Justin Worland

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"War Machine" is accused of beating Christy Mac

A mixed martial arts fighter accused of brutally beating his porn star ex-girlfriend attempted suicide this week in his Las Vegas jail cell, authorities said.

A jail official found Jonathan Koppenhaver, 32, unresponsive on the floor of his cell Tuesday with linen around his neck and a suicide note in the room, News 3 reports. Koppenhaver, also known as War Machine, is accused of beating Christy Mack in August. He was reportedly in talks for a potential plea deal.

Prior to the suicide attempt, Koppehaver defended himself in a series of tweets.

[News 3]

The news comes as one nurse self-quarantines on a cruise

Health care workers who came in close proximity to the first Ebola patient diagnosed in the U.S. are being told they need to avoid public places or they may be involuntarily quarantined.

Under the new rules, which were issued late Thursday by the Texas Department of Health and affect almost 100 people, nurses who entered the hospital room of the first patient must stay away from restaurants and theaters, and forgo travel on airplanes or trains. The new directives from the state, which has seen each of the first three Ebola diagnoses on U.S. soil, lay out explicit guidelines for monitoring health care workers. They come as the federal government is under increasing pressure to do more to contain the virus. After officials were grilled by lawmakers Thursday, President Barack Obama on Friday tapped a longtime Washington aide to be an Ebola “czar” and coordinate the federal response. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has been under particularly harsh scrutiny for its handling of the crisis, is expected to issue new guidelines for health care workers treating Ebola patients soon, Bloomberg reports.

Under the new Texas directives, hospital employees directly involved in caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Ebola patient who died Oct. 8, will be monitored with twice-daily check-ins for the 21-day duration of the disease’s incubation period. One of the daily check-ins must be conducted in person.

The state has threatened to subject anyone who ignores the guidelines to a “communicable disease control order”—or in other words, to quarantine them—but officials said they expect compliance.

“These are hometown health care heroes,” Clay Jenkins, a Dallas judge who has been closely involved in managing the containment effort, told the New York Times. “They want to do this. They’re going to follow these agreements.”

The announcement comes amid news that two health care workers who had treated Duncan later traveled out of state—Amber Joy Vinson by plane and another on a cruise ship. Vinson was diagnosed with Ebola following her flight and is being treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. The other, who has not been unidentified, is self-monitoring in isolation aboard the cruise ship.

The new restrictions prevent both flights and cruises, along with any other “commercial transportation” or travel to “any location where members of the public congregate.”

The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa.

He joins a growing list of politicians calling for such a ban

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Friday called on the federal government to impose a ban on air travel from the West African countries hardest hit by Ebola, joining a growing list of politicians supporting such a travel restriction.

Perry reasoned a ban is the right move given that the first patient diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, traveled from Ebola-ridden Liberia to eventually reach Texas, the Associated Press reports. The governor’s call for travel restrictions is a reversal of his stance from just 10 days ago when he said an enhanced medical screening process would be more effective at keeping Ebola out of the country.

“The impact from banning flights from these areas is not going to be an efficient way to deal with this,” Perry said last week, according to The Hill. Referring to a travel ban, Perry added, “There are some that would make the argument that it would [hamper the fight against Ebola].”

Several prominent Republican politicians in particular, including Mitt Romney, have called for flight restrictions, but many health officials say that such a ban would only hurt efforts to contain the disease.

[AP]

The answer is more complicated than we expected

For years, Jamba Juice has marketed healthy and nutritious smoothies blended with 100% fruit juice. But the website Hack the Menu points out a “secret menu” with items like “Red Gummy Bear” and “Pink Starburst“—both allegedly blended to taste like their candy namesakes. The rumored off-menu offerings sound a little sweeter, but potentially less healthy.

Jamba Juice is not alone in its reputation for having a secret menu: according to Hack the Menu, restaurant chains like Starbucks, In-N-Out Burger and Chipotle also oblige off-menu requests for those in the know. TIME looked into why restaurants might bother with a whole other menu, and whether secret menu options are always less healthy than their advertised counterparts. The answer is more complicated than we expected.

MORE: Try Ordering These Delicious-Sounding Drinks From Starbucks’ Secret Menu

Surprisingly, most nutritionists we spoke to had never heard of the concept of secret menus. Their feelings were mixed, but most said they were concerned about the lack of readily accessible nutritional information for off-menu items.

“So many consumers are looking for transparency,” said Keri Gans, a registered dietitian and author of The Small Change Diet. “If you want a secret menu, at least make it obvious what the calories are and [put] the nutrition analysis where it’s available for people to see.”

MORE: There’s a $10 Secret Menu Item At Arby’s Called the Meat Mountain

Excluding unhealthy items from a menu helps avoid having to disclose their lack of nutritional value. This is especially true in places like New York, where the law requires restaurant chains to display certain nutritional information in menus. That regulation doesn’t apply to items that aren’t on the menu, or those listed on a menu for less than 30 days, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote in an e-mail to TIME. Secret menu items “undermine the intention of the rule,” though they’re technically legal, it said.

A lack of transparency becomes a potential problem for people with allergies, who may not be aware of what ingredients are included in the item they’re ordering, nutritionists said.

“To me, the most important thing is that the staff would be educated on what the ingredients are,” said Gans.

Spokespeople for most of the chains contacted by TIME denied the existence of a “secret menu,” but acknowledged that customers can customize their orders.

“Our people are trained to make what customers want with the ingredients we have,” said Chipotle communications director and spokesperson Chris Arnold in a statement. Nachos and a quesarito, a mammoth burrito blanked inside a quesadilla, are among the items that customers order off-menu at Chipotle, according to Hack the Menu.

MORE: Taco Bell Is Adding A Quesarito To Its Menu

But despite their shroud of secrecy, secret menus don’t appear to be all bad news, nutritionists said. Some have options that appear healthy, while others allow customers to modify a menu offering in a way that makes it healthier, said Jessica Levinson, founder of nutrition consulting business Nutritioulicious. She cited an option to swap out mayo for mustard at Burger King as one such option.

Registered dietitian Judy Caplan praised efforts to offer healthy options, but said she wasn’t surprised that some fast food restaurants would offer less healthy options off the menu. While fast food has become more nutritious in recent years, and chains have recently cut calories in new menu items by 12%, there are still many customers who want unhealthy food, she argued.

“When you’re in business,” she said, “the customer is always right.”

He shot at unarmed black teens 10 times

A Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the killing of an unarmed Florida teen after an altercation over the teen’s loud music, the Associated Press reports.

Michael Dunn, 47, was convicted of first-degree murder after a September trial. Earlier this year, a jury in February couldn’t agree on whether to accept Dunn’s claim that he acted in self defense when he fired his gun 10 times at a vehicle carrying 17-year-old Jordan Davis, who was shot and killed in the altercation. The jury in February did convict Dunn on three accounts of attempted murder, one for each of the passengers riding in the vehicle with Davis.

The racially-tinged case — Dunn is White and Davis was black — has drawn comparison to the shooting of other unarmed black teens like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

In practical terms, Friday’s decision changes little for Duncan, who already faced a 60-year conviction for the attempted murder convictions. The prosecution did not seek the death penalty.

[AP]