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Company says it is cooperating with the SEC after receiving a document request.. Agriculture company Archer Daniels Midland ADM .. placed its chief financial officer, Vikram Luthar, on administrative leave as it investigates accounting practices at the company. The Chicago grain merchant and commodity trader said that the continuing investigation centers around ADM’s nutrition business and that it follows a voluntary document request by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. ADM said Luthar’s leave is pending an investigation by outside counsel and its board’s audit committee, focused on certain intersegment transactions in the company’s nutrition business. ADM said it is...

Several injuries have been reported in an explosion at a plant operated by Archer Daniels Midland in Decatur, Illinois, NBC affiliate WAND-TV reported. In a statement, the company said an explosion occurred at approximately 7:11 p.m. on Sunday inside the East Plant within ADM's Decatur processing complex. Several employees were injured and transported to the hospital for treatment, the statement added. Headquartered in downtown Chicago, ADM is an agricultural origination and processing company, and on its website describes itself as a "leader in both human and animal nutrition." As of late Sunday, the company had yet to determine a cause...

A new study published 14 June in JAMA Psychiatry has found evidence that supplementing the diet with a probiotic blend containing 14 strains of bacteria can help individuals who are being treated for major depressive disorder with antidepressants. The research, led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London and in partnership with ADM Protexin, part of ADM, demonstrated the potential of probiotic supplementation to support improvements in multiple depression and anxiety scores over an eight-week period. The pilot study is one of the first trials in a Western population to show both good tolerability...

It took just a few days after the stunning defeat of Obama's attempt to fast-track the Trans Pacific Partnership bill in the Senate at the hands of his own Democratic party, before everything returned back to normal and the TPP fast-track was promptly passed. Why? The simple answer: money. Or rather, even more money. Because while the actual contents of the TPP may be highly confidential, and their public dissemination may lead to prison time for the "perpetrator" of such illegal transparency .... fast-tracking the TPP, meaning its passage through Congress without having its contents available for debate or amendments,...

Illinois lawmakers are considering a tax incentive package in hopes of persuading agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Company not to move its global headquarters out of the state. The proposal filed Friday in the Illinois House would give ADM a 10 percent break on utility taxes for up to 30 years and a credit against some state income tax withholdings. The value of the incentives was not disclosed. The package was introduced by state Rep. John Bradley, a Democrat from Marion who is chairman of the House Revenue and Finance Committee. The committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Chicago...

Van Jones was President Obama's special adviser for "green" jobs when he was hit with a wave of criticism from conservative pundits about his past associations. The controversy forced him to leave his post in September 2009, but it wasn't the last we'd hear of him. That same conservative wave went on to make a major splash in Congress through the Tea Party. Jones decided to fight back, founding a group called the "American Dream Movement." Some people call Jones' group a liberal version of the Tea Party. His inspiration, he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz,...

Subsidies: As with the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase, the majority leader of the Senate seeks to buy votes for a bill, this time the tax-cut compromise with support for ethanol credits for the rich. With the tax-cut compromise having made it through the Senate, the Democrats have once again reminded us why the voters threw a good portion of the rascals out in 2010. They continue to act as if the populist revolt against tax-and-spend big government never happened. To sweeten the deal made between President Obama and Republicans regarding extending all the decade-old Bush tax rates, including...

Energy Policy: If we're serious about cutting wasteful spending and reining in government, the abolition of subsidies for ethanol production and the ending of mandates for its use would be a good place to start. The Bush tax cuts aren't the only thing that expires at the end of the year. Also set to expire is the mother of all corporate welfare: ethanol subsidies to Big Agriculture coupled with tariffs protecting domestic ethanol production that benefit farm-state senators and congressmen but few others. Ethanol is the perfect tax-spend-and-elect mechanism. Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland, the nation's second-largest ethanol producer, has operations...

Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued another one of those announcements read exclusively by government bureaucrats and green policy wonks. The EPA decided to delay a decision to increase the concentration of ethanol legal in gasoline from 10% to 15%. So-called E15 fuel would have to wait for approval until November. It was a little-read regulatory decision that barely made a splash in the media. But it was also a rock thrown at Washington's hornets' nest of food and agricultural lobbyists. "We are disappointed," warned food giant Archer Daniels Midland. "We find this further delay unacceptable" and a...

According to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, the increased use of ethanol is responsible for a rise in food prices of approximately 10 to 15 percent. Why? We're turning corn into fuel — a highly inefficient one, at that — instead of food. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy points out that "mixing food and fuel markets for political reasons has done American consumers no discernable good, while producing measurable harm." However, perhaps summing up the issue most succinctly is Mark J. Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan-Flint: Anytime you have Paul Krugman agreeing...

In a poll of prominent members of the national news media, nearly two-thirds say the Internet is hurting journalism more than it is helping. The poll, conducted by The Atlantic and National Journal, asked 43 media insiders whether, on balance, journalism has been helped more or hurt more by the rise of news consumption online. Sixty-five percent said journalism has been hurt more, while 34 percent said it has been helped more. The media insiders were also asked about coverage of President Obama. Of 45 respondents, 71 percent say it has been “about right,” 22 percent say it’s been “too...

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline. Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must...

These organizations grow fat and rich thanks to special treatment from the federal government. They manipulate the political system to get insider deals, government guarantees, fixed prices and other benefits, paid for by taxpayers and consumers. 10. United States Postal Service (USPS) The USPS is a monopoly more interested in job protection than efficiency or innovation. Labor costs consume 80% of USPS revenue, while UPS and FedEx spend only 56% and 42% of their revenue on labor, respectively. Reform would allow competition for mailbox and first-class mail service. 9. Maritime Shippers and Unions The Jones Act mandates that all cargo...

I never thought in my wildest dreams that my latest documentary The Rats Below was going to touch so deeply the Cuban exile community in Miami, betrayed by eight American presidents! But now add a seemingly benign huge U.S. corporation to the list of enemies, and the community responded! There have been all sorts of discrimination – even being excluded from a jury for being Cuban American for a trial in Miami. And being derided, maligned and literally dragged through the mud by the liberal U.S. media, openly calling them “Miami Mafia,” has left deep scars in the heart of...

Ethanol — once the enemy in the state’s war on air pollution — is today’s action hero in the state’s battle to keep gasoline cheap for California motorists. Faced with a tight oil supply and rising gasoline prices, the Schwarzenegger administration has surrendered and is no longer pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to waive a federal requirement to use the corn-based alcohol as a gasoline additive. Instead, the administration is embracing ethanol, according to observers, even though a state report shows that the federal rule requiring a minimum of 5.9 percent ethanol in California gasoline increases emissions. The California Air...

Archer Daniels Midland Co. said fiscal second-quarter earnings soared 68 percent to $221 million, or 34 cents a share, on improved performance in all of its major business segments, handily beating Wall Street's expectations. The agribusiness giant said that without a one-time charge of 3 cents a share for asset abandonment, ADM would have earned 37 cents a share for the latest quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call were looking for earnings before charges of 27 cents a share. Revenues for the quarter totaled $9.2 billion, up 18 percent. In other earnings news: GATX Corp., which leases airplanes and...

Cubans “The Voyage Of The Damned” By: David Hoech May 19, 2003 It was sixty-four years ago this past May 13 that the SS St. Louis left Hamburg, Germany with 963 Jews seeking sanctuary from the Nazi regime and anti-Semitism. Cuba permitted only 29 passengers to stay after the ship had sat in its harbor for days, and the United States would not take any. The ship finally docked in Antwerp, Belgium on June 17, 1939. Over 500 of the original passengers perished in the Holocaust. Yet, today the United States wants to find fault with Switzerland’s wartime refugee policy....

FIDEL AS BUSINESS PARTNER And as for the ogre Humbug, out sword and have at him! William Makepeace Thackeray By Humberto Fontova Revista Guaracabuya Colaboración: Paul Echaniz E.U. La Nueva Cuba Enero 23, 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kenny Lay you sorry chump. Take a lesson from the TRUE corporate looter and master of hype. You got nailed after only ten years. Fidel Castro is still at it after 43. And here's the best part: the very same people who want you keelhauled and horse-whipped, proclaim loud hossanahs to Fidel's charms as a business partner. They say you should be put "in the...

The AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER #207 December 10, 2002 Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest Perspective EDITOR\PUBLISHER: A.V. Krebs ADDRESS: PO. Box 2201, Everett, Washington 98203-0201 E-MAIL: avkrebs@earthlink.net WEB SITE: http://www.ea1.com/CARP/ TO RECEIVE: Name and e-mail address CONTRIBUTION$ WELCOME !!! BOOK REVIEW: RATS IN THE GRAIN: The Dirty Tricks and Trials of Archer Daniels Midland, the Supermarket to the World. By James B. Lieber. ROBERT SHERRILL, THE TEXAS OBSERVER: Anyone who had the misfortune to watch the presidential debates may have noticed that the moderator, Jim Lehrer, one of the most overrated journalists of our era, went out of his way...

Acts that don't deserve the prize By Jeff Jacoby, 10/17/2002 www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/290/oped/Acts_that_don_t_deserve_the_prize+.shtml AS A PATRIOT and a man of honor, Jimmy Carter should refuse the Nobel Peace Prize. That act of integrity would win him more respect than anything he has done in the past two decades. The Nobel Peace Prize committee has sometimes shown disturbingly bad judgment, but never before has it awarded the prize with the explicit purpose of castigating the United States. That new low was achieved last week, when the Nobel Committee chairman, Gunnar Berge, emphasized that the award was meant as a denunciation of US policy...