Category: Guides

Skip the raw cookie dough–always, scientist warns

Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Come on. Fess up.

You always sneak a sample of the raw cookie dough and savor licking the sticky, sweet, battered spoon.

Well, new research warns that you should put the spoon in the sink for a good washing, and resist the temptation for a taste of the gooey treat. According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nasty and potentially harmful germs lurk in ready-to bake cookie dough.

The findings say raw cookie dough caused 77 people in 30 states to become sick in 2009; 35 got so ill they required hospitalization.

After learning of the outbreak, the researchers tested 36 healthy volunteers to 36 people sickened by the deadly strain of E coli in 2009. They were able to determine that raw cookie dough consumption was the one thing the ailing 36 all had in common.

The investigation resulted in the recall of 3.6 million packages of cookie dough. The manufacturer of the cookie dough was not named in the report.

And contrary to popular belief, the culprit is thought to be flour, not eggs, butter, molasses or sugar. Flour does not go through the special processing to destroy pathogens that other ingredients do.

If you still have a yen for raw cookie dough, eat cookie dough ice cream. The cookie dough in the frozen dessert is designed to be eaten raw, experts note.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Presidential Pardons Heavily Favor Whites

ProPublica Staff

Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Dafna Linzer and Jennifer LaFleur

First of two parts. This story was co-published with The Washington Post.

White criminals seeking presidential pardons over the past decade have been nearly four times as likely to succeed as minorities, a ProPublica examination has found.

Blacks have had the poorest chance of receiving the president’s ultimate act of mercy, according to an analysis of previously unreleased records and related data.

Current and former officials at the White House and Justice Department said they were surprised and dismayed by the racial disparities, which persist even when factors such as the type of crime and sentence are considered.

“I’m just astounded by those numbers,” said Roger Adams, who served as head of the Justice Department’s pardons office from 1998 to 2008. He said he could think of nothing in the office’s practices that would have skewed the recommendations. “I can recall several African Americans getting pardons.”

The review of applications for pardons is conducted almost entirely in secret, with the government releasing scant information about those it rejects.

ProPublica’s review examined what happened after President George W. Bush decided at the beginning of his first term to rely almost entirely on the recommendations made by career lawyers in the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

The office was given wide latitude to apply subjective standards, including judgments about the “attitude” and the marital and financial stability of applicants. No two pardon cases match up perfectly, but records reveal repeated instances in which white applicants won pardons with transgressions on their records similar to those of blacks and other minorities who were denied.

Senior aides in the Bush White House say the president had hoped to take politics out of the process and avoid a repetition of the Marc Rich scandal, in which the fugitive financier won an eleventh-hour pardon tainted by his ex-wife’s donations to Democratic causes and the Clinton Presidential Library.

Justice Department officials said in a statement Friday that the pardon process takes into account many factors that cannot be statistically measured, such as an applicant’s candor and level of remorse.

“Nonetheless, we take the concerns seriously,” the statement said. “We will continue to evaluate the statistical analysis and, of course, are always working to improve the clemency process and ensure that every applicant gets a fair, merit-based evaluation.”

Bush followed the recommendations of the pardons office in nearly every case, the aides said. The results, spread among hundreds of cases over eight years, heavily favored whites. President Obama — who has pardoned 22 people, two of them minorities — has continued the practice of relying on the pardons office.

“President Obama takes his constitutional power to grant clemency very seriously,” said Matt Lehrich, a White House spokesman. “Race has no place in the evaluation of clemency evaluations, and the White House does not consider or even receive information on the race of applicants.”

The president’s power to pardon is enshrined in the Constitution. It is an act of forgiveness for a federal crime. It does not wipe away the conviction, but it does restore a person’s full rights to vote, possess firearms and serve on federal juries. It allows individuals to obtain licensing and business permits and removes barriers to certain career opportunities and adoptions.

To assess how the pardons office selects candidates for pardons, ProPublica interviewed key officials, obtained access to thousands of pages of internal documents and used statistical tests to measure the effects of race and other factors on the outcome.

From 2001 to 2008, Bush issued decisions in 1,918 pardon cases sent to him by the Justice Department, most involving nonviolent drug or financial crimes. He pardoned 189 people – all but 13 of whom were white. Seven pardons went to blacks, four to Hispanics, one to an Asian and one to a Native American.

Fred Fielding, who served as Bush’s White House counsel, said the racial disparity “is very troubling to me and will be to , because we had no idea of the race of any applicant.”

“The names were colorblind to us,” Fielding said, “and we assumed they would be at all levels of clemency review.”

Beginning in September 2010, the Justice Department was required to make available the names of people denied pardons. Bush’s pardon decisions were selected to examine the impact of the pardons office’s recommendations over a president’s full term and to test how well the office met the president’s goal of assuring fairness in the process.

The department does not reveal race or any additional information that would identify an applicant, citing privacy grounds. To analyze pardons, ProPublica selected a random sample of nearly 500 cases decided by Bush and spent a year tracking down the age, gender, race, crime, sentence and marital status of applicants from public records and interviews.

In multiple cases, white and black pardon applicants who committed similar offenses and had comparable post-conviction records experienced opposite outcomes.

An African American woman from Little Rock, fined $3,000 for underreporting her income in 1989, was denied a pardon; a white woman from the same city who faked multiple tax returns to collect more than $25,000 in refunds got one. A black, first-time drug offender — a Vietnam veteran who got probation in South Carolina for possessing 1.1 grams of crack – was turned down. A white, fourth-time drug offender who did prison time for selling 1,050 grams of methamphetamine was pardoned.

All of the drug offenders forgiven during the Bush administration at the pardon attorney’s recommendation – 34 of them – were white.

Turning over pardons to career officials has not removed money and politics from the process, the analysis found. Justice Department documents show that nearly 200 members of Congress from both parties contacted the pardons office regarding pending cases. In multiple instances, felons and their families made campaign contributions to the lawmakers supporting their pleas. Applicants with congressional support were three times as likely to be pardoned, the statistical analysis shows.

In reviewing applicants, pardon lawyers rely on their discretion in ways that favor people who are married and who have never divorced, declared bankruptcy or taken on large amounts of debt. The intent, officials say, is to reward people who demonstrated “stability” after their convictions. But the effect has been to exclude large segments of society.

The ProPublica data show that applicants whose offense was older than 20 years had the best odds of a pardon. Married people, those who received probation rather than prison time, and financially stable applicants also fared better. When the effects of those factors and others were controlled using statistical methods, however, race emerged as one of the strongest predictors of a pardon.

The most striking disparity involved African Americans, who make up 38 percent of the federal prison population and have historically suffered from greater financial and marital instability. Of the nearly 500 cases in ProPublica’s sample, 12 percent of whites were pardoned, as were 10 percent of Hispanics.

None of the 62 African Americans in the random sample received a pardon. To assess the chances of black applicants, ProPublica used the sample to extrapolate the total number of black applicants and compare it with the seven blacks whom Bush pardoned. Allowing for a margin of error, this yielded a pardon rate of between 2 percent and 4 percent.

– Provided by ProPublica.org

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Prosecutors seek 15-20 years in prison for Blagojevich

Matthew Borghese – AHN News Contributor

Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – Former Illinois governor and now convicted felon Rod Blagojevich is back in court as lawyers argue over his sentencing. In one week, U.S. District Judge James Zagel will sentence Blagojevich in the final act of his fall from the governor’s mansion’s grace.

Prosecutors are calling for a long prison term in a 21-page sentencing brief filed before the court. Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar says the former governor belongs behind bars for between 15 to 20 years.

“[Blagojevich], has refused to accept any responsibility for his criminal conduct and, rather, has repeatedly obstructed justice and taken action to further erode respect for the law,” according to the prosecutorial filing, obtained by the Chicago Tribune. “While the government is not unsympathetic to the plight that Blagojevich, like many criminals, has inflicted upon his family through his criminal acts, Blagojevich has nobody to blame but himself for the criminal conduct in which he engaged.”

“Blagojevich has done his best to undermine the legitimacy of the proceedings against him in this case, further demonstrating he does not respect the rule of law,” the prosecutors added.

But defense attorneys say his public disgrace is punishment enough in a 72-page reply filing, and argue he deserves to spend just 51 months (4 1/4 years) in prison. Blagojevich’s lawyers told the court that their client has already suffered “personal ruination, public scorn and criminal conviction.”

“Despite a strong and seemingly defiant exterior, no one is more acutely aware of the tragedy that has become of his life’s work and aspirations as is Mr. Blagojevich himself,” the defense added.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Mortgage insurance ‘kickbacks’ alleged in Supreme Court case

Tom Ramstack – AHN News Legal Correspondent

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court plans to confront consumers’ anger toward the mortgage lending industry Monday with a hearing in a lawsuit against a real estate title company.

The plaintiff, Denise Edwards, is trying to sue First American Financial Corp. in a class action lawsuit that alleges violations of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

The 1974 federal law prohibits payment of kickbacks when consumers purchase a “federally-related mortgage loan.”

Under the law, a kickback refers to payments in exchange for referrals of mortgage settlement service business.

The Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether a consumer can sue for damages when the kickbacks did nothing to raise the price of her mortgage.

In other words, how can she be compensated for damages when she might not have suffered any damages, according to the defendants.

When she bought a home in Cleveland in 2006, Edwards was referred by her settlement agent at Tower City Title Agency to First American Title Insurance Company.

First American charged Edwards a standard fee under Ohio law of $455.43.

However, no one told her that First American owned 17.5 percent of Tower City Title Agency. They also did not tell her that Tower City shared some of the income from customers who purchase mortgage insurance from First American.

Edwards filed a class action lawsuit alleging that First American’s ownership interest in Tower City, plus the fact Tower City referred customers to First American, was the same as a kickback.

If the class action lawsuit succeeds, First American customers could receive compensation of three times more than they paid for mortgage insurance, up to a half-million dollar cap.

First American claimed the case should be dismissed because Edwards’ standard $455.43 bill was unaffected by the alleged kickback. She also could not prove the quality of service she received was bad.

Edwards says that regardless of the fee she was charged, First American still violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act by paying a kickback, which should be enough of a reason to get sued.

So far, Edwards has won in lower courts.

The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California denied First American’s motion to dismiss. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed the dismissal.

An “injury” that can be compensated in a lawsuit “can exist solely by virtue of statutes creating legal rights,” even if consumers cannot prove they lost money, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling said.

First American appealed to the Supreme Court.

Edwards has lined up powerful friends to support her in the hearing Monday. They include the U.S. Justice Department, which filed an amicus – or friend of the court – brief that argues Congress can create legally protected rights by passing laws intended to protect certain persons.

In Edwards’ case, Congress was trying to protect home buyers by approving the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act.

Both Edwards and the Justice Department say filing the lawsuit as a class action might motivate mortgage companies like First American to comply with the law.

The Supreme Court case coincides with ongoing efforts in Congress to clamp down on fraud and other shady dealings by the mortgage industry.

President Barack Obama has blamed the industry for being a primary culprit in the Great Recession that began in 2008.

Easy credit terms for consumers led to numerous bad loans, which then prompted widespread home foreclosures and personal bankruptcies.

In the latest move by Congress, 15 lawmakers are asking bank regulators in the Treasury Department to publicly release information about what steps are being taken to prevent illegal foreclosures by banks. The U.S. Comptroller is investigating the bank foreclosures.

“The only way this claims process will be fair is if the regulators shine a bright light on mortgage servicers, and make them demonstrate to the public how they’re being held accountable,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who is leading the effort for greater “transparency” in mortgage fraud cases.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Smucker recalls two batches of chunky natural peanut butter over Salmonella concerns

Linda Young – AHN News Writer

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The J.M. Smucker Co. announced a voluntary limited recall as a precaution because of salmonella fears affecting two specific Best-If-Used-By dates of 16 oz. Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter Chunky.

“No illnesses related to this issue have been reported and the product is being recalled out of an abundance of caution for consumer safety,” company officials said in a statement.

The company launched the recall after its routine testing program indicated the possibility that salmonella bacteria could be present in the product.

Smucker said the limited recall affected that brand of its peanut butter packaged in 16 oz. jars with the following dates and codes:

  • UPC: 5150001701 (located on the side of the jar’s label below the bar code)
  • Production Codes: 1307004 and 1308004
  • Best-If-Used-By dates: Aug. 3, 2012 and Aug. 4, 2012
  • Chunky product only (not creamy)
  • Impacted product would have been purchased from Nov. 8 to 17

The affected product was distributed in the District of Columbia and 24 states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

No other Smucker product is affected.

Salmonella is an “organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.” Smucker said.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Tension rises in New York as court backs OWS protesters

Matthew Borghese – AHN News Contributor

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The “Occupy Wall Street” movement won major support from a New York court Tuesday, possibly extending the life of the demonstration that has spawned similar anti-establishment protests around the world.

New York Supreme Court Judge Lucy Billings, will, on paper, allow protesters to remain camped out at the privately-owned Zuccotti Park in the Big Apple.

On Tuesday, the New York Police Department (NYPD) forcibly cleared protesters from the site. Clearing the camp was the latest in a long battle between OWS and local leaders. Protesters took to the court system to protect their right to camp out. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials pressed for an end to the demonstration, saying the right to free speech did not extend to a long-term occupation of a public space.

“No right is absolute and with every right comes responsibilities,” Bloomberg said. “The First Amendment gives every New Yorker the right to speak out — but it does not give anyone the right to sleep in a park or otherwise take it over to the exclusion of others — nor does it permit anyone in our society to live outside the law. There is no ambiguity in the law here — the First Amendment protects speech -’ it does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space.”

“New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself. What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that,” Bloomberg added.

Nonetheless, only hours after their eviction, a court order proclaimed the protestors could return to Zuccotti Park. Despite the ruling, police have closed off the park under Bloomberg’s orders. The city is planning a legal appeal of Billings’ ruling, citing ongoing “health and safety concerns.”

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Obama’s foreign policy authority disputed in Supreme Court case

Tom Ramstack – AHN News Legal Correspondent

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Supreme Court stepped into the fray Monday over whether Jerusalem is an international city or exclusively the property of Israel. The outcome of the dispute is likely to redefine which branch of the U.S. government has final authority over some issues of foreign policy.

The lawsuit that prompted oral arguments before the Supreme Court Monday involved a passport for a boy born in 2002 to American parents in Jerusalem.

When his parents went to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to get a passport for their newborn, they asked that his country of birth be listed as Israel.

The embassy staff refused, citing State Department policy. Instead, they wrote in Jerusalem.

A month before the boy, Menachem Zivotofsky, was born, Congress had passed a law ordering the State Department to list Israel as the country of birth for all U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem.

However, the State Department is part of the executive branch of government, not Congress. Under the Constitution, the president and his administration decide foreign policy.

The Supreme Court seeks to resolve the difference of opinion.

Nathan Lewin, attorney for the Zivotofskys, told the Supreme Court Monday the case should not be defined as political. Instead, American citizens born in Jerusalem should be allowed to have the identification they prefer on their passports.

“This is not a recognition case, this is a passport case,” he said. “We live in a system in which Congress passes the laws and the president is the instrument of foreign policy.”

Equally important is how the case could affect Mideast politics.

Israel claims Jerusalem as its capital despite the fact the United Nations and many countries refuse to recognize it.

East Jerusalem consists predominantly of Muslims while West Jerusalem is populated mostly by Jews. The 6,000-year-old city is the birth place of three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Israel claimed the western part of the city since 1948 while Jordan says it annexed the eastern part of the city.

The Israelis took control of the entire city after the 1967 Six Day War. They base their government there, but no foreign embassies are located in Jerusalem.

Disputes over who should control Jerusalem remain a core issue in Mideast conflicts.

President Barack Obama acknowledged the tense standoff in a May 2010 speech on the Mideast peace process when he said, “Two wrenching and emotional issues remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.”

So far, the State Department has tried to walk a middle ground when granting passports to children of Americans born in Jerusalem.

Their country of birth is listed as Jerusalem, despite the fact no one claims the city as a nation.

The Zivotofskys say in their lawsuit the policy should be changed.

The State Department says in its brief before the Supreme Court that foreign affairs, such as the status of passports, are a “political question” that fall under the “exclusive power” of the presidency.

“A passport is an official instrument of foreign policy through which the United States addresses foreign nations,” the State Department’s brief says.

Congress can enact passport legislation but the Constitution reserves foreign policy issues such as “the recognition of foreign states and their territorial sovereignty” to the presidency, the State Department’s brief says.

The Zivotofskys have framed their case around one simple request to the Supreme Court. They want the Supreme Court to tell the Obama administration to enforce the law approved by Congress.

In other words, their son’s passport should say he was born in Israel, not Jerusalem.

The president has exclusive authority over a “political question” only in cases “in which Congress has failed to set standards,” the Zivotofskys’ brief says.

Congress set the standard for passports of American citizens born in Jerusalem with the law it approved a month before their son’s birth, the Zivotofskys say.

About 50,000 American citizens were born in Jerusalem.

The Zivotofskys drew support in amicus briefs from several Jewish organizations, 28 senators and 11 members of the House of Representatives.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

RCMP recovers $2.6 million cash tossed into sea by BC man

Vittorio Hernandez – AHN News

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (AHN) – The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have recovered $2.6 million in cash thrown by a British Columbia man from a small boat off Vancouver Island. The amount is considered one of the largest cash confiscations in the RCMP’s history.

The man tossed the cash, which was inside a suitcase, when the RCMP approached the man’s boat. Mounties later plucked the suitcase from the water.

The RCMP, which showed the money – wrapped in plastic – and disclosed the incident on Tuesday, said the incident happened on March 24 near the U.S.-Canadian border known for smuggling. The Mounties said they had to wait several months before they made public the incident because it needed to follow up on matters concerning the case.

The suspect, 44-year-old Jeffrey Melchior of Lake Cowichan, was charged with possession of property obtained by crime and money laundering. He is scheduled to appear in court in Victoria on Nov. 21.

According to the Canadian Center for Justice Statistics, the number of money-laundering crimes in the country has gone up in the past 10 years and law enforcers have difficulty in finding and arresting the money launderers.

The RCMP estimate is that between $5 billion and $15 billion is laundered in Canada yearly, mainly through the financial system. However, a Statistics Canada report said the police were able to identify money-laundering suspects only 18 percent of the time.

Only one third of the cases resulted in a guilty verdict compared to two-thirds success in ordinary crimes.

The StatsCan study said money-laundering crimes rose fivefold between 2004 and 2006 but have leveled off since then. In 2009, the RCMP recorded 525 money laundering incidents in Canada.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Wizards among teams hit hard by latest NBA schedule cancelation

AHN Sports Staff

Washington, DC, United States (AHN Sports) – The Washington Wizards saw their first 14 games of the season scrapped after NBA commissioner David Stern cancelled two more weeks from the 2011-2012 season schedules due to the extended labor lockout.

The Wizards took a huge blow in the latest labor dispute development, losing nine more games in their schedule after the NBA eliminated another two weeks from the 2011-2012 regular-season.

The Wizards, who have now lost a total of 14 games, will miss out six road games, including a four-game West Coast trip, and three home games.

Wizards players will be losing around $7.42 million worth of paychecks, while all NBA players are going to lose an estimated $400 million due to the cancellation of the first month of the season.

“I’m just reflecting the calendar,” Stern told the Washington Post Saturday. “I mean, there’s just — you need 30 days to play, and so the last two weeks of November are gone. It’s already getting to be November 1. The calendar takes care of our games. These are not punitive announcements, these are calendar-generated announcements.”

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories

Heir to Saudi throne dies

Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter

NY, NYC, United States (AHN) – Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, heir to the Saudi throne, died Saturday in New York City at the age of 85.

The Sultan died in a hospital in New York City. His burial is expected to take place Tuesday in Riyadh.

The death of the crown prince, the half brother of the ailing Saudi King Abdullah, leaves many questions open about succession. Unlike in European monarchies, the line of succession does not move directly from father to eldest son. It has moved down a line of brothers born to the kingdom’s founder Ibn Saud, who died in 1953.

Sultan bin Abdel Azia was the deputy prime minister of the oil-rich country. He had been defense minister and minister of aviation for about four decades. He also oversaw a defensive spending spree which made the kingdom one of the biggest arm’s buyers in the world.

The palace issued the following statement early Saturday, “With grief, King Abullah bin Abdel Aziz mourns the death of Sultan bin Abdel Aziz Al Saud, crown prince and brother.”

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said the crown prince was “a strong leader and a good friend to the United States over many years, as well as a tireless champion for his country.”

According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from January 2010, Sultan had been receiving treatment for colon cancer since 2009.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

View full post on All Stories