U.S. Courts News Reporter
— ANALYSIS —
Today the U.S. Court for the Western District of Texas is giving its first attention since Aug. 15 to the criminal case involving former Blue Bell chief Paul Kruse.
“The court hereby sets and directs the parties, or counsel acting on their behalf, to appear by phone for an initial pretrial conference on 10/05/2022 at 10:10 AM, “ the federal case dockets says.
The court declared a mistrial in the case on Aug. 15 after a jury trial broke … Read the rest
Authorities in Portugal have carried out a series of recent operations to crackdown on businesses not complying with food rules.
The Food and Economic Security Authority (ASAE) helped to seize 500 kilograms of fish and meat products with limited traceability at a cold store facility this past month.
The inspection was to verify compliance with food storage and handling. Products were destroyed after being sent for analysis and criminal proceedings were opened.
A separate visit to a cold store in … Read the rest
We are now almost one year on from Mark Zuckerberg’s much talked-about October 2021 letter announcing, among other things, the change of the name of his company from Facebook to Meta, reflecting the company’s commitment to revolutionising social connection through virtual reality.
Zuckerberg’s expansive vision of a metaverse currently remains more of a fantasy than a (virtual) reality: we are still not at the stage where participants can enter a single online location and participate in an immersive, multi-faceted virtual … Read the rest
As a result of Governor Newsom’s signature on SB 1162, California will soon become the largest state requiring affirmative disclosure of pay scale information, thus contributing to the state’s ongoing effort to increase pay transparency. Effective January 1, 2023, many California employers will be required to include pay scale information in job postings and disclose pay scale information to current employees. The bill also makes significant changes to California’s existing pay data reporting requirements for private employers with 100 or … Read the rest
Officials investigating a deadly outbreak in Austria have found Listeria at the company thought to be responsible.
Listeria isolates with the same genetic fingerprint as the outbreak strain were detected in three environmental samples from the firm in Lower Austria.
Käserei Gloggnitz previously recalled all kajmak, drinking yogurt and cream cheese products because of potential Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Kajmak is a type of cheese.
The Listeria strain behind the incident does not match any of those in the AGES Listeria … Read the rest
The United States has fallen a few places in the latest rankings of a report that measures food security.
The study from Economist Impact put Finland at the top, followed by Ireland, Norway and France. Canada was seventh and the United Kingdom was ninth. The United States dropped to 13th from ninth in the previous edition.
The 11th Global Food Security Index (GFSI) covers food affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation across 113 countries. Indicators are used to do … Read the rest
Public health officials in the United Kingdom are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157 that has sickened almost 200 people in a month.
Since early September, 192 genetically linked cases of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157 have been identified in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The majority of people sick are adults but there have been no deaths linked to the incident.
No source for the rise in infections has yet been identified.
Dr. Lesley Larkin, head … Read the rest
A committee in the U.S. Senate has finally set a nomination hearing to consider Jose Emilio Esteban for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s top food safety job.
Nominated on Nov. 12, 2021, by President Joe Biden, Esteban is scheduled to go before the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on Sept. 22. The committee has not offered any reason why the nomination hearing has been delayed so long, except for a comment from Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-MI. At one … Read the rest