Mineral Overdose Killed Polo Horses: Officials

(NEWSER) - The Florida pharmacy that prepared vitamin supplements for the 21 polo horses that died last weekend has admitted that the mixture was faulty, the Palm Beach Post reports. Franck’s Pharmacy in Tallahassee said today that the level of one ingredient in the supplement—which the polo team says was Biodyl—was incorrect. The druggist said it is cooperating “fully with the authorities as they continue their investigations.” More»

(NEWSER) - Exactly what killed 21 polo horses in Florida is not known, but details of their enigmatic owner are emerging in spades. Victor Vargas has succeeded at the tricky proposition of banking in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, and tried the US market—with less-than-stellar results. In 1993, he had to settle with the Fed for $1.5 million, and can’t invest here without government permission. Time takes a look at the secretive multimillionaire. More»

(NEWSER) - Florida has opened a criminal investigation into the deaths of 21 polo horses over the weekend in Palm Beach, USA Today reports, aiming to find out if negligence or foul play might have been behind the incident. “We would be looking at any and all possible leads,” said a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture. More»

Congress lifts ban on funding horse meat inspections

(NEWSER) - When Congress passed a spending bill earlier this month to keep the government from shutting down, it quietly lifted a funding ban on horse meat inspections—meaning horses can once again be butchered in the US for human consumption, and slaughterhouses could open within 30 to 90 days. The US has no outright ban on horse slaughter, although two states do ban it and many others regulate the sale of horse meat, but funding for horse meat inspections was cut off in 2006. Congress did not allocate new money to pay for inspections, meaning the USDA would have to find the money within its own struggling budget. More»

Pembroke Pines to inject treated sewage into the water supply

(NEWSER) - Within three years, Floridians from Miami to Boca Raton could be drinking sewage—albeit nice, treated sewage. Pembroke Pines plans to build a $47 million facility that will pump 7 million gallons of treated sewage a day into the aquifer that supplies Broward, Miami-Dade, and part of Palm Beach County, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. More»