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Man apparently drowned self, sons
Pleasant Prairie, Wis. A man believed to be depressed over financial ills and the pending eviction of his family from a Chicago apartment apparently drowned his two sons along with himself in Lake Michigan, authorities said Monday.
The three bodies were bound together with rope and tied to bags filled with sand when a resident spotted them washed up on the beach Saturday in this community just north of the Illinois state line.
They had been missing almost six weeks.
Kevin L. Amde, 45, and his sons, Tesla E. Amde, 3, and Davinci Amde, 6, were last seen May 6, when the father and younger son picked up the older boy from his school in Chicago, Police Chief Brian Wagner said. Veronica Amde, Kevin Amde’s wife and the children’s mother, reported them missing May 11.
Wagner said the bodies were tied together with nylon rope. Also tied to the bodies were two nylon book bags, each containing personal belongings, and two plastic bags filled with sand.
The pockets of one child were also filled with sand, Wagner said.
The children’s deaths were ruled homicides.
Authorities plan further toxicology tests on the father, as well as an investigation, before making a determination on how he died, said Deputy Medical Examiner Rick Berg.
Mad cow disease blamed for death
Miramar, Fla. A Florida woman believed to have contracted mad cow disease several years ago in England has died – the first such death in the United States, health officials said Monday.
Charlene Singh, 25, was diagnosed two years ago with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of the brain-wasting illness known as mad cow disease.
No deaths related to the disease have been previously reported in the United States, said Llelwyn Grant, spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
No Americans are known to have contracted the disease in this country, although one case of disease has been reported in a cow.
Singh’s father, Patrick Singh, and his ex-wife, Alison, believe their daughter ate contaminated beef sometime before 1992 in England, where the family formerly lived.
The disease has killed more than 140 people in Great Britain and at least 10 others in other parts of the world.
Almost all of the cases originated during an outbreak in the United Kingdom in the 1980s and ‘90s, the CDC says.
Big tuna canners target of state suit
San Francisco California’s attorney general sued three of the nation’s biggest canned tuna companies Monday, alleging they failed to warn consumers of excessive mercury in their products.
The defendants in the San Francisco Superior Court lawsuit are Tri-Union Seafoods, maker of Chicken of the Sea; Del Monte, maker of Starkist; and Bumble Bee Seafoods, maker of Bumble Bee.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer’s office said tests of the companies’ albacore and light tuna products found mercury at levels that, under state regulations, require warnings to consumers.
Research has shown that excessive exposure to mercury can cause serious health problems, especially in pregnant women and children.
In addition to civil penalties, the lawsuit seeks to stop the companies from selling their products in California unless they provide warnings on labels or signs posted in grocery aisles.
The U.S. Tuna Foundation said it “strongly disagrees” with the attorney general and plans to demonstrate in court that its products are safe.
“This suit is not grounded in science and will needlessly scare consumers away from affordable foods that are good for them,” David Burney, USTF’s executive director, said in a statement.