Month: October 2013
Watch: Hearing Loop Technology at Work
Catholic rebel Kueng, 85, considers assisted suicide
By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor PARIS (Reuters) – Hans Kueng, Roman Catholicism’s best known rebel theologian, is considering capping a life of challenges to the Vatican with a final act of dissent – assisted suicide. Kueng, now 85 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, writes in final volume of his memoirs that people have a right to “surrender” their lives to God voluntarily if illness, pain or dementia make further living unbearable. …
Obama, congressional leaders still deadlocked on shutdown
By Jeff Mason and Thomas Ferraro WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama met with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress on Wednesday to try to break a budget deadlock that has shut wide swaths of the federal government, but there was no breakthrough and both sides blamed each other. After more than an hour of talks, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama refused to negotiate, while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of trying to hold the president hostage over Obamacare. …
Shutdown, debt fight highlight Republican distance from ‘big business’
By Gabriel Debenedetti (Reuters) – Big business, a traditionally powerful but pragmatic player in Republican policy-making, has found itself outflanked and marginalized by smaller conservative groups opposed to compromise in the country's current fiscal crisis and the looming showdown over the debt ceiling. As the shutdown of the government approaches its third day, business leaders and groups like the U.S. …
Diesel exhaust pollution may disrupt honeybee foraging
By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) – Exposure to pollution from diesel exhaust fumes can disrupt honeybees' ability to recognize the smells of flowers and could in future affect pollination and global food security, researchers said on Thursday. In a study published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, scientists from Britain's University of Southampton found that the fumes change the profile of the floral odors that attract bees to forage from one flower to the next. …
