‘Unsanitary’ video leads restaurant to fire some workers

‘Unsanitary’ video leads restaurant to fire some workers

PHILADELPHIA

A Philadelphia fast-food restaurant says workers will be fired after a Facebook video shows them joking about having sex and spitting in customers’ food, among other unsanitary acts.

But one former Checkers employee who posted the video says it was simply a publicity stunt gone wrong.

That man, Richard Benson, tells WCAU-TV that he’s a comedian and hip-hop artist who posted the video as a publicity stunt. He says none of the workers actually did the things described in the 44-minute video.

The Checkers franchise issued a statement saying the restaurant on Stenton Avenue will remain closed until it is “fully sanitized and re-inspected” and that the workers involved in the video are being fired.

4 killed on ride at Australian park

SYDNEY

Four people including a young mother and her brother were killed Tuesday after a river rapids ride malfunctioned at a popular theme park on Australia’s east coast, officials said.

Two men and two women died while on the ride at Dreamworld, a park on Queensland state’s Gold Coast, Queensland police officer Tod Reid told reporters.

Two children who were in the raft at the time of the accident were hospitalized, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said today.

The Thunder River Rapids ride whisks people in circular rafts along a fast-moving, man-made river. A malfunction caused two people to be ejected from their raft, while two others were caught inside the ride, said Gavin Fuller, an officer with the Queensland Ambulance Service.

Nurse charged in deaths of 8 residents

TORONTO

A nurse has been charged with the murders of eight elderly people at nursing homes in southwestern Ontario over a seven-year period, police said Tuesday.

Woodstock Police Chief William Renton said Elizabeth Tracey Mae Wettlaufer, 49, was charged with first-degree murder in the killings that took place between 2007 and 2014.

“The victims were administered a drug. We’re not in a position at this time to comment further on the specifics of the drug as it forms part of the evidence that is now before the courts,” Ontario Provincial Police detective Dave Truax said.

Police said they were first alerted to the deaths Sept. 29 and arrested Wettlaufer on Monday. They said she appeared in court Tuesday morning and remained in custody.

Crews tear down French migrant camp

CALAIS, FRANCE

Crews in hard hats and orange jumpsuits Tuesday started dismantling a makeshift camp in France that has become a symbol of Europe’s migrant crisis while thousands of people remained there waiting to be relocated.

The workers used their gloved hands to tear down flimsy plywood shelters, tarp-covered huts and other temporary buildings at the camp in the port city of Calais known as “the jungle.”

The demolition took place under the watch of police officers as authorities are emptying the camp of an estimated 6,300 people who have been living there, down from a height of 10,000 this summer.

Teen shoots classmate

salt lake city

A 16-year-old boy was shot twice and critically wounded by another teenager Tuesday afternoon when the two got into argument outside a middle school in a Salt Lake City suburb, authorities said. Police arrested a 14-year-old who they believe was the shooter, said Sandy police Sgt. Dean Carriger.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital and is in critical condition, Carriger said. He was in surgery Tuesday evening.

Associated Press