Year: 2014

By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congress just wants the U.S. budget wars to be over. If any more evidence was needed, 12 Republican senators swallowed their principles and voted to propel a "clean" one-year debt limit increase toward passage on Wednesday. As a result, any major deficit reduction efforts are stalled in Washington for at least a year, and perhaps until the next president takes office in 2017. The procedural vote, potentially toxic for some of the senators, would have been considered heresy three years ago, when the Republican Party made deficit reduction its top priority and the debt limit its main lever.

Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital "barely suitable" for living, according to an official Chinese report, as the world's second-largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth. Pollution is a rising concern for China's stability-obsessed leaders, keen to douse potential unrest as affluent city dwellers turn against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has tainted much of the country's air, water and soil. The report, by the Beijing-based Social Science Academic Press and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, ranked the Chinese capital second worst out of 40 global cities for its environmental conditions, official media reported on Thursday. China's smog has brought some Chinese cities to a near standstill, caused flight delays and forced schools to shut.

By Lacey Johnson GEORGETOWN, Delaware (Reuters) – A jury heard final arguments on Wednesday in the trial of a well-known Delaware pediatrician accused of waterboarding his 11-year-old stepdaughter. Prosecutors sought to portray Dr. Melvin Morse, a best-selling author on near-death experiences, as a controlling manipulator. Morse’s lawyer told jurors, who are scheduled to begin deliberations on Thursday, that his stepdaughter and wife were liars. His stepdaughter, 11 at the time, told authorities that Morse had physically abused her, including waterboarding her on four occasions.

Confusion over when and how often to get mammograms.        

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most states are still lagging when it comes to sign-ups under President Barack Obama's health care law, but an Associated Press analysis of numbers reported Wednesday finds a dozen high-achievers getting ahead of the game.