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| Texas women turned away at abortion clinics after court ruling Friday, Nov 01, 2013 03:58 PM PDT  By Karen Brooks and Lisa Maria Garza AUSTIN/DALLAS, Texas (Reuters) - Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies were turned away at clinics across Texas on Friday, providers said, after strict new regulations for physicians who perform abortions prompted a dozen facilities to stop offering them. "They're calling from all over - Fort Worth, West Texas, all over Dallas, Oklahoma, everywhere," said Betty Pettigrew, director at Routh Street Women's Clinic in downtown Dallas, which has offered abortion services since 1978. Offices were inundated with calls after a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that a provision of a new Texas law that requires all doctors performing abortions to have an agreement with a local hospital to admit patients could go into immediate effect. The provision was part of a sweeping anti-abortion law, passed in July by the Republican-led Texas Legislature, that also requires abortion clinics to meet heightened building standards, bans abortion after 20 weeks and requires strict adherence to federal guidelines in prescribing the so-called abortion pill. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: U.S. officials mired in controversy over Obamacare rollout Friday, Nov 01, 2013 03:47 PM PDT  The troubled start of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law known as Obamacare has administration officials scrambling to address a host of problems, from the unreliability of the website HealthCare.gov to questions about who is responsible for hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their current coverage. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA Obama has been on the defensive about his healthcare policy since October 1, when HealthCare.gov was switched on and crashed the same night, preventing people from going online to create accounts and enroll in health insurance. Obama said on October 30 that "bad apple" insurance companies, not his healthcare law, are to blame for hundreds of thousands of people losing their coverage in the past few weeks. Obama has stood firm against Republican attempts to defund or delay the healthcare law - efforts that led to a 16-day government shutdown in early October. Full Story | Top |
| China to end use of prisoners' organs for transplants in mid-2014 Friday, Nov 01, 2013 02:18 PM PDT  China plans to end its controversial practice of using the organs of executed prisoners for transplants by around the middle of next year, a senior official told Reuters on Saturday. China is the only country that still systematically takes organs from executed prisoners for use in transplant operations, a decades-long practice that has drawn widespread international criticism. Beijing said in August it would begin to phase out the practice this month, and health officials have previously said China must stop using dead inmates' organs to "build a positive image that benefits the country." By mid-2014, all hospitals licensed for organ transplants will be required to stop using organs from executed prisoners and only use those voluntarily donated and allocated through a fledging national system, said Huang Jiefu, former deputy health minister who heads the organ transplant reform. Full Story | Top |
| Black patients less likely to ask for lower-cost meds Friday, Nov 01, 2013 01:48 PM PDT  By C. E. Huggins NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - African American patients may feel less comfortable than white patients asking doctors if they can take cheaper drugs, a recent survey from an emergency department shows. White patients in the study were also more likely to be aware of low-cost prescription drug programs, according to lead author Dr. Preeti Dalawari, of Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and her colleagues. They said the study supports recommendations that doctors talk with patients about how much drugs cost and ways to overcome high price tags. Such discussions may help people stick more closely to their prescribed medications. Full Story | Top |
| Obama says 'concerned' about Los Angeles airport shooting Friday, Nov 01, 2013 01:36 PM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that he is concerned about a shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport on Friday that killed one person and wounded at least six other people. "We're concerned about it, but I'll let law enforcement folks talk about it directly," Obama told reporters in the Oval Office after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. (Reporting by Steve Holland and Roberta Rampton; editing by Jackie Frank) Full Story | Top |
| U.S. TSA employee killed in L.A. airport shooting: spokesperson Friday, Nov 01, 2013 12:28 PM PDT (Reuters) - A U.S. Transportation Security Administration employee was shot and killed and another was injured in a shooting at the Los Angeles International Airport, a TSA spokesperson said on Twitter. "TSA confirms one male employee shot and killed, one injured," the spokesperson said on the social media site, adding that the gunman in the incident was not a TSA employee. Full Story | Top |
| Lone suspect in L.A. airport shooting used assault rifle: police Friday, Nov 01, 2013 12:07 PM PDT The suspect in the Los Angeles International Airport shooting appears to have acted alone and was using an assault rifle, police said on Friday. "An individual came into Terminal 3 of this airport, pulled an assault rifle out of a bag and began to open fire in the terminal," Patrick Gannon, chief of the Los Angeles Airport Police said at a press conference. Writing by Dan Whitcomb; Full Story | Top |
| Vatican surveys Church on family issues including gay marriage Friday, Nov 01, 2013 11:13 AM PDT  By Steve Scherer VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican is asking bishops and parish priests around the world about local views on gay marriage, divorce and birth control ahead of a meeting of bishops next year to discuss Roman Catholic Church teachings related to the family. It also shows Pope Francis is reaching out to local parishes and not relying solely on the Church hierarchy on how to implement Catholic teachings. The questionnaire was sent to bishops on October 18, according to a letter from Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, the general secretary of the synod meeting, to Catholic bishops around the world. The missive and survey questions were posted on the National Catholic Reporter's Web site on Thursday, and confirmed by the Holy See on Friday. Full Story | Top |
| Suspect in Los Angeles airport shooting in custody: police Friday, Nov 01, 2013 11:07 AM PDT A suspect in a multiple-victim shooting incident at Los Angeles International Airport has been taken into custody and is the only suspect in the incident, a Los Angeles police spokeswoman said on Friday. Police spokeswoman Officer Norma Eisenman said that the suspect was taken into custody after being "engaged by airport police," and that a bomb squad was carrying out a sweep of the area. Full Story | Top |
| Adoption group calls for U.S. laws to stop online child trading Friday, Nov 01, 2013 11:05 AM PDT  A study by a major U.S. adoption research group calls for "targeted laws, policies and practices" to stop adoptive parents from giving their unwanted children to strangers through the Internet. The report, released by the Donaldson Adoption Institute this week, also says problems exposed by a Reuters investigation in September "should be seen as the tip of an iceberg of unmonitored, unregulated adoption-related activities taking place on the Internet." Reuters found that desperate parents turn to online groups to offer unwanted adopted children to others. The U.S. government is typically unaware of the arrangements or what becomes of those children. Through a survey of 1,500 adoptive parents and adoption professionals in the United States and abroad, researchers from the institute and Tufts University found that international adoption has shifted from mostly infants to a growing number of older children who have disabilities or other kinds of emotional, physical or behavioral problems. Full Story | Top |
| White House says Obama briefed on incident at Los Angeles airport Friday, Nov 01, 2013 10:58 AM PDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama was briefed on a security incident at the Los Angeles International Airport on Friday, and White House officials are in touch with law enforcement officials on the ground, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland; editing by Jackie Frank) Full Story | Top |
| Toronto mayor's lawyer tells police to release alleged crack video Friday, Nov 01, 2013 10:56 AM PDT  By Cameron French TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's lawyer said on Friday his client was not smoking crack cocaine in a video that has been seen only by a few but has dominated Canadian headlines for months, and he urged the city's police to release the video to the public. His comments come a day after Toronto police said they had recovered a copy of a video that is "consistent" with one reportedly seen by journalists at the Toronto Star newspaper and by media blog Gawker earlier this year. Both the Star and Gawker said the video shows the mayor smoking what appears to be crack cocaine. Ford himself has denied the existence of the video and said he does not use crack cocaine. Full Story | Top |
| Flaxseed may reduce blood pressure, early findings show Friday, Nov 01, 2013 09:32 AM PDT By Shereen Jegtvig NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Eating a bit of flaxseed each day might help lower high blood pressure, a new study suggests. Researchers said it's too early to swap out blood pressure medication for the fiber-filled seeds just yet. But if future studies confirm the new results, flax might be a cheap way to treat high blood pressure, they added. But so far, its effect on high blood pressure, or hypertension, has been better studied among animals than humans. Full Story | Top |
| U.S. appeals court backs employer in 'contraception mandate' case Friday, Nov 01, 2013 09:09 AM PDT By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal appeals court in Washington joined other courts on Friday by ruling for an employer who raised religious objections to a provision of the 2010 U.S. healthcare law requiring companies to provide insurance that covers birth control. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on a 2-1 vote in favor of Catholic brothers Francis and Philip Gilardi, owners of Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics, who do not want to provide insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion. The legal question of whether employers can exercise their religious rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to avoid complying with the so-called "contraception mandate" is almost certain to eventually be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge Janice Rogers Brown wrote that as a result of the regulation, the brothers "can either abide by the sacred tenets of their faith, pay a penalty of over $14 million, and cripple the companies they have spent a lifetime building, or they become complicit in a grave moral wrong." The latest ruling brings to four the number of appeals courts to rule for employers, including preliminary decisions, while two others have ruled that the regulation must be complied with, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Full Story | Top |
| U.N. feeds record 3.3 million Syrians but malnutrition rising Friday, Nov 01, 2013 08:53 AM PDT By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations delivered food to a record 3.3 million people in Syria in October, up from 2.7 million the previous month, but said on Friday civilians were going hungry in besieged areas that remain inaccessible. Embattled parts of Damascus and its rural areas, where fighting has intensified, have not been reached for many months and the nutritional state of those trapped is believed to have deteriorated significantly, the World Food Programme (WFP) said. "WFP is concerned about the fate of many Syrians trapped in conflict areas and still in need of urgent food assistance. We are monitoring worrying reports emerging of malnutrition among children in besieged areas," WFP spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs told a news briefing in Geneva. Full Story | Top |
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