| Ask AP: Product Recalls, Obama's Faith
If you have your own news-related question that you'd like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with "Ask AP" in the subject line. --- What becomes of all the recalled poisonous pet food, lead-tainted toys and antifreeze-flavored toothpaste? Are they incinerated? Buried? William Gazdagh Belleville, Ill. --- Recalled products that are taken back to stores are returned to manufacturers, which generally destroy them, through incineration or other measures, or send them to a landfill. Depending on the nature of the recall, though, food products are sometimes reprocessed. In the past, if a recall involved a bacterial pathogen that could be destroyed by cooking at a high temperature, recalled meat was further processed until it was deemed safe, and then sometimes reused in pet food.
Analysis: Are the New iPhones Worth the Price?
The 32GB iPod touchdouble the original's capacitywill also sell for $499, while the original 8GB and 16GB models will maintain their $399 and $299 price tags. The big story here is really the iPod touch, for which many consumers have been waiting to reach the 32GB mark. It's the first flash memory iPod to truly enter a capacity realm traditionally reserved for hard disks. (Though Creative and SanDisk both beat Apple to the 32GB capacity.) The price may simply be too high, however$500 for an iPhone already seems like a lot of money. Will consumers respond positively to a $500 iPod? As recently as 2004, Apple released a $600 iPod, the iPod Photo, and other iterations of the iPod have sold for $500 in the past, as well. Times have changed, though, as a potential recession looms.
Short View: Rich pickings
Who is the world's richest man? Crude arithmetic suggests a neck-and-neck race entering the last few weeks of the year. The identity of the winner could tell us a lot about the state of the world and its markets. The incumbent is Bill Gates of Microsoft, worth $56bn at the turn of the year according to Forbes. It seems that he has at last been overtaken: investors' confidence in Microsoft, long the ultimate “growth" stock, has waned in recent years. .
Thousands demonstrate against plan to build chemical factory in ...
BEIJING (AP) — Thousands of people took to the streets of a southern Chinese town to protest plans to build a chemical plant there, citing health concerns, residents said Tuesday. The demonstrations, which began Feb. 29 in Dongshan County in southern Fujian province, turned violent on the first day after police in riot gear clashed with the protesters, said a witness who refused to give his name for fear of reprisals. .
Pre-Oscar Parties: Free Gifts for the Rich; Angelina Is Pregnant
There were no wheelchairs, walkers, or frankly, people with white hair or wrinkles. But last night the Motion Picture Home for the Aged received yet another fundraiser that allowed really rich and famous people to pick up freebies galore at a gala Hollywood dinner. There's nothing like seeing stars queue up for Macintosh Air laptops, special edition Converse sneakers, and L'Oreal cosmetics as if they've never seen such things or can't afford to buy them. But Jeffrey Katzenberg's "The Night Before Party" transformed the Beverly Hills Hotel main floor banquet room into a shopping mall with boutiques sponsored by all those vendors — and more. Stars like Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart, Steven Spielberg, Sharon Stone, George Clooney, Will and Jada Smith, and Cameron Diaz also received $50 gift certificates to McDonalds and $150 Flip cameras — the new hot video upload device from Pure Digital — as well as black Target gym bags, and all kinds of creams and lotions to keep them looking young and fit.
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