Poll: Obesity's a crisis but we want our junk food

WASHINGTON (AP) — We know obesity is a health crisis, or every new year wouldn't start with resolutions to eat better and get off the couch. But don't try taking away our junk food.Americans blame too much screen time and cheap fast food for fueling the nation's fat epidemic, a poll finds, but they're split on how much the government should do to help.Most draw the line at policies that would try...

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High School Basketball Star Must Tan to Treat Rare Disease

When the Shawnee High School basketball team is down on the scoreboard, players know to throw the ball to Josh Borelli. Borelli is not only the team's star player, but also the player most adept at overcoming adversity. Borrelli, a senior at the Medford, N.J., school, has a condition called Mucha-Habermann, an extremely rare skin disorder that causes lesions to develop all over the body. Borrelli...

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Racial gaps in access to robotic prostate surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Minority and Medicaid cancer patients are less likely to have their prostates removed at hospitals that use robot-assisted surgery, according to a new study that stops short of suggesting the robotic technique represents better care."People who are poor - frequently Hispanic, African American or black, and Medicaid patients - tend to get what is considered to be less high-quality...

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Eli Lilly banks on cost controls for higher 2013 profit

Eli Lilly and Co said on Friday it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.Lilly, whose shares were up nearly 4 percent on Friday, said 2013 sales will be flat to a bit higher, despite the loss of patent on its $5 billion-a-year antidepressant, Cymbalta, in December.The Indianapolis-based drugmaker is...

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Researchers Discover New Strategy to Fight Obesity

After decades of achieving little long-term success with medications, Belgian scientists have come up with a new strategy to fight obesity. They're targeting food sensors in the stomach.Researchers from the Catholic University of Leuven have reported that the digestive tract "tastes" what a person eats. It uses signaling devices similar to those found in the tongue to detect bitter, sweet, fat, and...

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Steve Jobs Film Coming in April

jOBS, the independent film about former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, will arrive in theaters in April, the movie's distributors announced Thursday.The film -- not to be confused with the one Sony Pictures is creating based on Walter Isaacson's biography of the late tech luminary -- will star Ashton Kutcher as Jobs and is still slated to premiere this month on the closing night of the Sundance Film Festival.[More...

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This Is What the OUYA Kickstarter Console Looks Like

The OUYA, the $99 Android console, is indeed smaller than a soda can.Click here to view this gallery.[More from Mashable: 10 Killer Cases for the Samsung Galaxy S III]The $99 hackable Android-based gaming console OUYA is fulfilling its orders for Kickstarter backers by sending the first units out to developers. Backers began receiving their OUYA consoles as early as last Friday.According to the OUYA...

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Google escapes antitrust suit as FTC ends its investigation into alleged ‘patent abuse’

Good news for Google (GOOG): It will at least avoid an antitrust lawsuit in the United States. The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday formally concluded its investigation into whether Google allegedly abused the patents that it acquired in the Motorola deal to block rival products over technologies that have become industry standards. Google did have to make some key concessions to end the investigation,...

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FTC ends long Google probe with mild reprimand

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Regulators on Thursday closed a long-running investigation of Google with a relatively mild agreement that is likely to disappoint rivals and critics of the Web search giant.Under the agreement, Google agreed to end the practice of "scraping" reviews and other data from rivals' websites for its own products, and to allow advertisers to export data to independently evaluate advertising...

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It's 'cash only' now for tourists at the Vatican

VATICAN CITY (AP) — It's "cash only" now for tourists at the Vatican wanting to pay for museum tickets, souvenirs and other services after Italy's central bank decided to block electronic payments, including credit cards, at the tiny city-state.Deutsche Bank Italia, which for some 15 years had provided the Vatican with electronic payment services, said Thursday that the Bank of Italy had pulled its...

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Reports: Margaret Thatcher leaves hospital

LONDON (AP) — British media are reporting that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has left the hospital after an operation to remove a bladder growth.The 87-year-old former Conservative leader was admitted to the hospital last week to have the operation.The BBC and Sky News said Thatcher was doing well and left the hospital on Saturday to "convalesce privately." Her spokesman did not...

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Spanish police arrest 17 suspected pimps

MADRID (AP) — Spain's Interior Ministry says police have arrested 17 people on suspicion of smuggling Nigerian women into Spain and forcing them into prostitution using threats including claims they would cast Voodoo spells on them if they didn't comply.An investigation began when police detected in January that around 10 women had been brought into the country illegally using a small boat.Police...

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Anglican leader Rowan Williams steps down

LONDON (AP) — The head of the Church of England is leaving office after a decade as the spiritual leader of the world's 80 million-strong Anglican Communion.Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, will be replaced by 56-year-old former oil executive Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham.The ten years in which the 62-year-old Williams held office saw him struggling to maintain unity within...

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Black boxes examined in fatal Russian plane crash

MOSCOW (AP) — Investigators on Sunday examined flight recorders and other evidence to try to determine the cause of the airliner crash in Moscow that killed five people, an official said.The Tu-204 belonging to Russian airline Red Wings was carrying eight people, all of them crew members, when it careered off the runway Saturday while landing at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport. It went partly into an adjacent...

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Official: Turkey talking to jailed Kurdish leader

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey is holding talks with the Kurdish rebels' jailed leader to press the autonomy-seeking guerrilla group to relinquish arms and end its decades-long conflict, a senior official was quoted as saying on Sunday.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's chief adviser, Yalcin Akdogan, insisted in an interview with Taraf newspaper that the discussions were aimed at convincing the Kurdistan...

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Republicans see some leverage in "fiscal cliff" talks

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans may have some leverage in their fiscal cliffhanger with President Barack Obama: the threat of forcing a disproportionate number of Democrats to pay the so-called alternative minimum tax.Under U.S. law, taxpayers each year must pay the greater of regular federal income tax, or the AMT. The latter requires taxpayers to give up certain tax breaks, typically exemptions...

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Toll Brothers 4Q net income soars on tax benefit

 Toll Brothers says its fiscal fourth-quarter net income soared, helped by a large income tax benefit and a 48 percent rise in revenue. The luxury homebuilder delivered more homes and its order backlog increased.CEO Douglas C. Yearley Jr. said in a statement on Tuesday that higher home prices, low interest rates, pent-up demand and improving consumer confidence prompted buyers to return to the...

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IRS finalizes new tax for medical devices in healthcare law

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law.The 2.3-percent tax must be paid, effective after December 31, by device-makers on their gross sales. The tax is expected to raise $29 billion in government...

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H&R Block 2Q loss narrows as revenue rises

 H&R Block's fiscal second-quarter loss narrowed, helped by cost-cutting efforts. Revenue climbed mostly because of a strong tax season in Australia.The nation's largest tax preparation company typically turns in a loss in the August-to-October period because it takes in most of its revenue during the U.S. tax season. H&R Block's quarterly performance beat analysts' estimates and its...

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Tax filing delay looms if no fix for minimum tax: IRS

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. tax collector warned on Thursday of a delayed start to 2013's tax season if Congress fails to reset the alternative minimum tax (AMT) on high-income taxpayers so that it does not sweep in millions of middle-income people.Without another adjustment by lawmakers soon to the AMT, "many of us will see a delayed filing season," said Steven Miller, named just last month...

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