NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals used during the Vietnam War are at higher risk for life-threatening prostate cancer than unexposed veterans, researchers have found.

What's more, those who served where the herbicide was used were diagnosed with cancer about five years earlier than other men, on average, in the new study.

"This is a very, very strong predictor of lethal cancer," said urologist Dr. Mark Garzotto, who worked on the study at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Oregon.

"If you're a person who's otherwise healthy and you've been exposed to Agent Orange, that has important implications for whether you should be screened or not screened," he told Reuters Health.

But one researcher not involved in the new study said it's hard to take much away from it, given the imprecise way it measured exposure.

Agent Orange - named after the giant orange drums in which the chemicals were stored - was used by the U.S. military to destroy foliage, mainly in southern Vietnam. The herbicide was often contaminated with a type of dioxin, a potently carcinogenic chemical.

The Vietnam Red Cross Society has estimated that up to one million Vietnamese suffered disabilities or health problems as a result of Agent Orange, including children born with birth defects years after their parents were exposed.

Past research has also suggested that U.S. veterans who served where Agent Orange was used are at an increased risk of lymphoma and certain other cancers, including prostate cancer.

For the new study, researchers wanted to see whether exposure was more closely linked to slow-growing prostate cancers or aggressive tumors.

They analyzed medical records belonging to 2,720 veterans who were referred to the Portland VA for a prostate biopsy. About one in 13 of those men had been exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to their VA intake interviews.

One third of all men in the study were diagnosed with prostate cancer, about half of which were high-grade cancers - the more aggressive and fast-growing type.

When the researchers took men's age, race, weight and family history of cancer into account, they found those with Agent Orange exposure were 52 percent more likely than unexposed men to have any form of prostate cancer.

Separating out different types of tumors showed the herbicide was not linked to an increased risk of slower-growing, low-grade cancer. But it was tied to a 75 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, the study team reported Monday in the journal Cancer.

"The increase in the rate of cancers was almost exclusively driven by the potentially lethal cancers," said Garzotto, also from Oregon Health & Science University.

More research is needed to figure out exactly why that is, he said. In the meantime, Garzotto said veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange should discuss that with their doctors.

But Dr. Arnold Schecter, from the University of Texas School of Public Health's Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Program in Dallas, said there's a "big problem" with just asking veterans if they were exposed to Agent Orange or served in an area where it was sprayed.

"Of those most heavily exposed in the military as best we know, only a relatively small percentage of them had elevated dioxin from Agent Orange in their blood when tested by (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)," he told Reuters Health.

Schecter said that in Vietnam, people who have high levels of that type of dioxin in their blood live in places where the chemical has become integrated into the food supply - or were sprayed directly with Agent Orange.

Another researcher who has studied the effects of Agent Orange agreed that not having blood dioxin levels is a drawback, but said the findings are consistent with past research and general thinking about the chemical.

"Almost all studies have implicated that men with Agent Orange (exposure) either have higher-grade prostate cancer or a more aggressive clinical course," said Dr. Gregory Merrick, head of Wheeling Hospital's Schiffler Cancer Center in West Virginia, who also wasn't involved in the new research.

But, he added, as long as men are getting into the VA system and getting regular evaluations and treatment for cancer, Agent Orange exposure "is not a death sentence by any means."

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/gzHzeL Cancer, online May 13, 2013.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- The Missouri House has endorsed a $1.2 billion proposal to pay for improvements to public universities, a state mental hospital and state parks.

The plan includes funding for higher education, the state Capitol and a new facility at the Fulton State Hospital. It also would create a fund from which public K-12 schools could borrow for capital needs. Money also could be used for ports and rural water projects.

The House gave first-round approval to the proposal Thursday, the same day that they approved money for Fulton hospital design plans and Capitol repairs.

The bonding measure needs another vote before moving to the Senate. Voter approval would be required if the measure passes the Legislature. Lawmakers have about two weeks before adjourning.

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A U.S. magistrate judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $60,000 fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million of income between 2005 and 2007 and faced up to three years in prison.

Hill has attributed her failure to pay taxes to years of pressure she experienced as a recording star while raising six children, forcing her to go underground and stay out of the public eye.

On the eve of her scheduled sentencing, Hill paid $504,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $420,000 to the state of New Jersey, her attorney told the court. She still owes another $285,000 in interest and penalties.

"When the government is asking for 36 months and the judge gives three months, I think the judge gave a fair and reasonable sentence," Hill's attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 30 months to the maximum of 36 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo cited Hill's lack of a criminal record, her six children and her repayment of the back taxes as mitigating factors in the sentence.

Hill must report on or before July 8. Her attorney asked the court to assign the native of South Orange, New Jersey, to a facility close to home. The three months of home confinement following the prison stay is part of one year of supervised probation.

Hill told the court she pulled away from society because her life was in crisis, received veiled threats and was blacklisted because she did not conform to the norms of the music industry.

"I was being perceived as a cash cow, not a person," Hill said.

A new single by Hill, her first in several years, called "Neurotic Society," was posted on iTunes on Friday.

"Here is a link to a piece that I was 'required' to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline," her Tumblr social media page said on Saturday.

Her lawyers confirmed that she signed a new contract with Sony Worldwide Entertainment and was working on her first album of new material in more than a decade.

Hill's seminal 1998 solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" won the singer, a former member of the Fugees rap trio, five Grammy awards.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta, Andrew Hay and Philip Barbara)

AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service provider, said the price cut took effect on Wednesday. The company is the exclusive U.S. wireless carrier for the phone, made by Taiwan's HTC Corp and launched on April 12.

An AT&T spokeswoman said price-cutting promotions are not unusual. But operators typically wait longer than a few weeks after a launch before discounting phones.

Richard Windsor, an independent analyst, said in his Radio Free Mobile blog that the price cut was a worrying sign for social network Facebook and its future in mobile.

"The final verdict on Facebook Home was brutally handed down yesterday with AT&T slashing the price of the HTC First from $99 to $0.99," Windsor said.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; editing by John Wallace)

The six-member crew on Thursday noticed white flakes of ammonia leaking out of the station. Ammonia runs through multiple radiator loops to cool the station's power system. NASA said the leak is increasing from one previously leaking loop that can be bypassed if needed. NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said engineers are working on rerouting electronics just in case the loop shuts down. The Earth-orbiting station has backup systems.

Space station Commander Chris Hadfield of Canada tweeted that the problem, while serious, was stabilized. Officials will know more Friday.

The space station always has enough emergency escape ships for the crew, but there are no plans to use them.

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has said she wants to be called just "Sonia from the Bronx."

And on Sunday, the first Hispanic justice on the nation's highest court explained why, saying "you can't come from the world I grew up in, the South Bronx, without feeling the frenzy of exile, constantly."

She spoke at Cooper Union, a private college in Manhattan's East Village where Abraham Lincoln once gave a speech against slavery.

The justice said she wasn't "doing press" on an evening in her hometown that ended with hugs from some members of the audience who asked her to sign their copies of her memoir, "My Beloved World."The best-selling book was published earlier this year with what she called Sunday "some baring of my own heart."

She spoke on the closing night of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature in New York City, which included her conversation with scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.

It was hardly a private event.

With a wry smile, Sotomayor said she recognized that "it seems pointless today to exclude the press from any event, when any member of the audience can tweet quotations."

This year's festival has focused on looking at the idea of bravery in art and politics.

The judge's speech came as she and fellow Supreme Court justices are considering three issues dividing the nation: affirmative action, voting rights and gay marriage.

Sotomayor was careful not to reveal her personal opinions, though she conceded that "it is impossible for a homosexual couple today not to be affected by the DOMA and Proposition 8 cases in some way," adding to laughter, "just so you're all clear, I'm not predicting anything."

The federal Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman now being considered by the Supreme Court. The court must also rule on California's Proposition 8, a ban on same-sex marriage.

The justice told the New York audience on Sunday that 2013 is likely to be "a turning point for those whose lives will be changed, for better or for worse, by those rulings."

Born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor was nominated for the Supreme Court in 2009 by President Barack Obama and sworn in later that year.

She said she needs to keep returning to the Bronx, "to the essence of my world, with love, to take strength from."

Sotomayor said that while the streets of her childhood South Bronx were portrayed as "ugly, dirty, crime- and drug-ridden" in movies, she wrote about "the hopes and struggles of the people," about "a beloved world for someone like me."

MIAMI (Reuters) - They're big, they're tough, and, presumably, some of them are gay, but so far not a single active NFL player has come out and said so. After NBA player Jason Collins broke that barrier this week, the National Football League is making sure it will be ready for any coming out party.

Earlier this year, at least three college football players said they had been asked about their sexual orientation during NFL recruitment interviews, sparking calls for the NFL to do more to fight discrimination.

Just hours before Collins' coming out statement was published by Sports Illustrated on Tuesday, the NFL - America's most popular sport, with $9 billion a year in revenue - released a workplace conduct statement' regarding sexual orientation.

"The NFL has a long history of valuing diversity and inclusion. Discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation is not consistent with our values and is unacceptable in the National Football League," league commissioner Roger Goodell says in the document.

League spokesman Greg Aiello told Reuters that the timing of the release was purely coincidental and that the document had been worked on for several weeks with no advance notice given to the NFL about Collins's impending statement.

The memo, sent to chief executives, club presidents, head coaches and general managers, highlights a tough policy on reporting acts of discrimination or harassment and makes clear that questions about sexuality are not permitted during recruitment interviews.

Collins' statement, and the reaction to it, has raised expectations that other gay athletes will feel the time is right to come out. Leading players in the NBA, including LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and top coaches such as Boston Celtics' Doc Rivers, expressed support for Collins.

Several reports have indicated that one or more NFL players may be close to coming out.

Earlier this month, Brendon Ayanbadejo, who played in the Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens team last season, said up to four players were considering jointly revealing their sexuality.

"I think it will happen sooner than you think," Ayanbadejo told the Baltimore Sun.

"We're in talks with a handful of players who are considering it. There are up to four players being talked to right now and they're trying to be organized so they can come out on the same day together. It would make a major splash and take the pressure off one guy.

"The NFL and organizations are already being proactive," he said.

Ayanbadejo is a leading member of Athlete Ally, a group which brings together straight athletes in support of gay rights, and one of several gay rights groups that have been involved in behind-the-scenes talks with the NFL.

Former NFL player Wade Davis, who came out as gay after his career in the sport, believes that an American football locker-room is essentially no different than any other workplace.

"You are always going to have a smattering of players who aren't going to be comfortable with it but that's the same in any part of society, sports or otherwise," Davis told Reuters.

But Davis, who left the NFL in 2003 after trying his luck with Tennessee, Seattle and the Washington Redskins, believes there has been a real change in the attitude of players in the past decade.

"When I was playing there were really no conversations about what it means to be a gay athlete. I think the climate has definitely changed and I think also in society you have more people who are gay and lesbian who are coming out, so everyone pretty much knows another person who is gay."

But not everyone is convinced the NFL is ready.

"I don't think football is ready, there are too many guys in the locker-room and, you know, guys play around too much," former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, now a television analyst with NBC, told NBC Sports Radio on Tuesday.

"Hopefully one guy comes out of the closet and (will) be comfortable with himself," Ward said.

"I don't have anything against a gay football player or a gay person period, so if he does, he has support from me. I want people to live their lives for who they are and (they) don't have to hide behind closed doors to do that."

Shortly after the Collins announcement, Mike Wallace, a wide receiver Miami Dolphins, was criticized for a tweet that said: "All these beautiful women in the world and guys wanna mess with other guys, SMH (Shaking My Head)." He later deleted the message and apologized for any offense caused.

Wallace's reaction was not quite on the scale of San Francisco 49ers cornerback Chris Culliver who made headlines before this year's Super Bowl by saying he would not welcome a gay player into the team's locker-room.

Culliver spent a pre-Super Bowl media session with scores of television cameras pointed in his face as he repeated his apology for an hour.

Gay rights groups say that making the locker room ready requires more than just stamping down on homophobic comments on the field or in social media and involves a process of education.

Aaron McQuade, of gay rights group GLAAD, says the NFL has responded well to the group's suggestions that proscribing discrimination isn't enough on its own.

"We are part of a coalition that has been meeting with the NFL and speaking with them for almost a year now about ways to stop coming down hard on guys for saying something that they didn't think about and start educating them," McQuade told Reuters.

"We are still very early in the process but it's moving along fairly quickly," he added. "The NFL is absolutely committed to not just punishing the players that misbehave but actually educating the players about these issues."

(Reporting By Simon Evans; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Three young women newly freed from a decade-long kidnapping ordeal in Cleveland endured their captivity in the dungeon-like squalid confines of a house, where they were raped, starved, beaten and kept in chains by the man who abducted them, authorities said on Wednesday.

Their accused tormentor, Ariel Castro, 52, a veteran school bus driver fired from his job last fall, was formally charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping the women, who were rescued from his house on Monday evening shortly before his arrest.

His two brothers, initially arrested as suspects in the case, were not charged, and police said investigators had determined they had no knowledge of the abductions or captivity of the women.

The three victims, abducted separately from the surrounding neighborhood and completely cut off from the outside world during their captivity, were found alive together when neighbors were alerted by cries for help from one of the women, Amanda Berry.

She told police that her escape two days ago was her first chance to break free in the 10 years that she was imprisoned in the house, during which time she conceived and gave birth to a daughter, now 6, authorities said.

The little girl was rescued along with Berry, 27, who was a day shy of her 17th birthday when she disappeared in 2003, and the two other women - Gina DeJesus, 23, who went missing at age 14 in 2004, and Michelle Knight, 32, who was 20 years old when she vanished in 2002.

Chilling new details of their captivity emerged as two of the women were treated to jubilant celebrations with relatives - Berry and her daughter arriving at her sister's house and DeJesus at her mother's home in separate homecomings captured on national television.

Knight remained in a Cleveland hospital, where she was listed in good condition.

BRUTAL MISCARRIAGES

Berry's pregnancy with her daughter was not an isolated incident, according to Cleveland City Councilman Brian Cummins, who said he had read portions of a police report from the initial investigation and was briefed by numerous police department sources.

Cummins said one of the three women - he did not know who - had suffered at least five miscarriages, which Castro is accused of inducing by starving her for weeks and beating her in the abdomen.

Berry's baby was born in a plastic inflatable kiddy pool on Christmas Day, 2006, authorities said. A paternity test will be conducted to determine the girl's father.

All three women were held in the home's basement for long periods, restrained with ropes and chains and occasionally starved, according to Cummins. He added that the victims were kept apart from each other in the house until their captor at some point gained sufficient confidence in his control over them to allow them to mingle.

Moreover, the councilman said all three women were abducted by Castro when he offered them rides in a vehicle.

Cummins said much of their ordeal was recounted by the three women as soon as they were freed.

"En route to the hospital there was just a flood of information shared by these victims immediately," he said. "One can only imagine the mental distress and eruptions of joy and emotions."

Castro, owner of the modest, two-story house, had been thought by neighbors to live there alone. Berry has said she only managed to call for help when he briefly left the premises on Monday.

"The only opportunity, after interviewing the young ladies, to escape was the other day when Amanda escaped," Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said at the news conference. "They don't believe that they've been outside that home for the last 10 years respectively."

Authorities said the women recalled leaving the confines of the house just twice during their captivity, on both occasions to go into a garage on the small lot while disguised in wigs and hats.

Tomba said that during their separation in the house, the three women were kept in different rooms but were aware of the others' presence.

TELEVISED HOMECOMINGS

Berry and her daughter could be seen from an aerial television camera arriving in a convoy of vehicles at her sister's house and entering through a back door.

DeJesus was rushed into the home she had not seen in nine years, clenched in a tight embrace by her sister Mayra. DeJesus hid her face in a yellow hooded sweat-shirt but raised her hand in a thumbs-up sign to spectators chanting "Gina. Gina."

Her mother Nancy DeJesus came outside after a little while.

"I want to thank everybody that believed," she said. "Even the ones that doubted, I still want to thank them the most because they're the ones that made me stronger, the ones that made me feel the most that my daughter was out there."

Neither Berry, who was last seen leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant, nor DeJesus, who vanished while walking home from school, spoke publicly.

Castro faced arraignment on Thursday morning, the prosecutor said.

Investigators took some 200 pieces of evidence from his house, which Tomba said was "in quite a bit of disarray," but found no human remains on the site. Police were still searching a second house.

The three brothers were arrested on Monday evening within hours of the women's escape. However, there was no evidence Pedro Castro, 54, and Onil Castro, 50, were involved, the prosecutor said.

However, the two brothers were slated to appear in court on Thursday on unrelated outstanding misdemeanor warrants.

"There is nothing that leads us to believe that they were involved or had any knowledge of this, and that comes from statements of our victims, their statements and the brothers' statements," Cleveland city prosecutor Victor Perez said, adding, "Ariel would have kept everybody at a distance."

Berry can be heard naming Ariel Castro as the man she was fleeing on the frantic emergency call she made to a 911 operator after a neighbor heard her scream and helped her break through a locked screen door.

Born in Puerto Rico, Ariel Castro played bass in Latin music bands in the area. Records show he was divorced more than a decade ago and his ex-wife had since died. He is known to have at least one adult daughter and son.

In 2005, Castro was named in a complaint of domestic violence in a custody dispute with his ex-wife that accused him of breaking her nose twice, knocking out her tooth, dislocating her shoulder twice and threatening to kill her and her daughters several times.

The complaint was eventually dismissed.

(Additional reporting by Daniel Trotta and Barbara Goldberg; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Steve Gorman; Editing by Paul Thomasch, Bernard Orr and Eric Walsh)

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Iron Man 3," Disney, $174,144,585, 4,253 locations, $40,946 average, $174,144,585, one week.

2. "Pain & Gain," Paramount, $7,511,315, 3,287 locations, $2,285 average, $33,830,390, two weeks.

3. "42," Warner Bros., $6,055,327, 3,345 locations, $1,810 average, $78,181,097, four weeks.

4. "Oblivion," Universal, $5,642,335, 3,430 locations, $1,645 average, $75,814,250, three weeks.

5. "The Croods," Fox, $4,202,639, 2,915 locations, $1,442 average, $168,720,798, seven weeks.

6. "The Big Wedding," Lionsgate, $3,881,857, 2,633 locations, $1,474 average, $14,216,422, two weeks.

7. "Mud," Roadside Attractions, $2,160,319, 576 locations, $3,751 average, $5,168,217, two weeks.

8. "Oz the Great and Powerful," Disney, $2,113,009, 1,160 locations, $1,822 average, $228,858,941, nine weeks.

9. "Scary Movie 5," Weinstein Co., $1,441,360, 1,857 locations, $776 average, $29,609,668, four weeks.

10. "The Place Beyond the Pines," Focus, $1,280,152, 1,162 locations, $1,102 average, $18,676,792, six weeks.

11. "G.I. Joe: Retaliation," Paramount, $1,270,094, 1,804 locations, $704 average, $118,752,410, six weeks.

12. "Olympus Has Fallen," FilmDistrict, $1,194,650, 1,632 locations, $732 average, $95,374,529, seven weeks.

13. "Jurassic Park" in 3-D, Universal, $896,750, 980 locations, $915 average, $43,756,735, five weeks.

14. "The Company You Keep," Sony Pictures Classics, $703,465, 541 locations, $1,300 average, $3,433,182, five weeks.

15. "Evil Dead," Sony, $614,524, 959 locations, $641 average, $53,200,013, five weeks.

16. "Tyler Perry's Temptation," Lionsgate, $411,592, 504 locations, $817 average, $51,365,503, six weeks.

17. "Jack the Giant Slayer," Warner Bros., $295,425, 335 locations, $882 average, $64,151,565, 10 weeks.

18. "Disconnect," LD Entertainment, $210,744, 161 locations, $1,309 average, $1,054,974, four weeks.

19. "Identity Thief," Universal, $204,010, 300 locations, $680 average, $133,454,405, 13 weeks.

20. "Silver Linings Playbook," Weinstein Co., $198,548, 468 locations, $424 average, $131,703,512, 25 weeks.

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

___

Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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