SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Charging that toys sold with meals in fast-food outlets can lead children to develop bad eating habits, a Brazilian prosecutor on Monday asked a judge to ban such sales nationally at chains including McDonald's and Burger King.
The move comes amid global concern over the link between some fast food and illnesses such as diabetes, as the U.S. Congress considers requiring chain restaurants to disclose calories on their menus to help fight endemic obesity.
Prosecutor Marcio Schusterschitz, a federal prosecutor in Brazil's Sao Paulo state, said fast-food toy promotions encourage children to buy high-fat meals through "the abusive creation of emotional associations" that turn them into life-long eaters of high-fat foods.
(AFP/File/Dave Clark)AFP - China's state oil firm SIPEC and Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) have discovered crude oil from Niger Delta region of the west African nation, an official statement said.
Reuters - Canada's largest opposition party said on Monday it was prepared to bring down the government later this week unless it received details of planned improvements to the jobless benefits system.
Momentum builds for broad debate on legalizing pot
NEW YORK – The savage drug war in Mexico. Crumbling state budgets. Weariness with current drug policy. The election of a president who said, "Yes — I inhaled."
These developments and others are kindling unprecedented optimism among the many Americans who want to see marijuana legalized.
Judge says museum suspect can't appear in courtWASHINGTON – A white supremacist accused of fatally shooting a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is in no condition to appear in court, a federal judge ruled Monday. James von Brunn, 88, was shot in the face by guards who returned his fire last week and is still hospitalized. FBI officials have said he is likely to survive.
Attorney defends trooper in Okla. ambulance stop
OKLAHOMA CITY – Bothered that an ambulance driver failed to yield to him as he raced to provide backup on a call — and angered further when he thought the driver flipped him an obscene gesture — state Trooper Daniel Martin decided to stop the ambulance and give the driver a piece of his mind.
What Martin didn't know then, his lawyer said Monday, was that there was a patient in the back of the ambulance.
