Slaughterhouse

Federal officials shuttered a Central California slaughterhouse after they concluded that cattle had been subjected to inhumane treatment but said Tuesday they had seen nothing to indicate that the company had compromised the safety of the public's food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily closed Hanford-based Central Valley Meat Co. after reviewing video footage from the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing, which said it had captured images of torture and intentional cruelty to cows.

Valerie Perrine may be the only former Las Vegas showgirl to win the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Just a few years after she had hung up her glitzy showgirl costume, Perrine was the toast of the town as Lenny Bruce's stripper/showgirl wife Honey Harlow in Bob Fosse's acclaimed 1974 biopic "Lenny," with Dustin Hoffman as the groundbreaking comedian. After eight years working at the Desert Inn and the Lido, which was a topless revue, Perrine was visiting a friend in Los Angeles looking for career opportunities.

Central Valley Meat Co., the California slaughterhouse shut down by regulators last week after undercover video footage showed apparent animal abuse, reopened Monday morning after promising to change its ways. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it had “concluded its evaluation of the extensive corrective action plan” submitted by the slaughterhouse to address “recent humane handling violations.” The company, according to the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service, will add more training for employees along with other safeguards to ensure that “only ambulatory animals are processed.” Workers will not be allowed to pull, drag or lift the cows, and may use electric or vibrating prods only sparingly, and never on sensitive body parts such as the face, the slaughterhouse promised.

Pow! A novel Mo Yan, translated from the Chinese by Howard Goldblatt Seagull Books: 386 pp., $27.50 This year's Nobel laureate in literature is an author who somehow manages to write books with brazenly political themes while living in a dictatorship. Mo Yan's latest novel, "Pow!," is a thinly veiled assault on the frayed moral fabric of that hyper-capitalist country known as Communist China. The characters in "Pow!" do awful and disgusting things, most of them involving meat.

A herd of bison that got loose and wandered around Pikesville won't be causing any more trouble: Their annoyed owner plans to pack them off to a slaughterhouse. The animals disrupted traffic and alarmed homeowners Tuesday before officers corralled them on a tennis court. More than a dozen police cars and a police helicopter were used in the roundup. "The way I feel right now, I'm giving them all away," owner Gerald Berg said. "They're going to the slaughterhouse."

A federal grand jury has issued a 12-count indictment alleging that managers of a kosher slaughterhouse were intricately involved in efforts to employ illegal workers. The indictment involving the Agriprocessors plant in Postville was issued Thursday and unsealed Friday. Former Chief Executive Sholom Rubashkin and human resources worker Karina Freund, both facing federal charges, and three others were named. Federal immigration agents raided the plant in May and arrested 389 illegal immigrants.

Atmosphere is important in a period thriller, but it can be overdone. Take the Pacific Theatre Ensemble's production of Daniel O'Connor's "Slaughterhouse on Tanner's Close," which has transferred to Stages. It is a tale of body snatching and murder, set in the back alleys of Edinburgh, circa 1830. Its stage pictures are extraordinary, particularly for a small theater.

At the slaughterhouse in Rosemead, patrons can grab a fresh chicken with head and feet intact, still slightly warm after its recent dance with death. For the mostly immigrant clientele, the appeal of Chinese American Live Poultry is its farm-fresh stock of whole birds, as many Asian Americans believe a bird in its entirety represents family unity. During the week the slaughterhouse bustles, and when the Lunar New Year approaches, the line snakes out the door and down Garvey Avenue.

Remote, desolate and speckled with communities that can barely be called towns, the Oklahoma panhandle can be a tough place to scrape out a living. On a deserted main street in Hooker (population 1,788), nearly every one of the red-brick storefronts is shuttered. The Rexall drugstore, a restaurant and a women's clothing store have closed. Recently, the lumberyard went out of business. "We're dying on the vine," Mayor Bill Longest said.

The Supreme Court has decided plenty of cases concerning cruelty, inhumane treatment and executions, but until now, none was about pigs. The case of the "nonambulatory pigs" involves a dispute between California and the pork industry over how to handle pigs unwilling or unable to walk when they arrive at a slaughterhouse. The issue, which the justices will take up next week, has already gotten the Obama administration in trouble with the Humane Society of the United States, which faulted government lawyers for joining the case on the side of the pork producers.

The owners of a Chino slaughterhouse that was at the center of the largest beef recall in U.S. history four years ago have agreed to pay more than $300,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged fraud against the U.S. government. Donald Hallmark Sr. and Donald Hallmark Jr. were two of nine defendants in a federal False Claims Act suit brought by the Humane Society of the United States. As part of the settlement, the Hallmarks also agreed to a nominal $497-million judgment against the now-defunct Hallmark Meat Packing Co., which will not be collected because the company is bankrupt.

In a city that touts itself as today's small-town America with a beautification campaign complete with "curb appeal" awards, a slaughterhouse would seem an ill fit. But for two decades, Chinese American Live Poultry has offered freshly killed birds on Garvey Avenue in Rosemead and, after a contentious fight with city leaders, there it will remain. The slaughterhouse and the city have agreed to settle a federal lawsuit, clearing the way for Chinese American Live Poultry to continue serving chicken with head and feet intact - the kind of fare that has its mostly Asian clientele lining up at sunrise during holidays.

Central Valley Meat Co., the California slaughterhouse shut down by regulators last week after undercover video footage showed apparent animal abuse, reopened Monday morning after promising to change its ways. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it had “concluded its evaluation of the extensive corrective action plan” submitted by the slaughterhouse to address “recent humane handling violations.” The company, according to the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service, will add more training for employees along with other safeguards to ensure that “only ambulatory animals are processed.” Workers will not be allowed to pull, drag or lift the cows, and may use electric or vibrating prods only sparingly, and never on sensitive body parts such as the face, the slaughterhouse promised.

In-N-Out, McDonald's Corp., Jack in the Box, Burger King and other chains quickly cut ties with Central Valley Meat Co. this week after undercover footage from an animal welfare group showed cows at the California slaughterhouse seemingly tortured and otherwise mistreated. McDonald's said the percentage of its meat that came from the Central Valley slaughterhouse was in “the low single digits.” "Upon learning about USDA's decision to suspend CVM, we took immediate action and suspended supply from this facility, pending further investigation,” the hamburger giant said in a statement.

Federal officials shuttered a Central California slaughterhouse after they concluded that cattle had been subjected to inhumane treatment but said Tuesday they had seen nothing to indicate that the company had compromised the safety of the public's food supply. The U.S. Department of Agriculture temporarily closed Hanford-based Central Valley Meat Co. after reviewing video footage from the animal rights group Compassion Over Killing, which said it had captured images of torture and intentional cruelty to cows.

Something reeks in Rosemead. Some say it's the slaughterhouse on Garvey Avenue. Others say it's a bigoted attitude toward the company's Asian clientele that stinks. For two decades, Chinese American Live Poultry has sold freshly killed birds you can grab by the feet and look in the eye. Located on an industrial corridor where the traffic is thick and the strip malls are tired, the storefront serves hundreds of customers a day. But city officials have voted to shut down the business, citing offensive odors, traffic congestion and escaped chickens.

In-N-Out, McDonald's Corp., Jack in the Box, Burger King and other chains quickly cut ties with Central Valley Meat Co. this week after undercover footage from an animal welfare group showed cows at the California slaughterhouse seemingly tortured and otherwise mistreated. McDonald's said the percentage of its meat that came from the Central Valley slaughterhouse was in “the low single digits.” "Upon learning about USDA's decision to suspend CVM, we took immediate action and suspended supply from this facility, pending further investigation,” the hamburger giant said in a statement.

The Supreme Court has decided plenty of cases concerning cruelty, inhumane treatment and executions, but until now, none was about pigs. The case of the "nonambulatory pigs" involves a dispute between California and the pork industry over how to handle pigs unwilling or unable to walk when they arrive at a slaughterhouse. The issue, which the justices will take up next week, has already gotten the Obama administration in trouble with the Humane Society of the United States, which faulted government lawyers for joining the case on the side of the pork producers.