GENEVA (Reuters) - Global food shortages and higher prices are more likely to cause malnutrition than outright famine, at least in the near term, the coordinator of a new United Nations task force said on Wednesday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Among patients infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, initiating antiretroviral therapy, there are significant differences in specific adverse events according to sex and race, but not in the overall rate of adverse events, death from any cause, or treatment withdrawal rates because of drug toxicity, new research indicates.
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TORONTO (Reuters) - The Toronto Raptors said they would not free Spain’s Jorge Garbajosa for the Olympics, with the NBA club and the Spanish federation still locked in a legal dispute over an earlier injury to the forward.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - San Francisco Giants catcher Eliezer Alfonzo has been suspended for 50 games for testing positive for a performance enhancing drug, Major League Baseball said on Wednesday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new type of powerful stem cell made from ordinary skin cells has been coaxed into becoming three different types of heart and blood cells in mice, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.
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NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Why didn’t Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings think of this?
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Magician David Blaine set a world record for underwater breath holding on Wednesday when he stopped breathing for more than 17 minutes suspended in a water-filled sphere on the stage of Oprah Winfrey’s talk show.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Giving carefully calibrated doses of smoked marijuana to people with neuropathic pain, which can be difficult-to-treat and extremely painful, can ease their pain without clouding their minds, California researchers report.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration aims to hire more than 1,300 biologists, chemists, pharmacologists and other staff members by October as part of a major expansion, the agency said on Wednesday.
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LONDON (Reuters) - British school traffic crossing helpers are being armed with new high-tech weapons in a bid to fight a growing number of so-called “lollipop” rage incidents.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actress Kate Hudson graces the cover of People magazine this week for the release of its “100 Most Beautiful People” list, but the single mother said she does not spend a lot of money on how she looks.
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BARCELONA (Reuters) - Rafael Nadal made a smooth start to his bid for a fourth consecutive Barcelona Open title as he powered to a 6-4 6-2 win over Italy’s Potito Starace in the second round on Wednesday.
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MAIDENHEAD (Reuters) - British rock band Radiohead has lent one of its songs to an MTV campaign to raise awareness about sweatshop labor and human trafficking.
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HELSINKI (Reuters) - Offering unlimited music downloads to phone buyers will make money for Nokia as well as record labels, the handset maker said, dismissing talk the move would come at the expense of profits.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Rangers forward Sean Avery lacerated his spleen in Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins and will miss the rest of the season, a Rangers spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Gary Dourdan, who co-stars on the CBS television hit “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” has been arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine, heroin and other drugs, police said on Tuesday.
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LONDON (Reuters) - British actor Ian McKellen will reprise the role of the wizard Gandalf in the upcoming movies based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit”, he told a film magazine.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Diabetes classes or visits to a nutritionist by patients with diabetics are associated with lower hospitalization rates and reductions in medical costs, according to findings published in Diabetes Care.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - World number three Maria Sharapova and 10th-ranked Daniela Hantuchova have pulled out of next week’s German Open in Berlin, organizers said on Wednesday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Alex Rodriguez and John Smoltz, two of baseball’s top players, have been placed on the disabled list.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Pittsburgh Penguins capitalized on two powerplay goals from Evgeni Malkin to overcome the New York Rangers 5-3 on Tuesday and take a commanding 3-0 lead in their Eastern Conference semi-finals series.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal appeals court said on Tuesday that a new rule requiring New York City fast food restaurants to post calorie information on menu boards is effective immediately.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - What struck U.S. filmmaker Kief Davidson about Ugandan child soldier turned world champion boxer Kassim “The Dream” Ouma was that he was always smiling.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A daily aspirin may give women modest protection against the most common type of breast cancer, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Tampa Bay Rays’ six-game winning streak ended when the Baltimore Orioles broke a first- place tie in the AL East with a 7-4 victory at Camden Yards on Tuesday.
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NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - “Grand Theft Auto 4″ went on sale on Tuesday, with fans lining up to grab the first copies of the criminal action game hailed as a brutal and satirical masterpiece equal to films like “The Godfather.”
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A pair of New Zealand comedians who play struggling musicians on a cult hit television show officially graduated to stardom on Wednesday when their debut album opened at No. 3 on the U.S. pop chart.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - DreamWorks Animation SKG Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg on Tuesday said he was disappointed with the pace at which movie theater chains were moving to deploy digital and 3-D technology.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc’s top priority this year is to make money off its YouTube video-sharing site, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a TV interview that sent Google’s shares up 4.7 percent.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a new study suggest that the combination of alcohol and an extended-release formulation of morphine does not increase the rate of absorption of the potent narcotic painkiller. The new product, called Kadian, packages morphine sulfate in a polymer-coated, extended-release capsule.
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MAIDENHEAD (Reuters) - Pioneering British rock band Radiohead has lent one of its songs to an MTV campaign to raise awareness about sweatshop labor and human trafficking.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A giant inflatable pig that went missing from a Southern California music festival at the weekend has been found in tatters in a desert town.
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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Five years of cancer care for America’s elderly cost Medicare $21.1 billion, a figure that will swell as the baby boomer generation ages, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The San Antonio Spurs marched into the second round of the Western Conference playoffs with a 92-87 home win over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday.
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DALLAS (Reuters) - The Dallas Mavericks have fired coach Avery Johnson following their first-round playoff exit, the team said on Wednesday.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a new study provide further evidence that two frequently prescribed diabetes drugs — pioglitazone and rosiglitazone — increase the risk of fractures, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Patients who use these drugs for a year or longer are more than twice as likely as nonusers to sustain a fracture.
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing on Wednesday marks the 100-day countdown to the Olympics with songs, a mass run and even prayers, hoping to put behind it the tumultuous events of the past month which have taken much gloss off its preparations.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers looking for genes that raise the risk of osteoporosis found seven different sequences associated with the bone-thinning disease, and one team found two that might predict the risk for 20 percent of people.
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PARIS (Reuters) - A French court said on Tuesday it had no power to ban a British newspaper from posting on its Web site a video showing world motorsport chief Max Mosley in what the paper described as a Nazi-style orgy with prostitutes.
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LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With “Iron Man” set to blast off Friday and jump-start the high-flying summer moviegoing season, Hollywood is tuning up to launch into a spirited chorus of “We’re in the Money!”
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EVEREST BASE CAMP (Reuters) - Sub-zero temperatures and altitude sickness were bad enough, but a lack of information about just when a special Olympic flame would start up Mount Everest made journalists doubly miserable at Base Camp on Tuesday.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists from around the world are joining forces to hunt for key genetic mutations involved in cancer.
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LONDON (Reuters) - As parting gifts go, Madonna’s 11th studio album — and her last before she exits long-term record label Warner Bros. — is unusually generous, if early reviews are to be believed.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Organizers of a major California music festival are offering a $10,000 reward and four festival tickets for life in exchange for ex-Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters’ two-story inflatable pig, which was lost on Sunday night.
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FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Chip and electronics makers Intel , Infineon , Texas Instruments and Panasonic have formed an alliance to promote home networks for movies, music and pictures using domestic wiring.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Capitals’ Russian sniper Alexander Ovechkin headed a list of three finalists for the Hart Trophy awarded to the NHL’s most valuable player, the league announced on Tuesday.
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BERLIN (Reuters) - Richard Wagner’s grandson has agreed to resign as head of Germany’s Wagner festival in August after a 57-year reign, a spokesman said on Tuesday, announcing a decision which could help end an epic family battle.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday it is cutting prices on the Xbox 360 in four Asian regions by as much as 20 percent in an effort to expand the audience for the video game console.
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of a study published in the European Heart Journal indicate there is an association between lower birth weight and greater weight gain from childhood to adulthood and with low-grade inflammation in adulthood.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Charlotte Bobcats appointed Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown on Tuesday, replacing Sam Vincent who was sacked on Saturday after just one season in charge.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Seven years after making what is widely regarded as one of the worst movies ever, Mariah Carey is back with another road-trip flick.
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