Dole salad mix recalled

Dole salad mix recalled

SAN FRANCISCO — A package of Dole salad mix that tested positive for E. coli has triggered a recall in at least nine states, prompting new produce fears almost exactly a year after a nationwide spinach scare. The tainted bag of Dole’s Hearts Delight salad mix was sold at a store in Canada, officials said. Neither Canadian health officials nor Dole Food Co. have received reports of anyone’s getting sick from the product. The voluntary recall, issued Monday, affects all packages of Hearts Delight sold in the United States and Canada with a “best if used by” date of September 19, 2007, and a production code of “A24924A” or “A24924B,” the company said. The latest recall affects packages sold in Ontario, Quebec and the Maritime Provinces in Canada and in Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee starting around Sept. 8, said Marty Ordman, a Dole spokesman.

U.N. to U.S.: Ratify treaty

VIENNA, Austria — Diplomats at a U.N. conference urged the United States on Tuesday to take the lead among 10 countries that have yet to ratify a global treaty banning nuclear test explosions. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged all 10 countries to ratify the deal, saying it would ensure that North Korea’s October 2006 test blast is the world’s final experiment with atomic weaponry. Although 140 countries have ratified the treaty, the accord will not enter into force until it has been ratified by all 44 nations that took part in a 1996 disarmament conference and have nuclear power or research reactors. Only 34 of the 44 have done so. The 10 holdouts are China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and the United States.

U.S. wiretapping

WASHINGTON — No Americans’ telephones have been tapped without a court order since at least February, the top U.S. intelligence official told Congress on Tuesday. But National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell could not say how many Americans’ phone conversations have been overheard because of U.S. wiretaps on foreign phone lines. “I don’t have the exact number ... considering there are billions of transactions every day,” McConnell told the House Judiciary Committee at a hearing on the law governing federal surveillance of phone calls and e-mails. McConnell said he could only speak authoritatively about the seven months since he became DNI. In a newspaper interview last month, he said the government had tapped fewer than 100 Americans’ phones and e-mails under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants from a secret intelligence court. McConnell is seeking additional changes to the law.

Six face kidnap charges

LOGAN, W.Va. — Prosecutors filed amended felony charges Tuesday in the case of a woman tortured for days in rural West Virginia, changes that mean the six defendants could face life in prison if convicted. Graphic details of the crime were described in court for the first time. Magistrate Jeffrey Lane referred the case against Frankie Brewster, 49, to a grand jury for action. She owns the home where the suspected assault took place. In addition to charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and giving false information to police, the prosecutor filed three counts of misdemeanor battery against Brewster and dropped a charge of unlawful wounding. All six defendants now face charges of kidnapping, which carries a maximum life sentence.

Syria, N. Korea blame U.S.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria and North Korea denied Tuesday they are cooperating on a Syrian nuclear program, and they accused U.S. officials of spreading the allegations for political reasons — either to back Israel or to block progress on a deal between Washington and Pyongyang. A front-page editorial in the government newspaper Tishrin also criticized the United States for failing to condemn a Sept. 6 Israeli air incursion, which it called a violation of international law. Details of the incursion remain unclear.

Musharraf election pledge

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — President Gen. Pervez Musharraf will resign as army chief and restore civilian rule if lawmakers re-elect him president in a vote expected by mid-October, officials said Tuesday. The government hailed the decision as a democratic watershed, but the opposition said it would be illegal for Musharraf to run in uniform and threatened a boycott of the vote that could prolong Pakistan’s political instability. Government attorney Sharifuddin Pirzada announced Musharraf’s intent in a statement to Supreme Court judges deliberating the military leader’s eligibility to seek a new five-year term. It was the first clear official statement that Musharraf was ready to end direct military rule since he seized control of the Islamic world’s only declared nuclear power in a coup eight years ago.

Associated Press