WASHINGTON — The United States does not produce or import anywhere near enough fruits and vegetables to provide Americans the right kind of diet to prevent cancer, government researchers said on Wednesday.

And Americans also overestimate how much they exercise, another barrier to fighting two of the biggest known cancer risks, researchers at the National Cancer Institute said.

‘If everyone wanted to eat healthily, there would not be enough,’ Susan Krebs-Smith of the cancer institute told reporters.

Many studies have shown that people who keep a healthy weight, exercise regularly and eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables have a lower risk not only of cancer, but heart disease, diabetes and even Alzheimer’s.

The administration of President Barack Obama is looking at ways to help Americans eat a healthier diet and exercise more to reduce obesity.

Krebs-Smith and colleagues knew Americans do not come even close to meeting those goals. They checked to see if the U.S. food supply could provide the recommended five servings a day of fresh fruit and vegetables to every American.

It cannot, Krebs-Smith told reporters.

‘The fruit in the food supply is about half what it needs to be, but we have plenty of calories from fat and added sugars,’ she said.

The […]

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OAKLAND, Calif. — As organized labor faces declining membership, one of the country’s most storied unions is looking to a new growth industry: marijuana.

The Teamsters added nearly 40 new members earlier this month by organizing the country’s first group of unionized marijuana growers. Such an arrangement is likely only possible in California, which has the nation’s loosest medical marijuana laws.

But it’s still unclear how the Teamsters will safeguard the rights of members who do work that’s considered a federal crime.

‘I didn’t have this planned out when I became a Teamster 34 years ago, to organize marijuana workers,’ said Lou Marchetti, who acted as a liaison between the growers and Oakland-based Teamsters Local 70. ‘This is a whole new ballgame.’

The new members work as gardeners, trimmers and cloners for Marjyn Investments LLC, an Oakland business that contracts with medical marijuana patients to grow their pot for them.

Their newly negotiated two-year contract provides them with a pension, paid vacation and health insurance. Their current wages of $18 per hour will increase to $25.75 an hour within 15 months, according to the union.

Historically, the Teamsters are no strangers to entanglements with federal law enforcement, from the infiltration of the union by organized […]

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Charles Seife is steaming mad about all the ways that numbers are being twisted to erode our democracy. We’re used to being lied to with words (‘I am not a crook

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BEIJING — China has suspended senior bilateral contact with Japan over the detention of a Chinese captain accused of ramming his boat against Japanese patrol vessels in disputed waters, state media said Sunday.

‘China has already suspended bilateral exchanges at and above the provincial or ministerial levels,’ the official Xinhua news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying, without giving more details on the nature of the exchanges.

China has also halted contact with Japan on the issues of increasing civil flights and expanding aviation rights between the two countries, the report said, adding a bilateral meeting on coal had also been postponed.

The stringent measures come after a Japanese court authorised prosecutors to extend by 10 days the detention of Zhan Qixiong, arrested earlier this month after the collision with two Japanese coastguard vessels in the East China Sea.

The incident took place near the disputed Diaoyu islands — called Senkaku in Japan and also claimed by Taiwan — which lie in an area with rich fishing grounds that is also believed to contain oil and gas deposits.

It has sparked the worst diplomatic row in years between Beijing and Tokyo, with China already summoning Japan’s ambassador five times and scrapping scheduled talks over […]

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TIANJIN, CHINA — What a contrast. In a year that’s on track to be our planet’s hottest on record, America turned ‘climate change

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