A child eating fries from a McDonald's Happy Meal at Navy Pier, July 7, 2010. (William DeShazer/Chicago Tribune)
A New York City councilman is planning to introduce legislation to ban McDonald’s fast food meals unless they meet certain nutritional standards.
Councilman Leroy Comrie of Queens plans to announce the legislation at a press event at 11 a.m. CST, according to his chief of staff. The proposed bill would make it illegal to distribute toys, games, trading cards or admission tickets along with any meal for children unless they have less than 500 calories, 600 mg of sodium and 35 percent of calories from fat, excluding nuts, seeds and nut butters. Get the full story »
Foreign banks, regional U.S. banks, and banks fighting for their last chance at survival counted among the heaviest users of the Federal Reserve’s emergency discount lending window during the heat of the 2008 financial crisis. Get the full story »
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has turned down an offer by American International Group to repurchase dodgy mortgage bonds that the Fed had taken off the insurance company’s hands during the financial crisis. Get the full story »
U.S. securities regulators proposed rules Wednesday that would require publicly listed companies to have independent compensation committees and make key disclosures about their use of compensation consultants. Get the full story »
The Federal Reserve plans to release documents on Thursday identifying financial companies that received Fed loans to survive the financial crisis. Get the full story »
A coalition fighting state legislation that would set utility rates by formula will hold a rally at 1 p.m. Monday at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side. Get the full story »
If a nuclear reactor were to melt down in Illinois, the state has enough potassium iodide on hand to distribute to residents living within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant, the Illinois Emergency Management Agency said Friday.
A top official with the agency had said earlier at a public forum hosted by U.S. Senators Mark Kirk and Dick Durbin that there weren’t enough tablets on hand.
An IEMA spokeswoman clarified Friday, saying that the agency has 90,000 tablets on hand for first responders and 175,000 tablets on-hand to distribute to the public. She said about 180,000 people total live within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor in Illinois. Joseph Klinger, the assistant director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency misspoke when he said 180,000 people on average live within 10 miles of each nuclear plant in Illinois. Get the full story »
The Federal Reserve should complete its current round of bond-buying, designed to support the recovery, and likely does not need to extend it, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said on Friday. Get the full story »
U.S. nuclear regulators are launching additional inspections and considering a 90-day review of the country’s 104 nuclear reactors in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis, officials said Monday. Get the full story »
The Supreme Court has rejected banks' attempts to shield Federal Reserve lending data. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The U.S. Federal Reserve Board on Monday said it is preparing to release sensitive emergency lending data from the peak of the 2008 financial crisis after the Supreme Court rejected a bid by major banks to keep the information secret.
The justices, in a short written order, left in place a 2010 federal appeals court decision that ordered the Fed to identify commercial banks that received emergency loans from the central bank during the crisis. Shortly after the announcement, a Fed spokesman said the central bank would release the information, but didn’t provide a time frame. Get the full story »
The White House is considering nominating Mark Wetjen, an aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, for a top job at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, The Financial Times reported on Friday. Get the full story »
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. (Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images)
Some of the largest U.S. banks will be notified on Friday whether they passed a second round of stress tests conducted by the Federal Reserve, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Get the full story »
In vetoing two bills Monday that would have paved the way for two coal-to-gas plants to be built in the state, Gov. Pat Quinn signaled his support for cleaner uses of Illinois coal but said he would not support the technology at the expense of consumers.
The bills would have forced state utilities to buy synthetic natural gas, which was expected to be more expensive than natural gas for the next two decades, from a $3 billion plant on Chicago’s Southeast Side proposed by New York-based Leucadia National Corp. and a $1 billion southern Illinois plant proposed by Power Holdings of Illinois. Get the full story »
The United States must reduce its dependence on oil and begin to reform energy policy, President Barack Obama said on Friday, pledging to do all he could to keep gasoline prices low. Get the full story »
Motorola Solutions Inc. Chief Executive Greg Brown has been named to President Barack Obama’s Management Advisory Board, a group of former and current CEOs tasked with advising administration officials on how to bring private-sector practices to the government.
The White House made its announcement on Thursday and the group is scheduled to meet for the first time on Friday. Brown joins nine other corporate chiefs, including Jeffrey Kindler, the former CEO of Pfizer Inc., BET Networks CEO Debra Lee and American Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern. Get the full story »
