Frank DePasquale, well known Boston restaurateur and head of the North End Chamber of Commerce, wants to see Hanover Street become a one-way road. Tired of cabbies, buses and trucks vying for the small amount of space available, DePasquale is hoping to limit the traffic. [Herald]
• A bill currently passing through the California legislature would ban the possession and sale of shark fins, and serving shark fin soup would also be illegal. Naturally, some people are really upset about this. [NYT]
• Blair River, the 575-pound spokesman for the proudly unhealthy Heart Attack Grill, is dead at age 29. While this is cruelly ironic, at least it wasn’t a heart attack that did him in: it was pneumonia. [NYDN]
• Yeep: Check your Skippy jars. If the peanut butter is labeled “reduced fat,” it’s been recalled for possible salmonella contamination. [HuffPo]
• Organic advocates are pissed about the use of the word “natural” on food-product labels, and we don’t blame them: the term pretty much means nothing. [AP]
• And … bad news for restaurant calorie labeling: While labels in fast-food restaurants were shown to affect the food choices of 16 percent of adults, calorie counts seem to have virtually no impact on the purchases of teens or parents in low-income neighborhoods, according to a study. [USAT]
• The U.N. weighs on recent global food-price spikes, saying the world is vulnerable to food crises and that developing countries must invest more resources in agriculture. [WSJ]
