U.S. and world news for Oct. 25

Mortgage rates up: The latest data from Freddie Mac showed that the average 30-year mortgage rate had increased to 6.4%, more than a quarter-point higher than it was two weeks ago. The news comes shortly after the Fed lowered interest rates 50 basis points. According to published reports, a mortgage lender needs to cover its costs and make a profit, so it adds its own percentage on top. With the recent uptick, mortgage rates are still more than a full point lower than they were this time last year.

E.coli outbreak: Yum Brands said on Thursday, Oct. 24 it would remove fresh onions from its meals at certain Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC restaurants out of an “abundance of caution,” following an E.coli outbreak tied to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers. The E.coli outbreak has killed at least one person and sickened nearly 50 others across the U.S. West and Midwest. Shortly after McDonald’s supplier Taylor Farms recalled yellow onions produced in its Colorado facility, US Foods sent a recall notice, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Onions were promptly removed at 14 Illegal Pete’s locations.

Menendez brothers:  Erik and Lyle Menendez may be one step closer to leaving prison as the Los Angeles County district attorney has recommended their life-without-parole sentences be thrown out and the brothers be resentenced and immediately eligible for parole, AP reports. The brothers, convicted in the 1989 killings of their parents at the family’s Beverly Hills mansion, will need to get a judge to go along with the recommendation Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón made Thursday, Oct. 24 and then a parole board must approve their release. The final stop is with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

North Korea in Ukraine?: Kim Jong Gyu, North Korea’s vice foreign minister, described the dispatch of Korean People’s Army forces to Russia as a “rumor,” but went on to say his ministry “does not directly engage in” the defense establishment’s matters, according to Newsweek. “If there is such a thing that the world media is talking about, I think it will be an act conforming with the regulations of international law,” he said in the response carried by North Korea‘s official Korean Central News Agency. It was the North Korean government’s first attempt to directly address rapidly evolving intelligence—first from Seoul, then from Kyiv and Washington—that thousands of North Korean soldiers have been transported to the Russian Far East for military training.

More Israeli strikes: Israeli strikes killed 38 people in Gaza and three journalists in Lebanon on Friday as growing worries about supply shortages in Gaza and international pressure for a cease-fire mounted, AP reported. The deaths reported by Gaza health officials were the latest in the Khan Younis, where people have in recent days lined up for bread. They come a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Israel had accomplished its objective of “effectively dismantling” Hamas.