Cuba protests increased screening of its citizens

Cuba protests increased screening of its citizens

HAVANA — Cuba summoned the top U.S. diplomat on the island Tuesday to protest extra screening for Cuban citizens flying into the United States, calling the measure a “hostile action” meant to justify America’s trade embargo.

Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, director of the Cuban Foreign Ministry’s North American affairs office, said the new security controls were “discriminatory and selective.”

The United States imposed the airline security measures Monday after an apparent attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a passenger jet as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day.

Among the 14 nations whose citizens will face increased scrutiny are four — Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria — that the U.S. government considers state sponsors of terrorism.

Judge overturns 2 curbs in new federal tobacco law

RICHMOND, Va. — A judge has overturned two of the marketing restrictions in the new federal tobacco law, including a ban on color and graphics in most tobacco advertising.

Several tobacco makers sued in August to block the restrictions, and U.S. District Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. in Kentucky agreed that two violated tobacco companies’ free-speech rights.

Congress could have exempted certain types of colors and images instead of banning all color and graphics in advertising that children might see, McKinley ruled. He also said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can’t bar anyone from saying the agency’s regulation of tobacco makes it safe.

But he upheld most of the new marketing restrictions.

Study: Medications best for severely depressed

Antidepressant medications likely provide little or no benefit to people with mild or moderate depression, a new study has found. Rather, the mere act of seeing a doctor, discussing symptoms and learning about depression probably triggers the improvements many patients experience while on medication.

Only people with severe depression receive additional benefits from drugs, said the senior author of the study, Robert J. DeRubeis, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor. The research was released online Tuesday and will be published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A severely depressed person who likely would benefit from antidepressants might have symptoms such as frequent weeping, feelings of guilt and sadness, thoughts that life is not worth living, problems sleeping, fatigue and withdrawal from normal activities, DeRubeis said.

UN food agency suspends aid to southern Somalia

HARGEISA, Somalia — The U.N. food agency on Tuesday suspended the distribution of desperately needed aid in southern Somalia because of attacks on its staff, a decision affecting up to 1 million people that highlights the dangers of humanitarian work there.

At least 43 aid workers were killed between January 2008 and fall 2009, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Four humanitarian workers remain in the hands of their captors.

Grandmother charged with drowning grandson, 5

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A 71-year-old German woman drowned her 5-year-old grandson in a bathtub while they were vacationing in the Florida Panhandle because she didn’t want to see the boy grow up in a divorced home, authorities said Tuesday.

The grandmother, Marianne Bordt, tried to commit suicide after the drowning Monday by wading into the Gulf of Mexico wearing heavy clothes, authorities said. Bordt, of Nufringen, Germany, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Camden Hiers at a condominium on St. George Island, about 60 miles southwest of Tallahassee.

Obama, Dem lawmakers meet on health-care bill

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama began work in earnest Tuesday on difficult issues still standing in the way of their national health-care overhaul after months of tortuous debate. Topping the list: how to help Americans pay for insurance premiums.

At a White House meeting that stretched into Tuesday evening, the president and Democratic congressional leaders agreed on fast-track negotiations that would bypass the need for a formal conference to resolve differences between the House and Senate health-care bills.

Combined dispatches