CDC ties sick workers to 40% of restaurant food poisoning cases
Food workers who showed up while sick or contagious were linked to about 40% of restaurant food poisoning outbreaks with a known cause between 2017 and 2019, federal health officials said Tuesday.
Norovirus and salmonella, germs that can cause severe illness, were the most common cause of 800 outbreaks, which encompassed 875 restaurants and were reported by 25 state and local health departments.
Investigators with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for better enforcement of “comprehensive food safety policies,” which emphasize basic measures like hand washing and keeping sick workers off the job.
Although 85% of restaurants said they had policies restricting staff from working while sick, only about 16% of the policies were detailed enough to require workers to notify managers and to stay home if they had any of the five key symptoms — including vomiting, diarrhea and sore throat with fever.
About 44% of managers told the CDC their restaurants provided paid sick leave to workers. That’s a problem, according to Mitzi Baum, the chief executive of STOP Foodborne Illness, a nonprofit advocacy group.
She said it means workers are forced to choose between earning money or showing up sick — or there’s social pressure not to leave fellow employees shortstaffed.
About 48 million people a year in the U.S. are sickened by foodborne illness, including 128,000 who are hospitalized and 3,000 who die, according to the CDC.
Capitol rioter sentence: A Pennsylvania restaurant owner who screamed death threats directed at thenhouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi while storming the U.S. Capitol was sentenced Tuesday to more than two years in prison.
Pauline Bauer was near Pelosi’s office suite on Jan. 6, 2021, when she yelled at police officers to bring out the California Democrat so the mob of Donald Trump supporters could hang her.
In January, U.S. District Judge Trevor Mcfadden convicted Bauer of riot-related charges after hearing trial testimony without a jury.
The judge sentenced her to two years and three months of imprisonment, giving her credit for the several months she already has served in jail, court records show.
More than a year before the trial, Mcfadden ordered Bauer to be jailed for several months for violating conditions of her release. She had claimed the court has no authority over her and told the judge that she doesn’t want “any lawyering from the bench.”
Biden remembrance: President Joe Biden marked Tuesday’s eighth anniversary of one of the saddest days of his life, the death of his son Beau, by attending a memorial Mass and visiting his gravesite.
Biden, his wife, Jill, and other family members prayed for Beau Biden during the Mass in St. Joseph on the Brandywine, the Roman Catholic church where the president worships during weekends at his home near Wilmington, Delaware.
Afterward, the family visited Beau Biden’s gravesite in the church cemetery. The president later traveled to Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle for his annual tradition of paying his respects and laying flowers.
Beau Biden was 46 when he died of brain cancer in 2015. His father was vice president at the time.
Christie campaign looms: Allies of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have launched a new super PAC to support his expected candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
Christie has painted himself as the only potential candidate willing to directly take on former President Donald Trump, who is currently leading the GOP field by wide margins.
The former governor and federal prosecutor was a longtime friend and adviser to Trump but broke with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election, and has emerged as a leading Trump critic in the years since.
Christie, who is expected to enter the race “imminently,” according to one person familiar with his thinking who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss his plans, will likely face an uphill battle to the nomination if he goes through with a run.
He is currently polling at the bottom of the large candidate pack, and there appears to be little appetite in the party for an antitrump candidate, even as many Republican voters say they are open to an alternative.
Iowa building collapse:
Five residents of a six-story apartment building that partially collapsed in Davenport, Iowa remained unaccounted for Tuesday, and authorities feared at least two of them might be stuck inside rubble that was too dangerous to search.
The three other missing residents are not believed to have been in the building when it started collapsing Sunday afternoon, said state Rep. Monica Kurth.
After the partial collapse, the city had announced plans to begin demolishing the unstable remains of the 116-year-old brick-andsteel structure as early as Tuesday morning, but they delayed that after a woman was found Monday evening.
Officials now say immediate demolition was never intended, but they did want to quickly stage the site for the tear-down. The woman’s rescue prompted officials to see if they could safely enter and ensure others weren’t inside, but that is extremely difficult when the building could collapse at any time, they said.
NATO troops to Kosovo:
NATO will send 700 more troops to northern Kosovo to help quell violent protests after clashes with ethnic Serbs there left 30 international soldiers wounded, the alliance announced Tuesday.
The latest violence in the region has stirred fear of a renewal of the 1998- 99 conflict in Kosovo that claimed more than 10,000 lives and left more than 1 million people homeless.
The clashes grew out of a confrontation that unfolded last week after ethnic Albanian officials elected in votes overwhelmingly boycotted by Serbs entered municipal buildings to take office.
More violence followed on Monday when Serbs clashed with police and NATO peacekeepers.
Manson follower ruling: A California appeals court said Tuesday that Leslie Van Houten, who participated in two killings at the direction of cult leader Charles Manson in 1969, should be let out of prison on parole.
The appellate court’s ruling reverses an earlier decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who rejected parole for Van Houten in 2020.
She has been recommended for parole five times since 2016.
Van Houten, now in her 70s, is serving a life sentence for helping Manson and other followers kill Leno Labianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary. Van Houten was 19 at the time.