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Tyson Foods Inc. said Monday it would "voluntarily withdraw" advertising and labels claiming that its poultry products don’t contain antibiotics, after a federal court issued an injunction stopping the practice.

The world’s largest meat producer said it notified the U.S. Department of Agriculture it would stop using the "raised without antibiotics" chicken label.

Tyson (TSN, Fortune 500) said it asked the USDA, which previously had approved the slogan, to start "a public process to bring more clarity and consistency to labeling and advertising rules" on antibiotic claims.

Tyson had claimed it based the slogan on the absence of any antibiotic believed to affect humans.

"We still support the idea of marketing chicken raised without antibiotics because we know it’s what most consumers want," Tyson senior vice president Dave Hogberg said. "However, in order to preserve the integrity of our label and our reputation as a premier company in the food industry, we believe there needs to be more specific labeling and advertising protocols."

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett in Baltimore had set a May 15 deadline to stop Tyson from running any of the advertisements. The injunction came after competitors Perdue Farms Inc. and Sanderson Farms Inc. sued, claiming Tyson’s advertising was misleading.

Tyson had appealed Bennett’s ruling, but the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., denied a motion by Tyson to stay the order in May.

Sanderson, based in Laurel, Miss., has argued it lost a $4 million account to Tyson because of the advertising campaign, and Salisbury-based Perdue claims it has lost about $10 million in revenue since last year.

Charles Hansen of the Truthful Labeling Coalition, whose members are Perdue, Sanderson and Livingston, Calif.,-based Foster Farms, had asked the USDA to rescind its approval for Tyson’s labeling http://us-fast-cash-now.com. Hansen did not immediately return a call for comment left at his office Monday night.

After approving the advertising, the USDA later told Tyson that, when it approved the no-antibiotics label, it had mistakenly overlooked additives called ionophores that are used in feed for Tyson’s chicken. Regulators said the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has a long-standing policy of classifying ionophores as antibiotics. Tyson disagreed, saying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not consider them antibiotics.

Tyson’s Hogberg later testified in court that the company spent about $16 million on the original publicity campaign, including about $4 million in promotional materials. Tyson said Monday it has begun designing and ordering new labeling and packaging for its poultry products.

Tyson (TSN, Fortune 500) stressed its decision would not cause any changes in how the Springdale-based company "protects the health of its birds."

"The company does not use antibiotics for the purpose of growth promotion," the Tyson statement read. "On those rare occasions when antibiotics are used to treat an illness, it is on a prescription-basis only to protect birth health."

Tyson is the country’s second-largest chicken producer after Pilgrim’s Pride Corp (PPC, Fortune 500). 

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OTTAWA – The World Wildlife Fund says Canada should come up with a sound management plan before it issues oil-and-gas exploration rights in the northern Beaufort Sea.

The global conservation group says the federal government should wait until it fully understands the environmental impacts of drilling, and knows how to clean up "inevitable" spills.

Ottawa has offered up the rights to oil-and-gas exploration on nearly three million acres of continental shelf in the Beaufort Sea, north of the Yukon and Northwest Territories cash advance.

Bids will be accepted until June 2, when the rights will be issued.

There are more than two dozen "significant discovery" leases across Canadian Arctic waters.

The WWF has said Canada's decision to open bidding rights in the Beaufort Sea will destroy large swaths of critical polar bear habitat and put the animal's future in danger.

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Shares of General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) hit a 26-year low and Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research) also tumbled on Friday as investors reacted to disclosures from the leading U.S. automakers about the toll from a slumping auto market and from recent strikes against GM and one of its key suppliers.

Shares of GM dropped almost 5 percent to their lowest level since 1982 after the No. 1 U.S. automaker detailed the drag on its earnings from just-ended strikes at two of its own plants and at American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings.(AXL.N: Quote, Profile, Research)

Meanwhile, shares of Ford extended a two-day slump following Thursday’s announcement that the No. 2 U.S. automaker was slashing truck production and giving up on its goal of returning to profitability by 2009.

Ford shares were down 4 percent, hitting a six-week low. The stock has now lost 22 percent from its late-April high when it reported a surprise first-quarter profit. The decline has wiped out investor gains for the year.

GM shares have now lost 30 percent since the start of the year, touching a low of $17.38 on Friday — their lowest level since February 1982.

On Thursday, Ford surprised investors with a warning that its turnaround was stalling because of high gas prices and the related collapse in sales of trucks and SUVs, a segment Detroit automakers have dominated.

For GM, the latest bolt of bad news was the price of a three-month-old strike against American Axle by the United Auto Workers and local strikes at two of its own plants.

GM said on Friday the strikes had reduced its earnings by a total of $2.8 billion creditreport. That includes about $2 billion in lost earnings for the second quarter because of an unplanned cut in production of about 263,000 vehicles, including some 33,000 of GM’s better-selling sedans and crossovers. 

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Radio broadcaster Clear Channel Communications Inc. says its profit soared in the first quarter while revenues rose 4%.

The San Antonio-based company said Friday it earned $799.7 million or $1.61 per share in the first three months of the year. That is well above the $102.2 million or 21 cents per share it earned in the same period a year ago.

Clear Channel (CCU, Fortune 500) just completed the sale of a TV station group and is in the process of trying to go private same day payday loans.

Without discontinued operations, earnings rose 70% to $161.4 million or 32 cents a share from $95.1 million or 19 cents per share a year earlier.

Revenues rose 4% to $1.56 billion from $1.51 billion. 

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Citigroup Inc said on Friday it plans to shed $400 billion of assets within three years and boost revenue by up to 10 percent annually, in a bid to restore profitability after huge losses tied to flagging mortgage and credit markets.

Vikram Pandit, who became chief executive of the largest U.S. bank in December, revealed the plans at a much-anticipated presentation to investors and analysts. He has faced growing demands to slash costs, shed poor-performing businesses, and reinvigorate a stock price down by more than half in the last year.

Citigroup shares were down 60 cents, or 2.5 percent, at $23.70 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“It’s definitely going to be a show-me story,” said Thane Bublitz, a senior analyst at Thrivent Financial for Lutherans in Appleton, Wisconsin.

Citigroup lost nearly $15 billion in the last two quarters, and has suffered more than $45 billion of write-downs and credit losses since last summer, as the housing slump deepened, subprime mortgages imploded and credit markets tightened cashadvance. More jobs will be cut, on top of 13,200 announced this year.

“It’s a net positive for Citi just to shrink,” said Henry Asher, president of Northstar Group Inc, a New York money manager.

Pandit said he plans to reduce $500 billion of non-core “legacy” assets, an amount he said was not “trivial,” to below $100 billion in two to three years, largely through sales.

Among the assets to be shed are real estate, leveraged loans, complex debt and structured investment vehicles. Citigroup ended March with $2.2 trillion of assets. 

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, announced Monday it would expand its discounted prescription drug program to offer 90-day supplies for $10 and add several women’s medications at a discount. It also said it would lower the price of more than 1,000 over-the-counter drugs.

The move marks the third phase of a company program that began in 2006 to provide a 30-day supply of generic prescription drugs for $4. The Bentonville-based company said the program has saved customers more than $1 billion.

With the expansion, the company began filling prescriptions Monday for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies in the United States. Almost all the prescription generics in the company’s $4 program were included in the expanded $10 offer, said Wal-Mart senior vice president John Agwunobi.

In addition, the company will add several women’s medications to its list of prescriptions available for $9, including drugs to treat breast cancer and hormone deficiency.

For instance, alendronate, the generic version of osteoporosis medication Fosamax, will be added to the list. Company pharmacies will fill 30-day prescriptions of alendronate for $9 and a 90-day supply for $24 at a comparison of $54 and $102, respectively, that women previously paid for the same amounts, the company said.

Tamoxifen, used to treat breast cancer, will be offered for $9 for a 30-day supply, as well as combination estrogen/methyltestosterone tablets, prescribed for menopause and hormone deficiency.

Wal-Mart also will lower the prices of more than 1,000 over-the-counter medications to $4 or less in its pharmacies, company officials said. The company has sold over-the-counter medicines in the past at discounted prices, but revised and expanded its offerings specifically to include commonly used drugs that usually sell for $7 or more, said company spokesman Deisha Galberth.

The over-the-counter medication price rollbacks represent about one-third of the retailer’s over-the-counter medicines cash advance. They include Wal-Mart’s Equate versions of popular drugs, including Zantac, Pepcid and Claritin, and Wal-Mart’s Spring Valley prenatal vitamins.

Since 2006, Wal-Mart’s $4 generic drug program has expanded to every state, except North Dakota, where Wal-Mart has no in-store pharmacies. And many company competitors have followed the retailer’s lead.

While stressing that the expansion was designed to help customers at a time of exorbitant health-care costs and difficult economic times, Agwunobi said the program has worked in everyone’s favor.

"This is the time for us now to begin building capacity," he said. "It offers [customers’] employers potential savings. It offers the customers significant savings. It also offers us the ability to add capacity to our pharmacies without adding people."

Agwunobi expects the 90-day discount will increase the company’s market share of mail-order and online prescriptions as customers realize the value of the company offer.

Wal-Mart Chief Operating Officer Bill Simon said the results in each phase of the program have been strong and prescription volume has increased, "exceeding our expectations." He said the company would not, however, offer free generic drugs at its in-store clinics as some competitors have.

"We’re in business to make money," Simon said. "Free is a price that is not a long-term sustainable proposition."

Shares of Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) fell 44 cents to $57.06 in afternoon trading Monday. 

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Web classifieds leader Craigslist sought a divorce, while online auction giant eBay proposed a formal marriage, according to court papers unsealed on Wednesday that detail a testy four-year relationship.

In a lawsuit filed under seal in Delaware Chancery Court last week, eBay Inc alleged that Craigslist held “clandestine” directors’ meetings in recent months to dilute eBay’s 28.4 percent stake to 24.85 percent, or less than a quarter of the company.

A redacted version of the suit was released on Wednesday.

“We are no longer comfortable having eBay as a shareholder, and wish to explore options for our repurchase, or for otherwise finding a new home for these shares,” Craigslist Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster was quoted in the court papers as telling eBay’s then CEO Meg Whitman last summer.

Whitman responded via e-mail last July with an offer to buy out Craigslist.

“We would welcome the opportunity to acquire the remainder of (the company) we do not already own whenever you .. http://paydayloans-on.com. feel it would be appropriate,” she wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster.

The lawsuit cited industry commentators as saying Craigslist could be worth several billion dollars. It ranked as the world’s third most valuable Web startup in a list released by Silicon Alley Insider earlier this week: Valued at around $5 billion, Craigslist falls behind only Facebook and Wikipedia.

Reached by telephone late on Wednesday, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said he would not be interested in a sale, even for billions of dollars. 

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Vietnam moved to quell panic over rice supplies on Monday, banning speculation in the market after a “chaotic” buying binge at the weekend highlighted growing global fears about food security.

Queues and empty shelves were still evident on Monday as the world’s second-biggest rice exporter joined other nations in feeling the impact of a nearly threefold rise in rice prices this year, a rally triggered by exports curbs by top suppliers — including Vietnam itself, which has banned exports through June.

The growing sense of crisis over soaring food costs and supplies caused riots in Africa and toppled Haiti’s government. Although Asia consumes over 80 percent of the world’s rice, the impact has been limited as countries like China, India and Japan are self-sufficient.

The frantic pace of price increases in Thailand, the world’s largest rice exporter, looks set to cool in the weeks ahead, a Thai rice exporter said, with improved supplies.

“The market is likely to correct up to 20 percent even if the bans by India and Vietnam remain,” Korbsook Iamsuri, the secretary general of the Thai Rice Exporters’ Association told Reuters on Monday.

“Crop arrivals are much better than what it was three weeks ago,” she said, as Thai prices remained above the historic $1,000 per tonne level reached a week ago.

Over the weekend, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest urban area of about eight million people, people rushed to supermarkets and street markets in scenes described as “chaotic” by some local media reports.

Concern mounted in the southern city many still call Saigon after a popular supermarket chain, Saigon Co-op Mart, said it was selling only 10 kg of rice for each purchase 500 fast cash. That came less than a week after U.S. giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Sam’s Club warehouse division put limits on purchases of rice. 

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NEW YORK–Citigroup Inc. says it will eliminate about 9,000 more jobs, after poor bets on defaulting loans and the tumultuous credit markets lopped $14 billion (U.S.) in value from the bank’s investments during the first quarter.

That writedown, plus more than $3 billion in costs related to consumers’ credit problems, led Citigroup to a quarterly loss of $5.1 billion. The loss was $1.02 per share, compared with a a profit of $1.01 a year earlier.

Citigroup said it has cut 13,200 jobs since the credit crisis began slamming the industry last summer. The bank announced 4,200 cuts in January, and more workforce reductions are likely.

"We’re very, very focused on efficiency," chief executive Vikram Pandit said in a conference call yesterday.

The most recent quarterly shortfall at the biggest bank in the United States by assets was not as massive as the nearly $10 billion loss suffered in the fourth quarter of last year, though. But analysts, on average, had expected the New York-based bank to lose only 95 cents per share, according to a Thomson Financial survey.

"We’re not happy with our financial results this quarter, although they’re not completely unexpected, given the assets we hold," Pandit said.

With significant exposure to problematic mortgages and leveraged loans, Citigroup remains at risk for further writedowns easy quick payday loans. As a result, Fitch Ratings downgraded the bank’s credit rating, while Moody’s Investors Services and Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services took actions that indicated Citigroup might be downgraded in future if its assets deteriorate firther.

Still, the $14 billion in writedowns compared with $18 billion marked down after the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, revenue came to $13.2 billion. That was about half what the bank pulled in during the first quarter of 2007, but was more than the average analyst forecast, for $12.8 billion. The bank’s revenue was padded by its global consumer segment and global wealth-management business.

The bank ousted chief executive Chuck Prince late last year and promoted Pandit, a former Morgan Stanley investment banker, during a scramble for cash.

In December and January, Citi raised more than $30 billion through sales of assets and stock to outside investors, some of them funds run by Asian and the Middle Eastern governments. Citibank also has slashed costs and reorganized the bank’s mortgage business and wealth-management unit.

Citigroup, like other banks, still faces a deteriorating environment for consumer lending.

To prepare for more consumer-loan losses, the company added about $2 billion to its reserves.

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The federal funds rate is low enough to boost economic growth as the lagged impact of previous interest rate cuts starts to kick in, Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Charles Plosser said on Friday.

Plosser, speaking at Drexel University in Philadelphia, warned against seeing rate cuts as “the solution to most, if not all, economic ills.”

The real fed funds rate, or the actual rate minus the expected rate of inflation, is negative for the first time since 2003-2004, Plosser said.

That “accommodative” level “should support the market forces that will bring economic growth back toward its long-term trend,” he said.

Despite his cautiously upbeat outlook, Plosser said that forecasting economic growth is harder given current turbulence, and that the credit crunch “has the potential to restrain economic growth going forward.”

Although some argue for lower rates as “insurance” in case financial turmoil impedes the transmission of rate cuts to the economy, “determining the appropriate level of such extra accommodation is difficult to quantify,” he said creditreports.

Plosser voted against the Federal Open Market Committee’s decision in March to lower the federal funds rate by 75 basis points.

Seeing rate cuts as a cure-all is “a dangerous misconception,” he said, adding that that assessment of what monetary policy can achieve “seems to have risen considerably over the years.” 

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