Iowa Senator Charles Grassley (Republican-Iowa) is investigating reports of lavish spending by Christian televangelists, including Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie Long, Paula White, and Creflo Dollar. Many of the TV preachers are proponents of prosperity theology, which teaches that financial wealth is evidence of divine favor -- thus explaining why they dip into the donation box to buy themselves multi-million-dollar homes, luxury cars, private jets and other "blessings from God." Faith healer Benny Hinn, another televangelist targeted in Grassley's investigation, is using Ronn Torossian of 5W Public Relations as his spokesman. Torossian, who also represented Hinn earlier this year when he came under investigation by the IRS, stated that his client is obeying all relevant laws.

The British government's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that an advertisement by Royal Dutch Shell promoting its waste recycling breaks rules with regards to "truthfulness" and "environmental claims." The print ad claimed that Shell has "creative ways to recycle. We use our waste CO2 [carbon dioxide] to grow flowers, and our waste sulphur to make super-strong concrete." The environmental group Friends of the Earth challenged the ad's claims, lodging a complaint with the British government. The ASA agreed that, "in the absence of qualification, most readers were likely to interpret the claim 'We use our waste CO2 to grow flowers' ... to mean that Shell used all, or at least the majority, of their waste CO2 to grow flowers, whereas the actual amount was a very small proportion." Shell defended its ad as "a creative and striking way of drawing attention to the problem of waste disposal." The ad ran "last spring in newspapers in Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany," reports Associated Press. "The Dutch advertising watchdog also called the ad misleading, but complaints were dismissed by regulators in Belgium and Germany."

Most people don't know it, but cigarettes sold in some states are now more dangerous than ones sold in other states. Deaths and damage from cigarette-caused fires have motivated New York, Vermont, California and other states to enact laws in recent years requiring that only fire-safe cigarettes be sold in their states. Fire-safe cigarettes are made to go out when left burning unattended, unlike standard cigarettes that keep burning even when not being smoked. Manufacturers add burn accelerants like sodium citrate to cigarette paper to keep them lit when left in an ashtray, posing an increased fire hazard. A horrific cigarette-caused house fire that burned eight people to death in Baltimore, Maryland earlier this year has spurred calls by Baltimore public officials for a citywide fire-safe cigarette law. Interestingly, Maryland already has a fire-safe cigarette law, but it doesn't go into effect until July 1, 2008 -- too long to wait given the danger, according to Baltimore officials. In the meantime, cigarette makers are in no hurry to sell their fire-safe cigarettes anywhere they don't have to, leaving many citizens, including those in Baltimore, at a higher risk of cigarette-caused fires than people in states that already have self-extinguishing cigarette laws in effect.

From TV coverage of the FEMA press conferenceThe California wildfire press conference staged last month by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) staffers, who asked questions of their boss as though they were reporters, has claimed a second job. FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker resigned, effective in early December. It is not clear whether Walker's resignation was voluntary. Meanwhile, fall guy #1, FEMA's former director of external affairs John "Pat" Philbin, has started fighting back. "People who know very little about what happened have drawn conclusions and now I'm battling to recover my reputation and what I believe to be a fairly stellar career," Philbin told PR Week. "People were working fast, on very little sleep, and they were just trying to get information out." Philbin shared with O'Dwyer's a letter he sent to the Washington Post, which states, "I was busy with meetings and unaware prior to the briefing that reporters had been given inadequate time to arrive and the phone line was listen-only. The staff tried to salvage the event. ... Mistakes were made. ... Because I was in charge, I take responsibility. ... However, neither I nor anyone else on the staff is guilty of any attempt to deceive."