Lolo, Eni pledge open, frank co- operation in DC - Samoa News

Page 16 samoa news, Thursday, February 28, 2013
First Lady Michelle Obama, left, and television personality Rachel Ray, talk to students from
Northside and Eastside Elementary Schools in Clinton, Miss., during a stop for the “Let’s Move!”
initiative at the schools Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/The Clarion-Ledger, Rick Guy)
The First Lady highlights
‘obesity progress’ in MS
CLINTON, Miss. (AP) — Michelle Obama
on Wednesday congratulated this Southern
state for a more than 13 percent drop in its child
obesity rates, saying its example should inspire
the rest of the country.
It’s the reason she made Mississippi the first
stop on a two-day tour to promote her signature
effort, the anti-childhood obesity campaign she
launched three years ago called “Let’s Move.”
In remarks at an elementary school near
Jackson, the first lady cited new research
showing that childhood obesity rates among elementary
school pupils in the state had declined
by 13.3 percent between 2005 and 2011.
“What’s happening here in Mississippi is
really what ‘Let’s Move’ is all about,” she told
an audience of state officials, school nutrition
professionals and parents. She urged them to
keep on doing what they’ve been doing.
“It’s the story of what you all have achieved
here that we want to tell. It’s the story we
want to be telling in every state all across this
country,” the first lady said.
When she visited Mississippi three years
ago, it had just been declared the most obese
state in the nation, she said. But things have
begun to turn around in just a few short years.
Mrs. Obama attributed the decline in childhood
obesity rates here to efforts by state lawmakers,
the Board of Education and individual
school districts, which she said took such steps
as setting new standards for food and drinks in
school vending machines, serving more fruits,
vegetables and whole grains, and replacing food
fryers with steamers, to which she exclaimed,
“Hallelujah.”
Some churches even declared “no-fry” zones
for their congregations, where only healthy
food and nothing fried was allowed.
“So there’s no reason why this success can’t
happen in cities and states all across the country
— if we’re willing to work for it,” Mrs. Obama
said. “So now is the time for us to truly double
down on these efforts. We know what works.
We’re seeing it right here. We know how to get
results. Now we just need to keep stepping up.”
The first lady said Mississippi, and other
parts of the country that also have seen their
childhood obesity rates come down — including
California and New York City and Philadelphia
— are showing others what works. After all,
she said, “love for our children” is the moti-
vating factor.
Mrs. Obama was joined by Food Network
star and daytime talk-show host Rachael Ray,
who arranged for two school chefs to compete
to prepare lunches that meet newly adopted federal
nutrition guidelines.
“I’m here to say, Mississippi, thank you.
Thank you so much. Congratulations on your
work,” the first lady said. “Thank you for taking
the lead on this issue. Thank you for serving as
an inspiration for states and communities across
the country.”
About one-third of U.S. children are overweight
or obese, putting them at higher risk for
heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure,
among other ailments.
Mrs. Obama launched “Let’s Move” with
the goal of helping to reduce childhood obesity
rates within a generation. In response, a range
of industry groups and others, including food
companies, restaurants, retailers and others,
promised to make their food healthier and make
it easier for kids to get needed exercise.
Among the changes: Wal-Mart is now
putting special labels on some of its storebrand
products to help shoppers quickly spot
healthier items. Millions of schoolchildren are
helping themselves to vegetables from salad
bars that have been donated for their lunchrooms.
Kids’ meals at Olive Garden and Red
Lobster restaurants are automatically served
with a side of fruit or vegetables and a glass
of low-fat milk.
For the cafeteria cook-off, each school chef
was paired with a professional chef and each
team was given 30 minutes to prepare a lunch
for 20 kids that met federal nutrition guidelines.
One team fixed two types of fajitas and a
fruit smoothie, while the other team whipped
up a turkey Sloppy Joe sandwich on a patty
made of quinoa, fruit salad with a sour cream
and honey dressing and broccoli trees.
A panel of 20 students from the school
judged the finished products. Mrs. Obama and
Ray also sampled the lunches and kept saying
how delicious they were.
“If these kids are eating like this every day,”
said Ray, “I’m coming to lunch here,” added
Mrs. Obama.
The competition was held for Ray’s daytime
talk-show, and the results are to be revealed
during the March 11 broadcast.
Tycoon wants
to send couple
on Mars flyby
WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a road trip that could test the
best of marriages: Mars.
A tycoon announced plans Wednesday to send a middle-aged
couple on a privately built spaceship to slingshot around the red
planet and come back home, hopefully with their bodies and
marriage in one piece after 501 days of no-escape togetherness
in a cramped capsule half the size of an RV.
Under the audacious but bare-bones plan, the spacecraft
would blast off less than five years from now and pass within
100 miles of the Martian surface.
The cost was not disclosed, but outsiders put it at more than
$1 billion.
The team of space veterans behind the project hasn’t quite
figured out the technical details of the rocket they will use or the
capsule the husband-and-wife astronauts will live in during the
16-month voyage. But they know it will be an adventure not for
the weak of body or heart.
“This is not going to be an easy mission,” chief technical
officer and potential crew member Taber MacCallum said. “We
called it the Lewis and Clark trip to Mars.”
The trying circumstances include: no showers, limits on toilet
paper and clothing, drinking water made from the crew members’
recycled urine and sweat, and almost no privacy.
But the flight also comes with never-before-seen views of
Mars.
And there’s ample time for zero-gravity sex in space, something
NASA doesn’t like to talk about.
As for why a man and a woman will be selected, “this is very
symbolic and we really need it to represent humanity,” Mac-
Callum said.
He said if it is a man and a woman on such a long, close-quarters
voyage, it makes sense for them to be married so that they
can give each other the emotional support they will probably
need when they look out the window and see Earth get smaller
and more distant: “If that’s not scary, I don’t know what is.”
The private, nonprofit project, called Inspiration Mars, will
get initial money from NASA engineer-turned-multimillionaire
investment consultant Dennis Tito, the first space tourist. The
organizers hope to raise the rest through donations, advertising
and media partnerships.
NASA, which has talked about sending astronauts to orbit
Mars by the mid-2030s, will not be involved in this project.
Instead, its backers intend to use a ship built by other aerospace
companies, employing an austere design that could take people
to Mars for a fraction of what it would cost the space agency to
do with robots, officials said.
Even though some of the hardware hasn’t even been built,
Tito said he is confident everything will come together by 2018
with no test flights.
It will be a stripped-down mission when it comes to automation
and complexity, meaning the couple will have to fix things
on the fly like TV’s MacGyver and do more piloting than on
NASA vehicles, said chief medical officer Jonathan Clark.
(Continued on page 18)
A drawing provided by Inspiration Mars shows an artist’s conception
of a spacecraft envisioned by the private group, which
wants to send a married couple on a mission to fly by the red planet
and zip back home, beginning in 2018. The nonprofit “Inspiration
Mars” will get initial money from multimillionaire Dennis Tito,
the first space tourist. Outsiders put the price tag at more than $1
billion. The mission, announced Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, would
last more than 16 months. (AP Photo/Inspiration Mars)
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