Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The pink skips are flying at ailing American Airlines. The nation’s number three airline told its unions Wednesday it plans to cut some 13,000 jobs from its staff of 88,000. The cuts will be felt hardest in the airlines’s maintenance operations, where 4,600 jobs will be slashed. More than 4,000 ground worker positions will be lost and 2,300 flight attendants will be axed. Management will be reduced by 1,400. In a letter to employees, CEO Thomas Horton said, “We will end this journey with [...] Continue Reading…
Johannesburg, South Africa (IRIN) – In the inner-city Johannesburg neighborhood of Berea, where a large proportion of residents are refugees and asylum-seekers, it is not uncommon to see children playing football in the street or killing time at one of the local parks on a weekday. Judith Manjoro, an out-of-work teacher from Zimbabwe, teamed up with some other community workers two years ago to quiz the children about why they were not in school. “They told us [the schools] asked them to produce ID documents and permits which they don’t have,” she said. “We also found the parents [...] Continue Reading…
United States (KaiserHealth) – The health law’s biggest changes don’t take effect until 2014, when states and insurers must be ready to begin signing up an estimated 32 million people in Medicaid and private insurance. But a successful rollout in two years hinges on critical decisions that states must make – and take quick action on – this year. It will be difficult for many states to meet fast-approaching deadlines, and some may not make it, says Brett Graham, a managing director at Leavitt Partners, a consulting firm working with states on implementation of the law. Time [...] Continue Reading…
Windsor Genova – AHN News News Writer
Khartoum, Sudan (AHN) – Sudan’s army on Monday was pursuing rebels who kidnapped 29 Chinese workers in the restive South Kordofan region. Fighters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which is trying to overthrow Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, seized the workers in the compound of a Chinese construction company involved in a local road project on Saturday during a clash with government troops. Fourteen Chinese workers were rescued by soldiers while another 15 were missing, according to Khartoum government spokesman Rabie Abdelaty. The state-owned Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that [...] Continue Reading…
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
Boston, MA, United States (AHN) – New England is going to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis this Sunday where they will face the New York Giants in what is expected to be one of the most watched games in TV history, and one of the best displays of some football in some time. In a congratulatory gesture, Patriots’s quarterback Tom Brady gave each player on the team a pair of Ugg boots. This is the second time the generous Brady, who endorses the footwear, gave the boots to his fellow teammates. [...] Continue Reading…
Myanmar (IRIN) – Aid workers in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State have expressed concern over the health of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) along the border with China. Preventable illnesses caused by unsanitary conditions and colder weather are taking their toll on the more than 45,000 IDPs in two dozen IDP camps as sporadic fighting between government forces and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) nears almost eight months, they say. “Many of the children in the IDP camps suffer from diarrhea and stomach parasites because they have to drink dirty water. When they go to the toilet, [...] Continue Reading…
Jacksonville, FL, United States (KaiserHealth) – For a candidate who keeps vowing to repeal the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sure can make a convincing argument on its behalf. At least that’s how it appeared to a lot of people after Thursday night’s Republican presidential candidate debate in Jacksonville, FL. During a more than 10-minute back-and-forth on health care largely between Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Romney ended up delivering a lengthy justification for his state’s decision to pass a 2006 law that included requiring nearly every resident to either [...] Continue Reading…
Linda Young – AHN News Writer
Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims for the week ending Jan. 21 rose by 21,000 to 377,000, compared with the previous week’s revised figure of 356,000, the U.S. Department of Labor said. The less volatile four-week moving average was 377,500, a drop of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 380,000. DOL figures show that the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 7, the most recent week for which such data is available, was 7,638,233, down by 188,612 people from [...] Continue Reading…
Diane Alter – AHN News Reporter
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The U.S. government on Wednesday released new nutrition standards for school meals that mandate dramatic changes. Among the changes, sodium will be slashed, calories will be cut and students will be offered a wider variety and larger portions of fruits and vegetables. These changes raise the nutrition standards for school meals for the first time in more than 15 years. The quality of school menus have been the subject of some heated debates for years. Sparking the debates is the growing number of overweight or obese [...] Continue Reading…
United States (KaiserHealth) – The latest casualty of the Great Recession may soon be the nation’s elderly. Cuts in government payments for patient care and less construction of new nursing homes are already taking a toll. Add to this the aging baby boom generation and you have a worst-case scenario in which older people who need full-time care won’t be able to get it. “We believe we’re at a tipping point,” says Mark Parkinson, head of the American Health Care Association (AHCA), which represents nursing homes. If so, the timing couldn’t be worse. The first baby boomers hit [...] Continue Reading…
