Month: September 2013

* Korea says ban due to concerns over contaminated water leaks * Seoul says Japan’s Fukushima data unreliable * Japan says fishery exports safe, no radiation risk (Recasts, adds Tepco comment, changes slug) By Meeyoung Cho and Mari Saito SEOUL/TOKYO, Sept 6 (Reuters) – South Korea on Friday extended a ban on Japanese fishery imports to a larger area around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant due to growing concerns over radiation contamination. …

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A blue placard dangling from the rear-view mirror is the equivalent of parking gold for drivers in many cities — they can park for free and for as long as they want. Now there's a gold rush on for them.

By Reiji Murai TOKYO (Reuters) – Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co is set to gain preferential negotiating rights for a majority stake in Panasonic Corp’s healthcare unit, sources familiar with the matter said, a potential $1.5 billion deal that would mark the U.S. firm’s largest investment in a Japanese company. An agreement would be in line with KKR’s plans to invest further in Japan after recently raising a $6 billion Asia fund, the biggest ever in Asia for a private equity firm. …

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG said on Friday it had signed a licensing and research deal that could boost its ability to develop innovative cell-based therapies for conditions where little treatment is currently available. The maker of blockbuster blood pressure drug Diovan said it would use a stem-cell based platform developed by U.S.-based biopharmaceutical company Regenerex to help broaden its cell therapy portfolio. Timothy Wright, head of development at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said the agreement would support Novartis' leadership position in cell therapy.

By Kevin Murphy (Reuters) – Whooping cough has reached epidemic proportions in Texas and could hit a 50-year high, a health official said on Thursday. Nearly 2,000 cases of whooping cough have been reported in Texas this year. Two infants, who were too young to receive the whooping cough vaccine, have died, state officials said. The number of cases likely will surpass the recent high of 3,358 in 2009, according to the state health services department. “We’re clearly having an epidemic,” said Dr. …

By Richard Valdmanis BOSTON (Reuters) – Thirteen people who recently underwent neurosurgery in Massachusetts and New Hampshire may have been exposed to a rare and fatal brain condition similar to “mad cow” disease because of potentially infected surgical instruments. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said on Thursday that five patients treated at Cape Cod Hospital between June and August are at low risk of infection for the disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). …

By Tony Maglio LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Judy Garland’s daughters Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft will perform together for the first time in 20 years to raise money for breast-cancer research. They will give two concerts at Manhattan’s Birdland on October 14 and October 21 at Birdland, titled “Nothing Like a Dame – Lorna’s Pink Party.” The shows will benefit the Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Initiative and the Dr. Philomena McAndrew Fund of Tower Cancer Research Foundation. The last time the sisters performed together was at the 1993 Tony Awards. …

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California inmates have ended a two-month-old hunger strike that ranked as the largest in state history and took aim at a policy of keeping some prisoners in near-isolation for years, corrections officials and inmates said on Thursday. Inmates credited a move by two California legislators to hold hearings on prison conditions as a reason for stopping the strike, which at its peak saw about 30,000 prisoners refusing food, even as they said most of their demands had not been met. …

Researchers found that families that were simply told they were in a study to track electricity use reduced electricity use more than two-and-a-half percent. Cynthia Graber reports.

By Carey Gillam (Reuters) – A Missouri man was arraigned Thursday on charges that he recklessly infected a sexual partner with the virus that causes AIDS, and a prosecutor said he potentially could have infected 300 more people in two states. David Mangum, 37, faces a felony charge in Stoddard County Circuit Court in southeastern Missouri accusing him of exposing a 29-year-old man to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes a life-threatening failure of the immune system commonly known as AIDS, according to court documents. …

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Eight patients who may have been exposed to a fatal brain disease at a New Hampshire hospital have been contacted by the hospital's president, who said Thursday the patients aren't panicking.

By Kim Dixon WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday issued proposed rules aimed at easing the requirements for companies and insurers when they report employees' health coverage information to comply with President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. The proposed regulations are a key element of the employer mandate portion of the law. Implementation of the rules had been delayed while the Treasury Department attempted to simplify them to address concerns of employers. …