Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens

CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.

The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.

The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.

In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.

That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.

In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.

"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."

The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.

But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.

In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.

The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.

Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.

"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.

Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.

"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.

Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.

"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.

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Online:

Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org

It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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'American Sniper' Killed; Former Marine Charged

A former Marine has been charged with three counts of murder in the killing of former Navy SEAL and "American Sniper" author Chris Kyle, the most deadly sniper in U.S. history, and another man at an Erath County, Texas, gun range, police said.

"We have lost more than we can replace. Chris was a patriot, a great father, and a true supporter of this country and its ideals. This is a tragedy for all of us. I send my deepest prayers and thoughts to his wife and two children," Scott McEwen, co-author of "American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History," said in a statement to ABC News.

Remembering Kyle for the number of Iraqi insurgents he killed misstates his legacy, McEwen said.

"His legacy is not one of being the most lethal sniper in United States history," McEwen said. In my opinion, his legacy is one of saving lives in a very difficult situation where Americans where going to be killed if he was not able to do his job."

Kyle and a neighbor of his were shot at a gun range in Glen Rose while helping a former Marine who was recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome, ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas reported.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley/AP Photo; Erath County Sheriff's Offi

The suspect, identified as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, was arrested in Lancaster, Texas, after a brief police chase, a Lancaster Police Department dispatcher told ABC News. Routh was driving Kyle's truck at the time of his arrest, police said.

Routh was arraigned Saturday evening on one count of capital murder and two counts of murder. He was brought to the Erath County Jail this morning and was being held there today on a combined $3 million bond, Officer Kyle Roberts said.

Investigators told WFAA that Routh is a former Marine said to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Kyle helped found a nonprofit that provides at-home fitness equipment for emotionally and physically wounded veterans, but the director of the foundation said Kyle and Routh had not met through the organization.

"Chris was literally the type of guy if you were a veteran and needed help he'd help you," Travis Cox, the director of FITCO Cares, told The Associated Press. "And from my understanding that's what happened here. I don't know how he came in contact with this gentleman, but I do know that it was not through the foundation."

Authorities identified the other man who was killed with Kyle as 35-year-old Chad Littlefield, who Cox said was Kyle's neighbor and friend.

PHOTOS: Notable Deaths in 2013

Kyle, 38, served four tours in Iraq and was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation.

From 1999 to 2009, Kyle recorded more than 150 sniper kills, the most in U.S. military history.

After leaving combat duty, Kyle became chief instructor training Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper teams, and he authored the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, the first Navy SEAL sniper manual. He left the Navy in 2009.

"American Sniper," which was published last year by William Morrow, became a New York Times best seller.

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Iran hedges on nuclear talks with six powers or U.S.

MUNICH (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it was open to a U.S. offer of direct talks on its nuclear program and that six world powers had suggested a new round of nuclear negotiations this month, but without committing itself to either proposal.

Diplomatic efforts to resolve a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful but the West suspects is intended to give Iran the capability to build a nuclear bomb, have been all but deadlocked for years, while Iran has continued to announce advances in the program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said a suggestion on Saturday by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Washington was ready for direct talks with Iran if Tehran was serious about negotiations was a "step forward".

"We take these statements with positive consideration. I think this is a step forward but ... each time we have come and negotiated it was the other side unfortunately who did not heed ... its commitment," Salehi said at the Munich Security Conference where Biden made his overture a day earlier.

He also complained to Iran's English-language Press TV of "other contradictory signals", pointing to the rhetoric of "keeping all options on the table" used by U.S. officials to indicate they are willing to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

"This does not go along with this gesture (of talks) so we will have to wait a little bit longer and see if they are really faithful this time," Salehi said.

Iran is under a tightening web of sanctions. Israel has also hinted it may strike if diplomacy and international sanctions fail to curb Iran's nuclear drive.

In Washington, Army General Martin Dempsey, the top U.S. military officer, said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that the United States has the capability to stop any Iranian effort to build nuclear weapons, but Iranian "intentions have to be influenced through other means."

Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made his comments on NBC's program "Meet the Press," speaking alongside outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta said current U.S. intelligence indicated that Iranian leaders have not made a decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon.

"But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability," he said. "And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing."

The new U.S. secretary of state, John Kerry, has said he will give diplomacy every chance of solving the Iran standoff.

THE BEST CHANCE

With six-power talks making little progress, some experts say talks between Tehran and Washington could be the best chance, perhaps after Iran has elected a new president in June.

Negotiations between Iran and the six powers - Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany - have been deadlocked since a meeting last June.

EU officials have accused Iran of dragging its feet in weeks of haggling over the date and venue for new talks.

Salehi said he had "good news", having heard that the six powers would meet in Kazakhstan on February 25.

A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who coordinates the efforts of the six powers, confirmed that she had proposed talks in the week of February 25 but noted that Iran had not yet accepted.

Kazakhstan said it was ready to host the talks in either Astana or Almaty.

Salehi said Iran had "never pulled back" from the stuttering negotiations with the six powers. "We still are very hopeful. There are two packages, one package from Iran with five steps and the other package from the (six powers) with three steps."

Iran raised international concern last week by announcing plans to install and operate advanced uranium enrichment machines. The EU said the move, potentially shortening the path to weapons-grade material, could deepen doubts about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel's mission to stop its arch-enemy from acquiring nuclear weapons was "becoming more complex, since the Iranians are equipping themselves with cutting-edge centrifuges that shorten the time of (uranium) enrichment".

"We must not accept this process," said Netanyahu, who is trying to form a new government after winning an election last month. Israel is generally believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.

(Additional reporting by Myra MacDonald and Stephen Brown in Munich, Dmitry Solovyov in Almaty, Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai and Jim Wolf in Washington; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Will Dunham)

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Iran announces nuclear talks, open to 'authentic' US meet

MUNICH: Iran on Sunday announced fresh talks with world powers on its nuclear drive and said it was open to an offer from the US for two-way discussions if Washington's intention was "authentic".

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the six world powers planned to resume talks in Kazakhstan on February 25, and he insisted that Iran had never pulled back from the negotiations.

"I have good news, I've heard yesterday that 5+1 or EU3+3 will be meeting in Kazakhstan 25th of February," Salehi said during a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference.

Iran and six world powers -- the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany -- held three rounds of talks last year aimed at easing the standoff over Iran's nuclear activities, which Tehran insists are peaceful.

The six, known as the P5+1 or EU3+3, called on Iran to roll back its programme but stopped short of meeting Tehran's demands that they scale back sanctions, and the last round ended in stalemate in June in Moscow.

Since then, talks have been held up over disagreements on their location.

The European Union welcomed Salehi's announcement.

"It is good to hear that the foreign minister finally confirmed now. We hope the negotiating team will also confirm," said Michael Mann, a spokesman for the EU's top diplomat Catherine Ashton.

Salehi said Iran took comments by US officials, including Vice President Joe Biden, who said at the Munich conference on Saturday that Washington was ready to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear programme, "with positive consideration".

Washington ruptured diplomatic ties with Iran in the wake of the 1979 revolution, and relations remain hostile.

"We have no red line for negotiations, bilateral negotiations when it comes to negotiating over a particular subject," Salehi said.

"If the subject is the nuclear file, yes we are ready for negotiation but we have to make sure ... that the other side this time comes with authentic intention, with a fair and real intention to resolve the issue," he said.

He criticised as contradictory the desire for negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue alongside "threatening rhetoric that everything is on the table" -- that is, a military option.

"If there is an honest intention on the other side, then we will take that into serious consideration," Salehi said.

Asked when direct US-Iranian negotiations would take place, Biden told the conference on Saturday: "When the Iranian leadership, Supreme Leader, is serious."

He said: "There is still time, there is still space for diplomacy, backed by pressure, to succeed. The ball is in the government of Iran's court, and it's well past time for Tehran to adopt a serious, good-faith approach to negotiations with the P5-plus-1."

However, in an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro published late Sunday, he warned that the "diplomatic window is closing."

"The Iranian government must approach the talks with seriousness and good faith," Biden said in remarks translated into French.

Outgoing Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called in Munich for a "strong political will by the world" on the nuclear issue.

"I was glad to hear yesterday Vice President Biden saying loud and clear (that) containment is not an option," he told the conference.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking just before the formal start of talks to build Israel's new ruling coalition, said the most important mission facing the new government was preventing a nuclear Iran.

"It is a mission which has become more complicated because Iran has equipped itself with new centrifuges which reduce the enrichment time," he said.

"We cannot live with this process."

It was the first official reaction since it emerged that Tehran was planning to install more modern equipment at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran, according to a UN document seen by AFP in Vienna on Thursday.

- AFP/jc

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President Pranab Mukherjee gives nod to tough anti-rape ordinance

NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday gave his assent to the ordinance sharpening laws against sexual assault, mandating harsher punishment like death penalty for offenders in cases where the victim dies or is pushed into a persistent vegetative state. The amended law comes into force immediately.

The ordinance, which also introduced voyeurism, stalking, disrobing of women and acid attacks as specific offences under the Indian Penal Code, was approved by the Union Cabinet on Friday.

Though the presidential assent has brought the "changed" provisions of the law into force, the government will have to get it passed in Parliament within six months.

With the main opposition party BJP welcoming the move, the government is confident of getting the new provisions passed in Parliament after putting it up for discussion and modification, if needed, during the budget session.

The President's assent to the ordinance came even as women's rights activists expressed unhappiness over the provisions. They were upset over the government's refusal to recognize marital rape as an offence, failure to hold command officers accountable for rapes by their subordinates and omission of rapes by armed forces as a category.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance, 2013 — comprising several recommendations of the Justice (retired) JS Verma committee — was rushed through to beat the notification of the budget session which is due to begin on February 21. The notification — which is to be issued in a day or two — would have prevented issuance of the ordinance.

'Rarest of rare' rape cases

Going beyond recommendations of the Justice Verma committee, the ordinance has prescribed death penalty for cases of rape which lead to the victim's death or pushes her into coma. It seeks to treat such cases as "rarest-of-rare" for which courts can award capital punishment if they so decide.

For such cases, the ordinance prescribes a minimum sentence of 20 years which can be extended to imprisonment until the natural life of the convict, or death.

Brought against the backdrop of Nirbhaya's case, the ordinance changes various clauses in existing criminal law by amending Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Evidence Act.

The new provisions will be brought before Parliament as part of official amendments to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2012 which was introduced in December last year. The pending legislation is currently being examined by a parliamentary standing committee which is scheduled to meet on Monday.

Officials in the home ministry, however, did not rule out the possibility of withdrawing the pending bill and bringing a fresh legislation incorporating the changes which came into force through the ordinance.

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Obama Clings to Shotgun in WH Photo

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

After a week of speculation over the authenticity of claims by President Obama that he regularly participated in skeet shooting at Camp David, the White House released a photograph today showing him firing a shotgun.

The photo shows Obama targeting clay pigeons at the presidential retreat last August, according to the White House. In an interview published Sunday the president said he shoots skeet “all the time” during stays at the compound. The comment was a response to a question of whether he had ever held a gun.

“Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake,” he said.

READ: Skeet-Shooter Obama Has ‘Respect’ for Hunters

But amid a White House-backed push for stronger gun-control in the U.S., some questioned whether the claim was an embellishment or even true. Politicians who regularly use firearms often advertise the fact to gun owners, but ABC News has not found a quote from Obama referencing his own use before the statement on Sunday.

“If he is a skeet shooter, why have we not heard of this?” asked Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “Why have we not seen photos? Why has he not referenced it at any point in time as we have had this gun debate that is ongoing?”

PHOTOS: From 2009 to Now: Obama Since His First Inauguration

Appearing on CNN this week, the congresswoman challenged Obama to a skeet shooting contest.

The Associated Press reported in 2010 a second-hand reference to the activity. After a visit with the Texas Christian University rifle team, a student reportedly told the AP that Obama told her he’d practiced shooting with the Secret Service.

This is the only known image of Obama holding a gun.

Asked Monday about the president’s interview, Press Secretary Jay Carney responded to reporters about how often the president participates in shooting.

“I would refer you simply to his comments,” he said. “I don’t know how often. He does go to Camp David with some regularity, but I’m not sure how often he’s done that.”"

On Wednesday, Carney addressed the issue again, telling press that when the president travels to “Camp David, he goes to spend time with his family and friends and relax, not to produce photographs.”

White House officials and some Obama supporters have compared skeet-doubters to “skeeters” or “birthers,” the label fixed to those who deny Obama was born on U.S. soil in his home state of Hawaii, and therefore is ineligible for the Oval Office.

“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” senior adviser David Plouffe wrote on Twitter this morning, referencing the popular photo-editing software.

In January, Obama signed several executive orders strengthening gun regulation and revealed proposals that, if enacted, would include bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines. The move began in response to the December mass-shooting of 20 first graders and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

INFOGRAPHIC: Guns in America: By The Numbers

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found 53 percent of Americans viewed Obama’s gun control plan favorably, 41 percent unfavorably.

The photo’s release comes two days before Obama travels to Minneapolis for a speech continuing his push for tougher gun control, where he is expected to appear alongside local law enforcement officials.

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Turkey says tests confirm leftist bombed U.S. embassy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday.

Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard.

The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet".

"Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist.

It warned Erdogan that he too was a target.

Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation.

DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities.

Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed.

Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents.

Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing.

Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said.

The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.

SYRIA

The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil.

The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria.

"Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said.

Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda.

"Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News.

The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

(Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Football: Returning Carroll steers West Ham past Swansea

LONDON: On-loan striker Andy Carroll scored only his second goal of the season as West Ham United won 1-0 at home to Swansea City on Saturday to end a run of four Premier League games without victory.

West Ham were largely dominant at Upton Park but could find no way past Swansea's inspired goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel until Carroll powered home a header from a corner with 13 minutes to play.

Victory lifted West Ham two places to 11th in the table, while League Cup finalists Swansea remain eighth after a first defeat in eight games.

Eager to prevent Swansea from settling into their usual passing rhythm, West Ham snapped into their tackles from the off and Ricardo Vaz Te was booked for a lunge at Wayne Routledge in the eighth minute.

Carroll, on loan from Liverpool, was making his first West Ham start since November 28 and the hosts looked for him at every opportunity as they began to impose themselves on the game.

Tremmel did brilliantly to prevent Kevin Nolan putting West Ham ahead from close range in the 21st minute after Joey O'Brien left Routledge for dead with a step-over on the right flank.

A second contest between Nolan and Tremmel in the 37th minute produced the same result, with the German saving superbly after the home skipper took aim from a Carroll knock-down.

Tremmel came to his side's rescue again shortly before half-time when he diverted a 25-yard shot from Vaz Te around the post.

The hosts remained on the front foot in the second period, with Tremmel repelling Vaz Te again and Carroll hoisting the ball wastefully over the Swansea crossbar from a Matt Jarvis cut-back.

Belatedly, Swansea reacted, Pablo Hernandez testing Jussi Jaaskelainen from a free-kick and top scorer Michu nodding a cross from Hernandez over the top.

Tremmel unleashed yet another fine save to thwart Carroll before the visitors' resistance finally subsided in the 77th minute.

Carroll cleverly shook off the attentions of Ashley Williams inside the Swansea box before planting a header past Tremmel from a corner.

In response, Jaaskelainen saved from Ki Sung-Yueng and then sprang to his feet to block Ben Davies' follow-up effort, while the hosts also survived a desperate scramble inside their own area in the dying stages.

English Premier League results:
Arsenal 1 Stoke 0
Everton 3 Aston Villa 3
Fulham 0 Manchester Utd 1
Newcastle 3 Chelsea 2
QPR 0 Norwich 0
Reading 2 Sunderland 1
West Ham 1 Swansea 0
Wigan 2 Southampton 2

- AFP/de

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Rural job plan can start green revolution II: Sonia

NEW DELHI : Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said UPA's flagship rural employment guarantee programme has the potential to set off a second green revolution as it can boost agricultural production.

Speaking at a conference on the Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee act here, she said "I am of the belief that MNREGA has tremendous potential to increase agriculture production, which we have not been able to tap fully till date."

Sonia said that "There are many possibilities not only for creating community assets in villages but also providing irrigation facilities to small and marginalised farmers, developing land and promoting farming."

Although the MNREGA scheme has been found to suffer from implementation problems, the Congress chief saw the programme being overall beneficial to the farmers.

"Manifold increase in the produce of farmers can be made by connecting this scheme with the use of modern technologies in agriculture. There is no doubt that MNREGA can play a big role in fulfilling our dreams of second green revolution," she said.

At the same conference, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said use of Information Technology in at many levels has helped making governance better and increase accountability and transparency in government work. He said the act has increased financial inclusion.

Singh called on the rural development ministry to work with states to ensure panchayats are provided full technical assistance.

"This will help prepare the labour budget truly as per the local development plan and will facilitate the inclusion of all possible resources. Besides, this will also strengthen the Panchyati Raj institutions and increase people's participation in development works," Singh said.

The Congress president also said, "there is also a need to think how to make implementation better. How to bring momentum in the empowerment of Panchayati Raj institutions."

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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