newsworthy.

• manhattan borough president scott stringer wrote the nyc food charter: 10 principles for a sustainable food system. so cool. let's be progressive, new york.
  
• city council speaker christine quinn has a new food policy, too. she's ready to get beyond the issues of trans-fats and sugary soda taxes. or that's what she says. i am skeptical, but unsure why.
  
• and everything that we thought was true... monsanto is a monopoly, says ap.
  

  Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.

  With Monsanto's patented genes being inserted into roughly 95 percent of all soybeans and 80 percent of all corn grown in the U.S., the company also is using its wide reach to control the ability of new biotech firms to get wide distribution for their products, according to a review of several Monsanto licensing agreements and dozens of interviews with seed industry participants, agriculture and legal experts.

  Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes.