National / International News

House Republicans begin the latest round of US fiscal negotiations by unveiling a budget proposal that aims to cut through the social safety net.

A in the journal Health Affairs found that patients feel little personal responsibility for keeping health costs lower. They were also unlikely to accept a less expensive treatment option, even if it was nearly as effective as a more expensive choice.

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MPs reject Labour calls for a "mansion tax" on properties worth more than £2m to be introduced before the next general election.

Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where they will vote to decide who will be the next leader of the world's 1.2bn Roman Catholics.

Detectives are investigating the murder of a woman in Fife and the death of her ex-partner.

President Francois Hollande admits France's budget deficit this year will be higher than the 3% level it promised during last year's election.

Americans expect a lot from the president — any president. Modern presidents are believed to control the economy, when the reality is that they have fewer tools even to control Congress or public opinion.

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Italy's Vincenzo Nibali holds off the challenge of Britain's Chris Froome to win the Tirreno-Adriatico race.

A head teacher and his partner sacked by a private girls' school win their claims for unfair dismissal.

The photograph of a grieving father holding the body of his baby boy became the iconic photograph of Israel's military strikes in Gaza last November.

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Hostess Brands is selling its cake bakery business, which includes Twinkies cakes, to two private equity companies.

After weeks without a government, a new caretaker administration is named in Bulgaria to serve until elections in May.

You cruise down the aisle of most any grocery store, and what you're seeing -- despite what you might think -- isn't properly called just "food." Most of those items are what we've come to know as processed food. Cookies, crackers, cereal, even yogurt, crammed with various chemicals that'll let it sit on the shelf for a good long time, all the while containing enough sugar and salt to make it taste good.

Processed foods are, plus or minus, 70 percent of what most of us eat.

"Nobody set out to dominate the American diet, to make everything we're eating so highly processed and so highly technical -- it was a gradual revolution," said Melanie Warner, the author of the new book, 'Pandora's Lunchbox.' "It basically started 100 years ago."

Warner said that while scientists and even marketing executives at food companies do care about making their food healthier, and want to do so, it's not easy.

"It's really difficult for them to do because it's not what they're designed to do," she explained. "And a lot of times, when they try and make healthy food and they try to take out things like sugar and salt, the products just kind of fall apart. And oftentimes, people don't buy them."

Warner said that there's an estimated 5,000 different additives that are allowed to go into our food, but: "The FDA doesn't actually know how many additives are going into our food. This is in part because regulations are not only self-regulatory -- so the food industry is doing the testing -- but it's also voluntary," she said. "The ingredient companies don't actually have to tell the FDA about a new ingredient. If they choose to, they can simply just launch it into the market. The FDA doesn't know about them, and nobody else really knows about them." [View the story "What's your favorite processed food?" on Storify]
Offer your own favorite processed foods by commenting below or tweeting us @MarketplaceAPM.

James Holmes faces 166 counts, including murder, in the shooting deaths of 12 people and wounding of another 70. His attorneys said they aren't yet ready to make a plea, so the judge did it for Holmes.

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A Brazilian doctor faces charges of fraud after being caught on camera using silicone fingers to sign in for her absent colleagues, police say.

Former Swindon manager Paolo Di Canio on his 20 months of success and why he is ready to manage at a higher level

A pair of paddle boarders have filmed a rare encounter with a grey seal on the River Severn near Gloucester.

A candidate has finally been declared the winner in Kenya's presidential election. But the votes were close and the main opponent says he'll fight the results in court. Could the election become Kenya's version of the Bush-Gore battle from 2000?

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Cardinals at the Vatican pray for divine guidance

Proposed legislation to let 16 and 17-year-olds vote in the Scottish independence referendum is formally lodged at the Scottish Parliament.