This is a current event assignment that I did in 8th grade on September 30th, 2007. It is about Topps Meat Company forced to recall ground beef. The article is quoted and the summary I had to do follows.

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“Topps Meat Co. on Saturday expanded a recall of ground beef from about 300,000 pounds to 21.7 million pounds, one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history.

The recalled products are all ground beef patties with various brand names.

In a statement, the Elizabeth, New Jersey, company said the hamburger patties may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7, a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhea and cramps, as well as other complications.

A statement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture said 25 illnesses are under investigation in Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maine, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The ground beef products being recalled have a “sell by date” or a “best if used by date” between September 25, 2007, and September 25, 2008, Topps’ statement said.

The packages also have the marking “Est. 9748″ inside the USDA mark of inspection.

Tuesday, the company announced a recall of about 331,000 pounds of hamburger meat, according to the USDA.

“Because the health and safety of our consumers is our top priority, we are taking these expansive measures,” said Vice President of Operations Geoffrey Livermore in the statement.

“Topps is continuing to work with the USDA, state departments of health, retailers and distributors to ensure the safety of our consumers. Additionally, we have augmented our internal quality control procedures with microbiologists and food safety experts. We sincerely regret any inconvenience and concerns this may cause our consumers,” Livermore said.

Don’t Miss

This is the company’s first recall in its 65 years of business, the statement said.

Consumers who find the products at home are asked to cut off the UPC code and return it to Topps for a full refund, then dispose of the product immediately, Topps spokeswoman Michelle Williams said.

The company said to avoid E.coli, consumers should wash hands thoroughly after handling the beef.

Topps set up a toll-free recall help line at (888) 734-0451.

Williams said because the products may have been produced up to a year ago, many of them have already been safely consumed.

Production in the ground beef area of the company’s plant in Elizabeth has been shut down until all the investigations are complete, Williams said in a phone interview.

“We’re working with the USDA and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and conducting our own investigation,” she added.

The products, all ground beef patties and hamburgers with various brand names, were distributed mainly in the northeastern United States, but went to retailers in many other areas of the country as well, Williams said.”

Summary

A company that makes ground beef (Topps Meat), has issued one of the largest recalls in the history of the US. They went from 300,000 to 2.17 MILLION pounds of recall. There are many illnesses (25) in different places because of these patties. This is also the companies first re-call in 65 years, and places are having to work together to stop this sickness/disease. This is NOT a good sign for Topps Meat Co.

Tags: assignment, beef, current event, homework, illnesses, meat, recall, topps

This is a current event assignment that I did in 8th grade on September 10th, 2007. The assignment was to print the article and our own summary of the article. I have quoted the article and my summary follows the article. I also had to do a short verbal presentation.

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“A confirmed sighting of a baiji dolphin just months after it was declared “extinct” has prompted scientists to launch an against-all-odds plan to save the last of the rare Chinese river dwellers.

A team of marine-life scholars led by Wang Ding, a scientist at China’s Institute of Hydrobiology, examined digital video footage recently taken along the eastern section of the Yangtze River. The video provides evidence of the survival of the baiji, or whitefin dolphin, the team confirmed.

Now experts at the institute are studying the feasibility of transporting the survivors to a natural preserve in a Noah’s Ark-like operation, said Wang, one of China’s leading authorities on the nearly decimated species.

“Functionally Extinct”?

The sighting provides a small ray of hope for scientists who had previously given up on the baiji.

A six-nation coalition of scientists, including Wang, spent five weeks late last year using high-performance optical instruments and underwater microphones to search the Yangtze, the baiji’s sole habitat, for any signs of the species. (See a map of China.)

“The baiji is functionally extinct,” concluded August Pfluger, head of the Swiss-based baiji.org foundation and co-organizer of the 2,200-mile (3,500-kilometer expedition), at the time.

“It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world.”

(Read: China’s Rare River Dolphin Now Extinct, Experts Announce”[December 14, 2006].)

According to Wang, baiji dolphins apparently lived and flourished in the Yangtze for more than 19 million years before humans arrived on the scene.

Beat Mueller is a geochemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology who was also part of the 2006 baiji expedition.

“The disappearance and extinction of such highly evolved endemic mammals as the white Yangtze River dolphin [baiji], the finless porpoise, or the Chinese sturgeon from the Yangtze River can be attributed to a multitude of circumstances, such as the deterioration and loss of their natural habitats, overfishing of the river, the heavy freight ship traffic, and others,” Mueller said.

“Increasing concentrations of anthropogenic chemicals may just be one additional factor,” he added.

But Wang said he and others at the hydrobiology institute are now convinced that the last survivors of the dolphin might be found along small tributaries of the Yangtze in eastern China’s Anhui Province, where the amateur video was shot in mid-August.

Call to Action

Conservation specialists at the hydrobiology institute, which is part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are preparing to search those waterways, pending approval from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture.

“We may try to catch the baiji dolphins and move them into our semi-natural Tian-e-Zhou Reserve, which is located along an oxbow [U-shaped curve] of the Yangtze River, to put them under full protection,” Wang said.

According to Karen Baragona, a specialist on the Yangtze at the World Wildlife Fund, the keys to the survival of the baiji are conserving oxbow lakes in the central Yangtze, creating a network of nature reserves along the river, and managing the river’s entire ecosystem from a holistic perspective.

“This sighting presents a last hope that the baiji may not go the way of the dodo bird,” Baragona said in a statement.

“Other species have been brought back from the brink of extinction, like the southern right whale and white rhinos, but only through the most intensive conservation efforts.”

Wang, with the help of the baiji.org group, might even attempt to engineer the recovery of the dolphins through a captive breeding program.

The Baiji Conservation Aquarium has already scored small successes with a similar breeding scheme aimed at averting the extinction of the endangered Yangtze finless porpoise.

Two finless calves have been born at the aquarium since it was set up two years ago.

But Wang warned that the battle to save the baiji is anything but guaranteed.

“The chances of saving the baiji are really small,” he said. “But we have to try our best to save the last baiji, even if we know it may be a mission impossible.” ”

Summary
A Baiji, or whitefin, Dolphin in China which was declared extinct several months ago, was sighted and video recorded by an Amateur Video recorder. The marine life scholars examined the video and confirmed that this was living evidence of the survival of the Baiji Dolphin. They are working on transporting those surviving dolphins to a preserve area. This obviously gives hope to those marine life scholars to preserve a dying species.

Tags: assignment, baiji dolphin, current event, extinct, homework, sighted, summary, verbal presentation

This is a current event assignment that I did in 8th grade on September 1st, 2007. The assignment was to print the article and our own summary of the article. I have quoted the article and my summary follows the article. I look back and laugh at my simple misspellings.

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“The Rev. John Henry Walker, accused of tax evasion and stealing from his Charlotte congregation, was sentenced Friday to more than five years in prison.

U.S. District Judge Frank Whitney also ordered the 48-year-old pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church to pay more than $277,000 in restitution to the government.

Walker pleaded guilty to tax evasion, bank fraud and lying to federal agents. Though his lawyer asked that Walker remain free long enough to preach a goodbye sermon at his church, the judge ordered marshals to take him immediately into custody to begin serving his sentence.

The courtroom was packed with current and former members of the church, with the pastor’s supporters mostly sitting on one side and his critics on the other. Outside, after the sentencing, emotions flared, with the two sides scuffling and calling each other names. Some angry backers of WalkerWalker’s wife, Rosie, an associate minister at the church. also charged TV camera crews and photographers, demanding that they stop crowding the path of

Prosecutors had pushed for a 10-year sentence, saying Walker’s “powers of persuasion” were a danger to his congregation. Walker’s attorney, touting the pastor’s military service and his previous career as a Greensboro firefighter, asked the judge to consider probation and home detention.

Before being sentenced to five years and three months, Walker, wearing a dark pinstriped suit and a blue shirt and tie, stood and offered a rambling, sometimes emotional plea for mercy. He apologized to the court and his family and took a shot at former members of the church who, he said, had tried to undermine his leadership and remove him.

“I’m already punished, labeled as a felon,” he said, stopping once to fight back tears. “I am not perfect. I’ve made mistakes. … But this is the first time I’ve ever faced anything like this. It still seems like a nightmare.”

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Kurt Meyers cast Walker as unrepentant and as a minister who used charisma and bullying to get congregation members to help him steal money from the church for years.

“He is an admitted predator and an admitted liar,” Meyers said. “And he will steal again.”

Prosecutors alleged that Walker stole $160,000 from his congregation through the unauthorized use of the church’s credit card. They say Walker used the church credit card for personal expenses, including hotel rooms with paramours, erectile dysfunction medication, dental work, and airline trips for him and female acquaintances.

Walker was accused of taking more than $70,000 in cash advances from the church credit card between 1998 and 2003. Prosecutors say he provided no receipts or accounting of any kind for the cash advances and refused to do so when asked.

Walker earned almost $600,000 in taxable income from the church and other sources between 1999 and 2003 but reported taxable income of less than $55,000 to the government, the indictment alleges. Prosecutors accused Walker of failing to pay nearly $400,000 in federal and state income taxes for the years 1998 through 2004.

Walker has been pastor at the 500-member church north of uptown since 1992.

Defense attorney Harold Cogdell called two supportive members of Walker’s congregation to the stand Friday.

Annette Willis, a member off and on since 1958, said she and most of those still attending Macedonia Baptist reject the idea that they were victims of Walker. When he asked the church to forgive him, Willis said, “it’s like the slate’s been cleared. I’m reconciled with Pastor Walker.”

Anita Hill, a member since 1984, agreed and said the church members wanted to keep Walker as their pastor: “He’s the one who has helped our families through deaths and births and divorces and problems with our children. … He’s somebody anybody can talk to.”

But both women admitted being among those in the congregation who would give Walker “love offerings” — donations they’d stuff into green envelopes or later, charged an IRS agent, throw at his feet on the altar.

IRS agent Robert Ripley, who helped investigate Walker, estimated that Walker collected more than $200,000 in love offerings — most of it cash — from 1999 to 2004. “Chump change” is what Walker called it, Ripley testified Friday.

It was unclear Friday where Walker would serve his sentence.

The hearing, which lasted about eight hours, ended emotionally, with Walker’s wife joining hands and praying with supporters.

Walker seemed stunned when Whitney announced the sentence. He turned to his supporters and appeared to mouth “Don’t cry,” but several did anyway.

After the sentencing, Michael Todd, a church member who cooperated in the investigation and was pushed out of the church because of his criticism of the pastor’s spending, said: “I wanted to save the church. I wanted us to get back together. I wanted to stop the misappropriation of funds.

“It’s a sad day. I’m not happy he’s going to jail. His children no longer have their father. His wife no longer has her husband. That’s not a good thing. But the justice system worked.”

Another former church member, Danielle Bell, said: “He did wrong. I didn’t want him to do that much time. I wanted him to leave the church.”

One Walker supporter assured another: “He’s going to come back stronger and better.”

Walker’s brother, Leforice Walker, said: “I’m just shocked and stunned” at the sentence.

Judge Whitney, just before the sentencing, acknowledged the pain in Walker’s family and congregation, but added that Walker had defrauded his church and that the evidence of his crimes was overwhelming.

“Fifteen years of tax evasion shows this defendant does not respect the law,” the judge said. “It’s his criminal conduct that has caused this day to come.” “

Current Event Summary

Rev. John Henry Walker (48 yrs. Old) has been accused of stealing from his church, and has been sent to 5 years in prison as well as paying back around $275,000. When in court he did admit to it and pleaded guilty. Walker did ask to say goodbye to his church. When people are asked, there are mixed opinions. “I would like him to stay, he is a good person to talk to, and has helped many of us through death, birth, and much more”. “Once a lier and stealer, always a lier and stealer”. People would also say, “It’s a sad day, his family will miss him but the justice system worked”.

Tags: article, assignment, church, current event, homework, reverend, steals, summary