Brianna Smith is a freelance writer and editor in Southwest Michigan. A graduate of Grand Valley State University, Brianna has a passion for politics, social issues, education, science, and more. When she’s not writing, she enjoys the simple life with her husband, daughter, and son.
The California Department of Public Health recently announced the Redwood Springs Healthcare Center will have to pay a hefty fine “after a family of a patient said staff caused the death of their loved one.” Redwood Springs Healthcare Center is a nursing home facility in Visalia and was ordered to pay the $100,000 fine after being given a “Class AA citation, the most severe penalty under state law.”
Are you a fan of McDonald’s salads? Well, you may want to find an alternative lunch choice for the time being. According to the company, the popular fast food chain recently pulled salads from “3,000 restaurants in the Midwest after health experts announced that more than 100 people had been infected by an intestinal parasite in recent weeks.” The intestinal parasite wreaking havoc throughout Illinois, Iowa, and other states is cyclosporiasis. So far there have been confirmed reports of “15 infections in Iowa and 90 others in Illinois.” According to health officials, “everyone who became ill in Iowa and about a quarter of those who became sick in Illinois said they had eaten McDonald’s salads in the days before symptoms appeared.”
Not everyone is cut out for the restaurant industry, something actress Jessica Biel recently discovered after she decided to close down her relatively new restaurant, Au Fudge. The decision to close the West Hollywood eatery came after it was hit with a lawsuit in 2017 by disgruntled employees who accused “Biel, 36, and her business partners of stealing $430,100 in tips.”
Earlier today, Baylor University agreed to settle a federal Title IX lawsuit filed by a former volleyball player after she was allegedly “drugged and gang-raped by at least four football players in 2012.” At the moment, terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, though it’s now the “fifth Title IX lawsuit the university has settled,” and it likely won’t be the last. As it stands right now, there are 15 “former students who say they were sexually assaulted still have ongoing litigation with the nation’s largest Baptist school.”
Yesterday, Allura issued a recall for some of its children’s pajamas after it was discovered the clothing items failed to “meet the flammability standard for children’s sleepwear, posing a risk of burn injuries to children.” As a result, the company is urging consumers to stop using the sleepwear immediately and to contact it for a full refund.
A wrongful death lawsuit was recently settled between the family of Amy Huffman and Ryan M. Tolone in connection to the fatal accident that claimed Huffman’s life back on January 28, 2015. According to the suit, Huffman was walking along state Rought 193 in Liberty Township when she was struck by Tolone’s vehicle. She died soon after arriving at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, but now with the recent lawsuit settlement of $90,000, her surviving family members may be able to find some peace in moving on.
For many women in the workplace, pregnancy discrimination is alive and well. It can happen anywhere, regardless of the industry, and can have lasting emotional and financial effects of a mother-to-be and her family. Recently, a former employee at San Carlos-based Natera filed a lawsuit claiming she too was a victim of pregnancy discrimination. The kicker about her lawsuit is that her former company provides services to pregnant women, such as “preconception and prenatal testing services.”
For many people, camping trips are times to create memories and enjoy all that nature has to offer. Unfortunately for two children who visited an East Haddam campground back in July 2016, the memories created on their trip weren’t exactly the type of memories they were hoping to make. According to a lawsuit recently filed by their parents, the two children, a boy, and a girl were sexually assaulted at the Wolf’s Den Cooperative Campground in East Haddam by another underage male camper.
Nothing could have prepared Missoula County Sheriff’s Deputy Ross Jessop and U.S. Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer Nick Scholz for what they would find while searching the woods of Montana for a missing infant. While searching diligently, they heard a faint whimper around 2:30 a.m. earlier this week on Sunday, alerting the two that the infant was near. Scanning the ground around them, Jessop eventually found the “cold, wet, soiled 5-month-old boy face-down buried under a pile of debris.”
How sure are you that all the medications in your medicine cabinet are child-proof? This is an important thing to consider if you have children at home. It’s also important to keep tabs on recalls related to child safety, such as the recent one issued by Novartis and Sandoz over “several blister packaged prescription medications…due to the products failing to meet child-resistant closure requirements as per the Poison Prevention Packaging Act.”