"The Oldways Preservation Trust, which earlier this year held a conference in Italy to promote pasta, is organizing another journalists' confab, this time to discuss the virtues of sugar," PR Week reports. "The trust ... has secured the Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness, a Coca-Cola affiliated organization, as a sponsor for its Conference on Sweetness and Health in Mexico City. ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has directed staff to "refrain from answering" media calls in order to "prevent EPA management from being surprised by news coverage," according to an agency memo obtained by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

"For the third time, environmental advocates have discovered passages in the Bush administration's proposal for regulating mercury pollution from power plants that mirror almost word for word portions of memos written by a law firm representing coal-fired power plants." The passages, in language from the Latham & Watkins firm, say the