Month: March 2013

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Annual deficits under a new plan from Senate Democrats would be in the $400-600 billion range for much of the next decade, a level they say would allow stronger near-term job growth than Republicans' balanced-budget vision. Full details of the plan released by Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray on Wednesday showed that deficits would average 2.4 percent of U.S. economic output through 2023, a rate many economists view as sustainable. …

By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) – The legal battle over New York City's ban of large sugary drinks is set to continue in early June, after a New York appellate court agreed on Wednesday to hear the city's appeal of a ruling that struck down the new law. Hours after state Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling invalidated the ban in a last-minute decision on Monday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has made the ban and other health measures a cornerstone of his tenure, expressed confidence the ruling would eventually be overturned. …

By Nicolás Misculin and Juliana Castilla BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Some crying, others praying, Argentines poured into churches on Wednesday to celebrate the surprise election of one of their own as Latin America’s first pope, with many hoping Francis I will bring his common touch to the Vatican. Churchgoers in the mainly Roman Catholic country said they want to see Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio – a 76-year-old Argentinian Jesuit respected for his humble lifestyle – bolster faith in the Church after a series of scandals. …

By Mario Naranjo CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s government said on Wednesday it may not be possible to embalm the remains of late leader Hugo Chavez as planned because the process should have been started earlier. Chavez died last week aged 58 after a two-year battle with cancer. His body has been on display in a glass-topped coffin at a grandiose military academy in the capital Caracas, where millions of people have filed past to pay homage. …

Women treated with radiation for breast cancer are more likely to develop heart problems later, even with the lower doses used today, troubling new research suggests. The risk comes from any amount of radiation, starts five years after treatment and lasts for decades, doctors found.

By Gene Emery NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The radiation that might cure a breast cancer may also raise a woman’s risk of having a heart attack or heart disease later in life, according a new study that looked back at the cases of 2,168 women in Sweden and Denmark. The risk “begins within a few years after exposure, and continues for at least 20 years,” the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine. And that risk rises, they found, in proportion to the dose of radiation the heart receives. …