Saturday, April 30, 2005

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced a recall of foods containing banned dyes which increase the risk of cancer. The food products were sold at the Tesco, Waitrose, and Somerfield supermarkets.

A Bristol company called “Barts Spices” found the illegal Para Red substance in their Barts Ground Paprika, which was sold in 48g and 46g jars with a “Co-op” label. The batch codes on the affected products are 5032 and 5089 (expiration Dec 2007), and 5075 (expiration February 2007).

Tesco also found that their 130g package of BBQ rice cakes (expiration November and December 2005) contained both Para Red and Sudan I.

“It would be very prudent to assume that it could be a genotoxic carcinogen,” FSA scientific advisers told reporters.

“As a company committed to supplying only the very finest quality food ingredients, we took the immediate decision to withdraw our ground paprika spice from all outlets selling the product and advertised a product recall in the national press,” a Barts Spices spokesman said in a statement.

Sudan I is only authorized for industrial use to colorize petroleum products, such as shoe polish. Para Red and Sudan I are banned under the British Colours in Food Regulations of 1995.

Britain last went through a major food recall in February, when Worcester Sauce was found to contain chili powder dyed with Sudan 1.

Monday, August 27, 2012

London, England — As Paralympians ready for the Games which are set to open later this week, they have access to a world class fitness center inside the Paralympic Village which is designed to maximise their pre-Game preparations.

According to volunteers staffing the center, instead of being a single large room, as in Beijing, the building has numerous rooms. It, along with the adjacent Village Services Centre, is designed to be converted into a school after the games conclude. Rooms have been structured as a gym, an auditorium, and science laboratories.

Gym equipment is supplied by Technogym, an Italian firm that has supplied gym equipment for the Olympics since 2000. Equipment has been provided not just for for the Fitness Centre, but for gyms at all the Olympic venues. The newest equipment is oriented toward maximum flexibility, allowing athletes to exercise the particular muscles that they most require for their sport.

In addition to the equipment, the Fitness Centre also provides instructors trained in the use of the equipment, the likes of which athletes from many countries have never seen before. There are also a number of instructors available to provide motivational training.

Friday, April 22, 2005

A bill introduced last week by Republican Rick Santorum in the US senate, S. 786, could prohibit National Weather Service from publishing free forecasts online.

This would have no effect on The National Hurricane Center as the bill exempts forecasts meant to protect “life and property.”

“The weather service proved so instrumental and popular and helpful in the wake of the hurricanes. How can you make an argument that we should pull it off the Net now? What are you going to do, charge hurricane victims to go online, or give them a pop-up ad?” said Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

Barry Myers, executive vice president of AccuWeather a service that currently competes with National Weather Service free forecasts , said “the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers”.

Last year the NOAA eliminated a policy that had prohibited them from offering services that could be provided by the private industry.

Thursday, July 15, 2021

On Monday night, governor of the U.S. state of California Gavin Newsom signed a new US$262.6 billion budget bill for the state into law, with US$8.1 billion reserved for US$600 direct stimulus payments to Californians to aid in California’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill for the budget, SB 129, and the bill for the stimulus payments, SB 139, both passed both houses of the California Legislature for this fiscial year.

The payments, dubbed the Golden State Stimulus II, are set to be paid out to eligible California taxpaying residents beginning in September. To be eligible, residents must have filed a state tax return for last year, not be someone’s dependent, and must have earned no more than US$75 thousand in wages last year.

Eligible Californians would get a one-time payment of US$600, and households with dependents would receive an additional US$500. Around two-thirds of Californians are expected to get a stimulus payment, according to the governor’s office. Newsom initially proposed the payments in May to aid the state’s economic recovery, as part of his “California Comeback Plan”.

Californians who already received a stimulus payment earlier in the year are not eligible for this second payment. An additional payment of US$500 is still available for those who claimed dependents on their returns.

The budget also provides for US$5.2 billion in renters’ aid for low-income residents and landlords, which would pay for all rent left unpaid during the COVID-19 crisis, and cover rent for several coming months. Overdue water and utility payments would also be covered by US$2 billion in funding.

An additional US$1.5 billion was for grant money intended for small businesses, with US$120 million in tax credits for businesses willing to relocate to California.

California had a budget surplus of nearly US$76 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In signing SB 129, Newsom line-item vetoed Section 19.55 of the bill concerning US$2.58 billion in appropriations to various funds “on a technical basis”, citing in an explanation appropriations covered under the section were superseded by the budget. In California, a governor may approve a bill passed by the Legislature with specific items related to the budget rejected. The Legislature can override this line-item veto with a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and the Senate.

Monday, December 31, 2007

What would you tell your grandchildren about 2007 if they asked you about it in, let’s say, 20 year’s time? If the answer to a quiz question was 2007, what would the question be? The year that you first signed on to Facebook? The year Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse fell apart? The year author Kurt Vonnegut or mime Marcel Marceau died, both at 84?

Let’s take a look at some of the international stories of 2007. Links to the original Wikinews articles are in bold.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

The state’s teachers and schools chief Jack O’Connell have settled their lawsuit against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and, as a result, billions of dollars in school funding O’Connell and the teachers claimed the governor misappropriated during the state’s fiscal crisis will be returned to the schools.

“The restoration of funding to California school districts is very positive news,” New Haven schools Superintendent Pat Jaurequi told the James Logan Courier.

“This is a day for celebration in schools throughout California. When this lawsuit was filed, I promised that I would fight up and down the state until the funding owed to our schools was restored,” O’Connell, the state superintendent of Public Instruction, said in a statement last week. “I also promised I would give the Governor credit for doing the right thing if he restored this critical funding. Today, I want to thank Governor Schwarzenegger for working with the education community to invest wisely in our schools — the best investment we can make in California’s future.”

“This is a good thing for our schools and community colleges throughout California,” said Barbara E. Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, one of the parties to the lawsuit. “Having all the money owed to our schools under Proposition 98 and the governor’s agreement of 2004 restored to our students is the news we’ve been waiting for.

In a statement regarding the settlement, Schwarzenegger said, “I am pleased to announce a resolution that will put the dispute regarding Proposition 98 funding behind us and allow us to invest an additional $3 billion in schools in a way that best helps our students.”

Proposition 98 is an amendment to the state Constitution, passed in 1988, that established a minimum funding level or guarantee for K-12 education and community colleges. O’Connell and the California Teachers Association sued Schwarzenegger and the director for the California Department of Finance last summer after when they diverted billions of dollars earmarked for the schools under Prop. 98 to overcome budget deficits that were crippling California, violating an agreement made with educators the previous year.

The agreement restores funding Proposition 98 funding that was due, but not provided in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 fiscal years. The Governor’s May Budget Revision will include $2 billion and language that provides an additional $3 billion to be paid in installments between fiscal year 2006-07 and fiscal year 2013-14, or until paid in full.

In addition to the settlement funds, Schwarzenegger’s “May Budget Revision,” announced last week, also directs billions more of the state’s money to schools. Schwarzenegger said bulging state coffers, filled by unexpected tax revenues, allowed him to budget an extra 8.1 billion for schools, for a total of $55.1 billion-an over 17% overall funding increase from 2004-2005.

The settlement and the new budget figures “will allow us to make good on the debts to schools created through the recent lean years and to make important new investments in public education,” said O’Connell.

Schwarzenegger had some ideas about how the money should be spent. “For K-12 schools, I propose that we concentrate these funds to improve instruction in schools with low academic achievement. We should direct the funds to the classroom level for such things as lowering class size, attracting and supporting quality school leadership and fully credentialed and experienced teachers, supporting greater involvement of parents, providing more counselors in high schools, and increasing quality professional development, instructional materials, improved instruction and accountability.” he said.

Although pleased by the outcome of the lawsuit, Jaurequi was cautious about predicting its effect in New Haven “ It is significant to note that two-thirds of the new funding is one-time in nature and is not an ongoing revenue stream,” she said.

“Although the budget process is far from over and we will likely differ on some of his budget priorities, I am happy to thank Governor Schwarzenegger for working with the education community to invest in public education,” said O’Connell, who’s been embroiled in controversy and litigation over the California High School Exit Exam in recent weeks.

“I am particularly pleased to see that the Governor has increased funding to expand remediation programs for students who are struggling to pass the California High School Exit Exam, and to pay for new summer and evening administrations of the Exam,” said O’Connell, who wrote the law requiring the exam when he was a state legislator in 1998, “ I also applaud the increase in funding to expand and improve student nutrition programs giving more students the opportunity to make healthier food choices on campus. In addition, I am very happy to see additional funding for high school counselors. Our state currently has the lowest ratio of counselors to students in the nation. This is a statistic we need to improve upon”.

This article is based on Settlement Returns Billions to California Schools’ Budgets by Patrick Hannigan of The James Logan Courier, which has a copyright policy compatible with our CC-BY 2.5. Specifically “Creative Commons 2.5 Share-Alike license“

Saturday, March 12, 2005

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