Author: completebodyneeds

About a month after an outbreak of Legionnaires disease hit New York City, New York Gov. Governor Kathy Hochul has signed legislation strengthening regulations on cooling tower inspections aimed at preventing future public health hazards. The new law requires that owners and operators of cooling towers in New York City certify that their cooling towers have been inspected, tested, cleaned, and disinfected in compliance with the New York City Administrative Code. The legislation sets timelines for building owners to notify the New York City Department of Buildings (NYC DOB) and take steps to remedy any public health hazards in cooling…

Teva Pharmaceuticals has asked a U.S. judge to prevent insurer Humana from telling jurors it is an Israeli company at a major drug price-fixing trial, arguing that strong public views over the Gaza war could prejudice proceedings and affect its ability to receive a fair hearing. In a filing in a federal court in Philadelphia last Wednesday, Tel Aviv-based Teva said its national origins have no bearing on whether it took part in an alleged conspiracy to inflate generic drug prices, the central claim in the litigation. Teva, one of Israel’s largest companies, is set to be one of several…

A group of 32 county workers in Greene County, Alabama, became so fed up with what they said were rats, faulty air-conditioning and a leaky roof at the county courthouse that they sued their own county commissioners in 2020. The workers said they were sickened and injured by years of neglect and infestations at the 30-year-old courthouse in the mostly rural western edge of the state. That lawsuit has ground through the courts since then. And it will continue for at least another few months, after the Alabama Supreme Court last week found that a lower-court judge cannot postpone determining…

Taylor Farms on Sunday said it was recalling more than a dozen prepared food items containing jalapeños, including salsas and guacamole, from retailers over concerns about potential salmonella contamination. The California-based supplier said it had voluntarily recalled products containing jalapeño peppers tied to an recall by Coast Citrus Distributors and was “no longer” sourcing peppers from a farmer in Sinaloa, Mexico, that supplied Coast Citrus while it seeks alternative suppliers. The recall comes as U.S. health authorities investigate a Salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeño peppers imported from Mexico that earlier this week had sickened 345 people across 27 states and…

OpenAI is pausing some internal work around one of its upcoming artificial intelligence models to implement stricter safeguards after the system was found to be significantly more adept at cybersecurity tasks. The ChatGPT maker said on Friday it “cannot rule out” that the unreleased Astra model would reach OpenAI’s “critical cybersecurity threshold,” meaning it’s capable of identifying and developing zero-day exploits without human intervention. OpenAI said it’s now taking steps to improve security controls for developing and testing newer models and “pausing internal activities involving Astra that do not yet meet these strengthened security control requirements.” Chief Executive Officer Sam…

Extreme heat has killed more than 25,000 people across Europe this year, according to the latest available data compiled by Bloomberg. Germany recorded the highest toll, with an estimated 11,900 excess deaths linked to heat since April, according to the Robert Koch Institute. Data from government agencies and research institutions in Spain, France, the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands put the region’s heat-related death toll at over 25,000. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heat waves on the world’s fastest-warming continent, prompting national health agencies to issue repeated warnings. Western Europe has been seared by four heat…

A dead body was found inside a central California home burned by a wildfire that investigators believe was accidentally started by sparks from a chain saw, authorities said last week. Herbert Wayne Smith, 65, was arrested in connection with the blaze that has destroyed seven structures and scorched more than 15 square miles of forest in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Calaveras County. Smith is suspected of “recklessly causing” the blaze on Monday while “operating equipment capable of producing sparks” without clearing flammable vegetation as required, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Prosecutors will determine whether…

A New Mexico state court ordered Meta on Thursday to pay $567 million into a teen mental health fund and change how its platforms function for young users after finding the company is to blame for harming children’s wellbeing. Judge Bryan Biedscheid in Santa Fe ruled the company had created a public nuisance in New Mexico, siding with Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat. Torrez had accused the social media company of designing products to addict young users and failing to protect children from sexual exploitation on its platforms. The ruling comes five months after a New Mexico jury in…

Chinese firm Moonshot’s latest artificial intelligence model broke out of a cyber-testing environment, researchers said, in the latest incident that raises concerns about how well AI companies control their technology. Moonshot’s Kimi K3 was able to find its way out of a sandbox from the UK government’s AI Security Institute, according Frontier Security, a US-based cybersecurity research outfit. Though the Chinese model did not try to breach other companies’ websites, as in some of the other episodes, the test shows it lacks cyber controls, the researchers said. The test was performed independently by Frontier using freely available sandbox software provided…

The U.S. Department of Labor has recovered thousands in back wages and assessed penalties after a federal investigation revealed child labor, minimum wage, and overtime violations by the operators of three La Panaderia Bakery & Café locations in San Antonio. The department’s Wage and Hour Division investigated the pay practices of Tequila Almond Croissant LLC, Pan Dulce LLC, and SA Bakery Co. LLC. All three do business as La Panaderia Bakery & Café in San Antonio with locations at 301 E. Houston Street; 17030 Fiesta Texas Drive; and 8305 Broadway. Division investigators found the employers violated child labor provisions of…