After the Denver, Colo., company Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. fired 500 employees more than a year ago, the U.S. government stepped up an investigation into the company's hiring practices.

Now the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is expanding inquiries into the alleged hiring of undocumented workers. The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is also investigating the allegations after an audit of the fast food chain.

Reuters reports that Chipotle has said it received the subpoena May 17 and intends to cooperate with the SEC's investigation.

Reporter Lisa Baertlein with Reuters wrote:

The popular chain is the highest profile U.S. company to come under the scrutiny of ICE since it shifted enforcement to employers rather than workers in 2009.

Unlike many rivals, Chipotle owns and operates its more than 1,000 U.S. restaurants and is ultimately responsible for hiring.

A San Francisco judge has ruled that California children should still get toys with their Happy Meals.

A proposed class-action lawsuit claimed that McDonald's was violating consumer protection laws and exploiting children's vulnerability to lure children to "nutritionally unbalanced meals" with toys. The suit was filed by a California mother of two and The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group. The group called the use of toys to market food a "predatory practice that undermined parents, caused rifts in families and harmed kids' health."

The suit was dismissed by San Francisco County Judge Richard Kramer April 4.

Ground beef processor AFA Foods filed for bankruptcy protection today, citing the media storm over so-called "pink slime."

AFA is one of the largest ground beef processors in the United States and produces more than 500 million pounds of ground beef products annually. The company sells its products, including frozen hamburgers, ready ground beef and beef skillet mix, under the brand names "Moran's" and "Miller Quality Meats."

Processing plants regularly treated boneless lean beef trimmings with ammonia hydroxide to kill pathogens, resulting in the product. The term "pink slime" was first used by a former USDA microbiologist. Gerald Zirnstein coined the term in a 2002 email to co-workers after having toured a Beef Products, Inc. plant. Several major supermarkets, including SUPERVALU, the parent company of Albertsons, suspended sales of any ground beef containing the product. Fast-food retailers and school districts nationwide joined in the ban.

Many consumer advocates believe that BPA, or bisphenol A—the plastic-hardening chemical found in drink packaging—can harm the reproductive and nervous systems, particularly in small children, and potentially lead to cancer.

Yet the Food and Drug Administration has rejected the latest call to ban BPA. Government officials said Friday that BPA opponents did not provide compelling scientific evidence to suggest a ban.

BPA is a synthetic estrogen developed more than 70 years ago. It came into wide use in the 1960s and 1970s to make polycarbonate plastic for things like baby bottles. It is also used as an epoxy resin to line metal cans. BPA can also be found in cellphones, dental sealants, eyeglasses, and as a coating for cash register receipts. It has been detected in the urine of more than 93 percent of Americans tested.

Whole Foods, which is rapidly building its first Idaho location in Boise, said Friday that it would stop selling unsustainable seafood.

Effective Earth Day, April 22, the mega-market will no long sell fish caught from depleted waters or sell so-called "red rated" seafood, indicating the fish came from overfished waters or caught in a way that harms other species.

According to the Associated Press, among the seafoood disappearing from Whole Foods shelves will be octopus, skate, gray sole, and Atlantic cod and halibut caught by trawls, which can destroy habitats. Instead, Whole Foods will stock cod caught on lines and halibut from the Pacific.

In 2008, Greenpeace first published a seafood sustainability scorecard on which 20 of the nation's major supermarket chains failed. But in 2011, 15 of the 20 had passing scores.

SUPERVALU, the parent company of Albertsons, joined a growing number of supermarket chains that will no longer sell what the meat industry calls "lean finely textured beef" and what has become more commonly known as "pink slime."

SUPERVALU operates Albertsons, Acme, Cub Foods, Farm Fresh, Hornbacher's, Jewel-Osco, Lucky, Shaw's/Star Market, Shop 'n Save and Shoppers Food and Pharmacy and is the nation's third-largest supermarket chain. Walmart and Safeway have also agreed to stop selling pink slime.

A quality assurance manager at Beef Products, Inc. told ABC News that the beef filler "is pink and frozen and not what the typical person would consider meat." The inspector, Kit Foshee, said he was fired from BPI for publicly complaining about the filler. According to ABC, critics said the substance is more like gelatin than meat, and before BPI found a way to disinfect the trimmings with ammonia, it was usually sold to dog food suppliers.

Possibly coming to a school near you: "pink slime."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expected to announce today that beginning this fall, American schools will be able to choose whether to buy hamburger commonly known as pink slime.

ABC News reports that the hamburger that contains lean, finely textured beef is already found in 70 percent of the ground beef sold at supermarkets. A quality assurance manager at Beef Products, Inc. told ABC that the beef filler "is pink and frozen and not what the typical person would consider meat." The inspector, Kit Foshee, said he was fired from BPI for publicly complaining about the filler.

According to ABC, critics said the substance is more like gelatin than meat, and before BPI found a way to disinfect the trimmings with ammonia, it was usually sold to dog food suppliers.

The USDA, while saying the substance "is safe to eat," will begin giving schools the OK to opt in or out of offering the controversial beef.

The rule is clear: fungicides are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, particularly to prevent fungus damage for oranges.

Yet according to the FDA, this month alone, 14 percent of the orange juice imported into the United States has been detained for having trace amounts of fungicides, specifically carbendazim, which is used in other countries. The seized shipments originated from Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, Belize, Honduras, Lebanon and Turkey. Coca-Cola, which distributes orange juice under the Minute Maid and Simply Orange brands, said it found the fungicide in its juice and rival juices, and reported the findings to the FDA.

The United States imported $438 million worth of orange juice in 2010.

The FDA said it was currently testing domestically grown orange juice for any traces of fungicides and those results are expected to be made public this coming week.

One of the largest meat distributors in the nation is recalling 36 million pounds of turkey. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture announced Wednesday night that Cargill would recall fresh and frozen ground turkey products produced at the company's Springdale, Ark., plant from Feb. 20 through Aug. 2, due to possible contamination from the strain of salmonella linked to at least 76 illnesses and one death.

All of the packages recalled include the code, "Est. P-963," though packages were labeled under many different brands including Honeysuckle White, Riverside Ground Turkey, Natural Lean Ground Turkey, Fit & Active Lean Ground Turkey, Spartan Ground Turkey and Shady Brook Farms Ground Turkey Burgers.

The most common symptoms of salmonella are diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within 8 to 72 hours of eating a contaminated product. It can be life-threatening to individuals with weakened immune systems. 

Either Larry Squillace has to change almost every aspect of his burger restaurant on Fairview Avenue in Boise, or he risks a lawsuit from one of the largest and most successful franchises in the Western U.S. In-N-Out Burger, with locations no closer to Boise than Utah, has threatened Squillace with legal action unless he changes everything from his tables and chairs, to his sign, to his menu.

“We packed up our whole family, liquidated our assets and moved to Boise to open Burger Express,” Squillace told Citydesk. “I’ve been flippin’ burgers since I was 13 working at my dad’s burger stand. I had been wanting to do something like this for seven or eight years, but waited for the right location.”

Squillace works behind the counter with two of his five daughters and two sons-in-law. He had every reason to be optimistic until earlier this month.

• A good amount of the Squillace family makes up Burger Express' workforce.

“My wife lost her battle with cancer on July 6,” said Squillace. “And I got served this letter from In-N-Out the very next day. Are you kidding me?”

You can read the letter here. In-N-Out_complaint.pdf

The letter, from a Salt Lake City law firm representing In-N-Out, accused Squillace of copying the franchise’s color scheme, decor and menu. Indeed, Squillace’s menu is quite basic, not unlike In-N-Out.

“We serve burgers, fries and shakes,” said Squillace. “Yes, it is similar to them, but only because I decided to go back to the type of burger restaurants that so many of us grew up with. I had no desire to copy them, but to go back to our roots.”

Citydesk contacted In-N-Out’s Salt Lake City attorney, Juliette White of Parsons, Behle & Latimer. While she would not take direct questions, she forwarded a statement from In-N-Out’s vice president of Planning and Development, Carl Van Fleet.

“We will virgorously defend our trademarks and trade-dress against any and all copycats and imitators,” Van Fleet’s statement read. “That said, we always try to resolve disputes such as these amicably and we are always willing to work with owners to find reasonable solutions that will prevent customer confusion and protect the In-N-Out brand.”

“They said no thank you,” said Squillace. “I don’t know if they’re after monetary gain or they want me to get out of the business.”

But Van Fleet’s statement said the company was in touch with Squillace.

“We are trying to resolve the matter amicably and formal legal action has not been initiated,” read Van Fleet’s statement.