Cash flies out of convertible on motorway
Reporting by Jacob ComenetzBERLIN (Reuters) - A man lost 23,000 euros ($31,180) to the wind when an envelope with the money he had stuck in the passenger seat pocket of his convertible blew away during a test drive in northern Germany.
The cash -- in 500, 200, and 100 euro notes -- fluttered across the motorway in the midst of speeding traffic near the city of Hanover, police said.
The man, 23, contacted police immediately, who then blocked the motorway in both directions for nearly half an hour. Eight police officers assisted the man in retrieving his notes and were able to recover 20,000 euros.
"The remaining 3,000 euros have not been found," a police spokeswoman said, but warned treasure hunters of searching for any bills and keeping them, saying that was illegal.
State set to unveil fast-food menu rules
Editing by Will Dunham
BOSTON (Reuters) - Massachusetts is expected to unveil the toughest restaurant menu labeling rules in the United States on Wednesday, requiring fast-food chains to list how many calories are in the food they sell in a bid to combat obesity.
The state's Public Health Council is expected to vote on Wednesday on regulations making fast-food chains list the calorie counts of their food on their menus or menu boards.
The regulations are expected to be more comprehensive than those in California, which in September became the first U.S. state with menu labeling rules for fast-food restaurant chains such as McDonald's Corp and Yum Brands' KFC.
The action comes at a time of rising obesity in the state and in the United States, and the regulations are intended to allow people to make better-informed decisions about the food they eat.
More than half of the adults in Massachusetts are overweight or obese, according to a 2008 state report that also showed adult obesity more than doubling in 20 years. About 33 percent of Americans are overweight, while more than 34 percent are obese, according to U.S. government figures.
A restaurant calorie information rule took effect in New York City last year, and more than a dozen states are considering similar provisions.
Unlike California, the Massachusetts regulations will cover items at restaurant drive-through windows, where about 65 percent of fast food is purchased, said Judy Grant of the healthy food advocacy group ValueTheMeal.org, citing the most recent draft of the rules.
Massachusetts also will not override regulations in municipalities that impose even stricter labeling rules at fast-food restaurants, she added. In California, for example, menu labeling rules passed in San Francisco, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties were nullified by the state law.
The rising obesity rate is "obviously important when you have a state that has created such success around healthcare reform," Massachusetts Department of Public Health spokesman Tom Lyons said.
In 2006, Massachusetts passed a law that requires virtually everyone to have health insurance or face tax penalties. For those earning less than the federal poverty level of $9,800 a year, coverage is free.
Some restaurant companies have objected to additional government regulations. In New York City, for example, some have fought the menu labeling rules with lawsuits.
Some chains instead support proposed legislation in the U.S. Congress known as the "Lean Act" that would require restaurants and grocery stores that serve prepared food to post calories on menus, menu boards or other similar ways.
Critics of that legislation say it would merely tuck calorie information at the back of menus or in a separate brochure. They say consumers need to know the nutritional value of meals because more people than ever are dining out.
"There was some sense that we should model it on the very large restaurant markets of California and New York City," Lyons said. "Many of the companies we will cover as part of the regulation will have already had to comply in those markets."
Court fines man for beheading wax Hitler
Reporting by Kerstin Rebien
BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court fined an unemployed man 900 euros ($1,227) Tuesday for knocking the head off a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin museum.
Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened in the German capital in July, the 42-year-old pushed past security staff ripped off its head. The man, an ex-policeman, said he found it inappropriate to display an exhibit showing the Nazi leader only some 500 meters from Berlin's Holocaust memorial.
The waxwork of a glum-looking Hitler in a mock bunker stirred debate in Germany even before it went on display. Critics argued it was tasteless to display a replica of the man who unleashed World War Two and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews.
Madame Tussauds said the museum avoided politics, arguing Hitler stood for a significant part of German history and his waxwork therefore had a legitimate part in the exhibition.
The restored figure was returned to the museum in September and is now displayed behind a glass wall.
About 25 workers spent about four months on the original waxwork, using more than 2,000 pictures and pieces of archive material and also guided by a model of the "Fuehrer" in the London branch of Madame Tussauds.
The wax figure has been cited as the latest in a gradual breaking down of taboos about Hitler in Germany more than 60 years after the end of the war and the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were killed.
The 2004 film "Downfall" provoked controversy as it portrayed the leader in a human light during the last days of his life. In 2007, a satire about Hitler by Swiss-born Jewish director Dani Levy was released in Germany.
It is illegal in Germany to show Nazi symbols and art glorifying Hitler.
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