Sunday, February 17, 2008

In a press release today, California-based Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. indicated that it has voluntarily recalled just over 143 million pounds (65 million kilograms) of raw and frozen beef products, which is considered to be the largest single recall of beef products in U.S. history. The move follows an investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) into allegations of animal cruelty and mishandling of cattle destined for the human food chain.

The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) had determined that beef products produced by the Chino, California company were unfit for human consumption as the cattle had not received “complete and proper inspection.”

The recall has been designated as Class II, which the USDA describes as “a health hazard situation where there is a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product.”

On Friday, Secretary of Agriculture Ed Schafer indicated that charges had been laid against employees of the plant alleged to have taken part in the mistreatment of cattle. “Today [Friday], the San Bernardino District Attorney filed felony animal cruelty charges against two employees who were terminated by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company,” said Schafer. “It is regrettable that these animals were mistreated and I am encouraged and supportive of these actions by the San Bernardino District Attorney in response to this mistreatment.”

The USDA learned of the possible inhumane handling of non-ambulatory (disabled) cattle at the packing plant on January 30 and has since suspended activities at the plant. “We continue to conduct a thorough investigation into whether any violations of food safety or additional humane handling regulations have occurred,” said Secretary Schafer in a press release. “On February 8, our Office of the Inspector General took the lead on the investigation. At that time, USDA extended the administrative hold on Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Company products for the National School Lunch Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations while the investigation continues,” said Schafer.

The FSIS reported that Hallmark/Westland had not contacted the FSIS public health veterinarian, as required, when cattle became ill or disabled after undergoing ante-mortem (slaughter) inspection, putting the company out of compliance with FSIS regulations. “Because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection FSIS has determined them to be unfit for human food and the company is conducting a recall,” explained Secretary Schafer.

The cruelty charges stem from an undercover video that reportedly showed sick cattle being moved by crews using forklifts.

“Words cannot accurately express how shocked and horrified I was at the depictions contained on the video that was taken by an individual who worked at our facility from October 3 thru November 14, 2007,” said Steve Mendell, President, Westland Meat Co. and Hallmark Meat Packing. “We have taken swift action regarding the two employees identified on the video and have already implemented aggressive measures to ensure all employees follow our humane handling policies and procedures. We are also cooperating with the USDA investigators on the allegations of inhumane handling treatment which is a serious breech of our company’s policies and training.”

The USDA stressed that it is “extremely unlikely” that the cattle involved were at risk for Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad-cow disease due to the employment of multiple safeguards. The USDA felt the recall was required, however, as the plant had allegedly violated USDA regulations.

The recall involves raw and frozen beef products produced on various dates from February 1, 2006 to February 2, 2008. For further information about the recall, consumers, media, and distributors are encouraged to contact Hallmark/Westland’s Plant Manager Stan Mendell or Food Safety Consultant Steve Sayer at (909) 590-3340 or the FSIS website, www.fsis.usda.gov.

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2008 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 years’ time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2008, what would the question be? The year that markets collapsed, or perhaps the year that Obama became US president? Or the year Heath Ledger died?

Let’s take a look at some of the important stories of 2008. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in all the titles.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The 30A network has said that it wants to create a carnival atmosphere while protesting at the Forbes Global CEO conference. The protest, which starts on August 30, is expected to attract up to 2,000 protesters. Similar events in the past often had instances of violent confrontations between police and some of the activists. The 30A network is a loose affiliation of groups and individuals co-ordinating the protest.

30A spokesman Bruce Knobloch, of the International Socialist Organisation, made the call for a peaceful protest in a press release last week.

“We want a safe community action showing that people in Sydney oppose Howard¹s plan for a US-style wages system, the war in Iraq and his kow-towing to global corporate chiefs. We pose no threat to the Opera House or the millionaire delegates, or to other users of east Circular Quay,” Mr Knobloch said.

The conference will be held at the Sydney Opera House. The Forbes website says that at the event “senior figures from the world’s leading companies and institutions will discuss the best ways to nurture and capitalize on innovation and reveal the latest global trends.” It was recently announced that George Bush Sr will be attending the conference, along with former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Prime Minister John Howard, and former NSW Premier Bob Carr.

Mr Knobloch described the attendees as “a few hundred neo-conservative corporate chiefs”.

The protesters have been denied access to the Opera House forecourt for the duration of the conference. Mr Knobloch believes that this decision is unjustified. He also accused the police of deliberately creating the conditions for confrontation.

“The police seem intent on creating chaos and confrontation, which is the last thing we need. We’ve urged police to build a barrier in front of the Opera House proper and to allow us to use the public space in the forecourt. By pushing us out into the CBD the police are going to create problems for commuters and business owners,” he said.

30A protestors this week organised a media conference outside Surry Hills Police Station, requesting a meeting to negotiate an agreement. According to an article on Sydney Indymedia, police at the station were unable to discuss the issue, but told 30a representatives that they would be contacted to organise a meeting.

“Minimising the protesters right to peacefully rally dramatically increases police powers and strikes at the heart of protesters’ democratic right to peaceful assembly,” the article said.

ASIO has assessed the conference to be “medium risk”, and this has been used by the police and government to justify the increased security.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Massive blackouts occurred throughout the US state of Florida shortly after 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time (18:00 UTC) on Tuesday afternoon. Out of the 4.4 million customers served by Florida Power & Light, Co. (FPL), about 680,000 residents were affected, with an additional two million-plus customers affected in other parts of the state. It is estimated that as many as four million customers throughout Florida were affected, with many different power companies losing control of their specific grids.

Power outages were reported as far south as the Florida Keys, on the original FPL grid, and as far north as Orlando and Daytona Beach, nearly 300 miles (483 km) away on the Progress Energy grid. Most of Miami-Dade and parts of Broward and Palm Beach counties suffered the worst outages.

FPL President Armando Olivera said that a disconnect switch failed at 1:08 p.m. at the automated substation west of Miami, and a piece of equipment that controls voltage caught fire about the same time. Neither failure by itself would have caused a widespread outage. The event at the utility’s Flagami substation consequently led to the rolling blackouts.

Originally the first failure was thought to have occurred at the utility’s nuclear plant at Turkey Point. It is still unclear how failure at this site spread, but with power turning off at the main Turkey Point location, which serves all of south Florida, FPL’s grid shut down as well. It contributed to a domino effect which ended up sapping energy from bordering grids all over Florida.

Police reported several people were stuck in the elevators of high-rise buildings in downtown Miami and several hospitals were running on backup power, although no injuries or fatalities have been reported. The blackouts caused major traffic jams and a few accidents, but the original outage was contained shortly after it occurred. All customers affected had power restored to them by 6:30 p.m. (23:30 UTC).

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Relics dated back to the Qing Dynasty were found under civil servants’ quarters at the Rua de D. Belchior Caneiro adjacent to The Ruins of St. Paul in Macau by archaeological teams at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Since St Paul’s College is believed to have been located under those quarters, the Macau government will demolish them in order to cope with the experts’ findings at the Ruins of St. Paul. The two blocks closer to the Ruins of St. Paul were demolished in March to make room for the archaeological project.

The relics included Chinese-styled porcelain tiles, eave tiles, potteries and iron artillery shells. Furthermore, a part of an ancient wall is found at a nearby construction site.

The walls are confirmed as parts of the Ruins of St. Paul as it does match the maps of it dated back to 1760, 1886, and 1912. By examining the walls, it is proved that the wall was constructed of at least five layers of stone, with layers of blue bricks on top of them, as well as rammed earth each measuring at least ten centimeters thick.

The remaining two buildings will be demolished next week for further investigation.

A compilation of brief news reports for Monday, July 9, 2007.

On July 9, 2007, Sony Computer Entertainment America announced the release of an 80GB hard drive version of its PlayStation 3 video game console, priced at US$599.

Sony also announced a price drop to US$499 for its current 60GB model. Jack Tretton, Sony Entertainment America chief executive, said, “Our initial expectation is that sales should double at a minimum.”

Sources

• “Sony cuts Playstation price in US” — BBC News Online, July 9, 2007
• Scea. “Sony Computer Entertainment America Introduces New 80GB PLAYSTATION(R)3” — prnewswire, July 9, 2007

Nigerian gunmen have released three-year-old Margaret Hill, after holding her captive for four days. The toddler has since been reunited with her parents. She is reportedly in good health but covered with mosquito bites and also hungry, having not eaten recently.

The kidnappers had threatened to kill the toddler unless a ransom was paid or Mr. Hill came to take her place. The family claims no ransom was paid for her freedom. She was kidnapped from her car on July 5, on her way to school. Her driver was stabbed trying to protect Margaret.

Sources

• “Nigeria kidnappers free UK girl” — BBC News Online, July 8, 2007
• “Nigerian captors release British girl” — CNN, July 8, 2007

Wednesday, August 16, 2017

James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio was arrested Saturday and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Heather Heyer of Charlottesville, Virginia when a car drove into a crowd of people counter-protesting a group of white supremacists who were in Charlottesville to protest the removal of the town statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Fields, age 20, was denied bail on Monday morning. Three others were also arrested.

The “Unite the Right” rally began on Friday. It drew such groups as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and neo-Nazis and well-known “alt-right” personalities like David Duke and Richard Spencer. They shouted slogans such as “You will never replace us” and “Jews will never replace us” and waved Confederate flags. Counter-protesters including members of Black Lives Matter and antifa — a U.S. anti-fascist movement — gathered in the hundreds. The two sides clashed near Emancipation Park, where the statue stands. The demonstration devolved into physical fights, and Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard to remove the protesters.

By varying reports, after the alt-right protesters were removed from the park, a Dodge Challenger drove toward a group of counter-protesters near Fourth Street. In one version of the story, the Challenger drove directly into the crowd, killing Heyer, injuring at least nineteen, and throwing at least two people through the air. In another account, the Challenger hit a sedan from behind, which in turn hit a minivan, and it was these two vehicles that actually made contact with the counter-protesters. The incident is to be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States attorney for the Western District of Virginia, and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Authorities have not yet disclosed whether Fields was driving.

Podcaster Robert Armengol, who was present, told the press, “It was probably the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life[…] After that it was pandemonium. The car hit reverse and sped and everybody who was up the street in my direction started running.”

On Monday morning, fields appeared in court via video from lockup, and Judge Robert Downer denied bail. He is charged with one count of second-degree murder, three of malicious wounding, and one of hit-and-run. The judge appointed a lawyer for Fields.

Fields lived in Kentucky with his mother until a few months ago, when he moved to Ohio for work. An uncle of Fields told the Washington Post a drunk driver killed Fields’s father before Fields was born, leaving him money in a trust until he turned eighteen. His high school history teacher Derek Weimer told the press that Fields had been a quiet, intelligent student. Fields tried to join the army but, according to Weimer, was rejected because of an antipsychotic medication prescription, though The Guardian noted military records suggesting Fields served for a few months in 2015. His Facebook page, which has since been deleted, once held Nazi imagery and a picture of Hitler. On the day of the rally, Fields was photographed protesting with the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America and holding their insignia.

Fields’ mother, Samantha Bloom, told various news media she had thought her son was at a general Donald Trump rally. She commented he “had an African American friend” and said she was surprised to hear that Fields was involved with white supremacism.

Other fatalities associated with the weekend’s unrest include Virginia State Police troopers Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates, whose helicopter crashed while they were investigating the riots.

U.S. President Donald Trump commented, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides,” saying that things like this have “been going on for a long long time” and called for “swift restoration of law and order.” He subsequently received criticism from members both major U.S. political parties for not calling out the white supremacists specifically. During his presidential campaign, David Duke associated with the KKK endorsed Donald Trump, which Trump did not reject.

Orrin Hatch of Utah, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, was one of many from both political parties who criticized President Trump for not calling out the white supremacists specifically, saying via Twitter, “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.” Similar sentiments were published by former presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Several, including Senators Rubio, Cory Gardner, and Ted Cruz referred to the event as domestic terrorism.

A proposal about a year and a half ago to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee sparked considerable controversy. Advocates of the statue portrayed it as history and opponents as a celebration of white supremacy. A few months ago, the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove and sell the statue, but a lawsuit was filed to prevent it. The statue remains in the park while these matters are resolved.

Robert E. Lee was a major figure in the American Civil War, in which eleven of the slaveholding southeastern states including Lee’s home state, Virginia, attempted to secede from the rest of the country in the culmination of the decades-long debate about slavery. Lee began his career as a United States military officer. He trained at the West Point Military Academy and served in the Mexican-American War before joining the Confederacy at the beginning of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. Officially, he was General of the Army of Northern Virginia.

After surrendering to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, Lee lived quietly as president of Washington College, now called Washington and Lee University. After his death, white Southerners wishing to romanticize the antebellum South and the “Lost Cause” of the Civil War adopted Lee as their hero.

Lee repeatedly and publicly opposed the construction of Confederate war memorials: “I think it wiser moreover not to keep open the sores of war, but to follow the examples of those nations who endeavoured to obliterate the marks of civil strife and to commit to oblivion the feelings it engendered.” Instead, he encouraged other Southerners to focus on the future. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, about 700 statues of Lee and other Confederate monuments stand in Southern towns and cities.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Michael Ryan, a messenger at the office of the prime minister, has been identified as the mole who leaked confidential papers to Telecom.

The leaked papers were detailing the plan for the government to unbundle the local loop. It was to be released on Thursday with the 2006 budget, but since Telecom, a publicly traded company, found out they decided to release it early.

Michael Ryan, May 2, was told to shred a document, but instead of doing that he took it and gave it to Telecom’s Group Financial Controller Peter Garty, a close friend. He gave it to Peter Garty because he thought he would find it interesting. Michael Ryan told Peter Garty to not make a copy of it. Peter Garty made a copy.

Telecom shares fell from $5.65 to $4.65 following the disclosure, wiping about $2 billion off the value of the company.

The States Service Commission has passed the case onto the police.

The mole has lost his job. His actions were described as “gross and disgraceful dishonesty” by Prime Minister Helen Clark.