Pokémon Trading Card Game collectors are already chasing a handful of eye-popping price tags just as the franchise’s newest expansion, Mega Evolution — Pitch Black, hits shelves on Friday, July 17, with early secondary-market data showing one Mega Darkrai card commanding close to $1,000 in the set’s first week of release.

Pitch Black marks the latest entry in Pokémon’s Mega Evolution era of releases and centers on Dark- and Ghost-type Pokémon, with Mega Darkrai serving as the expansion’s headline creature across a set built around eerie cityscapes, new Trainer cards and additional Mega Evolution mechanics. According to early tracking data from the marketplace TCGplayer, several cards from the set have already generated significant buzz among collectors and competitive players, with prices climbing quickly in the days surrounding the set’s release.

At the very top of the list sits a Mega Darkrai ex card numbered 120/084, classified as a Mega Hyper Rare using the set’s signature gold-foil treatment. That card was trading for $996.69 on TCGplayer as of the latest tracking, making it the single most valuable card in the new expansion. Market watchers cautioned that early secondary-market prices for freshly released sets tend to be volatile, and that values for high-demand cards like this one often settle somewhat once more booster packs have been opened and additional copies enter circulation.

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The second-most valuable card in the set is a different version of Mega Darkrai ex, numbered 116/084 and classified as a Special Illustration Rare, currently valued at $520.27. The artwork on that card draws directly from Pokémon franchise lore, depicting withered trees that reference the 2007 animated film “Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai,” specifically the garden of Alamos Town, where the film’s version of Darkrai finds peace.

Rounding out the top three is Morpeko ex, numbered 117/084 and also classified as a Special Illustration Rare, currently valued at $192.98. Morpeko, a small rodent-like Pokémon introduced in the franchise’s eighth generation, has proven to be a consistent chase card in past sets as well, having previously ranked among the most sought-after cards in the Paradox Rift expansion.

Just behind Morpeko is Mega Zeraora ex, numbered 114/084, another Special Illustration Rare currently priced at $171.34. The card depicts the Electric-type mythical Pokémon in its Mega Evolved form, with collectors drawn to the vibrant artwork showcasing its enhanced, electrified design.

Further down the list, prices drop off considerably but remain well above typical booster-pack value for several additional cards. Misty’s Vitality, an Ultra Rare Trainer card numbered 111/084 featuring the longtime franchise character Misty, is valued at $60.36. The card allows players to search their deck for up to four Basic Water Energy cards and attach them directly to a Pokémon, continuing a pattern of strong secondary-market demand for cards featuring the character, following past high-value Misty cards from sets including Unified Minds and Hidden Fates.

Primarina, an Illustration Rare numbered 088/084, is currently valued at $44.67. The card depicts the Generation 7 starter Pokémon’s final evolution and includes an ability called Enriching Melody, which allows a player to heal damage from one of their Pokémon when evolving into Primarina during their turn.

Gladion’s Final Battle, a Trainer card numbered 118/084 tied to the Alola-region character Gladion, is valued at $29.24. The card, which can only be used when it is the last card remaining in a player’s hand, boosts the damage of attacks from Pokémon without Rule Boxes by 80 additional points during the turn it is played. The card has reportedly already seen competitive success at the Indonesia Master Ball League, an early tournament following the set’s release.

Slowbro, an Illustration Rare numbered 090/084, is valued at $28.49, with its artwork depicting the Pokémon in an urban setting rather than its traditional beachside environment. The card’s primary attack, All Out, deals additional damage when the player has no cards remaining in hand.

Goldeen, numbered 087/084, rounds out much of the list at $26.87. The card marks the first time the Water-type Pokémon has appeared as a full-art Illustration Rare in the trading card game’s history, a milestone that has driven demand among longtime collectors of the franchise’s original 151 Pokémon from the Kanto region.

At the more accessible end of the chase list is the Ultra Rare Mega Darkrai ex, numbered 116/084, valued at $27.23. The card’s in-game effect grants an automatic knockout against any opposing Pokémon that is asleep or poisoned when the attack, named Pitch Black, is used, a powerful mechanic that has already drawn attention from competitive players evaluating the set’s tournament potential.

Pricing across the set’s most valuable cards illustrates the wide range collectors can expect during a new expansion’s opening weeks, with values spanning from roughly $27 for lower-tier chase cards up to nearly $1,000 for the set’s premier gold-foil rarity. Analysts who track the trading card market have noted that prices for newly released Pokémon cards typically experience their sharpest swings during the first several weeks after launch, as initial scarcity gives way to a steadier supply once additional booster boxes and cases reach retailers and online marketplaces.

Pitch Black officially becomes available at retailers Friday, with products including booster bundles already listed at major retailers ahead of the release. As with previous Pokémon TCG expansions, collectors and competitive players alike are expected to continue monitoring secondary-market prices closely in the coming weeks to see which cards hold their early value and which settle into more typical price ranges as the broader supply of the set catches up with early demand.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is stepping into physical retail with an unusual mix of products this week, rolling out a branded rubber basketball priced at $70 alongside its first genuine piece of consumer hardware: a $230 mini keyboard built for users of its AI coding assistant, Codex.

The basketball is part of a broader merchandise push OpenAI is calling “Pause. Play. Prompt.,” a campaign the company says is meant to remind people that creativity extends beyond screens. The product listing describes the ball as “a physical reminder that creativity doesn’t just live on our screens.” Alongside the basketball, OpenAI’s new merchandise shop also includes a $175 quarter-zip sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “research” in cursive lettering, along with other items carrying inspirational slogans such as “Good research takes time.”

The pricing has drawn some pointed commentary from tech reporters. TechCrunch’s Amanda Silberling noted that the “Pause. Play. Prompt.” branding does not appear to exist anywhere else on OpenAI’s site, joking that the campaign seemed designed to discourage people from spending all day inside the company’s own products. She also questioned who exactly the basketball was designed for, writing bluntly that she “could not pay me $70 to walk onto a community court” with the branded ball.

The more consequential hardware news, however, arrived a day earlier, when OpenAI unveiled the Codex Micro, officially named the kbd-1.0-codex-micro, marking the company’s first true hardware product. Built in partnership with Work Louder, a Canadian-Italian maker of programmable keyboards and macro pads, the $230 device functions less like a traditional keyboard and more like a specialized control panel for managing AI coding agents, the semi-autonomous bots capable of writing and executing code with minimal human oversight.

The device includes 13 mechanical switches, a touch sensor, a rotary dial for adjusting how much computing power, or “reasoning,” an AI agent applies to a given task, and an analog joystick for launching common workflows. According to OpenAI, illuminated “Agent Keys” display real-time status updates showing whether a given coding agent is thinking, running, waiting or finished with its task, while separate customizable “Command Keys” offer shortcuts for frequently used Codex actions such as accepting or rejecting code changes, starting a new chat, or activating push-to-talk voice input. The keyboard is available in two versions, one with an audibly clicky switch mechanism and one designed to operate silently, and connects via both USB-C and Bluetooth.

OpenAI’s developer team described the appeal of the device in a promotional post on the social platform X, framing it as a way to keep pinned chats visible and map buttons and the joystick directly to a user’s workflow. The company’s own product page goes further, describing the Codex Micro as a “command center for agentic work.”

Despite the polish of the launch, OpenAI told TechCrunch the Codex Micro is being sold as a limited-run collaboration rather than a mass-market product, suggesting the device is intended more as a novelty item signaling the company’s broader hardware ambitions than as a high-volume consumer release. Notably, the Codex Micro is not the long-rumored device OpenAI has been developing in partnership with former Apple designer Jony Ive, a screen-free AI gadget first announced last year that OpenAI’s chief financial officer has said will be revealed by the end of the year. According to a separate report from Bloomberg, that forthcoming device is being designed as a portable, screenless smart speaker that integrates with ChatGPT and includes mechanical components capable of moving on their own, a considerably more ambitious undertaking than the Codex Micro’s specialized keyboard format.

The Codex Micro’s launch arrives at a legally sensitive moment for OpenAI’s broader hardware push. The unveiling came less than a week after Apple filed a lawsuit accusing OpenAI of stealing trade secrets related to hardware development through former Apple employees who later joined OpenAI, a dispute tied to the company’s larger ambitions in the physical device space. Some coverage of the Codex Micro’s release explicitly framed the keyboard launch against the backdrop of that ongoing legal battle, noting the timing as OpenAI presses forward with hardware plans even as it faces scrutiny over how those plans came together.

Reaction to the Codex Micro among tech reporters has generally centered on its niche appeal. Coverage from multiple outlets described the device as resembling a Stream Deck, the popular customizable macro-control panel widely used by streamers and content creators, reworked specifically for developers managing multiple AI coding agents simultaneously. Reporters noted that all of the device’s physical inputs are fully customizable, allowing users to reassign keys and tailor the joystick and dial functions to their own coding workflows.

Together, the basketball, sweatshirt and Codex Micro keyboard reflect a broader effort by OpenAI to make the ChatGPT brand feel more tangible beyond its software products, even as the company’s actual AI tools continue driving increased screen time for millions of users worldwide. The contrast has not gone unnoticed by observers, who have pointed out the apparent tension between a campaign explicitly encouraging people to step away from screens and a company whose core business depends on users spending more time engaging with its AI products.

Whether the merchandise line represents a lasting business strategy or a short-lived branding exercise remains unclear. OpenAI’s own characterization of the Codex Micro as a limited-run collaboration suggests the company views its early hardware forays as experimental rather than central to its business, even as the more ambitious Jony Ive-designed device continues development behind the scenes. For now, the basketball, sweatshirt and specialized keyboard offer an unusual physical footnote to a company otherwise known almost entirely for its software, giving OpenAI a small but tangible retail presence as it continues expanding well beyond its original identity as an AI research lab.

A meteorite that punched through the roof of a New Jersey home two years ago has revealed a rich chemical record of the early solar system, including a diverse suite of amino acids that scientists say are almost entirely foreign to life on Earth.

The 2-pound space rock, now known as the Hillsborough meteorite, streaked across the daytime sky on July 16, 2024, drawing reports from observers across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania. As it passed just south of the Statue of Liberty, the object produced a sonic boom felt by residents throughout New York City and New Jersey. Traveling at roughly 32,000 miles per hour, the meteor was estimated to be about the size of a heavy airline bag before it began breaking apart approximately 22 miles above the ground.

Doppler weather radar at Newark Liberty International Airport picked up a cloud of fragments raining down from the sky between Staten Island and New Jersey, but only one piece was ever recovered. That fragment crashed through the ceiling of a master bedroom in a home in Hillsborough, New Jersey, causing no injuries. The homeowners, who have asked to remain anonymous, acted quickly to preserve the fallen material, using disposable gloves, aluminum foil and glass jars to collect the black fragments and dust scattered across their bed and carpet.

Peter Jenniskens, a senior research scientist at the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center, is the lead author of a study detailing the analysis of the meteorite, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. Jenniskens said the homeowners’ quick action extended beyond simply collecting the debris. Recognizing that the fragile, porous rock could absorb moisture from the air, the homeowners patched their roof before rain fell that same evening, a step Jenniskens said proved crucial to protecting the sample from contamination.

That preservation effort allowed researchers to study the meteorite in an unusually pristine state. Analysis showed it to be a rare, primitive type of space rock known as a CM-type carbonaceous chondrite, classified more specifically as an intermediate CM½ variety that exists between two established subtypes distinguished by how much water altered their composition while still attached to a larger parent asteroid. According to Jenniskens, the sample marks only the second time a CM½ meteorite has ever been observed falling to Earth, and the first time researchers have been able to study one in such well-preserved condition. A similar meteorite that fell in Indonesia in 2020 landed in mud, compromising much of its scientific value.

Jenniskens said the sample offers researchers an unusually direct look at the physical structure of its parent body, noting in written comments that it is the first CM-type meteorite found to contain fragments of rock that preserved the subsurface characteristics of the original asteroid. He said the Hillsborough meteorite likely broke away from a larger asteroid within the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, following a chain of cosmic events he described in detail: a major collision formed a broader asteroid family at some point in the past, a smaller collision roughly 6 million years ago destroyed one of those asteroids, and the resulting fragment eventually settled into a near-Earth orbit before heat and cold cycling caused it to break apart again about 200,000 years ago, ultimately setting it on a path toward Earth.

Chemical analysis of the recovered fragments turned up high concentrations of sodium, a signature researchers believe originated from icy brines once present within the meteorite’s parent asteroid. As that water evaporated over time, it left behind concentrated salt minerals capable of forming molecules considered essential building blocks for life. Alongside those salts, researchers also detected organic carbon and a complex array of amino acids within the sample.

Study co-author Danny Glavin, a senior scientist in the Sample Return in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the detected amino acids were largely unlike anything found in Earth-based biology. “We detected a complex suite of amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of proteins, in water extracts of the Hillsborough meteorite,” Glavin said. “Most of the amino acids detected in Hillsborough are rare or nonexistent in life on Earth, so they are truly extraterrestrial in origin.” Glavin added that the diversity of amino acids identified in the sample exceeded what researchers found in pristine material returned from the carbon-rich asteroids Bennu and Ryugu, sampled respectively by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in 2020 and Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission in 2019.

Researchers are now working to compare the salt minerals identified in the Hillsborough meteorite with those previously catalogued in the Bennu and Ryugu samples, aiming to better understand how water shaped the chemistry of primitive asteroids across the solar system. Fragments of the meteorite are currently being curated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Outside researchers say the discovery adds meaningfully to scientists’ understanding of how life’s chemical precursors may have first reached Earth. Peter Brown, a professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Western University in Ontario who was not involved in the study, said the presence of brine within the meteorite offers a particularly strong window into how water once moved through and reacted with organic material inside a primitive asteroid. Brown said meteorites like the Hillsborough sample retain the chemical fingerprint of the early solar system precisely because, while altered by water, they never experienced the intense heating that many other space rocks endure, leaving them with a texture closer to crumbling soil or clay than solid stone.

Brown credited the homeowners’ fast, informed response with making the scientific analysis possible in the first place, noting that rainfall likely destroyed any additional fragments that landed outside before they could be collected. The homeowners connected shortly after the fall with Mike Hankey of the American Meteor Society, who guided them through the process of preserving the sample and minimizing contamination.

Reflecting on the experience, the homeowners said they understood almost immediately how rare the event was. “We knew almost immediately that what happened to us was incredibly rare and we felt a responsibility to preserve the meteorite for the scientific community,” they said in written comments. “It’s still surreal to think that this meteorite traveled through space for millions of years before ending its journey in our home. The entire experience has been incredible, and we’re honored to have played a small part in advancing scientific understanding through its study.”

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Mr Denning is founder and director of Stapleton Derby Group

St Helens business leader Mike Denning has been appointed as chair of the Town Centre East and Fingerpost Neighbourhood Board.

He will lead the Neighbourhood Board, which will help to oversee £20 million investment into the area over the next ten years through the Government’s Pride in Place programme.

Mike, who was born and raised in St Helens, is founder and director of Stapleton Derby Group, a company specialising in property sales, lettings and development and employs over 15 staff across three offices in St Helens borough, including one within the Town Centre East and Fingerpost boundary.

His career has spanned over 30 years across legal services, commercial enterprise and property development. He brings extensive experience operating as chair, trustee, and committee lead, overseeing regulated organisations, delivering large-scale funded programmes, and representing organisations with government bodies, national governing bodies, funders, commercial partners, and community stakeholders.

Alongside his professional career Mike has been deeply involved with community initiatives for over 25 years including serving as Chair and Trustee of one of the UK’s largest and most successful community Rugby League clubs, Thatto Heath Crusaders ARLFC. He was chairman of the Steve Prescott Foundation for 10 years and trustee of St Helens Autism Support as well as an honorary member of the All Parliamentary Rugby League Group.

Mike will now work with St Helens Borough Council and Marie Rimmer MP for St Helens South and Whiston, to appoint the wider Neighbourhood Board following an open recruitment process.

Mike said: “I am passionate about change in St Helens Borough. This is a great opportunity for those who live and operate in the Town Centre East and Fingerpost areas to have a say on how funding is spent and to frame their future. Engagement is crucial and together with the board I will work to get the funding to the people and projects that will have the most impact.”

Cllr Jack Benyon, Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Property and Planning at St Helens Borough Council, said: “We are delighted to have someone with Mike’s experience taking up the role of Chair of the Town Centre East and Fingerpost Neighbourhood Board. Mike’s proven track record in both business and community initiatives is exactly what is needed to drive forward transformation in the area and I look forward to seeing Mike and colleagues help to deliver real, meaningful change for the people of Town Centre East and Fingerpost.”

Marie Rimmer MP for St Helens South and Whiston said: “I am delighted to welcome Mike as Chair of the Board. His passion for our community and wealth of experience make him a brilliant choice to lead this important programme. I look forward to working closely with him, the board, and the community to ensure this investment delivers the improvements that local people want to see.”

The wider Town Centre East and Fingerpost Neighbourhood Board will be appointed over the coming weeks before submission to Government’s Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government for ratification later this month.

Following formal appointments the Neighbourhood Board will undertake extensive community consultation to develop a 10-year Pride in Place Plan that reflects the needs and aspirations of the community.

To find all the planning applications, traffic diversions, road layout changes, alcohol licence applications and more in your community, visit the Public Notices Portal.

The government department charged with backing British business is practising what it preaches on AI, investing in specialist skills training before switching on its own in-house tool. For SME owners weighing their first AI purchase, the sequence matters as much as the software.

Figures obtained under a freedom of information request show that between 2023 and 2026 the Department for Business and Trade invested in a range of specialist AI courses, combining data science, AI governance and generative AI skills. Programmes included AI Law, Policing and Governance and AI Fundamentals, with subscriptions delivered through universities and digital learning platforms including Pluralsight and O’Reilly for digital and data teams.

That groundwork preceded the arrival of Ask DBT, the department’s new in-house AI-powered tool, built to tackle a problem familiar to any growing firm: a large and constantly evolving intranet that staff struggle to navigate. Employees can ask questions in plain English and receive clear, sourced responses drawn entirely from intranet content.

The early numbers are encouraging. During its trial, over 30 per cent of the cohort used the tool, and 61 per cent of queries were answered immediately, cutting the time spent fielding routine questions about IT, travel and expenses.

Those are the sorts of low-value, repetitive queries that quietly drain smaller firms too. Research has found employees at UK companies lose two days a week to manual tasks, part of a wider picture in which 72 per cent of UK firms report skills gaps in AI, data and cybersecurity.

Stuart Harvey, CEO of Datactics, said the department’s approach was a model worth copying. “Department for Business & Trade investment in specialist AI skills, matched with the rollout of Ask DBT is showing other businesses what modern digital services need to succeed.”

“AI tools are built on the data beneath them, so strengthening capability in areas in governance and analytics is key to build reliable, well-structured AI that can improve employee experience and service delivery.”

The point is worth dwelling on. Plenty of SMEs have bought AI tools that underwhelmed, not because the technology failed but because the data feeding it was a mess and nobody in the building understood how to govern it. DBT’s answer, unglamorous training in governance and analytics before deployment, is one any firm can replicate at modest cost.

Nor is DBT alone in Whitehall. The government’s Humphrey suite of AI tools has already delivered measurable efficiency gains, analysing 50,000 consultation responses in around two hours, while HMRC has spent £150m on digital skills and launched its own training academies. The pattern across departments is consistent: capability first, tools second.

The launch of Ask DBT follows recent improvements to digital transformation by the Trade Remedies Authority, a non-departmental public body of DBT, which last month rolled out an upgraded Trade Remedies Service platform designed to make it simpler for UK businesses to take part in trade remedies cases.

For business owners, the takeaway is refreshingly practical. Before signing up for the shiniest AI assistant on the market, ask whether your data is in order and whether anyone on the team has the skills to manage it. On the evidence from DBT, that is where the return really comes from.

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The shares of Relaxo Footwears rallied around 14% on Friday, snapping a three-session losing streak. The gains were driven by strong buying interest at key technical levels, supported by healthy trading volumes. The rally added nearly Rs 1,255 crore to the company’s market capitalisation.

The stock surged to Rs 417 apiece on the NSE. If it sustains the gains until the close, Friday could mark its best single-day performance in nearly two months.

After hitting a 52-week high of Rs 526 apiece in September last year, Relaxo Footwears shares more than halved over the next six months, declining 55% to a fresh 52-week low of Rs 236.50 apiece in March this year. The stock has since staged a strong recovery, rebounding over 76% from those levels.

Friday’s rally lifted the company’s market capitalisation by nearly Rs 1,255 crore to Rs 10,390 crore.

Technical view on Relaxo Footwears share price

Relaxo Footwears witnessed a sharp 14% pullback today, backed by strong buying interest emerging from the 200-day EMA on healthy volumes, said Sudeep Shah, Head of Technical and Derivatives Research at SBI Securities. “The stock continues to maintain a higher high–higher low structure and is trading above its key moving averages, reflecting a strong underlying trend,” he added.

Also read: Reliance Industries shares jump 2% ahead of Mukesh Ambani-led company’s Q1 earnings. How to trade stock today?
“Relaxo Footwears witnessed a sharp 14% rally on Friday, backed by strong buying interest emerging from the 200-day EMA on healthy volumes,” said Sudeep Shah, Head of Technical and Derivatives Research at SBI Securities.
“The stock continues to maintain a higher high–higher low structure and is trading above its key moving averages, reflecting a strong underlying trend,” he added.
“Momentum indicators have also turned constructive. The RSI has moved above the 60 mark, signalling renewed bullish momentum, while the widening gap between the DI+ and DI- lines suggests that buyers are firmly in control,” Shah said.

While some profit booking or a brief phase of sideways consolidation cannot be ruled out after the sharp rally, the overall trend remains positive, according to Shah. “As long as the stock sustains above the Rs 365–360 support zone, the pullback is likely to extend further,” he added.

Relaxo Footwears share price performance

Relaxo shares have gained around 4% in one week and 12% in one month, while the stock is up about 2% so far in 2026.

Over the longer term, however, the stock has delivered negative returns, declining more than 20% in one year, 55% over three years, and 65% over five years.

Also read:Why is stock market rising today?

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that Taco Bell will stop using lettuce from a supplier linked to a multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak, as federal health officials investigate more than 1,600 illnesses across five states.

The announcement came after Taco Bell said earlier Thursday that it had voluntarily removed potentially affected lettuce from a supplier in select states where cases have been linked to the outbreak.

“Based on ongoing conversations with public health officials, and out of an abundance of caution, Taco Bell has taken immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states,” Taco Bell Corp. said in a statement provided to FOX Business.

“The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states,” the statement continued.

TACO BELL INVESTIGATED AS LETTUCE EMERGES AS POSSIBLE SOURCE OF CYCLOSPORIASIS OUTBREAK

While the FDA and Taco Bell did not identify the supplier, the agency said its traceback investigation identified a single supplier of shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico used by Taco Bell locations where infected customers ate before becoming ill.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that investigators have identified California-based Taylor Farms as a potential supplier of the iceberg lettuce identified in the agency’s traceback investigation as part of the outbreak.

FOX Business has reached out to Taylor Farms for comment.

The FDA said it is investigating cases in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia, and advised consumers in those states not to eat shredded iceberg lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell restaurants.

GENERAL MILLS PULLS MORE THAN 735,000 PILLSBURY ROLLS FROM SHELVES OVER POSSIBLE GLASS CONTAMINATION

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), 1,644 people infected with Cyclospora who reported eating at Taco Bell have been reported across Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia. The agency said 94 people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.

Illnesses tied to the outbreak began between May 13 and July 13, 2026. CDC said the true number of sick people is likely higher and noted that state health departments may report different totals because some include probable cases, while CDC and FDA are reporting laboratory-confirmed cases.

CDC also said it is investigating other cyclosporiasis illnesses nationally that are unrelated to the Taco Bell-linked outbreak.

OBAMACARE EXCHANGE FLAW EXPOSED AMERICANS TO UNEXPECTED HEALTH PLAN SWITCHES, WATCHDOG FINDS

According to the CDC, cyclosporiasis is a parasitic intestinal illness that people can contract by consuming contaminated food or water. Symptoms include prolonged watery diarrhea, nausea and other gastrointestinal illness.

Earlier this week, Taco Bell said it removed a limited number of ingredients from some restaurants as a precautionary measure.

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Taco Bell operates more than 8,700 restaurants worldwide and serves more than 40 million customers each week in the United States, according to the company’s website.

FOX Business’ Kristen Altus and Fox News Digital’s Melissa Rudy, along with Reuters, contributed to this report.

IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO) is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide. The company delivers next-generation information, analytics and solutions to customers in business, finance and government, improving their operational efficiency and providing deep insights that lead to well-informed, confident decisions. IHS Markit has more than 50,000 key business and government customers, including 80 percent of the Fortune Global 500 and the world’s leading financial institutions. Headquartered in London, IHS Markit is committed to sustainable, profitable growth.