Culturite

Massachusetts health authorities are warning consumers not to eat ground beef bought from Whole Foods Markets over the last two months after seven infections have been linked to meat bought there, some after a national recall.

The state Department of Public Health today confirmed the seventh E. coli case linked to ground beef. The people who fell ill — five of whom were hospitalized — had all eaten ground beef from Whole Foods last month. Preliminary results indicate that the ground beef products were part of a nationwide recall of meat produced by Nebraska Beef Ltd. because of possible E. coli contamination.

“A review of records from Whole Foods indicates that some of the stores received product from the recall list,” the state said in a release. “At this time, it is not known why the food listed under the USDA recall was sold to the public after the recall date.”

The statement from DPH also said the grocery chain has cooperated with state investigators.

The products involved include ground beef and ground beef patties from the stores’ meat counters as well as packaged meat found in the stores’ cooler. Any meat bought between June 2 and August 6 should be thrown out, state officials said. Consumers should also check their freezers for meat they may have bought last month and frozen for later use.

The nightclub worker arrested in connection with the death of a woman at rapper Lil’ Kim’s birthday party has confessed to committing the crime.

Syed Rahman, an employee at New York’s Spotlight Live, was charged with second-degree murder on Thursday, August 7, after admitting to killing Ingrid Rivera at the celebration in Times Square on Sunday, August 3.  

New York Police Department officers arrested Rahman on Thursday, a day after Rivera, 24, was found beaten to death on the roof of the karaoke bar.

As the Summer Games open in Beijing, actress activist Mia Farrow is Web-casting her own “Darfur Olympics” from a refugee camp on the barren Sudan-Chad border, aiming to shame China into using its influence with Khartoum to end the Darfur conflict.

Human rights groups have been using the Beijing Olympics to highlight accusations that China’s close ties to the Khartoum government are helping fuel the bloodshed in Darfur, where up to 300,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million people driven from their homes since 2003.

China buys nearly two-thirds of Sudan’s oil and is believed to provide the country with most of its small arms, many of which human rights groups say end up being used in Sudan’s western region of Darfur. Beijing, which has veto power at the U.N., has resisted tough Security Council action against Sudan over the conflict.

At the same time as the opening ceremony in Beijing on Friday, Farrow will post footage on the Web from one of a dozen camps in eastern Chad where Darfurians fleeing the conflict have taken refuge. The Web-cast is to include refugee children playing sports and songs contributed by pop singers including REM, Bette Midler and Taleb Kweli.

Each day for the first week of the Beijing games, Farrow will post new Web-casts with “voices from the camps,” including interviews with women and children.