It will be the second time the Emmy Award-winning performer, who stars in the television series "How I Met Your Mother," will host the live broadcast from the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles on September 22.

"Four years ago, Neil was an amazing Emmy host and we are excited to have him back," Bruce Rosenblum, the Television Academy chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "Neil is an extremely gifted and inventive performer, and we look forward to seeing what he has in store this year."

Harris, a popular entertainment awards show host, said he "couldn't be more honored and excited" to host the Emmy Awards.

He is also hosting the Tony Awards, which honor the best of Broadway, from Radio City Music Hall in New York next month. It will be his fourth stint at the Tony Awards.

The actor is a three-time Emmy Award winner for his guest roles on "Glee" and as host of the 2009 and 2011 Tony Awards.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Despite a strong warning from U.S. regulators in 2007, for-profit dialysis centers still gave their kidney failure patients more of a certain anemia drug than non-profit centers in 2008, says a new study.

The researchers write in JAMA Internal Medicine that their finding suggests for-profit dialysis centers may have been motivated to give more of the drug for financial gain in spite of the warning.

For example, the more of the drug the centers used, the more they'd get paid.

"Our study can't say for sure that higher uses of these agents were caused by financial profitability for these providers, but it suggests it's a possibility," said Dr. Julie Ishida, the study's lead author from the University of California, San Francisco.

Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents - or ESAs - are given to most people with chronic kidney failure to treat anemia by producing red blood cells. Anemia can cause people to look pale, feel tired or sluggish and short of breath.

The researchers looked at epoetin alfa, which is marketed as Epogen by Amgen, and darbepoetin alfa, which is marketed as Aranesp also by Amgen.

In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a black box warning - the strongest kind - to use as little of the ESAs as possible. Research showed higher doses were associated with an increased risk of death, strokes and heart disease.

"It's a great drug. It's just that it does have side effects and people do need to be aware of them," said Dr. Nina Tolkoff-Rubin, director of renal transplantation and hemodialysis at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Previous studies had found that for-profit dialysis centers gave more ESAs than non-profit centers, and Ishida and her colleagues wanted to see if that changed after the FDA issued its warning.

For the new study, the researchers used a database of 275,291 people who were receiving dialysis before the warning was issued in February 2007 and after it was in place in February 2008. All patients were on Medicare, the U.S. insurance program for the elderly and disabled.

Overall, both for- and non-profit dialysis centers reduced their use of ESAs between 2007 and 2008, but for-profit centers still gave their patients significantly more of the drugs than their non-profit counterparts.

In 2007, for-profit dialysis centers - on average - gave their patients about 9,000 units per weekly dose, compared to about 8,300 units per weekly dose in 2008.

Non-profit dialysis centers gave their patient an average of 5,600 units per weekly dose in 2007, compared to about 5,000 units per weekly dose in 2008.

"Even in people who switched from non-profit to for-profit facilities, we saw their levels went up. Conversely, when they switch from a for-profit to non-profit, their level of the drug went down," Ishida said.

She noted that they could not compare the outcomes of patients at the various types of centers.

NEW PAYMENT SYSTEM

Tolkoff-Rubin, who was not involved with the new study, said the findings made sense, but she doesn't think the researchers would find the same results if they did their study today.

That's because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services implemented a so-called bundle payment system for dialysis services in 2011. That means dialysis centers receive one payment for all dialysis care - no matter how much ESA is used.

"I'm sure if you looked at it now, it wouldn't look this way. What you're seeing is a snapshot from when there was an incentive to give more," she said.

Ishida said she plans to do a similar study looking at what happened after the bundled payments were put in place.

"In this era of changing reimbursement for end-stage renal disease, I think it will be important for patients and doctors to be aware of the possible influences on treatment decisions," she said.

(This story is refiled to clarify paragraph 6 with the names of the specific drugs used in this study)

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/12bwyGm JAMA Internal Medicine, online May 13, 2013.

Its pretax profit rose to 286.4 million shillings, while earnings per share rose to 0.91 shillings for the six months ending in March from 0.78 shillings in the same period a year ago.

"The increase in profits is largely as a result of higher production and sales volumes for tea and coffee and also improved tea prices," the company said in a statement.

"The results were however negatively impacted by significantly lower coffee prices and the effects of a stronger Kenya shilling."

Sasini said that its performance was further curbed by rising labour, power and agricultural input costs which narrowed margins. Total revenue rose 7 percent to 1.47 billion shillings.

Sasini, which is also involved in dairy farming, horticulture, tourism and retailing, said it would pay an interim dividend of 0.25 shillings per share, down from 0.50 shillings per share last year.

The American Library Association (ALA) said Dav Pilkey's "Captain Underpants" series for children, that features characters like Professor Poopypants and Wedgie Woman, came top of its 2012 list of books that Americans asked to be removed from libraries because of content they considered inappropriate.

The "Captain Underpants" series of 10 books has appeared on the annual list three times since 2002, but has never previously reached the No.1 spot, the ALA said on Monday.

"Fifty Shades of Grey," the best-selling sadomasochistic tale of college students and a businessmen by British author E.L. James, debuted on the list in fourth place after the erotic trilogy sold 70 million copies around the world in the past two years.

The ALA said that its office for intellectual freedom received a total of 464 reports in 2012 on attempts to remove books from public and school libraries or school curricula. That was an increase from the 326 such attempts recorded in 2011.

The ALA defines such "challenges" as formal written complaints to a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed.

Other books making the list included "And Tango Makes Three," a children's tale about two male penguins who adopt an egg together, and Khaled Hosseini's Afghanistan-based best-seller "The Kite Runner."

The ALA's top 10 list of the most-challenged books of 2012 are:

1) "Captain Underpants," (series) by Dav Pilkey

2) "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," by Sherman Alexie

3) "Thirteen Reasons Why," by Jay Asher

4) "Fifty Shades of Grey," by E.L. James

5) "And Tango Makes Three," by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

6) "The Kite Runner," by Khaled Hosseini

7) "Looking for Alaska," by John Green

8) "Scary Stories" (series), by Alvin Schwartz

9) "The Glass Castle," by Jeanette Walls

10) "Beloved," by Toni Morrison

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

In a first-of-a-kind study, Canadian researchers tested children born to obese women, plus their brothers and sisters who were conceived after the mother had obesity surgery. Youngsters born after mom lost lots of weight were slimmer than their siblings. They also had fewer risk factors for diabetes or heart disease later in life.

More intriguing, the researchers discovered that numerous genes linked to obesity-related health problems worked differently in the younger siblings than in their older brothers and sisters.

Clearly diet and exercise play a huge role in how fit the younger siblings will continue to be, and it's a small study. But the findings suggest the children born after mom's surgery might have an advantage.

"The impact on the genes, you will see the impact for the rest of your life," predicted Dr. Marie-Claude Vohl of Laval University in Quebec City. She helped lead the work reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why would there be a difference? It's not that mom passed on different genes, but how those genes operate in her child's body. The idea: Factors inside the womb seem to affect the dimmer switches that develop on a fetus' genes chemical changes that make genes speed up or slow down or switch on and off. That in turn can greatly influence health.

The sibling study is "a very clever way of looking at this," said Dr. Susan Murphy of Duke University. She wasn't involved in the Canadian research but studies uterine effects on later health. She says it makes biological sense that the earliest nutritional environment could affect a developing metabolism, although she cautions that healthier family habits after mom's surgery may play a role, too.

It's the latest evidence that the environment in this case the womb can alter how our genes work.

And the research has implications far beyond the relatively few women who take the drastic step of gastric bypass surgery before having a baby. Increasingly, scientists are hunting other ways to tackle obesity before or during pregnancy in hopes of a lasting benefit for both mother and baby.

What's clear is that obesity is "not just impacting your life, it's impacting your child," Duke's Murphy said.

More than half of pregnant women are overweight or obese, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But it's not just a matter of how much moms weigh when they conceive doctors also are trying to stamp out the idea of eating for two. Gaining too much weight during pregnancy increases the child's risk of eventually developing obesity and diabetes, too.

What's too much? Women who are normal weight at the start of pregnancy are supposed to gain 25 to 35 pounds. Those who already are obese should gain no more than 11 to 20 pounds. Overweight mothers-to-be fall in the middle.

Sticking to those guidelines can be tough. The National Institutes of Health just began a five-year, $30 million project to help overweight or obese pregnant women do so, and track how their babies fare in the first year of life.

Called the LIFE-Moms Consortium, researchers are recruiting about 2,000 expectant mothers for seven studies around the country that are testing different approaches to a healthy weight gain and better nutritional quality. They range from putting pregnant women on meal plans and exercise programs, to weekly monitoring, to peer pressure from fellow parents trained to bring nutrition advice into the homes of low-income mothers-to-be.

It's best to get to a healthy weight before conceiving, noted Dr. Mary Evans of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who oversees the project.

Just how much mom has to lose for a healthier baby is "obviously a research gap," she said.

Monday's research findings from Canada may shed some new light. Consider: Overweight mothers have higher levels of sugar and fat in the bloodstream, which in turn makes it to the womb.

Fetuses are "marinated, and they're differently marinated" depending on mom's weight and health, said Dr. John Kral of New York's SUNY Downstate Medical Center, who co-authored the Canadian study.

That may do more than overstimulate fetal growth. Scientists know that certain molecules regulate gene activity, attaching like chemical tags. That's what Laval University lead researcher Dr. Frederic Guenard was looking for in blood tests. He took samples from children born to 20 women before and after complex surgery that shrank their stomachs and rerouted digestion so they absorb less fat and calories. On average, they lost about 100 pounds.

Guenard compared differences in those chemical tags in more than 5,600 genes between the younger and older siblings. He found significant differences in the activity of certain genes clustered in pathways known to affect blood sugar metabolism and heart disease risk.

Only time will tell if these youngsters born after mom's surgery really get lasting benefits, whatever the reason. Meanwhile, specialists urge women planning a pregnancy to talk with their doctors about their weight ahead of time. Besides having potential long-term consequences, extra pounds can lead to a variety of immediate complications such as an increased risk of premature birth and cesarean sections.

Metals prices ended slightly lower Friday, as did agricultural futures.

Crude oil ended the week down 2 percent as traders worried about global demand and shared the stock market's concerns about possible changes to the Federal Reserve economic stimulus program.

Gold for June delivery fell $5.20 to $1,386.60 an ounce. Other metals prices also fell.

July silver fell 1.2 cents to $22.496 an ounce, July platinum fell $5.30 to $1,451.90 an ounce and June palladium fell $12.20 to $726.45 an ounce. July copper fell a penny to $3.2955.

Crop prices were also slightly lower.

In July contracts, wheat fell 5.75 cents to $6.975 a bushel, corn fell 4.75 cents to $6.5725 a bushel, and soybeans fell 23.25 cents to $14.7625 a bushel.

Crude oil dipped 10 cents to settle at $94.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It was the fourth straight loss for oil, bringing its decline for the week to $1.87 a barrel.

Other energy futures closed mostly lower, except for gasoline:

Heating oil was flat at $2.86 a gallon.

Natural gas fell 2 cents to $4.24 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Wholesale gasoline rose 1 cent to $2.84 a gallon.

In its sixth year, the Top 10 New Species list is compiled by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and is announced on the anniversary of the birth of Carolus Linnaeus. An 18th-century botanist, Linnaeus created the modern system for naming and classifying species.

The panel plucked thefrom more than 140 nominations; to be considered, the species had to have been officially named in 2012 and described with the appropriate code of nomenclature. []

"We look for organisms with unexpected features or size and those found in rare or difficult to reach habitats," Antonio Valdecasas, a biologist and research zoologist with Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid, Spain, said in a statement. "We also look for organisms that are especially significant to humans those that play a certain role in human habitat or that are considered a close relative," added Valdecasas, who is committee chair for the top 10 species list.

Quirky species

One such creature with an odd feature is the glow-in-the-dark cockroach, named Lucihormetica luckae, whose luminescence may help the creepy-crawly mimic toxic click beetles and thereby avoid predators. In addition,also made the list. The sponge (Chondrocladia lyra), which lives nearly 2 miles (more than 3 kilometers) beneath the Pacific Ocean, sports 20 barbed vanes that resemble a harp's strings. Once it captures meaty prey, the sponge envelops it in a thin membrane and slowly begins to digest the animal.

And then there's the . Discovered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cercopithecus lomamiensis is more easily heard than seen. Apparently the Old World monkey performs a booming song at dawn. Even so, it does sport some striking features, including bare blue patches of skin on its buttocks, testicles and perineum, along with humanlike eyes.

Other quirky creatures that made it to the top-10 list include a nocturnal snail-eating snake (Sibon noalamina) found in a mountain range in Panama; a teensy frog (Paedophryne amanuensis) as small as 7 millimeters (0.3 inches) long and now considered(an animal with a backbone).

Filling out the list is a black-hued fungus that threatens Paleolithic cave paintings, a tiny violet from the high Andes of Peru, an endangered shrub with emerald-green leaves and magenta flowers, and a new fossil species of hanging fly that mimics the leaves of a gingko-like tree.

Identifying biodiversity

The committee saysis critical, especially since many are threatened.

"For decades, we have averaged 18,000 species discoveries per year which seemed reasonable before the biodiversity crisis. Now, knowing that millions of species may not survive the 21st century, it is time to pick up the pace," Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration at ASU, said in a statement.

"We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years," Wheeler added.

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NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Robin Roberts will release a memoir in April 2014 detailing her battle against her life-threatening illness and return to the "Good Morning America" anchor desk.

Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, is publishing the book, which Jamie Raab, president and publisher of Grand Central Publishing, will edit.

"I am humbled that many have an interest, and draw strength from my ongoing journey," said Roberts. "I'm grateful for the prayers and well wishes of so many people. I'm thrilled that Jamie Raab and Grand Central Publishing will help me tell my story."

Said Raab: "I have long admired Robin Roberts's career and courage and am so honored to be publishing her book. Her story is both dramatic and inspiring, and will capture the incredible spirit that has endeared her to all of us who have followed her remarkable career and life."

Roberts joined ABC News from ESPN in 1995 and is now co-anchor of the top-rated "GMA." During her tenure, the show has won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Morning Program, and Roberts has interviewed newsmakers including President Barack Obama.

She received a Peabody Award this month for "Robin's Journey," a series of reports about her battle with the blood disorder myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS. She took a leave of absence late last year to undergo a bone marrow transplant, returning to "GMA" this year.

Roberts' first book, "From the Heart, 7 Rules to Live By," was a New York Times bestseller.

DUBAI (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co's Middle East revenue rose 18 percent to $2.08 billion in 2012 and the roll-out of 4G mobile networks and IT outsourcing will be among its main regional growth drivers, the firm said.

The world's second-largest telecom equipment maker also expects Middle East telecom operators to prioritize improving network efficiency, Shi Yaohong, president of Huawei Middle East, told Reuters in an email.

"Operators' shift toward software-defined networks, IT outsourcing and adoption of 4G ... are all going to play a key role in Huawei's future business," said Shi.

The disclosure of the Middle East revenue figures - Huawei declined to reveal its net profit or capital expenditure for the region - may be part of a broader effort to be more open, coming after the company's Chief Financial Officer Cathy Meng hosted her first news conference earlier this year to announce the company's 2012 results.

Many Middle East telecom firms, particularly in the wealthy Gulf, have unveiled 4G or long-term evolution (LTE) networks that potentially offer mobile internet speeds more than double that of 3G, but a shortage of devices has caused a slower-than-expected consumer take-up of this technology, said Shi.

Shenzhen-based Huawei is also the world's No.5 smartphone maker, competing with the likes of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

"By expanding our local portfolio to include more smartphones, tablets and wifi routers that are compatible with technologies like 4G LTE, we hope to open up the market significantly over the next 12 months," said Shi.

"In the device realm, we recognize Huawei was hardly known to most local consumers just two years ago. Building our consumer brand will still take time."

The Middle East accounted for 5.9 percent of Huawei's $35.35 billion global revenue last year, up from 5.5 percent in 2011, according to Reuters calculations.

Huawei defines the Middle East as incorporating the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United Arab Emirates - plus Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

Huawei declined to provide a segmental revenue breakdown for the Middle East, but globally its carrier business accounted for 73 percent of revenue last year, while its enterprise and consumer units contributed 5.2 and 21.8 percent respectively, according to Reuters calculations.

"Our enterprise and consumer offerings are still relatively new in this region," added Shi.

(Editing by David Holmes)