Wall Street retreats, Nasdaq and S&P 500 off 1 percent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks declined on Monday after a disappointing report on factory orders, retreating from gains in the prior session that left the S&P 500 at a five-year high and the Dow above 14,000.

Investors also grew wary on political uncertainty in the euro zone, leading to a sharp rise in Spanish government bond yields.

Chevron and Wal-Mart were among the biggest drags on the Dow after analyst downgrades.

"S&P technicals are at overbought levels, and risk off harbingers, such as Spanish 10-year yields, which are much more difficult for central bankers to tame, have bounced off recent lows," said Peter Cecchini, managing director at New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.

Spanish and Italian bond yields rose, renewing worries about the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis. Spain's prime minister faced calls to resign over a corruption scandal, while a probe of alleged misconduct involving an Italian bank were expected to widen three weeks before a national election.

The benchmark S&P 500 rose on Friday, leaving it roughly 60 points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09, while the Dow's march above 14,000 was the highest for the index since October 2007.

The S&P index <.spx> is up 5.5 percent for the year, with nearly half of the gains coming after U.S. legislators sidestepped temporarily the "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts.

Data from the Commerce Department showed overall factory orders rose 1.8 percent during the month, below economists' expectations. The report said capital goods orders outside of the defense and aircraft industries, edged 0.3 percent lower in December. The category is seen as a gauge of U.S. business investment plans.

Economic data has pointed to a modest U.S. recovery, but the data has not been strong enough to upset investor expectations the Federal Reserve will continue its stimulus policy that has buoyed stocks.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 134.39 points, or 0.96 percent, to 13,875.40. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 15.16 points, or 1.00 percent, to 1,498.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> fell 39.32 points, or 1.24 percent, to 3,139.77.

Chevron Corp dipped 1.1 percent to $115.23 after UBS cut its rating to neutral, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc shed 1.7 percent to $69.26 after JP Morgan lowered its rating on the world's largest retailer and reduced its price target.

Oracle Corp lost 3 percent to $35.09 after the company agreed to buy network gear maker Acme Packet Inc for about $1.9 billion. Acme Packet shares surged 22.2 percent to $29.24.

Shares of household products company Clorox rose 1.8 percent to $80.53 after the company's quarterly profit beat analysts' estimates as a severe flu season boosted sales of disinfecting wipes.

Earnings are due from Anadarko Petroleum Corp and Yum! Brands Inc , owner of fast-food chains, after the closing bell.

According to Thomson Reuters data, of the 256 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings through Monday morning, 68.4 percent have reported earnings above analyst expectations compared with the 62 percent average since 1994 and the 65 percent average over the past four quarters.

S&P 500 fourth-quarter earnings are expected to rise 4.4 percent, according to the data. That estimate is above the 1.9 percent forecast at the start of earnings season, but well below the 9.9 percent fourth-quarter earnings forecast on October 1.

Herbalife Ltd slumped 4.5 percent to $33.46 after The New York Post reported the seller of weight loss products is facing a probe by the Federal Trade Commission.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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IHT Rendezvous: Doctors to Prescribe Self-Help Books, Poetry for Mental Health Ills

LONDON — Doctors in England will soon be prescribing books as well as pills to patients suffering from anxiety and depression.

In a government-endorsed initiative supported by medical associations and librarians, physicians will be sending patients to their local libraries for a range of approved self-help titles targeted at those suffering from mild to moderate mental health problems.

Patients are also being encouraged to turn to what The Bookseller magazine described as “uplifting novels and poetry.”

Extolling the potentially curative powers of literature, the Reading Agency charity quoted research that showed reading reduced stress levels by 67 percent.

The charity, which is a partner in the new Books on Prescription program announced this week, quoted the New England Journal of Medicine as saying reading also cut the risk of dementia by more than a third.

The list of 30 approved self-help titles available on prescription from May includes page-turners like “The Feeling Good Handbook,” “How to Stop Worrying” and “Overcoming Anger and Irritability.”

“There’s growing evidence that shows that self-help reading can help people with certain mental health issues get better,” Miranda McKearney, the Reading Agency’s director said.

The sick often rely on the Internet to search for advice on symptoms and cures that can turn out to be unreliable. Doctors will now be able to write a prescription that gives patients immediate membership to their local library and access to recommended titles.

It is the first so-called bibliotherapy initiative to have received such high-level official backing from health authorities and librarians.

Campaigners for public libraries have applauded the program but worry that not enough is being done to protect the libraries themselves. Last year, 200 libraries were closed and another 300 are reportedly facing closure or being handed over to volunteers this year.

The Reading Agency meanwhile has come up with a core list of Mood-boosting Books designed to promote feeling good.

It includes proven classics such as “The Secret Garden,” by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but also upbeat titles from the likes of Bill Bryson, the best-selling U.S. humorist.

Development of the book prescription idea was paid for by the Arts Council England, which distributes public money to arts projects.

The Reading Agency has applied for funding from the government, which it says spends £14 billion, or $22 billion, a year treating mental health.

So, should sufferers of depression or panic attacks be advised to curl up with a good book? Or is this just a new health fad to find an alternative to costly medication and therapy.

The Reading Project is soliciting suggestions for stress-relieving books at the Twitter hashtag #moodboosting.

If you think there might be something in it, send us your own suggestions for therapeutic reading. And, while you’re at it, let us know any titles that are best avoided when we’re feeling low.

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Innovative Ways the Autism Community Uses iPads

The iPad has proven to be an especially useful communication tool for young people with autism. It provides a way to express themselves through words and images; it can be used to teach them about everyday scenarios and give them more independence. It’s also far less bulky than some communication devices of the past.

Autism Spectrum Disorders are developmental disabilities that affect about one in every 88 children, and one in 54 boys.

[More from Mashable: 10 Essential Tools for the Lean Web Developer]

Jonathan Izak‘s 12-year-old autistic brother inspired him to develop the AutisMate app for iPad. His brother, Oriel, is mostly nonverbal and used to struggle to communicate, sometimes throwing tantrums when he was unable to get his point across, Izak tells Mashable.

At 7 years old, Oriel had to wear a heavy communication device around his neck, which further set him apart from other children at school. Now, Oriel carries an iPad and uses the app his brother developed to communicate and learn new behaviors like how to act in specific social situations.

[More from Mashable: Tablet Shipments Hit Record Levels While Apple’s Market Share Declines]

With AutisMate, parents or caretakers take and upload photos of their child’s bedroom, the kitchen, his or her school to the app. When the app launches, the iPad’s GPS will know where the user is and allows them to tap pictures of their surrounding environment. The child can tap the refrigerator, for instance, to express that he or she is hungry.

Izak says these visual tools for communication don’t become a permanent crutch but rather promote speech and communication.

It’s not uncommon for children with autism to be nonverbal and need the iPad to communicate. AutismSpeaks.org says it’s estimated that 25% of people with autism are completely nonverbal.

Izak explains that, for someone with autism, the unknowns in life can be scary, so to prepare that person for the world, apps like AutisMate show scenes of how to do everyday things like go to a restaurant or the doctor’s office.

Parents, caretakers and doctors know early intervention with autism is a key factor to increasing their child’s likelihood of communicating, which is probably why most autism apps focus on children. iPad apps to help children with autism develop their communication skills are part of a rapidly growing market and have proved to be effective tools. Check out some of the apps we found and others recommended to us. Let us know if you know of any other useful apps for people with autism.

Click here to view the gallery: Autism Apps

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, UrsaHoogle

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Baltimore Ravens & San Francisco 49ers Themed Cocktails for the Super Bowl

By Maggie Coughlan

02/03/2013 at 12:20 PM EST

The Gold Rush and The Camden Yard

It's time to raise a glass to the Super Bowl!

After an exciting football season, two teams have emerged victorious and will face off in the biggest sporting event of the year – Super Bowl XLVII! As the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers hit the field in New Orleans, fans can cheers with an appropriate cocktail.

For Ravens Fans: The Camden Yard

• 1 oz. tangerine vodka
• ½ bottle of Bayour Teche Grenade (raspberry/pomegranate wheat beer)
• .5 oz. Chambord
• Blackberry (for garnish)

Build cocktail in collins glass on ice (in order of ingredients). Garnish with a blackberry.

For 49ers Fans: The Gold Rush

• 1.5 oz. silver tequila
• Splash of fresh grapefruit juice
• Splash of cranberry juice
• 3 dashes of rhubarb bitters

Build in rocks glass on ice (in order of ingredients), stir and serve.

Go team!

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

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"Great Rotation"- A Wall Street fairy tale?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's current jubilant narrative is that a rush into stocks by small investors has sparked a "great rotation" out of bonds and into equities that will power the bull market to new heights.

That sounds good, but there's a snag: The evidence for this is a few weeks of bullish fund flows that are hardly unusual for January.

Late-stage bull markets are typically marked by an influx of small investors coming late to the party - such as when your waiter starts giving you stock tips. For that to happen you need a good story. The "great rotation," with its monumental tone, is the perfect narrative to make you feel like you're missing out.

Even if something approaching a "great rotation" has begun, it is not necessarily bullish for markets. Those who think they are coming early to the party may actually be arriving late.

Investors pumped $20.7 billion into stocks in the first four weeks of the year, the strongest four-week run since April 2000, according to Lipper. But that pales in comparison with the $410 billion yanked from those funds since the start of 2008.

"I'm not sure you want to take a couple of weeks and extrapolate it into whatever trend you want," said Tobias Levkovich, chief U.S. equity strategist at Citigroup. "We have had instances where equity flows have picked up in the last two, three, four years when markets have picked up. They've generally not been signals of a continuation of that trend."

The S&P 500 rose 5 percent in January, its best month since October 2011 and its best January since 1997, driving speculation that retail investors were flooding back into the stock market.

Heading into another busy week of earnings, the equity market is knocking on the door of all-time highs due to positive sentiment in stocks, and that can't be ignored entirely. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> ended the week about 4 percent from an all-time high touched in October 2007.

Next week will bring results from insurers Allstate and The Hartford , as well as from Walt Disney , Coca-Cola Enterprises and Visa .

But a comparison of flows in January, a seasonal strong month for the stock market, shows that this January, while strong, is not that unusual. In January 2011 investors moved $23.9 billion into stock funds and $28.6 billion in 2006, but neither foreshadowed massive inflows the rest of that year. Furthermore, in 2006 the market gained more than 13 percent while in 2011 it was flat.

Strong inflows in January can happen for a number of reasons. There were a lot of special dividends issued in December that need reinvesting, and some of the funds raised in December tax-selling also find their way back into the market.

During the height of the tech bubble in 2000, when retail investors were really embracing stocks, a staggering $42.7 billion flowed into equities in January of that year, double the amount that flowed in this January. That didn't end well, as stocks peaked in March of that year before dropping over the next two-plus years.

MOM AND POP STILL WARY

Arguing against a 'great rotation' is not necessarily a bearish argument against stocks. The stock market has done well since the crisis. Despite the huge outflows, the S&P 500 has risen more than 120 percent since March 2009 on a slowly improving economy and corporate earnings.

This earnings season, a majority of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings forecast. That's also the case for revenue, which is a departure from the previous two reporting periods where less than 50 percent of companies beat revenue expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Meanwhile, those on the front lines say mom and pop investors are still wary of equities after the financial crisis.

"A lot of people I talk to are very reluctant to make an emotional commitment to the stock market and regardless of income activity in January, I think that's still the case," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Columbia Management Advisors in Boston, where he helps oversee $571 billion.

Joy, speaking from a conference in Phoenix, says most of the people asking him about the "great rotation" are fund management industry insiders who are interested in the extra business a flood of stock investors would bring.

He also pointed out that flows into bond funds were positive in the month of January, hardly an indication of a rotation.

Citi's Levkovich also argues that bond investors are unlikely to give up a 30-year rally in bonds so quickly. He said stocks only began to see consistent outflows 26 months after the tech bubble burst in March 2000. By that reading it could be another year before a serious rotation begins.

On top of that, substantial flows continue to make their way into bonds, even if it isn't low-yielding government debt. January 2013 was the second best January on record for the issuance of U.S. high-grade debt, with $111.725 billion issued during the month, according to International Finance Review.

Bill Gross, who runs the $285 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, the world's largest bond fund, commented on Twitter on Thursday that "January flows at Pimco show few signs of bond/stock rotation," adding that cash and money markets may be the source of inflows into stocks.

Indeed, the evidence suggests some of the money that went into stock funds in January came from money markets after a period in December when investors, worried about the budget uncertainty in Washington, started parking money in late 2012.

Data from iMoneyNet shows investors placed $123 billion in money market funds in the last two months of the year. In two weeks in January investors withdrew $31.45 billion of that, the most since March 2012. But later in the month money actually started flowing back.

(Additional reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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The Lede Blog: New Photographs Stir Doubts About Bashar's Baby and Iran's Space Monkey

Last Updated, Saturday, 12:37 p.m. Bad news, readers: new images appear to cast doubt on the accuracy of two of the week’s most widely-reported stories — the rumored pregnancy of Syria’s first lady, and the pioneering space flight of an Iranian monkey.

As the Washington Post correspondent Liz Sly reported, President Bashar al-Assad’s office posted five new photographs of his wife, Asma, on Facebook, as part of an effort to disprove a curious aside in a Lebanese newspaper report that she is pregnant. In each of the photographs, said to have been taken last week in Damascus, a very slender Mrs. Assad was pictured congratulating the winners of this year’s Syrian Science Olympiad.

As my colleague Rick Gladstone explained, “rumors that Mrs. Assad had conceived in June,” were first reported in November by Al Bawaba, an Amman-based news Web site. Since the British-born first lady has been out of public view for most of the past year, as her husband’s government struggled to regain control of the country, the rumors about her spread despite an absence of visual confirmation.

The photographs were released a day after Mr. Assad’s office issued an indignant statement taking exception to a Washington Post blogger’s reading of the Lebanese newspaper’s story. The statement said the blogger, Max Fisher, “based his analysis on false allegations that led him to wrong results which are far from reality.”

Since Syria’s Science Olympiad takes place every year, the president’s office could have recycled images of the first lady that were taken a year or more earlier, but that would require the cooperation of all of the students pictured with her in the photographs. At least one of the students pictured with Mrs. Assad in the new photographs, a girl with curly hair wearing brightly-patterned sneakers, does appear in another image of the winners posted on the Olympiad’s Facebook page.

While this set of images appears to back the official story coming out of Damascus, recently released photographs and video of the monkey that Iran says it sent into space seem to undermine Tehran’s claims.

Video broadcast on Iranian television this week showed what officials said were images of a monkey before and after a space flight.

As journalists at the German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle pointed out on its Persian language site on Thursday, the first reports on the space mission published in Iran’s state-run media showed an anxious-looking monkey prepared for blast-off with a prominent mole above his right eye.

When Iran got around to releasing photographs and video of the monkey’s capsule being retrieved post-flight, there was no trace of a mole on his brow in the close-ups of him waiving to reporters or smiling for the cameras at a subsequent public appearance.

That led to speculation that Iran might have attempted to cover up a failed space mission by displaying a different monkey than the one that actually made a 150-mile round trip into the thermosphere and back. Or that the newly famous monkey had fallen prey to the Iranian penchant for cosmetic surgery.

DW: Iranian Astro Monkey went to space with a mole on his face, came back without it. Plastic surgery? #iran http://t.co/iN4jxecP

— negin shiraghaei (@neginsh) 31 Jan 13

The missing mole is not exactly hard evidence that Iranians had a spare monkey waiting in the wings to pretend he’d just got back from space, but Iran does have a track record of fictionalizing its achievements in the field of rocket-science. Last July, however, the Iranian Students’ News Agency — which released photographs of the monkey with and without the mole this week — did report that the space agency in Tehran had five monkeys in training for the mission.

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Apple TV Is Running Late

So, Apple‘s big plan to talk cable companies into making the iPod of the television industry thus far involves getting Time Warner to let it put HBO Go on its box (if you buy a cable subscription!), something other similar boxes already do. How very unexciting. It’s surprising that Apple TV doesn’t already offer HBO Go, since its biggest competitors Roku and Xbox 360 have had it for over a year. And it’s not like Apple has spent that time coming up with some innovative arrangement that would that would excite the cord-cutter (and cord-never) set. No, per Bloomberg’s   Edmund Lee and Adam Satariano, by mid-2013, Apple TV owners who also subscribe to cable or satellite TV can watch the premium channel through their TVs via Apple’s box. Yes, if you have an Apple TV, you can watch HBO either on it or through your cable box. The choice is yours!

RELATED: Apple Won’t Be Revolutionizing TV Anytime Soon if Cable Has Their Say

HBO Go is a modest improvement over the HBO On Demand offerings because it offers HBO’s entire library of shows, not just a select few. HBO also puts brand new episodes up right after they air, which is nice for people who forget to set or have a too-full DVR. But, cable subscribers already have access to HBO Go—on their computers. The improvement here is that existing subscribers now have another way to get those shows onto their TV screens.

RELATED: HBO Is Finally OK with Cord Cutting (In Scandinavia)

This too-late move to get Time Warner on its box surfaces a larger problem: Apple TV has very few apps so far, as AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka points out. HBO Go will bring its total outside app count up to 10, a ton fewer than Xbox and Roku. And yet, many have talked about Apple TV as the gadget that will change everything. Perhaps techies overlooked the deficit because the company has been in secret talks with cable companies to supposedly revolutionize TV for years. It’s coming, the Apple rumors promised, fending off any doubts that Apple would deliver something great. But, nothing exceptional has arrived yet, certainly nothing that sounds like the Apple TV code Steve Jobs claimed to have cracked shortly before his death. Rather, this sounds like something Apple should have done years ago. Apple, if anything, is playing catch-up. 

RELATED: Apple Might Be Making Apple TV Content Deals

But maybe Apple isn’t the place to look for the future of television. Elsewhere in TV land, something new, different, and possibly revolutionary is happening. Netflix, an entity that does not require a cable subscription, will release its first big-budget TV drama today. Unlike Apple, Netflix is trying to operate outside of the traditional cable-bundle structure in order to create an alternative for people who don’t want to pay into the old system. Instead of playing by HBO’s rules and selling its shows on its strict terms, Netflix wants to be the HBO of streaming TV, by creating premium shows that will draw people to Netflix for a premium price. Also in an attempt to do things differently, Netflix has released all the episodes at once, to appeal to our binge watching sensibilities. The experiment might not work. But at least, unlike Apple, Netflix is trying. 

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Christina Ricci Is Engaged to James Heerdegen

02/02/2013 at 12:05 PM EST

Christina Ricci

Noel Vasquez/Getty. Inset:Splash News Online

Christina Ricci's happy secret has been confirmed – she's engaged!

The actress, 32, who has been wearing ring finger bling since October, is headed to the altar with James Heerdegen.

Heerdegen, is a camera technician and met Ricci when the two were working on ABC's former TV series Pan-Am. Their relationship was first public last February.

Ricci most recently stepped out (and showed off her ring!) Friday to join luxury beauty brand, Make Up For Ever, in Los Angeles to introduce a limited edition bag she helped to design.

– Julie Jordan

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New rules aim to get rid of junk foods in schools

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most candy, high-calorie drinks and greasy meals could soon be on a food blacklist in the nation's schools.

For the first time, the government is proposing broad new standards to make sure all foods sold in schools are more healthful.

Under the new rules the Agriculture Department proposed Friday, foods like fatty chips, snack cakes, nachos and mozzarella sticks would be taken out of lunch lines and vending machines. In their place would be foods like baked chips, trail mix, diet sodas, lower-calorie sports drinks and low-fat hamburgers.

The rules, required under a child nutrition law passed by Congress in 2010, are part of the government's effort to combat childhood obesity. While many schools already have improved their lunch menus and vending machine choices, others still are selling high-fat, high-calorie foods.

Under the proposal, the Agriculture Department would set fat, calorie, sugar and sodium limits on almost all foods sold in schools. Current standards already regulate the nutritional content of school breakfasts and lunches that are subsidized by the federal government, but most lunchrooms also have "a la carte" lines that sell other foods. Food sold through vending machines and in other ways outside the lunchroom has never before been federally regulated.

"Parents and teachers work hard to instill healthy eating habits in our kids, and these efforts should be supported when kids walk through the schoolhouse door," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said.

Most snacks sold in school would have to have less than 200 calories. Elementary and middle schools could sell only water, low-fat milk or 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice. High schools could sell some sports drinks, diet sodas and iced teas, but the calories would be limited. Drinks would be limited to 12-ounce portions in middle schools and to 8-ounce portions in elementary schools.

The standards will cover vending machines, the "a la carte" lunch lines, snack bars and any other foods regularly sold around school. They would not apply to in-school fundraisers or bake sales, though states have the power to regulate them. The new guidelines also would not apply to after-school concessions at school games or theater events, goodies brought from home for classroom celebrations, or anything students bring for their own personal consumption.

The new rules are the latest in a long list of changes designed to make foods served in schools more healthful and accessible. Nutritional guidelines for the subsidized lunches were revised last year and put in place last fall. The 2010 child nutrition law also provided more money for schools to serve free and reduced-cost lunches and required more meals to be served to hungry kids.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has been working for two decades to take junk foods out of schools. He calls the availability of unhealthful foods around campus a "loophole" that undermines the taxpayer money that helps pay for the healthier subsidized lunches.

"USDA's proposed nutrition standards are a critical step in closing that loophole and in ensuring that our schools are places that nurture not just the minds of American children but their bodies as well," Harkin said.

Last year's rules faced criticism from some conservatives, including some Republicans in Congress, who said the government shouldn't be telling kids what to eat. Mindful of that backlash, the Agriculture Department exempted in-school fundraisers from federal regulation and proposed different options for some parts of the rule, including the calorie limits for drinks in high schools, which would be limited to either 60 calories or 75 calories in a 12-ounce portion.

The department also has shown a willingness to work with schools to resolve complaints that some new requirements are hard to meet. Last year, for example, the government relaxed some limits on meats and grains in subsidized lunches after school nutritionists said they weren't working.

Schools, the food industry, interest groups and other critics or supporters of the new proposal will have 60 days to comment and suggest changes. A final rule could be in place as soon as the 2014 school year.

Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said surveys by her organization show that most parents want changes in the lunchroom.

"Parents aren't going to have to worry that kids are using their lunch money to buy candy bars and a Gatorade instead of a healthy school lunch," she said.

The food industry has been onboard with many of the changes, and several companies worked with Congress on the child nutrition law two years ago. Major beverage companies have already agreed to take the most caloric sodas out of schools. But those same companies, including Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, also sell many of the non-soda options, like sports drinks, and have lobbied to keep them in vending machines.

A spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, which represents the soda companies, says they already have greatly reduced the number of calories that kids are consuming at school by pulling out the high-calorie sodas.

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

Read More..