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VIDEO: Today's Headline News from Associated Press

TOO FAT TO FLY?

 

LONDON (AP) -- He's been turned down by planes, trains and even a cruise ship in his quest to return home - and his family says it's because he has been deemed too fat to travel.

 

Now Frenchman Kevin Chenais' long and fitful journey is coming to an end.

 

Chenais, who weighs 500 pounds (230 kilograms), says he has been repeatedly refused transport over the past two weeks as he sought to get home to France from the United States. P&O Ferries finally offered to take him in an ambulance across the English Channel on Wednesday, the final hurdle keeping him from his home near the Swiss border.

 

"It's terrible. It's discrimination. It was very hard, tiring and a big waste of money for my parents," the 22-year-old told RTL radio on Wednesday.

 

Slumped over in his mobility scooter, he said he was exhausted just before being loaded into the ambulance.

 

The odyssey began when British Airways refused to honor his return ticket from the United States, where he spent months receiving medical care for a hormone imbalance.

 

"When we talked about this problem with British Airways that Kevin was too fat ... (they said) abandon any intention of coming back to France," Kevin's father, Rene, told RTL Radio. "From the fact of his incapacity, his obesity, he was not considered to be a normal being, but more like a problem."

 

BA acknowledges that it refused to let Chenais board the plane, but said confidentiality rules prevent it from saying why. BA insisted that it does not discriminate against customers for any reason and that the airline provides the option of an extra seat to people who contact them with concerns about seat width.

 

STUDY TIES NUTS TO LOWER CANCER, HEART DEATH RISK

 

DALLAS (AP) -- Help yourself to some nuts this holiday season: Regular nut eaters were less likely to die of cancer or heart disease - in fact, were less likely to die of any cause - during a 30-year Harvard study.

 

Nuts have long been called heart-healthy, and the study is the largest ever done on whether eating them affects mortality.

 

Researchers tracked 119,000 men and women and found that those who ate nuts roughly every day were 20 percent less likely to die during the study period than those who never ate nuts. Eating nuts less often also appeared to lower the death risk, in direct proportion to consumption.

 

The risk of dying of heart disease dropped 29 percent and the risk of dying of cancer fell 11 percent among those who had nuts seven or more times a week compared with people who never ate them.

 

The benefits were seen from peanuts as well as from pistachios, almonds, walnuts and other tree nuts. The researchers did not look at how the nuts were prepared - oiled or salted, raw or roasted.

 

A bonus: Nut eaters stayed slimmer.

 

TURMOIL AT CLIMATE TALKS AS BLAME GAME HEATS UP

 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Rich and poor nations are struggling with a yawning rift at the U.N. climate talks as developing countries look for new ways to make developed countries accept responsibility for global warming - and pay for it.

 

With two days left, there was commotion in the Warsaw talks Wednesday after negotiators for developing nations said they walked out of a late-night meeting on compensation for the impact of global warming.

 

"We do not see a clear commitment of developed parties to reach an agreement," said Rene Orellana, head of Bolivia's delegation.

 

U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern downplayed the dispute, saying American negotiators who had attended the meeting were surprised to hear of a walk-out.

 

"The meeting ended with everyone leaving," Stern told reporters.

 

Contrasting views on what's been said and done in closed discussions is not unusual in the slow-moving U.N. effort to curb global warming, which has often been held back by mistrust between rich and poor countries. The talks in Warsaw on a new global climate deal in 2015 have been going on since Nov. 11.

 

The question of who's to blame for global warming is central for developing countries, who say they should receive financial support from rich nations to make their economies greener, adapt to climate shifts and cover the costs of unavoidable damage caused by warming temperatures.