Kansas City 79 articles

General Mills, the American multinational food manufacturer headquartered in Minnesota, is now in the process of recalling nearly 10 million pounds of flour after the product was linked to an E. coli outbreak. The flour is being investigated in connection with 38 people across 20 states in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), half of the 38 consumers that reported illnesses said they were making homemade food with the flour prior to becoming sick. Some of the consumers also claim to have possibly ingested raw dough or batter. The flour recall includes General Mills’ signature Gold Medal ... Read More

Ford Motor Company issued a safety recall Wednesday of more than 200,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada, citing potential defects in the powertrain control module that could cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle, increasing the risk of a crash. The recall encompasses 201,900 vehicles and includes certain 2011 and 2012 Ford F-150 pickup trucks, 2012 Ford Expedition SUVs, Lincoln Navigator SUVs built in 2011, and Ford Mustangs built in 2011 and 2012. Ford reports that the output speed sensor in the transmission lead frame of these vehicles could, under certain conditions, malfunction and force a ... Read More

IOLA, Kan. – An air conditioning unit pipe failed at a Russell Stover candy manufacturing facility in September 2015, releasing several pounds of anhydrous ammonia into the air and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of workers as emergency alarms sounded. Although no workers were injured by the leak, the incident prompted a federal investigation of the Kansas plant that uncovered multiple safety violations, many of which put employees at serious risk of injury and death and landed Russell Stover Candies Inc. in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) Severe Violator Enforcement Program. The violations for which OSHA cited the ... Read More

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced that is in the process of investigating the death of an electrician in Kansas City, Mo. The victim, 40-year-old Jonathan Melton, was discovered bleeding and not breathing by a co-worker while working in the Briarcliff Hilltop Office Building. According to the police report, the co-worker found Melton after hearing someone cry out, “I need help,” and going to his aid. After the co-worker attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation, Melton was taken to the North Kansas City Hospital where he was later pronounced dead. Melton had been employed by H & S Electrical ... Read More

Federal safety regulators have ordered an Iowa company to pay a former commercial driver $55,000 in back wages and damages for firing him after he refused to drive a tractor-trailer truck that had been pulled out of service for safety reasons. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said that Jake Rieger Farms, a Nebraska company, violated federal whistleblower protections that shield workers from retaliation when they complain about matters of personal safety or refuse to work under unsafe conditions. OSHA said that on Jan. 16, 2015, Iowa commercial motor vehicle enforcement stopped and ticketed the driver of a ... Read More

Hundreds of people who dined at a dinner theater in suburban Kansas City, Mo., in recent days have reported becoming sick in what early signs indicate is a massive outbreak of norovirus. Nearly 400 people who ate at the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park, Kan., since Jan. 15 have reported becoming ill with stomach cramps and pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and other symptoms indicative of norovirus. Laboratory tests confirmed that four of the theater goers who became ill were infected with norovirus, a notoriously contagious virus commonly referred to in the U.S. as the “stomach bug” or “puking virus.” The ... Read More

RCL Wiring LP, a Missouri-based company that provides signal wiring and materials for the railroad industry, harassed and terminated a technician in retaliation for reporting a work-related injury and has been ordered to pay the former employee $322,000 in lost wages, damages, and attorney fees. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said that RCL Wiring, doing business as Idaho & Sedalia Transportation Company, violated Federal Railroad Safety Act whistleblower protections when it lashed out the employee for reporting injuries he received on the job in February 2014. According to OSHA, the five-year employee asked the company to reimburse ... Read More

Federal authorities are taking over the investigation of a construction worker’s death Saturday morning at the site of a new senior center being built in Carthage, Mo. Luis Estrada, 29, of El Paso, Texas, died from blunt-force injuries he sustained in a falling accident. Authorities said that Mr. Estrada was declared dead upon his arrival at Mercy Joplin Hospital in Joplin, Mo., Sat. morning. Mr. Estrada, an employee of Munda Hernandez Construction of El Paso, Texas, was part of a construction crew that is building an assisted living facility for seniors in the south side of the city. According to ... Read More

The tragic death of a 22-year-old ironworker from Raymore, Mo., which spurred an investigation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), has ended with a St. Louis-area contractor being charged with failure to provide fall protection equipment. Eric Roach was working with another ironworker on the construction site of a Kansas City distribution warehouse in July of 2014, with the job of guiding a 26-foot-by-3-foot bundle of sheet-metal roof decking. The sheet metal was being lifted by crane while Roach’s job was to set it atop the bar joists on the 300,000 square-foot distribution warehouse. It was while ... Read More

An emergency room nurse in Lawrence, Kan.,has filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Lawrence Memorial Hospital, alleging it routinely falsified patients’ medical records to obtain bigger payouts from Medicare and Medicaid. Megen Duffy filed the lawsuit in a Kansas City, Kan., federal court under the False Claims Act, alleging that the hospital’s top executives were aware of the fraudulent practices and threatened to terminate employees who challenged them. According to Ms. Duffy’s complaint, Lawrence Memorial “designed a system to submit false records and reports that violated best practices, jeopardized patient safety, and defrauded the federal government.” In this scheme, the complaint ... Read More