Month: August 2014

By Brendan O’Brien WAUKESHA Wis. (Reuters) – A Wisconsin girl accused of luring a friend into the woods and repeatedly stabbing her to please Slenderman, a fictional Internet character, is not mentally competent to stand trial, a judge ruled on Friday. The girl, Morgan Geyser, and her friend, Anissa Weier, both 12, have been charged as adults with first-degree attempted homicide. The girls told investigators they attacked their friend, also 12, to impress Slenderman, a tall, fictional bogeyman popular on the Internet that they insisted was real, according to a criminal complaint. Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Bohren ordered Geyser to be committed to the state’s department of health services, based on testimony from two mental health professionals, who told the court that Geyser lacks the capacity to assist in her own defense.

(Reuters) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Friday created a panel to recommend reforms to the state's pension and health benefits for retired public employees. The panel of experts will be charged with "thinking big and being bold when it comes to developing recommendations for how New Jersey can create a sustainable retirement and health benefits system," Christie's office said in a statement. The governor began calling for a new round of pension reform in February but has yet to lay out specific proposals. New Jersey's Democratic legislative leaders had worked with Christie, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, to craft 2011 pension reforms.

West African leaders will implement tough measures to control the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan said after meeting three of them on Friday. “The presidents recognize the serious nature of the Ebola outbreak in their countries. They are determined to take all the extraordinary measures to stop Ebola in their countries,” Chan said at the conclusion of the talks in the Guinean capital Conakry.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran has opened the country’s first, state-run rehab and treatment center for alcoholism, an Iranian semi-official news agency reported on Friday.

MASON, Ohio (AP) — With wide grins and a few apprehensive looks, more than 200 people lost their hair Friday at an amusement park as they worked to break the Guinness record for most heads shaved simultaneously.

The SWEET Act is not the spoonful of sugar that will help the medicine go down for Big Soda but it is, indeed, the right prescription for the diseases brought on by excessive consumption of sugar drinks.The Sugar Sweetened Beverages Tax Act would impose an excise tax of 1 cent per teaspoon of sugar or other caloric sweetener at the…

By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Friday to reconsider its July 22 ruling that poses a major setback to the Obamacare health insurance overhaul as it could limit the availability of federal health insurance subsidies for millions of people. In the ruling last month, the appeals court said the subsidies, which help people afford health insurance, may only be paid in states that have their own online health insurance exchanges. Five million people could be affected, analysts have estimated, if subsidies were to disappear from the federally created marketplaces that have been set up in the states that did not set up their own exchanges. Government lawyers wrote in the court filing that the July decision, if left intact, would "impose a severe hardship" on people who currently get the subsidies in the form of tax credits.

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — Marijuana can go in more than brownies and cookies. And the dizzying variety of foods that can be infused with the drug is complicating matters for Colorado regulators who want to make sure pot-infused edibles and drinks won't be confused with regular foods.

NEW YORK (AP) — Plans are underway to bring back the two American aid workers sick with Ebola from Africa.

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The parents of preschool children in the U.S. may be buying fewer sugar-sweetened drinks, a new study suggests. Whether that will translate into lower childhood obesity rates remains to be seen, experts said. There was also a shift in milk purchasing, which some said could be concerning. Researchers examined purchases of packaged food and beverages among more than 42,000 households with children ages 2 to 5 years old. …

Shares of Canada’s Tekmira Pharmaceutical Corp , which has ambitions of producing the first treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, have skyrocketed as the worst-ever outbreak of the virus intensified in West Africa. While human tests of the company’s treatment, TKM-Ebola, were put on hold last month due to safety concerns, investors scrambled to buy its stock, sending shares up 1.5 percent to $13 in midday Nasdaq trading, and up more than 50 percent over the past fortnight. “The recent outbreak in West Africa is as profound as any we have seen in recent decades,” said Euro Pacific Canada analyst Douglas Loe. “We have solid pre-clinical evidence showing that TKM-Ebola is effective at eradicating Ebola symptoms, giving us confidence that its development activities could resume,” he said.

Researchers at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine conducted a study to find out why a small percentage of people appear to only need six hours of sleep whereas most everyone else needs between eight and nine hours for optimal functioning during the day. They worked with 100 pairs of twins and identified a gene mutation that allows one not only to function on less sleep but also to experience fewer effects of sleep deprivation even after an all-nighter. Cognitive performance was measured every two hours during the sleep deprivation period by means of the Psychomotor Vigilance Test. After this period of extended sleep deprivation, the twin without the variant slept for 9.5 hours while his brother or sister slept just eight hours to catch up.