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| Merck's ragweed pollen allergy drug gets U.S. approval Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 12:03 PM PDT  (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Merck & Co's pollen allergy drug Ragwitek. The tablet, which is administered by placing it under the tongue, is to treat the short ragweed pollen induced allergic rhinitis. Merck's Ragwitek will compete with Stallergenes SA's immunotherapy treatment for five types of grass pollen, which was approved by the FDA earlier this month. Full Story | Top |
| Islamist militants kill 30 in attacks around Iraq Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:54 AM PDT By Raheem Salman BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed at least 30 people around Iraq on Thursday including 12 soldiers in an assault on a remote army base in the north, deepening insecurity with a national election just two weeks away. Sectarian bloodshed has increased since the Shi'ite Muslim-led Baghdad government began an offensive against insurgents, some of them affiliated with al Qaeda, dug in around Falluja and Ramadi in the western province of Anbar. Early on Thursday morning, gunmen disguised in Iraqi military uniforms drove armored vehicles, including Iraqi army Humvees, up to a small military base outside Mosul and opened fire, killing 12 soldiers and wounding about a dozen, army and police officers said on condition of anonymity. The region around Mosul has been a stronghold of the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group. Full Story | Top |
| About 12 million U.S. outpatients misdiagnosed annually : study Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:54 AM PDT  Roughly 12 million adults who visit U.S. doctors' offices and other outpatient settings, or one in 20, are misdiagnosed every year, a new study has found, and half of those errors could lead to serious harm. The study by a team of Texas-based researchers attempted to estimate how often diagnostic errors occur in outpatient settings such as doctors' offices and clinics, as exact figures don't exist. Efforts to improve patient safety have largely focused on inpatient hospital care, including programs introduced by President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, even though most diagnoses are made in outpatient clinics, the study said. "It's important to outline the fact that this is a problem," said Dr. Hardeep Singh, the study's lead author and a patient safety researcher at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, also in Houston. Full Story | Top |
| Armed mob under guise of peaceful protest attacks U.N. in South Sudan Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:50 AM PDT A mob of armed civilians pretending to be peaceful protesters delivering a petition to the United Nations in South Sudan forced their way into a U.N. base sheltering some 5,000 civilians on Thursday and opened fire, the world body said. A U.N. source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said at least 20 people had been killed and 60 wounded in the attack on the base in Bor in northern Jonglei state, where there are Indian and South Korean U.N. peacekeepers. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said dozens of civilians were wounded, but the exact number of people killed or wounded had not yet been confirmed. "This attack on a location where civilians are being protected by the United Nations is a serious escalation," Dujarric said. Full Story | Top |
| Four-way talks call for end to Ukraine violence Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:39 AM PDT  By Arshad Mohammed and Alexei Anishchuk GENEVA/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The United States, Russia, Ukraine and European Union together called on Thursday for an immediate halt to violence in Ukraine, where Western powers believe Russia is fomenting a pro-Russian separatist movement. Washington immediately warned Moscow that it would face further sanctions if it did not carry out the agreement, reached in four-party crisis talks in Geneva. Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking in Moscow, accused Ukraine's leaders of committing a "grave crime" by using the army to try to quell unrest in the east of the country, and did not rule out sending in Russian troops. Full Story | Top |
| Algeria's Bouteflika poised to win re-election Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:30 AM PDT  By Patrick Markey ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerians voted on Thursday in an election President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is expected to win after 15 years in power, despite speaking only rarely in public since suffering a stroke in 2013. With the dominant National Liberation Front (FLN) party, allied movements and unions behind him, many Algerians believe Bouteflika, 77, is almost assured of victory and another five years governing the North African OPEC state. Appearing in public for one of the few times since his illness, Bouteflika voted sitting in a wheelchair in Algiers' El Biar district. Algeria under Bouteflika has been seen as a partner in Washington's campaign against Islamist militancy in the Maghreb and a stable supplier of around a fifth of Europe's gas imports. Full Story | Top |
| UnitedHealth: New hepatitis C drug costs far more than forecast Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:29 AM PDT  UnitedHealth Group Inc, the largest U.S. health insurer, said it spent more than $100 million to cover a pricey new hepatitis C drug from Gilead Sciences Inc in its first three months on the market, an amount that was "multiple" times what it had expected. UnitedHealth is the first insurer to quantify its costs to cover patients using Gilead's new Sovaldi treatment, whose $84,000 price tag has spurred a national outcry over the rising costs of specialty medicines. UnitedHealth shares fell nearly 4 percent on Thursday and shares of rivals WellPoint Inc and Aetna Inc fell 3.8 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively, as investors weighed what their potential costs could be as well. Sovaldi has been shown to cure most patients of the liver-wasting virus with few side effects, but health officials, insurers and Medicaid directors are balking at the cost. Full Story | Top |
| Scientists find Earth-sized world in orbit friendly to life Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:03 AM PDT  The discovery, announced on Thursday, is the closest scientists have come so far to finding a true Earth twin. The star's outermost planet, designated Kepler-186f, receives about one-third the radiation from its parent star as Earth gets from the sun, meaning that high noon on this world would be roughly akin to Earth an hour before sunset, said astronomer Thomas Barclay, with NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. "This planet is an Earth cousin, not an Earth twin," said Barclay, who is among a team of scientists reporting on the discovery in the journal Science this week. NASA launched its Kepler space telescope in 2009 to search about 150,000 target stars for signs of any planets passing by, or transiting, relative to the telescope's point of view. Full Story | Top |
| Brutish and short? DNA 'switch' sheds light on Neanderthals Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 11:02 AM PDT  Hundreds of Neanderthals' genes were turned off while the identical genes in today's humans are turned on, the international team announced in a paper published online in Science. They also found that hundreds of other genes were turned on in Neanderthals, but are off in people living today. Among the hundreds: genes that control the shape of limbs and the function of the brain, traits where modern humans and Neanderthals differ most. "People are fundamentally interested in what makes us human, in what makes us different from Neanderthals," said Sarah Tishkoff, an expert in human evolution at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new study. Full Story | Top |
| Putin, Erdogan discuss Ukraine crisis, Crimean Tatars and energy Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:57 AM PDT MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday discussed the turmoil in Ukraine and the situation in Crimea including issues involving the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Tatar minority, the Kremlin said. In a telephone call initiated by the Turkish side, Putin and Erdogan also discussed bilateral ties between the two Black Sea nations, including in the energy sector. Crimean Tatars largely opposed Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine last month. (Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) Full Story | Top |
| Energy sector to drive Canada first-quarter profit gains Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:47 AM PDT  By John Tilak TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian companies are expected to post solid profit gains when they begin unveiling first-quarter results next week, with robust earnings at energy companies seen overcoming weakness at miners and the materials sector. Energy companies will benefit from a ramp-up in production, improved prices for Canadian crude relative to global benchmarks, and a rally in natural gas prices. Full Story | Top |
| Wall Street edges higher during earnings flurry Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:41 AM PDT  By Rodrigo Campos NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced slightly in choppy trading on Thursday after three days of gains, as underwhelming results from tech bellwethers Google and IBM were offset by upbeat quarterly numbers, including those from Morgan Stanley and General Electric. The latest data showed the U.S. economy's health was improving. The combined reported and expected earnings-per-share growth estimate for S&P 500 components rose to 1.7 percent from Wednesday's 0.6 percent, Thomson Reuters data showed, indicating most companies that reported results in the past 24 hours exceeded expectations. The technology sector capped the S&P 500's gain, with Google shares down 3.2 percent at $545.81 and IBM off 3.2 percent at $190.28 after both reported earnings late Wednesday that failed to impress Wall Street. Full Story | Top |
| Kerry: Russia made no commitments on Ukrainian debt, gas prices Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:36 AM PDT U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday Russia had not promised to ease Ukraine's debt or gas prices and suggested any withdrawal of Russian troops from its borders depended on steps to protect the rights of minorities. "(Russia made) no commitments with respect to the debt, no commitments with respect to the gas payments overdue, but a commitment to engage in a dialogue ... which will begin to tackle the whole question of energy," Kerry told reporters. Full Story | Top |
| Salsa music great José 'Cheo' Feliciano, 78, dies in car crash Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:28 AM PDT  By Ana Martinez-Santiago SAN JUAN (Reuters) - Puerto Rican singer José Luis "Cheo" Feliciano, who performed with some of salsa's top stars, was killed in a car crash in San Juan early Thursday morning, police said. Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla declared three days of mourning for the widely admired salsero. Feliciano died shortly after 4 a.m, according to Axel Valencia, a San Juan police spokesman. The El Nuevo Dia newspaper said his Jaguar hit an electricity pole. Full Story | Top |
| U.S., EU say still at loggerheads with Russia over Crimea Thursday, Apr 17, 2014 10:23 AM PDT The United States and European Union still have a significant difference with Russia over the status of Crimea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Thursday, as they reached a deal at the end of talks with Russia on measures to stabilize Ukraine. Both Kerry and Ashton said it was "crystal clear" that such differences remained, and Kerry said Russia had "illegally" taken over the peninsula from Ukraine last month and the United States had not given up on it. Full Story | Top |
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