BRAVE MAG

ShowBiz & Sports

Hot

Friday, February 20, 2026

Chicken fried rice sold at Trader Joe's recalled. See affected item.

February 20, 2026
Chicken fried rice sold at Trader Joe's recalled. See affected item.

Ready-to-eat chicken fried rice sold at Trader Joe's stores across the United States is beingrecalleddue to possible glass contamination, according to a notice shared on the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service website.

USA TODAY

Ajinomoto Foods North America, an Oregon-based food manufacturer, notified the FSIS after receiving customer complaints.

Chicken fried rice sold at Trader Joe's. The rice was recalled in February 2026 due to possible glass contamination.

Four customers reported finding glass in the products, although there have been no confirmed reports of injuries, according to the notice the FSIS shared on Feb. 19.

"FSIS is concerned that some products may be in retailers' or consumers' freezers. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them," the notice reads. "These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase."

The FSIS notice, which includes information about another recall, did not detail how many pounds or units of the rice have been recalled from Trader Joe's.

USA TODAY contacted Trader Joe's on Feb. 20, but has not received a response.

<p style=Consumer Reports, the nonprofit known for testing and monitoring consumer-facing policy and products, released its annual risky food report in April, naming the 10 foods of 2024 that were subject to the most recalls and/or associated with the largest illness outbreaks. USA TODAY broke it down further on a what-you-need-to-know basis.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Deli meat is somewhat of a "risky" food as it is often associated with the spread of listeria, such as in the 2024 case of the Boar's Head listeria outbreak that killed 10. Listeria monocytogenes is a hardy germ that can survive in very low temperatures but thrives in cool and damp places. It can, and will, happily live on foods in your or your grocery store's storage area, and the process for mass-producing the meat lends itself to plenty of opportunities for contamination.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Produce, like the cucumbers recalled due to a salmonella outbreak that infected 113 people across 23 states, can become adulterated with harmful bacteria through fecal contamination, which can occur through wastewater, water in the growing area, fertilizer and the proximity of the growing area to livestock.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Raw dairy, which is always unsafe to consume and illegal to sell in some states, poses a risk when it's not pasteurized. Dairy pasteurization, or heating milk products to a high enough temperature to kill harmful bacteria, has been practiced since the 1920s and has resulted in illnesses commonly spread via milk, such as listeriosis, diphtheria and tuberculosis, becoming less prevalent.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Cotija and queso fresco cheese are made from unpasteurized milk, meaning they carry an increased risk. One producer, Rizo-Lopez Foods, was shut down in October 2024 after its cheeses were linked to a years-long listeria outbreak that killed two people and made dozens of others sick.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Eggs can become contaminated via the same means as cucumbers and other raw produce, especially if they have a cracked shell.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Like other raw produce, onions can become infected via fecal contamination. In 2024, E. coli-contaminated slivered onions on McDonald's Quarter Pounders triggered some locations to stop serving the burger temporarily.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Like cucumbers and onions, leafy greens are easily contaminated with bacteria like E. coli, as in the case of the Solata Foods spinach recall in 2024.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Organic carrots were linked to a major E. coli outbreak in late 2024, leaving at least 39 ill and one dead.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> <p style=Ready-to-eat/cooked poultry and meat have been the source of multiple major recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks in recent years. The same issue arises with RTE foods as with deli meat; the conditions they are made and stored under are often ideal for bacteria such as listeria to grow. In 2024, millions of pounds of RTE foods were recalled by BrucePac for listeria contamination.

" style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" />

See the 'risky foods' linked to US recalls and illness outbreaks

Consumer Reports, the nonprofit known for testing and monitoring consumer-facing policy and products, releasedits annual risky food reportin April, naming the 10 foods of 2024 that were subject to the most recalls and/or associated with the largest illness outbreaks. USA TODAYbroke it down furtheron a what-you-need-to-know basis.

How do I know if I have the recalled fried rice?

The recalled fried rice comes in a green 20-ounce plastic bag that reads "Trader Joe's Chicken Fried Rice with stir fried rice, vegetables, seasoned dark chicken meat and eggs."

Advertisement

The "best if used by" dates on the package are Sept. 8, 2026, through Nov. 17, 2026.

Supplement recall:'Super greens' sold nationwide tied to salmonella outbreak.

Ajinomoto Foods North America said customers who have questions can contact the company at 855-742-5011 or email atcustomercare@ajinomotofoods.com.

Consumers with food safety questions can also call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-674-6854 or email questions toMPHotline@usda.gov.

There's also an Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System that customers can use to report issues with meat, poultry or egg products atwww.foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Trader Joe's chicken fried rice recalled. Here's why.

Read More

All truckers and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver's license tests in English

February 20, 2026
All truckers and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver's license tests in English

All truckers and bus drivers will have to take their commercial driver's license tests in English as the Trump administration expands its aggressive campaign to improve safety in the industry and get unqualified drivers off the road.

Associated Press FILE - Freight trucks travel northbound on Interstate 5 Highway, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2025, in Tracy, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File) U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference on enhancing truck driving safety at the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Derek Barrs speaks beside U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, left, during a news conference on enhancing truck driving safety at the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner) U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks beside Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Derek Barrs during a news conference on enhancing truck driving safety at the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner) U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy speaks during a news conference on enhancing truck driving safety at the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday, Feb. 20, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)

Commercial Driver's Licenses

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the latest effort Friday to ensure that drivers meet the federal requirements tounderstand English well enoughto read road signs and communicate with law enforcement officers. Florida already started administering its tests in English.

Currently, many states allow drivers to take their license tests in other languages even though they are required to demonstrate English proficiency. California offered tests in 20 other languages. Duffy said that a number of states have hired other companies to administer commercial driver's licenses tests, and those companies aren't enforcing the standards that drivers are supposed to meet to demonstrate their driving and English skills.

These latest enforcement efforts come just days after the Transportation Departmentsaid 557 driving schools should closebecause they failed to meet basic safety standards. The department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver's licenses to immigrants who shouldn't have qualified for them ever since a fatal crash in August.

A truck driver who Duffy says wasn't authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Floridathat killed three people. Other fatal crashes since then, including one in Indiana that killed four members of an Amish community earlier this month, have only heightened concerns.

Duffy says truckers should be well qualified

States are expected to ensure drivers can speak English before giving them a commercial license, and then law enforcement is supposed to check driver's language skills during any traffic stops or inspections. Drivers who can't communicate effectively are supposed to be pulled off the road. A recent federal effort involving 8,215 inspections led to nearly 500 drivers being disqualified because of their English skills. California initially resisted enforcing the English rules, but the state recently pulled more than 600 drivers off the highways.

Duffy said every American wants drivers who get behind the wheel of a big rig to be well-qualified to handle those vehicles. But he said that for too long the problems in the trucking industry were "allowed to rot and no one's paying attention to it for decades."

"Once you start to pay attention, you see that all these bad things have been happening. And the consequence of that is that Americans get hurt," Duffy said. "When we get on the road, we should expect that we should be safe. And that those who drive those 80,000-pound big rigs, that they are well-trained, they're well-qualified, and they're going to be safe."

More efforts to crack down on fraudulent companies

The campaign will also now expand to prevent fraudulent trucking companies from getting into the business while continuing to go after questionable schools and ensure states are complying with all the regulations for handing out commercial licenses.

Advertisement

Duffy said that the registration system and requirements for trucking companies will be strengthened while Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration inspectors conduct more spot checks of trucks and commercial driver's license schools.

Officials are also trying to make sure that the electronic logging devices drivers use are accurate, and that states are following all the regulations to ensure drivers are qualified to get commercial licenses.

'Chameleon carriers' avoid enforcement

Currently, companies only have to pay $300 and show proof of insurance to get registered to operate, and then they might not be audited until a year or more later. And even then the audits might be done virtually, which makes it less likely to identify fraudulent companies.

That has made it easy for fraudulent companies that are known in the industry as "chameleon carriers" to register multiple times under different names and then simply switch names and registration numbers to avoid any consequences after crashes or other violations.

Dan Horvath, who is the chief operating officer for the American Trucking Associations trade group, said this longstanding problem has made it far too easy for companies that have been ordered to shut down to just change their name and registration number and keep operating the same way.

"What we think at ATA has happened over the years is that we have a lack of true enforcement and intervention with motor carriers that are in operation," Horvath said. Only a small fraction of trucking companies ever undergo a full compliance review with an in-person inspection, he said.

Past enforcement efforts

After that Indiana crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration knocked the company that employed the driver out of service and pulled the DOT numbers assigned to two other companies that were linked to AJ Partners. Tutash Express and Sam Express in the Chicago area were also disqualified, and the Aydana driving school that the trucker involved in the crash attended lost its certification.

Immigration authorities arrested that driver because they said the 30-year-old from Kyrgyzstan entered the country illegally. Authorities say he pulled out and tried to go around a truck that had slowed in front of him, and his truck slammed into an oncoming van.

In December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration took action todecertify up to 7,500 of the 16,000 schoolsnationwide, but that includedmany defunct operations.

Duffy said the companies involved in that Indiana crash were all registered at the same apartment. In other cases, there might be hundreds of these chameleon companies registered at a single address.

Read More

How Schwab moved $27.7M in payments for Epstein days before his arrest

February 20, 2026
How Schwab moved $27.7M in payments for Epstein days before his arrest

By Naomi Rovnick, Brad Heath and Nivedita Balu

Reuters

LONDON/WASHINGTON/TORONTO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Charles Schwab wired about $27.7 million on behalf of Jeffrey Epstein to a realtor in Morocco as the disgraced financier tried to purchase a palace in the 10 days before his 2019 arrest, including one transfer from an account which lacked sufficient funds, files released by the U.S. Department of Justice show.

Details of the transactions, reported by Reuters for the first time, show how the U.S. brokerage handled funds for Epstein over the course of several months at a time when he was under ‌intense public scrutiny after reports in the Miami Herald in 2018.

Schwab flagged the payments in a suspicious activity report (SAR) to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on July 13, seven days after Epstein's arrest, the documents show.

An examination of more than a hundred documents shows Schwab opened three accounts ‌for Epstein's companies in April 2019, including one for Southern Trust, a business that was attempting to buy the opulent Bin Ennakhil palace in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The Schwab corporate account listed Richard Kahn, Epstein's accountant, as authorised individual and Epstein as Southern Trust's president and sole beneficial owner.

Between June 26 and July 9, 2019, Southern Trust instructed Schwab to wire about $12.7 million in euros for the purchase but then reversed the order. Schwab ​then received another wire request, which was signed by Epstein, and sent $14.95 million to buy the same property, even though there were insufficient funds in the account pending the return of the original payment.

Schwab declined to comment on details of the accounts, saying federal regulation, privacy laws and its policies and procedures require it to maintain confidentiality.

"An associate of Epstein opened accounts in April 2019. Shortly after, our Risk team began investigating the accounts and within 60 days of starting the review, we notified the client of our decision to close and terminate the relationship. We also referred the matter to federal law enforcement," it said in an emailed response to Reuters.

Schwab declined to provide details on exactly when its risk team began investigating.

Under the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, financial firms must file a suspicious activity report no later than 30 days after the initial detection of facts, in addition to filing reports of cash transactions that exceed $10,000 daily to assist in detecting and preventing money laundering.

Per federal law, FinCEN cannot confirm or deny the existence of an alleged suspicious activity report, a FinCEN spokesperson told ‌Reuters by email.

A lawyer for Kahn did not respond to Reuters' questions.

Marc Leon, the realtor in Marrakesh, told Reuters ⁠by email that Epstein first tried to buy Bin Ennakhil in 2011 and negotiations on the terms and price continued over the years.

With gold-draped walls, a hammam steam spa, 60 marble fountains and an outdoor pool and jacuzzi, Bin Ennakhil spreads across a total plot of 4.6 hectares, a property listing included in the DOJ's file cache said. It boasts multiple gardens with hundreds of olive trees and more than 2,000 palms, the listing said, in an area bigger than New York's Washington Square Park or around six standard soccer ⁠pitches.

Leon also defended his role in facilitating Epstein's bid for the property.

"Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes (in 2008) and had served his sentence. There was therefore nothing to prevent him from attempting to purchase property in Morocco. We had no way of knowing that he had continued his terrible crimes," he said.

Epstein died in jail in August 2019 while facing U.S. federal sex trafficking charges.

Epstein instructed funds to be moved

Epstein turned to Schwab in 2019 as Deutsche Bank was winding down accounts held by the convicted sex offender, who had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl and went to prison.

Schwab was among at least seven financial firms subpoenaed by the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2020 requesting documents in relation to the co-executors of ​Epstein's estate. ​The subpoena did not name Schwab as a defendant and contained no accusations of wrongdoing against the brokerage.

Emails and wire transfer requests contained in the DOJ documents, which may not be comprehensive, show ​that Epstein discussed purchasing the luxury property in Marrakesh with his associates in the spring of 2019.

Southern Trust, the company owned by ‌Epstein, agreed to buy the property through Leon in March of that year.

After considering various financial arrangements, the files show, Epstein instructed associates to move funds to Leon.

Schwab then received an order from Southern Trust to wire 11.15 million euros, roughly equivalent to $12.7 million at the time, to Leon on June 26, 2019, Schwab said in the SAR, which was seen by Reuters.

Advertisement

The SAR was contained in the batch the DOJ had released publicly, but has since been withdrawn for reasons Reuters could not ascertain. The DOJ declined to comment on the file.

The funds were sent to a Julius Baer account in Switzerland held by Leon, who was based in Marrakesh at the time, the SAR shows.

A file on the DOJ website also shows the request.

The next day, Schwab received a call from a person whose identity is redacted from the SAR requesting the termination of the transfer. Asked why, they told Schwab that terms on the real-estate deal had not been "agreeable".

The person also said another payment would be made for a larger sum to a different account, the SAR shows.

Schwab was successful in reversing the order, which would be credited back on July 10, the SAR shows.

Two days before Epstein's arrest, in a July 4 wire transfer request signed by Epstein and his co-signatory, Southern Trust instructed Schwab to send Leon $14.95 million, the SAR shows.

Schwab said the funds were sent to an account of Leon's ‌at Julius Baer, the SAR shows.

Yet Epstein's Southern Trust account did not have sufficient funds because Schwab had not yet returned money from the earlier transfer, the SAR says.

While Schwab could have had ​a reasonable expectation that the payment would be transferred back to Epstein's account, the bank would have been exposed to risk until the funds were returned.

Reuters could not establish when the $12.7 million ultimately landed ​back in Epstein's account but the funds were due to arrive on July 10, the SAR dated July 13 shows.

Asked by Reuters about its policy at ​that time for processing international wire transfers when accounts had insufficient funds, Schwab declined to comment.

Reuters was not able to establish whether Julius Baer accepted the transfers. A spokesperson for Julius Baer declined to comment.

Leon said: "The anti-money laundering checks in force were carried out by the ‌banking institutions involved in the future transaction, which ultimately never took place."

It was not until July 9, three days after ​Epstein's arrest, that Schwab cancelled the second transfer at the request of an individual acting ​on Epstein's behalf whose name is redacted, the SAR shows.

An email included in the other DOJ documents shows Epstein's accountant Kahn asked to cancel the transfer on July 9.

Kahn has been ordered to testify before Congress next week to answer questions about whether he helped to facilitate Epstein's crimes through his management of the late sex offender's financial affairs, House Oversight Committee member Robert Garcia said in a media statement in January.

Reuters has no evidence that Kahn is guilty of wrongdoing.

In a follow-up exchange with Schwab after Epstein's arrest, an unidentified Epstein associate asked if future transfers for Southern Trust's account would still require two ​signatures as more money would be sent soon, the SAR shows.

Epstein had been charged with sex trafficking of minors and remained in ‌jail, the DOJ said on July 8.

Schwab told FinCEN in the July 13 SAR it had "concerns with attempted wires for the purpose of real estate, in light of negative media surrounding Jeffrey Epstein" and worries about him being a possible flight risk ahead of a bail hearing.

"This investigation is ​the result of an internal referral," the document shows Schwab saying.

While Epstein's deal fell through, the palace of Bin Ennakhil - which means "amidst the palms" - in Marrakesh is no longer vacant.

"The property has since been sold to another buyer," Leon told Reuters.

(Reporting by Naomi Rovnick in London, Brad Heath ​in Washington and Nivedita Balu in Toronto. Additional reporting by Ariane Luthi in Zurich and Tommy Reggiori Wilkes in London. Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi, Catherine Evans and Alexander Smith)

Read More