McDonald’s serves 69 million people daily in 37,000 restaurants located in over 100 countries around the world. Due to their scale, environmental-protection efforts (and lack of effort) have significant influence in worldwide progress. How are they taking on this responsibility?

The House passed three bills Tuesday aimed at showing U.S. support for pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The action follows months of protests over the Beijing government's aggressive attempts to enforce control over the semi-autonomous territory.

People have been using the main ingredient in chocolate for 5,400 years, according to tests of artifacts from an archaeological site in Ecuador. That's about 1,500 years older than cacao's known domestication in Central America.

A leading international aid group said Wednesday that an estimated 85,000 Yemeni children under the age of 5 may have died of hunger and disease since the outbreak of the country's civil war in 2015. Save the Children blamed the widespread starvation on a Saudi-led blockade that was tightened a year ago after the Iran-aligned rebels fired a ballistic missile at the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

Black ant guacamole. Grasshopper tacos and cricket quesadillas. Silkworm cookies and mealworm brownies. The menu appeared to be out of a fictional story, but insect-chef Joseph Yoon of Brooklyn Bugs was quite serious as he described the unique and vivid flavors each insect would bring to the dishes we were preparing at UW-Madison’s “Swarm to Table: Cooking with Insects Workshop.”

Nordic nations have swept the top four prizes at the world's most prestigious culinary competition in France, beating Gallic gourmet chefs at their own game with Northern European simplicity and local ingredients. Team Denmark took the gold medal at the biennial Bocuse d'Or competition in the French city of Lyon last week ahead of Sweden, Norway and Finland.

After fleeing her homeland’s civil war, Malakeh Jazmati reinvented herself in Jordan as a TV chef and became known as the “queen of cooking” to fellow Syrian refugees. Now in Berlin she’s starting over again, opening a restaurant she hopes can serve as “medicine against homesickness” for the thousands of newly arrived Syrians in the German capital. "I'm trying to make this restaurant not just a part of Syria but part of my home," she said.

Sales of water and sports drinks jumped 5 percent in the July-September period. Global sales of sparkling soft drinks also grew 2 percent, led by low-calorie and no-calorie versions of Sprite and Fanta. Coke said sales of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar saw double-digit percentage growth in North America in the third quarter.

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board is critical of a Trump administration proposal to make it more difficult to qualify for food stamps, arguing that most recipients are children and that reasons given by the USDA for making the work requirement more onerous make little sense.

Frozen food-makers are seeking special rules for "mini meals," citing little pizza bagels and dumplings as examples that might qualify as healthy. Chewing gum and bottled water companies say they should no longer be shut out from using the term just because their products don't provide nutrients.