Choking Game & Florida Fish Freeze

Choking Game & Florida Fish Freeze

Choking Game & Florida Fish Freeze plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A shocking new report from the CDC suggests that about one out of every 20 eighth-graders in Oregon has taken part in the "choking game," the dangerous practice of choking each other to get a feeling of euphoria. The survey indicated that teens in rural areas and those with increased mental health risk factors or involved in substance abuse were more likely to take part in the risky game. Almost 3 percent of those responding said they had helped someone while about 6 percent said they had participated themselves. Parents and persons who work with youths should be aware of these activities and should look for and be able to recognize signs of strangulation activities.

Another Florida industry is reporting record losses due to the recent freeze. The tropical fish industry will see wide ranging effects over the next year according to the University of Florida’s Dr. Craig Watson.

WATSON: Estimates are just right now starting to come in. It’s difficult to say what it’s going to end up being but it looks like we’ve lost 70 to 80% if not more of all the fish that were in ponds and even some that were inside.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

It’s beginning to look like “karma” is going to make its acquaintance with the Humane Society of the United States. I am a firm believer in the saying “what goes around comes around” and it appears the HSUS has been “going around” the boundaries set by its nonprofit status under IRS code for a very long time. Looks like it’s about to catch up with them in the form of a fraud investigation.  With a yearly income of roughly one hundred million, (its top execs pull in a quarter of a million yearly), and nearly five million of that spent on political lobbying, an amount which does not include the annual salaries paid to over two dozen state directors who continually lobby legislatures, federal lobbyists on their payroll, and the expense of countless lawsuits against the USDA and other federal agencies, the HSUS should find it quite difficult to claim they are still coming in financially under allotted lobbying regulations for non-profits. It will definitely prove to be an interesting case to follow over the next several month as the HSUS could very well find themselves caught between “Uncle Sam” and their donors who believed they were funding the “four legged” animal variety.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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