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| Faulty pipe led to deadly carbon monoxide leak in NY: official Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 12:44 PM PST By Victoria Cavaliere NEW YORK (Reuters) - A broken water heater flue pipe caused a carbon monoxide leak inside a restaurant at a mall on New York's Long Island that killed one person and injured 27, a fire official said on Sunday. Terence McNally, chief fire marshal for the town of Huntington, said the malfunctioning pipe had allowed for the buildup of the deadly gas on Saturday in the basement of the Legal Sea Foods restaurant at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington Station, 40 miles east of New York City. A Suffolk County Police Department spokeswoman said arson and homicide detectives were still examining the leak on Sunday. As police cleared the restaurant of its customers, officers found the 55-year-old manager, Steven Nelson, unconscious in the basement. Full Story | Top |
| George W. Bush launches program to help veterans transition from war Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 11:22 AM PST  By Margaret Chadbourn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President George W. Bush on Sunday promoted a new initiative to help veterans transition back to civilian life and aid in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The onetime commander-in-chief, who led the United States into war in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, said he wants to highlight the challenges facing service members returning from war zones, as well as their families. "I have a duty," Bush said in an interview that aired on Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "Obviously I get slightly emotional talking about our vets because I have an emotional...," Bush said, trailing off. About 2.5 million U.S. service members have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Department of Defense. Full Story | Top |
| Governors say legalizing marijuana is a step too far Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 11:06 AM PST  By Aruna Viswanatha WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington and Colorado may have blazed the trail by legalizing marijuana, but not all U.S. states are rushing to follow their lead, governors from several states in the Midwest and the East Coast said on Sunday. "I don't support the legalization of marijuana, and that's been my position for a long time and will continue to be," Indiana Governor Mike Pence, a Republican, said on CNN's "State of the Union". The two western states became the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use through a ballot initiative in 2012. Last month, Colorado became the first state to open retail outlets legally permitted to sell marijuana to adults for recreational purposes, in a system similar to what many states have long had in place for alcohol sales. Full Story | Top |
| Global warming won't cut winter deaths as hoped: UK study Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 10:43 AM PST By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - Global warming will fail to reduce high winter death rates as some officials have predicted because there will be more harmful weather extremes even as it gets less cold, a British study showed on Sunday. A draft U.N. report due for publication next month says that, overall, climate change will harm human health, but adds: "Positive effects will include modest improvements in cold-related mortality and morbidity in some areas due to fewer cold extremes, shifts in food production and reduced capacity of disease-carrying vectors." However a report in the journal Nature Climate Change on the situation in England and Wales said climate warming would likely not decrease winter mortality in those places. Lead author Philip Staddon of the University of Exeter told Reuters that the findings were likely to apply to other developed countries in temperate regions that risk more extreme weather as temperatures rise. Excess winter deaths (EWDs), the number of people who die in winter compared to other times of the year, roughly halved to 31,000 in England and Wales in 2012-12 from 60,000 typical in the 1950s, official data show. Full Story | Top |
| At 90, Zimbabwe's Mugabe says has energy of 9-year-old Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 07:38 AM PST  By MacDonald Dzirutwe MARONDERA, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Robert Mugabe celebrated his 90th birthday on Sunday, having spent more than a third of his life as leader of Zimbabwe, lauded as a liberation hero by some and condemned as a human rights abuser by others. At a birthday party-cum-political rally in a football stadium, Mugabe, showed no signs of ill health after returning from Singapore for what aides said was a cataract operation. Zimbabwe's sole ruler since the former Rhodesia gained independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe is under Western sanctions. He denies human rights abuses and election fraud and blames former colonial power Britain for smearing his name. Full Story | Top |
| Egypt food supply shake-up sees official referred to prosecutors Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 04:36 AM PST  By Shadia Nasralla and Yasmine Saleh CAIRO (Reuters) - A shake-up of Egypt's food import and storage authorities has seen an official from its main food buying agency referred to prosecutors over suspected corruption on local rice deals, while the head of its silos and storage holding company was fired. Egypt is the world's biggest wheat importer, normally buying some 10 million tons a year and while the suspected corruption is focused on rice, the moves come just days after two senior officials from the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) were transferred from their posts. Traders fear any disarray within GASC could hurt its ability to launch international tenders. GASC has said the re-shuffles would not impact its import activity. Full Story | Top |
| China sends government teams to investigate pollution Sunday, Feb 23, 2014 12:52 AM PST  China has sent teams of investigators to parts of the country worst hit by air pollution as part of efforts to stop the heavy smog engulfing about 15 percent of the country, including Beijing. Twelve teams of inspectors will head to the cities of Beijing, the nearby city of Tianjin and Hebei province to see how authorities are responding to the worst air pollution in months, the Ministry of Environmental Protection said on Sunday. But enforcement has been patchy at the local level, where authorities often rely on taxes paid by polluting industries. In Beijing, which has been shrouded in smoky, white smog for a week, authorities raised the air pollution alert system to "orange" for the first time on Friday after drawing public fire for its initial ineffective response. Full Story | Top |
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