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.
Rylie Wagner, a 13-year-old student in the Hallsville R-IV School District recently took her own life. According to a wrongful death lawsuit recently filed by her mother, Elizabeth Overstreet, Wagner “took her own life because of the bullying” she was experiencing at school.
A federal lawsuit was recently filed against a pair of business owners in Oklahoma, alleging that they lured “immigrants to the US on work visas then paid them substandard wages.” This latest suit was filed back in June by three “Jamaican immigrants who came to the US under student work visas between 2008 and 2012.” It’s the second lawsuit of it’s kind. Last year another suit was filed by “three Filipino immigrants who came into the country on temporary work visas in 2012” and experienced similar conditions the three Jamaican immigrants allegedly did.
Earlier this week, King Bio issued a recall of “almost a year’s worth of 32 homeopathic children’s medicines that claim to treat everything from stomachaches to bed wetting.” According to the recall notice posted on the FDA’s website, the company said, “a small percentage of our products produced between 08/01/2017 and 04/2018 have tested positive for microbial contamination.”
The U.S. Coast Guard is at the center of a new lawsuit filed by two environmental groups, the National Wildlife Federation and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. According to the two groups, their decision to sue came in response to the U.S. Coast Guards “admitted inability to respond adequately to a Great Lakes oil spill.” As a result, the lawsuit seeks to “invalidate the response plans for facilities such as Enbridge, which operates Line 5 beneath the Straits of Mackinac.”
A lawsuit was recently filed against the City of Wilmington after it allegedly discriminated against a “teacher and her young Muslim students.” According to the lawsuit, the teacher and her students were “asked to leave a public pool in June,” and other members of the Darul Amaanah Academy, where the students attended, claim they have “been repeatedly harassed by management and staff at the Foster Brown Pool.”
Koch Food of Mississippi LLC agreed to a $3.75 million settlement earlier this week, ending a discrimination lawsuit that was filed by “11 workers at the Morton plant and another filed on behalf of the workers by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.” The settlement agreement was filed in federal court in Jackson on Tuesday with U.S. District Judge Dan Jordan signing off on the three-year consent decree outlining the settlement terms. But what happened? Why was the lawsuit filed against the company in the first place?
If you’re a pool owner who recently had a step system installed, you may want to pay attention to a recall recently issued by Confer Plastics. Confer Plastics manufactures and distributes pool step systems for inground and above ground pool, but the company is recalling nearly 100,000 Curve in-pool step systems over concerns that “children’s limbs can get trapped, creating a drowning hazard.” In fact, according to the recall notice, the company has already received two consumer reports claiming “children’s arms became entrapped in the side panels of the steps, causing minor abrasions.” Fortunately, no drownings have been reported.
Massage Envy is back in the news, this time in connection to a civil lawsuit that was recently filed by five women. In the suit, the women allege that “male massage therapists sexually assaulted them before and during massages at franchise locations in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Southern California.” It was filed in San Mateo County and comes nearly a year after an investigation conducted by Buzzfeed News found that “more than 180 people have filed sexual assault lawsuits, police reports, and state board complaints against Massage Envy spas, their employees, and the national company.”
If you’re a fan of Vitamix blenders, listen up. Earlier today, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that Vitamix, a company that manufactures high-end blenders, issued a voluntary recall of “105,000 blender containers after nearly a dozen customers reported lacerations due to an exposed blade.”
Remember when a judge in California decided that coffee should be served with warning labels so coffee drinkers know the cancer risks associated with drinking coffee. However, since the judge’s decision, many in the state have begun to wonder if the health warnings may be going too far. One of those concerned citizens is Sam Delson, the deputy director for external and legislative affairs for California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. He said, “There’s a danger to over-warning—it’s important to warn about real health risks.”