Cooked Eggs not allowed

San Luis, AZ -- CBP reminds the public that cooked eggs are no longer allowed to cross into the U.S.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is advising the public that cooked eggs and foods containing cooked eggs are not allowed to cross into the U.S.

Food including breakfast tacos, burritos, egg plates and hard boiled eggs are prohibited.

The only exception to the ban is a written permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

C.B.P. says declared items will simply be taken away.

However, those who fail to declare cooked eggs at Port of Entry will face a fine.

Mexicali kid nappers

Mexicali police says they have arrested two suspects in connection to a kidnapping allegedly carried out by organized crime last November.

During a press conference, police officials said an investigation led them to two males whom they believe forced a woman into a vehicle in broad daylight.

Police say the incident happened in front of the victim's work place.

They say the alleged suspects then asked the woman's family for ransom money for her release.

Mexican authorities worked closely with her relatives to get her home safe.

Police did not release her identity but she was let go by her abductor late last month.

More Sentri lane whooes

San Luis Rio Colorado--The city mayor who stopped construction of controversial toll booths at a local port of entry says the issue has been tainted by politics.

San Luis Rio Colorado's Mayor Manuel Baldenebro said his office hasn't seen a single document stating that the Mexican federal government ordered a private company to build toll booths and charge SENTRI lane users to cross into the United States.

He feels the issue has also been touched by politics.

"Mexico is going through political times. What really is going on is that Leonardo Guillen just like Enrique Reina are candidates seeking the popular vote," Baldenebro said. "Suddenly they get involved in this issue and act like the super heroes to save the town."

Recently, political party-PAN member Leonardo Guillen, who represents San Luis Rio Colorado in Mexico's congress took down construction barriers with his own hands.

Baldenebro said Guillen should have instead gone through the courts.

The city of San Luis Rio Colorado claim they were in their right to halt construction of the toll booths and sue the Industrial International Park because they didn't submit the proper paperwork to block the road.

"The city is simply fighting against someone who closed down the roads and we are calling them to appear in court for the crime committed and for the damages done to the road," he said. "I can't oppose the federal government's decision because no one has seen anything about an order."

Baldenbro said he's against fees imposed on those who wish to cross quicker through a U.S. port of entry.

He said the United States decides how fast and how slow border traffic goes.

As for now, cars are crossing freely through SENTRI lanes. (News 13)..

Aircraft Smuggling

Aircraft smuggling is on the rise according to U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement And more details on a story we brought to you this week about a pilot arrested for suspicion of trying to fly illegal immigrants.

Smuggling is like a cat an mouse game according to ICE and it is occurring more often.

"Were always trying to figure out what smugglers are doing and their method of operation. If it's not by car, it's by tunnel, or it's by aircraft. When they are not smuggling drugs they are smuggling illegal aliens. Aircraft smuggling is just another form of all these," says Ricardo A. Sandoval, a Special Agent with ICE.

Agent Sandoval tells news 13 why smuggling is becoming more common.

"I think that smuggling is increasing because of the economy and lack of jobs. I think it will continue and people are doing what they can do to make money," says Agent Sandoval.

Lino Rodriguez Chavez is a pilot who was arrested last week charged with allowing 3 illegal immigrants from Mexico to board his Cessna plane at the imperial county airport.

According to court documents special agents had been surveilling the suspected illegal immigrants staying at a Motel 6 in el Centro before catching them at the airport.

"These were Mexican nationals so they came from Mexico, we believe they came from the ports of entry and they were in route to Los Angles," says Sandoval.

Agent Sandoval says the illegal immigrants pay up to 5,000 dollars to get transported by plane.

ICE says the plane involved in the sting was the 4-th aircraft found to be used for smuggling people since last year in the agency's el Centro sector alone.

The Cessna plane was seized and Chavez has since posted 20-thousand dollars bond.

He's due back in court next month.

Toyo Tire Recall So.Cal

Toyo Tire U.S.A. Corp. has announced a recall of nearly 69,000 tires due to the possibility of a kink near the rim area that could cause a crack and lead to tire failure.

The Cypress-based company said the affected tires are the Toyo Extensa A/S models distributed to U.S. tire shops between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010

The way to tell if a tire is part of the recall, company officials say, is by looking on the sidewall.

The affected tires, made in Toyo's plant in Georgia, have a "Made in U.S.A." mark and can be identified by the last four digits of the tire's ID number – ranging from 3809 to 4410.

Affected customers can have their recalled tires replaced for free.

For more information, visit www.toyotires.com/recall-campaign or call 800-442-8696.

Medicar Un Truths

Medicare

False Rumor Medicare premiums 2014, the bogus rumor persists. $247 per month is ridicules and False.

An Internet e-mail still circulates that come 2014 the Medicare Part B standard premium will be $247 per person. That’s nonsense for several reasons.
1. The calculation of the premium is set by law and that law has not changed.
2. There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that affects the Medicare premium calculation.
3. The President does not, as has been alleged, have the ability to unilaterally change any of this.

4. The standard 2012 premium for Medicare Part B is $99.90 (higher for the 5% higher income beneficiaries). If you used the highest rate of inflation to hit Medicare in the last forty years for both 2012 and 2013 you would get a premium of less than $130.00. The likelihood of that kind of inflation in the next two years is non-existent.

5. There is nothing in the 2011 Medicare Trustees report to indicate other than normal rates of cost increases over the next several years. In fact, the Trustee’s project that by 2020 the Part B premium will be $158.60. Even that is based on a premium for 2012 of $106.60 (not $99.90).

6. Most Medicare beneficiaries (95%) are protected from high increases in Medicare premiums under the Social Security hold harmless provision. This means that an increase in Medicare premiums cannot cause a net reduction in the Social Security payments. So, for example, if you are receiving $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits and you receive a 3% COLA increase, your Part B premium cannot increase my more than $30. Do the math and you will see there would have to be whopping COLA increases in Social Security in the next two years to get most people anywhere near $247 and that ain’t gonna happen.

English: President signing the Medicare Bill a...

1965

Are any of these projections 100% accurate? Certainly not, there are too many unknowns. However, before you pass along some outrageous story about Medicare premiums (or a tax on the sale of your home, or that the value of health benefits is now taxable income or that Obama was stopping the 2011 Social Security COLA – all of which were circulated in the last year), get the facts.

Unfortunately too many people out there are so obsessed with opposition to this or that, their judgement is clouded …or they are simply ignorant and that’s scary because they can still vote.

By the way, the story about a brain surgeon being at a meeting in Washington where denying care to Americans 70 and over was discussed is also a lie. There was no such meeting, there is nothing in the Affordable Care Act remotely related to that and the caller to a talk show giving the story was not a brain surgeon.

lower immune responses

A group of compounds used in a variety of products, including water-resistant clothing and microwave popcorn, may prevent childhood vaccinations from working properly, a new study says.

In the study, children who had higher concentrations of these compounds, called perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), in their blood had lower immune responses to diphtheria and tetanus vaccinations. An insufficient immune response to a vaccination can mean a child is actually vulnerable to catching a disease even though they've beenvaccinated against it.

Indeed, the levels of antibodies in the blood of some children exposed to PFCs indicated they were not protected against these diseases by age 7.

"When we take our kids to the doctor's office to get their shots, we expect that the vaccines are going to work," said study researcher Dr. Philippe Grandjean, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "What we found was that there was an increasing risk that they didn’t work if the kids had been exposed to the PFCs," Grandjean said.

The study is provocative, but the findings are not of immediate public health concern, said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Despite the link found in this study, vaccines have largely protected the public against diphtheria and tetanus over the same period of time that PFCs have accumulated in the environment, Schaffner said.

"These are illnesses that have been virtually eliminated from children," in the United States, Schaffner said.

However, Schaffner said investigations into the link between vaccines' effectiveness and PFCs, along with other potential environmental hazards, should continue.

The study will be published tomorrow (Jan. 25) in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

PFCs have thousands of uses in manufacturing, and most people have the compounds in their bodies, Grandjean said. They are slow to break down and persist for many years in the environment.

Studies in animals have suggested PFCs may lower the body's immune response, but their impact on people's health is unclear.

Grandjean and colleagues analyzed data from 587 children living in the Faroe Islands, in the northern Atlantic Ocean between Scotland and Iceland. These islands were chosen because their inhabitants frequently consume seafood, which is associated with increased exposure to PFCs. Still, overall,levels of PFCs in this area are similar to those found in other countries, including the United States, Grandjean said.

The researchers measured levels of PFCs in the blood of 5-year-old children, and tested the children's immune response to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations at ages 5 and 7. The kids received complete vaccinations against these diseases, including a booster shot at age 5.

The higher the levels of PFCs were in the blood, the lower the children's response was to the vaccines.

A doubling of the exposure to PFCs was associated with a 49 percent lower level of blood antibodies in children at age 7, Grandjean said.

Children with some of the highest levels of PFCs were two to four times more likely to have antibodies in their blood at a level below what is thought to protect against these diseases.

The study "emphasizes the importance of making sure that the world does not pollute the natural environment," Schaffner said. "Clearly, greater efforts must be made to keep these perfluorinated compounds out of the environment," hesaid.

It's not clear exactly how people come to accumulate levels of PFCs in their body, so advice on how to avoid them may not necessarily work. But Grandjean said, "It would be prudent to avoid microwave popcorn [and] treatment of furniture, carpets, shoes and clothing with stain repellants," unless they are known not to contain PFCs.

Future studies into the health impact of PFCs should examine their effect on the immune system, Grandjean said. The researchers would also like to know if exposure to PFCs is associated with a reduced immune response to other vaccinations.