Month: July 2014

(Reuters) – Some 70 percent of Americans think the United States should provide temporary support and housing for unaccompanied Central American minors who illegally cross into the country while their cases undergo review, according to a poll released on Tuesday. Across political leanings and religious backgrounds, most Americans believe the recent influx of immigrant children should be treated like refugees if authorities think they cannot be returned home safely rather than face immediate deportation, according to the poll by the Public Religion Research Institute. The findings come as the United States struggles to cope with a mounting influx of newcomers, mostly from crime-plagued Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Democrats and youth were most compassionate toward the immigrant children, with roughly 80 percent of both groups saying the government should support them until their cases are fully reviewed.

Forty-nine years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson ushered in a new American era, creating a social compact that would withstand generations when he signed two hallmark health care programs, Medicare and Medicaid, into law. On that day, Mr. Johnson reflected on the nation’s duty to care for its citizens and the crippling consequences of having…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Stop sunbathing and using indoor tanning beds, the acting U.S. surgeon general warned in a report released Tuesday that cites an alarming 200 percent jump in deadly melanoma cases since 1973.

Several food writers, including a New York Times reporter, have been subpoenaed by a meat producer as part of its $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC in regards to the network's coverage of a beef product dubbed "pink slime" by critics.

CHICAGO (AP) — The NCAA agreed on Tuesday to help athletes with head injuries in a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit that college sports' governing body touted as a major step forward but that critics say doesn't go nearly far enough.

British nutritionists threw down the gauntlet to dietary guidelines in April by declaring seven daily portions of fresh fruit and vegetables, rather than the recommended five, were the key to health. Every additional daily serving of fruit and vegetables reduced the average risk of premature death from all causes by five percent, the scientists found. "We found a threshold of around five servings a day of fruit and vegetables, after which the risk of death did not reduce further," said the investigators, led by Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to advising patients about the virtues of healthy eating, doctors should also push home the message about risks from obesity, inactivity, smoking and excessive drinking, said the paper.

Home genetics startup 23andMe has secured a $1.4 million two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to build survey tools and expand its gene database. With these funds from NIH, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the company intends to use its stores of genetic data for various research projects. External researchers will be able to access information on thousands of diseases and traits for more than 400,000 people. The grant “enables researchers from around the world to make genetic discoveries,” Anne Wojcicki, chief executive officer of 23andMe, said in a statement.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Several food writers, including a New York Times reporter, have been subpoenaed as part of a company’s $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC related to the network’s coverage of a meat product derided as “pink slime.”

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A Northern California man who refused treatment and disappeared after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis has been arrested and admitted to a local hospital under guard, law enforcement and local health officials said on Tuesday. Eduardo Rosas Cruz, 25, was ordered to remain isolated in a hotel room in Stockton, some 40 miles northeast of Sacramento, and take medication for tuberculosis in March after he was determined to have the infectious lung disease, San Joaquin County Public Health Services spokeswoman Krista Dommer said. After Cruz violated those orders by leaving the hotel, authorities concerned about spread of the contagious disease issued a public health safety warrant for his arrest, Dommer said. Cruz was taken into custody on Monday night during a traffic stop in the community of Lamont, California, about 15 miles north of Bakersfield, Kern County Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Pruitt said.

By Emily Le Coz JACKSON Miss. (Reuters) – A Mississippi law that would shut down the state’s only abortion clinic, forcing women to go outside the state for the procedure, is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday. Upholding a lower court’s preliminary injunction against the law, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 2-1 decision that the law would place an undue burden on a woman’s right to seek an abortion. The law, passed in 2012, required doctors at the state’s sole abortion clinic to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, a standard the clinic could not meet. Backers of the law argued that it would not stop women from seeking an abortion in a neighboring state, but the judges ruled that Mississippi couldn’t rely on other states to uphold its constitutional duties.