Top Ten Stories of Dec. 5

The top ten stories of Dec. 5, more or less

Safeway to cut costs, prices in 09

Safeway Inc. told investors Thursday that it will aggressively cut costs, lower prices and focus on improving its financial position in 2009.

"We are a very strong player in a very weak economy, and we think that creates a very strong opportunity to take (market share)," Steve Burd, the national grocery chain's chairman and chief executive officer, said during the company's annual investor meeting Thursday.

WIC program allows moms to choose fruits and vegetables

Traditionally, the mothers got nutrition counseling along with their food items, and they were advised to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.

But until now, the program didn't cover those purchases, except for breastfeeding women -- who were allowed to buy carrots.

After Congress passed the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was required to revise its list of allowed foods for the first time in 30 years.

According to documents the USDA supplied, the act attempted to comprehensively address food programs for kids ranging from school lunches to WIC. It pushed the programs to make the food healthier and more in line with current nutritional guidelines.

In December 2007, the USDA published a new provision for fresh foods that will trickle down to Michigan WIC users next fall.

"That is the best decision they could make. Not only offering fresh produce, but organic, is even better, especially with those families and children that need it most," said Jean Shepherd of Muskegon, 35 and pregnant.

Fresh Produce Consortium tackles salmonella risk in herbs

The FPC would update guidance and host a technical presentation, said communications manager Sian Thomas. Food poisoning outbreaks linked to ready-to-eat herbs were extremely rare in the UK, said researchers who found 0.5% of samples contained salmonella bacteria. The study was by the Health Protection Agency and the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services, LACORS. The Fresh Produce Consortium responded that good...

Organic farms threatened by last minute Bush rulemaking

Many media outlets, from the New York Times to the blogosphere, have tracked what's been dubbed the "corporate takeover" of organic farming. One of the hottest controversies in this rapidly growing $20 billion industry has been giant factory farms milking thousands of cows each in feedlots and masquerading as organic.

Since the organic community first appealed to the USDA for better clarification and enforcement of regulations requiring organic dairy producers to graze their cattle, nearly 9 years ago, the number of giant industrial dairy operations, with as many as 10,000 cows, has grown from two to approximately 15. Finally the USDA has responded with a proposed rule that they said would crack down on abuses.

Today's economic crisis in historical perspective

The superlatives of the global economic meltdown of 2008 are, well, superlative. Professor Noriel Roubini of New York University says the current crisis is "the largest leveraged asset bubble and credit bubble in history." The International Monetary Fund says, "In advanced economies, output is forecast to contract on a full-year basis in 2009, the first such fall in the post-war period.

Third quarter mortgage delinquencies up

The percentage of people who are two months behind on their mortgages shot up in the third quarter from the same period last year, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion LLC.

For the quarter ended Sept. 30, 3.96 percent of people holding a mortgage were at least 60 days behind in payments, compared to 2.56 percent in the 2007 third quarter.

"It's nothing short of staggering," said Ezra Becker, principal consultant in TransUnion's financial services group. Becker noted the rate had hovered at about 2 percent for years, until the second quarter 2007, when it started climbing.

Moreover, the climb is not likely going to slow, he said.

"Our projections are that it's not only going to be increasing but it's increasing at a faster pace," he said.

Schumer wants local farms' produce in school cafeterias

Today, Schumer's staff will meet to explore how locally grown food can be cost-effective for farmers and school districts. School food directors from Bay Shore, Riverhead and Southampton will attend, along with representatives from the Long Island Farm Bureau, food broker companies and Stony Brook University Medical Center.

White House urges new immigrant crackdown rule

In papers filed this week in U.S. District Court, the Department of Homeland Security argued for an accelerated schedule that could allow a regulation known as the no-match rule to take effect by mid-January.

The rule, which the department first proposed in August 2007, would threaten businesses with prosecution unless they fired employees whose Social Security numbers differed from their listings in the Social Security database.

The rule has been held up by a lawsuit filed by the AFL-CIO, other unions and business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Administration lawyers said in their filing that most issues in the case have been resolved and that further delays are unwarranted.

At a hearing Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will consider whether to expedite the case or follow a more conventional schedule, under which a ruling would not come until at least March.

President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has not taken a position on the no-match rule. But Ana Avendano, director of the AFL-CIO's immigrant worker program, said Wednesday she is hopeful his approach will differ from Bush's.

Experts predict immigration focus at DHS

From Federal Times:

Immigration would be one of Napolitano’s top priorities at DHS, and sources who know her say it’s also one of her areas of expertise. Napolitano signed a tough immigration law that revokes the business licenses of companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. And she opposes the Homeland Security Department’s plans to build hundreds of miles of new fencing along the Mexican border.

“You show me a 50-foot wall, and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder,” she has repeatedly said.

Napolitano has criticized roundups of illegal immigrants by federal and state law enforcement, calling them “troublesome.”

But whether she could bring about big changes at the federal level is up for debate. Obama will face vocal opposition from Republicans, who want a more punitive approach to immigration.

Fast food ban may trim obesity, prof says

The number of overweight children in the U.S. could be reduced by up to 18 percent through a fast food television ad ban, according to a paper by a Lehigh professor and a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

An article on the study, published in the Journal of Law and Economics, was written by Professor Shin-Yi Chou of the College of Business and Economics in collaboration with Professor Inas Rashad of Georgia State University and Professor Michael Grossman of the City University of New York Graduate Center.

The 18 percent refers to children ages 3 to 11 and obesity in children ages 12 to 18 could be reduced by 14 percent, according to the article. There is a higher risk in males than females, according to the article.

The researchers' goal is to try to completely ban fast food from all children's television programming, according to the article.

Others...

ICE Raid in Nampa

Anti immigration law protested in Mississippi

Rain plauges Costa Rica banana production