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| Syria peace talks take a break as rivals dig in Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 06:41 PM PST  By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - A first round of peace talks on Syria wraps up Friday with both sides in entrenched positions and the U.N. mediator expressing frustration that it had not even been possible to get agreement for an aid convoy to enter the besieged city of Homs. After a week of talks at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, the opposing sides in Syria's civil war were still stuck on the question of how to proceed. "I hope that in the next session, when we come back, we will be able to have a more structured discussion," mediator Lakhdar Brahimi said. He was "very, very disappointed" that a U.N. aid convoy was still waiting fruitlessly to enter the rebel-held Old City of Homs, where the United States says civilians are starving. Full Story | Top |
| Analysis: White House hopes for fast-track trade hit political tangle Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 06:29 PM PST  By Krista Hughes and Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's push for authority to fast-track trade deals has hit a big setback in the form of opposition from his top fellow Democrat in Congress, but it is far from dead. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's warning to policymakers on Wednesday "just to not push this right now" reflects concern about the domestic political agenda ahead of November's congressional elections, when free trade could be a damaging issue for many Democrats. The White House called Reid's office shortly after his comments to voice displeasure, a top Democratic party aide said. But the aide said the White House did not try to get Reid to shift his position. Full Story | Top |
| Princess Cruises ship returns early for fog, ill passengers aboard Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 05:43 PM PST A Princess Cruises ship, owned by Carnival Corp, will be met by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team that will investigate an outbreak of a virus that causes vomiting and diarrhea when it rolls into the port of Houston on Friday, a day early after the trip was cut short by fog, the company said. The Caribbean Princess, with about 3,100 passengers and 1,150 crew members will be sanitized before its next scheduled departure on February 1, the company said. "Approximately three passengers have current active symptoms of norovirus, and over the course of the cruise 165 passengers reported ill to the medical center," it said in a statement. The outbreak comes after a Royal Caribbean cruise ship this week cut short its Caribbean cruise after more than 600 people became sick with a gastrointestinal illness. Full Story | Top |
| Seeing ultrasound rarely changes abortion plans: study Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 04:56 PM PST By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nearly 99 percent of women went ahead with an abortion after voluntarily viewing an ultrasound image of the fetus beforehand, according to a large new U.S. study. Based on medical records for more than 15,000 women seeking abortion at Los Angeles Planned Parenthood clinics, researchers found that only a small fraction of the women changed their minds after seeing the image. "This study was motivated in large part by the current political and popular interest in what role ultrasound viewing plays in women's decisions about abortion," said one of the authors, Katrina Kimport at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. Ten states have enacted laws that require doctors to perform ultrasounds before abortions, and three of those require the woman to view the image during the ultrasound. Full Story | Top |
| NY City officials bust drug, prostitution ring ahead of Super Bowl Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 04:16 PM PST  By Chris Francescani NEW YORK (Reuters) - A multimillion-dollar drug and prostitution ring has been busted, New York City law enforcement officials said on Thursday, as they warned Super Bowl fans to steer clear of the city's sex and narcotics underworld. Ring leaders offered high-flyer clients "party packs" of drugs and prostitutes in three separate operations aggressively pushing both sex and cocaine, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told a news conference. "Once the "john" (customer) was high or impaired on drugs, they would call in other prostitutes and repeatedly charge the john's credit cards, in excess of $10,000, in some cases, for one evening," Schneiderman said. The 11-month probe by Schneiderman's organized crime task force, in coordination with the New York Police Department's vice squad, netted more than $3 million in credit card charges alone over the past year, he said. Full Story | Top |
| Passion for vodka kills Russian men in their thousands Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 04:11 PM PST  By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - A quarter of all Russian men die before they reach their mid-fifties and their passion for alcohol - particularly vodka - is largely to blame, according to research published on Friday. A study of more than 150,000 people found extraordinarily high premature death rates among male Russians, some of whom reported drinking three or more bottles a week of the potent clear spirit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, deaths among heavy drinkers were mainly due to alcohol poisoning, accidents, violence and suicide, as well as diseases such as throat and liver cancer, tuberculosis, pneumonia, pancreatitis and liver disease. "Russian death rates have fluctuated wildly over the past 30 years as alcohol restrictions and social stability varied under presidents Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Putin, and the main thing driving these wild fluctuations..was vodka," said Richard Peto of Britain's Oxford University, who worked on the study. Full Story | Top |
| Heroin abuse at 'epidemic' level in South Florida -drug report Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:44 PM PST By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - A high-profile law enforcement crackdown on prescription painkiller abuse in Florida has addicts turning increasingly to heroin, resulting in the highest number of overdose deaths and hospitalizations in recent years, a report on drug abuse said. Deaths from heroin - now more potent and widely available than ever - rose 89 percent statewide from 62 in 2011 to 117 in 2012, with the problem reaching epidemic proportions in South Florida, according to a report by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institute of Health. "We're talking here about the mother of addictions," said James N. Hall, an epidemiologist at Nova Southeastern University who authored the report with 20 NIDA researchers nationwide who have met biannually since 1976 to track drug use trends. "The crossover from the prescription products to illicit heroin complicates that and will fuel the continued epidemic," he added. Full Story | Top |
| As U.S. waistlines expand, seatbelt use falls Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:43 PM PST "Cars should be designed so it's easier to put a seatbelt on if you're obese," the study's lead author, Dr. Dietrich Jehle, told Reuters Health. "It's very important to increase seatbelt use in heavier individuals to best prevent deaths on the highways," said Jehle, who is director of emergency services at Erie County Medical Center and vice chairman of Emergency Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Some automakers provide larger belts or extenders, Jehle said, but heavier people frequently struggle to fasten their belts, feel squeezed once strapped in and drive unbelted. An earlier study found that individuals considered morbidly obese were 56 percent more likely to die in vehicle crashes than people of normal weight. Full Story | Top |
| Sanofi sues Eli Lilly over patents for top-selling insulin drug Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 03:17 PM PST  (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi sued Eli Lilly and Co on Thursday, alleging that the U.S. pharmaceutical company infringed patents on its top-selling diabetes treatment, the insulin product Lantus. The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court for the District of Delaware, was triggered by notification from Lilly last month that it applied with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking permission to sell a generic version of Lantus, known chemically as insulin glargine. Lilly, in its submission, challenged the validity of several patents on Lantus held by Sanofi. Indianapolis-based Lilly had said it will not launch its generic product before the February 2015 expiration of Sanofi's patent on the active ingredient in Lantus. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico leftists to propose raising marijuana allowance in capital Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:53 PM PST  By Julia Symmes Cobb MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The opposition party governing Mexico City said on Thursday it would propose raising the amount of marijuana residents of the capital can possess to seven times the current limit to help speed up drug liberalization in Mexico. Since former President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on drug cartels seven years ago, Mexico has been wracked by gang-related violence, and there is growing pressure to explore regulation as a way of tackling the problem. The leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) has led the drive to liberalize Mexico's drug laws, and aims to use the capital, which it has governed since 1997, as starting ground. Vidal Llerenas, a PRD member of the Mexico City assembly, said the initiative that is due to be presented in the next two weeks would increase the amount of marijuana local residents are allowed for personal consumption to 35 grams from 5 grams. Full Story | Top |
| Amgen's cholesterol fighter succeeds in fifth late-stage study Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:45 PM PST (Reuters) - Amgen Inc said its experimental drug from a promising new class of injectable medicines succeeded in treating patients with genetically high cholesterol levels, marking the fifth successful clinical study of the drug. Evolocumab met the main goal of a late-stage trial titled RUTHERFORD-2 by lowering "bad" LDL cholesterol levels when tested against a placebo on 329 patients. Amgen, the world's biggest biotechnology company, is testing evolocumab widely on a variety of subpopulations. The RUTHERFORD-2 study included patients with familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited condition that causes high levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol starting at birth. Full Story | Top |
| In double legal trouble, Bieber tests positive for pot, meds Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:42 PM PST  By Cameron French and Zachary Fagenson TORONTO/MIAMI BEACH (Reuters) - Teen pop star Justin Bieber, facing charges in the United States and Canada, had pot and anti-anxiety medication in his system when arrested in Florida last week but told police his mother "takes care" of his prescriptions, according to official reports released Thursday. Bieber was charged late on Wednesday with assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto and the Toronto Star newspaper reported Thursday that the driver in the alleged assault in December quit his job "in shock" following the incident. The charges over the last week now put Bieber at risk of serving jail time. On Thursday, a report by the Miami-Dade Office of the State Attorney said Bieber had marijuana and prescription medication for anxiety in his system when he was arrested in Miami Beach. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. launches clemency effort for low-level drug offenders Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:29 PM PST  By David Ingram and Bernard Vaughan WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday urged lawyers to help identify incarcerated low-level drug offenders who might be eligible for presidential clemency. Citing a "crushing" prison population, Deputy Attorney General James Cole made the unusual announcement in a speech to the New York State Bar Association. Candidates for clemency would include non-violent inmates who have clean prison records, do not present a threat to public safety, are facing excessive sentences and do not have "significant ties" to gangs or cartels, Cole said. In a sign of changing U.S. views about long prison sentences, Obama in December commuted the sentences of eight people after deciding their crack cocaine offenses did not justify their long prison terms. Full Story | Top |
| Yoga may reduce fatigue after breast cancer Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 02:21 PM PST By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Participating in yoga classes after treatment for breast cancer was linked to reduced fatigue and inflammation and increased vitality among women in a new study. Researchers found that breast cancer survivors who took 12 weeks of yoga classes ended up with reduced inflammation and felt less tired after six months, compared to a similar group of women who didn't take yoga classes. "This may be a way to provide a good activity that also has other benefits," Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health. She and her colleagues write in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that cancer survivors are twice as likely to have poor health and more disability, compared to people without a history of cancer. Full Story | Top |
| Senior Democratic Congressman Waxman to retire Thursday, Jan 30, 2014 01:58 PM PST By Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Representative Henry Waxman of California, a leading liberal who helped craft President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare overhaul, said on Thursday he would retire from Congress at the end of the year. After 40 years in Congress, Waxman, 74, said he was ready to move on. "In 1974, I announced my first campaign for Congress," Waxman said in a statement. Obama saluted Waxman as "one of the most accomplished legislators of his or any era." "Thanks to Henry's leadership, Americans breathe cleaner air, drink cleaner water, eat safer food, purchase safer products, and, finally, have access to quality, affordable healthcare," the White House said in a statement. Full Story | Top |
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