WAY TO GO

This calls for a squeeze of the cheek

Good for Hawaii's public schools for leading the nation in the fight against childhood obesity. A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found fewer U.S. middle schools and high schools are selling candy and soda to students, and cited Hawaii's public school system as having among the best school nutrition policies in the nation. More than 80 percent of Hawaii's public middle and high-schoolers could not buy candy, salty snacks or soda on campus in 2008, the report said. The CDC looked only at public schools, so the findings don't apply to private ones.

FULL DISCLOSURE

Bloggers will have to 'fess up

Bloggers who take payments or freebies in exchange for talking up a product or service online are getting some much-needed ethical guidance. Starting Dec. 1, the Federal Trade Commission is requiring writers on the Web to disclose any recompense they received for reviewing or endorsing a product or service. Violators may be fined. The Average Joe blogger doesn't have much to worry about. The FTC is more likely to go after advertisers, officials said.

HELP, I'VE FALLEN …

More bad news predicted for Hawaii hoteliers

Sorry statistics for tourism-dependent economies like Hawaii's likely will persist for at least another year, an influential analyst predicts. Moody's Investors Service doesn't expect a rebound in the lodging and cruise industries until at least late next year, and perhaps even 2011, as consumers and businesses continue to scale back their budgets even as the U.S. recession officially ends. For the lodging industry, Moody's expects a decline in revenue per available room of about 4 percent in 2010, on top of the double-digit decline this year. That is bad news for Hawaii's hoteliers, who are coming off their worst summer in more than two decades, according to a report by Hospitality Advisors LLC.