Entries for May 08, 2007

The Food and Drug Administration made two surprising announcements this afternoon about the melamine-contaminated products that are believed to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of cats and dogs and prompted an extensive pet food recall.

• Government officials say they have been wrong about calling the melamine-contaminated product imported by two Chinese firms "wheat gluten" and "rice protein concentrate." These products were incorrectly labeled and were, in fact, wheat flour. The FDA is investigating the possibility that these products were intentionally mislabeled by the Chinese companies.
• Officials have detected melamine and melamine-related compounds in fish meal from Canada. Fish at a number of American aquaculture facilities have consumed the contaminated fish meal. The melamine that contaminated the fish meal was part of the same batch of wheat flour imported from China by the Las Vegas-based company ChemNutra. "Based on the risk assessment, we do not believe that there is any human health risk associated with consuming these fish," says David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection.

--Adam Voiland

As many as 2 million refugees have fled the violence in Iraq, overwhelming neighboring countries, and another nearly 2 million Iraqis are internally displaced. Aid agencies have warned that even more refugees are on the way.

But despite the international pressure on the United States to accept some of these refugees, Washington has admitted only 68 for resettlement in the past seven months. Refugees International, an advocacy group, blasted the Bush administration Tuesday for an "inadequate" response, calling the $100 million pledged by the United States a "mere fraction" of what countries like Jordan and Syria are spending to support their swelling refugee populations.

Update (4:05 p.m. ET): Digg.com user ScionAltera performed a similar search to test our method of measuring a candidate's popularity with BlogPulse.com, and wrote this comment on the popular news aggregation site:

This US News and World Report story claims that a site called BlogPulse (blogpulse.com) lists Obama and McCain leading in blog buzz. I just went to the site myself and entered the search terms "gravel", "paul" and "obama". It turns out that Ron Paul leads Barack Obama and Mike Gravel by a huge margin. Did the author just forget to look?

This user searched for the terms "Gravel," "Paul" and "Obama" and received these results. However, that search is different than our method, which searched for a candidate's full name. Using our method, the same three name yields this result.

The difference is that searches for only one part of a candidate's name retrieve many unrelated results, particularly for common names like Paul.

Original post (11:28 a.m. ET): If the 2008 presidential election were judged by activity in the blogosphere, the race would currently be a dead heat between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, according to Blogpulse.com, one of several sites that measure online buzz.

McCain easily walks off with the Republican E-nomination in a buzz battle with rival GOP candidates Rudy Giuliani and Gov. Mitt Romney, who are generally considered to be the top three declared candidates in the field. (See chart)

The race on the Democratic side is closer, with Obama generally polling just a little higher than either Sen. Hillary Clinton or former Sen. John Edwards. (See chart)

But when it comes down to the general election, it's anyone's take. McCain and Obama trade off in prominence, depending on who's making more headlines that day. (Matchup)

But Republicans beware: Former Sen. Fred Thompson is catching up.

--Chris Wilson

A report evaluating the U.S. intelligence community's prewar assessments of postwar Iraq is set to be approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee as early as this afternoon and could be released to the public in the coming weeks.

In his new book, former CIA Director George Tenet offered a preview of what the committee will find. For example, Tenet quoted a January 2003 report by the National Intelligence Council that offered this warning: "Iraqi political culture is so imbued with norms alien to the democratic experience . . . that it may resist the most vigorous and prolonged democratic treatments."

This morning's top stories:

• A panel at the World Bank has determined that the organization's president, Paul Wolfowitz, broke regulations when he promoted his girlfriend, Shaha Riza. It made no recommendation for disciplinary action.
• A pain specialist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is arguing for better pain management on the battlefield for wounded soldiers, who otherwise face a much more difficult recovery.
• A high-ranking officer in the Los Angeles Police Department has been demoted in the wake of a clash between officers and protesters at an immigration rally last week.
• About 90 percent of parents of children under age 2 allow them to watch significant amounts of television, a study has found, despite clear recommendations against it.
• Israeli archaeologists believe they have located the tomb of King Herod, the ancient builder of Jerusalem.