Unless Congress takes action, loan limits in high-cost areas will revert back to $417,000 in October. But the loan limit on home-equity conversion mortgages was permanently raised to $625,500. Given HECMs can be used on purchase transactions, the use of HECM’s on transactions in excess of $417,000 could rise.
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Moore, OK, United States (AHN) – Allison’s Gourmet Kitchens, Inc., a Moore, Okla., establishment, is recalling approximately 22,594 pounds of chicken and ham salad products, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today because they are misbranded and contain potassium sorbate and/or sodium benzoate which do not appear on the package labels.
The products subject to recall include:
The chicken salad products bear the establishment number “P-27404″ inside the USDA mark of inspection and the cases bear the following case codes: 718129080130; 718129089782; 041220034048; 041220192328; 718129082615 or 718129089126. The ham salad products bear the establishment number “EST 27404″ inside the USDA mark of inspection and the case code 041220172016. The use by dates stamped on individual packages range from May 27, 2011 to June 29, 2011.
The chicken and ham salad products were produced between April 15, 2011 and May 18, 2011 and distributed for institutional use and retail sale. The chicken salad products were distributed in Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. The ham salad products were distributed in Texas.
The problem was discovered during routine FSIS label review and verification procedures. FSIS and Allison’s Gourmet Kitchens have received no reports of illnesses or adverse reactions due to consumption of these products.
FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the products are no longer available to consumers.
Consumers with questions about the recall should contact the company’s Research and Development Specialist Brenda Brookshire at (405) 735-2017 ext. 1006 or Victor Gramillo (405) 735-2017 ext. 1005. Media with questions about the recall should contact the company’s Chief Operating Officer Mark Vaughan at (405) 735-2017 ext. 1010.
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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Rising demand and use of the Earth’s resources is above sustainable levels and humans need to cut back and conserve, the United Nations Environment Programme said Friday.
Some cheap and high quality sources of essential materials are already running short, UNEP said. Those materials include oil, copper and gold and the remaining sources require more fossil fuels and fresh water to produce than in the past.
Population growth and increasing prosperity for many of the world’s people is fueling demand for natural resources that is pushing consumption toward levels that are well above anything that is sustainable.
UNEP officials said decoupling an increased growth in the use of natural resources from economic growth was critical.
“Decoupling makes sense on all the economic, social and environmental dials,” says UN Under Secretary-General Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director.
For example, people in developed nations consume an average of 16 tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per capita. In addition, that ranges up to 40 tons or more per person in some developed nations. By contrast average consumption of those resources is only four tons per per person per year in India. But as more nations develop, consumption of those items increases and that kind of growth in consumption simply is not sustainable.
UNEP called on people to do more with less to conserve resources.
The agency called for furthering that goal with “an urgent rethink of the links between resource use and economic prosperity, buttressed by a massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation, to at least freeze per capita consumption in wealthy countries and help developing nations follow a more sustainable path.”
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Montreal, Quebec, Canada (AHN) – Quebec’s Roman Catholic churches will soon shift to more environment-friendly mass wines. Instead of using altar wine imported from California, the parishes would use a newlocal wine to be made by the Domaine des Cotes d’Ardoise.
The use of local products would help cut the need for long-haul trucking, which in turn would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by transport firms.
Domaine owns a 7,500-hectare vineyard near Dunham, Quebec. The vineyard will produce the new Vin de Messe for the province’s Catholic churches. It is a sweet white wine with an alcohol content of 16.5 percent and retails for $19.50 a bottle. It is currently sold as Estafette Blanc, but would soon be relabeled and retailed at liquor stores across the province. However, Domaine would make it available directly to Catholic clergy in over 1,400 Catholic churches in Quebec covering 19 dioceses.
Steve Ringuet, owner of the vineyard, said they have the capacity to produce 40,000 bottles of wine a year. Half of Domaine’s production is white wine and the other half red wine. It uses the Gamay, Foch, Chelois, De Chaunac, Lucy Kuhlman and a small quantity of Frontenac grape varieties.
Brian McDonagh, director of social action of the Montreal Diocese, said the shift to locally produced mass wine is part of the province’s Catholic church’s efforts to be more ecologically responsible. But he added, heads of parishes will make the final decision if they want to try the new altar wine or use their old wine.
The shift to more environment-friendly products is part of the effort of the Montreal-based Canadian Center for Ecumenism to cut carbon footprints among religious groups in Quebec. Since the center’s launch in fall, over 25 Christian churches in the area have inked commitments to go into more environmentally sustainable practices. But they usually involved heating, insulation and recycling.
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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – A study by Environment Canada found that policies under the Conservative-led government are not doing enough to prevent dangerous climate changes, which could cause the loss of thousands of species, melt Arctic ice and lead to a rise of sea level by several meters.
To prevent a grim environmental scenario, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to be cut to zero immediately to avoid a 2-degree Celsius increase in planetary temperature this century. Although Canada agreed to the 2009 Copenhagen Accord which agreed to the target, the Tory policies run contrary to the Accord.
The report, which used a sophisticated computer models, pointed out that Ottawa continues to promote wider use and export of Canadian oil sands and coal. The model included carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions, aerosols, land use change, and the flow of carbon between the atmosphere, oceans and land surfaces.
However, Canada’s further export of oil sands may be curbed following a pronouncement on Wednesday by U.S. President Barack Obama that the American concern over the potentially destructive nature of Canada’s oil sands must be addressed before Washington approves the proposed TransCanada Keystone XL 3,200-kilometer pipeline project.
In March, The U.S. State Department ordered a new study on the $7-billion Keystone project and provided a public comment period until spring. Previously, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asked the State Department to make a supplemental environmental impact study over safety concerns and impact of the oil sands on climate change.
Canada supplies about 23 percent of the yearly U.S. imports of crude every year.
Harper, in a campaign trip to Quebec, promised to pursue more clean energy projects to reduce Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels and cut GHG. He promised to provide a $4.2-billion loan guarantee for Newfoundland and Labrador’s Lower Churchill hydro project, which will transmit electricity directly into Atlantic Canada and New England customers through two subsea cables.
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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Canada has chartered two buses to ferry 185 citizens out of the 20-kilometer (12-mile) danger zone in Japan. The buses were slated to leave Sendai City Hall for Tokyo on Friday morning.
According to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, other Canadians in the danger zone have left by hitching rides with rescue missions organized by other countries such as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Britain. The ministry, however, said only 3,100 out of an estimated 11,000 Canadian citizens in Japan are registered with the embassy in Tokyo.
The rescue efforts have sparked some criticism from different groups such as taxpayer lobbyists, who questioned Ottawa’s chartering buses to rescue the overseas Canadians. The lobbyists pointed out that the latter likely no longer pay taxes to Canada, but to Japan.
A DFA spokeswoman defended the use of taxpayers’ money to pay for the bus charter because the official Ottawa policy is for the Canadian government to provide transportation to Canadian travelers to the nearest safe place. After Ottawa moves the overseas Canadians from Sendai to Tokyo, it is the responsibility of the expatriates to leave Japan through commercial flights paid from their own pockets.
The criticism over taxpayers’ money being spent on overseas-based Canadians in a tight spot was triggered by the Lebanon war in 2006 when Ottawa spent almost $100 million to ferry Canadians out of the war zone. Many of the rescued Canadians eventually returned to Lebanon after the violence in the country subsided.
A University of Toronto international relations expert said it is a government’s duty to protect its citizens whether they are in or out of the country. A Liberal MP added that a Canadian remains a citizen, whether he is residing in Canada or elsewhere and entitled to the benefits of Canadian citizenship, including being rescued when in peril.
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Atlanta, GA, United States (AHN) – The Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated Georgia’s supply of a substance used in lethal injections on Tuesday amid allegations the drug, sodium thiopental, is expired and was illegally imported by the state.
The DEA has not released details of the seizure but a spokesman for the federal agency, Chuvalo Truesdell, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution they “did take control of the controlled substances… [over] questions about the way the drugs were imported. “
Sodium thiopental is one of three drugs administered to inmates during executions. It acts as a sedative that causes unconsciousness before a muscle relaxant is injected to cause paralysis, and then a compound that induces cardiac arrest is given.
The only U.S. manufacturer of the drug, Illinois-based Hospira, stopped production in January, citing export regulations in Italy, where its plant is located, and reiterating that it “never condoned” the use of the product for capital punishment.
Before its announcement, Hospira had suspended production of the thiopental for a year because of difficulties in procuring an ingredient for production. This led to delays in executions in several of the 33 states that use the drug.
Early this year, attorneys for death row inmates in Georgia sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department accusing the state of illegally importing the drug. They said the state Department of Corrections was not registered to import substances and had not provided the DEA with documents when it bought thiopental from overseas last year.
The Southern Center for Human Rights also sued the state on behalf of an inmate who has since been executed, Emanuel Hammond, after discovering that officials had purchased thiopental from Dream Pharma, “an unlicensed company operating from a back room within Elgone Driving School in London, England.”
The boxes of the drug sold by Dream are labeled with the name Link Pharmaceuticals, according to the human rights group. Link was acquired by another company in 2006, which raises questions if the products sold in 2010 “are real and/or expired.”
Following the seizure on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Corrections, Kristen Stancil, told FOX5 the state requested DEA assistance after a letter was sent to the U.S. Justice Department.
“We are working with the DEA to see if we are in compliance for the way we handle controlled substances,” she said.
The shortage of thiopental has forced Oklahoma and Ohio to use an animal sedative, pentobarbital, for lethal injections despite questions whether the drug is safe and effectively eliminates pain among humans.
A Copenhagen-based maker, Lundbeck, has also objected, saying, “Use of our products to end lives contradicts everything we’re in business to do.”
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Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (AHN) – Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah returned home Wednesday after months of recuperation abroad and immediately ordered an increase in social benefits for citizens.
The king, who underwent spinal surgery in the U.S. in November and stayed in New York and Morocco to recuperate, issued royal decrees increasing the country’s development fund and the state bank’s capital to provide more interest-free loans for use in building homes, getting married or starting up a business.
Abdullah also increased the social insurance fund and the number of beneficiaries to 15 from eight per family. He allocated $933 million in assistance for the poor so they can repair their homes and pay utility bills. Another $320,000 was allocated for vocational training courses for women to increase employment of the youth.
A foreign scholarship program was extended for five more years while salaries and benefits of government workers were increased 15 percent.
The king vowed to tackle youth unemployment that currently stands at 40 percent.
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Sears Canada has identified four brands of child car harness with potential safety problems. These are Cosco, Safety 1st. Eddie Bauer and Maxi-Cosi brands of child restraints.
The retailer cited an advisory by Dorel Distribution Canada that the harness adjustment strap has a potential to loosen during use. That would not provide full protection to a child in the event of a motor vehicle accident.
Sears advised consumers who have purchased any of the four brands not to return their harness, but to get a free repair kit from the Dorel Juvenile group website. Some of the restraints were sold at Sears Canada retail stores, online and through the retailer’s catalog.
Despite the warning, there have been no reported injuries caused by the child car harness.
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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to take a weight-loss product sold online because it may cause heart problems.
The FDA released a statement that PRock Marketing has voluntarily recalled its Fruta Planta and Reduce Weight Fruta Planta products because the agency determined in tests that they contain sibutramine.
Sibutramine was withdrawn from the market in December 2010.
The FDA said it has received multiple reports of adverse health events associated with the use of Fruta Planta and Reduce Weight Fruta Planta, including several heart-related episodes and death.
Subutramine is known to increase blood pressure and pulse rates in some patients and may pose a serious risk for people with a history of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, arrhythmias or stroke.
People who have the products are being told to throw them away or try to return them to the company.
PRock can be reached at 877-225-1009 Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
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