News Update - every minute news update

Reuters

11:01 p.m. CST, February 22, 2012

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Alcoholism not uncommon among surgeons

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – About 15 percent of surgeonshave alcohol abuse or dependency problems, a rate that issomewhat higher than the rest of the population, according to anew survey. The researchers also found that surgeons who showedsigns of alcoholism were 45 percent more likely to admit thatthey had a major medical error in the past three months.

U.S. advisers back experimental obesity pill

SILVER SPRING, Maryland (Reuters) – Experimental obesitydrug Qnexa won the backing of U.S. health advisors onWednesday, raising hopes for approval of the first prescriptionweight-loss pill in 13 years. Vivus Inc’s Qnexa wasone of three promising obesity drugs rejected by the U.S. Foodand Drug Administration in the past two years over safetyconcerns.

Gay spouse given health benefits in U.S. court case

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Wednesday ruledthe Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional and said a federal

Published 12:10am Thursday, February 23, 2012

NATCHEZ — With a dark smudge across their foreheads, many Miss-Lou residents entered into a season of reflection and prayer Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, begins the Lenten season for many western Christians, and in churches across the Miss-Lou, worshippers filed through the nave to have a cross made of ashes smeared on their forehead, the minister saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

Lent is a 40-day period of fasting and prayer observed by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and other Christian groups that follow a liturgical calendar.

It begins 46 days before Easter because fasting is not observed on Sundays.

LAUREN WOOD / THE NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT — Larry and Annette Holder sing along with the Alcorn State University concert choir, above in balcony, near the beginning of the Ash Wednesday service Wednesday evening at First Presbyterian Church of Natchez.

For Natchez Catholic Darlene Christian, the imposition of ashes serves as a starting point to especially meditate on the reality that Jesus Christ was crucified and died for her sins, she said.

It’s also an act of humility.

“It is our symbol of humbling ourselves to God,” Christian said.

Even though Ash Wednesday has not historically been a Presbyterian practice, the Rev. Noelle Read, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Natchez, said the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has in recent decades reclaimed the Christian liturgical heritage as something important to the Christian life.

Lent is a part of that heritage, and Wednesday FPC had a service for the imposition of ashes.

“It is a reminder of our frailty, a preparation for Easter, a time of reflection, of remembrance of the work of Christ,” Read said.

Ash Wednesday seems to be one of the biggest days of the Christian year, and many lay people seem to especially look forward to it, said retired Episcopal priest the Rev. Sam Tomlinson. Tomlinson served as celebrant at Church of the Good Shepherd in Vidalia Wednesday.

“The Bible says we bear the image of the man of dust — that is Adam — and we will bear the image of the man of Heaven, that is Christ,” Tomlinson said.

“As much as we run away from death and are afraid of death, we welcome the chance of just facing it. That is one of the attractions of Ash Wednesday.”

Ruth McWilliams, program coordinator at St. Mary Basilica, said the ashes serve to remind Christians of their total dependence on God.

“We come into this world by God’s grace with nothing and we go back to our creator with nothing,” McWilliams said.

“(The ashes) are a symbol, a reminder, of our creation and our need of God at all times.”

But the ashes are also a statement about what comes at the end of Lent — Easter.

“They are a symbol to the world of our Christianity and our faith in resurrection,” McWilliams said.

Published 12:10am Thursday, February 23, 2012

NATCHEZ — With a dark smudge across their foreheads, many Miss-Lou residents entered into a season of reflection and prayer Wednesday.

Ash Wednesday, 46 days before Easter, begins the Lenten season for many western Christians, and in churches across the Miss-Lou, worshippers filed through the nave to have a cross made of ashes smeared on their forehead, the minister saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

Lent is a 40-day period of fasting and prayer observed by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists and other Christian groups that follow a liturgical calendar.

It begins 46 days before Easter because fasting is not observed on Sundays.

LAUREN WOOD / THE NATCHEZ DEMOCRAT — Larry and Annette Holder sing along with the Alcorn State University concert choir, above in balcony, near the beginning of the Ash Wednesday service Wednesday evening at First Presbyterian Church of Natchez.

For Natchez Catholic Darlene Christian, the imposition of ashes serves as a starting point to especially meditate on the reality that Jesus Christ was crucified and died for her sins, she said.

It’s also an act of humility.

“It is our symbol of humbling ourselves to God,” Christian said.

Even though Ash Wednesday has not historically been a Presbyterian practice, the Rev. Noelle Read, co-pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Natchez, said the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has in recent decades reclaimed the Christian liturgical heritage as something important to the Christian life.

Lent is a part of that heritage, and Wednesday FPC had a service for the imposition of ashes.

“It is a reminder of our frailty, a preparation for Easter, a time of reflection, of remembrance of the work of Christ,” Read said.

Ash Wednesday seems to be one of the biggest days of the Christian year, and many lay people seem to especially look forward to it, said retired Episcopal priest the Rev. Sam Tomlinson. Tomlinson served as celebrant at Church of the Good Shepherd in Vidalia Wednesday.

“The Bible says we bear the image of the man of dust — that is Adam — and we will bear the image of the man of Heaven, that is Christ,” Tomlinson said.

“As much as we run away from death and are afraid of death, we welcome the chance of just facing it. That is one of the attractions of Ash Wednesday.”

Ruth McWilliams, program coordinator at St. Mary Basilica, said the ashes serve to remind Christians of their total dependence on God.

“We come into this world by God’s grace with nothing and we go back to our creator with nothing,” McWilliams said.

“(The ashes) are a symbol, a reminder, of our creation and our need of God at all times.”

But the ashes are also a statement about what comes at the end of Lent — Easter.

“They are a symbol to the world of our Christianity and our faith in resurrection,” McWilliams said.

James Devaney/WireImage

A hearse carrying Whitney Houston’s body arrives at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, N.J.

Whitney Houston fans expressed shock and outrage Wednesday after the National Enquirer printed an image of the iconic singer in an open casket on its cover.

The morbid photo, purportedly taken inside the family’s private viewing at the Whigham Funeral Home in Newark, N.J., last Friday, shows Houston’s body lying in her half-opened, polished bronze casket.

It shows the dead pop star wearing what looks like a purple dress along with a brooch pinned to her chest and an earing sparkling in her ear.

The headline claims she was buried wearing $500,000 worth of jewels and gold slippers on her feet.

Facebook and Twitter users lashed out at the tabloid, calling the move trashy and shameful.

“MADD at who ever sold Whitney Houston’s pic of her in a casket,” reality star Evelyn Lozada, from VH1′s “Basketball Wives,” wrote on Twitter.

“Whoever sold the photo of Whitney Houston in her coffin to the National Enquirer is a vile, twisted, evil and unscrupulous sub-human,” London-based fan Christiana Mbakwe tweeted.

Even celebrity blogger Perez Hilton called it a “tasteless, insensitive, morbid thing to do” on his eponymous website.

Of course, the death photo is hardly without precedent. The National Enquirer famously ran a photo of Elvis in his coffin in 1977.

ndillon@nydailynews.com