House panel approves health lunch waivers
WASHINGTON – A House committee has endorsed a GOP plan to allow some schools to opt out of healthier meal standards.
The rules set by Congress and the Obama administration over the past several years require more fruits, vegetables and whole grains in the lunch line. Also, there are limits on sodium, sugar and fat.
Some school nutrition directors have lobbied for a break. They say the rules have proved to be costly and restrictive.
The House Appropriations Committee voted to allow schools to opt out of the standards for the next school year if the schools are losing money on meal programs for six months.
Texas prisons can keep drug suppliers secret
DALLAS – Texas’ prison system does not have to reveal where it gets its execution drugs, the state attorney general’s office said Thursday, marking a reversal by the state’s top prosecutor on an issue being challenged in several death penalty states.
Under Greg Abbott, who is also the Republican nominee for governor in the nation’s busiest death penalty state, the Texas Attorney General’s Office had since 2010 rejected three similar attempts by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to keep secret its source of the drugs used to carry out lethal injections.
But on Thursday, Abbott’s office sided with state prison officials who said their supplier would be in danger if identified.
The assessment, a one-page letter dated March 7, said pharmacies “by design are easily accessible to the public and present a soft target to violent attacks.” He added that naming a pharmacy supplying execution drugs “presents a substantial threat of physical harm ... and should be avoided to the greatest extent possible.”
Study puts price tag on cost of car crashes
WASHINGTON – The economic and societal harm from motor vehicle crashes amounted to a whopping $871 billion in a single year, according to a study released Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The study examined the economic toll of car and truck crashes in 2010, when 32,999 people were killed, 3.9 million injured and 24 million vehicles damaged.
Those deaths and injuries were similar to other recent years.
Harm from loss of life, pain and decreased quality of life due to injuries was pegged at $594 billion, the study said.
Associated Press
