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An Oklahoma company that sells a blanket to protect children from gunfire has seen its business grow after a spate of U.S. school shootings has left parents and educators on edge. ProTecht of Oklahoma originally developed its "Body Guard" blanket product to keep children safe from high-speed debris flying through the air from the tornadoes that frequently hit the state, but many parents see it as armor against bullets, the company said on Thursday. "The government is not going to do anything in law about guns, and there is nothing else out there to protect the children," said Stan Schone, who helped develop the blanket. The 5/16th-inch (7.9 millimeter) pad is made from bullet-resistant materials that can be folded and strapped on the back and then unfurled to hide under in emergency situations. The blankets sell for about $1,000. The company declined to provide sales figures. Co-developer Steve Walker, an Oklahoma podiatrist, came up with the idea of a protec

Elie Iskandar, a Brazilian who lives in the United States, could not afford to travel home to see the World Cup. So he opted for what he called the next best thing - his favorite Brazilian hangout in Miami. Expatriate Brazilians packed Miami-area bars and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> restaurants as the World Cup kicked off on Thursday, chanting, dancing and cheering on their national team in its opening 3-1 victory over Croatia. At the Brazilian bar and restaurant Boteco, a party atmosphere took hold, with virtually everyone dressed in Brazil's famed yellow and green jersey. Those not wearing the jersey drew the occasional cold stare.   true       Some fans sipped Caipirinhas, Brazil's national cocktail, while others nibbled on Brazilian cheese bread rolls known as pao de queijo. Iskandar said it was like a slice of home. "It's beautiful," he said. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, at least 325,000 Brazilians live in the United States, with si

The Jamaican government has decided to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, joining the trickle of countries moving to soften laws on the drug known on the Caribbean island as "ganja." Minister of Justice Mark Golding made the announcement at an afternoon news conference on Thursday saying that Jamaica's Dangerous Drugs Act would be formally amended this summer. The cabinet of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller made the decision on June 2, he said.   true       "Cabinet approved certain changes to the law relating to ganja. These relate to possession of small quantities of ganja for personal use, the smoking of ganja in private places and the use of ganja for medical-medicinal purposes," he said. "Approval has been given also to a proposal for the decriminalization of the use of ganja for religious purposes," he said. Uruguay recently became the latest country to legalize marijuana use, joining several countries in Europ

Patients given ice packs for the first 24 hours after major abdominal surgeries reported less pain and needed fewer narcotic painkillers, according to a new U.S. study. “We aren’t talking about saying to a patient, here is some ice and then cut off all their pain medication. The ice was only meant to increase the patient care,” Dr. Viraj Master told Reuters Health. Master, a urologist and professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, led the study. He said post-operative pain is an unavoidable consequence of major surgery. Although you can make it better with pain medication, those drugs are not without side effects like constipation, drowsiness and even dependence. “The idea was to keep patients out of pain but not have them suffer from using too many narcotics,” he said. “The physician could give the patient any medication he wanted, we just added the ice.” Using ice as a treatment for surgical wounds, known as cryotherapy, is not new, Master said. The cold reduces pai

While the portion of U.S. working adults smoking class="mandelbrot_refrag"> tobacco shrank appreciably between 2005 and 2010, the use of smokeless tobacco remained steady, according to a new study. In 2005, 2.7 percent of working adults represented in the annual National Health Interview Survey used smokeless class="mandelbrot_refrag"> tobacco and in 2010, it was 3 percent. That’s still about 10 times higher than national public health policy goals, researchers said. “These findings highlight opportunities for reducing the health and economic burdens of tobacco use among U.S. workers, especially those in certain industries (e.g., mining) and occupations (e.g., class="mandelbrot_refrag"> construction and extraction) where use of smokeless tobacco is especially common,” the report’s authors write. Dr. Jacek Mazurek, of the Division of Respiratory Disease Studies, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for

Sierra Leone shut its borders to trade with Guinea and Liberia on Wednesday and closed schools, cinemas and nightclubs in a frontier region in a bid to halt the spread of the Ebola virus. _0"> Sixteen people have died of Ebola in Sierra Leone, a figure that has doubled in the last week, Ministry of Health figures showed. Authorities will also mount health checkpoints in the eastern Kailahun district and mandated that all deaths there be reported before burial. Anyone who dies of the virus must be buried under the supervision of health personnel, the Information Ministry said. The decision to close district schools came after a nine-year-old whose parents died of Ebola tested positive for the virus, Deputy Minister of Information Theo Nicol told Reuters.   true       "There is more contacts between school-going kids than adults hence the closure of schools in the most affected district," he said. The ban exempted churches and mosques but religious leaders should

The number of moles a woman has may be tied to her risk of developing breast cancer, according to two new studies. The studies don’t prove that moles cause breast cancer or that women with a lot of moles will definitely get breast cancer. Instead, they suggest there may be a small genetic or hormonal link between the two. “This shouldn’t be a concern for women with moles, because we don’t think the relationship is causal,” said Marina Kvaskoff, the lead author of one of the new studies. Kvaskoff is affiliated with INSERM - the French National Institute of Health and class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Medical Research - and the University of Paris 11. Researchers suspected that moles, also known as nevi, and breast cancer might share links to certain hormones and genes. That would mean moles could be used to help predict a woman’s breast cancer risk. “We always need to discover more causes of cancer and breast cancer in particular,” Kvaskoff said. “If more studies wer