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Americans Set Charitable Giving Record In 2006

Ronald McDonald Visits a McDonald’s Restaurant in Roswell, N.M. The Firm Will Restrict Its Ads For Happy Meals.

Eleven of the nation’s biggest food and drinkcompanies will adopt new rules to limit advertising to children under the age of 12. The move will restrict ads for products such
as McDonald’s Happy Meals and the use of popular cartoon characters.The companies,
including Campbell Soup Co., General Mills
Inc. and PepsiCo Inc., announced their new rules just ahead of a Federal Trade Commission hearing that stepped up pressure on the companies to help curb the growing child obesity problem through more
responsible marketing.

FTC Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said the 11 companies accounted for about two-thirds of television food ads directed to kids.

The self-imposed rules include pledges by seven companies who will no longer use licensed characters, such as those made popular through movies or TV shows, to advertise online or in print media unless
they’re promoting their healthier products.
Four other companies said they did not advertise at all to children under 12.

Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the companies were taking a big step forward by pledging to stop marketing their worst junk food to kids on television, radio, print and on the Internet.

“It’s not the end of the journey, but it’s a good way down the road,” she said.

Surge in donations after natural disasters boosted aid to nearly $300 billion

Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a new record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami.

Norman Ernest Borlaug

By Michael Miller

The foundation of John Crean, the Newport Beach philanthropist and businessman who passed away in January, has given $10 million to help open a Lutheran private high school in Irvine.

HAPPY PIG

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

US CANCER DEATHS
CONTINUE TO DECLINE

The war on cancer continues to pay dividends with annual deaths from the disease declining in the United States, a new report shows.

But there are worrisome signs that the efforts to conquer cancer are stalling on several fronts, with declines in tobacco-cessation rates leveling off, too few people not taking advantage of timely
screening tests, and far too many individuals not eating enough fruits and vegetables or getting sufficient exercise, according to the report from the American Cancer Society.

"We have been seeing a great deal of progress in terms of mortality rates and total deaths from cancer," said Elizabeth Ward, director of
surveillance research with the American Cancer Society's department of epidemiology and surveillance research. "A lot of that progress has come about from public health intervention, including declines in tobacco-related cancer and declines in colorectal cancer mortality.

"A number of public health early detection and prevention programs that the cancer society and other groups have advocated are really making a difference," she added.

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...born March 25, 1914) is an American agricultural scientist, humanitarian, Nobel laureate, and has been called the father of the Green Revolution.[1] Borlaug is a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal.
Borlaug received his Ph.D. in plant pathology and genetics from the University of Minnesota in 1942. He took up an agricultural research position in Mexico, where he developed semi-dwarf high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.
During the mid-20th century, Borlaug led the introduction of these high yielding varieties combined with modern agricultural production techniques to Mexico, Pakistan, and India. As a result, Mexico became a net exporter of wheat by 1963. Between 1965 and 1970, wheat yields nearly doubled in Pakistan and India, greatly improving the food security in those nations. These collective increases in yield have been labeled the Green Revolution, and Borlaug is often credited with saving over a billion people from starvation.[2] He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 in recognition of his contributions to world peace through increasing food supply.
More recently, he has helped apply these methods of increasing food production to Asia and Africa. Borlaug has continually advocated the use of his methods and biotechnology to decrease world famine. His work has faced environmental and socioeconomic criticisms, though he has emphatically rejected many of these as unfounded or untrue. In 1986, he established the World Food Prize to recognize individuals who have improved the quality, quantity or availability of food around the globe.