Month: February 2014

LOHATA, India (AP) — This cluster of poor villages, long known for its colorful silk saris, now is known for something else: tuberculosis. Nearly half of Lohata's population has it — some 100,000 people — and the community's weaving tradition is part of the reason it is on the front line of a major Indian health crisis.

By Gabriel Debenedetti WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, many political strategists saw it as a triumph of the Obama team's technological prowess, allowing it to identify likely Democratic voters and get them to the polls. It was a sore point for Republicans, who came out of that election vowing to nullify the Democrats' advantage in gleaning information from voter databases and social media to find potential supporters. According to interviews with a dozen strategists from both parties, Democrats appear set to maintain their technological edge, potentially boosting their prospects in the 2014 midterm elections just as other factors – such as President Obama's sliding popularity – are likely to favor Republicans.

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. debt limit suddenly looks a lot less threatening as Republicans in the House of Representatives struggle to choose from a diminishing list of minor conditions for an increase needed by the end of this month. Both House Republican leadership and some of the conservatives who voted against the deal to end a government shutdown last October are taking a more pragmatic approach that includes no talk of brinkmanship. As a result, financial markets are far from panicking. Republican lawmakers and aides said possible debt limit conditions still under discussion included the restoration of military pension cuts that many Republicans had just supported in December, as well as adjustments to doctor payment rates in the Medicare health care program for the elderly.

A southern Minnesota school building was evacuated on Thursday and 30 elementary students were treated at a local hospital for possible carbon monoxide poisoning, officials said. The cause of the incident Thursday morning at the Springfield Public Schools building has not been determined and investigators have not picked up carbon monoxide readings in their search of the facility, Superintendent Keith Kottke said. “We haven’t ruled anything out at this point,” Kottke said. “We want to make sure it isn’t an indoor air quality issue.” All but one of the children had been treated and released by late Thursday afternoon from Mayo Clinic Health System in Springfield and the remaining child was being evaluated, system spokesman Kevin Burns said.

By Colleen Jenkins WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) – As many as 82,000 tons of ash have spilled into a river after a pipe break at a retired coal plant in North Carolina, and environmental officials said on Thursday that preliminary water quality tests showed no violations of state standards. “The Dan River does not have a clean bill of health,” said Tom Reeder, director of the North Carolina Division of Water Resources. The ash release was discovered on Sunday at a Duke Energy power plant in Eden. The company said the broken stormwater pipe under a 27-acre ash pond released enough coal ash to fill between 20 and 32 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Veteran actor Leonard Nimoy, best known as Spock in the 1960s television series "Star Trek" and a string of feature films that followed, said he was "doing OK" after being diagnosed with lung disease and urged fans on Thursday to quit smoking. Quit now," Nimoy tweeted to his 810,000 followers. In Nimoy's case, the actor said, he was diagnosed despite having quit smoking 30 years ago. Just can't walk distances," and he signed off with "LLAP," an abbreviation of his character's trademark phrase, "live long and prosper." Nimoy first revealed in a Twitter message posted last week that he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a severe lung ailment that the U.S. surgeon general has concluded is linked to smoking.

Pauline Morse testified that she refrained from intervening in order not to undermine her celebrated husband, Dr. Melvin Morse, a best-selling author on near-death experiences. Melvin Morse, 60, is standing trial on child endangerment charges. Pauline Morse told the court that she saw Morse holding her daughter under a faucet in the kitchen. During cross-examination, defense attorney Joe Hurley argued that Pauline Morse was only pretending to be intimidated by her husband.

The Obama administration is considering an extension of the president’s decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, industry and government officials said Thursday.

By John Whitesides and Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives appear increasingly unlikely to pass an immigration overhaul this year, preferring to focus their election-year strategy on a unified assault on President Barack Obama's healthcare law. House Speaker John Boehner hinted at that strategy on Thursday, when he expressed doubt to reporters that a sweeping revision of U.S. immigration laws would get through Congress this year because Republicans did not trust Democratic President Barack Obama's administration to enforce any immigration laws Congress might write. But many House Republicans have made clear that they want to put off an almost certainly divisive debate over immigration until next year, when they hope to have more legislative clout and a majority in the Senate.