Los Angeles

Environmental lawsuit seeks chocolate warning

An environmental group sued chocolate manufacturers Wednesday, contending chocolate contains potentially hazardous levels of lead and cadmium and should carry warning labels.

The suit, by the nonprofit American Environmental Safety Institute, alleges chocolate products expose consumers especially children to potentially dangerous levels of the metals.

A state investigation last year discounted the lawsuit’s claims, and U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers have found children younger than 6 who eat lots of chocolate take in 6 percent or less of the total daily amount of lead allowable by law.

An attorney for the companies named in the suit including Hershey Foods Corp., Nestle USA Inc., Kraft Foods North America Inc. said the lawsuit was baseless and an attempt to extort a settlement.

The lawsuit seeks in part to force the firms to include warning labels on the products under a requirement of California’s Proposition 65 that individuals be warned before they are exposed to dangerous chemicals.

New York

Police memorial adds names of 9-11 victims

Sixty police officers died in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11. On Wednesday, their engraved names were added to the New York Police Officers Memorial near the State Capitol building in Albany.

Hundreds of police officers, family members and dignitaries crowded the capital complex to listen to “Amazing Grace,” a rifle salute and “Taps,” honoring the slain officers.

Of the 60 police officers killed Sept. 11, 37 were with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; 23 were with the New York Police Department.

The ceremony brought the number of names engraved on the granite slabs to 1,070.

Also added was the name of Utica Police Sgt. Michael Brophy, who died in December 1918 after being pinned between two street trolleys.

England

Scientists map bacterium genome

British scientists have completed a genetic map of a common soil bacterium, a step that could help scientists develop new antibiotics and other medicines.

Bacteria called Streptomyces are used to make most antibiotics and many other naturally produced compounds, including anti-cancer agents. Scientists, however, do not know precisely how these germs operate.

In the new work, scientists completed the genetic map of Streptomyces coelicolor, a well-studied representative of the bacterial family.

The map, which took five years to complete, provides clues to the bacterium’s mechanism and will help scientists find new antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs, the researchers said.

Details were published in today’s issue of the journal Nature by a research team led by David Hopwood of the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England.