Children who watch three hours of TV a day could be left educationally stunted

Toddlers who watch three hours of TV a day may end up educationally stunted, physically weak and prone to bullying, a study has revealed.

Researchers have found that after two hours of viewing, every extra hour of TV has the potential to harm a child's development, both physically and socially.

This includes poorer vocabulary, maths skills and attention in class, victimisation by classmates and poor physical prowess at nursery.

The study looked at 1,997 boys and girls aged 29 months whose parents reported their television viewing behaviour as part of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2559336/Children-watch-three-hours-TV-day-left-educationally-stunted-prone-bullying.html

Marijuana: The next diabetes drug?

Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study, which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar.

Although marijuana has a well-deserved reputation for increasing appetite via what stoners call "the munchies," the new research, which was published in the American Journal of Medicine, is not the first to find that the drug has a two-faced relationship to weight.

Three prior studies have shown that marijuana users are less likely to be obese, have a lower risk for diabetes and have lower body-mass-index measurements. And these trends occurred despite the fact that they seemed to take in more calories.

Why? "The most important finding is that current users of marijuana appeared to have better carbohydrate metabolism than nonusers," says Murray Mittleman, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the lead author of the study. "Their fasting insulin levels were lower, and they appeared to be less resistant to the insulin produced by their body to maintain a normal blood-sugar level."

Read More: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/23/health/time-marijuana-diabetes/index.html

Nazi scientists helped U.S. test LSD on Soviet spies, new book shows

Interest in Israel as Spain Weighs Citizenship for Sephardic Jews

A Spanish initiative has set off a flurry of interest in Israel among Sephardic Jews who want to acquire Spanish citizenship.

Maya Weiss-Tamir, an Israeli lawyer who specializes in applications for citizenship in European countries, said she had received 700 to 800 email inquiries since last Friday, when the Spanish government approved a draft citizenship bill.

“It doesn’t stop; the response has been crazy,” Ms. Weiss-Tamir said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

Under the draft bill, Spain is offering citizenship to any person — whether Jewish or not — whose Sephardic origins can be certified. The bill removes some onerous existing requirements that include the need for applicants to renounce their current citizenship. It still requires final approval from the Spanish Parliament.

The legislation was first presented in November 2012 by Spain’s foreign and justice ministers as a conciliatory gesture toward Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors were expelled in 1492 in one of the darkest chapters in Spanish history.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/world/europe/interest-in-israel-as-spain-weighs-citizenship-for-sephardic-jews.html

Apprehensive, Many Doctors Shift to Jobs With Salaries

American physicians, worried about changes in the health care market, are streaming into salaried jobs with hospitals. Though the shift from private practice has been most pronounced in primary care, specialists are following.

Last year, 64 percent of job offers filled through Merritt Hawkins, one of the nation’s leading physician placement firms, involved hospital employment, compared with only 11 percent in 2004. The firm anticipates a rise to 75 percent in the next two years.

Today, about 60 percent of family doctors and pediatricians, 50 percent of surgeons and 25 percent of surgical subspecialists — such as ophthalmologists and ear, nose and throat surgeons — are employees rather than independent, according to the American Medical Association. “We’re seeing it changing fast,” said Mark E. Smith, president of Merritt Hawkins.

Health economists are nearly unanimous that the United States should move away from fee-for-service payments to doctors, the traditional system where private physicians are paid for each procedure and test, because it drives up the nation’s $2.7 trillion health care bill by rewarding overuse. But experts caution that the change from private practice to salaried jobs may not yield better or cheaper care for patients.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/us/salaried-doctors-may-not-lead-to-cheaper-health-care.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

Unprovoked: Courtroom video shows Denver sheriff's deputy attacking shackled inmate

The 40th G8 summit is to be held in Russia in 2014.

The G8 is an unofficial forum which brings together the heads of the leading industrialized democracies: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, the United States, Canada (since 1976), Russia (since 1998), and the EU Commission (since 1981).



G8 Leaders to Meet in Sochi in June
The lavish Olympic village built by President Vladimir Putin to host the world’s elite athletes will soon host leaders and elite policymakers from the eight largest economies. Leaders of the so-called G8 will gather in Sochi in early June for their annual summit.

June’s meeting will be the second hosted by Russia, and just as the Winter Olympics have put a spotlight on the country, many observers say the G8 Sochi Summit is also likely to have a significant impact internationally.

Russia was the last to join this elite club (in 1998), turning it from a "G7" into a "G8" – after seven years of its gradual involvement in the forum’s work, which also included the participation of then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin in the summits as an equal partner.

“Russia was allowed in under Yeltsin in order to secure Russian democracy and to make Moscow, and the critics of Yeltsin, see that cooperation with the West and Japan was more important than a new Cold War," said Thomas Ambrosio, a political science professor at the University of North Dakota. "Of course, what we have now is a solid, non-democracy [in Russia] that is chairing this organization.”

http://www.voanews.com/content/g-8-leaders-to-meet-in-sochi-in-june-for-annual-summit/1850859.html

Boycott the G8

Flashback to DU 2006 - McCain calls for leaders to boycott G8 summit in Russia

Pakistan pressed over missing drone activist

A Pakistani court has ordered the country’s intelligence agencies to produce a prominent anti-drone campaigner, who was abducted last week, by February 20, or to categorically state that they are not holding him, the activist’s lawyers say.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Shehzad Akbar, the head of Karim Khan’s legal team, called Khan’s abduction from his Rawalpindi home late on February 5 "a signature government abduction", alleging that Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agencies were responsible for the disappearance.

Khan had been due to fly to Europe on February 15, on a trip that would see him testify before members of the European Parliament in Brussels, UK legislators in London and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, on the US' use of drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Khan’s 17-year-old son, Zahinullah Khan, and brother, Asif Iqbal, were killed in a drone strike in the Machi Khel area in North Waziristan on December 31, 2009.

Since then, he had waged a legal battle against the United States, going as far as to name the then-CIA station chief in Pakistan in a law suit filed in the Islamabad High Court in 2010. That case is ongoing, with an associated civil suit being referred to a lower court during a hearing on Tuesday.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/02/pakistan-pressed-over-missing-drone-activist-201421213182789530.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter


Karim Khan holds up photos of his brother and son, killed in a drone attack in December of 2009

Court strikes California law limiting concealed weapons

Source: SF Gate

California must allow law-abiding citizens to carry concealed firearms in public, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday, striking down the core of the state's permit system for handguns.

In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said San Diego County violates the Constitution's Second Amendment by requiring residents to show "good cause" - and not merely the desire to protect themselves - to obtain a concealed-weapons permit.

State law requires applicants to demonstrate good cause, as well as good moral character, to carry concealed handguns, while leaving the permit process up to each city and county. The ruling, if it stands, would require local governments to issue permits to anyone who claims a need for self-protection.

"The right to bear arms includes the right to carry an operable firearm outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense," said Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain in the majority opinion.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Court-strikes-California-law-limiting-concealed-5232386.php

What Percent of the Population is Gay? More Than You Think

What percentage of the population considers themselves gay? This number has always been hard to pin down: sexuality is fluid, and plenty of people still feel pressured to hide their sexual orientation. But a new study has tried, and come up with a number that’s higher than most.

According to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, about 20 percent of the population is attracted to their own gender. That’s nearly double the usual estimates of about 10 percent. The authors explain that their methodology might have something to do with it:

Read More: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-percent-of-the-population-is-gay-more-than-you-think-5012467/