(Continued from page 18)

continue to shrink -- to $430 billion by fiscal 2015, the CBO said.
• But, barring a major fix by the president and Congress, the government's finances will start to worsen again as the three major entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- become more and more expensive and unmanageable under the increasing weight of retiring baby boomers.
• Recent budget improvements were helped along by increasing tax revenues as corporate America and many better-off Americans snapped back from the economic downturn and paid more in taxes. Stocks are setting new multi-year levels and corporate profits are soaring.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Diners will have to wait a little longer to find calorie counts on most restaurant chain menus, in supermarkets and on vending machines.
• Writing a new menu labeling law "has gotten extremely thorny," says the head of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency tries to figure out who should be covered by it.
• The 2010 health care law charged the FDA with requiring restaurants and other establishments that serve food to put calorie counts on menus and in vending machines. The agency issued a proposed rule in 2011, but the final rules have since been delayed as some of those non-restaurant establishments have lobbied hard to be exempt.
• While the restaurant industry has signed on to the idea and helped to write the new regulations, supermarkets, convenience stores and other retailers that sell prepared food say they want to no part of it.
• "There are very, very strong opinions and powerful voices both on the consumer and public health side and on the industry side, and we have worked very hard to sort of figure out what really makes sense and also what is implementable," FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.
• ___

• VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Cardinals enter the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday to elect

(Continued on page 20)