Month: June 2013

By Brendan O’Brien MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Wisconsin’s Republican-led state Assembly passed a measure on Thursday to make it more difficult to get an abortion by requiring women first undergo an ultrasound. The bill, which also requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, now heads for the desk of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who is expected to sign it into law. Anti-abortion activists have increasingly turned toward enacting new restrictions at the state level to the procedure, which was made legal nationally by the U.S. …

By Brendan O'Brien (Reuters) – The 21-year-old son of U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu was arrested and charged on Thursday with drunken driving and hit and run after he allegedly struck a pedestrian while driving the wrong way down Bourbon Street in New Orleans, police said. Connor Snellings was taken into custody at about 3 a.m. local time at the corner of Bourbon and St. Louis streets after he failed a field sobriety test, according to the New Orleans Police Department. Police said in a statement that a breathalyzer given to Snellings showed his blood alcohol content was 0. …

By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) – A divided Arizona Senate passed a key piece of President Barack Obama's Medicaid expansion agenda on Thursday, handing Republican Governor Jan Brewer a policy victory over fierce opposition from conservatives in her party. By an 18-11 vote, the Senate approved the bill with the backing of a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers that will add hundreds of thousands of the state's poorest residents to the Medicaid healthcare rolls, but was opposed by conservative Republicans. …

By Ransdell Pierson and Jim Finkle (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday urged medical device makers and medical facilities to upgrade security protections to protect against potential cyber threats that could compromise the devices or patient privacy. It released that advisory in coordination with a separate alert from the Department of Homeland Security, which disclosed vulnerability in a wide variety of medical equipment that can make those devices vulnerable to remote attacks from hackers. …