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The French, it seems, aren't eating bread the way they used to. The average French person consumes just half a baguette a day, down from a full baguette 40 years ago.

Those statistics worry the French bakers' lobby, the Observatoire du Pain.

Bernard Vallius, who heads the group, says it used to be that people ate a sit-down lunch and dinner with family or friends every day. Now people – especially the young and those who live in cities - eat sandwiches or skip lunch altogether and snack, he says.

He calls bread is the silent pivot of every French meal. And the bread lobby has launched a campaign to make it speak up. Inspired by the California Milk Board's campaign, "Got Milk?", the Observatoire du Pain came up with the slogan, "Cou cou, tu as pris le pain?" which translates roughly as, "Hi there, did ya pick up the bread?"

The slogan is plastered on billboards and inscribed on bread bags in 130 cities around the country. "What we want to do is just to make sure that people have the reflex, going home at night, to buy the bread. That's all," says Vallius.

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For Democrats running in coal-producing states like Kentucky and West Virginia, the Environmental Protection Agency's new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants provide a carboniferous chance to demonstrate independence from President Obama.

Those Democrats will probably take advantage of every chance they get to separate themselves from the president in voters' minds, since their Republican opponents will be working overtime to portray them as reliable Obama votes if they're elected to Congress.

Combine that with Obama's massive unpopularity in these states — in 2012 he got a little more than a third of the vote in Kentucky and West Virginia — and the need to stiff-arm Obama's EPA is self-explanatory.

Democrat Natalie Tennant, the West Virginia secretary of state trying to succeed longtime Sen. Jay Rockefeller, didn't even wait for the EPA's announcement to oppose Obama. She used the coal issue to put daylight between herself and Obama in her announcement video released four days earlier.

"When Washington Democrats take the wrong course, hurting our coal industry, I will do everything in my power to stop them, including standing up to President Obama," she says.

Distancing herself from Obama meant creating little to no space on the issue between her and the Republican she hopes to beat, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito.

Similarly, Kentucky's Democratic Secretary of State Alison Gunderson Grimes, sounded a lot like the Republican she wants to unseat, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader.

"Yet again President Obama's administration has taken direct aim at Kentucky jobs," she said in a statement. "The EPA's ruling practically prohibits construction of new coal-fired plants, which will threaten Kentucky jobs and raise energy prices that hurt Kentucky's middle-class families."

It's natural to assume that carrying the same party identity as Obama and his top EPA official Gina McCarthy would necessarily hurt Tennant and Grimes. But these are states with strong Democratic traditions, though for different reasons. Numerous Democrats in both places have the experience of voting for fellow Democrats in local and state races and Republicans for president.

So there are many people in both states who can appreciate Democrats who break from the president on any number of issues.

Two suicide bombers struck the All Saints Church following a service in Peshawar, Pakistan, Sunday, killing more than 70 people and wounding more than 120, according to the AP and other news outlets. The victims are believed to include many children.

The church's bishop, Rev. Humphrey S. Peters, issued a statement in which he condemned the violence and expressed his condolences to those affected by the attack, which officials say is one of the deadliest ever conducted against Pakistan's Christian minority.

"A wing of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing," the AP reports, "saying it would continue to target non-Muslims until the United States stopped drone attacks in the country's remote tribal region."

The All Saints church website describes the violence, saying, "As the Sunday Service ended and the people came out of the Church, two suicide bombers entered the church compound from the main gate and blew themselves up in the midst of the people."

The site added, "According to those we have spoken to, among the dead were a number of Sunday School children and Choir members of the Church who were all in the Church compound at the moment of the blasts."

Dating from the 1880s, All Saints Church is famed for its architecture that echoes elements of a Saracenic Muslim mosque. Sunday's deadly attack sparked protests in other Pakistani cities, with demonstrators calling for violence against Christians to cease.

The attack comes one day after Pakistan released a prisoner who was a high-ranking member of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where officials say he could play a pivotal role in the peace process. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was formerly the Taliban's second-in-command.

"The Afghan government welcomes Pakistan's decision to release Mullah Baradar," said Afghan presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi, according to Reuters. "This release has occurred because of the Afghan government's consistent pressure requesting that Mullah Baradar be set free,"

A Chinese court has sentenced Bo Xilai, the former Politburo member who was snared on graft charges, to life in prison. The sentence for offenses that include bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of power, completes a shocking fall for Bo, who had been a rising star in China's political system.

"Bribes received directly by Bo or via his family totaled 20.44 million yuan (about 3.3 million U.S. dollars), the court decided," reports state news agency Xinhua.

Some of the charges against Bo also accused him of obstructing an investigation into his wife's murder of a British businessman.

NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Beijing:

"Judges at the court in the eastern city of Jinan rejected the vigorous defense Bo had put up at his trial last month.

"In addition to the life sentence, all of Bo's assets will be confiscated and he will be deprived of his political rights for life. That means he won't be able to hold any political office or speak to the media.

"Bo could have gotten the death penalty for his crimes, but China's judiciary is trying to use that penalty more sparingly. Bo did not indicate in court whether he would appeal the verdict. He has 10 days to do so."