USDA Develops First Goverment Label For GMO-Free Products

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Agriculture Department has developed the first government certification and labeling for foods that are free of genetically modified ingredients.

USDA's move comes as some consumer groups push for mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

Certification would be voluntary - and companies would have to pay for it. If approved, the foods would be able to carry a "USDA Process Verified" label along with a claim that they are free of GMOs.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined the department's plan in a May 1 letter to employees, saying the certification was being done at the request of a "leading global company," which he did not identify. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.

Right now, there are no government labels that certify a food as GMO-free. Many companies use a private label developed by a nonprofit called the Non-GMO Project.

Vilsack said the USDA certification is being created through the department's Agriculture Marketing Service, which works with interested companies to certify the accuracy of the claims they are making on food packages - think "humanely raised" or "no antibiotics ever." Companies pay the Agricultural Marketing Service to verify a claim, and if approved they can market the foods with the USDA label.

"Recently, a leading global company asked AMS to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered so that the company could label the products as such," Vilsack wrote in the letter. "AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim."

A USDA spokesman confirmed that Vilsack sent the letter but declined to comment on the certification program. Vilsack said in the letter that the certification "will be announced soon, and other companies are already lining up to take advantage of this service."

The USDA label is similar to what is proposed in a GOP House bill introduced earlier this year that is designed to block mandatory GMO labeling efforts around the country. The bill, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., provides for USDA certification but would not make it mandatory. The bill also would override any state laws that require the labeling.

The food industry, which backs Pompeo's bill, has strongly opposed individual state efforts to require labeling, saying labels would be misleading because GMOs are safe.

Vermont became the first state to require the labeling in 2014, and that law will go into effect next year if it survives a legal challenge from the food industry.

Genetically modified seeds are engineered in laboratories to have certain traits, like resistance to herbicides. The majority of the country's corn and soybean crop is now genetically modified, with much of that going to animal feed. GMO corn and soybeans are also made into popular processed food ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil.

The FDA says GMOs on the market now are safe. Consumer advocates pushing for the labeling say shoppers still have a right to know what is in their food, arguing that not enough is known about the effects of the technology. They have supported several state efforts to require labeling, with the eventual goal of having a federal standard.

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3D Printed Organs Offer Ultra-Realistic Practice Models

An incision from the surgeon's scalpel sends liquid oozing over the surface of a the lung, but on this occasion it doesn't matter if something goes wrong -- the doctor can simply create another model with a 3D printer.

The ultra-realistic lung -- wet, soft, and complete with tumours and blood vessels -- is one of a range of organs being produced by a Japanese firm that will allow surgeons to hone their skills without hurting anyone.

"With the wet model, doctors can experience the softness of organs and see them bleed," said Tomohiro Kinoshita of creator Fasotec, a company based in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo.

"We aim to help doctors improve their skills with the models," he added.

From guns to cars, prosthetics and works of art, 3D printing is predicted to transform our lives in the coming decades, researchers say, as dramatically as the Internet did before it.

The so-called Biotexture Wet Model, which will come onto the market for surgery training and medical equipment-testing in Japan in as early as April, is created by scanning a real organ in minute detail and creating molds on a 3D printer.

That shell is then injected with gel-type synthetic resin to give it a wet, lifelike feeling in the surgeon's hands. Each one is designed to exactly mimic the texture and weight of a real organ so it can react to the surgical knife in exactly the same way.

- 'Close to living organ' -

Maki Sugimoto, a medical doctor who has tried samples, said the wet models are almost "too realistic". Seen without their context, he said, it would be easy to mistake them for the real thing.

"The touch is similar to that of the real liver," said Sugimoto, who is also a special instructor at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine in Kobe, western Japan.

"I suppose that not only young, inexperienced doctors but also experienced doctors can perform a better operation if they can have a rehearsal first," he said.

Toshiaki Morikawa, a medical doctor at Jikei University Hospital in Tokyo, also said: "The current models are too simple and details of anatomy are not accurately reflected."

"But this is obviously superior as it's produced precisely and is very close to the living organ in quality," he said.

For Morikawa, the world of 3D printing, which works by building up layers of material, offers endless possibilities for medicine, including maybe one day functional organs for use in transplants.

"Considering future progress in life sciences, I think it is an urgent and significant theme that this outstanding technology should be modified for application to biology," he said.

Fasotec began pre-sales of wet model bladders and urethral tubes in October, with a price tag of 15,000 yen ($127).

The firm plans to expand sales overseas and has already received enquiries from other Asian countries, the company's Kinoshita said.

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Australians Get Hepatitis A From Chinese Berries

Nine Australians have contracted hepatitis A linked with eating contaminated berries from China, with the importer apologising Tuesday as the food scare spreads.

Manufacturer Patties Foods has recalled four products including the Nanna's and Creative Gourmet brands of mixed berries and Nanna's raspberries after infections in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

They are all sold nationally in major supermarkets, having been packed in China.

The hepatitis A cases are linked with Nanna's Frozen Mixed Berries, with three other brands pulled off shelves as a precaution. "Hepatitis A virus infection is uncommon and normally associated with travel to countries affected by endemic hepatitis A," said Rosemary Lester, chief health officer in Victoria state, where three cases have been reported.

"The only common link between the cases is consumption of this product -- there is no overseas travel or common restaurant exposure." Poor hygiene among Chinese workers and potentially contaminated water supplies in China are likely to have caused the outbreak, experts said.

"In this situation, the most likely culprit is poor hygiene at the site of production," said Enzo Palombo, a food health and safety expert at Swinburne University of Technology.

"Hepatitis A is transmitted by the so-called 'faecal-oral' route -- an infected person sheds the virus in their faeces which then contaminates food or water.

"The virus either directly contaminates the food through a food handler not washing their hands properly or it could come from contaminated water used to wash the berries."

Hepatitis A is a viral disease that affects the liver, causing abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fatigue and jaundice. It has an incubation period of up to 50 days.

"As a company, we apologise to our consumers and customers for the concern and distress this is causing," said Patties Foods chief executive Steven Chaur.

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White House Shifts Into Crisis Mode On Ebola Response

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rising public anxiety about the Ebola virus has forced the White House to shift into crisis mode and cancel two days of planned political events as President Barack Obama strives to show he has control over stopping the spread of the deadly disease.

Just three weeks ahead of critical midterm elections, Obama is facing increased pressure from Republican critics. They say he has been too slow to protect Americans, drawing parallels to what they have described as foot-dragging on dealing with the threat from Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

Democrats who are at risk of losing control of the Senate in the November elections are worried that public concerns over Obama's management of Ebola could hurt them, too. Obama's job approval ratings are at 39 percent, according to Reuters-Ipsos polls in the first week of October.

"At a time in which his job approval rating is quite low and his party is suffering because of it, I think that this is just one more cut in what's turned out to be the death by a thousand cuts for President Obama," said Ross Baker, a political scientists at Rutgers.

Republican lawmakers, including U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, turned up the pressure on Wednesday with calls for travel bans for the three African nations afflicted by the Ebola outbreak.

Polls show that move would be popular with Americans. The White House has ruled out a ban, saying it would hamper the movement of supplies and aid workers needed to help stop the epidemic in the region.

Other lawmakers, including some Democrats, have urged the White House to name a point person to coordinate the response, lead briefings, and command public confidence.

"It's getting away from them, and this is becoming a real concern for us," said a Democratic Senate aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Proponents of the approach are seeking a figure like former Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen who took charge of the response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Until now, Tom Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control, has been the face of the administration on Ebola. But the new domestic cases have forced him to backtrack from some early overconfident statements about the ability of the U.S. medical system to contain the threat.

The White House has resisted calls for a "czar" to pull together the international and domestic response to the disease, arguing that Lisa Monaco, Obama's homeland security aide, has been adeptly filling that role. A White House spokesman declined to comment late on Wednesday on whether that thinking has changed.

But lawmakers worry Monaco, who also plays a lead role coordinating U.S. efforts to combat Islamic State militants, has too much on her plate. Over the past few weeks, the White House has sought to reassure the public by trying to strike a balance between demonstrating the administration is on top of the situation while not trying to feed a sense of public panic.

On Wednesday, that balance shifted. A second Texas nurse contracted Ebola from a patient who died from the disease. The nurse had recently traveled by plane and officials began tracing a large network of people who may have had contact with her. The nurse had told the CDC she had a fever before she boarded the plane, but was not stopped from boarding, a federal source said late on Wednesday. Frieden earlier in the day told reporters she should not have been aboard.

The new infection contributed to a slide in the stock market.

Obama, who seldom changes his schedule, no matter what crisis is before him, canceled speeches and fundraisers in Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York.

He met with his cabinet for about two hours, and then told Americans that the risk of a widespread outbreak was very low. Obama needs to make more such efforts to talk directly to Americans about Ebola to show he is in control, said Peter LaMotte, a senior vice president at Levick, a crisis communications firm.

"He needs to be taking a leadership role rather than letting the experts speak on his behalf," LaMotte said. Rather than taking the symbolic step of appointing an Ebola czar, Obama should take a more forward role himself to explain the risks and urge calm, said Stephen Morrison, a senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

"The biggest danger here is public fear, and panic," Morrison said, noting there may be more cases of Ebola to come. "The president, it seems to me, is the person who should be there, walking that line," he said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Richard Cowan and David Lawder; editing by Caren Bohan and Peter Henderson)

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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Diagnosed With Rare Cancer

REUTERS - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has a very rare and aggressive type of cancerous tumor in his abdomen, his doctor said on Wednesday, adding he would start chemotherapy treatment within days.

Ford, who made international headlines with his admission that he smoked crack cocaine while in office, was hospitalized last week after having unbearable abdominal pains. He dropped out of the mayoral race last week.

In a briefing on Wednesday, Toronto doctor Zane Cohen said the mayor had malignant liposarcoma, a type of cancerous tumor that arises in fat cells in deep soft tissue.

Cohen called it a "very rare" and "very difficult" type of tumor, noting that malignant liposarcoma makes up just 1 percent of all cancers. However, he was also optimistic about Ford's treatment prospects.

"The plan will be, initially, chemotherapy," said Cohen. "There may or may not be radiation involved, there may or there may not be surgery involved, it will all depend on the response to the initial treatment, and subsequent treaments as well."

Ford's politician father, Doug Ford Sr., died of colon cancer less than three months after being diagnosed in 2006.

Last week, Ford dropped his bid for re-election minutes ahead of a Sept. 12 deadline and was replaced by his brother and campaign manager Doug Ford. The mayor will instead run for a safe city council seat.

While doctors found the tumor last week, they did not reveal it was cancer until Wednesday. Ford said in an interview in the Toronto Sun newspaper on Saturday , he was "shocked" and "devastated" and had to quit the race to focus on his health.

"It's not good," Ford was quoted as saying about his preliminary diagnosis. "I guess the good Lord wants me somewhere else."

In May and June, the mayor underwent rehab for drug and alcohol abuse. He emerged noticeably thinner though still obese. Ford said he regretted not getting treatment "years ago" to treat his alcohol addiction.

(Reporting by Julie Gordon in Vancouver and Andrea Hopkins in Toronto; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Cynthia Osterman)

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High-Birth Niger Strives To Lower Maternal Mortality

With the world's highest birth rate in a country where first-time mothers are often barely past puberty, having a baby in impoverished Niger can be tantamount to a death sentence.

The West African state and humanitarian groups have worked to slash both birth and maternal mortality rates, but despite strides results are not good enough, the UN warned this week.

"Every two hours, a Niger woman dies from complications linked to pregnancy or childbirth," deplored Monique Clesca, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) representative in the country.

Some 3,000 people, mainly women, gathered in the western city of Tahoua as part of a new push to rein in the birth rate and reduce maternal mortality.

"Dying while giving life is a social injustice," railed Malika Issoufou, wife of Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou, while visiting women suffering from gynaecological complications in the Tahoua hospital.

The trend has not been easy to buck in a culture that encourages early marriage, big families and pregnancies in quick succession, and where some clerics in mainly Muslim Niger have blasted contraception as against Islam and "dictated by white people from the West".

"The more kids you have, the more you're worth," said Clesca, describing traditional views. "When girls marry, they're under pressure to prove they're fertile within the first year."

This has left landlocked Niger, where more than 60 percent live below the poverty line, with the highest birth rate in the world, an average of 7.6 children per woman, official figures show.

In 2006, Niger made all pre-natal care free of charge, as well as birth by Caesarian, which up to then was prohibitively expensive. Contraceptive products are also distributed at no charge.

"Ten years ago, no one dared broach demographic questions. Now, everyone is talking about them, starting with the government, the president," said Isselmou Boukhary, Niger's deputy representative for the UN children's fund, UNICEF.

Even if the situation remains "quite worrisome", it's slowly improving, Boukhary told AFP.

With 535 mothers dying for every 100,000 live births -- meaning one woman for every 186 viable births, Niger is among the world's top 15 countries with the worst maternal mortality.

Yet the situation has improved since 2006, when 648 women died for every 100,000 births, according to Niger's health ministry. During the same period, contraceptive use has gone from five to 12 percent, the ministry said.

- Girls married before age 15 -

A tradition of early marriage has not helped. Nearly 80 percent of Niger women are wed by the time they reach 18 and 40 percent before the age of 15, making complications frequent.

"At this age, the body is still fragile and not ready for maternity," said Yahaya Mani, a doctor working in the Niger countryside.

Official records bear this out, according to the UN which said a third of maternal deaths are among girls 15 to 19.

"The parents know the risks. But they prefer to marry their girls off early rather than risking a pregnancy outside marriage, which would damage the family's honour," said Clesca.

After the first baby others follow quickly, giving Niger one of the world's top population growth rates at 3.9 percent per year, according to official figures.

Young mothers often have "one baby on the breast, one on their back and another at their feet," which can leave them weak, said a humanitarian source.

High-risk pregnancies among older women are also abundant, along with a shortage of proper birthing facilities.

- Home births -

"The closest centre is often five kilometres (three miles) away. And by the time they find a cart to get there, it's often too late," said Doctor Mani.

Health ministry official Gali Asma said 80 percent of Niger's maternal deaths occur outside proper health facilities, and yet 70 percent of Niger women give birth at home with traditional midwives.

Some men still oppose their wives receiving prenatal care, and national family planning campaigns have particularly annoyed Islamic radicals and fundamentalists, whose numbers have grown in this country bordering Mali and Nigeria where Islamic militant activity has intensified.

They say it goes against the teachings of Allah and is part of a "Western attempt to stop births" in Niger.

The government, however, defends the drive as critical for Niger's future.

From three million in 1980, the population has hit more than 17 million today and, if nothing is done, could soar to 40 million by 2050, officials say, a level a country subject to drought, food shortages and malnutrition could never sustain.

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Health Insurers, Payment Rates Above 80 Percent

WASHINGTON (AP) — Top health insurance companies told members of Congress Wednesday that more than 80 percent of people who've signed up under the president's new health care law have gone on to pay their premiums — a necessary step for the enrollment figures touted by the Obama administration to hold up.

Aetna reported payment rates in "the low- to mid-80 percent range;" Wellpoint said the rate was as high as 90 percent for those whose premium had come due; the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said 80 to 85 percent; and the Health Care Service Corporation, which sells Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in five states, pegged the rate at 83 percent or above. The figures were in line with what individual insurers have said on earnings calls with analysts and elsewhere in recent weeks.

Democrats seized on the figures disclosed at a House hearing as the latest sign that the health care law has defied its critics and is working.

"By any rational, reasonable measure we can call this law a success," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Republicans said plenty more questions remained — including whether rates will rise next year and by how much, and how many of those covered were previously uninsured.

"While the administration toasts the law's success with its Hollywood allies, declaring this conversation over, we will continue our pursuit for facts," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The six insurance industry witnesses summoned by an investigations subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee were unable to provide details on coming rate changes or how many people were previously uninsured, prompting frustration at times from Republicans who'd called the hearing.

"It is baffling that we can have some of our nation's largest insurers and you all don't have any internal analysis as to what these rates are," complained Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn.

In response to that question and others, insurers responded that the calculations were not completed or the data were not yet available.

"We just don't have access to those numbers," said Dennis Matheis, an executive at Wellpoint, Inc.

Wednesday's hearing was called in the wake of the release of a GOP report last week finding that as of mid-April, only 67 percent of people who'd signed up for health plans actually had paid their first month's premium. That would have undermined the Obama administration's claims that with more than 8 million people signed up, the Affordable Care Act has proven itself a success.

But the GOP report didn't take into account a surge of sign-ups as the health law's first open enrollment period drew to a close at the end of March, and none of the insurance industry witnesses called Wednesday ratified its findings.

Witnesses also were reluctant to fall in line with Democratic lines of questioning designed to show the law is an unbridled success.

Indeed, the hearing was most notable for how frequently the table of six witnesses fell silent under questioning from one side or the other and had to be drawn out by lawmakers aiming to prove their contentions.

But if the hearing was not always illuminating, it was certain not to be the last of its kind in a midterm election year where Republicans are aiming to capitalize on the unpopularity of "Obamacare" to hold onto control of the House and perhaps retake the Senate.

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Health Law Birth Control Coverage Before Justices

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration and its opponents are renewing the Supreme Court battle over President Barack Obama's health care law in a case that pits the religious rights of employers against the rights of women to the birth control of their choice.

Two years after the entire law survived the justices' review by a single vote, the court is hearing arguments Tuesday in a religion-based challenge from family-owned companies that object to covering certain contraceptives in their health plans as part of the law's preventive care requirement.

Health plans must offer a range of services at no extra charge, including all forms of birth control for women that have been approved by federal regulators.

Some of the nearly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives object to paying for all forms of birth control. But the companies involved in the high court case are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized.

The largest company among them, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc., and the Green family that owns it, say their "religious beliefs prohibit them from providing health coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices that end human life after conception."

Oklahoma City-based Hobby Lobby has more than 15,000 full-time employees in more than 600 crafts stores in 41 states. The Greens are evangelical Christians who also own Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain.

The other company is Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pa., owned by a Mennonite family and employing 950 people in making wood cabinets.

The administration says a victory for the companies would prevent women who work for them from making decisions about birth control based on what's best for their health, not whether they can afford it. The government's supporters point to research showing that nearly one-third of women would change their contraceptive if cost were not an issue; a very effective means of birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.

"Women already have an income gap. If these companies prevail, they'll have a health insurance gap, too," said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center.

The contraceptives at issue before the court are the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, and two IUDs.

The government also argues that employers would be able to invoke religious objections under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act to opt out of other laws, including those governing immunizations, minimum wages and Social Security taxes. The Supreme Court previously has rejected some of these claims in cases decided before the law's enactment.

The issue is largely confined to family-controlled businesses with a small number of shareholders.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 85 percent of large American employers already had offered such coverage before the health care law required it. There are separate lawsuits challenging the contraception provision from religiously affiliated hospitals, colleges and charities.

The federal appeals court in Denver ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby. Conestoga Wood lost its case at the federal appeals court in Philadelphia

In many respects, Hobby Lobby is the sort of company Obama would be pointing to as he advocates for corporate responsibility and a higher minimum wage.

Hobby Lobby's base pay for full-time employees is almost twice the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. They are offered health insurance, dental coverage and a retirement savings plan. Hobby Lobby stores close most nights at 8 p.m., which the company says is aimed at allowing employees to spend more time with their families.

The Greens say they have no desire to make health care decisions for their employees, but neither do they want to contribute to services to which they object.

One key issue before the justices is whether profit-making corporations may assert religious beliefs under the 1993 religious freedom law or the First Amendment provision guaranteeing Americans the right to believe and worship as they choose. The court could skirt that issue by finding that the individuals who own the businesses have the right to object.

The justices still would have to decide whether the birth control requirement really impinges on religious freedom, and if so, whether the government makes a persuasive case that the policy is important and is put in place in the least objectionable way possible.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood say the burden they face is clear in the $100-a-day fine they would have to pay for each employee for not complying with the contraception provision. By contrast, businesses that choose not to offer health insurance at all can pay a tax of $2,000 a year for each employee.

One potentially underemphasized aspect of the case is that there is no requirement that employers offer health insurance. They could pay the tax, which will be cheaper in many instances, according to Georgetown University's Martin Lederman, who has advanced the argument.

But Mark Rienzi, a Catholic University professor who is on the Hobby Lobby legal team, said Hobby Lobby would be at a competitive disadvantage with other employers who offer health insurance. "Their view is and has always been that they want to take really good care of their employees and their families," Rienzi said.

The companies say they believe life begins at conception, and they oppose only birth control methods that can prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus, but not other forms of contraception. There is dispute over whether any of these contraceptives works by preventing implantation, but the administration has not raised that issue in this case.

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Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shermancourt

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25 Years Later, Exxon Valdez Spill Effects Linger

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico, there was the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, at the time the nation's largest oil spill.

The 987-foot tanker, carrying 53 million gallons of crude, struck Bligh Reef at 12:04 a.m. on March 24, 1989. Within hours, it unleashed an estimated 10.8 million gallons of thick, toxic crude oil into the water. Storms and currents then smeared it over 1,300 miles of shoreline.

For a generation of people around the world, the spill was seared into their memories by images of fouled coastline in Prince William Sound, of sea otters, herring and birds soaked in oil, of workers painstakingly washing crude off the rugged beaches.

Twenty five years later, most of the species have recovered, said Robert Spies, a chief science adviser to governments on the oil spill restoration program from 1989 to 2002. But some wildlife, as well as the people who live in the region, are still struggling.

Here's a look at what's changed since the spill:

—FISHERMAN

Bernie Culbertson was preparing to fish cod when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. With oil in the water, fishing came to a standstill and life for he and other fishermen drastically changed.

"The bottom fell out of the price of fish," he said. Pink salmon that sold for 80 cents per pound fell to 8 cents per pound. Consumers turned to farm fish or tuna out of fear of tainted salmon. His boat caught 2.5 million pound of pinks one season and lost money.

Culbertson turned to other fisheries, traveling as far as California. Fishing 12 months a year, his marriage failed. Friends couldn't repay loans and lost boats or homes. Exxon compensation checks, minus what fishermen earned on spill work, arrived too late for many.

The fisheries today are not the same. "The shrimp are slowly, slowly coming back. The crab aren't back. The herring aren't back. The salmon are back in abundance," he said.

—INDUSTRY

At the time of the spill, complacency among government officials and the oil industry had set in after a dozen years of safe shipments, said Mark Swanson, director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council and a former Coast Guard officer.

When the tanker ran aground, for instance, spill response equipment was buried under snow. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. in 1989 had 13 oil skimmers, five miles of boom and storage capacity for 220,000 gallons of spilled oil.

Now, Alyeska has 108 skimmers, 49 miles of boom and on-water storage capacity of almost 38 million gallons. North Slope oil must be transported in double-hull tankers, which must be escorted by two tugs. Radar monitors the vessel's position as well as that of icebergs.

The company conducts two major spill drills are conducted each year. And nearly 400 local fishing boat owners are trained to deploy and maintain boom

—PACIFIC HERRING

After the spill, the population of herring crashed. It is now listed as "not recovering." The silvery fish is a key species because it is eaten by salmon, seabirds and marine mammals from otters to whales. Four years after the spill, the estimated herring population based on modeling shrunk from 120 metric tons to less than 30 metric tons.

How that happened remains a question, said Scott Pegau, research program manager for the Oil Spill Recovery Institute in Cordova, Alaska.

Here's what's known: Adult herring feed on zooplankton, which crashed for three years after the spill. With less to eat, herring may have been more susceptible to disease normally fended off within a herring population.

Herring populations can stabilize at a low or high number, but something has prevented a rebound. Oil likely is no longer a factor, Pegau said.

—SEA OTTERS

Responders estimated that as many as 3,000 sea otters died the first year. Hundreds more died in the years after of exposure to oil that persisted in sediment, where otters dig for clams.

Three factors could have had an impact on the otters' ability to survive. Oiled fur loses insulating value. Otters ingest oil as they groom, and researchers years after the spill found blood chemistry evidence consistent with liver damage. Grooming takes time away from feeding.

"One of the lessons we can take from this is that the chronic effects of oil in the environment can persist for decades," said Brenda Ballachey, who moved to Alaska a few months after the spill and spent the next summer dissecting sea otter carcasses collected from beaches and frozen.

The U.S. Geological Survey research biologist is the lead author of a federal study released last month that concludes that sea otters have finally returned to pre-spill numbers.

—PIGEON GUILLEMOTS

The pigeon guillemot (GEEL'-ah-mot), which looks like a black pigeon with web feet, is one species that has not recovered. Numbers were declining before the spill. An estimated 2,000 to 6,000 guillemots, or 10 to 15 percent of the population in spill areas, died from acute oiling.

Researchers suspect river otters, mink and other predators targeted guillemot eggs as an alternative to foraging on oiled beaches.

Like sea otters and another bird that took years to recover, harlequin ducks, pigeon guillemot's forage for invertebrates in sediment and likely were affected by lingering oil, said David Irons, a seabirds expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The decline of its other prey, juvenile herring, didn't help. Numbers continue to decline in both oiled and non-oiled areas. Irons has proposed reducing mink numbers on the heavily oiled Naked Islands, once prime habitat for guillemots, to restore their numbers.

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Campaign To Save Dog In Arizona Mauling

PHOENIX (AP) — A dog that mauled a 4-year-old Phoenix boy has received thousands of pleas for mercy through a Facebook campaign ahead of a court hearing to decide his fate.

A municipal court judge could rule at a March 25 hearing on whether Mickey, a pit bull that bit Kevin Vicente in the face, should be euthanized. Kevin received injuries that will require, according to doctors, months and possibly years of reconstructive surgeries.

Since the Feb. 20 attack, Mickey has become the object of a Facebook page that has gotten more than 40,000 likes and an online petition to spare his life.

Supporters say the campaign doesn't mean they value the dog's life above the child's.

"This is not Kevin versus Mickey," said attorney John Schill, who is representing the dog in the court petition. "Having Mickey killed is not going to take away Kevin's pain or injuries. The only thing this is going to do is kill a poor, innocent dog."

Pit bulls are viewed by some as a dangerous breed, a reputation their fans dispute.

Guadalupe Villa, who was at the scene of the attack, filed the vicious-animal petition to have the dog put down.

"I just looked at all this as this could have been my son, and I don't want it to be someone else," Villa said.

Schill said he is working pro bono at the request of The Lexus Project, a nonprofit that collects money to legally defend canines in danger of being euthanized. The organization has set up a trust for Mickey that has received more than $5,600, he said.

Schill said the person watching Kevin while his mother was at work should be held responsible.

"But for adults involved, this never would have happened," Schill said. "They're trying to put all the blame on Mickey."

Villa, whose boyfriend's mother was baby-sitting Kevin the day of the attack, said her friend is not to blame.

"She took amazing care of that little boy," said Villa, who claims in the petition that Mickey killed her dog last year.

According to Villa, Kevin picked up a bone lying on the ground near the dog, which was kept on a chain. That's when Mickey suddenly attacked Kevin, Villa said.

Villa said she can't understand the Facebook attention and doesn't see Mickey as a victim.

Kevin was hospitalized at Maricopa Medical Center with a broken eye socket, cheek bone and lower jaw bone, according to doctors.

Dr. Salvatore Lettieri, a Mayo Clinic physician and chief of cosmetic surgery at Maricopa Medical Center, said he was able to fix the broken bones and reattach the muscles that allow Kevin to open and close his eye.

"He still can't open his eye. We'll need to fix the tear duct drainage system — that is if he makes tears," Lettieri said.

Flor Medrano, a family friend, said Kevin continues to recover at a pediatric hospital in Phoenix but will return to Maricopa Medical Center later this week for more surgery on his eye.

Medrano also said a fundraising website has received about $6,000 in donations for the boy. The Maricopa Health Foundation also established a website that has received 50 donations.

The social media support for Mickey doesn't indicate that people care more about a dog than a child, Harold Herzog, a psychology professor at Western Carolina University who studies animal interaction.

He said it's likely that lovers of pit bulls, specifically, are driving Mickey's Facebook following. Pit bulls have been saddled with a bad rap — fair or not — of being one of the most dangerous dogs. A lot of that reputation is thanks to other mauling cases, Herzog said.

"I don't think this reflects that people like dogs more than they like kids. It's a reflection that ... this is yet another instance of their breed getting blame for something it didn't do," Herzog said. "'Blame the deed, not the breed.'"

Support for Mickey intensified after an employee at the Maricopa County Animal Control and Care Center, which has custody of the dog, wrote on Facebook that Mickey was "going night night."

Melissa Gable, a center spokeswoman, said the employee will face administrative action but declined to elaborate.

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Follow Terry Tang on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

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Taco Bell Takes Aim At McDonald's With Breakfast

NEW YORK (AP) -- Egg McMuffin, meet the Waffle Taco.

Taco Bell is readying for the launch of its national breakfast menu on March 27, with items such as the A.M. Crunchwrap designed to appeal to its fan base of younger men. And the chain says breakfast will be available until 11 a.m. — a half-hour later than McDonald's offers its Egg McMuffins.

"We can turn the breakfast conversation into a two-horse race," Taco Bell President Brian Niccol said in an interview, noting that Taco Bell intends to be a "strong No. 2" after McDonald's.

McDonald's has long been the fast-food leader in the mornings, with its popular Sausage Biscuits, Hotcakes and other items pulling in roughly 20 percent of the company's U.S. sales. But the chain has been facing stiffer competition over the years, with places such as Starbucks and Subway looking for a piece of the growing breakfast business.

On March 4, for instance, Starbucks also plans to roll out new and revamped breakfast sandwiches, including a croissant sandwich with ham, cheese and egg.

It's not clear how Taco Bell's entry into breakfast will alter the fast-food landscape. Last year, an executive with Taco Bell's parent company Yum Brands said that breakfast accounted for about 4 percent of sales in locations where it was tested. But that was before the chain put its full marketing might behind the menu, he noted.

McDonald's, which has more than 14,000 U.S. locations, has also said it plans to step up its marketing of breakfast this year as new players enter the space. Separately, the president of McDonald's USA, Jeff Stratton, also told the Associated Press that the chain is in the early stages of looking at whether it can extend its breakfast hours.

Stratton noted that cutting off breakfast on the weekends at 10:30 a.m. "doesn't go very well" with people in their 20s and 30s in particular. Still, figuring out how to serve both breakfast and lunch poses an operational challenge given the limited kitchen space in restaurants.

In the meantime, Kevin Newell, U.S. brand and strategy officer for McDonald's, seemed unfazed in an interview late last week by Taco Bell's breakfast plans.

"I think they're going to find that going into the breakfast business is not like what they're accustomed to, in terms of marketing," Newell said. The breakfast menus of the two chains only have one main offering that seems to go head-to-head, a sausage and egg burrito.

Taco Bell has been testing and tweaking its menu in a select number of its nearly 6,000 U.S. locations over the past several months. For the national rollout, the company's restaurants have had to hire additional staff, train existing staff and buy new equipment, including for the coffee it plans to start serving for the first time.

To keep operations simple at the start, Niccol said Taco Bell will start with drip coffee before expanding to specialty coffees such as lattes.

The items on Taco Bell's breakfast menu are intended to be easy to hold and eat on the go. They include:

— A.M. Crunchwrap — scrambled eggs, a hash brown, cheese and bacon, sausage or steak in a flour tortilla.

— Waffle Taco — a waffle wrapped around a sausage patty or bacon, with scrambled eggs and cheese, served with a side of syrup.

— Bacon and Egg Burrito — Bacon, scrambled eggs and cheese wrapped in a flour tortilla

—Sausage Flatbread Melt — A sausage patty topped with cheese wrapped in a flatbread and grilled.

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Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi

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Beijing Issues Rare Air Pollution Alert

BEIJING (AP) — When the air gets really bad, Beijing says it has an emergency plan to yank half the city's cars off the road. The only problem is: It may be difficult to ever set that plan in motion.

It wasn't triggered in January, when the city recorded extremely poisonous air pollution. And not this week, when pollution was expected to continue for several days at hazardous levels. A rare alert issued Friday was an "orange" one — the second-highest in the four levels of urgency — prompting health advisories and bans on barbeques, fireworks and demolition work, but no order to pull cars from the streets.

"Yesterday, I thought it was bad enough when I went out to eat. But this morning I was hacking," a Beijing pedestrian who gave her name as Li said Friday, as a thick haze shrouded the city.

Still, the government did not issue the red alert. Beijing's alert system requires a forecast of three days in a row of severe pollution for the highest level. Days of extreme pollution or polluted skies that are expected to clear in less than three days do not trigger the most stringent measures.

A period of pollution in January that saw density readings of PM 2.5 particles exceeding 500 micrograms per cubic meter prompted only the mildest, blue-level alert. That density is about 20 times as high as the 25 micrograms considered safe by the World Health Organization. PM refers to "particulate matter," a mixture of extremely small particles and liquid droplets, the size of which is linked to their potential for causing health problems.

The measures that went into effect Friday also ask members of the public to use public transportation and to turn off their cars rather than let them run idle, as well as call for water sprinkling on the street and dust-control measures at building sites. The most stringent level, red, would order half of Beijing's 5 million cars off the road — based on the last digit of their license plate.

Ma Jun, of the non-governmental Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs in Beijing, said that accurately forecasting three days of heavy pollution is technically difficult.

But in any case, he said, the government is reluctant to adopt the most disruptive measures, because it would be nearly impossible to notify all drivers of the rules and to adequately boost the capacity of public transportation to accommodate the extra passengers.

"When the alert is at a low level, the measures are not effective, but those for the high-level alert are not feasible," Ma said. "The government is reluctant to raise the alert level."

However, Ma credited the government with becoming more open in recent months about air pollution levels, and noted that many people receive real-time government updates about Beijing's air quality on their mobile phones, so that they can take protective measures.

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Associated Press video journalists Aritz Parra and Hélène Franchineau contributed to this report.

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Budget Model Uncertain For State Health Exchanges

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The 14 states running their own health insurance marketplaces had all their startup costs footed by the federal government, but they're supposed to pay for themselves starting next year under the federal health care reform law.

In several states, it's not clear whether it will work out that way. Projected enrollments are lower than expected, meaning the insurance surcharges designed to sustain the exchanges might not generate enough revenue in the years ahead without significant changes in the financing model.

Officials in some states are stashing away federal grant money to continue paying for operations beyond the January 2015 target date for financial self-sufficiency. Others are contemplating staffing cuts or boosting insurance surcharges.

To date, the 14 states operating their own exchanges, plus the District of Columbia, have received nearly $3.8 billion to start and operate their health insurance exchanges, according to a state-by-state tally by The Associated Press.

Several states already are considering options to stave off concerns about solvency:

— The exchange in California, which leads the nation in sign-ups, is setting aside $184 million in federal grant money to cover projected budget deficits through 2016.

— Rhode Island is asking for an extension to keep using federal grant money through the first half of next year, and lawmakers and business leaders have expressed concern that the state has no clear plan for paying for the exchange once that money runs out.

— Minnesota, Oregon and Washington are among the states pledging to sharply cut costs to remain afloat.

— Washington also is considering an increased tax on insurance companies as the state Health Benefit Exchange adjusts to a new funding reality, moving from federal grants totaling almost $150 million this year to $40 million allocated by the Legislature for 2015.

More will be known about the exchanges' financial outlook after a March 31 deadline for people to sign up for insurance or face federal tax penalties, and many states expect pickups in enrollment. But some states aren't waiting.

"What I've begun to do is look at what is actually an extremely conservative, very low-level enrollment and begin to develop a budget that could be supported by that enrollment without raising fees," said Bruce Goldberg, the interim director of Cover Oregon, the exchange in that state.

Goldberg is aiming for a 20 percent spending reduction to cover that state's enrollment shortfall.

In Minnesota, where exchange enrollment is at 85 percent of what once was a worst-case scenario, a recent internal analysis projected an 11 percent deficit in 2015 and 13 percent in 2016 if enrollment doesn't improve.

Officials of MNsure, the state's exchange, have vowed to cut costs to avoid seeking any money from the Legislature during an election year.

"It would be a very difficult issue to address at the Legislature," said Tony Lourey, a Democratic state senator in Minnesota who sponsored the bill that created the exchange.

A state audit of California's health exchange designated the agency "high-risk" because of uncertainty about sign-ups.

While Covered California expresses confidence about its prospects, Executive Director Peter Lee told state finance officials in December that "long-term sustainability of the organization" is its greatest vulnerability.

The 14 states and District of Columbia opted to build their own insurance marketplaces under the health care overhaul rather than use a federally operated system, which covers 36 states. Federal grants covered the cost of staffing and running the state exchanges, building the websites and marketing to customers.

Lagging enrollment isn't the only problem. Many states still face potentially expensive fixes to glitchy websites on which customers choose policies. One study suggested that Minnesota's might have to be rebuilt from the ground up. California's exchange is greatly expanding its staff, hiring an additional 350 employees at its call centers in large part because of bottlenecks and long wait times.

As those problems persist, some consumers are buying policies through private companies, depriving the exchanges of revenue.

Anticipating financial shortfalls, some state exchange officials are looking at slashing everything from staffing to advertising budgets. Minnesota exchange officials also have considered selling ads on the MNsure website.

In Washington, private enrollment is about 40,000 people behind projected levels. Exchange spokesman Michael Marchand acknowledged dramatic spending cuts are likely.

Insurance companies also could be tapped for more revenue. Washington state has budgeted $40 million to run its exchange in 2015 — funded with a 2 percent tax on its insurance sales. The Legislature has authorized charging insurance companies additional fees if necessary. Insurance companies are likely to push back, and consumers would likely feel the impact of any hike. Higher premium prices also could drive people away from the exchanges.

"Any time you come back to the insurers, that is just going to add to the cost of health care coverage," said Eileen Smith, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Council on Health Plans, which represents the state's five largest commercial health insurers.

In Rhode Island, state officials are assuming they will be allowed to continue using their federal grant money through the first half of 2015, but there is no set financial plan after that point. HealthSource RI estimates its annual operating costs at between $18 million and $24 million.

A spokesman for Gordon Fox, speaker of the Rhode Island House, said members of a legislative finance committee have been raising concerns about the "structure and sustainability" of the marketplace since last year. Business groups are concerned that finding ways to pay for the exchange could extend beyond its users.

"Every time we try to determine how is this going to be funded, there really is no answer," said Donald Nokes, a small-business owner who is board president for the Rhode Island Business Group on Health and a former vice chairman of HealthSource RI's board. "We're concerned that they may start to float the idea that this is such a valuable thing, let's everybody pay for it."

The federal government's position on new grant requests is unclear, although the federal health care law expects exchanges to be self-sufficient.

"We are working closely with states to support their efforts to successfully implement their marketplace," said Alicia Hartinger, a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The agency would not clarify whether federal money might be available.

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The following Associated Press writers contributed to this report: Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles; David Caruso in New York; Sandra Chereb in Carson City, Nev.; Jonathan J. Cooper in Salem, Ore.; Donna Blankinship in Seattle; Erika Niedowski in Providence, R.I.; Ben Nuckols in Washington, D.C.; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md.; and Kristen Wyatt in Denver.

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First Guidelines Issued To Prevent Stroke In Women

AP - Just as heart attack symptoms may differ between men and women, so do stroke risks.

Now, the American Heart Association has issued its first guidelines for preventing strokes in women. They focus on birth control, pregnancy, depression and other risk factors that women face uniquely or more frequently than men do.

The advice applies to patients like Denise Miller, who suffered a stroke last year that fooled doctors at two northeast Ohio hospitals before it was finally diagnosed at the Cleveland Clinic. She was 36 and had no traditional risk factors.

"There was nothing to indicate I was going to have a stroke," other than frequent migraines with aura — dizziness or altered senses such as tingling, ringing ears or sensitivity to light, Miller said.

These headaches are more common in women and the new guidelines issued Thursday flag them as a concern. Miller recovered but has some lingering numbness and vision problems.

Each year, nearly 800,000 Americans have a new or recurrent stroke, which occurs when a blood vessel to the brain is blocked by a clot or bursts. Stroke is the third-leading cause of death for women and the fifth-leading cause for men. The key to surviving one and limiting disability is getting help fast, and recognizing symptoms such as trouble speaking, weakness or numbness in one arm, or drooping on one side of the face.

Stroke risk rises with age, and women tend to live longer than men. Women are more likely to be living alone when they have a stroke, to have poorer recovery, and to need institutional care after one.

Certain stroke risks are more common in women — migraine with aura, obesity, an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation, and metabolic syndrome — a combo of problems including blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.

General guidelines for stroke prevention currently focus on controlling blood pressure and diabetes, quitting smoking, more exercise and healthy diets.

The new ones add gender-specific advice, said Dr. Cheryl Bushnell, stroke chief at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. She led the panel that wrote the guidelines, published in Stroke, a Heart Association journal.

Some highlights:

BIRTH CONTROL PILLS: Women should be checked for high blood pressure before starting on oral contraceptives because the combination raises stroke risks. The risk is small but rises steeply in women ages 45 to 49. More than 10 million American women use birth control pills.

PREGNANCY: Strokes are uncommon during pregnancy but the risk is still higher, especially during the last three months and soon after delivery. The big worry is preeclampsia, dangerously high blood pressure that can cause a seizure and other problems.

"It doubles the risk of stroke later in life and it quadruples the risk of high blood pressure" after pregnancy, Bushnell said.

Women with a history of high blood pressure before pregnancy should be considered for low-dose aspirin (around 81 milligrams) after the first three months of pregnancy, and calcium supplements anytime, to lower the risk of preeclampsia, the guidelines say.

Pregnant women with very high blood pressure (160 over 110 and above) should be treated with medications, and treatment may be considered for those with moderately high blood pressure (150 to 159 over 100 to 109). Certain blood pressure medicines are not safe during pregnancy, the guidelines note.

ASPIRIN: It's usually recommended for anyone who has already had a stroke unless the stroke was caused by bleeding rather than a clot, or if bleeding risk is a concern, Bushnell said. Aspirin also is often recommended for people with diabetes to lower the risk of stroke and other problems.

A low-dose aspirin every other day "can be useful" to lower stroke risk in women 65 and older unless its benefit is outweighed by the potential for bleeding or other risks, the guidelines say.

MIGRAINES: Women are four times more likely to have migraines than men, and they often coincide with hormone swings. Migraines alone don't raise the risk of stroke, but ones with aura do. Using oral contraceptives and smoking raise this risk even more, so the guidelines urge stopping smoking.

IRREGULAR HEARTBEAT: Women over age 75 should be checked for atrial fibrillation. Doctors do this by taking a pulse or listening to the heartbeat.

MENOPAUSE: Hormone therapy should not be used to try to prevent strokes.

The new guidelines put women's issues "on the table" so more doctors talk about them, said Dr. Shazam Hussain, stroke chief at the Cleveland Clinic. "Gender does make a difference. The medical community has neglected it for some time."

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Colgate's Profit Beats Estimates Due To Cost Cuts

(Reuters) - Colgate-Palmolive Co , the world's largest toothpaste maker, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as cost cuts offset the negative impact of a stronger dollar.

Colgate shares rose as much as 4 percent on Thursday.

"The company continues to deliver solid results, despite macro challenges - which is impressive," JPMorgan analyst John Faucher wrote in a note.

Colgate's gross margins rose in the quarter ended December 31 as it cut costs by negotiating better lease terms with suppliers, using cheaper raw material and reducing packaging material in products.

Launch of higher-margin products, redesigning of some brands and introduction of successful regional products in other markets helped the company grow its sales.

Colgate, which controls about 45 percent of the global toothpaste market, said it expected gross margin expansion to continue and its 2014 adjusted earnings growth to be in line with analysts' estimates.

Analysts on average are expecting earnings of $3.08 per share in 2014, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Faucher said Colgate's guidance was "fine," as there were concerns that a stronger dollar would bite into its profits.

Rival Procter & Gamble Co said last week that it would not change its 2014 forecast and that it expected organic sales to grow 3-4 percent.

ORGANIC SALES RISE

Colgate's organic sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter, led by emerging markets.

In Latin America, its biggest market by sales, organic revenue rose 12.5 percent, led by new products such as Colgate Luminous White Advanced and Colgate Total Professional Gum Health.

Organic revenue in Asia, including India and China, grew 9 percent due to higher sales of products such as Darlie Expert White toothpastes and Palmolive Naturals White + Milk bar soap.

The company said its global volumes grew 6.5 percent, but pricing was flat.

Its net profit fell to $564 million, or 60 cents per share, in the fourth quarter from $598 million, or 63 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company earned 75 cents per share, excluding a $133 million aftertax charge related to restructuring.

Revenue rose 2 percent to $4.36 billion. Foreign exchange fluctuations hurt sales by 4.5 percent in the quarter, the New-York based company said.

Analysts on average expected earnings of 74 cents per share on revenue of $4.38 billion.

Colgate's gross profit margins rose to 58.9 percent in the fourth quarter from 58.4 percent a year earlier.

The company's shares were up 1.2 percent at $62.38 on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

(Editing by Kirti Pandey)

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French First Lady Trierweiler Leaves Hospital

PARIS (Reuters) - French first lady Valerie Trierweiler left hospital in Paris on Saturday, a week after reports emerged that her partner, President Francois Hollande, was having an affair with the actress Julie Gayet, a member of Trierweiler's staff said.

Trierweiler left the Pitie Salpetriere hospital just after 1400 GMT (9 a.m. EST) and is resting at the president's residence at La Lanterne, the official said, confirming a report in Paris Match magazine, for which Trierweiler works.

Paris Match said Trierweiler was expected to spend a few days at La Lanterne, near the Chateau de Versailles on the outskirts of Paris, citing sources close to Hollande.

The president's office declined to comment.

Trierweiler was admitted to hospital on January 10 after the gossip magazine Closer published what it said were images of Hollande making a nocturnal visit to Gayet's pied-a-terre apartment in the upmarket eighth arrondissement of Paris.

Hollande, who visited Trierweiler in hospital on Thursday, according to a source in his office, was in his old parliamentary constituency of Tulle, in central France, on Saturday. His speech there made no reference to the matter.

The reports of the affair with Gayet, which Hollande has neither confirmed nor denied, have raised questions about whether Trierweiler will continue to occupy the unofficial position of France's "first lady" and accompany the president on state visits.

Hollande pledged at a news conference on Tuesday to clarify Trierweiler's status ahead of a trip to the United States scheduled for February 9. He brushed off questions about the alleged affair.

He said everyone in their personal life could "face trials" and that "that is our case", adding that "these are painful moments".

The president has insisted on his right to a private life and has pursued business largely as usual, unveiling his economic reform plans for the rest of his five-year presidency at the Tuesday event and giving a keynote speech to French diplomats on Friday.

While the reports surrounding Hollande, Trierweiler and Gayet have hit the headlines internationally, the French are traditionally indulgent of their leaders' sexual indiscretions.

In a poll carried out by BVA for the French TV channel iTele published on Saturday, three-quarters of those interviewed thought Hollande was right not to answer questions about his private life, with 62 percent considering it was a private matter that concerned only him.

Before the publication in Closer, Hollande had become the least popular French president in modern times, largely due to tax increases, recession and high unemployment, compounded by a reputation for dithering.

(Writing by James Regan; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Alister Doyle)

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GSK Hands Back Failed Muscular Dystrophy Drug To Prosensa

LONDON (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline has handed back rights to an experimental drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to U.S.-listed Dutch biotech firm Prosensa after it failed last year in a critical clinical trial.

Both companies said on Monday that Prosensa would now have full and unencumbered rights to drisapersen, as well as other compounds at an earlier stage of development. The move marks the termination of a 2009 collaboration deal between the two firms.

Hopes for the drug slumped last September when it did not show a statistically significant improvement in the distance that patients could walk in six minutes compared with a placebo in a final-stage Phase III test run by GSK. [ID:nL5N0HG1JP]

Currently, there is no approved drug to alter the course of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) - a rare muscle-wasting genetic disease affecting boys that puts most of them in wheelchairs by the age of 12 and leads to early death.

Shares in Prosensa, which raised nearly $90 million in an initial public offering on Nasdaq in June, fell 17.5 percent to $4.63 on the news GSK had thrown in the towel. They were priced at $13 in the IPO and hit a high of $34.55 in August.

Despite the latest setback, Prosensa's chief executive Hans Schikan said he had not given up on drisapersen, adding the company was analyzing results from various studies of the drug.

"Based on the data we've seen so far we feel it absolutely justifies a discussion with experts, with patient advocacy groups and most importantly with regulators to define what the next steps could be, including a potential regulatory path forward," he said in a telephone interview from the J.P. Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco.

Schikan will present an update on the company's prospects at the meeting on Thursday, including a high-level update on various analyses that have been carried out so far.

He declined to specify the likely next step, but industry analysts at Leerink said the fact GSK had handed back rights suggested that pooling and sub-group analyses had failed to provide strong enough evidence to justify a filing for approval.

There had been speculation that younger DMD patients might benefit more from the drug or that combining results from different clinical trials might show a statistically significant drisapersen effect.

FUNDING UNTIL 2015

Leerink estimated that Prosensa ended 2013 with around $98 million in cash, which depending on its new development plans for drisapersen would likely be enough to fund operations into mid- or late-2015.

Last summer GSK and Prosensa had been seen as ahead of the pack in making a drug for DMD - a belief underscored by it having been awarded a "breakthrough therapy" designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In the event, the key trial results in September dashed those hopes, dealing a major blow to Prosensa but causing relatively little damage at its much larger partner GSK.

Overall GSK's research laboratories have done well in the past 12 months, with new drug approvals in HIV, cancer and respiratory disease.

But Britain's biggest drugmaker has been less successful in higher risk areas. In addition to the DMD setback it has also reported disappointing results with a new kind of therapeutic cancer vaccine and a novel heart medicine.

(Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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House Passes Bill Targeting Health Care Law

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House overwhelmingly passed a bill to impose new security requirements on President Barack Obama's health care law as Republicans maintained an election-year focus on the contentious program and its troubled rollout.

The vote Friday was 291-122 for the measure that Republicans said would address potential data breaches, though they offered no examples in which personal data had been compromised through the government website. There were 67 Democrats who joined with Republicans to back the measure.

The bill was the first of several targeting "Obamacare" this year in the GOP-led House. Republicans see the law's woes as paying political dividends in November's midterm contests and vow to be relentless in highlighting what they consider a disastrous law.

The administration opposes the bill, which stands no chance in the Democratic-led Senate.

Republicans insisted the legislation was necessary to address potential problems, pointing to last year's security breach at Target Corp. The nation's second-largest retailer said Friday that personal information connected to about 70 million customers through credit and debit card accounts had been stolen in a pre-Christmas data breach.

"What if Target had not bothered to tell anyone?" asked Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who argued that the Health and Human Services Department's promise to notify Americans of security breaches needed the force of law.

The measure would require the secretary of health and human services to notify an individual within two business days of any security breach involving personal data provided to the government during health care enrollment.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., spoke of "credible and documented fear" of the health care website.

Democrats said there had been no security breaches at the health care website and the bill was simply a Republican effort to scare Americans from signing up for coverage with misinformation.

"They are trying to put fear into the public," said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

Rep. Diane DeGette, D-Colo., described the legislation as a "solution in search of a problem."

In fact, there was at least one breach last year. A North Carolina man tried to log on to the website and got a South Carolina man's personal information. The administration had to scramble to make a software fix.

Republicans used debate on the bill to assail the health care law, using oft-repeated criticism such as "train wreck" and disaster.

The goal of the Affordable Care Act is to expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack insurance, to lower health care costs, to increase access to preventive services and to eliminate some of the pre-existing condition requirements that insurance companies have used to deny coverage. The health care website HealthCare.gov got off to a calamitous start on Oct. 1, followed quickly by widespread reports of canceled policies and higher premiums.

To date, more than 2 million Americans have signed up for coverage through the federal marketplace covering 36 states and exchanges in 14 states. At the same time, at least 4.7 million people who buy their own insurance were told their policies would no longer be offered this year because they failed to meet the standards of the law.

Republicans who steadfastly opposed the law seized on Obama's proclamation — repeated by many Democrats — that if you like your health care, you can keep it, using the law as a political cudgel. The House voted more than 40 times last year to repeal, replace or undo parts of the law.

The administration, in objecting to the measure, said it already has implemented safeguards to secure personal information and notify consumers if a breach occurs.

"When consumers fill out their online marketplace applications, they can trust that the information that they are providing is protected by stringent security standards," the administration said in a statement Thursday.

The House had planned to vote on another bill that would require the administration to report weekly on the number of visits to the government health care website, the number of Americans who applied and the number of enrollees by ZIP code, as well as other statistics. The administration has opposed this measure, saying it has been providing information on enrollments, and the added requirements would force it to hire new staff.

The House will debate that bill next week.

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Utah Mom To Give Birth To Daughter's Daughter

PROVO, Utah (AP) — A 58-year-old Utah woman is set to give birth in a few weeks — to her first grandchild.

Julia Navarro is serving as a gestational surrogate for her daughter and son-in-law after the couple struggled with fertility problems.

Navarro's daughter Lorena McKinnon said she began trying to have a baby with her husband, Micah McKinnon, three years ago.

The 32-year-old Provo woman said she's had about a dozen miscarriages, with the longest pregnancy lasting 10 weeks.

After several tries, the couple began looking for a surrogate. McKinnon said a friend and sister both considered carrying her baby, but ultimately decided against it.

That's when her mother offered to step in.

"As a family, we have to help each other," Navarro told The Salt Lake Tribune (http://bit.ly/1a40CaE ).

Navarro had to undergo hormone shots for three months before an embryo fertilized by her daughter and son-in-law could be implanted. Because of her age, doctors had warned there was only a 45 percent chance the implantation would be successful.

But the procedure was a success, and Navarro said she's had a smooth pregnancy carrying a developing baby girl.

As with other surrogacy arrangements, the couple and Navarro needed three months of counseling.

"The psychologists wanted to make sure we knew what we were getting into — that we were mentally prepared," McKinnon said. "Mostly, surrogacy contracts are with people you don't know. It was weird to have a contract with my mom."

It's unclear how rare it is for a woman to carry her own grandchild, but recent news reports have detailed similar relationships.

Last year, a 53-year-old Iowa woman gave birth to her twin granddaughters. And in 2012, a 49-year-old woman in Maine gave birth to her grandson.

McKinnon said she was grateful and overwhelmed by her mother's offer, which eases some of the obstacles and financial burdens for parents using a gestational surrogate.

According to Utah law, surrogates must be 21 or older, financially stable and must have already given birth once.

Couples must be married and are allowed to offer a reasonable payment to a surrogate.

On average, a couple can spend about $60,000 on procedures and paying the surrogate, but McKinnon said her mother's offer to help is saving the couple about half of that.

Both she and her daughter said they've bonded over the experience.

The baby girl is due in early February.

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2.1 Million Sign Up For Obamacare Health Insurance

Washington (AFP) - More than 2 million people have signed up for private health insurance through President Barack Obama's signature reform after a botched rollout, the US government said Tuesday.

The Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, is designed to offer insurance to millions of Americans who have never been able to secure it before -- some because of pre-existing health conditions like heart disease that insurers were unwilling to cover.

But its launch was hobbled by technical problems, casting doubt that the government could reach its 7 million enrollment goal by the end of March.

Since October 1, more than 2.1 million have secured coverage via Web portals set up by the federal government in 36 states and by local authorities in 14 others, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters in a conference call.

The bulk of the enrollment took place in December after a litany of glitches with the government website, healthcare.gov, which wasn't able to handle the full onslaught of users until the end of November.

The rocky start has played into the hands of Republicans who say the federal government has no business intervening in the private health care market and and should not be dictating health choices to Americans.

In addition, 3.9 million people found out via the sites that, due to the reform, they were eligible for coverage through public health insurance programs including Medicaid, which is geared toward the poorest, according to figures from October and November.

The government did not specify how many of the 6 million people total had previously not had health insurance -- a figure that will be key in determining the success of the reform deemed Obama's top domestic achievement to date. In particular, it was unclear how many simply renewed their coverage.

Some 50 million people currently do not have health insurance in the United States.

Those individuals who signed up for insurance before December 24 on the federal site will have coverage as of Wednesday, New Year's Day.

"Tomorrow, January 1st, will be a new day in health care for millions of Americans," Sebelius said.

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