A day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief testified before a congressional panel about his agency's plans to close half its food safety laboratories, President Bush announced Wednesday that he has created a government panel to recommend steps to guarantee the safety of food and other products imported to the United States.

The new Import Safety Working Group will be chaired by Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt

A pet turtle was linked to the death of a four-week-old baby in Florida earlier this year. The case demonstrates what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been saying since 1975: turtles are not safe, especially for children.

The CDC expressed concern that sales of baby turtles were on the increase, despite the 1975 federal "Four-Inch Law," that forbids the sale of turtles with a carapace length of less than four 4 inches

Authorities are once again warning against keeping small turtles as pets in households with small children, after a four-week old baby died earlier this year in the U.S.

The baby was rushed to a Florida emergency room suffering from septic shock and fever. She died on March 1 despite being treated with antibiotics. Tests later showed that the salmonella had ultimately killed her matched the same strain found on a turtle given to her by a family friend

Residents living in the Western United States are not getting a break from the heatwave they are currently experiencing.

The mercury may climb to 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Las Vegas on Thursday, which would tie a record set in 1985. Sin City's all time high is 117 and that was reached in 1942 and then again in 2005. As a result, the heat wave is expected to put significant pressure on electricity supplies.Rachel Laing, a spokeswoman for San Diego Gas and Electric Co., in a North County Times Report said the California Independent System Operator predicts statewide statewide use to reach 47,500 megawatts after people return to work later this week, or within range of the all-time record of 50,270 megawatts set in July 2006."There is going to be a crunch on Thursday," Laing said, as workers seek to cool offices that sat empty on the holiday

Sales of five species of imported Chinese farm raised seafood will be delayed from now on until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can test each shipment for safety. The agency made the decision to institute broader import controls on all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace (related to carp), and eel from China after those foods repeatedly were found to contain harmful substances, FDA officials said Thursday.

Those products will be detained at the border "until the shipments are proven to be free of residues from drugs that are not approved in the United States for use in farm-raised aquatic animals," the FDA said