Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK CITY SCHOOL TO BAN JUNK FOOD New York schools Chancellor Joel Klein is taking candy away from the largest public school system in the nation. Advertisement In September, vending machines and stores in the city's 1,200 public schools no longer will stock soda, chewing gum, hard candy -- including Jolly Ranchers and lollipops -- jellybeans, candy corn, licorice and cotton candy. School officials estimate $12 million to $30 million in sales come from vending machines in the schools during the school year, although that includes snacks that would be banned as well as those with some nutritional value. The move was made to counter rising childhood obesity rates, The New York Post reports. BIOTERRORISM LABS PLANNED The federal government is planning at least six new bioterrorism research facilities designed to the most stringent level of pathogen containment -- "Biosafety Level 4." Universities, research centers and some local officials are clamoring to join the building boom because of the hundreds of millions of dollars in research money that will flow their way. The plans have sparked a furious "not-in-my-back yard" movement. A hermetically sealed laboratory -— a "hot zone" designed to trap the deadliest microbes on Earth: Ebola and Lassa viruses -- is planned for Hamilton, Mont., the Los Angeles Times reports. Advertisement TEEN DRINKING Some of the best and brightest of Hastings High School in New York got arrested on prom night for drinking in a Point Pleasant Beach, N.J., motel room. Although the arrests happened in New Jersey, they follow a spate of sting operations and busts of underage drinking in Westchester County in the past few years. Some Westchester County teens have been gathering in the woods for years to drink and party. Some parents worried their kids will get hurt running from police, so they have let them throw parties at home, The New York Post reports. Now, teens as young as eighth grade are showing up at the drunken house parties and young girls are getting sexually abused, says David Hebert, a spokesman for Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. CAT SAVES FIREFIGHTER Firefighters usually save cats but a tabby saved her firefighter owner. Retired fire chief Bob Gilliland, who lives near Kansas City, Kansas, was sleeping at home when his blood sugar fell to dangerous levels, WIBW-TV reports. He woke up, but was incoherent and too weak to raise an alarm to his wife sleeping a few feet away. He was about to slip into a diabetic coma -- until his tabby cat, Joy, came to the rescue. Advertisement The cat kept coming into the bedroom and yowling until Lura Gilliland woke up and got her husband some glucose tablets, raising his blood sugar to a safe level.
