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| Ten beached whales die in Florida Everglades, dozens in danger Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:27 PM PST  By Jane Sutton MIAMI (Reuters) - Ten beached whales have died and rescuers were trying to save dozens more that were swimming in dangerously shallow waters near shore in Everglades National Park in southwest Florida, park and wildlife officials said on Wednesday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said wildlife officers euthanized four whales because they could not be saved, and rescuers tried with little success to coax another 41 whales out into deeper water. NOAA said via Twitter that survival rates were typically low in such instances. The whales were first sighted on Tuesday afternoon in a remote part of the park near the Gulf of Mexico, park spokeswoman Linda Friar said. Full Story | Top |
| New factory puts Iceland in biosimilar drugs race Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:05 PM PST Iceland is joining the race to make copycat versions of complex biotech drugs with an investment of $250 million in development and manufacturing by Alvotech, a sister company of privately owned U.S.-based Alvogen. The money will pay for a 11,800 square meters facility in Iceland that will open in early 2016. Alvotech was founded by Icelandic entrepreneur Robert Wessman, who also heads Alvogen and who has a track record of building generic drug businesses. He ran Actavis until four years before its 2012 sale to Watson. Full Story | Top |
| Dementia epidemic looms with 135 million sufferers seen by 2050 Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 04:04 PM PST By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - Many governments are woefully unprepared for an epidemic of dementia currently affecting 44 million people worldwide and set to more than treble to 135 million people by 2050, health experts and campaigners said on Thursday. Fresh estimates from the advocacy group Alzheimer's Disease International (ADI) showed a 17 percent increase in the number of people with the incurable mind-robbing condition compared with 2010, and warned that by 2050 more than 70 percent of dementia sufferers will be living in poorer countries. "It's a global epidemic and it is only getting worse," said ADI's executive director Marc Wortmann. It's vital that the World Health Organization makes dementia a priority, so the world is ready to face this condition." Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, is a fatal brain disease that has no cure and few effective treatments. Full Story | Top |
| Mexico lawmakers preparing to debate energy reform: top senator Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 03:30 PM PST  By Miguel Gutierrez and Adriana Barrera MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican lawmakers will send a landmark energy bill to Senate committees on Thursday to pave the way for debate on a cornerstone of President Enrique Pena Nieto's economic reform drive, a top ruling party lawmaker said on Wednesday. The bill, which would open Mexico's state-dominated energy sector to private investment in a bid to raise flagging oil output, will need approval of the Senate and lower house of Congress. Supporters say it is needed to raise slowing growth in Mexico, Latin America's second-largest economy. David Penchyna, leader of the Senate's energy committee and a member of Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said the bill would be submitted to Senate committees on Thursday, but that the committees would not vote on it until Friday at the earliest. Full Story | Top |
| Enbridge says 2013 profit at low end of target, raises payout Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 03:12 PM PST  Enbridge Inc , Canada's largest pipeline operator, said on Wednesday 2013 earnings would be at the low end of its target of C$1.74 to C$1.90 per share, but boosted its dividend by 11 percent. Enbridge, which has forecast that earnings per share will grow 10 percent to 12 percent annually between 2013 and 2017, said earnings this year and next will be below that target as it completes an expansion of its network of pipelines, which now carry the bulk of Canada's crude oil exports to the United States. The company said it expects 2014 earnings per share of between C$1.84 and C$2.04. Congested Canadian export pipelines have caused Enbridge to ration how much crude shippers can transport on its network. Full Story | Top |
| Iran's ability to enrich uranium troubles U.S. lawmakers Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 02:30 PM PST  By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers in the House of Representatives said on Wednesday they are concerned about Iran's ability to continue enriching uranium under the interim agreement on Tehran's disputed nuclear program, an issue they are likely to press as global powers attempt to reach a final agreement. The concerns showed that House lawmakers could be willing to push for a new sanctions package next year that would define what Congress would be willing to accept in a final deal with Iran. The six-month interim deal made by the United States, five other world powers and Iran in Geneva last month gives International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors greater access to Iran's nuclear facilities and requires the Islamic Republic to halt its enrichment of higher grade uranium. But it allows Iran to continue enriching uranium up to 5 percent purity for generating nuclear power. Full Story | Top |
| Dow, S&P 500 drop for fourth straight day; Fed a concern Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:40 PM PST  By Ryan Vlastelica NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and the S&P 500 finished lower for the fourth consecutive session on Wednesday after investors found few reasons to make big moves, with uncertainty remaining over when the Federal Reserve will start to slow its stimulus. Still, the losses were broad, with eight of the 10 S&P 500 sector indexes ending lower for the day on concerns that the market's recent rally to record levels was not justified. About 60 percent of the shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange closed lower for the day, while 56 percent of Nasdaq-listed stocks closed down. Many market participants expect the Fed to announce a cut in its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases in March, but recent economic data increased expectations that the move may come sooner. Full Story | Top |
| Dozens of whales beached in Florida's Everglades, 10 die Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:36 PM PST By Jane Sutton MIAMI (Reuters) - Ten whales have died and rescuers were trying to save dozens more that beached in Everglades National Park in southwest Florida, park and wildlife officials said on Wednesday. Wildlife officers euthanized four whales because they could not be saved, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, said. NOAA said via Twitter that survival rates were typically low in such instances. The whales were first sighted on Tuesday afternoon in a remote part of the park near the Gulf of Mexico, park spokeswoman Linda Friar said. Full Story | Top |
| Jamaica launches its first medical 'ganja' company Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:33 PM PST  By Horace Helps KINGSTON (Reuters) - It's been a long time coming, but the birthplace of reggae and legendary pot-lover Bob Marley has announced the launch of its first medical marijuana company. Jamaican Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Anthony Hylton was among government officials on hand at a ceremony in the capital, Kingston, on Tuesday night where the opening of the company known as MediCanja was formally announced. The island nation, world famous among connoisseurs for the distinctive and almost mystical allure of its pot known locally as ganja, has long been known as the leading Caribbean supplier of illegal marijuana to the United States. But MediCanja marks the first known effort to find a legitimate source of revenue from Jamaica's bountiful, but still illicit, crop of marijuana. Full Story | Top |
| Pfizer to expand clinical data access to researchers, patients Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:08 PM PST  By Bill Berkrot NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global drugmaker Pfizer Inc will broaden access to information from its scores of clinical trials to independent researchers and to patients who take part in the studies, the company said on Wednesday. Pfizer, the largest U.S. pharmaceutical company, said it hoped the enhanced access to its data will help spur further scientific and medical research as well as encourage more patients to get involved in clinical trials. "We are impressed to see how active patients are individually to manage and understand their disease, and in patient foundations a tremendous, great job is made to contribute to the advance of care," Pfizer research chief Mikael Dolsten told reporters at the company's New York headquarters. "We think this is the right time to support this trend." The move comes at a time of increasing pressure on the pharmaceutical industry to be more transparent with clinical trial information - including safety data and details of failed studies - and to increase access for the scientific community. Full Story | Top |
| Canada panel urges better response plan for oil spills Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:05 PM PST  By Julie Gordon VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canada must be better prepared to respond to major oil spills if more crude starts to flow in pipelines to the country's Pacific Coast, a government panel said on Tuesday, as fears of a major marine disaster grow. The report, by the federal transport department, makes 45 recommendations, including ensuring companies are prepared for a worst-case scenario and new guarantees that taxpayers will not be liable for costs related to spills in Canadian waters. Regulators are currently weighing separate proposals from Enbridge and Kinder Morgan to build new pipelines to carry oil from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, which could bring an additional 600 tankers to the region each year. The review of Canada's ship-source oil spill regime is a key part of the federal government's push to reassure Canadians that it has prepared for that additional traffic and has a policy in place to respond if there is a major spill. Full Story | Top |
| High-rise developers win court protection in 9/11 WTC case Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 01:01 PM PST  By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court in New York has given developers and builders of high-rises and other buildings added protection from lawsuits over property losses linked to terrorism, in a case stemming from the September 11, 2001 attacks. A divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Consolidated Edison Inc and its insurers could not pursue damages for negligence over the crushing of the utility's electrical substation beneath the original 7 World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the attacks. Con Ed argued that negligence by companies controlled by Larry Silverstein, the developer and leaseholder, and the constructor Tishman Construction Corp., caused the 47-story tower to collapse, resulting in the substation's destruction. Circuit Judge Rosemary Pooler nevertheless concluded that the building, which was completed in 1987, "would have collapsed regardless of any negligence ascribed by plaintiffs' experts" to its design and construction. Full Story | Top |
| Analyst who cast doubt on Provenge vaccine settles with SEC Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 12:46 PM PST A former hedge-fund analyst who argued that Dendreon Corp's therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer may hasten the death of patients has reached a settlement with U.S. securities regulators over failure to disclose her financial interests in the company. Marie Huber, who trained as a biochemist at Cambridge University in England and worked at an unnamed New York hedge fund from 2007 to 2011, neither admitted nor denied the Securities and Exchange Commission's findings, according to the agency. Huber said she stood by her analysis of the vaccine, Provenge. The SEC settlement bars her from the securities industry for six months and requires her to pay a $25,000 fine. Full Story | Top |
| Exclusive: Morgan Stanley, UBS hired to run Applus+ IPO - source Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 11:33 AM PST  By Kylie MacLellan and Andrés González LONDON/MADRID (Reuters) - The private equity owner of Applus+ has picked Morgan Stanley and UBS to oversee a stock market listing of the Spanish industrial testing firm, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Carlyle Group , which bought Applus+ in 2007 in a deal valuing it at 1.48 billion euros ($2 billion), plans to float the company next year and expects to appoint more banks in the coming months to work as bookrunners, said the person. Disasters like the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill and a growing environmental movement have spurred calls for better health and safety standards in the energy industry, boosting demand for services provided by firms like Applus+. Carlyle and Applus+ declined to comment. Full Story | Top |
| Obamacare uncertainty harming economic rebound, CEOs say Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 11:22 AM PST  Uncertain corporate costs for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law and other regulations continue to stymie U.S. employment and capital spending, business leaders said on Wednesday. Roughly 39 percent of U.S. chief executives cited regulatory costs as their top concern for the next six months, according to a survey released by the Business Roundtable, a confederation of top U.S. companies. The group said uneven implementation of the healthcare law, commonly known as Obamacare, has made it tough for businesses to decide where to allocate capital for new construction or hiring. "There seems to be an exception every other day on the Affordable Care Act," Jim McNerney, head of the Business Roundtable and chief executive of airplane maker Boeing Co, said in a conference call on Wednesday, using the law's formal name. Full Story | Top |
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