Obama Administration Campaign to Cut Waste Saves $17.6 billion in 2011

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Talking Points > LGBT

LGBT EQUALITY

• Signed the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

• Ended the Department of Justice defense of DOMA

• Banned discrimination based on gender identity in federal employment

• Signed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law

• Launched "It Gets Better" campaign

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Mobile EV Chargers Set to Roll in Six Cities

AAA is about to roll out the nation’s first fleet of mobile electric-vehicle quick chargers. The company, which serves more than 52 million members, has spent three months lining up chargers, installing them on trucks and teaching its drivers how to properly charge an EV. With all of the I’s dotted and Ts crossed, AAA says the trucks are poised to hit the road.

“We’ll be rolled out in six cities by the end of the year,” John Nielson, the company’s national director of auto repair, tells us. “These trucks will be out on the road just like any other AAA service vehicle.”

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Chicago Schools To Buy Antibiotic-Free Chicken

The Chicago Public Schools announced that its main food-service company, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, will begin buying and serving chicken drumsticks from birds raised in the local area without antibiotics. The deal will bring 1.2 million pounds of chicken to 473 schools per year, and represents about 25 percent of all the chicken that Chartwells-Thompson serves in the school system.

This deal makes Chicago, which is the third-largest school district in the country, the largest district to endorse feeding kids chicken that is “ABF” or antibiotic-free. That means the birds were raised without routine use of small doses of antibiotics in their feed, a strategem that makes it possible for them to survive in the crowded conditions of chicken batteries but that breeds vast amounts of highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria as a consequence.

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