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WACO, Texas – Officers searching a woman after a traffic stop found a fully-loaded pistol in her vagina, Waco police said. Just before 11 p.m. Monday, officers stopped a 1998 Toyota Land Rover at 15th and Blair in north Waco for a traffic violation. During the stop, officers discovered the driver of the vehicle, Gabriel Garcia, 30, was allegedly had 2.7 grams of methamphetamine under his driver's seat. A further search of the car allegedly uncovered another 29.5 grams of meth and weighing scales in the purse of the female passenger, Ashley Cecilia Castaneda, 31. Because the traffic stop occurred...

Two and a half years ago, a man who eats tuna filed a class action lawsuit against Starkist, a tuna company. His allegation was that the company was deliberately under-filling each can by a few tenths of an ounce. That might not make a difference to one consumer making one tuna salad, but would add up over millions of cans. While Starkist doesn’t admit fault, the case has been settled. If you’re a resident of the United States and bought at least one five-ounce can of any of these tunas from Starkist between February 19, 2009 and October 31, 2014,...

The horrific death of Jose Melena of Wilmington occurred Oct. 11, 2012, when he entered a 35-foot cylindrical oven and became inadvertently trapped when coworkers loaded 12,000 pounds of canned tuna into the oven. Workers did not know Melena was inside, according to the DA’s office. During the two-hour heat sterilization process, the oven’s internal temperature rose to about 270 degrees, the DA’s office had previously said. Melena’s severely burned remains were discovered by a coworker. His family will get $1.5 million of the $6 million settlement payout. Under the plea agreement, San Diego-based Bumble Bee will also be required...

Bumble Bee Foods and two employees were charged Monday with violating safety regulations in the death of a California worker who was cooked in an industrial oven with tons of tuna, prosecutors said.

(Newser) – Felony charges have been filed more than two years after the horrific death of a worker at a California tuna plant. Bumble Bee Foods and two of its employees have been charged with willfully violating safety rules in the death of 62-year-old Jose Melena, who was cooked to death inside an industrial oven at the company's Santa Fe Springs plant, the Los Angeles Times reports.

In much the same way most American homes have different half-filled tubes of sunblock, off-sized batteries, and calculators that can't be thrown away, most American homes have the six following foods. We may not eat them often, or even like them, but we still keep them on hand. They're just part of what make a home a home — even if we forget why. Here, the largely forgotten histories of six American staples. 1. Tuna fish During the 20th century tuna fish was one America's most purchased proteins — but it didn't happen without a dash of ingenuity. In 1903,...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has found that Alaska seafood is safe from Fukushima radiation, but a citizen’s group plans to conduct a separate study of the water in lower Cook Inlet using a crowdsource funding site. “The (FDA) results confirm information from federal, state and international agencies that seafood in the North Pacific and Alaska waters poses no radiation related health concerns to those who consume it,” said a statement released by state health and environmental officials. The FDA review was based on a sampling plan developed by the departments of Environmental Conservation and Health and Social Services,...

Seriously, the cans say chunk light but it's all mush.

We've extensively documented that radioactivity from Fukushima is spreading to North America. More than a year ago, 15 out of 15 bluefin tuna tested in California waters were contaminated with radioactive cesium from Fukushima. Bluefin tuna are a wide-ranging fish, which can swim back and forth between Japan and North America in a year:

This is just the latest revelation in the stealth inflation and food fraud theme I have written about frequently in recent months. The non-profit group Oceana took samples of 1,215 fish sold in the U.S. and genetic tests found that that 59% of those labeled tuna were mislabeled. It seems that “white tuna” should be avoided in particular as “84% of fish samples labeled 'white tuna' were actually escolar, a fish that can cause prolonged, uncontrollable, oily anal leakage.” Oh and if you live in my hometown of New York City, you should pay particular attention: Big Apple has big...

I'll bet no one else around here owns a calibrated radiation survey meter! I have posted this before, but it's worth repeating. A few months after the Fukushima meltdown, I took my survey meter to the grocery store. California veggies...fine. Fish display...fine. Canned tuna shelves....UH OH. I measured .05 rad/hour. That's over one rad/day. Since the tuna was in cans, the alpha and beta particles would not be detected, IIRC. If I remember my particle physics, my meter must have been detecting gammas or neutrons. If someone ingests the radioactive particles in the tuna, they will be irradiated from the...

The Most Frequently Mislabeled Fish Dina SpectorDec. 11, 2012, 12:46 PMIf you live in New York, and buy or eat fish, then at some point you probably received something different than what thought you were getting, The New York Times' Elisabeth Rosenthal reports. A surprising number of mislabeled seafood items end up in grocery stores and restaurants, a new study by conservation group Ocenana revealed. More specifically, researchers found that 56, or 39 percent, of 142 fish samples DNA tested were were different from what they claimed to be. Fish labeled as white tuna often turned out be escolar (a...

SANTA FE SPRINGS (AP) — Authorities say a 62-year-old employee was cooked to death at a Southern California seafood plant for tuna maker Bumble Bee Foods The Whittier Daily News reports Jose Melena was found Thursday shortly before 7 a.m. at the plant in Santa Fe Springs. California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza says t’s unclear how the man ended up inside a cooking device called a “steamer machine.” The state department has launched an investigation into the accident. In a written statement, Bumble Bee Foods spokesman Pat Menke expressed condolences to Melena’s family and says...

Are kids' school lunches safe? A new report from the advocacy group Mercury Policy Project finds tuna served as school lunches in some states may contain levels of mercury that the organization deems toxic. Mercury is a naturally occurring neurotoxin in the environment that can be released into the air through industrial pollution. It builds up in water and streams and turns into methylmercury, a compound which is then absorbed by fish as they feed. The report, called "Tuna Surprise" is the first to test canned tuna sold to schools, according to its authors. "Most children are already consuming only...

Al McGlashan, a prominent big-game fisherman in Australia, ventured to sea Friday in search of tuna and swordfish. The highlight, however, was the bizarre discovery of a fresh giant squid carcass.

(05-28) 12:48 PDT LOS ANGELES, (AP) -- Across the vast Pacific, the mighty bluefin tuna carried radioactive contamination that leaked from Japan's crippled nuclear plant to the shores of the United States 6,000 miles away — the first time a huge migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity such a distance. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/28/national/a120114D60.DTL#ixzz1wDhpH1BO

(Newser) – First came "pink slime," the processed beef too dubious even for McDonald's. Now "tuna scrape" might be poised to become the seafood equivalent. With a recent salmonella outbreak being linked to tuna scrape—ground backmeat scraped from the bones of the fish—people are asking whether this fish product is fit for human consumption, reports NPR. Raw meat, after all, is generally riskier than cooked, and ground products are at greater risk for contamination. "I don't think enough research has been done on these products," one food safety expert says. But others say the comparison is unfair. While tuna scrape...

DANIA BEACH, Fla., -- The International Game Fish Association in Florida said a 427.9-pound yellowfin tuna is not a world record because someone else touched the angler's pole. The organization said the giant fish, caught by Robert Pedigo aboard the Journeyman off the coast of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Thursday, is not eligible for the world record because Danny Osuna, a captain working as a deckhand aboard the Journeyman, touched Pedigo's pole while he was struggling with the tuna, FoxNews.com reported Friday. IGFA rules state a world record fish must be caught without any help. "We have caught a lot of...

Tainted tuna is being blamed for a salmonella outbreak that's sickened more than 100 people in 20 states.

A Massachusetts fisherman pulled in an 881-pound tuna this week only to have the federal authorities take it away. It sounds like a libertarian twist on the classic novella by Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, but for Carlos Rafael, the saga is completely true. Rafael and his crew were using nets to catch bottom-dwellers when they inadvertently snagged the giant tuna. However, federal fishery enforcement agents took control of the behemoth when the boat returned to port. The reason for the seizure was procedural: While Rafael had the appropriate permits, fishermen are only allowed to catch tuna...