The U.S. Department of Agriculture is releasing a new proposed rule Thursday designed to strengthen school breakfast and lunch nutrition standards - part of the Obama administration's attempt to crack down on an epidemic of childhood obesity.
The rule would increase the availability of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat milk milk while cutting the amount of sodium and saturated fat.
It would reduce the availability of traditional school lunch staples such as pizza and french fries.
Under the rule, federal minimum and maximum calorie intake guidelines would be established for the first time. Younger children would consume between 550 and 650 calories for lunch, while most high school students would consume between 750 and 850 calories.
FULL STORY
WikiLeaks has contributed to the legal defense of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, an online group supporting Manning announced Thursday.
WikiLeaks transferred $15,100 to the legal trust account of Manning's attorney, the Bradley Manning Support Network said in a news release.
Manning, 23, is facing eight counts of violating U.S. Criminal Code for allegedly leaking a secret military video from the Iraq war that made its way to WikiLeaks.org. He is the suspected leaker of cables and other documents relating to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
FULL STORY
What leads to extreme speech? How do rational people become inflamed by issues?
In part two of our series on the subject, CNN Radio's Lisa Desjardins spoke to anti-illegal immigrant crusader Al Garza who has been called a racist despite his own Mexican-American background.
At the same time, he himself has also told those who oppose U.S. immigration policy to "go back to Mexico." And he doesn't believe there's any chance for dialogue with his philosophical opponents.
"I've tried this," he said, "They don't stand for reason." Desjardins interrupted his thought, pointing out, "but, they say that about you."
"There is no debate," he responded, "They're not right... if they're here illegally, how can anyone say in their right mind that this is open for debate when they've broken the law."
We look at conviction and the sense of justice in the second piece in this series on rhetoric in the U.S. and whether ugly words are making our conversations explosives.
Click here to listen:
You can also listen to the CNN Radio Reports podcast on 
or 
to the podcast.
Funeral for Tucson girl – A memorial service will be held Thursday for Christina Green, 9, the youngest victim of the Arizona mass shooting.
Christina was born on September 11, 2001. For her service, two firetrucks will raise their ladders and connect a U.S. flag nearly destroyed in the 2001 terror attacks in New York. The flag will form an archlike design, which the girl's family will walk under before entering the church.
Christina will be buried in a custom-made casket donated by Trappist monks from a monastery in Iowa.
A long-term, sustainable recovery in Haiti can't take place if the economy doesn't grow and the country doesn't take major steps toward becoming self-reliant. There is no shortage of ideas for ways to create jobs.
But beyond daily necessities like delivering food and water, cleaning facilities at tent cities and clearing rubble by hand, few ideas that would produce long-lasting results have gone from the drawing board to implementation.
So business leaders and the Interim Haitian Recovery Commission are turning to areas where there has been success in the past. At one point, Haiti's garment manufacturing sector employed over 100,000 people.
Today, 28,000 Haitians find themselves behind sewing machines or moving goods and supplies. A deal signed with a Korean company on the day before the anniversary of the earthquake promises to create 20,000 new garment industry jobs in the north of Haiti at a new industrial park and create 5,000 new homes in the region.
But how do you convince buyers and suppliers to continue doing business with you when your country was devastated by massive earthquake that crippled the infrastructure and left 230,000 people dead?
CNN's Steve Kastenbaum spoke with one factory owner about his experience getting the production lines humming again.
You can also listen to the CNN Radio Reports podcast on or to the podcast here.
Emergency services and Australian military personnel stepped up the search for dozens of people still missing in Queensland on Thursday as authorities and residents started to assess the damage caused by the state's worst flooding in decades.
Floodwaters which had carved a muddy trail of destruction through Brisbane, the state capital, have started to recede but officials warned the cleanup operation would take months.
More than 20,000 homes were inundated with water after the normally subdued Brisbane River turned into a raging torrent as weeks of rain combined with bulging dams and high tides to push it to a peak of over four meters at high tide early Thursday.
At a news conference, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh fought back tears as she described the damage inflicted by the state's "worst natural disaster in our history."
"This morning, thousands of people in southeast Queensland have awakened to the unbearable agony of their homes being devastated, their businesses, their workplaces being devastated and, for some people, they've seen both their workplaces and their homes washed away," Bligh said.
The death toll rose to 15 Thursday as around 200 people, including Australian Defence Forces, Special Emergency Services and police, combed vast tracts of land and swollen waters for 70 people still missing.
FULL STORY
Watch CNN.com Live for continuing coverage of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
8:30 am ET - Condolence book for Tucson victims - Lawmakers, staff and others sign a condolence book for the victims of the Tucson mass shooting on Capitol Hill.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
Recent Comments