| | |
| Little apparent progress in U.S. "fiscal cliff" talks Friday, Nov 30, 2012 07:08 PM PST  HATFIELD, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - With barely a month left before the "fiscal cliff," Republicans and Democrats remained far apart on Friday in talks to avoid the across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts that threaten to throw the country back into recession. While President Barack Obama visited a Pennsylvania toy factory to muster public support for tax hikes on the rich, portraying Republicans as scrooges at Christmas time, his primary adversary in negotiations, Republican House Speaker John Boehner, continued to describe the situation as a stalemate. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama aides seek to counter Republican charges on 'fiscal cliff' Friday, Nov 30, 2012 05:01 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration sought to counter Republican charges on Friday that President Barack Obama's plan to avoid a year-end "fiscal cliff" is light on spending cuts and too reliant on tax increases. Administration officials said the overall plan, offered to Republicans on Thursday and quickly rejected by them, would achieve $4.5 trillion in savings to the government. This includes around $1 trillion in cuts already enacted into law and would set up an "expedited process" to spirit through Congress some of the most comprehensive legislation in decades. ... Full Story | Top |
| Gay "conversion therapy" proponents seek to halt California ban Friday, Nov 30, 2012 04:01 PM PST SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A Christian legal group urged a federal judge on Friday to halt a landmark California law that bars a controversial therapy aimed at reversing homosexuality from being used on children and teenagers, calling the law a violation of privacy and free speech. California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed the ban into law in September, making the nation's most populous state the first to ban so-called conversion therapy among youths. Gay rights advocates say the therapy can psychologically harm gay and lesbian youths. ... Full Story | Top |
| New Jersey bridge collapse derails freight train; chemical leaks Friday, Nov 30, 2012 02:54 PM PST  PAULSBORO, New Jersey (Reuters) - A railroad bridge collapsed on Friday over a creek in southern New Jersey, causing a Conrail freight train to derail and spill hazardous chemicals into the air and water, authorities said. Seven of the 82 cars derailed, and a tanker car that fell into Mantua Creek leaked vinyl chloride into the waterway, which feeds into the Delaware River near Philadelphia, said Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. ... Full Story | Top |
| Obama cranks up "fiscal cliff" pressure, Boehner says talks stalemated Friday, Nov 30, 2012 02:52 PM PST HATFIELD, Penn. (Reuters) - President Barack Obama turned up the pressure in "fiscal cliff" talks on Friday, hitting the road to drum up support for his drive to raise taxes on the wealthy and warning Americans that Republicans were offering them "a lump of coal" for Christmas. In a visit to a Pennsylvania toy factory, Obama portrayed congressional Republicans as Scrooges who risked sending the country over the fiscal cliff rather than strike a deal to avert the tax increases and spending cuts that begin in January unless Congress intervenes. ... Full Story | Top |
| Supreme Court to decide if human genes patentable Friday, Nov 30, 2012 02:42 PM PST (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether human genes can be patented, a hotly contested issue with broad practical and ethical consequences for the future of gene-based medicine for millions of people worldwide. The nation's highest court in a brief order agreed to review a case over whether Myriad Genetics Inc may patent two genes linked to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. In a 2-1 ruling on August 16, a panel of the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ... Full Story | Top |
| Is diabetes linked to hearing loss? Friday, Nov 30, 2012 02:13 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Diabetes has already been tied to an increased risk of kidney and cardiovascular troubles, nerve damage and vision loss, and now a new study finds diabetics to be more than twice as likely as those without the disease to have hearing impairment. In a review of past research on the question, scientists in Japan also found that younger diabetics were at even higher risk than older adults - though they cannot explain why, and experts caution that this kind of study does not prove that diabetes is directly responsible for the greater hearing loss rates. ... Full Story | Top |
| Supreme Court to review lawsuits over flaws in generic drugs Friday, Nov 30, 2012 02:04 PM PST (Reuters) - The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider whether generic drug manufacturers can be subjected to personal injury lawsuits that allege flaws in the design of drugs, even if federal law would not allow such cases to go forward. The court agreed to review a bid by Mutual Pharmaceutical Co to overturn a $21 million jury award to Karen Bartlett, a New Hampshire woman who had taken its generic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug sulindac for shoulder pain. ... Full Story | Top |
| Extra fruit may not ward off daily hunger Friday, Nov 30, 2012 01:30 PM PST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The idea that filling up on fruits and vegetables will cut one's appetite for higher-calorie fare did not pan out in a new study; in fact, adding fruit juice before meals boosted hunger and weight gain for some participants. Eating apples and grapes before lunch helped people feel fuller and eat slightly less than when they drank an equivalent amount of fruit juice as an appetizer in the experiment. ... Full Story | Top |
| Some House Republicans bending on anti-tax stance Friday, Nov 30, 2012 12:51 PM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A growing number of Republicans in the House of Representatives - including a handful of Tea Party-backed conservatives - are signaling greater flexibility than their leaders to reach a "fiscal cliff" deal with President Barack Obama. They are not buckling on demands to slash spending or agreeing with Obama's exact proposals to avert across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts set to start on January 1. But unlike House Speaker John Boehner, they suggest they would be open to higher tax rates on wealthy Americans as part of a broader deal to slash deficits. ... Full Story | Top |
| Two people in Jordan died from SARS-like coronavirus: WHO Friday, Nov 30, 2012 11:55 AM PST GENEVA (Reuters) - Two people who died in Jordan in April have been found to have been infected with the new virus from the same family as SARS which sparked a global alert in September, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. The coronavirus, previously unknown in humans, has now been confirmed in a total of nine people in three countries in the Middle East region, including a Saudi who had severe acute respiratory illness last month, the United Nations agency said. ... Full Story | Top |
| Study links relaxation method to reduced hot flashes Friday, Nov 30, 2012 11:32 AM PST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although studies of the effects of relaxation techniques on menopause symptoms have yielded mixed results so far, a new report from Sweden comes down in favor of the approach as an alternative to hormone therapy. Postmenopausal women trained to relax before and during the onset of hot flashes cut the frequency of those events in half during the three-month trial, researchers say. Women in a comparison group that got no treatments experienced little change in their symptoms. ... Full Story | Top |
| HPV tied to throat cancers: study Friday, Nov 30, 2012 10:19 AM PST NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A sexually transmitted infection usually thought of in connection to cervical cancer is also tied to a five times greater risk of cancer of the vocal chords or voice box, a new report suggests. Combining the results of 55 studies from the past two decades, Chinese researchers found 28 percent of people with laryngeal cancers had cancerous tissue that tested positive for human papillomavirus (HPV). But that rate varied widely by study, from no throat cancer patients with HPV to 79 percent with the infection. ... Full Story | Top |
| Boehner says he and White House in stalemate over fiscal cliff Friday, Nov 30, 2012 10:05 AM PST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner on Friday said Republicans and President Barack Obama are locked in a stalemate, a month before a $600 billion "fiscal cliff" of tax hikes and spending cuts is set to kick in. "There is a stalemate; let's not kid ourselves," said Boehner, speaking to reporters a day after Obama made a budget offer that Republicans called unacceptable. Obama and Republicans are holding firm in their respective positions, with the biggest sticking point being whether to extend low tax rates on household income above $250,000. ... Full Story | Top |
| Science journal urged to retract Monsanto GM study Friday, Nov 30, 2012 10:01 AM PST LONDON (Reuters) - The publisher of a much-criticized study suggesting genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats has come under heavy pressure from scientists to retract the paper and explain why it was ever printed. The calls follow a report by Europe's food safety watchdog this week dismissing the study's findings. Reed Elsevier, which published the study in its Food and Chemical Toxicology journal in September, said on Friday it was considering the criticisms and would let readers know if it concluded it needed to change the way it checked research. ... Full Story | Top |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment