FDA Makes Massive Mistake on Explosive Diarrhea Outbreak

The Food and Drug Administration was wrong about the culprit of the diarrhea outbreak that has swept the country.

The FDA initially announced Friday that iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms had tested positive for cyclospora, a parasite that can cause explosive bowel movements. Within 24 hours, however, the agency walked back its determination, claiming that the original lettuce sample was a false positive.

“FDA has notified Taylor Farms and continues working with the firm to ensure product implicated in this outbreak has been removed from the market,” the FDA stated on its website.

In their own statement Sunday, Taylor Farms said that the FDA had “apologized” for the error and that the agency “has not identified a single positive product test result for cyclospora” from its offerings. But on Monday, the FDA denied that it had offered the company any such apology.

But the damage had already been done: Taco Bell, one of Taylor Farms biggest clients, said in a statement Friday that it would move away from using the brand due to public health concerns.

Taylor Farms is one of the largest fresh-produce suppliers in the country, providing products to Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, SYSCO, Aldi, Target, and Dollar General. It also sells food for private label brands such as Whole Foods’ “365” line, and offers assembly-line products for a slew of fast food chains including McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, and more.

Taylor Farms said that it had recalled all of the shredded iceberg  lettuce that had been grown and processed in central Mexico out of an “abundance of caution.”

“While the FDA traceback is indicating a specific independent farm, which represents less than 1% of the U.S.’s iceberg lettuce supply, as the potential source of the outbreak, we have removed all iceberg lettuce from the region indefinitely,” the company said Friday in a statement. 

Yet Taylor Farms de Mexico—a direct subsidiary of the company—is still implicated in the cyclospora outbreak, according to FoodFix newsletter writer Helena Bottomiller Eviche. Eviche noted that the FDA’s false positive had stemmed from lettuce that came over the border from Mexico and that was not a part of the original recall.

“If that positive had been accurate, it would have meant more lettuce needed to be recalled,” Eviche wrote on X, adding that the whole situation was a “public health communications nightmare.”

Since the beginning of May, the CDC has confirmed 1,645 cases of cyclosporiasis and is investigating 5,100 more, though the agency noted that most cases have likely gone unreported. Still, both totals are substantially higher than normal: this time last year, just 249 cases had been reported. So far, 141 cases have been hospitalized, and no one has died from the disease.

This story has been updated.

Forget writing a check you can’t cash; President Donald Trump is escalating a war that the U.S. military can’t wage.

Trump has made it more than clear that he’s done negotiating with Tehran, after the U.S. military launched yet another wave of strikes against Iran Saturday in retribution for the deaths of at least two U.S. military service members in Jordan. (A third service member is missing after the strikes.) Clearly, the ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. is over—and there’s no sign that the U.S. plans to turn back.

“The U.S. is planning for a wider war,” one U.S. official familiar with the matter told The Washington Post Monday. The official warned that U.S. military operations would be kneecapped by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions, as well as widespread damage to U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official added.

A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies published in May estimated it will take until at least 2030 to restore the U.S. missile stockpile to prewar levels, leaving a multiyear “window of vulnerability” for the United States in potential future conflicts.

Since that study was published, the United States has only continued to execute military strikes, and Trump’s war against Iran has racked up a total estimated bill of more than $100 billion. U.S. Central Command said that the latest series of strikes had “successfully hit Iranian military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities, and missile and drone storage sites.” Iran also claimed that the U.S. attacked a nuclear power plant in a “dangerous assault on Iran’s peaceful infrastructure.”

So far, at least 17 American service members have been killed in the war.

The Trump administration has been hiding military injuries from its reports on the Iran war.

Last week, Iran carried out three strikes against U.S. military personnel in Jordan, wounding dozens and damaging multiple helicopters, The New York Times reports. But the Department of Defense did not disclose those attacks to the public.

U.S. Central Command is not required to release information about injured soldiers, a U.S. military official told the Times, noting that releasing such information could help Iran refine its attacks. On Saturday, four injured soldiers were taken to hospitals in Jordan and then discharged, according to Central Command, but their statement did not mention any of the service members injured in the country last week.

The DoD angrily attacked the Times Monday, calling its report “baseless and malicious accusations.”

“Claims of concealment are fabrications meant to further distress the American people in the wake of three service members killed in action. Disgusting behavior, even for the New York Times,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on X. “In fact, U.S. military casualty information is publicly available and regularly updated online on the Defense Casualty Analysis System for everyone, including the media, to review.”

Meanwhile, the American death toll in the war is rising. Two American service members were killed in an Iranian attack in Jordan on Friday, while a third was killed in an Iranian attack in northern Iraq the next day. Since the war began on February 28, 17 American soldiers have been killed, and over 400 have been wounded.

Operational security is a convenient excuse for setbacks in a war that has not gone as well as President Trump promised. Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz has hurt the U.S. and world economies and sent gas prices soaring. The civilian death toll in Iran continues to climb, with Trump refusing to take responsibility for egregious strikes, such as one that hit a school in Minab, Iran, on the first day of the war.

It isn’t surprising that this administration is trying to diminish and hide American casualties, but the real reason is that full transparency would make this already unpopular war even more politically toxic for Trump and his party.

This story has been updated.

President Trump announced plans to “max out” the security on the $400 million luxury jumbo jet gifted to him by the Qatari royal family, suggesting that insufficient security  was indeed the reason he ditched it so abruptly earlier this month. 

“Mr. President, this plane does not have anti-missile defense systems on it. Why are you flying it?” a reporter asked Trump Sunday as he was preparing to board following the FIFA men’s World Cup final. 

“Well, it has—it has a lot, and you know it has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out. So they’re going to be sending it, and they’ll have it be maxed out,” Trump replied. “It’ll take about a month.” 

While it’s unclear what exactly the president means by “maxed out,” and whether his timeline is accurate, his answer confirms pretty much what every expert was saying about the jet from the moment he got it—that it would take time and lots of money to bring it to the security standards of Air Force One. Yet when Trump refused to fly on the jet following the NATO summit in Turkey earlier this month, he told the media that it was because U.S. soldiers at a European base really needed to see it for some reason. This was his story, even though it was reported that the Secret Service advised him to take the old Air Force One as the war with Iran resumed. 

This jet—a questionable gift at best, an obvious bribe at worst—has already cost U.S. taxpayers $400 million. Trump plans to move it to his presidential library in 2029. 

Spain’s World Cup–winning team have made it abundantly clear that they did not want Donald Trump in their victory photos.

The official account for Spain’s national football league shared an altered image of the country’s celebration in New Jersey Sunday, snipping the U.S. president out of photos after he refused to leave the dais. The FIFA World Cup account also cropped Trump out of the shot, leaving only the president’s shoulder in view.

Trump handed the World Cup trophy to Spain’s team alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino, after they beat Argentina 1-0. But the U.S. president then refused to leave the picture, apparently trying to run out the clock before the traditional trophy lift by chatting with the players as he jockeyed for a prime position in front of the group.

Spain’s team, however, was not having it. Video footage of the historic celebration captured several players politely pushing Trump away as they prepared for their official photograph.

Yet Trump stayed anyway, lingering beside the team even after repeated attempts by Infantino to pull him off the stage. He finally exited only after the team lifted its trophy and blew the confetti cannons in a glaring attempt to ensure he’d be included in the photograph.

His insistence on remaining in frame followed weeks of scathing remarks by Trump against Spain and its prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, over NATO defense spending. Trump has referred to Spain as “hopeless,” derided its people as “bad,” and also threatened to “cut off all trade” with the longtime U.S. ally as he ramped up his NATO disputes. In the months prior to that, he also raged against Spain after it refused to let the U.S. military use Spanish bases to bomb Iran.

None of that hostility was on display after the game, however—at least publicly. Back at Joint Base Andrews, Trump said he had “spoken to Spain” and “congratulated them on having a great team.” He also noted that he had “no tension” with the country’s leadership.

“I have no tension with anybody,” Trump remarked cavalierly.