The Texas woman accused of sending ricin-laced letters to President Obama and Michael Bloomberg has given birth prematurely to a baby boy while in custody. Attorneys for actress Shannon Guess Richardson and husband Nathan say she gave birth July 4 to a boy named Brody. Shannon Richardson’s attorney says the… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
To celebrate Reason’s 45th anniversary as a monthly magazine, yesterday we named our 45 Enemies of Freedom, a motley crew of politicians, despots, intellectuals, crackpots, and crony capitalists who have done their utmost to make the world worse since 1968.
We also asked you, the readers, to name your own enemies. Nearly 300 of you rose to the challenge, with a total of 1,800 nominations.
Without futher ado, here are the winners and their vote tallies:
By The Huffington Post News Editors
This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner opened with one of D.C.’s most notorious politicians — Rep. Frank Underwood (D-S.C.).
If you don’t know Underwood, it’s because he’s only on Capitol Hill in the Netflix series “House of Cards.” A parody video of the show — including Kevin Spacey, who plays Underwood — kicked off the 2013 correspondents’ dinner.
The parody featured Spacey along with such politicians and media figures as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, BuzzFeed’s Ben Smith and Fox News’ Ed Henry.
Read More…
More on Barack Obama
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By Rob Quinn 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By Rich Duprey, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
The Center for Science in the Public Interest issued a report last week detailing that when it comes to kids’ meals, fast-food chains such as McDonald’s , Wendy’s , and Burger King offer up a healthy dose of unhealthy food.
After testing the restaurants’ meals, the researchers found they aren’t healthy because they contain too high amounts of fat, salt, and sugary drinks and recommended that more wholesome fare become the norm.
Pictured: Big Mac. Source: McDonald’s.
The CSPI report singled out Buffalo Wild Wings as being one of the worst offenders, with one meal for kids having twice the recommended intake of sodium.
Also discovered: Water is wet
I can’t be the only one not surprised by the findings. While we might wish that McDonald’s served bean sprouts with its Happy Meals, two things need to be remembered: That’s not what kids want to eat, and that’s not what you’re looking to buy when you go to a fast-food restaurant. It’s also something for parents to do in their home, not for public-policy advocates to give meddlesome politicians like New York City‘s nanny mayor, Michael Bloomberg, another avenue to attack individual choice.
Besides, fast-food restaurants have tried the healthy kick before, and it’s typically been a failure. Does anyone remember Wendy’s Super Bar salad bars or the Tomato Surprise? How about McDonald’s McLean Deluxe (with seaweed extract!) or the McSpaghetti? Does the Dairy Queen Breeze frozen yogurt drink ring any bells?
More than likely, if you tried them, you’re trying to forget them, and I apologize for dredging up bad memories — but it’s delusional to think you go to a greasy-burger joint for healthy fare. If you want that for lunch, go to Whole Foods. They’re building greenhouses on their rooftops to pick fresh veggies.
I yam what I yam
At least some of the restaurants the CSPI surveyed didn’t disguise the fact that their food is a guilty pleasure, for adults and kids alike. Of the top 50 chains, 18%, including Domino’s Pizza, Dunkin Brands‘ Dunkin’ Donuts, and Papa John’s didn’t have a so-called “kids’ menu.”
I’m sure the researchers realized that a kid-oriented menu doesn’t automatically mean healthy food (I’d kinda expect the exact opposite, as a matter of fact). Rather, it simply means a smaller portion of an adult meal. Parents do have to monitor what their kids eat, but they can be allowed to splurge, too. And there are alternatives out there: Subway, sushi bars, and — again — organic food stores abound.
Do as I say, not as I do
Sounding a lot like Mayor Bloomberg, the CSPI recommends that restaurants remove sugary drinks from their kids’ menus, offer more fruit and vegetables — and make them the default menu option instead of fries — and serve more whole grains.
Yet when first lady Michelle Obama foisted healthier school lunches on students after her Let’s Move! organization got the president to sign a bill mandating them, follow-up surveys found that …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
The SS United States is sending out what may be its final distress call.
The 990-foot-long ship could be sold for scrap within two months unless the grass-roots preservation group that’s working to secure a home and purpose for it can raise $500,000 immediately, the group told The Associated Press. Talks are under way with developers and investors about the ship’s long-term future, but without the emergency funding, its caretakers fear they will run out of money before a deal is inked.
The historic ocean liner carried princes and presidents across the Atlantic in the 1950s and 1960s but has spent decades awaiting a savior at its berth on the Philadelphia waterfront.
“We’ve made progress on the fundraising side and the redevelopment side,” said Susan Gibbs, executive director of the SS United States Conservancy and granddaughter of the ship’s Philadelphia-born designer, William Francis Gibbs. “Our immediate goal is to buy some time.”
The group has raised $1 million through fundraisers and a website, where contributors can sponsor a piece of the ship for $1 per square foot, but has received no public funding. What is desperately and immediately needed, they said, are donors with deep pockets and high profiles.
“Are we giving up on successfully redeveloping the ship as a self-sustaining entity? Absolutely not,” said Dan McSweeney, head of the redevelopment efforts. “We continue to have active discussions with potential partners, we have ideas of potential sites for the ship, but we need more time to get it off the ground … and we’re running out of runway.”
It costs $80,000 a month just for mooring, basic maintenance, insurance and security, he said.
The conservancy is exploring potential partnerships with four entities in Philadelphia and New York City to refashion the vessel as a stationary entertainment complex with 500,000 square feet of space for a hotel, theater, restaurants and shopping. The sluggish economy and other factors have slowed negotiations, McSweeney said.
As talks continue, he said, the hope is to convince corporate sponsors, influential politicians and prominent business leaders — are you listening, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg? — to lend their political and financial capital to the effort.
“Any way you look at it, there is no downside to this project,” McSweeney said. “It’s an economic and community development project that’s going to create jobs.”
The SS United States carried more than 1 million passengers at record-breaking trans-Atlantic speeds over the course of 400 round trips from 1952 to 1969, among them President John F. Kennedy, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Salvador Dali and Elizabeth Taylor. A joint venture between the Navy and ship designer Gibbs & Cox, the luxury liner was made with hidden military might: It could have been converted in a single day to transport 14,000 troops for 10,000 miles before refueling.
After being decommissioned it changed hands multiple times, from the Navy and on through a series of restoration-minded investors.
It was towed from Virginia to Turkey to Ukraine, finally arriving in Philadelphia as a gutted hulk in 1996.
Another succession of developers and a cruise lines failed to …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox US News
By The Huffington Post News Editors
NEW YORK — A new $12 million television ad campaign from Mayors Against Illegal Guns will push senators in key states to back gun control efforts, including comprehensive background checks.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the ad buy Saturday – just days after Senate Democrats touted stronger background checks while acknowledging insufficient support to restore a ban on assault-style weapons to federal gun control legislation.
If you?re wondering about your chances of dying from soda-related causes, a new study may offer some answers. Using global data, Boston researchers have estimated how many people in each of 187 countries likely died from causes linked to over-consumption of sugary drinks. Interestingly timed, given the recent hiccup in Michael Bloomberg?s sugary drink ban, the study may lend more weight to the idea that the drinks could account for a sizeable chunk of the global obesity epidemic. Of course, how to get people to drink less sugar ? whether by force or by gentler means ? is the bigger question. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Health
By Kate Seamons 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By Daniel Fisher, Forbes Staff
The New York judge who struck down Michael Bloomberg‘s ban on jumbo soft drinks did us all a public service by reminding the mayor of a simple fact about constitutional democracy: It’s about elected officials making tough choices, not appointed officials issuing decrees. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Clare O’Connor, Forbes Staff
Every time we at Forbes publish a new World’s Billionaires list, as we did last week for the 27th year, Michael Bloomberg’s net worth attracts scrutiny. It’s understandable: he may not be the richest New Yorker in our ranking (that honor goes to industrialist David Koch), but he’s the highest-profile. And the city’s three-term Mayor is certainly the wealthiest politician in the world. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Polly Davis Doig 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
By Sean Williams, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
If you’re a smoker, you know it’s been a rough ride over the past two decades. Advocacy groups have been increasing awareness regarding the dangers of smoking since the early 1990s, and even more recently, both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have been tag-teaming the tobacco industry to bring light to these dangers.
Last March, the CDC announced a $54 million, three-month graphic advertising campaign targeting TV, radio, print, billboard, and online viewers in the hope of getting 50,000 smokers to quit. Just weeks later, the FDA hit the tobacco industry with a request to be supplied with the quantities of 20 chemicals in cigarettes known to cause cancer, lung disease, and other health problems, including formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and ammonia. The FDA plans to release its findings to the public next month in the hope that increased awareness will reduce the amount of active smokers.
Big Tobacco’s big worry
Yet for all of these concerns, none may be more pressing for Big Tobacco companies such as Altria , Lorillard , and Reynolds American than what mayor Michael Bloomberg is doing in New York City.
In 2011, Mayor Bloomberg passed a ban outlawing smoking on New York City’s beaches, public plazas, boardwalks, and parks. Since then, Bloomberg has taken numerous other supposed “vices” to the woodshed, including sugary drinks, which he banned in any amount greater than 16 ounces within the city, and Styrofoam trays, which were the latest item to fall under his legislative guillotine. Many of you are probably of the opinion that the actions of one little old mayor probably don’t make a lot of difference … until you see Bloomberg’s track record according to Forbes.
In December 2006, a Bloomberg initiative went into effect that required restaurants to include calorie values on menus and menu boards. This was done to combat rising obesity within New York City, and not surprisingly, visible calorie values have become a norm throughout much of the country. Also in December 2006, a Bloomberg initiative to ban trans-fats within the city was passed by the Board of Health and gave restaurants 18 months to completely remove them from their foods. Lo and behold, not only did McDonald’s stop using cooking oil that was trans-fat free in New York City by the deadline, but it had also stopped using trans-fat oils throughout North America.
To sum up: When Bloomberg takes action, the result is often much bigger than what occurs within the city of New York.
The question then becomes whether this is a major problem for domestic tobacco companies. I’m going to go out on a limb based on Bloomberg’s previous track record and venture my best guess by saying “yes,” that this has a chance to become a progressively tougher ban that could threaten to sweep to other cities.
The trend is not your friend
Domestic cigarette sales have been in a …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Airlines closed up shop from Portland, Maine, down to New York City’s three major airports earlier this afternoon, and more than 4,700 flights have been cancelled as a result of the storm they are calling and will continue to call Nemo, despite the best efforts of the National Weather Service. Portions of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between Boston and New York have also been closed, and governors of four states have declared a state of emergency. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has encouraged everyone to stay in, make dinner at home, and maybe watch a movie. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Kevin Spak 
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Newser – Home
