Beef off menu in Orange, Lake schools amid slaughterhouse probe. Beef was pulled off the lunch menus at all Orange and Lake county schools this week while U.S. officials investigate a California slaughterhouse that supplies the meat to many of the nation's school systems. [News Source]

USDA shuts down supplier of beef to schools. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has shut down operations at a Chino slaughterhouse accused of supplying meat from at-risk cattle and treating weak animals cruelly. [News Source]

French health officials on trial for mad-cow disease deaths. Seven French health officials charged with involuntary homicide over the death of more than 100 children infected with a human variant of mad-cow disease went on trial Wednesday in Paris, 16 years after the first victim of their alleged negligence died. [News Source]

USDA’s oversight of meat safety criticized. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has 7,800 pairs of eyes scrutinizing 6,200 slaughterhouses and food processors across the nation. But in the end, it took an undercover operation by an animal rights group to reveal that beef from ill and abused cattle had entered the human food supply. [News Source]