A study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine gives asthma sufferers reason to hope there might someday be a new way to fight back. By singeing away smooth muscle from the bronchial airways in a procedure called bronchial thermoplasty, researchers were able to significantly reduce symptoms in people with moderate to severe asthma. "It's the beginning of a whole new category of treatment for asthma," predicts John Miller, head of thoracic surgery at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton in Hamilton, Ontario, and coleader of the study (which was paid for by Asthmatx, the company that owns the proprietary technology used in the procedure).
Here's some encouraging news for ex-smokers: Research featured in this week's Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association found that those who had put more than a decade between themselves and that last cigarette could see arteries stiffened by the unhealthy habit restored to the pliancy of people who had never smoked.
Congressional Quarterly is reporting that George Foresman, the current DHS Undersecretary for Preparedness will submit his resignation this evening to the Department of Homeland Security. (Note: Subscription required.) The news comes just two days before DHS must meet a Congressional mandate to majorly reorganize the department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
AP - A defiant, Democratic-controlled Senate approved legislation Thursday calling for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq within a year, propelling Congress closer to an epic, wartime veto confrontation with President Bush.
AP - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was briefed regularly over two years on the firings of federal prosecutors, his former top aide said Thursday, disputing Gonzales' claims he was not closely involved with the dismissals. The testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee by Kyle Sampson, the attorney general's former chief of staff, newly undercut Gonzales' already shaky credibility.
AP - The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Thursday over Iran's seizure of 15 British sailors and marines and called for an early resolution of the escalating dispute, but Iran's chief international negotiator suggested the captives might be put on trial.
Iranian state television broadcast brief footage Thursday that it said showed the operation to seize 15 British sailors and marines. A senior U.S. military official told CNN the U.S. Navy was asked by British forces to help find the crew when they first lost communications with it. Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern at the captures and continued detentions."
Egged on by a 17-year-old, two 10-year-old boys joined in the attack of a homeless man, leaving him bruised and bloody Tuesday, Daytona Beach Police said.
The former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified today that he had no knowledge of any efforts in the Bush administration to fire U.S. attorneys because of the way they were handling corruption cases. "To my knowledge no U.S. attorney was asked to resign for the purpose of influencing a particular case for a particular reason," Kyle Sampson said.
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