common than foodborne illnesses caused by other germs, including salmonella and E. coli. Many cases are never linked to a specific food or other source and, for years, few U.S. cyclospora outbreaks were reported. But the number started rising about a decade ago, with a particularly notable spike in 2018 and 2019.

Previously, 2019 saw the most reported U.S. cyclosporiasis cases, with about 4,700. The current surge has far surpassed that. Michigan — the apparent epicenter of the current outbreak — is reporting more than 5,000 cases, and more than 2,000 additional probable and suspected cases have been reported in other states.

No deaths have been reported. But Michigan officials say more than 100 people in that state have been hospitalized, and health officials say dozens more have been hospitalized in other states.

Experts attribute the increasing trend in cases to climate change and better detection. They also say it’s likely that cyclospora cases historically were underreported, for several reasons.

Some common tests used to check for food poisoning have not been geared to detect cyclospora. Technicians aren’t able to grow the parasite in labs, making it hard to draw evidence from contaminated produce. And it can be hard to figure out what food sick people had in common because sometimes it’s a single ingredient that might be common in multiple recipes — like basil or cilantro.

Taco Bell, Taylor Farms have been tied to past outbreaks

The FDA’s traceback investigation identified a single supplier of iceberg lettuce from Mexico used by the Taco Bell locations where people who got sick ate, federal officials said.

The Mexican food chain is among the restaurants linked to foodborne illness outbreaks in the past.

Taylor Farms also was tied to a 2013 cyclosporiasis outbreak linked to salad mix and a 2024 E. coli outbreak tied to onions served at McDonald’s.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose,” a judge said Monday in a scathing decision that referred one of his lawyers for potential disciplinary action and characterized the $10 billion complaint as an exercise in self-dealing.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams accused Trump and his lawyers of having manipulated the court system when he sued a federal agency under his control, bypassing a requirement that parties in a lawsuit must have adverse interests and laying the groundwork for a settlement that granted him immunity from tax audits and created a fund to compensate allies of the president who say they were unjustly persecuted.

The judge stopped short of explicitly voiding the deal shielding Trump from tax scrutiny but said the government cannot claim that the agreement was the result of a legitimate legal process.

“Whether Executive Branch actors can privately agree to give themselves and their former clients blanket immunities and billions of dollars in tax monies for legally undefined grievances was never an issue advanced to this Court,” said Williams, an appointee of President Barack Obama. “The question is whether the Parties could do so by claiming to be adverse and engaging the legitimacy of a court proceeding. The answer is a resounding ‘no.’”

Ruling comes just ahead of key confirmation hearing

Though the practical impacts of the ruling may be limited since the lawsuit was withdrawn months ago and the administration had already abandoned the $1.776 billion Anti-Weaponization Fund that came out of it, the order nonetheless amounts to a scathing rebuke and tees up a politically uncomfortable line of questioning for Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as faces the Senate Judiciary Committee for his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.

“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” Williams wrote in her ruling.

She added: “The President may be the functional ‘dominus litus’ of the Executive Branch, but as a party to a civil suit, he, as well as all the parties and lawyers before a court, are bound by the rules. Ensuring that our courts are used only for the express purpose created by the Constitution is the obligation of every judge and an obligation that this Court must discharge in light of the matter before it.”

The suit against the IRS and Treasury Department in January accused the federal agencies of a failure to prevent a leak of the president’s tax information to news outlets between 2018 and 2020.

In May, however, the administration announced that it was settling the case and creating a fund to compensate people who believe they’ve been mistreated by the criminal justice system. The fund was quickly shelved amid bipartisan backlash, though the Trump administration has said it intends to proceed with a separate element of the deal affording Trump and family members protection from audits.

From the start, the judge had appeared skeptical of the complaint and assigned a group of attorneys to determine whether there was a conflict in the case since, as sitting president, Trump was suing “entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.”

Even after the settlement was revealed, she directed Trump attorneys to lay out their positions on whether the parties in the case were truly adverse to each other, whether the settlement was premised on fraud, and whether the case should be reopened.

She made clear in her ruling that she was not satisfied by the lawyers’ answers.

“After a review of the record, and the Parties’ statements, the Court declines to adopt or accept the credulous exercise of divorcing President Trump’s current job title from an understanding of what happened here,” she wrote.

Ruling also raises the possibility of disciplinary actions

The judge referred Trump attorney Alejandro Brito, who filed the case, for possible disciplinary action before the state bar in Florida and said another lawyer, Daniel Epstein, will not be granted permission to file within the Southern District of Florida for up to a year.

A spokesperson for the Trump legal team responded to a request seeking comment from Brito with a statement that blamed the IRS for allowing his tax returns to be leaked.

The judge also ordered that her ruling be sent to the state bars in New York and the District of Columbia, where ethics complaints have been filed against Blanche and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.

Williams pointed to Blanche’s congressional testimony in early June in which he revealed that the anti-weaponization fund was no longer moving forward. Though nothing had been filed in court, Blanche appeared confident in his testimony that he “could speak for, and bind, both sides of this matter,” Williams said.

“Acting Attorney General Blanche’s apparent capacity to speak for both Plaintiffs and Defendants, sign a ‘settlement’ document on behalf of all Parties to this action, and then repudiate part of that agreement, demonstrates that there was only one party whose interests were being represented throughout this case,” the judge wrote.

The judge also raised ethical concerns about Blanche and Woodward’s involvement in the settlement given Blanche’s past representation of Trump as well as Woodward’s previous defense of Jan. 6 defendants and a co-defendant in Trump’s classified documents case.

“Instead of either recusing because of their previous representations or vigorously defending this lawsuit as required to do so by DOJ policies and procedures, these lawyers agreed to a ‘settlement’ involving a staggering amount of money potentially benefitting former clients,” she said.

Blanche denied in a CNN interview last spring that he had come up with the settlement terms, saying, “The president has outside counsel, and their counsel, the Department of Justice, not me.”

THESSALONIKI, Greece — A man who was partially sucked out of a dislodged window on a flight from Greece to Germany on Friday was pulled back inside the aircraft by fellow passengers.

The 61-year-old passenger suffered neck and shoulder injuries and friction burns, according to a Greek hospital official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

The incident happened on a morning flight from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki to Memmingen, near Munich, which was operated by Ryanair subsidiary Malta Air. Ryanair, Europe’s largest budget carrier, said in a statement the flight “returned to Thessaloniki shortly after take off when a passenger window dislodged in-flight.”

Passengers told Greek media that they heard a loud bang, oxygen masks dropped and the plane began to lose altitude.

One passenger, identified only as Christina, told Thessaloniki radio that some passengers panicked and screamed and that one passenger was partially sucked out of the window.

“His whole head, neck, shoulders” were pulled out of the window, she said, adding that those seated near him pulled him back in.

“Most people had fallen asleep, we had closed our eyes. We heard a sound, I’d describe it like a tire bursting … but very loud,” she said. “We knew straight away we lost pressure because we lost altitude. … Screams, shrieks, shouting.”

The plane landed normally and passengers returned to the terminal, and one passenger requested and received medical assistance on the ground in Thessaloniki, the airline said in a statement. A replacement aircraft was later provided to fly the passengers to Germany.

The National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. federal agency that investigates aviation accidents and other major transportation incidents, said it was notified that the flight turned back because of “a right engine issue and cabin decompression.”

The agency said it is standing by to assist in the investigation, which will be led by the Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation Committee of the Republic of North Macedonia.

The aircraft was a Boeing 737-800, which can seat up to 189 passengers. The narrow-body plane was delivered new to Ryanair in 2008, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24.

Flight records show that the aircraft climbed past 15,000 feet about six minutes after departure and then immediately descended to about 6,000 feet “to burn fuel for 30 minutes” before returning to Thessaloniki about an hour after taking off, Flightradar24 said.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. military launched a series of strikes against Iran early Wednesday, hours after three merchant ships were struck in the waters off Oman in the Strait of Hormuz.

The renewed attacks from both sides threaten the interim deal reached last month, with the U.S. and Iran both saying the strikes violate that initial agreement. The fresh assaults will add to the difficulty of the negotiations aimed at fully reopening the strait, rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program, and reaching a permanent end to the war launched Feb. 28.

In a statement posted to social media, U.S. Central Command said American forces launched the strikes “to impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway.”

“Iran’s demonstrated aggression was unwarranted, dangerous, and a clear violation of the ceasefire,” the command said in their statement.

The latest exchange followed a similar spate of Iranian attacks on shipping and U.S. retaliation that occurred late last month.

Hours after the three tankers were struck by projectiles, the United States revoked a license that had authorized the sale of Iranian oil as part of the interim deal to end the fighting between the U.S. and Iran.

The new assaults in the fuel-shipping waterway were the most in a single day since late April, according to the U.N. International Maritime Organization. The fresh attacks threatened to choke off the flow of traffic in the strait just as countries hoped to restore normal shipping practices and ease the global economic strain of the war.

A U.S. official said the license was revoked because Iran’s actions in the strait were unacceptable and needed to be met with consequences. The official spoke with the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to share insight into the reasoning behind the move.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One tanker caught fire after getting hit

One tanker was traveling off the coast of Oman when it was hit and caught fire, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said. Iranian state television said the liquefied natural gas tanker came under attack after ignoring warnings but did not directly claim the assault.

The other two ships sustained some damage, but no one was injured, and both continued on their way, the U.K. maritime agency said.

Tehran, which has repeatedly declared that only its approved route through the strait is safe, is suspected of attacking other ships that have used another route close to the Omani shore.

Location details provided by the U.K. agency showed that all three attacks occurred off the coast of Oman or the neighboring United Arab Emirates, making it likely that the ships were using the route near Oman.

Talks between U.S. and Iran are on hold

The U.S. is eager to press ahead with negotiations with Iran aimed at fully reopening the strait, rolling back Tehran’s disputed nuclear program and reaching a permanent end to the war launched Feb. 28.

Previous attacks in the strait have sparked retaliatory strikes by the U.S. Iran then attacked Gulf Arab states.

In peacetime, a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas passed through the channel.

The license issued by the U.S. authorized the production, delivery and sale of Iranian oil through Aug. 21. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said at the time that lengthy talks with senior Iranian officials in Switzerland created a “good foundation for a successful final deal” to end the war.

U.S. sanctions on the purchase of Iranian oil had been in place since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. After the U.S. and Israel launched the war, and after the closure of the strait, the U.S. had authorized the temporary sale of Iranian oil at least twice as an incentive toward a deal.

Meanwhile, talks between Iran and the U.S. appeared to be on hold until after the burial of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the beginning of the war.

Qatar calls attack a violation of international law

One tanker was carrying liquid natural gas south through the strait near Limah, Oman, when a projectile hit the left-side engine room and sparked a fire, the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations center said.

Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, said the Qatari tanker Al Rekayyat was targeted in an “unacceptable attack” on international navigation and global energy security. He called it a “serious and explicit violation” of international law.

In a post on X, he said Qatar holds Iran “fully legally responsible.”

Later Tuesday, the U.K. maritime agency reported that an oil tanker was hit on its left side as it exited the strait near the Omani-Emirati border. A third tanker was struck by a drone off Oman, the agency said.

The Joint Maritime Information Center, a multinational body overseen by the U.S. Navy, told shippers Monday that the route around Oman “has been expanded and remains available for all traffic.”

Ships going to the north on the Iranian route must register with Tehran. Those going south work with Oman and the U.S.

Iran and the United States agreed as part of an interim deal to allow ships to pass without paying charges for 60 days. But Tehran insisted it must control the vessels’ routes and later charge fees for passage, which would upend decades of practice in the waterway.

The U.S. and many Gulf Arab states say they will not agree to Iran charging for passage through the strait.

The data firm Kpler reported that at least 108 ships crossed through the strait last weekend using various routes.

Mourners gather in Qom for Khamenei’s funeral

Authorities flew Khamenei’s body to the Shiite seminary city of Qom, where mourners honored him Tuesday.

Iranian state television aired live images of hundreds of thousands of people walking toward Jamkaran Mosque, just south of Qom, for the funeral service. Shiites believe the mosque once hosted Muhammad al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite imam, who disappeared in the 9th century and is supposed to one day reappear to bring justice to the world.

Khamenei’s son, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has yet to make an appearance at the ceremonies, which began Saturday in Tehran. He is believed to be in hiding after reportedly being wounded in the airstrike that killed his father.

Khamenei’s body arrived late Tuesday in Najaf, Iraq, where it was received by senior officials from both countries. Processions are planned for Wednesday in Najaf and Karbala, the two holy cities of Iraqi Shiism. Iraq has a sizable Shiite population and is home to major Shiite religious sites and centers of learning.

Khamenei, who was 86, will then be returned to Iran to be buried Thursday at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, his birthplace.