Tag: failed
Bill On Soft Drink Health Warning Hits Snag In California

Bill On Soft Drink Health Warning Hits Snag In California

Washington (AFP) – A bill in California that would require soft drinks to have health warning labels failed to clear a key committee on Tuesday.

Under the measure, sugary drinks sold in the most populous U.S. state would have to carry a label with a warning that sugar contributes to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.

The legislation, which would have been the first of its kind in the United States, passed the state Senate in May.

But on Tuesday it failed to win enough votes in the health commission of the California State Assembly, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“We’re in the midst of a diabetes and obesity epidemic that is wreaking havoc on the public’s health and driving up healthcare costs,” said Senator Bill Monning, the bill’s author, in remarks before the Assembly Health committee, according to the newspaper.

The bill’s supporters included the California Medical Association and an array of public health groups. They argued that labels would help consumers make healthier choices.

But an industry group said it would be unfair to single out sugary drinks as a cause of obesity and diabetes.

The bill garnered seven ‘yes’ votes but needed 10 to pass, the Times said.

However, the bill did receive reconsideration, which means Monning can try once more to get it through the panel.

©afp.com / Justin Sullivan

Read A Book, Change A Life

It’s hotter than Dante’s nine rings of hell outside.

Crank up the fans, and pass the pile of books.

Most of us have triggers for childhood memories. These dog days of summer do it for me.

During the precious weeks of summer vacation, I’d pedal my bike back and forth to the library in a continuous cycle of return and borrow. I can still see skinny 10-year-old me, left foot dangling over the back of the porch swing, right foot pushing against the dusty floorboards as I floated in midair, immersed in the adventures of other people’s lives.

An early love for books changes the trajectory of lives. My own kids spent as much time in bookstores as in libraries. In my leanest years as a single mother, I never said no to a book for my son or daughter.

Sad news this week: Another national bookstore chain has failed.

Borders Group is going out of business. All 399 stores will close. In the dead of summer, too.

About 10,700 employees will lose their jobs. I’ve come to know dozens of them in Ohio over the years. To a person, they were smart and kind and full of big ideas. What a loss to the communities they served.

“We were all working hard towards a different outcome,” Borders President Mike Edwards said, “but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly
changing book industry, e-reader revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”

Borders has been in trouble for a while. It closed 200 stores in February as part of its bankruptcy restructuring.

That same month, Publishers Weekly reported that the bookstore chain owed $41 million to Penguin Group, $36.9 million to Hachette, $33.8 million to Simon & Schuster, $33.5 million to Random House and $25.8 million to HarperCollins.

Still, a lot of us refused to see this collapse coming.

Others, such as Sari Feldman, already are brainstorming ways to fill the void.

“I’m crushed for the reading community,” Feldman said Tuesday. “Borders was a place for a lot of readers to congregate. I hope they’ll find another place.”

She has a suggestion: How about your local library?

Feldman is past president of the national Public Library Association and executive director of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Ohio. She’s been tracking the setbacks and innovations of public libraries across the country for years. Despite budget cuts, many library systems are becoming increasingly creative, she says, and returning to their roots as the go-to place for readers.

“We don’t see bookstores as competitors,” Feldman said. “They’re important in keeping people aware and enthusiastic about books. But libraries are reclaiming our core value, which is promoting books to our readers.

“We should always be at the ready to help them find their next great read.”

Public libraries always have been at the forefront of child literacy, but they also are looking for new ways to reach adults, too. Earlier this year, Feldman borrowed an idea from Multnomah County Library in Portland, Ore., and started a Facebook “Night Owls” book discussion. It convenes on Thursdays at 9 p.m. Last week’s discussion logged 85 comments.

“We have 28 branches,” she said. “Last year, 7.6 million people walked through our doors. We have lots of book groups, but some readers want to talk about books at night, from home. We did this to include them, too.”

Feldman laughed when I suggested that most of us remember the library as a place where people read but never chat.

“Libraries are not the quiet sanctuaries they used to be,” she said. “We have to set aside quiet spaces in our buildings these days. We welcome the civic engagement.”

When citizens read, their communities prosper.

“People who read are voters,” Feldman said. “They patronize museums and theaters. They’re more likely to volunteer.”

They’re also more inclined to pass on their love of reading to the next generation.

Forecasters are predicting no break soon in the heat and humidity.

What perfect weather for children to curl around books and hitch a ride.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

Romney Slams Obama on Economy in Pennsylvania

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney continued to take the fight directly to President Obama–and not his primary rivals for the Republican presidential nomination–in a press conference today outside a metal works factory that closed shortly after the president visited it late in 2009.

Romney argued that Obama’s stimulus package, the reason for his last visit, failed, a common refrain of his of late, and pointed to his own managerial experience as an asset to America’s economic recovery.

By engaging the president in a battleground state–to be sure, one Democrats haven’t lost since 1988 and that Obama carried by ten points last time around–Romney elevates himself above the Republican field and buttresses his status in the media as the frontrunner. Any time he can spar with Obama, despised by a GOP base that only recently came to accept the president as a citizen when he released his long-form birth certificate, is a great moment for the Mormon millionaire, whose fundraising numbers this quarter are expected to be leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. [CNN]