Only 1 in 4 Young Teens Uses Sunscreen Regularly, Study Finds (HealthDay)

MONDAY, Jan. 23 (HealthDay News) -- Despite the fact that sunburn in childhood greatly raises a person's lifelong risk for skin cancer, just 25 percent of 14-year-olds in a new U.S. study said they used sunscreen regularly.

What's more, behaviors linked to risky sun exposure increased as kids got older, with older teens reporting more time in the sun and less use of sunscreen than when they were young.

In the study, published in the February issue of Pediatrics, researchers led by Dr. Stephen Dusza of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City, examined data on 360 fifth graders in Massachusetts who were surveyed in 2004 and again three years later in 2007.

Looking at changes in sun-protective behaviors over that period of time, the team found that more than half (53 percent) of the youngsters had already suffered at least one sunburn by the age of 11 and that that rate of sunburn remained constant over the next three years.

But during that same time period, rates of using sunscreen "often or always" actually dropped: While half of the kids used such products at the beginning of the study, only 25 percent still did so three years later.

The authors noted that the proportion of children who admitted to "liking a tan and spending time outside to get a tan significantly increased" as they grew older, as well.

The years of "periadolescence" covered by the study (ages 11 to 14) appear to be "a crucial period" when young people often either "increase or decrease their use of sun protection, obtain sunburns, or change their tan-promoting attitudes," the authors wrote.

"Adolescence and teenage years are tremendously difficult because it is a period of flexing independence, coupled with feelings of invincibility," they added. Dusza and his team believe that educational outreach during these years will be key to ensuring kids make healthier choices that can help ward off skin cancers over their lifetime.

More information

For more on skin cancer, head to the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120123/hl_hsn/only1in4youngteensusessunscreenregularlystudyfinds

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Ship search finds 12th body, captain's documents

An Italian fireman descends from an helicopter to the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

An Italian fireman descends from an helicopter to the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

A woman checks if her clothes are dry as the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia is seen in background, off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain, Capt. Francesco Schettino, who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

The grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia lays off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

An Italian Coast Guard boat patrols the area around the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Fuel spilling experts work on the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. The cruise captain who grounded the Costa Concordia off the Tuscan coast with 4,200 people on board did not relay correct information either to the company or crew after the ship hit rocks, the cruise ship owner's CEO said as the search resumed for 21 missing passengers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

GIGLIO, Italy (AP) ? Divers plumbing the capsized Costa Concordia's murky depths pulled out the body of a woman in a life vest Saturday, while scuba-diving police swam through the captain's cabin to retrieve a safe and documents belonging to the man who abandoned the cruise liner after it was gashed by a rocky reef on the Tuscan coast.

Hoping for a miracle ? or at least for the recovery of bodies from the ship that has become an underwater tomb ? relatives of some of the 20 missing appealed to survivors of the Jan. 13 shipwreck to offer details that could help divers reach loved ones while it is still possible to search the luxury liner. The clock is ticking because the craft is perched precariously on a rocky ledge of seabed near Giglio island.

"We are asking the 4,000 persons who were on board to give any information they can about any of the persons still missing," said Alain Litzler, a Frenchman who is the father of missing passenger Mylene Litzler. "We need precise information to help the search and rescue teams find them."

Early Sunday, instruments monitoring any movement of the Concordia indicated that vessel had shifted slightly, so search efforts were suspended for the night, Italian state radio reported.

The death toll rose to at least 12 Saturday after a water-logged body was extracted from a passageway near a gathering point for evacuation by lifeboats in the rear of the vessel, Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said. It was not immediately clear if the woman was a passenger or crew member. A female Peruvian bartender and several adult female passengers were among the 21 people listed as missing before the latest corpse was found.

Relatives of the bartender and of an Indian crewman, along with two children of an elderly couple from Minnesota who are among the missing, boarded a boat Saturday to view the wrecked Concordia Saturday, said a maritime official, Fabrizio Palombo.

Family members tossed flowers near the site while islanders standing on the rocky edge of the island also strew bouquets on the water in a tribute to the victims.

Another Coast Guard official, Cosimo Nicastro, said the woman's body was found during a particularly risky inspection.

"The corridor was very narrow, and the divers' lines risked snagging" on furniture and objects floating in the passageway, Nicastro said. To help the coast guard divers reach the area, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit.

Meanwhile, police divers, carrying out orders from prosecutors investigating Captain Francesco Schettino for suspected manslaughter and abandoning the ship, swam through the cold, dark waters to reach his cabin. State TV and the Italian news agency ANSA reported that the divers located and remove his safe and two suitcases. His passport and several documents were also pulled out, state media said.

Searchers inspecting the bridge Saturday also found a hard disk containing data of the voyage, Sky TG24 TV reported.

Three bodies were found in waters around the ship in the first hours after the accident. Since then, divers have gone inside the Concordia to recover all the remaining victims, who were apparently unable to escape the lurching ship during a chaotic evacuation launched almost an hour after the liner hit a reef.

Some survivors who couldn't board lifeboats waited for hours aboard the capsizing craft for rescue by helicopters while others jumped into the water and swam to safety.

The last survivor, found aboard 36 hours after the crash, was an Italian crewman who broke his leg in the confusion and couldn't leave the ship.

The Concordia hit the reef, well-marked on maritime and even tourist maps, while most of the passengers sat down to dinner in the main restaurant, about two hours after the ship had set sail from the port of Civitavecchia on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Costa Crociere, the ship's operator and subsidiary of U.S.-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said the captain had deviated without permission from the vessel's route in an apparent maneuver to sail close to the island of Giglio and impress passengers.

Schettino, despite audiotapes of his defying Coast Guard orders to scramble back aboard, has denied he abandoned ship while hundreds of passengers were desperately trying to get off the capsizing vessel. He has said he coordinated the rescue from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.

The effort to find survivors and bodies has postponed an operation to remove heavy fuel in the Concordia's tanks; specialized equipment has been standing by for days.

Light fuel, apparently from machinery aboard the capsized ship, was spotted in nearby waters, authorities said Saturday.

But Nicastro said there was no indication that any of the nearly 500,000 gallons (2,200 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship's double-bottomed tanks, seen as a risk if the ship's position changes. He said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.

There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside Giglio's port. Nicastro described the fuel in the sea as "very light, very superficial" and appearing to be under control.

But an official leading rescue, search and anti-pollution efforts for the ship suggested that the luxury liner would have leaked contaminants on board when it tipped over.

"We must not forget that on that ship there are oils, solvents, detergents, everything that a city of 4,000 people needs," Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, told reporters in Giglio.

Gabrielli was referring to the roughly 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew who were aboard the cruise liner when it ran into the reef and, with seawater rushing into a 230-foot (70-meter) gash in its hull, listed and fell onto its side. "Contamination of the environment, ladies and gentlemen, already occurred" when the liner capsized, Gabrelli said.

Vessels equipped with machinery to suck out the light fuel oil were in the area. Earlier on Saturday, crews removed oil-absorbing booms used to prevent environmental damage in case of a leak. Originally white, the booms were grayish.

Schettino, is under house arrest for investigation of alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all were evacuated.

The search had been suspended Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the pristine waters around Giglio, part of a seven-island Tuscan archipelago.

___

D'Emilio reported from Rome. Colleen Barry contributed from Milan and Andrea Foa from Giglio.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-21-EU-Italy-Cruise-Aground/id-5babbe3aff9048afa65f7d6befb715f5

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Home prices likely to keep falling in 2012

By Martin Wolk

The housing market ended the year on a positive note with strong sales in December, but a glut of unsold homes will likely push prices lower through much of this year, forecasters said Friday.

Sales of existing homes hit an 11-month high last month and the number of properties on the market fell to the lowest level in nearly seven years, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Unseasonably warm weather may have helped boost sales, but analysts said a strengthening job market and record low mortgage rates should buoy housing in coming months. Still, they were troubled by the high level of "distressed homes" for sale, including short sales of underwater properties or sales of foreclosed properties. Nearly one-third of existing-home sales were distressed last month, according to the Realtors.

In addition, one-third of Realtors said home sales fell through last month because of declined mortgage applications or appraisals that fell short of the required values.

"These strong negative undercurrents in the housing market and absence of support from strong labor market conditions will continue to trim home sales in the near term," said Asha Bangalore, economist at Northern Trust Co.

The median sale price for an existing home in December was $162,500, down 2.5 percent from December 2010. For the full year, the median price for existing homes fell nearly 4 percent.

"Home sales will gradually improve in 2012. ... However, prices will continue to decline in the near term, despite the better sales," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist of PNC. He pointed out that many home foreclosures are stuck in the pipeline due to paperwork issues and will pressure home prices in the year to come.

"The market for single-family homes picked up in the second half of 2011, after being stuck near the bottom for nearly three years," said economist Patrick Newport of IHS Global Insight. "This pickup is real, but the road to recovery will be a slow one."

While the home sales pace was a touch below economists' expectations, December marked the third straight month of gains, adding to hopes that a tentative recovery was taking shape.

But a glut of unsold properties that is weighing down on prices and stringent lending practices by banks is likely to make progress painfully slow.

There were 2.38 million unsold homes on the market last month, the fewest since March 2005. That represented a 6.2 months' supply at December's sales pace, the lowest since April 2006 and down from a 7.2 months' supply in November.

The Realtors group noted, however, that the inventory of unsold homes tends to decline in winter.

Data earlier this week showed single-family home starts rose for a third straight month in December and optimism among builders this month was the highest in four-and-a-half years.

"It is very encouraging that the current phase of the recovery is being driven by economic fundamentals as opposed to being fostered by temporary stimulus," said Millan Mulraine, a senior macro strategist at TD Securities in New York.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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What are home prices doing in your area?

Existing home sales increased 5 percent last month, the highest pace in nearly a year. So, which investments may be the best bets as housing shows signs of life? CNBC's Diana Olick has the details.

Source: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/20/10201735-housing-ends-year-on-strong-note-but-prices-still-falling

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HBT: A's 'very interested' in signing Manny

Athletics general manager Billy Beane said during the Winter Meetings last month that he would prefer to go younger at designated hitter this season, but despite having a number of internal options, things might not work out that way.

Enrique Rojas of ESPN Deportes Los Angeles?was told by a source (link in Spanish) that Oakland is ?very interested? in Manny Ramirez, who is currently preparing for his comeback attempt in Miami.

We learned a couple of weeks ago that the Orioles and Blue Jays sent scouts to watch Ramirez take batting practice. Rojas was told that while Baltimore ?liked? what they saw, the A?s are the team showing the most interest, despite the fact that they haven?t actually seen him in person yet. The 39-year-old is expected to hold a workout for interested teams before the end of the month, so if Rojas? source is correct, they?ll presumably take a look at him within the next few days.

If or when Ramirez signs with an MLB team, he?ll have to serve a reduced 50-game suspension for his second positive PED test before being eligible to play during the regular season. However, he would be allowed to suit up during spring training.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/20/the-athletics-are-very-interested-in-manny-ramirez/related/

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Fact Check: Obama TV Ad Touts Record on Ethics, Clean Energy (ABC News)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

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Feds grant 1-year extension on birth control rule

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In an election-year decision certain to disappoint religious conservatives, the Obama administration announced Friday that church-affiliated institutions will get only one additional year to meet a new rule to cover birth control free of charge.

Friday's announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does not apply to houses of worship. Churches, synagogues, mosques and other places of worship were already exempt from the birth control coverage rule.

But in many cases, other religious-affiliated employers such as hospitals and universities traditionally have not provided any birth control coverage for their employees. They were seeking a broader exemption that would allow them to continue that practice.

The new rule is part of a package of improved preventive services for women under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Birth control is on a list of services that most workplace health plans will have to cover free of charge to employees.

Instead, the one-year extension applies to nonprofit institutions such as church-affiliated hospitals, universities and social service organizations. They will now have until August 1, 2013, to comply. Because of the way health insurance plans work, their employees will not have access to the new coverage until January 1, 2014, in most cases.

Birth control use is virtually universal in the United States, and most employer health plans already cover it, usually with copays for employees. Last year, an advisory panel from the prestigious Institute of Medicine recommended that the government require birth control coverage as preventive care under Obama's law, meaning it would become available free of charge.

Sebelius quickly agreed, issuing a new federal regulation.

But religious groups complained that a conscience exemption included in that rule was too narrowly written. Catholic hospitals, which defied the bishops to support passage of Obama's health care law in Congress, were among those who objected.

Sebelius said her decision Friday was carefully considered.

"I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services," Sebelius said in a statement.

Nonetheless, conservatives in Congress are already pursuing legislation to try to block the regulation. And Republican presidential candidates say they would derail it also, by repealing the health care law if elected.

For most American women, the birth control coverage requirement will take effect sooner. Employer health plans in most cases have to comply by August of this year. Because of the time involved in adding new coverage, that means the majority of women will be able to receive free birth control coverage starting January 1, 2013.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-01-20-Free%20Birth%20Control-Religious%20Employers/id-d2c04a74645943a4834954d6e1587633

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Haiti to scold 'Baby Doc' for defying house arrest (AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? The former Haitian dictator known as "Baby Doc" has been summoned to court to be scolded for violating the terms of his house arrest by venturing outside the capital, a judge said Thursday.

"Jean-Claude Duvalier needs to be in my office by 11:05 a.m." on Friday, Judge Carves Jean told the Associated Press at his the courthouse office in downtown Port-au-Prince. "If he's not, he'll be arrested by 11:10 a.m."

Duvalier's attorney argued that his client wasn't violating the law, because no such law exists. He also said he may file a complaint against the judge.

The law "is fantasy," lawyer Reynold Georges said by telephone. The judge "can do whatever he wants but he also has to pay the consequences. I'm a snake. I don't play."

Duvalier faces criminal charges that include embezzlement, torture and murder.

After making an unexpected return to his homeland last year, Duvalier was placed under house arrest, meaning he wasn't authorized to travel outside the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area without legal consent.

The former dictator, always dressed in a navy blue suit, has been seen traveling the country, often at the wheel of a SUV. He delivered a commencement speech to law school graduates at a university in the countryside last month and has been spotted lounging on the beach.

Duvalier attended a memorial service last week that marked the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake. The event was hosted by President Michel Martelly and guests included former Haitian president Prosper Avril and former U.S. President Bill Clinton, the United Nations' special envoy to Haiti.

The prosecution of Duvalier has made little headway since it began last year and rights groups fear he will go unpunished.

Georges and the rest of the defense team argue there are no grounds to prosecute the former president because the statute of limitations on his alleged offenses has expired.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120119/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_duvalier

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