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VIDEO: Today's Headline News from Associated Press

HOUSE VOTES ON CUTTING FOOD STAMPS

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republican leaders scrambled Thursday to line up support in advance of a late-afternoon vote on legislation that would cut nearly $4 billion a year from the food stamp program, now used by 1 in 7 Americans.

 

Some GOP moderates questioned the 5 percent cut to the almost $80 billion-a-year program as Democrats united strongly against it.

 

The bill's savings would be achieved by allowing states to put broad new work requirements in place for many food stamp recipients and to test applicants for drugs. The bill also would end government waivers that have allowed able-bodied adults who don't have dependents to receive food stamps indefinitely.

 

House conservatives, led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., have said the program has become bloated. More than 47 million Americans are now on food stamps, and the program's cost more than doubled in the last five years as the economy struggled through the Great Recession. Democrats said the rise in the rolls during tough economic times showed the program was doing its job.

 

At his daily press briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney said House Republicans are attempting to "literally take food out of the mouths of hungry Americans in order to, again, achieve some ideological goal."

 

With some Republicans wavering, the vote could be close. The GOP leaders have been reaching out to moderates to ensure their support while anti-hunger groups have similarly worked to garner opposition to the cuts.

 

OBESE CANCER PATIENTS OFTEN SHORTED ON CHEMO DOSES

 

Obese people are less likely to survive cancer, and one reason may be a surprising inequality: The overweight are undertreated.

 

Doctors often short them on chemotherapy by not basing the dose on size, as they should. They use ideal weight or cap the dose out of fear about how much treatment an obese patient can bear. Yet research shows that bigger people handle chemo better than smaller people do.

 

Even a little less chemo can mean worse odds of survival, and studies suggest that as many as 40 percent of obese cancer patients have been getting less than 85 percent of the right dose for their size.

 

Now, the largest organization of doctors who treat cancer, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, aims to change that. The group has adopted guidelines urging full, weight-based doses for the obese.

 

"By minimizing the dose, or capping the dose, we have been undertreating patients," Food and Drug Administration's cancer drug chief, Dr. Richard Pazdur said.

 

The dosing issue applies to all types of cancer treated with chemo - breast, colon, lung, ovarian and even blood diseases such as leukemia.

 

REVIEW: 3 CAMERA PHONES STAND OUT FOR GOOD SHOTS

 

SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) -- I used to cringe when I'd see people capturing precious memories with their smartphones. Although most smartphones have megapixel counts similar to what stand-alone cameras offer, they have been inferior in lens quality and manual controls. Images have never been as good ... until now.

 

Over the past two months, I've shot more than 3,000 test photos in four states using nine camera phones, a point-and-shoot camera and a high-end, single-lens reflex camera (also known as an SLR). None of the smartphone cameras are good enough to replace a $1,000-plus SLR, but I'm surprised how well some of the phones did, particularly in low-light settings that challenge even the best cameras.

 

Three phones stand out: Nokia Corp.'s Lumia 1020, Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S4 Zoom and the new Apple iPhone 5S, which comes out Friday.