Top Ten Stories - Dec. 3

Here are the top ten headlines snatched from the Web this morning....

1. FDA cites progress in food safety
The agency cited several examples progress in the area of prevention, including the opening of offices in five regions that export food and other FDA-regulated products to the U.S.: China, India, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. The FDA has already hired staff for its offices in China and India.

2. Salinas haz-mat team at forefront of anti-terror efforts Let's hope not...

A bi-partisan commission formed to study the threat of a terrorist attack says the country can expect one to happen by the year 2013. The Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is set to release it's findings Wednesday.

Among other things, it concluded: "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."

The study adds the threat is likely to be either biological or nuclear. As an integral point of the U.S. food supply, it's believed the Salinas Valley agricultural industry could be a point for a bio-terror attack.

"A biological attack on our agriculutral center could make the demand for that crop go down, make people suspicious of all agriculture in Monterey County," says Fred Wehling, associate professor of at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. "It would be very difficult to recover from that."

3.U.S. Auto sales plunge 37% in November

U.S. auto sales plunged 37 percent in November to the lowest annual rate in 26 years as the recession and Detroit automakers’ aid pleas kept buyers out of showrooms.

4. Your recession survival guide

After spikes in the prices of milk, eggs, and other staples earlier this year, shoppers may be in for some relief in 2009. The price increases were partly caused by the high price of gasoline, which is used to transport much of our food. Now gas prices are dropping, leading some analysts to expect lower supermarket prices. But it won't happen overnight, because the cost of diesel is still high, and farmers need to recover from the high input costs they faced over the summer.

5. Democrats should face the challenge

As the likely next secretary of homeland security, Ms. Napolitano will need a similarly deft touch if she elects to push for broad reform of the nation's failed immigration system in an administration preoccupied with war abroad and an economic crisis at home. She should. Even in a sharp recession, the United States will continue to depend on millions of undocumented workers. Unless they address the plight of these workers and forge an enforcement regime that works, the Democrat-controlled Congress and the new administration will allow a sore to fester.

6. Unauthorized immigration declining, but why?

Flows of unauthorized immigrants to the United States have declined significantly according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center. The report estimates that between 2005 and 2008, approximately 500,000 unauthorized immigrants entered the United States each year — 300,000 fewer than the 800,000 unauthorized immigrants Pew estimated for each year between 2000 and 2004.

7.Media exposure linked to obesity

The study, "Media and Child and Adolescent Health: A Systematic Review," was done by the Yale University School of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, and California Pacific Medical Center and published by Common Sense Media.

It looked at the best studies on media and health from the last 28 years, a total of 173 in all, and found that 80 percent of them showed that greater media exposure led to negative health effects in children and adolescents

8.Mortgage delinquencies up in third quarter

A credit reporting agency says the percentage of people who are two months behind on their mortgages was up in the third quarter from the same period last year.

TransUnion LLC says nearly 4 percent of the people holding a mortgage were at least 60 days behind in payments for the quarter ending in September. That compares with 2.56 percent last year. Experts say the climb likely won`t slow down.

The highest delinquency rates are in Florida, at 7.8 percent, Nevada, at 7.7 percent, and California, at 5.8 percent. The states with the lowest delinquency rates are North Dakota, at 1.4 percent, followed by South Dakota at 1.6 percent and Montana at 1.7 percent.

The figures are from TransUnion Trend Data, which consists of 27 million consumer records randomly sampled each month. Trans Union also reports that the percentage of people who were delinquent on their credit card payments rose in the third quarter, while average debt per borrower jumped 7.7 percent.

Third-quarter delinquency was highest in Nevada, at 1.79 percent, followed by Florida, at 1.45 percent. The two states are among the hardest hit by the housing and mortgage crisis. The lowest credit card delinquency rates were found in Vermont and North Dakota, at 0.70 percent.

9.Wal Mart assailed on death

Police say Jdimytai Damour, a 34-year-old temporary maintenance worker, was pushed to the ground and asphyxiated when an estimated 2,000 shoppers broke through the glass doors at a Wal-Mart store on Long Island, N.Y., as they raced to buy a limited assortment of sharply discounted television sets, computers and other gifts in the predawn hours early Friday.

10.What's next?

Nouriel Roubini, the foremost economist to predict the crash, believes that growth won't return until at least 2010, as the years of excess expansion on the back of a debt bubble will take time to unwind. This would put back a global market bottom to mid-2009.

Other headlines.....

Delinquent mortgages to double in 2009

Childhood obesity a heavy burden in China

County supes to decide on plan for Stonegate water shortage

Illegal workers skirt Arizona law

Rhode Island holds hearing on e-verify

Where to find deals on healthful food