VIRGINIA
Peanut company files bankruptcy
Plant tied to nationwide salmonella outbreak being sued by victims, families, insurer and firms it supplied
The peanut company at the center of the nationwide salmonella scare has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection and will begin liquidating its assets as a crush of legal claims pile up against Peanut Corp. of America based in Lynchburg, Va.
“Given that PCA is under criminal investigation, I’m not surprised they’ve gone bankrupt,” said Bill Marler, a Seattle-based lawyer representing 47 clients who are suing the company, including family members of two victims who died after reportedly consuming peanut products tainted with salmonella.
Companies that Peanut Corp. supplied with peanut products have also gone to court against it, and PCA’s insurer, Hartford Casualty Insurance Co., has filed a lawsuit in an effort to limit its liability.
Peanut Corp.’s products have been linked to nine deaths and more than 600 cases of food poisoning in 44 states, and more claims are expected. Records released during recent congressional hearings showed the company continued to ship its contaminated products even after they tested positive for deadly bacteria.
The company’s processing facilities and owner are under investigation.
UKRAINE
Long-awaited homecoming for hijacked crew
A crew member of the ship MV Faina is reunited with family members Friday after arriving at the airport in Kiev. The cargo ship carrying tanks and other heavy weapons was hijacked last September by Somali pirates who finally released the vessel and its crew last week after receiving a $3.2 million ransom.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Ginsburg out of hospital
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s cancer was found at the earliest stage and has not spread beyond her pancreas, the court said Friday.
The 75-year-old justice returned to her home in Washington on Friday after being released from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the court said.
The 1-centimeter growth that doctors initially spotted during a CT scan in late January turned out, upon analysis, to be benign. But a second, even smaller tumor found during the operation was malignant, the court said. Doctors classified the cancer as early stage, or Stage 1.
AUSTRALIA
Charges filed in wildfires
MELBOURNE — Police charged a man with deadly arson Friday in one of southern Australia’s wildfires and put him in protective custody as survivors expressed fury that anyone could set such a blaze.
Authorities also doubled the property toll, saying more than 1,800 homes have been destroyed in the Feb. 7 blazes. Officials say 181 people have been killed and expect that total eventually to exceed 200.
The suspect, whose identity was banned from publication by a magistrate because of the risk of reprisal attacks against him or his family, was charged with one count of arson causing death, one of intentionally lighting a wildfire and one of possessing child pornography, police said.
ENGLAND
Report: Boy, 13, a father
LONDON — He’s 13. He scarcely looks 10. And according to a British tabloid, he’s a father.
Baby-faced and only 4 feet tall, the boy, Alfie, was just 12 when he impregnated Chantelle, now 15, The Sun reported Friday. Shown in a video posted Friday on the tabloid’s Web site, the diminutive Alfie takes the newborn girl in his arms. Asked what he would do to support the child financially, he asks, “What’s financially?”
The girl was taking birth control pills but missed one, The Sun reported. Friends and relatives left the family home about 70 miles southeast of London without speaking to reporters.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Judge cites prosecutors
An angry federal judge held Justice Department attorneys in contempt Friday for failing to deliver documents to former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ legal team, a rare punishment for prosecutors in a case where corruption allegations have spread to the authorities who investigated him.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the department to provide the agency’s internal communications regarding a whistleblower complaint brought by an FBI agent involved in the investigation of Stevens. The agent objected to tactics during the trial, including an “inappropriate relationship” between the lead agent on the case and the prosecution’s star witness.
