Current Events

A Volkswagen engineer pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiring to defraud regulators and car owners, in the first criminal charges stemming from the American investigation into the German carmaker’s emissions deception.

The plea by the engineer, James Robert Liang, a Volkswagen veteran, suggests that the Justice Department is trying to build a larger criminal case and pursue charges against other higher-level executives at the carmaker.

Mr. Liang was central in the development of software that Volkswagen used to cheat pollution tests in the United States, which the company admitted last year to installing in more than 11 million diesels vehicles worldwide. He was also part of the cover-up, lying to regulators when they started asking questions about discrepancies in emissions.
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An outbreak of hepatitis A linked to strawberries at a smoothie chain has sickened 89 people from seven states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

Of 54 people interviewed by investigators, all of them said they drank a smoothie containing strawberries before Aug. 8 at a Tropical Smoothie Cafe location in Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia or West Virginia.

Thirty-nine people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.

The smoothie chain removed the contaminated strawberries on Aug.
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Chipotle Mexican Grill confirmed Friday that it has financially settled with more than 100 customers who were sickened after eating its food, continuing its efforts to get past the food safety issues that have hampered business and operations in recent months.

"We are a company that does the right things for our customers and we simply believed settling these claims was the right thing to do," said company spokesman Chris Arnold in an e-mailed statement.

Terms of the settlements weren’t revealed. Reuters first 

Josiah Cooper-Pope, born 15 weeks premature, did fine in the neonatal intensive care unit for the first 10 days of his life. Then, suddenly, his tiny body started to swell.

His mother, Shala Bowser, said nurses at Chippenham Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, told her that Josiah had an infection and that she should prepare for the worst. On Sept. 2, 2010, she was allowed to hold him for the first and last time as he took his final breath. He was 17 days old.

DETROIT — Ford will spend $640 million to replace door latches on nearly 2.4 million cars, trucks and vans this year because the doors can pop open while the vehicles are moving.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors Co. has settled two federal court cases related to its defective ignition switches, but its legal troubles stemming from the switches are far from over.

GM settled the cases for an undisclosed amount, plaintiffs' attorney Bob Hilliard said Monday. In both cases, the plaintiffs said they sustained serious injuries when the air bags in their vehicles didn't deploy. GM has acknowledged that ignition switches in older cars could fall out of position without warning and shut off the engine and air bags.

WASHINGTON — The Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of soaps containing certain antibacterial chemicals on Friday, saying industry had failed to prove they were safe to use over the long term or more effective than using ordinary soap and water.

Another state and 18 more people are now included in a Hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen, imported strawberries served in smoothies, bringing the totals to six states and 69 victims.

Vehicles Affected: Approximately 3,000 model-year 2015 Hyundai Genesis sedans manufactured between Feb. 1 and May 20, 2015, and equipped with a 7-inch TFT-LCD instrument cluster

Los Angeles congressman is calling for Japanese prosecutors to investigate Olympus Corp. for not warning American hospitals that its medical scope was transferring lethal bacteria to patients.

In an Aug. 29 letter, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) asked Secretary of State John Kerry to request that Japanese authorities probe the Tokyo-based manufacturer for civil or criminal misconduct.

The number of Americans hospitalized with heart infections caused by use of injected opioid drugs is on the rise, a new study indicates. Researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston said the finding is a disturbing outgrowth of a rising tide of opioid addiction in the United States.