Archives: Morning Breakouts

Canada has told other G8 countries that it "is willing to put about $1 billion toward maternal and child health

The 25th Africa-France Summit, a two-day gathering "aimed at developing better business relations between" the regions began Monday in the French city of Nice, All Headline News reports. According to the news service, 38 African leaders and 250 business executives have gathered for the summit, that is expected to feature discussions on "the problems of climate change, piracy, terrorism" as well as "the demand of African countries' for a bigger say in the UN Security Council and the G20 forum" (Gagelonia, 6/1).

Medtronic initiative comes as officials are increasingly probing ties between industry and doctors, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Small business owners "who employ mostly family members are discovering fine print in the new law that disqualifies, or substantialy limits, their tax credit," The Boston Globe reports. In other news, doctors' groups promise to lobby Congress to fix Medicare reimbursement.

The Senate has passed a nearly $60 billion supplemental spending bill that includes funding for Haiti relief and recovery from the January 12 earthquake, Roll Call reports (Brady, 5/27). The total amount included in the bill for Haiti is $2.8 billion dollars, Agence France-Presse reports (5/28).

Factors that resulted in higher food prices in several countries in 2008, such as food scarcity and the use of land for biofuels, are still present and could cause prices to rise again without food production improvements in developing countries, Ertharin Cousin, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. food agencies in Rome, said in an interview with Reuters.

"The Obama administration on Thursday released a sweeping statement of its national security goals," the Los Angeles Times reports. The 52-page document "calls for the United States to strengthen international institutions, to heed treaties and norms, and to build stronger ties to allies, including to the emerging powers of India, Brazil and China. It says the United States needs to manage the emergence of new powers, while pressuring other nations to shoulder more of the burden of international problems," according to the newspaper (Richter, 5/27).

Kaiser Health News presents a selection of opinions and editorials.

Small business owners are worried they will lose money because of the new health law.

Some House Democrats seek to expand FDA authority to recall drugs.