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New York expands ‘Meatless Mondays’ for school meals

Schoolchildren in New York City will be dining on all-vegetarian breakfast and lunch meals every Monday, starting with the 2019-2020 school year, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this week. The move follows a pilot program launched in the spring of 2018 at 15 public schools in Brooklyn and ultimately will affect an estimated 1.1 million students.Mayor de Blasio said that “cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” while announcing the program. [node:read-more:link]

25 percent of consumers say no to meaty names for vegetarian items

In a survey of nearly 1,000 U.K. and U.S. consumers, one in four indicate that vegetarian products should not be allowed to have meat-related names like burger, sausage or steak. The survey, commissioned by public relations agency Ingredient Communications, polled  vegetarians, vegans, pescatarians and meat-eaters to explore attitudes to the way meat-free products are named.The survey also found that 18 percent of vegetarians, 33 percent of vegans and 26 percent of meat-eaters would support a ban on labeling vegetarian products with meat-related names.  [node:read-more:link]

NH House passes death penalty repeal by a veto-proof margin

he New Hampshire Legislature took a big step toward repeal of the death penalty on Thursday, with a veto-proof vote of 279-88 in support of House Bill 455.The bill revokes the existing capital punishment statute and replaces it with a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder of a police officer or other capital offenses.New Hampshire currently has one person on death row — Michael Addison. [node:read-more:link]

Child Enrollment in Public Health Programs Fell by 600K Last Year

The number of kids enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — two government health plans for the poor — fell by nearly 600,000 in the first 11 months of 2018, a precipitous drop that has puzzled and alarmed many health policy analysts, while several states say it reflects the good news of an improving economy. Enrollment in the two programs decreased by 599,000 children in the 48 states from which the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has data from December 2017 to November 2018, the last month for which numbers are available. [node:read-more:link]

Bill defining meat in North Dakota goes to the governor

The North Dakota Legislature wants to make sure that when consumers buy meat, they know they’re buying “the edible flesh of an animal born and harvested for the purpose of human consumption,” and not something developed in a lab.The Senate on March 4 also passed a companion to the bill, House Concurrent Resolution 3024, which urges Congress to take similar actions to differentiate meat from lab-produced, meat-like products. [node:read-more:link]

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