Year: 2014

By John Tilak TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada's main stock index was little changed on Friday as data showing economic growth in North America helped drive gains in the energy sector, while gold-mining shares were dragged down by a weaker gold price. The TSX, nevertheless, recorded its strongest monthly gain since October, rising 3.8 percent in February. The Toronto market has outperformed the S&P 500 so far this year, rising about 4.3 percent, following a selloff in January triggered by concerns about emerging market growth. …

The family doctor and author of Health First: Winning at Weight Loss and … Instead, the focus is on three regular meals a day and strategic snacking …

By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Inexpensive splints worn nightly can reduce the pain of hand osteoarthritis, a chronic ailment that affects a majority of older adults, a new study shows. “It’s a well-tolerated, safe and cheap intervention,” rheumatologist Dr. Fiona Watt told Reuters Health. Watt, from the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Osteoarthritis Pathogenesis at the University of Oxford, led the new study. She and her colleagues tested custom-made splints on London clinic patients who suffered painful and deforming hand osteoarthritis.

By Barbara Liston ORLANDO (Reuters) – Diners at a Florida restaurant chain are being asked to pay a health insurance surcharge on their meal tabs to cover the cost for business owners of the Obama administration’s new healthcare program. Customers at eight Gator’s Dockside restaurants dotted around central and north Florida are finding a 1 percent surcharge on their bills listed as “ACA,” the letters standing for the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. A $14.56 lunch tab for Asian salad and iced tea ordered by a reporter at a Dockside restaurant in the town of Clermont, a short drive west of Orlando, included a 13-cent ACA surcharge. “Therefore, instead of raising prices on our products to generate the additional revenue needed to cover the cost of ACA compliance, Gator’s Dockside has implemented a 1 percent surcharge on all food and beverage purchases only,” the notice adds.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Doctors Without Borders said Friday it has been expelled from Myanmar and that tens of thousands of lives are at risk. The decision came after the humanitarian group reported it treated nearly two dozen Rohingya Muslim victims of communal violence in Rakhine state, which the government has denied.

By Richard Cowan WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A month after Republicans rallied around offering an alternative to President Barack Obama's healthcare law in an election-year move to broaden their appeal to voters, divisions are surfacing over the issue in the U.S. House of Representatives. House Speaker John Boehner has not committed to voting this year on legislation to replace Obama's landmark Affordable Care Act. Majority Leader Eric Cantor brought together committee chairmen and other Republican leaders, who have controlled the House since January 2011, to discuss healthcare legislation on Friday. "The goal is to develop consensus along healthcare policy," said Camp, whose committee is one of a few with oversight of healthcare legislation.