Attention news junkies: We’ve better optimized our news-gathering process and instead of one massive daily news dump, we’ll henceforth be attempting to serve up the news in smaller bites throughout the day (and evening). We hope these digests will be easier to swallow.
E. coli around the U.S.: According to the Houston Chronicle (AP), Taco John’s, the Midwestern chain suffering from its own large and growing E. coli outbreak, has fired its produce supplier even though the culprit hasn’t yet been found. That AP article says officials won’t name the supplier, but this other AP article outs St. Paul-based Bix Produce. Still no word on what ingredients caused the Taco Bell outbreak on the Eastern seaboard, as onions have been cleared entirely (the suspected white onions had a different strain of E. coli!) according to Businessweek.com. Meanwhile, the Seattle P-I says five children in the Chelan-Manson area recently had E. coli poisoning, source unknown.
NPR: Meat suppliers are giving the USDA an earful on revisiting the label “natural.” Unfortunately, none of the changes are likely to be significant.
Washington Post (AP): Incoming Ag Committee chair and Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin held a press conference yesterday after meeting with AgSec Mike Johanns; the two men said that demand for ethanol will definitely lead to a major rewrite of next year’s Farm Bill, although they’re not revealing details yet. (Not up on the Farm Bill? This recent Forbes.com article will give you a crash course in what’s at stake and who’s fighting over what.)
Reuters: Mexico’s new government plans to slap a 5% tax on all soft drinks, replacing the 20% one that targeted only fructose-sweetened soft drinks that the WTO didn’t like.
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