As you read this, remember FSIS’s Mission Statement: The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is the public health agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture responsible for ensuring that the nation’s commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged. And, remember that none of our food... Continue Reading

The Food and Drug Administration uses import alerts to enforce U.S. food safety regulations for food from foreign countries. The agency updates and modifies the alerts as needed. Recent modifications to FDA’s import alerts, as posted by the agency, are listed below. Click on the links to view the full alerts. Import Alert Description URL... Continue Reading

Two laboratories did not achieve a good performance in the initial 2018 quality control test on Salmonella typing, according to a new report. The National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) of EU member states participate in quality control tests which consist of proficiency tests on Salmonella. Performance is assessed annually by testing ability to identify 20 Salmonella... Continue Reading

Israel exports ready-to-eat fully cooked and not shelf-stable poultry products to the United States. And those exports may continue, according to a report by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. That’s because Israel has passed its latest foreign equivalency audit by the United States. The audit did not turn up any deficiencies that might... Continue Reading

Coronavirus illnesses to date may touch as little as 4 percent of meat and poultry employment, but it been enough to roil the industry over how much protection the plants need to be safe. Actions taken in tight proximity to one another by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and U.S. District Court Judge Greg... Continue Reading

One in six Taiwanese people suffered from foodborne illness annually during a four year period studied by researchers. From 2012 to 2015, almost 3.9 million foodborne illnesses and 50 deaths occurred annually in the country. Scientists said the study, published in the Journal of the Formosan Medical Association, provided the first national estimates on the... Continue Reading

Opinion A few weeks ago many government agencies announced they would be following public health recommendations and have non-essential employees stay home because of the coronavirus pandemic. Among the staff activities and services suspended by the FDA were certain random tests of food and inspections of domestic and foreign food facilities, which includes the entire... Continue Reading

Meat production this week is up about 3 percent compared with the previous week, according to market reports by SiriusXM’s Rural Radio. That’s still off by as much as a third from a year ago. The numbers are causing some retailers to ration fresh meat purchases or risk selling out their entire supplies. The beef,... Continue Reading

More than a dozen countries have taken advantage of temporary rules to tackle disruption in official control systems in Europe because of the coronavirus pandemic. As of May 6, 15 nations had informed the European Commission that they are applying the measures in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/466. Countries wishing to use them have to tell... Continue Reading

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - As coronavirus hotspots erupted at major U.S. meatpacking plants, experts criticized extremely tight working conditions that made the factories natural high risk contagion locations. But some Midwestern politicians have pointed the finger at the workers' living conditions, suggesting crowded homes bear some blame.

The comments - including ...

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee said Friday repeated efforts to learn how the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service intends to become financially stable have been stymied by U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan.

The lawmakers say they've requested a financial plan from Ms. Brennan three different times, but it hasn't been ...

Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday put a temporary hold on the release of secret materials from former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to a Democrat-led House committee.

The order stops the clock on a lower court's ruling requiring the Justice Department to turn over confidential grand jury materials underlying ...

President Trump's reelection campaign trashed Facebook's new oversight board in a statement alleging anti-Trump bias by the social media platform.

Earlier this week, Facebook revealed the first 20 members of its new oversight board, which has responsibility for content enforcement and governance on its platforms. The board includes Pamela Karlan, ...

Rep. Justin Amash believes his White House bid is bad for both President Trump and his Democratic challenger, the Michigan Libertarian indicated in a recent interview.

Mr. Amash, a former Republican who left the GOP last year, told Time that he expects his presence in the presidential race will not ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - A Missouri House panel has dismissed a sexual harassment complaint against a state lawmaker after an investigation that spanned several months.

Minutes of the Missouri House Ethics Committee obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show the complaint was dismissed last week ...

Joseph R. Biden said Friday President Trump's ham-handed response to the coronavirus has helped to steer the nation into a Great Depression-like economic tailspin.

Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump "utterly failed" to prepare for COVID-19 and said the virus has "laid bare" the damage Mr. Trump has done by pursuing ...

PHOENIX (AP) - A hearing is scheduled to resume on May 15 in Phoenix over whether an Iraqi immigrant accused of participating in the 2006 killings of two police officers in Fallujah should remain jailed until his extradition case is over.

The detention hearing for Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri started ...

President Trump said the U.S. must start its economy "all over again" Friday as the unemployment rate from the coronavirus crisis rose to the highest level since the Great Depression.

"It's going to be a transition to greatness," the president said during a discussion at the White House with 19 ...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - A former lobbyist and Republican legislator was tapped Friday to head up a new state agency created by the Legislature last year to oversee agency spending.

The Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency Oversight Committee selected Mike Jackson to serve as the agency's first executive director. The ...

Republican lawmakers accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of "cowering" from the coronavirus on Friday and said they're ready to get back to work, even as President Trump said he is in "no rush" to negotiate with Democrats over another emergency aid package.

During a meeting at the White House with ...

The House's special panel policing coronavirus spending demanded Friday that five large corporations return rescue money that was intended for small businesses.

The letters to the five companies were the first official action of the newly formed Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.

"Since your company is a public entity ...

A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:

___

CLAIM: Photo shows Joe Biden posing with former ...

BALTIMORE (AP) - Brutal. Horrific. Tragic.

Choose your description. The April jobs report showed, in harrowing detail, just how terribly the coronavirus outbreak has pummeled the U.S. economy. Most obviously, there's the 14.7% unemployment rate, the highest since the Great Depression. And the shedding of more than 20 million jobs, ...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts on Friday declined to order a judicial misconduct investigation into a federal judge's retirement and whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had anything to do with it.

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sri Srinavasan had previously asked the chief justice to assign a court ...

SEATTLE (AP) - Officials on Friday confirmed the first positive COVID-19 test at the Northwest detention center in Tacoma, in a detainee who had previously tested positive at another detention center and was being medically screened on arrival at the immigration jail. The development came just as immigrant rights advocates ...

STOCKHOLM (AP) - The flight from Italy was one of the last arrivals that day at the Stockholm airport. A Swedish couple in their 50s walked up and loaded their skis into Razzak Khalaf's taxi.

It was early March and concerns over the coronavirus were already present, but the couple, ...

BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) - Kansas harvester Mike Keimig is growing increasingly anxious about whether the foreign seasonal workers he needs to run his nine combines and drive his grain trucks will arrive in time for the start of the winter wheat harvest, which is just weeks away.

His regular ...

GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) - On a cloudy Friday afternoon 20 years ago Tuesday, an unemployed immigration lawyer went on a killing spree. It started next door to his parents’ Mt. Lebanon home, where he killed his Jewish neighbor. He went on to shoot five more people, all ethnic or racial ...

Former President Barack Obama slammed the Justice Department for abandoning its prosecution of President Trump's ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying it puts "the rule of law is at risk."

Mr. Obama's comments came Friday night while privately talking to ex-members of his administration. A tape of the conversation was ...

The Bahamas deployed warships to enforce its port restrictions, one of several new hindrances to a big boat lifestyle.

Shopping for face masks? We consulted medical experts on how to shop for face masks and rounded up those adhering to the CDC's guidelines.

NBC News wants to hear from people who graduated in a recession and from students set to graduate this spring.

“It’s like life is on hold — everything is on hold,” one new mother said.

"People get so emotional when you give them communion for the first time in seven weeks," one religious leader said.

After stories of people not being allowed to say goodbye to loved ones dying of coronavirus, hospitals around the world are moving to change the rules.

Relationships that suffer as a result of unreconcilable politics may force you to make a decision. To make that less distressing, choose consciously.

"The process will account for wide variations in abuse and provide a pathway for survivor healing," Richard Schulte, one of the lawyers for the men, said in the university's statement.

The moves would clear the way for an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Arbery, who would have turned 26 on Friday, was shot to death after being chased by two men who thought he was a burglar.

Couple bought the property months before the former Beatle's 1980 assassination.

Jordan Goudreau once pushed a plan to protect U.S. schools. Then he moved on to a more daring pursuit, which also didn't end well.

The season officially begins June 1, but some meteorologists who have been tracking ocean and atmospheric dynamics over the past few months say conditions are ripe for storms.

The magician survived an attack by a 380-pound tiger, who bit his neck during a show at the Mirage Las Vegas in 2003.

There is absolutely no legitimate basis in law or in fact to dismiss Flynn’s guilty plea.

The rock pioneer put "wop bop a loo bop" onto a generation's lips and inspired musicians from The Beatles to Prince.

Shuttered stores worsened Montreal-based company’s already struggling business

Brookfield, known for its contrarian bets on malls, will take minority stakes in struggling retailers

Provisions for credit losses were $30.2 million, an increase of 397.9 per cent from a year earlier

Data leaks of this magnitude are virtually unheard of in Canada

'You can’t have a going out of business sale when you can’t get your business open'