50,501 - 50,520 of 112,425 Results

  • Ill. Lawmakers Race To Approve Cuts, Tax Increases To Fill Medicaid Budget Hole

    A $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase moves along in that state's legislature. It would help fill a budget gap in the Illinois Medicaid program. Lawmakers also approve a bill that further defines nonprofit eligibility for hospitals. In the meantime, lawmakers there also consider changes to retiree pensions and health care.

  • Romney Clinches GOP Nomination With Texas Vote

    As GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney steps up his political attacks on President Barack Obama, the health law will be one of his frequent themes. Also in the news, an aide says Romney will soon offer details on his health policy proposals.

  • First Edition: May 30, 2012

    Today's early morning highlights from major news organizations, including reports about the slow uptake on the health law's small-business health care tax credit and about how some conservatives are working against health insurance exchanges.

  • USAID Announces Food Security Open Data Challenge

    Following President Barack Obama's announcement of the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition at a food security summit last week, "USAID launched a Food Security Open Data Challenge that invites technologists, agriculture stakeholders, entrepreneurs, academics, and others to determine the most creative and wide-reaching use of open data for food security solutions and better, cheaper, and faster results," Maura O'Neill, chief innovation officer at USAID, and Kat Townsend, special assistant for engagement at USAID, write in a post in the agency's "DipNote" blog (5/27). "Over the next few months, the Food Security Open Data Challenge will have three key components," including "an Ideation Jam where technologists and agriculture stakeholders will identify key innovation opportunities by focusing on the overlap of food security priorities and the potential of available data"; "a Codeathon to create and finalize solutions that are available for investment"; and "a Datapalooza, hosted by USAID Administrator Raj Shah, to announce challenge winners and showcase some of the best ideas for data-based solutions to food security," Hillary Chen, a senior adviser to the deputy director of global development at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, writes in this post in the White House Blog (5/25).

  • Outcomes Of Next Month’s Rio+20 Summit Will Have ‘Deep Repercussions’ For Future Generations

    In this post in the Guardian's "Poverty Matters Blog," Gro Harlem Brundtland and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, both of whom are involved in Elders+Youngers, an inter-generational dialogue on the future of the planet initiated by the Elders, a group of eminent global leaders working together for peace and human rights, comment on a "lack of urgency in the run-up to the Rio+20 summit next month," writing, "The meeting provides a historic opportunity to chart a sustainable future for the world," but "at the moment, there is a real chance the opportunity will be thrown away."

  • G8 Summit ‘Missed Opportunity’ To Make Real Commitment To Long-Term Food Security

    "This G8 summit was, yet again, a missed opportunity for international leaders to make a real commitment to long-term food security and support for African and developing world farmers," Eva Clayton (D-N.C.), a former Congresswoman and former assistant director general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), writes in this post in the Huffington Post's "The World" blog. "In the realm of food security, the G8 had an ideal opportunity to provide a clear solution that embraces trade and opportunity, a new paradigm if you will, in international development and food security," she continues, adding, "Unfortunately, G8 leaders emerging from Camp David still spoke of the same old aid commitments without any backbone, all the while ignoring the impact that trade barriers and U.S. and European multi-billion dollar subsidies have on food production in those countries most in need of development."

  • Participants Of 5th International Parliamentarian Conference On Population, Development Reiterate Commitment To 1994 Program Of Action

    "Participants at the Fifth International Parliamentarians' Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) ended [a two-day meeting in Istanbul, Turkey] Friday with a joint pledge to advocate for increased funding for full implementation of the decades-old ICPD Programme of Action," Inter Press Service reports. According to the news service, "about 300 members of parliament from 110 countries issued the Istanbul Statement of Commitment, reiterating their commitment to achieve the goals laid out in the ICPD Programme of Action adopted in Cairo, Egypt in 1994." "According to the statement, implementation of the programme is 'essential for countries to reduce poverty and social and economic inequality, improve the lives of their people and safeguard the health and rights of women, including sexual and reproductive health rights,'" IPS writes.

  • European Union Sets Four Priority Areas, Including Food Security, For Upcoming G20 Summit

    The Devex Development Newswire reports on the upcoming G20 summit, which will take place in Los Cabos, Mexico, on June 18-19. The news service writes, "In a letter [.pdf] issued May 25, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso noted the European Union's four priority areas at the summit," which are growth and employment, strengthening the International Monetary Fund, reforming the financial system, and food security and the G20's development work. "The letter did not hint on new initiatives similar to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, which was launched at the recently concluded G8 summit," the news service notes, adding, "The two leaders only said they will welcome progress made on the implementation of the G20 Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture adopted last year" (Ravelo, 5/28).

  • One Third Of Homeless Are Obese

    Amid some signs that America's obesity rates may be flattening out, media outlets report that one in three homeless people is obese and that bariatric surgery, which reduces stomach size, is becoming more common for patients as young as 12 or 13.

  • Insurers Make Patients Pay Hundreds More for Cancer, Arthritis Drugs

    Thousands of patients taking costly drugs for ailments such as cancer and rheumatoid arthritis are being asked to shoulder a greater share of the expense. In other news, consumers are demanding access to their medical device data. Others are harnessing the internet to jumpstart medical research and share important experiences, including serious illnesses, with family and friends.