Florida: Cruise ship disinfected after illness breaks out

Disney workers spent several hours disinfecting a Disney cruise ship Saturday after more than 200 passengers fell ill with a stomach ailment on a seven-day cruise last week.

A crew of more than 1,100 sanitized the 964-foot Disney Magic ship hoping to eradicate the stomach bug before the ship left port about an hour after its scheduled 5 p.m. departure for another Caribbean voyage.

Investigators with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined the ship, but said they were unable to determine the source of the illness.

Washington, D.C.: Company recalls meat after E. coli suspected

A New York meat processing company is recalling hundreds of thousands of pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with potentially deadly E. coli bacteria.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Saturday that the processor, Fairbank Reconstruction Corp. which does business as Fairbanks Farms of Ashville, N.Y., is voluntarily recalling about 320,000 pounds of fresh ground beef products distributed nationwide.

The products were produced on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6 and bear the code “EST. 492” inside the USDA inspection mark.

No illnesses have been linked to the recalled beef, the USDA said.

Washington, D.C.: Peace Corps pulling volunteers from Jordan

The Peace Corps said Saturday it was suspending operations in Jordan, where some U.S. Embassy personnel and family members had been authorized to leave following the killing of an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“Peace Corps officials have evaluated the security situation in Jordan and determined that suspension of the program at this time is appropriate,” the volunteer agency said on its Web site.

The pullout, involving an estimated 30 to 40 volunteers, followed a State Department statement Friday authorizing the departure of nonessential embassy employees and dependents from Jordan.

North Carolina: Inspectors of jail failed to detect violations

State and county inspectors had failed to detect safety deficiencies that contributed to a jail fire that killed eight inmates, according to a state Labor Department report.

The report released Friday came a week after a district attorney decided no charges would be filed for the Mitchell County blaze.

Investigators have said the May 3 fire started in cardboard that was stacked against a heater in a storage room. Seven inmates died in a second-floor cell and an eighth died in a first-floor holding cell.

The Labor Department fined the county $1,500 last month for violations cited in the report, including a failure to follow state building regulations and fire safety rules.