School officials in the US state of Utah have apologised after an employee confiscated and discarded the lunches of about 30 children whose parents were said to be in arrears on meal payments. Outraged parents in Salt Lake City said the students at Uintah Elementary primary school had been humiliated. The school system has launched an inquiry into the Tuesday incident, blamed on a sole "nutrition manager". The children whose meals were put in the rubbish were given fruit and milk. "This was a mistake. This was handled wrong,'' Jason Olsen, a spokesman for the Salt Lake City school system...