U.S. Seeks New Limits on Food Ads for Children

The federal government proposed sweeping new guidelines on Thursday that could push the food industry to overhaul how it advertises cereal, soda pop, snacks, restaurant meals and other foods to children.

Citing an epidemic of childhood obesity, regulators are taking aim at a range of tactics used to market foods high in sugar, fat or salt to children, including the use of cartoon characters like Toucan Sam, the brightly colored Froot Loops pitchman, who appears in television commercials and online games as well as on cereal boxes.

Regulators are asking food makers and restaurant companies to make a choice: make your products healthier or stop advertising them to youngsters.

“Toucan Sam can sell healthy food or junk food,” said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of Arizona who studies the marketing of children’s food. “This forces Toucan Sam to be associated with healthier products.”

The guidelines, released by the Federal Trade Commission, encompass a broad range of marketing efforts, including television and print ads, Web sites, online games that act as camouflaged advertisements, social media, product placements in movies, the use of movie characters in cross-promotions and fast-food children’s meals. The inclusion of digital media, such as product-based games, represents one of the government’s strongest efforts so far to address the extension of children’s advertising into the online world, which children’s health advocates say is a growing problem.

The guidelines are meant to be voluntary, but companies are likely to face heavy pressure to adopt them. Companies that choose to take part would have five to 10 years to bring their products and marketing into compliance.

“There’s clearly a demand hidden behind the velvet glove of the voluntary language,” said Dan Jaffe, an executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group that represents marketers like Kraft Foods and Campbell Soup.

By explicitly tying advertising to childhood obesity, the government is suggesting there is a darker side to cuddly figures like Cap’n Crunch, the Keebler elves, Ronald McDonald and the movie and television characters used to promote food. It also raises the question of whether they might ultimately share the fate of Joe Camel, the cartoon figure used to promote Camel cigarettes that was phased out amid allegations that it was meant to entice children to smoke.

“Our proposal really covers all forms of marketing to kids, and the product packaging and the images and themes on the cereal boxes have tremendous appeal to kids,” said Michelle K. Rusk, a lawyer with the trade commission. “The goal is to encourage children to eat more healthy foods because obesity is a huge health crisis.”

The F.T.C. said that in 2006, food companies spent nearly $2.3 billion to advertise to children.

The food industry immediately criticized the proposal, saying that it had already taken significant steps to improve recipes and change the way it advertises to children.

Kellogg, the company that makes Froot Loops, said in a statement that it would review the proposal and that it was committed to improving “the nutrition credentials” of its products. “We have very specific criteria, based on a broad review of scientific reports, that determine how and what products we market to children,” the company said. The company has already reduced sugar and added whole grains in many cereals.

Scott Faber, a vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a group that represents food makers, said that ads for packaged foods on television shows aimed at children 2 to 11 had dropped significantly since 2004, and that the ads more often showed healthier types of foods. He said companies had also changed many recipes to reduce salt, sugar and fat and add healthful ingredients like whole grains. “The rate of reformulation is going to increase, not as a result of the principles that were announced today but because consumers are demanding changes in the marketplace,” Mr. Faber said.

Many food companies participate in an industry-led effort, the Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, to restrict some marketing activities. But each company that takes part is allowed to set its own nutritional criteria, which critics say undermine the program’s effectiveness.

Regulators said it was important for the entire industry to adhere to a uniform set of standards.

The guidelines were created at the request of Congress and written by the commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Agriculture Department and the Centers for Disease Control. Regulators said they would take comments and consider changes before submitting a final report to Congress.

The guidelines call for foods that are advertised to children to meet two basic requirements. They would have to include certain healthful ingredients, like whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, or low-fat milk. And they could not contain unhealthful amounts of sugar, saturated fat, trans fat and salt.

The sugar requirement would limit cereals to eight grams of added sugar a serving, far less than many popular cereals have today. Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch, for example, contain 12 grams of sugar a serving.

The salt restrictions are particularly stringent, and many packaged foods on the shelves today would have a hard time meeting them. In an initial phase-in period, the guidelines call for many foods to have no more than 210 milligrams of sodium a serving, while main dishes and meals, including both restaurant food and packaged food, could have no more than 450 milligrams. Today, a 15-ounce can of Chef Boyardee beef ravioli has two servings, with 750 milligrams of sodium per serving. The sodium restrictions would get tougher over time.

The federal agencies acknowledged that a “large percentage of food products currently in the marketplace would not meet the principles.”

The guidelines would apply to both young children and teenagers. The industry has said it should have greater leeway for teenagers, and Ms. Rusk said the agencies would consider those arguments.

Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, predicted that the guidelines would force many companies to accept great restrictions and improve recipes.

“With all the concern about childhood obesity, I think there’s a lot of pressure on companies to do the right thing and follow these standards,” she said.

Jeffrey Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a group that focuses on Internet marketing to children, said the F.T.C. proposal had broader implications. “The youth obesity issue has placed all digital marketing in the regulatory cross hairs,” Mr. Chester said.

Matt Richtel contributed reporting.

 

Public Pensions, Once Off Limits, Face Budget Cuts

Conventional wisdom and the laws and constitutions of many states have long held that the pensions being earned by current government workers are untouchable. But as the fiscal crisis has lingered, officials in strapped states from California to Illinois have begun to take a second look, to see whether there might be loopholes allowing them to cut the pension benefits of current employees. Now the move in Detroit — made possible, lawyers said, because Michigan’s constitutional protections are weaker — could spur other places to try to follow suit.

“These things do tend to be herd-oriented,” said Sylvester J. Schieber, an economist and consultant who studies pensions.

The mayors of some hard-hit cities have said that the high costs of pensions have forced them to lay off workers: Oakland, Calif., laid off one-tenth of its police force last year after failing to win concessions on pension costs.

Elsewhere there is pension envy: some private sector workers, who have learned the hard way that their companies can freeze or reduce their pensions, resent that the pensions of public workers enjoy stronger legal protections. But government workers, many of whom were recruited with the promise of good benefits and pensions, say that it would be unfair — and in many cases, very likely illegal — to change the rules in the middle of the game.

It has been far more common for cities and states to adopt more modest retirement plans for future workers. But the savings from new plans are initially small, growing only over time. Other states have gone further, requiring workers to work more years before retiring, or to contribute a higher portion of their salaries toward their pensions. A few states have rolled back cost-of-living increases for retirees, prompting lawsuits. Reducing the rate at which government workers earn pension benefits — even modestly, as Detroit did — has been rare.

Pension funds can run out of money. In Prichard, Ala., a small city outside of Mobile, the fund ran out in 2009. The city stopped sending pension checks to its 150 retired workers, defying a state law that requires it to pay what it has promised. In the 19 months since the checks stopped, 18 retirees have died while waiting for their money.

When Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a Republican, moved to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public worker unions in the state, he exempted police and fire unions. But they often have among the most expensive pension benefits.

That is, in part, because they must be paid for more years. Because police work and firefighting are dangerous, physically demanding jobs, it is not uncommon for cities to promise workers full pensions after as little as 20 years of service, even if that means paying retirees from their 40s until they die. Such pensions are powerful recruiting tools.

When the mayor of Jacksonville, Fla., addressed a recent conference there for the trustees of police and fire pension funds, he said that he would not attend the “Guns ’n’ Hoses” boxing tournament on the last night. The mayor, John Peyton, had spent the past year in rancorous, fruitless negotiations trying to get his local unions to agree that future police officers and firefighters should have to work 25 years before getting full pensions, instead of 20, among other things.

“I fear that if I showed up, I’d be put in the ring and I’d come out unrecognizable,” he said, joking.

In Omaha, the police union recently agreed to reduce the benefits being earned by current officers after the city agreed to put more money into the teetering pension fund.

The struggles of Detroit, of course, are extreme. The report by the arbitrator, Thomas W. Brookover, noted that although the city’s unemployment rate was officially 28 percent, there was evidence that less than 37 percent of the city’s residents were actually working. The population had crashed. Property tax revenues were dwindling. Detroit had drained its rainy day fund, reduced overtime, offered property-tax amnesty, sold public assets, borrowed money, allowed casinos to set up shop — and still its deficits kept growing.

The average pension for retired police officers in Detroit is not especially rich: it is $28,501 a year. But with more than twice as many retirees as active workers, Mr. Brookover wrote, the costs of paying for the pensions “threaten both the city’s fiscal viability, as well as its wherewithal to provide public safety for its citizens.”

Detroit’s efforts to cover those costs through aggressive investing have not helped. In a 2010 report, an auditor warned that $103 million of alternative investments were unaccounted for. The city’s bets have included Tradewinds Airlines, which went bankrupt for the third time in 2008, and a luxury hotel in Detroit. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating.

The city initially sought to freeze its pension fund immediately, which is almost unheard of in the public sector. The arbitrator rejected that proposal, but agreed that the city could reduce the rate at which lieutenants and sergeants earn pension benefits from 2.5 percent of their salary per year to 2.1 percent. Although rare, the reduction is not particularly large, given the magnitude of Detroit’s problems. The arbitrator did not try to?find a solution?to?the fund’s imbalance.?

Michigan’s new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, has taken a carrot-and-stick approach to the state’s troubled cities. The carrot: He scrapped the old way of distributing state aid, and wants to make aid contingent on having cities adopt “best practices,” which he says should include reducing the rate at which workers earn pension benefits. The stick: A new law allowing the state to appoint fiscal managers with broad powers over distressed local governments.

Mayor Dave Bing of Detroit referred to both carrot and stick in his budget address this month, when he spoke of the need to reduce pensions for current workers, and to move away from traditional pension plans to those more like 401(k)’s for “at a minimum all new hires.”

“If we are unable or unwilling to make these changes, an emergency financial manager will be appointed by the state to make them for us,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

 

Trial in China Tests Limits of Legal System Reform

BEIJING — In a case that has galvanized lawyers across China and provided a window into how the next generation of leaders may view the country’s fragile legal system, a defense lawyer went on trial Tuesday charged with fabricating testimony in favor of his client.

The lawyer, Li Zhuang, a 50-year-old from Beijing, has been accused of inciting a client to fake testimony. Mr. Li was previously convicted on similar charges after one of his clients, a convicted gangster from the western city of Chongqing, testified against him late last year. Mr. Li is currently serving 18 months in prison.

Yet few Chinese commentators seem to believe that Mr. Li is guilty in either case. Many think he was framed for fighting what they see as a crude campaign against corruption.

“The Li Zhuang case is so important because it is an indicator of how far China has come on its legal reform,” said a Peking University law professor, He Weifang, who has also posted a sharp criticism of the case on his blog. “It sets China’s legal reform back 30 years.”

The unusual case began in 2007, when one of the country’s best-known politicians, Bo Xilai, took charge of Chongqing, a sprawling municipality of 30 million people in western China. The appointment was seen as a challenge for Mr. Bo, the son of one of China’s most powerful leaders. It also was widely seen as a sign that Mr. Bo was angling for a top job himself.

He had been minister of commerce, so it was a notable move because Chongqing was poor and suffered from some of the worst environmental problems in China and a plague of organized crime.

But Mr. Bo embarked on a series of spectacular actions to stay in the national limelight. Using methods reminiscent of political campaigns in the early era of Communist rule, he mobilized neighborhood cleanups and sent out greetings to local residents with old-style Communist slogans, although via text messages. Mostly, he began a ferocious crackdown on organized crime.

Caught up in the campaign was Gong Gangmo, whose family had hired Mr. Li in late 2009 to defend him. Mr. Li, a successful lawyer who had previously defended those accused of organized crime, traveled to Chongqing and met with Mr. Gong. A few days later, Mr. Gong told prosecutors that Mr. Li advised him to falsely testify that he had been beaten for eight days and nights.

Within a month, Mr. Li had been tried and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. This was reduced to one and a half years because Mr. Li was said to have cooperated. At the sentencing, however, Chinese news reports said that Mr. Li angrily called out that he had been framed.

On Tuesday, Mr. Li went back on trial. Prosecutors say that he was involved in fraud and that he enticed a witness to fabricate evidence.

Many Chinese say they are appalled at what appears to be a crude use of the courts for political gain. In both trials, Chinese court procedure has been ignored. Mr. Li has not, for example, been able to face his accusers, and his lawyers could not cross-examine them.

Newspapers and magazines have reported widely on this case, with, for example, one of the country’s leading magazines, Caixin, devoting a cover story to it and an editorial in the current issue. Several Web sites had minute-by-minute coverage. Many say that if Mr. Li is convicted, it will be impossible for other lawyers to defend their clients. “Defending Li Zhuang is defending the right to work as a lawyer in China and the ideal of justice,” Wei Rujiu, one of his lawyers, wrote on his blog on Tuesday.

The publicity is in striking contrast to the many lawyers who have been quietly rounded up in a recent political crackdown. One explanation, analysts say, is that Mr. Li is not a political dissident, making it acceptable for the Chinese media to report on the issue.

But it may also signal that forces are opposing Mr. Bo’s efforts to use Chongqing as a springboard back to Beijing, and possibly the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

“Bo is not uncontroversial in the party,” said Joshua Rosenzweig of the Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights monitoring group, in Hong Kong. “It feeds into concern over how Bo has handled criminal justice in Chongqing.”

That could have broader ramifications for China because Mr. Bo, should he win a seat on the Standing Committee, is also expected to be put in charge of law and order. That could make Mr. Li’s treatment a harbinger for the next government’s view of the legal system.

 

Spotify announces new limits for free service, hopes you'll consider its premium options

 By Donald Melanson posted Apr 14th 2011 3:11PM No, it's still not saying anything about the eventual US launch, but Spotify is now causing a minor ruckus across the pond, where it's just announced some changes to the free version of the music streaming service. The timeline for the changes varies depending on when you signed up, but the short of it is that users will have six months of access to the free service as it is now, after which they'll face some stricter limits on how much they can listen to. That includes a total of just ten hours of listening time each month, and the ability to listen to individual songs no more than five times. Of course, the obvious goal there is to get more folks to sign up for its Premium or Unlimited services, which the company notes remain unchanged.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]