New York City, with the support of Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, aggressively is moving forward to ban trans fats from restaurants--the stuff that says “hydrogenated” before the word oil in fast foods, snacks and many other processed and restaurant foods. Other cities are contemplating similar action. Where once the ingredient was thought to be a good substitute for saturated fats, more recent medical research has found that heart disease-related deaths are significantly increased by consumption of hydrogenated fat. But the restaurant industry has sent in its PR troops, local and national: the city would be violating consumers’ rights; ethnic restaurants disproportionately could be harmed by removing the harmful fats; smoking may injure others but the hydrogenating individual hurts only herself. Writing in the New York Post, the Center for Consumer Freedom offered a medieval archetype, and urged New Yorkers that "FRANS" would have been happier to eat trans fats than die of typhoid. E. Charles Hunt of the New York State Restaurant Association offered an alternative hyperbole for the city's restaurants: the ban would be "a recipe for disaster."

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a government-funded public broadcaster, has axed a popular weekly satirical current affairs program after one of its co-hosts, Corinne Grant, participated in protests against draconian changes to industrial relations laws. The axing of the The Glass House, which was rating well, follows complaints earlier this week by Liberal Party of Australia Senator Connie Fierravanti-Wells about Grant's opposition to the government's measures aimed at undermining the role of unions. In a statement the secretary of the Media, Entertainment Arts Alliance, Christopher Warren asked "has freedom of expression deteriorated so far in Australia that even satire is under attack, and entertainers must keep silent?" Wil Anderson, one of the other co-presenters, rejects the accusation that the program had an anti-government bias. "That's the thing about satire, you always attack those in power," he said. "You've got to attack the powerful. That's the point: they're powerful, why do they care?"

Air America Radio, the progressive talk radio network which recently filed for bankruptcy, is considering syndicating a radio show co-hosted by Armstrong Williams. Williams co-hosts a morning drive-time program with Sam Greenfield on the New York radio station WWRL. The Hill reports that Air America has negotiated to switch from its current broadcaster WLIB to WWRL and that, as part of the deal, WWRL "wants the Williams/Greenfield show syndicated on Air America radio." WWRL Program Director Rennie Bishop declined to comment but, when asked when he could comment, said "call me after the elections." Williams was at the center of controversy over a $240,000 sub-contract with the PR company Ketchum to promote the U.S. Department of Education's No Child Left Behind Act. Williams recently agreed to pay $34,000 to settle a Department of Justice investigation into possible breaches of his contract. Williams is also the CEO of the PR company, the Graham Williams Group.