More good news for one of my favorite companies and stocks, The New York Times Company (NYT:NYSE).

It's official: Monster Worldwide Inc. (MNST:NASDAQ) is partnering with The New York Times to run joint most-wanted job ads.

This deal continues to propel MNST into the print, or traditional, media industry and turns Monster, which was originally viewed as a threat to newspapers, into an ally.

Monster has inked 60 deals with different newspapers, selling and placing ads in joint ventures online and in print.

The New York Times says that although it considered deals with other online job sites like CareerBuilder.com, Monster seemed the better fit for the company because it has proven itself as a market leader.

Ad pages will be branded with both Monster and The New York Times logos and the companies will share revenue from the ad sales.

Investors are viewing both stocks these days with added value now that the deal is signed in ink. MNST is up to almost $54 per share, still running in a tight bullish pattern. NYT shot back up near $26 per share, where it traded a week ago on speculation that Warren Buffett was starting to consider the company a good investment at current prices.

I'm ecstatic that my thesis is coming true, and NYT is proving to be one of the strongest newspaper companies in the industry's renaissance. NYT is up with gains of 9.7% since I originally recommended it, and I'm expecting much more for my Diligent Investor subscribers holding for long-term gains.

In other industry news, let's talk a little about one of my other favorite subjects: food safety.

Another food recall was announced today: ConAgra Foods Inc. (CAG:NYSE) is recalling two brands of peanut butter (one called Peter Pan peanut butter) due to concerns about possible salmonella poisoning.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found 288 cases linked to food-borne illnesses resulting from peanut butter consumption. The first person suspected to have become ill from peanut butter was all the way back in August!

CAG says that it will rid of all contaminated peanut butter and stop its production while the investigation is ongoing. (The peanut butter being recalled has product code 2111 imprinted on the lid, so please go home and discard any today!)

It seems that no food is safe. First it was spinach, and then leafy greens from Taco Bell products. This isn't going to get any better, and people will continue to get sick (and potentially die) if food-borne bacteria isn't better detected.

Congress is finally getting in on the game. According to ConsumerAffairs.com, legislators are through trusting the FDA anymore to aid in the detection of food-borne pathogens. Senator Durbin from Illinois and Representative DeLauro from Connecticut (both Democrats) are proposing legislation to create a new Food Safety Administrator.

The legislation is deemed the Safe Food Act and will give the new Food Safety Administrator a unified budget. This legislation is right on time. According to the Bush Administration's 2008 budget proposal, the USDA (which regulates 20% of our nation's food supply) will receive $270 million in new funding for food safety. But, the FDA (which regulates the remaining 80% of our food!) is only receiving a measly $10.6 million in food safety funding. You don't have to be a genius to know that there's a disconnect there.

Durbin and DeLauro's new proposal will create a Food Safety Administration “similar to the Environmental Protection Agency” that would take over the food safety and labeling that the USDA and FDA currently unevenly split between themselves. It will also condense into one agency the food safety monitoring, inspection, and labeling that's currently being undertaken by… count them… 12 federal agencies.

The bill will also feature a “traceback provision,” give the new Food Safety authority recall ability, and require, most importantly, more frequent inspections to help prevent future disease outbreaks.

This is, of course, good news for one of my other favorite stocks Neogen Corporation (NEOG:NASDAQ).This maker and marketer of handheld food-borne pathogen systems is considered the gold standard across the world for fast, easy results, and has prevented much food from being put on the shelves and making consumers sick.

Since I first recommended it, NEOG is up 8.6% in stock value. With the creation of a new, much more focused Food Safety Administration, NEOG is poised to continue to be the food safety testing product leader, and gain more contracts in the future from the government.

The stock's chart continues to rise in a slow-moving uptrend and is ready to come up against its most recent highs of $25 per share.

I continue NEOG a long-term hold as well.