95.1 The Bee

A nationwide recall of meat and poultry products potentially contaminated with listeria bacteria has expanded to nearly 12 million pounds, federal officials said. The recall includes 75 meat and chicken products.

BrucePac of Woodburn, Oregon, recalled the roughly 5,000 tons of ready-to-eat foods this week after U.S. Agriculture Department officials detected listeria in samples of poultry during routine testing, with further tests identifying BrucePac chicken as the source. The meat used in those products was processed at a Durant, Oklahoma, manufacturing plant operated by BrucePac; the company sells precooked meat and poultry to industrial, foodservice, retail companies, school districts and restaurants across the country.

Hundreds of products sold at grocery chains such as Kroger, Wegmans and Trader Joe’s, as well as schools, are part of the BrucePac meat recall that now involves almost 12 million pounds of meat and poultry that may be contaminated with listeria bacteria, which can cause illness and death.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture had disclosed the products included in the recall, first announced October 9th in a 300+ page list, which included foods produced between May 31 and Oct. 8. Other brands whose products are part of the recall include Taylor Farms, Boston Market, 7-Eleven, Aldi’s and Rao’s. The updated recall includes prepared salads, burritos and other foods sold at stores including Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart and Kroger.

The recalled foods can be identified by establishment numbers “51205 or P-51205” inside or under the USDA mark of inspection. Such foods should be thrown away or returned to stores for refund.  Consumers can search on the USDA recall site to find potentially affected products, and is urging consumers to check the list of products involved in the recall because they may have a different establishment on the label due to processing by other companies: “Consumers are urged to carefully review the information, including the product and label information”. 

The USDA officials said that no illnesses have been confirmed in connection with the recall, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not launched an outbreak investigation, according to a CDC spokesperson.

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A search is underway for 2 missing U.S. Navy pilots after their aircraft appears to have crashed Tuesday afternoon somewhere east of Mount Rainier in Washington’s Pacific Northwest. On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a flight ban around an area believed to be where the jet possibly went down.

The United States Navy said that the aircraft was based on Whidbey Island Naval Air Station north of Seattle and had been on a routine training mission on Tuesday.  It is unknown if the pilots (whose identities have not been released) went down with the plane or ejected themselves from the EA-18G Growler fighter jet before it presumably crashed somewhere at about 3:23 p.m. Pacific time. All EA-18G squadrons are stationed at NAS Whidbey except one squadron at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan.

The crashed jet is part of Electronic Attack Squadron 130, which boasts being the oldest electronic warfare squadron in the Navy. According to the Electronic Attack Squadron website, the EA-18G Growler’s sensors and weapons “provides the warfighter with a lethal and survivable weapon system to counter current and emerging threats.”

Per USA Today, the Nay said that the search team includes a U.S. Navy MH-60S helicopter launched from Whidbey Island to “locate the crew and examine the crash site,” but noted that weather could be a factor in the search. Between 5 to 9 inches of snow is possible amid patchy fog and heavy snow is forecast for Wednesday for Mount Rainier.

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Walgreens announced on Tuesday that it plans to close 1,200 stores by 2027, amid slowing sales and changing consumer behavior. Per the announcement, Walgreens estimates a quarter of its 8,700 stores in the U.S. are unprofitable.

Walgreens reported growth within its business segments, but said it will shut down more than 1,000 stores over the next few years. The pharmacy chain said 500 of the closings would occur over the next 12 months, with the news comeing after their announcement in June that it would close “underperforming” U.S. stores.

Walgreens said that the closures as part of its fiscal fourth-quarter and full-year earnings; in a statement, CEO Tim Wentworth acknowledged the company was “in the midst of a turnaround that will take time, but we are confident it will yield significant financial and consumer benefits over the long term.”

According to a company release, Walgreens shares jumped 12% as of just before noon and new information released by Walgreens on Tuesday reflected “sales growth across all segments.”  Wentworth said during an earnings call that the closures will give the company a “healthier store base, and will enable us to respond to shifts in consumer behavior and buying preferences,” and added that the company hopes to keep on a majority of its workforce impacted by the pending store closures.

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A Georgia judge has ruled that county election officials had an obligation to certify election results without delay — amid rising fears that rogue election officials could seek to delay or decline to certify results after Election Day due to allegations of fraud or error.

Julie Adams, a Republican member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections, had brought forth the case hoping that the judge would rule that certifying election results were “discretionary.”  However per CNN, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said in his ruling that state election boards don’t have the power to reject such counts. McBurney found that the law is clear, stating that ‘the superintendent must certify and must do so by a certain time … election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results. There are no exceptions.”  McBurney said in that cases of alleged fraud or systemic error are issues that should be addressed by appropriate local authorities and should not be used to whether to or not certify election results.

McBurney said in Tuesday’s ruling: “election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results. Consequently, no election superintendent (or members of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstances .. if election superintendents were, as plaintiff urges, free to play investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge, and so — because of a unilateral determination of error or fraud — refuse to certify election results, Georgia voters would be silenced. Our constitution and election code do not allow that to happen.”

The ruling comes after Georgia’s controversial State Election Board recently passed new rules that some voting rights activists are concerned would cause chaos in the certification process. One of those new rules allows election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” prior to certification. Georgia began early voting for the 2024 under new rules passed by the state election board that would grant county election boards the ability to delay certifying election results to investigate potential discrepancies.

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