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| No media access to images of semi-clad Bieber - for now: judge Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 06:27 PM PST  By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami judge on Thursday temporarily blocked media access to any more video images of a semi-clad Justin Bieber filmed while the teenage pop singer was in police custody last month after his arrest for driving under the influence. The police station footage included clips of Bieber giving a urine sample behind a low wall. Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield ordered that about 10 hours of police surveillance video not be released until he has been able to review them in his chambers. "Do you believe that the public has the right to ... see Justin Bieber urinating?" the judge asked attorneys representing several large media companies seeking access to the video under Florida's broad public records law. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. proposes new safety rules for farm pesticide use Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 05:55 PM PST Farm workers, children and other people working or living near farm fields would have more protection from hazardous pesticides under changes proposed on Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "Today marks an important milestone for the farm workers who plant, tend, and harvest the food that we put on our tables each day," Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator, said in a statement. EPA is proposing revisions to the agency's 22-year-old "Worker Protection Standard" that EPA officials say will help protect approximately 2 million U.S. farm workers and their families from exposure to pesticides used to protect crops from weeds, insects, and disease. The EPA said pesticides are beneficial tools in agriculture when used in proper concentrations and with proper protections. Full Story | Top |
| Elevated radiation found in air near New Mexico waste site Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 05:28 PM PST Testing of surface air near an underground nuclear waste site in New Mexico's desert showed elevated levels of radiation but did not pose a threat to humans or the environment, a U.S. Department of Energy official said on Thursday. Trace amounts of man-made radioactive elements such as plutonium were found at an air-monitoring site half a mile from the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant and are tied to a radiation leak in the underground salt formation where waste from defense research and nuclear weapons production is stored, said Joe Franco, manager of an Energy Department field office that oversees the plant. Energy officials said over the weekend that there was no apparent surface air contamination from the accidental release of radiation that caused an air-monitoring alarm below ground to go off about 11:30 p.m. local time on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Wall St. rises on factory data; Tesla and Facebook jump Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:49 PM PST  By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks climbed on Thursday after a reading on manufacturing activity hit its highest in nearly four years, while news about Facebook and Tesla drove their shares to record highs. U.S. factory activity accelerated at its fastest pace in nearly four years in February, according to Markit's preliminary U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index, a bullish economic indicator following a string of weaker-than-expected reports. The stock market has selectively shrugged off tepid data, pinning recent weakness on the impact of extremely cold weather and massive snow rather than worsening fundamentals. Full Story | Top |
| Avon bets Hispanics, smaller selection, price hikes can fix U.S. sales Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:32 PM PST  By Phil Wahba and Lisa Baertlein NEW YORK/BOCA RATON, Fla (Reuters) - Avon Products Inc hopes higher prices, a growing Hispanic market and smaller selection of beauty products will help it reverse years of declines in U.S. sales, top executives said on Thursday. The company's North American sales have fallen by half since 2007, and last year, the size of its army of Avon Ladies sales representatives, shrank 15 percent. "That's our No. 1 priority," Avon Chief Executive Sheri McCoy told analysts at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, where her team laid out in the most detail yet how Avon plans to return to growth in its home market, despite short-term risk to sales. Avon's senior vice president for North America, Pablo Munoz, put the growing U.S. Hispanic population at the center of the company's plan, saying Hispanic sales representatives are "incredibly committed" to the Avon brand. Full Story | Top |
| Marriage Quality May Influence Heart Disease Risk Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 01:16 PM PST By Allison Bond NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Ambivalent hearts may be at higher risk for heart disease, according to a new study of married couples with mixed feelings for one another. "The most intriguing finding was that within a couple, only if both of them felt ambivalent towards their partner did you see this elevated (heart disease) risk," said Bert Uchino, a psychologist at the University of Utah and lead author of the study. Full Story | Top |
| Flu activity highest among U.S. young and middle-aged: CDC Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 12:23 PM PST By David Beasley ATLANTA (Reuters) - Hardest hit this U.S. flu season are adults, from younger to middle-aged, in part because fewer have been vaccinated, a federal health agency said on Thursday as the season enters its final weeks. An estimated 60 percent of those who have died from influenza this season were 24 to 64 years old, compared with 18 percent last season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. People ages 18 to 64 have accounted for 61 percent of all hospitalizations due to the flu, up from about 35 percent in the three prior seasons, the CDC said. This season's dominant flu strain is the H1N1 virus, the same one that struck in 2009, with high rates of hospitalization and death among young adults and the middle aged, the CDC said. Full Story | Top |
| Goldman Sachs misses out on WhatsApp, 2014's top deals so far Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 12:19 PM PST  The world's top deal adviser for nine of the past 10 years, Goldman Sachs Group Inc has been notably absent on 2014's largest mergers and acquisitions, including Facebook's $19 billion deal to purchase mobile messaging service WhatsApp. Normally the go-to-banker for big deals, Goldman has missed out on the top five transactions in the young year, according to Thomson Reuters data. Facebook Inc relied on boutique investment firm Allen & Co to help with its offer to buy startup WhatsApp, which in turn chose Morgan Stanley . Typically, Goldman Sachs starts out slowly and still land at the top of the league tables by the end of the year. Full Story | Top |
| Olympics-Figure skating-Sotnikova gives Russia its ice princess Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 12:17 PM PST By Julian Linden SOCHI, Russia, Feb 20 (Reuters) - The fairytale princess that Russia had been craving finally came to life on Thursday when teenager Adelina Sotnikova won the women's individual figure skating title at the Sochi Olympics. Sotnikova produced the skate of her life to win the gold medal ahead of South Korea's Kim Yuna with an energetic routine that had the crowd on their feet and judges's hearts melting. In fact, I smashed my highest score for my whole career and I did it at the Olympics," said the jubilant 17-year-old. I just couldn't skate badly." Incredibly for a country that has produced so many great figure skaters, Sotnikova become the first Russian woman to win the individual title. Full Story | Top |
| At-Home Exercise Helps After Hip Break: study Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 11:43 AM PST By Andrew M. Seaman NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Simple at-home exercises could help seniors regain mobility and independence after recovering from a broken hip, according to a new study. Participants who followed the six-month home exercise program showed significant improvements in their ability to get up and around, climb stairs and attend to daily activities, compared to similar seniors who only had typical post-fracture rehab. A broken hip often marks the start of a rapid decline in older people's health. However, research has also shown that months of intensive outpatient physical therapy improves function, mobility and other outcomes, she added. Full Story | Top |
| Judge blocks media access to images of semi-clad Bieber Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 11:00 AM PST  By David Adams MIAMI (Reuters) - A Miami judge temporarily blocked media access to any more semi-clad video images of Justin Bieber filmed while the teenage pop singer was in police custody last month after his arrest for driving under the influence. Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield ordered that about 10 hours of police surveillance video not be released until he has been able to review them in his chambers. The footage included clips of Bieber giving a urine sample. "While in custody at the Miami Beach police station, the defendant was captured on videotape in various states of undress which show intimate personal parts of the defendant's body," according to a legal motion filed earlier this month in Miami-Dade County Court by Bieber's Miami law firm. Full Story | Top |
| Samba sans silicone: Rio Carnival school goes natural Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 09:10 AM PST  By Paulo Prada RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Wanted: topless Carnival dancers. It sounds like a simple request in a city known for steamy nightclubs, Bacchanalian beach parties and Carnival parades featuring nude starlets donning only a "tapa-sexo," a leaf-sized patch of fabric that serves, literally, as a sex covering. The women wanted by Mocidade Independente Padre Miguel, one of Rio de Janeiro's best known Carnival troupes, had to be silicone-free. In salute to a bygone era, Mocidade wanted Carnival dancers without the globular breasts and "bumbum," or buttocks, that now dominate the annual spectacle, a week-long party meant to purge sin before the Catholic season of Lent. Full Story | Top |
| Life-Jacket Laws Spur Use, Could Prevent Drownings Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 08:54 AM PST By Ronnie Cohen NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Dr. Linda Quan lost count of the number of children she watched slowly die from drowning. That pain spurred the Seattle emergency room pediatrician to advocate for a Washington state law that now requires children 12 years and younger to wear life vests aboard small recreational boats. In a new study published in the journal Injury Prevention, Quan and her colleagues find that boaters mandated to wear life jackets were the most likely to wear them. More than 82 percent of them were not wearing life jackets. Full Story | Top |
| Jury selection begins in NY trial of Kerry Kennedy on driving charge Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 08:44 AM PST  Jury selection began on Thursday in the trial of Kerry Kennedy, daughter of assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the ex-wife of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was charged in 2012 after swerving her car into a tractor trailer and driving away. Kennedy, 54, is charged with one count of driving while impaired, a misdemeanor. No one was injured in the accident in a suburb of New York City. Kennedy initially said a partial seizure was to blame but a toxicology report showed that she had sleeping medication in her system. Full Story | Top |
| E-cig industry on tenterhooks ahead of U.S. regulation Thursday, Feb 20, 2014 08:32 AM PST  By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lobbyists for electronic cigarette companies have been beating a path to the White House, hoping to prevent the administration from imposing strict, and possibly costly, rules on the burgeoning $2 billion industry. In November and December, more than 35 organizations including e-cigarette companies, cigar and tobacco makers, trade associations, physician groups, lawyers, lobbyists and public health advocates trooped through the doors of the White House's Office of Management and Budget. OMB has been reviewing a rule proposed by the Food and Drug Administration that would bring e-cigarettes under its jurisdiction and could potentially require companies to register and pay fees, list the ingredients in their products, obtain prior approval for new products and restrict online sales and marketing to children. The OMB, which reviews proposed regulations to assess, among other things, their economic impact, has not given a date for when it will be finished with its review, but officials have not had a meeting with outsiders since January 17 according to public records, suggesting they have heard all they need, or are willing, to hear. Full Story | Top |
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