A glance at the week that was
This week Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, revealed his latest crusade: he is determined to ban extra-large "sugared drinks" from the city's restaurants, cinemas and stalls in an effort to curb obesity. The ban would apply to drinks bigger than 16 fluid ounces, or nearly 500ml, which is a lot of sugar.
In the land of the free, Bloomberg's campaign has ignited quite the controversy for infringing people's liberty to down large quantities of sugary liquid. But perhaps Bloomberg is ahead of the curve: the Disney Channel has just announced that it is going to ban ads for junk food.
We now know
Up to 80 stewardsat London's diamond-jubilee flotilla were unpaid jobseekers and apprentices bussed in for three days' work.
The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, rewarded his three-millionth Twitter followerwith a new home.
The US department of defence is developing malodorant missiles, or military-use stink bombs.
The numbers
4The magnitude of the earthquakethat struck off the Mayo coast on Wednesday morning.
6.46mApproximate number of LinkedIn passwords leakedby a Russian hacker.
€2.1mThe settlement by the Independent TD Mick Wallacewith the Revenue Commissioners for underpayment of VAT relating to sales of apartments.
53kgThe amount of cannabis resinseized from a car that was disembarking a ferry from France at Rosslare.
€210,091.27The total unused parliamentary expensesfor 2011 returned by 57 TDs.
50%The decline in the number of farmland birdsin Europe in the past three decades.
245The number of girls who sat the engineering examin the Leaving Cert
Most read on irishtimes.com
1 Greek politician punches rival on TV
2 Starbucks in hot water over Irish tweet
3 Earthquake strikes off Co Mayo
4 Giant hairy spiders spark panic in India
5 O'Driscoll the centre of attention
6 John McAreavey amends evidence
7 Prometheus
8 John McAreavey tells court 'life ended' when wife died
9 Trapattoni loses patience over Foley saga
10 Many Catholics 'do not believe' church teachings
Rankings calculated from June 1st to yesterday lunchtime
