• 2 Skippy peanut butter styles recalled for potential Salmonella poisoning source

• » Step away from the jar: The hazardous brands being recalled are “Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter,” and “Skippy Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter,” as distributed in 16.3 ounce jars across the following sixteen states: Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin. Though no illnesses have yet been tied to this recall, you can never be too careful when Salmonella is involved. This is the latest in a recent string of high profile food recalls, which helped generate momentum for last year’s Food Safety Modernization Act. The FSMA introduced a host of regulatory updates to a system that had, to that point, been largely unchanged for generations.

• … a certain type of spider may weave a web in the evaporative canister vent line and this may cause a restriction in the line.
• The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration • Explaining the recall of nearly 65,000 Mazda6 cars. In most cases, arachnophobia is strictly irrational (with all due sympathy), but now they’re trying to sabotage our wheels. The culprit is the Yellow Sac spider, a daring little saboteur if there ever was one. The web blockages in the vent lines can cause pressure irregularities, leading to fluid spillage. source

• yes Wisconsin Democrats have filed papers to recall several GOP State Senators, hoping to flip control of the chamber to the Democrats and block Governor Walker’s union-busting bill
• eight Republicans in Wisconsin’s upper chamber are now at risk of losing their jobs (Wisconsin law states that officials must serve for a year before being eligible for a recall) source

• » This just in: The Democratic Party has grown a spine. At least the Wisconsin Democratic Party, that is: They’re supporting a grassroots effort to recall eight (!) GOP State Senators. If at least three of them are recalled and replaced by Democrats, control of the State Senate will flip, and Scott Walker won’t have the votes for his anti-union bill. The gambit might work, too, as several of the Republicans in question won election by very narrow margins, and would by no means be guaranteed survival in a recall. Union powerhouse SEIU has thrown their weight behind the effort, and we wouldn’t be surprised if the AFL-CIO does, too. This already-big story is getting huge.

• 5 million cans of formula recalled; moms everywhere freak out source

• 1,953 cases of egged-on salmonella from May to July
• 700 the normal number of cases during a period like that source

• » Also good to note: It sounds like a lot of eggs, but based on the 6.5 billion eggs delivered in April, if similar amounts were shipped between May and right now, that 380 million would account for around 1.6 percent of the total shipments in the last three and a half months. It’s bad, but much less bad than one would think.

Flickr Photo By Caitlinator

• Right now, it sucks to be Kellogg’s. The company was forced to recall numerous brands of cereal over a reportedly soapy/metallic/stale flavor that some of their cereal boxes had. Sure, it was a lot of cereal, but we were also curious how many bowls of cereal that actually was. So we did the math. And this is going to affect a lot of mornings.

• 28 million boxes recalled for a weird odor and taste (eww)

• 20 complaints about cereal that tasted like soap or metal (eww)
• 13 average number of ounces in the various recalled boxes
• 353M number of servings of cereal that is – based on our math, below

• 69Mbowls of Apple Jacks, based on an average of 12.85 servings per box
• 95M bowls of Corn Pops, based on an average of 11.78 servings per box
• 148Mbowls of Froot Loops, based on an average of 12.63 servings per box
• 41Mbowls of Honey Smacks, based on an average of 15.3 servings per box

• » Methodology: We based our findings on the various serving sizes available for each type and size of cereal, dividing evenly for each serving size. We then multiplied by the average serving size – Kellogg’s provides this on their Web site – which in most of the cases was one ounce, making the math relatively easy. While it’s likely that Kellogg’s sold more Apple Jacks than Honey Smacks, we unfortunately do not have exact counts. One thing we do know is that Froot Loops’ share of the market is, at minimum, 26 percent larger than any of the other brands, so we took that into account. Oh yeah, if you’re like us, you probably eat double the size of the recommended serving without realizing it. Because we don’t measure. We just pour.

• 1.5 million vehicles recalled over fiery windshield wiper fluid source

• 575,000vehicles recalled by Chrysler source

• $2.2B the size of Toyota’s profits over the last fiscal year, after a down year
• $1.2B the profits Toyota made during their recall troubles last quarter
• 53k the increase in new car sales the company expects this year source

• 24% increase in total U.S. auto sales in March, led by Toyota’s rebound
• 41% increase in Toyota’s sales after two months of recall-hurt sales
• 8% decrease in Chrysler’s dismal sales from a year earlier source