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Wal-Mart Stores announced a program on Thursday that would focus on sustain-able agriculture among its suppliers, as it tries to expand its efforts to improve en-vironmental efficiency among its suppliers.

The program is intended to put more locally grown food in Wal-Mart stores in the United States, invest in training and infrastructure for small and medium-size farmers, particularly in emerging markets, and begin to measure the efficiency of large suppliers in growing and getting their pro-

duce to market.Given that Wal-Mart is the world’s larg-

est grocer, with one of the biggest supply chains, any changes that it makes would have wide implications. Wal-Mart’s decision five years ago to set sustainability goals that, among other things, increased its reliance on renewable energy and reduced packag-ing waste among its supplies, sent broad ripples through product manufacturers. “No other retailer has the ability to make more of a difference than Wal-Mart,” the

retailer’s president and chief executive, Mi-chael T. Duke, said in remarks prepared for a meeting Thursday morning.

Wal-Mart said it expected to meet the goals by the end of 2015.

In the United States, Wal-Mart plans to double the percentage of locally grown produce, to 9 percent. Wal-Mart defines lo-cal produce as that grown and sold in the same state. Wal-Mart has pledged to sell $1 billion of food from small and medium farmers (which it defines as farmers with

fewer than 20 hectares, about 50 acres). Both in the United States and globally,

Wal-Mart will invest more than $1 billion to improve its perishable supply chain. For example, if trucks, trains and distribution centers could help farmers.

As it did in the environmental arena, it will begin creating an agriculture-specific index to measure waste and efficiency among produce suppliers. It will be asking its biggest producers to answer questions about water, fertilizer and chemical use. The

eventual goal is to include that information in a sustainability rating that customers would see, so they could decide whether to choose one avocado over another based on how much waste it had created. “When we do this on Wal-Mart’s scale, we can deliver a global food supply that improves health and livelihoods around the world,” Leslie A. Dach, executive vice president for corpo-rate affairs, said in prepared remarks. Begin-ning next year, Wal-Mart will start produce

SEE WAL-MART/A5

Wal-Mart thinking globally, acting locallyBeginning to measure how farms produced food, with the sustainability index, was a big step, they said.

By Bruce KirbyBusiness Writer

Feisty scourge of 13 presidents dies at 92By David StoutTHE NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON — Helen Thomas, whose keen curiosity, unquenchable drive and celebrated constancy made her a trailblazing White House correspondent in a press corps dominated by men and who was later regarded as the dean of the White House briefing room, died on Saturday at her home in Washington. She was 92.

Her death was announced by the Grid-iron Club, one of Washington’s leading news soci-eties. Ms. T h o m a s was a past president of the organiza-tion.

Ms. Thomas covered every president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama for United Press International and, later, Hearst Newspapers. To her colleagues, she was the unofficial but undisputed head of the press corps, her status ratified by her signature line at the end of every White House news conference: “Thank you, Mr. President.”

Her blunt questions and sharp tone made her a familiar personality not only in the parochial world inside the Washington Beltway but also to television audiences across the country.

“Helen was a true pioneer, opening doors and breaking down barriers for gen-erations of women in journalism,” Presi-dent Obama said in a statement on Satur-day. “She never failed to keep presidents — myself included — on their toes.”

Presidents grew to respect, even to like, Ms. Thomas for her forthrightness and stamina, which sustained her well after the age at which most people had settled into retirement. President Bill Clinton gave her a cake on Aug. 4, 1997, her 77th birthday. Twelve years later, President Obama gave her cupcakes for her 89th. At his first news conference in February 2009, Mr. Obama called on her, saying: “Helen, I’m excited. This is my inaugural moment.”

But 16 months later, Ms. Thomas abruptly announced her retirement from Hearst amid an uproar over her assertion that Jews should “get the hell out of Pal-estine” and go back where they belonged, perhaps Germany or Poland.

In her retirement announcement, Ms. Thomas, whose parents immigrated to the United States from what is now Lebanon, said that she deeply regretted her remarks and that they did not reflect her “heartfelt belief ” that peace would come to the Mid-dle East only when all parties embraced “mutual respect and tolerance.”

“May that day come soon,” she said.SEE THOMAS/A3

HELEN THOMAS

Buy this photo at notthenewspaper.com/photosyria. PHOTO BY JOHN JONES/THENEWSPAPERA protest against U.S. involvement in Syria gathered hundreds in Crestwood, Illinois.

Poll: Most Americans oppose U.S. strike on SyriaOnly 1 in 4 believe Congress should authorize military action

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Only 1 in 5 Americans believe that failing to respond to chemi-cal weapons attacks in Syria would embolden other rogue govern-ments, rejecting the heart of a weeks-long White House cam-paign for U.S. military strikes, an Associated Press poll has con-cluded.

The poll of 1,007 adults na-tionwide found that most Ameri-cans oppose even a limited attack on Syria — likely with cruise mis-siles — despite Obama admin-istration warnings that inaction would risk national security and ignore a gruesome humanitarian crisis. And a slim majority — 53 percent — fear that a strike would lead to a long-term U.S. military commitment in Syria.

The survey reflects a U.S. pub-lic that is tired of Mideast wars after a dozen years of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. It

undercuts political support Presi-dent Barack Obama is hoping to garner as he seeks congressional authorization this week to strike the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

“We need to stop being so ag-gressive militarily,” Izzy Briggs, a business services consultant from Epsom, N.H., said Monday. “I think these small countries are feeling very intimidated by the U.S. and some feel they have to have these sorts of weapons.”

U.S. officials have cited a high confidence in intelligence that indicates Assad’s government launched the Aug. 21 attacks that they say killed more than 1,400 Syrians. Obama last year warned Assad that using chemical weap-ons in the Syrian civil war would amount to a “red line” that, if crossed, would bring a swift U.S. response.

In the weeks since the attacks, the administration has argued that hostile governments in Iran and North Korea, and extremist groups like Hezbollah, would be more likely to use weapons of mass destruction in future con-flicts if Assad is not punished. To bolster the case, U.S. officials last weekend also released grim video

footage showing young children gasping for breath and rows of dead bodies in the hours after the chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs.

But support in Congress is lukewarm at best, and many law-makers have questioned whether the strikes would create more of a problem for the U.S. than they would help the nearly three-year effort to overthrow Assad.

“We must balance the legiti-mate concerns that Americans have about the use of military force with our strategic interests,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who on Monday announced she would not support the White House plan.

U.S. opposition to striking Syr-ia cuts across party lines, as does doubt that an American attack would deter other world leaders from using chemical weapons.

The poll indicated that 53 per-cent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents and 73 percent of Republicans believe Congress should vote against the plan to strike Syria. Only one out of four Democrats think that an attack would deter other world leaders from acquiring and using chemi-cal weapons; even fewer Republi-

cans and independents agreed.“It’s not good what they’re do-

ing to their own people, but we don’t want to start World War III,” said Rosie Vega, a retired re-ceptionist who was at a Glendale.

Overall, 61 percent of people surveyed said they wanted Con-gress to vote against authorizing U.S. military strikes in Syria, the poll found. By comparison, 26 percent said they supported it, and the rest were undecided.

PHOTO BY JOHN JONES/THENEWSPAPERAmericans across Illinois organize protests against militar involvement in Syria.

Poll resultsDo you think Congress should vote in favor of a military strike or against one?

For: 26%

Against: 61%

Don’t know: 13%

Source: 1,007 interviews con-ducted by AP September 6-8, 2013.

Margin of error: +/- 3.7 percent-age points.

After battle, taking on worldFormer prep star overcomes eating disorder to compete for world marathon title

By Philip HershStaff reporter

The omelet Tera Moody ordered earlier this summer in a Chicago restaurant had

mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, onions -- all in a skillet with the surface area of a bowling ball.

It was a meal fit for the elite marathoner Moody has become after years battling an eating disorder that nearly ended her run-ning career.

“My advice to young women is to focus on yourself and don’t compare yourself to other people,” said Moody, 28, whose re-markable comeback has led her to Sunday’s World Championships marathon in Ber-lin. “That’s what got me in trouble, seeing people who were really skinny running well, not knowing then that it might help you run

well for a year but it wouldn’t last.”Others’ opinions about her shape can no

longer cause her the discomfort that led to an eating disorder so severe the 5-foot-8-inch Moody said she dropped from 128 to 96 pounds in her first semester at the Uni-versity of Colorado a decade ago.

“We became extremely worried when we

saw her in November at the NCAA [Cross County] Championships.”

Elite college runners generally are en-couraged to be lean. To Moody, that sugges-tion was a catalyst toward anorexia. Moody was skipping breakfast, eating an energy bar for lunch.

SEE RUNNER/A6

DEAD OR ALIVE

Cast turnover begs the question: Is this show still relevant?

IN SCREENLIFE