Salmonella Outbreak Now Reaches Bags of Peanuts

A salmonella outbreak linked to a New Mexico peanut supplier has expanded again with the voluntary recall of thousands of bags of whole peanuts by Hines Nut Co.  The Dallas-based company recalled bags of salted jumbo Virginia in-shell peanuts on Monday for possible contamination with salmonella. The peanuts were processed by Sunland Inc. of Portales, N.M.

There are no reported illnesses from the Hines products.

Nearly 2 million pounds of peanuts are involved in the Hines recall, with the bags sold nationally in supermarkets such as Wal-mart and Dollar General stores. The salted jumbo peanuts were distributed from April 12 to Oct. 12, according to officials at the Food and Drug Administration.

The packing information begins with the words ‘BEST BUY’. The recall lot numbers are as follows, located on the fourth line of the ‘BEST BUY’ statement:

S03718, S03699, S03724, S03753, S03765, S03784, S03798, S03806, S03810, S03824, S03826, S03840, S03863, S03886, S03907, S03928, S03933, S03938, S03950, S03958, S03967, S03972, S03978, S03989, S03991, S04012, S04025, S04042, S04054, S04066, S04097, S04109, S04123, S04134, S04141, S04141, S04165, S04200, S04201, S04211, S04229, S04236, and S04247.

Record Breaking Skydiving Attempt

In Roswell, NM, the balloon is going up to the stratosphere and it looks like a jump may happen.

After two failed attempts foiled by weather for his space jump, "Fearless" Felix Baumgartner Sunday broke a record in a 23-mile free fall jump from the edge of space, watched by millions on the Red Bull Stratos live stream video.

Wildfires Spread Out West

Firefighters in Colorado and New Mexico are battling wind-fueled wildfires that are moving fast through parched forests, forcing scores of evacuations and destroying or damaging numerous structures.

A blaze in northern Colorado was first reported Saturday morning and had grown to about 8,000 acres by mid-evening, while a fire in southern New Mexico was small for a few days until it began growing Friday, reaching about 10,000 acres.

Both fires have damaged property and forced numerous evacuations, but officials haven't yet released specific figures on the numbers who fled.

The wildfire in the mountainous Paradise Park area, about 20 miles northwest of Fort Collins, prompted several dozen evacuation orders.

Larimer County Sheriff's Office spokesman John Schulz said the fire expanded rapidly during the late afternoon and evening and by Saturday night, residents living along several roads in the region had been ordered to evacuate and many more were warned that they might have to flee. An evacuation center has been set up at a Laporte middle school.

Officials didn't specify how many residents had evacuated but said they had sent out 800 emergency notifications urging people to be prepared to evacuate if necessary.

Wind was also playing a major role in the expansion of a lightning-sparked blaze in New Mexico's Lincoln National Forest that jumped its containment lines and raced through thick conifer forests. Fire managers said 20 structures were damaged or destroyed.

Spanning only a few acres on Wednesday, the Little Bear fire began to grow Friday and by Saturday afternoon about 10,000 acres had been charred northwest of the mountain community of Ruidoso.

Winter Storm Moves Across the Country

A heavy snowstorm that has closed highways in five states continued to move across the Southwest and Great Plains on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.

Blizzard conditions left parts of Interstate 40 and Interstate 70 impassible in New Mexico, Kansas and Texas.
In northern New Mexico, all roads from Raton to the Texas and Oklahoma borders were closed, AP said. New Mexico also closed part of Interstate 25.

In Kansas, roadways were closed in the western and southwestern parts of the state,

Around Oklahoma, snow drifts up to 4 feet high made highways impassable, said Cliff White, emergency management coordinator for Cimarron County, Oklahoma.

In eastern Colorado, a prisoner and a corrections officer were killed when the driver of a van transporting nine prisoners lost control on Interstate 70, authorities said.

Arizona Fire is Now Record Setting

The Wallow Fire, which authorities suspect started from a small unattended campfire, has scorched dozens of homes and displaced as many as 10,000 people since it erupted May 29 in the White Mountains region, an area popular among Arizonans as a weekend getaway from the heat of summer.

The wind-whipped blaze has burned mostly in and around the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, about 150 miles east of Phoenix, churning through vast stretches of thick ponderosa pine.

Evacuation orders were lifted on Sunday for 7,000 to 8,000 residents forced to flee last week from two towns near the border with New Mexico, Springerville and Eagar.

But authorities have warned returning families that lingering smoke and soot in the air pose health risks for children and people with respiratory problems.

An estimated 1,900 additional people from several nearby towns evacuated in the first week of the blaze were notified on Monday night that it would probably be at least a few more days before they would be permitted to go back home.

While the blaze is far from being brought under control, fire managers said on Monday that they had turned a corner in their battle to curtail its advance toward populated areas.

"Nobody's really in the clear yet," U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Suzanne Flory said on Tuesday, but she added, "Overall, there's a sense of optimism."

Some 4,300 firefighters working around the clock have now carved containment lines around 18 percent of the fire's perimeter, mostly between its eastern flank and communities on either side of the Arizona-New Mexico line.

The New Mexico town of Luna, an enclave of about 200 people less than 10 miles east of the Arizona border, remains on alert for possible evacuation.

Controlled burns have been carried out on the outskirts of that town to remove tinder-dry brush and trees as potential fuel for advancing flames. But U.S. Forest Service officials say that so far the Wallow Fire itself has not crept into New Mexico.

The latest aerial infrared images of the fire on Tuesday show that 469,407 acres -- or about 733 square miles -- have burned overall, surpassing the 468,638 acres charred in 2002 by the Rodeo-Chediski Fire in eastern Arizona. That makes the Wallow Fire the largest on record in Arizona.

In terms of property losses, however, the Rodeo-Chidiski was far worse, destroying about 400 homes, Flory said.