Council bars new fast-food outlets

City officials are putting South Los Angeles on a diet.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to place a moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in an impoverished swath of the city with a proliferation of such eateries and above average rates of obesity.

The yearlong moratorium is intended to give the city time to attract restaurants that serve healthier food. The action, which the mayor must still sign into law, is believed to be the first of its kind by a major city to protect public health.

Representatives of fast-food chains said they support the goal of better diets but believe they are being unfairly targeted.

The California Restaurant Association and its members will consider a legal challenge to the ordinance, spokesman Andrew Casana said.

Thirty percent of adults in South Los Angeles area are obese, compared to 19.1 percent for the metropolitan area, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

A report by the Community Health Councils found 73 percent of South Los Angeles restaurants were fast food, compared to 42 percent in West Los Angeles.

TOMAHAWK, Wis.

Explosion at mill kills three workers

A storage tank explosion at a northern Wisconsin paper mill Tuesday killed three workers and injured a fourth, the company that owns the mill said.

Packaging Corp. of America said in a news release that the three workers were fatally injured when a tank used to store recycled fiber exploded while they were performing maintenance on top of it.

The injured worker was standing on a platform at a lower level of the tank when it exploded, the company said.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation, the company said.

Company spokesman Ron Zimmerman said up to 10 people were working in the area when the explosion happened.

WASHINGTON

No cancer found in McCain biopsy

A biopsy of a small patch of skin removed from Republican Sen. John McCain’s right cheek showed no evidence of skin cancer, doctors said Tuesday.

“No further treatment is necessary,” Michael Yardley, a spokesman for the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz., said in a statement.

McCain had the skin removed Monday as a precaution during a regular checkup.

The Arizona senator, who suffered severe sun damage from his 5 1/2 years in Vietnamese prison camps, gets an in-depth skin cancer check every few months because of a medical history of dangerous melanomas.

Petition calls for jailing Rove

Bush administration critics hand-delivered a petition to a Democratic lawmaker Tuesday containing more than 127,000 signatures calling for former White House adviser Karl Rove to be held in contempt of Congress and jailed.

A coalition of advocacy groups dropped off three boxes of signed petitions at the office of Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., who heads a House Judiciary subcommittee that took up the matter this month. The full committee is scheduled to take up the contempt charges today.

The coalition, which includes Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Brave New Films, Campaign for America’s Future and the Nation magazine, wants Rove held in contempt for defying a Judiciary Committee subpoena calling on him to testify about whether he inappropriately influenced Justice Department hiring.

Rove has denied any involvement in Justice Department activities.