Month: May 2014

That evening when we got home, Sean said something that became a game-changer. Instead of worrying about the "what-if's" in life, it became clear to us that we were the decision-makers.

There are many times during my little skirmish with cancer that I gave in to the physical beating. Friends would call and ask me to do things, and while my heart wanted to say yes, my brain would say "No. I'm too sick."

WASHINGTON (AP) — After less than four months at the Veterans Affairs Department, Sloan D. Gibson suddenly finds himself in charge of fixing the problems that led to the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

By Alexei Oreskovic RANCHO PALOS VERDES Calif. (Reuters) – Internet startups are starting to see what could come between them and their ambitions: regulators. Now, Web companies developing services in everything from healthcare to transportation are crafting strategies for working with government agencies. That’s a marked change from a few years ago, when the mantra was, “Grow first, worry later.” “The issues of an Internet company 10 years ago were different because you weren’t affecting the real world,” Travis Kalanick, chief executive officer of car-ride service Uber, told Reuters at the Code technology conference in Southern California this week. “Once you get in the real world, you’ve got a whole other thing you’ve got to deal with, and that’s where regulations and regulatory bodies and politicians and campaigns and all this stuff come into play.” This month, 15 taxi companies in Connecticut sued Uber for skirting state and federal regulations.

Words take on certain new meanings when you get sober — or at least I should say some words. Yes, you learn new ones — those types of things you're never going to find in the Oxford English Dictionary or outside of recovery circles probably — like normie, sponsee and step work. But there are also a slew of words you're probably going to learn to use in new ways.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is updating its advice for pregnant women on the appropriate levels of mercury in seafood but Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said Friday that it won't require mercury labels on seafood packages.

By Shelby Sebens PORTLAND Ore. (Reuters) – Oregon's Democratic governor wants the state's attorney general to sue the technology vendor that developed the embattled Cover Oregon website to recover payments, while officials from Oracle said on Friday any claims were unfounded.  A state that fully embraced the Affordable Care Act, Oregon endured one of the rockiest rollouts of President Barack Obama's healthcare law, requiring tens of thousands of applicants to use paper forms since launching on Oct. 1. The announcement by Governor John Kitzhaber seeking legal action comes as federal prosecutors have subpoenaed documents from Oregon's health exchange agency as part of a grand jury investigation into how the state used federal money to set up the now-failed health insurance exchange.  "The time has come to hold Oracle accountable for its failure to deliver technology that worked on the timelines the company committed to," Kitzhaber said in a statement on Thursday.

And they say their concept – using laser light to entice the body's own stem cells into action – may offer enormous promise beyond just dentistry in the field of regenerative medicine. The researchers used a low-power laser to coax dental stem cells to form dentin, the hard tissue similar to bone that makes up most of a tooth, demonstrating the process in studies involving rats and mice and using human cells in a laboratory. So I think it has potential for great impact in clinical dentistry," researcher Praveen Arany of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, said on Friday. "Our treatment modality does not introduce anything new to the body, and lasers are routinely used in medicine and dentistry, so the barriers to clinical translation are low," added Harvard University bioengineering professor David Mooney.

By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In naming Sloan Gibson as acting secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, President Barack Obama turned to a staunch defender of the agency who has a background in both the military and in the corporate world. Gibson, the son of a World War II Army Air Corps tail gunner and grandson of a World War I veteran, went to West Point before joining the elite Army Rangers. He joined the VA only three months ago as deputy secretary. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony in April for a VA trauma center in Tampa, Florida, Gibson praised the "cutting-edge medical care" at the center and touted the dedication of VA employees.

There are many things that a life like Maya Angelou's teaches us who are left behind. But I believe her most enduring legacy is that she gave us a perfect formula for resilience. For getting back up again and again no matter what.