Beef Industry Gets Poor Grades Over Use of Antibiotics – The excessive use of antibiotics in livestock and poultry contributes to the epidemic of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and makes infections harder to treat. And although the top fast food chains have promised to raise chickens without antibiotics, the livestock industry resists. Prominent environmental activist Linda Escalante discusses the grades public health observers give the beef industry in a report entitled “Chain Reaction 5.” The report arrives just on time for the Holiday season of traditional family meals.
California Boosts Funding to Clean Up Polluted Homes in Los Angeles – Thousands of residents of eight cities in southern Los Angeles have something to celebrate. The state government is providing new funds to move faster on the clean-up of more than 10,000 houses contaminated with lead by the defunct battery recycling facility Exide Technologies. The subsidy will be paid for with a new tax on batteries. Ruben Tapia reports from the city of Commerce, the epicenter of the pollution.
Veterans Urge Investigation of Suspected White House Collusion with Coup Plotters in Bolivia – The overthrow of Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, and the humanitarian crisis that has followed, is being denounced by a group of US war veterans as a military coup. They ask Congress to open an investigation. Veteran Jovanni Reyes, a spokesman for the organization “About Face,” demands clarification on whether the White House and prominent Cuban-American senators interfered in the coup.
