Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year

NEW YORK (AP) — Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in children so far this winter — one of the worst tolls this early in the year since health officials began keeping track.Still, experts say that doesn't mean this year will turn out to be unusually deadly. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not clear that will happen this year.The deaths have included a 6-year-old...

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Lance Armstrong Apologizes to Livestrong Staff

Lance Armstrong apologized today to the Livestrong staff ahead of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, a foundation official said.The disgraced cyclist gathered with about 100 Livestrong Foundation staffers at their Austin, Texas, headquarters for a meeting that included social workers who deal directly with patients as part of the group's mission to support cancer victims.Armstrong's...

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Mali Islamists counter attack, promise France long war

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels launched a counteroffensive in Mali on Monday after four days of French air strikes on their northern strongholds, seizing the central town of Diabaly and promising to drag France into a brutal Afghanistan-style war. France, which has poured hundreds of troops into the capital Bamako in recent days, carried out more air strikes...

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Lance Armstrong apologises in person to Livestrong staff

AUSTIN: Fallen cycling hero Lance Armstrong personally apologised Monday to staff members of the Livestrong cancer charity ahead of his much anticipated interview with talk show diva Oprah Winfrey."Lance came to the Livestrong Foundation's headquarters today for a private conversation with our staff and offered a sincere and heartfelt apology for the stress they've endured because of him,"...

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Sangam of 82 lakh devotees for holy dip

SANGAM (Allahabad): Mist envelopes a stretch of sand-bed cordoned off to create an expanse the size of five football fields. Down below, the waters of Sangam appear black under a 4.30am sky. Drenched under sodium vapour lights, the vast area is fenced off for tens of thousands of people with barricades of horizontal wooden beams. The faithful wait breathlessly for the day's royalty, an army of sadhus...

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Hospitals crack down on workers refusing flu shots

CHICAGO (AP) — Patients can refuse a flu shot. Should doctors and nurses have that right, too? That is the thorny question surfacing as U.S. hospitals increasingly crack down on employees who won't get flu shots, with some workers losing their jobs over their refusal."Where does it say that I am no longer a patient if I'm a nurse," wondered Carrie Calhoun, a longtime critical care nurse in suburban...

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Thousands Protest in Moscow Against Adoption Ban

Jan 13, 2013 10:37am KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty ImagesMOSCOW — Thousands of Russians took to the streets on Sunday to protest Russia’s new ban on adoptions to the United States.In what organizers called the “March Against Scoundrels” they paraded down a tree-lined boulevard in central Moscow chanting “Hands off our children” and “Russia will be free.” They also...

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France bombs Islamist stronghold in north Mali

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - French fighter jets pounded an Islamist rebel stronghold deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country's north. The attack on Gao, the largest city in the desert region controlled by the Islamist alliance, marked a decisive intensification...

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Urgent CO2 cuts may spare millions hardship: report

PARIS: Tens of millions of people may be spared droughts and floods by 2050 if Earth-warming carbon emissions peak in 2016 rather than 2030, scientists said on Sunday.Climate researchers in Britain and Germany said emission cuts now would delay some crippling impacts by decades and prevent some altogether.By 2050, an Earth heading for warming of 2-2.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 could have...

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Flu more widespread in US; eases off in some areas

NEW YORK (AP) — Flu is now widespread in all but three states as the nation grapples with an earlier-than-normal season. But there was one bit of good news Friday: The number of hard-hit areas declined.The flu season in the U.S. got under way a month early, in December, driven by a strain that tends to make people sicker. That led to worries that it might be a bad season, following one of the mildest...

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