What a clucking shame.

An Illinois school worker will spend the next nine years in prison after she stole 11,000 cases of chicken wings worth $1.5 million that were meant for students during the height of the COVID pandemic, prosecutors said.

Vera Liddell used her position as the food service director at Harvey School District 152 to carry out the unappetizing crime that was only unearthed after the district realized the school system blew past its budget, prosecutors reportedly said.

Liddell, 68, started the scheme in July 2020 and didn’t stop until February 2022, the Cook County State Attorney’s Office said, according to ABC 7 Chicago.

While she bought up the incredible amount of poultry and used a school cargo van to pick up the food, students never saw a single wing, prosecutors said, per WGN.

Schools were closed, but the district near Chicago was still sending out meal kits to students in remote learning during the height of the pandemic.

She was originally charged with theft and operating a criminal enterprise in January 2023.

Liddell, who was food service head for ten years at the district, took a guilty plea in the case before she received the 9-year prison sentence, WGN reported.

A school business manager found food costs were $300,000 over budget even though there were still months left to the school year during a routine audit that led to Liddell’s arrest.

Considering the strength and longevity of the McDonald’s brand, I’m surprised something like this hasn’t happened sooner. But happened it has, and it proves once again that the Golden Arches muckety-mucks know how to create excitement.

Unless you count the McDiner (and you can even if some don’t), this would be McDonald’s first spin-off restaurant. (I searched and couldn’t find another one.) And it will be fruitless to walk into a CosMc’s looking for the same fare you’d find in the parent establishment…with a few exceptions.

Aimed at a younger audience, the CosMc’s menu features an array of breakfast and beverage items ranging from specialty coffees, slushes, and frappes to sandwiches like the spicy queso–an omelet with sausage, spicy queso sauce, white cheddar cheese, and crispy jalapeno chips–and the creamy avocado tomatillo–an omelet with applewood bacon, creamy avocado tomatillo sauce, and white cheddar cheese. Both are served on a brioche bun. The sides on the CosMc’s menu also look a little different, but three old favorites are also be available.

The first CosMc’s location opened last December in the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook IL. Four other locations in Texas have also opened. We certainly hope expansion continues.

And in case you’re wondering where the name “CosMc’s” came from, you need only look back to the late 1980s and early 1990s when McDonald’s introduced a character named CosMc:

I’m enamored of the CosMc’s menu, so my fingers are crossed that it keeps expanding and eventually lands in my neighborhood…or even 100 miles away. I’m ready to go.

[SOURCE: today.com]

LOOK: 15 Discontinued McDonald’s Menu Items

This has been a year of strange earthquake locations in Illinois and Missouri already. Saturday night was no exception as a not insignificant quake was confirmed by the USGS to shake the southeastern part of Illinois.

Since I check the USGS earthquake page several times every day, I get used to where earthquakes are common and where they are not. I can count on one hand the number of occasions when this part of Illinois has had a measurable quake. The USGS seismologists have confirmed there was a 2.4 magnitude quake centered near Enfield, Illinois at approximately 10:03pm Saturday, August 10.

This was likely not a New Madrid Seismic Zone event, but the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone instead. As Wikipedia mentions, there is geological evidence that there has been a quake as large as a 7.0 magnitude shaker or perhaps even a 7.5 in this region. I’ve seen some speculation that the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone might be capable of an even larger quake than the New Madrid Fault.

The good news is a 2.4 is not capable of any level of damage and virtually no one has reported feeling it as of this writing. Still, it’s an interesting geological event in what’s already been a compelling seismic year in Illinois and Missouri.