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BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- A three-year-old girl was taken along for the ride during her mother's crime spree in Brevard County. Cocoa police say it all started in the early hours of Friday morning when the mother, with her daughter in the backseat, decided to rob the Wendy's on US 1 in Cocoa. Police say she was armed with a gun and got away with $600 cash. When the cops showed up, the suspect jumped in her car and took off. Police chased her for nearly 10 minutes and finally used stop sticks on her vehicle. One police car even...

Roast Beef Sandwich Chain Buys Square Burger Biz For $2 Billion (AP) After two past rejections, the owner of Arby's shaved roast beef sandwich restaurants is buying Wendy's, the fast-food chain famous for its made-to-order square hamburgers and chocolate Frosty dessert, for around $2 billion. Triarc Companies Inc., which is owned by billionaire investor Nelson Peltz, said Thursday it will pay about $2.34 billion in an all-stock deal for the nation's third-largest hamburger chain started in 1969 by Dave Thomas. Wendy's had rejected at least two buyout offers from Triarc. Thomas' daughter Pam Thomas Farber said the family was devastated...

A Rogers High School student accused of attempted kidnapping and trying to rob his employer recently had started therapy for personal problems, an advocate for the boy’s family said Tuesday. Jim Miranda, a lawyer and Hispanic rights advocate in Bella Vista, said Eduardo “Eddie” Hernandez, 17, suffers lingering effects because he stayed behind in Mexico as a boy while his mother came to the United States to work. “There is a certain amount of resentment that comes with being left behind in Mexico,” Miranda said. “The boy has some issues to work out, and his mother had recognized this and...

Monday, March 03, 2008 Update 6:15 p.m.: The victim of the Wendy's shooting has been identified as a 42-year-old Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Lieutenant Rafael (Ray) Vazquez. Vazquez was on lunch break with his wife and child, said Deputy Chief of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue Steve Delai. Five other people were shot in the restaurant at lunchtime. Vazquez's wife works for the Palm Springs Police Department. She was hired in 2000 as a dispatcher for Palm Springs Police. In 2005, she became a corporal and now runs the midnight shift. She was uninjured. She had just stepped outside to put...

<p>WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A gunman dressed in suit and tie killed one person at a Wendy's restaurant at lunchtime Monday, and shot four others before killing himself, police said.</p> <p>The gunfire sent customers scampering out of the restaurant. Motorists at the drive-thru window also fled, some leaving their vehicles running.</p>

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Witnesses said a man in a business suit opened fire Monday in a Wendy's restaurant in West Palm Beach, killing one person and injuring at least four others before killing himself, WPBF News 25 reported. The shooter, who is described by witnesses as a tall man wearing a baseball cap and a business suit, reportedly walked out of the bathroom of the Wendy's at Cherry Road and Military Trail around 12:18 p.m. Monday and shot a middle-aged white man standing by the railing near the front counter, killing him, Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office spokesman...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Authorities said at least two people are dead and five injured after a shooter entered a West Palm Beach Wendy's and shot several people, WPBF News 25 reported. A shooter apparently entered the restaurant at Cherry Road and Military Trail and shot several individuals around 12:10 p.m. Monday, Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue spokesman Don Delucia told WPBF News 25. The shooter then reportedly shot and killed himself, Delucia said. Delucia said that at least five people have been reported injured. Authorities said at least two individuals were killed, WPBF reported.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A gunman wearing a jacket and tie wordlessly and randomly opened fire inside a Wendy's during the lunchtime rush Monday, killing a firefighter who'd gone back to fetch his child's toy and wounding five other diners. He then turned the gun on himself. ADVERTISEMENT "This was not a robbery. He didn't demand anything...," said Paul Miller, a Palm Beach County sheriff's spokesman. "Looks like this was just another random shooting like we've seen around the United States." The 42-year-old victim, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue lieutenant, had met his wife and child at the restaurant,...

Wendy's purchase talks stuck at crawl Friday, August 10, 2007 3:25 AM By Monique Curet THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Wendy's International Inc. remains in talks with a potential buyer more than a week after a deadline passed for resolving issues related to the sale process. Neither the company nor the suitor, investor Nelson Peltz's Triarc Cos., is saying much. But if Wendy's is taking a hard stance during the negotiations, it suggests that the company "has sufficient interest from someone else," one observer said. No one is saying who that might be. Peltz, who owns Arby's and controls nearly 10 percent...

MIAMI --A manager at a fast-food restaurant was shot several times in the arm early Tuesday trying to protect the chili sauce, authorities said. A man in the Wendy's drive-through argued with an employee because he wanted more of the condiment, police said. The worker told the customer that restaurant policy prohibited a customer from getting more than three packets. The man insisted on 10, reports said. The employee complied, but police said the customer wanted even more. The manager came out to speak to the man, said Miami-Dade police spokesman Mary Walter. The customer then shot the manager, who...

"Please, Senator, tell us that funny joke about a college education, President Bush, our troops and Iraq.""What do ya mean, funny? Let me understand this cause, I don't know maybe it's me, I'm a little effed up maybe, but I'm funny how? I mean, funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh... I'm here to effin' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny? No, no, I don't know... you said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the eff am I funny, what the eff is so...

HOUSTON - A group of illegal immigrants who worked for Wendy's International Inc. is suing the restaurant chain because the company fired them after discovering it had missed a deadline for joining a federal program that would have helped them attain legal status. The lawsuit, filed Friday in state district court in Houston, is a companion to a similar class-action suit filed last month in Dallas against Dublin, Ohio-based Wendy's, its subsidiary Cafe Express and the Houston-based business law firm Boyar & Miller. The immigrants, who worked for Cafe Express, are seeking unspecified damages. Between the two lawsuits, 40 illegal...

Wendy's said yesterday it would significantly cut artery-clogging trans fats from its menu, beating market leader McDonald's, which still has not made good on its promise to remove the fats from french fries in the U.S.

DUBLIN, Ohio President Bush mixed politics with his prescription for what ails the nation's health care system on a trip Wednesday to Ohio, which was a pivotal state in his re-election and one with key races in this year's midterm elections. The president made his case for health savings accounts at Wendy's International Inc., where 9,000 employees have signed up for the accounts since the hamburger giant began offering them last year. "After more than five years of health care costs going at double-digit rates, Wendy's overall health care costs rose only by 1 percent last year," Bush said.

The president went to Dublin, Ohio, to attend a meeting on health savings accounts. Al Hubbard, Director of the National Economic Council, answers questions on this topic on "Ask the White House." Brit Hume interviewed the vice president today about the hunting accident; the conversation will be on Special Report, Fox News, at the usual air times tonight. The vice president called the day of the hunting accident "one of the worst days of my life." Harry Whittington is doing "extremely well" a day after he suffered a minor heart attack, doctors said. He is sitting up, eating, and doing...

San Jose -- A Nevada couple who cooked up a scheme to plant a severed finger in a bowl of Wendy's chili to extort money from the fast food chain were sentenced Wednesday to lengthy prison terms. Anna Ayala, 40, who said she bit into the digit, was sentenced to nine years in state prison. Her husband, Jaime Plascencia, 44, who supplied the finger, was ordered locked up for more than a dozen years. The pair pleaded guilty Sept. 9 in Santa Clara County Superior Court to two felony charges arising from the chili-finger scam: conspiracy to file a false...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Prosecutors are asking a judge to impose maximum prison sentences for the couple who masterminded the plot to plant a human fingertip in a bowl of Wendy's chili, calling the pair "grifters" who demonstrated "a total selfishness and perceived entitlement to other people's money." Jaime Plascencia, 44, and Anna Ayala, 40, pleaded guilty on Sept. 9 to two felony charges arising from the chili-finger scam: conspiracy to file a false insurance claim and attempted grand theft with damages exceeding $2.5 million. At most, Ayala faces nine years, eight months in prison for her part in the...

Dumpster diving has become popular among some fast-food consumers, thanks to a Wendy’s Restaurant promotion for free airfare. Wendy’s has partnered with Coca-Cola and AirTran Airlines in a promotional deal in which consumers who collect 32 soft-drink cups with a yellow ticket on the side can redeem the tickets for a free one-way ticket on an AirTran flight. Sixty-four tickets earn a consumer a roundtrip ticket. Those trying to earn the free airfare can go about it the old fashioned way by purchasing 32 soft drinks, sizes 20 or 32 ounces, from a Wendy’s restaurant. Other collectors have learned that...

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Sentencing for the couple implicated in the Wendy's chili finger scheme has been delayed until next month. Anna Ayala and her husband, Jaime Placencia, were scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for their role in planting a fingertip in a bowl of chili at Wendy's restaurant in March. Sentencing for the couple was delayed because a probation report was not ready yet. Ayala had claimed that she bit into the finger while eating chili at a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose earlier this year. Ayala and Placencia pleaded guilty in September to conspiring to file a false...

Wendy's has an angry shareholder at its drive-thru window: Nelson Peltz. Mr. Peltz, the billionaire investor who turned around Snapple and Arby's, has been quietly buying shares of Wendy's International, the third-largest fast-food company, behind McDonald's and Burger King. Now he plans to propose a radical overhaul of Wendy's and threatens a proxy fight, according to people briefed on his plans. Over the last year, Wendy's has been the target of several vocal hedge funds that argue that the company has been mismanaged. In July, Wendy's capitulated in part to calls to sell Tim Hortons, its successful Canadian doughnut chain,...