Month: July 2014

By Ted Siefer MANCHESTER N.H. (Reuters) – A conservative religious group has sued the state of New Hampshire to block a law from taking effect later this week that would establish 25-foot buffer zones around clinics offering abortions. The Alliance Defending Freedom said in papers filed in federal court that last month’s U.S. Supreme Court decision knocking down a Massachusetts law establishing similar buffer zones “eliminates any plausible legal justification for the law challenged here.” But New Hampshire officials argued on Tuesday their measure was more limited than that of Massachusetts, which prevented anti-abortion protesters from approaching within 35 feet of clinic entrances, a rule the Supreme Court said violated free speech protections. “Bipartisan majorities of the New Hampshire House and Senate believed we needed to take action to ensure that women could access health care free from harassment, obstruction or threats to safety, and Governor Hassan will continue to work toward meeting that goal,” spokesman William Hinkle said.

By Eric M. Johnson and Bryan Cohen SEATTLE (Reuters) – Eager customers lined up before dawn on Tuesday as Washington became the second U.S. state to allow the sale of marijuana for recreational use, although shortages and high prices were likely to accompany any euphoria. Store employees clapped and cheered at Top Shelf Cannabis in the northern city of Bellingham as its first buds were sold to a 29-year-old from Kansas, Cale Holdsworth. "I'm happy to be a part of history," said Holdsworth, who was on vacation visiting family and took his place at the front of the line at about 4 a.m. A handful of shops opened a day after 25 outlets were issued licenses under a heavily regulated and taxed system approved by voters in November 2012. The nation, and the federal government, are watching Washington's rollout as a broader trend of liberalization and pro-pot activism takes hold in the United States.

More than 550 police officers from Memphis, Tennessee, called in sick on Tuesday, a quarter of the department, in an escalating protest over cuts in health benefits that could eventually cost some officers their jobs, the city’s mayor said. The so-called “blue flu” wave started June 30 and has grown daily in an apparent protest to a new Memphis budget that raises the health premiums active city workers pay and cuts retiree health benefits, officials said. Memphis has canceled vacations and other scheduled time off for officers to take up the slack and the Shelby County sheriff has helped fill in gaps, officials said. “It’s a tough predicament,” said Memphis City Councilman Lee Harris, chairman of the council’s budget committee.

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pfizer Inc won the dismissal Tuesday of a long-running shareholder class action accusing the company of misleading investors about the safety of its Celebrex and Bextra pain-relieving drugs. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in New York came ahead of a Sept. 9 trial in the case, which investors launched in 2004 and followed an earlier ruling precluding testimony by the plaintiffs' damages expert. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, James Sabella, had acknowledged at a hearing after that May ruling that "without a damages expert a securities fraud trial can't be tried." They sought to amend a report issued by their expert, Daniel Fischel, a former dean of the law school at the University of Chicago whose methodology for calculating damages Swain had found to be flawed. Swain, however, said the plaintiffs did not deserve a second chance and agreed with Pfizer the case should be dismissed.

Alicia isn't the only celebrity to praise the weight loss and health benefits of … baby boy died of starvation after his vegan parents restricted his food.

By David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democrats hope to turn their legal setback on Obamacare and contraception into a winning autumn campaign issue by pushing legislation requiring employers to include birth control in healthcare coverage. Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives unveiled bills on Tuesday to override last week's Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that allowed closely held corporations to forego for religious reasons President Barack Obama's healthcare regulation requiring insurance plans to cover contraceptives. The proposed legislation would bar employers from discriminating against female employees in coverage of preventive health services, including contraception. The Democratic-controlled Senate is expected to vote on a measure introduced by Senator Patty Murray of Washington and Senator Mark Udall of Colorado before Congress breaks for August recess.

By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) – Fifty new cases of Ebola and 25 deaths have been reported in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea since July 3, as the deadly virus spreads in families, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Guinea’s ministry reported two deaths since July 3, but no new cases in the past week, the WHO said, calling the situation in the affected region of West Africa a “mixed picture”. WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib, speaking to a Geneva news briefing earlier on Tuesday, said: “This means that the two main modes of transmission are home care, people who care for their relative at home, and during funerals, are still ongoing.” “If we don’t stop the transmission in the several hotspots in the three countries we will not be able to say that we control the outbreak,” she said. West African countries and international health organizations adopted a fresh strategy last Thursday to fight the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic to date.

By Julie Steenhuysen and David Beasley CHICAGO/ATLANTA (Reuters) – Stray vials of the deadly smallpox virus from the 1950s have been discovered at a federal lab near Washington, U.S. health officials said on Tuesday, the second lapse discovered in a month involving a deadly pathogen at a government facility. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that workers discovered the vials in a cardboard box on July 1 while clearing out an old lab on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The six glass vials contained freeze-dried smallpox virus and were sealed with melted glass. The vials appeared intact and there is no evidence that lab workers or the general public are at risk, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner.