Month: June 2014

By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled that owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of President Barack Obama's healthcare law that requires employers to provide insurance covering birth control for women. The decision, which applies only to a small number of family or other closely-held companies, means an estimated several thousand women whose health insurance comes via such companies may have to obtain certain forms of birth control coverage elsewhere. In a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the justices said the companies can seek an exemption from the so-called birth control mandate of the law known as Obamacare. The companies in the case said they did not object to all birth control but certain methods they said were tantamount to abortion, which they oppose for religious reasons.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — A federal plan to lower thresholds for warning the public about contaminated beach water is drawing protests from state officials in the Great Lakes region and along the ocean coasts who say the revisions could unnecessarily scare away swimmers.

By Daniel Kelley PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A Pennsylvania woman using bogus medical credentials to pose as a doctor was accused of identity theft and other charges after reportedly giving physical examinations to as many as 16 truckers. Pennsylvania State Police said Joann Elizabeth Wingate conducted physicals, including collecting urine samples, while using a Philadelphia psychiatrist’s medical license, according to Fox 43 television in central Pennsylvania. Wingate, 56, was released on $10,000 bail on Monday after being charged with forgery, identity theft and deceptive business practices, according to court documents. The unnamed psychiatrist told police she does not perform physical examinations and never authorized Wingate to do so on her behalf, the television station reported.

WASHINGTON (AP) — No more dreaded pelvic exam? New guidelines say most healthy women can skip the yearly ritual.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising some employees to stop taking antibiotics to ward off a possible anthrax infection after preliminary tests suggest it is “highly unlikely” they were inadvertently exposed to live anthrax bacteria earlier this month, a spokesman said on Monday. The CDC conducted the tests after an incident in the agency’s high-security bioterror response laboratory suggested live anthrax may have been transferred from that lab to employees in a lower-security facility who were not wearing proper protective gear, raising concerns that they may have been exposed to the deadly pathogen. CDC spokesman Tom Skinner said preliminary results of environmental testing in the lower-security labs and some lab tests by the CDC suggest no viable bacteria left the lab.

In the race to live longer, healthier lives, we can and must take the steps to be far more competitive than we currently are.

It's time to get back to simplicity to bring balance to our complex lives. Meditation has been a means to do this by taking me into a state of stillness and silence — the opposite of what daily modern life showers upon us.

I started cultivating intimacy with myself. Starting journaling about what I wanted, who I was, what I loved about myself, my body. And you know what happened? This elusive intimacy found me.

When your partner consistently avoids sex and intimacy, or on the rare occasion when they are willing, are obviously doing so reluctantly — the accumulations of repeated rejections are likely to have a big impact on your self-esteem.

Try to experience doing as living. The sense of living then moves to the foreground, with doing as a matter-of-fact, no-big-deal, expression of embodied life. It's a subtle shift, but a powerful one.