Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The next top American diplomat to India batted confidently as the Obama administration nominee while fielding questions from lawmakers on subjects ranging from trade agreements to Iran sanctions at a confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Commenting on Indian implementation of Iranian sanctions, the first woman U.S. ambassador-designate to India, Nancy Powell, assured senators that implementation of sanctions would be one of her top priorities when she is in New Delhi as the U.S. ambassador to India.

Powell is nominated to replace Timothy Roemer, who resigned from his post in April 2011 following a two-year stint as U.S. envoy to India.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Powell told the panel not to be worried about the Iranian sanctions, adding, “India shares with us a desire to see a non-nuclear state in Iran. They have supported us in the IAEA four times.”

Citing the visiting Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Matai, Powell said, “Foreign Secretary Matai, yesterday, in his public remarks, commented that there already appears to be a reduction in the percentage of oil that India receives from Iran out of its total imports. That would be a very good sign.”

She highlighted the bilateral goods and services trade between the two democracies as it was set to cross a record $100 billion mark this year.

“This represents an astounding quadrupling of trade since 2000, moving India up from our 25th largest trading partner to our 12th,” Powell said. “I look forward to working with a wide inter-agency team and with our Indian counterparts to reduce barriers, including through negotiation of a bilateral investment treaty, and to expand the areas where we do business.”

With a booming population of 1.2 billion backed by a healthy growing economy, India presented an exponentially expanding market for American goods, the ambassador-designate said.

Noting that American exports to India were growing at more than 17 percent a year, Powell said, “At this rate, exports from the United States to India are expected to nearly double in the five years from 2009 to 2014.”

On the ongoing controversial civilian nuclear deal that has bogged down in safety measure law framings, Powell said, “I am eager to support the efforts to ensure full implementation of the Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, including ensuring a level playing field for American companies in the commercial applications of nuclear energy.”

A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Powell currently serves as director general of the Foreign Service and director of human resources at the Department of State. She was conferred the personal rank of Career Ambassador in January 2011.

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States lambasted the Iranian regime Tuesday for intimidating journalists working inside and outside Iran as Tehran’s semiofficial Mehr news agency reported arrests of several people over alleged links to the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Farsi-language service.

Condemning “recent increases in repression with – against journalists, bloggers, and free-speech advocates in Iran,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman told journalists, “We’re particularly concerned and alarmed by reports that Iranian authorities have now been harassing family members of a BBC reporter.”

“This is actually quite a horrific story of Iranian authorities going into the apartment of the sister of a London-based BBC correspondent, forcing her to Skype with her sister, and then using the Skype opportunity to try to interrogate this BBC reporter in London,” said Nuland.

Expressing U.S. concern that, “the Iranian regime is putting a further chill on the press environment in advance of their parliamentary elections, their legislative elections on March 2nd,” Nuland said, “They are even trying to reach the arms of the state out to overseas Iranians who work for international press organizations.”

Calling on “Iranian security forces to cease the harassment of those seeking to exercise their universal rights, Nuland emphasized, “We will stand with Iranian journalists and civil society activists in their continuing fight for the ability to express themselves freely.”

Earlier, a BBC spokeswoman said on the network’s website, “The Iranian authorities are engaged in a persistent campaign, intimidating and arresting people who they claim have connections with the BBC Persian service.”

Tehran has repeatedly accused the BBC of operating as a cover for British intelligence and of hosting Iranian dissidents.

The ongoing intimidation and detention of relatives and friends of foreign-based Persian-language journalists to obtain information or silence them was also reported by Human Rights Watch.

“Detaining a BBC reporter’s relative seems to be part of a wider campaign to harass Iranian journalists by putting pressure on them and their families,” said Sarah Lean Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“It suggests that authorities detained the relative to silence the reporter and the BBC. It also sends a message that the government’s long arm of repression can extend well beyond borders,” she added.

St. Paul, MN, United States (AHN) – Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will win the Minnesota Republican caucuses, fending off competition from the nationwide frontrunner, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) came in second, followed by a distant Romney in third. A fourth place finish tonight puts pressure on former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who declared that he will stay in the race until the convention in August.

Santorum scored a win with strong rural support after painting himself as the conservative alternative to Romney. While Minnesota caucus goers participated in a non-binding ballot Tuesday night, the North Star State will send 40 delegates to the Republican National Convention in August.

It will take a few days before polling accurately shows the effects of Tuesday’s primaries. The latest Gallup tracking poll released Monday put Romney ahead with 37 percent, followed by Gingrich at 22 percent and trailed by Santorum at 16 percent. Paul received 11 percent in the survey.

Jefferson City, MO, United States (AHN) – Republican voters in Missouri have selected former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in a non-binding statewide “beauty contest.” No delegates will be awarded from tonight’s primary straw poll in the Show Me State, but the win will go a long way towards keeping Santorum in the race against former Massachusetts governor and nationwide frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Santorum scored votes in Missouri’s rural counties, giving him a strong statewide lead. Romney finished in second place, having received strong support from St. Louis and Boone counties. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) rounded out the field in third place while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich missed the filing deadline and was not on the ballot.

It will take a few days before polling accurately shows the effects of Tuesday’s primaries. The latest Gallup tracking poll released Monday put Romney ahead with 37 percent, followed by Gingrich at 22 percent and trailed by Santorum at 16 percent. Paul received 11 percent in the survey.

St. Paul, MN, United States (KaiserHealth) – Minnesota lawmakers are grappling with a new question: How close can they get to setting up a health insurance exchange without passing a new state law?

The state, which has a Democrat in the governor’s mansion and Republicans in control of both houses of the legislature, saw exchange legislation fail in the last session. And prospects for a law’s passage are not much better in the current session.

The exchanges are online marketplaces, established by the federal health law, that will allow consumers and small businesses in a given state to buy health insurance based on detailed comparisons of competing plans.

Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton said last week that at some point — not necessarily this year — authorization will be needed from the state legislature to open a Minnesota exchange for business. But he also suggested that much work could be done ahead of legislative action.

“We probably don’t have the ability to implement the whole thing but we can get to the starting gate by Dec. 31st,” he said.

Dayton referred to the federal deadline of Jan. 1, 2013, when all states are supposed to present their exchanges to the federal government for certification. Certification means that the exchange is adequate under the law and the federal government won’t impose its own exchange on a state.

Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Michael Rothman said nothing in the federal health care law requires states to pass legislation to set up their state health insurance exchanges. He said the federal review will be based on other benchmarks.

“It will look at how far along we’ve built the exchange, the operations, the IT, how far Minnesota is ready and prepared to have its own Minnesota-made exchange, rather than having the federal option imposed on us and certification does not require legislation,” Rothman said.

Several other states — including Indiana, Iowa, Alaska and Mississippi –are moving forward with exchange planning without authorizing legislation.

But a key Republican lawmaker pushed back against the notion that exchange legislation is optional in Minnesota. Sen. David Hann, chair of the Health and Human Services Committee, said the governor shouldn’t move forward on an exchange unless the legislature passes a bill authorizing one.

“If we fail to do that, that does not then result in the default position of the governor writing the law,” Hann said. “That there’s no provision under our constitution to do it and I can’t believe, and don’t accept the view that the federal government can set aside the requirements with the respect of the Minnesota constitution to lawmaking.”

The Dayton Administration has repeatedly said it wants the Republican-controlled legislature’s input on creating and designing a state insurance exchange.

Last year the legislature defeated an exchange bill, even though it was sponsored by Republicans. As this session gets underway, Republicans still appear divided. When Dayton created an advisory exchange task force last fall, Republicans refused to fill their two seats on the panel.

That offer fell short, said Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, chair of the House health and human services reform committee.

“Let’s have a meaningful negotiation. We’re going to bring our people, you bring your people, and we’ll start talking about it. That’s not happening,” Gottwalt said.

But all that the feds require under proposed rules is that states submit an exchange plan that satisfies four broad criteria: The exchange must be consistent with provisions of the health care law, help low-income users obtain tax credits toward buying insurance; it must serve the entire geographical area of Minnesota; and must have reinsurance — essentially a protection against catastrophic losses for insurers that sell their policies on the exchange.

The Dayton administration could meet most of those criteria without authority from the legislature, said Fred Morrison University of Minnesota law professor and an expert on Minnesota constitutional law.

“You could establish an exchange, it’s rather like an insurance brokerage; you could create the information systems that are necessary to work that exchange; and you could operate that over the state as a whole,” Morrison said. “Those three are easy.”

What is not easy, Morrison said, is the reinsurance program. That would require some taxing authority and he doubts an executive order by the governor would be enough.

There could be a way around that, however. Last year the Obama administration said state exchanges that don’t meet all the law’s requirements could win conditional certification well into next year. In addition, the federal government would help those states fill in the blanks of what they couldn’t accomplish through a state-federal partnership.

That scenario could buy some time for the Dayton administration to work with a potentially friendlier legislature in 2013, after this year’s elections.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

Charlottesville, VA, United States (AHN) – A sperm count test kit that can help couples determine if they have fertility problems will start selling in Walgreens and CVS stores in April.

The SpermCheck Fertility of ContraVac Inc. will sell for $40 per test kit. Currently, Walgreen and CVS sells the product online.

The test kit promises to be a less expensive, convenient and private alternative to going to a doctor for a male fertility test. It counts sperm by mixing semen with a solution and dropping the mix into a test trip. When drops produce a reddish line in the strip, it indicates the sperm count as 20 million per milliliter or normal. If no color appears on the strip, the man should consult a urologist.

The test takes only 10 minutes and is accurate 96 percent of the time based on studies. Male fertility, however, is measured not only in terms of sperm count but in terms of sperm shape, motility and volume.

John Herr, 63, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Research in Contraceptive and Reproductive Health in Charlottesville, invented the SpermCheck Fertility with help from university colleagues. The Food and Drug Administration approved the test kit in 2010.

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Republicans will are heading to the polls in three states Tuesday as the GOP presidential primary continues. Voters in Colorado, Minnesota, and Missouri will have a chance to either hand the race to frontrunner former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, or vote for one of his rivals, extending the primary.

In a memo released Tuesday, Romney’s campaign downplayed expectations for today’s contests.

“It is difficult to see what Governor Romney’s opponents can do to change the dynamics of the race in February. No delegates will be awarded on February 7 — Colorado and Minnesota hold caucuses with nonbinding preference polls, and the Missouri primary is purely a beauty contest,” Romney campaign Political Director Rich Beeson explained.

Nonetheless, Tuesday will be crucial for former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who currently sits in fourth place despite winning a contested Iowa caucus vote in January. Without a win Tuesday, it will be hard for Santorum to continue his momentum and if fundraising dries up, so too will his campaign hopes.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed he will fight on until the party convention in August, after losing two states in a row following his South Carolina upset victory over Romney. In a press conference after his Nevada defeat, Gingrich reminded reporters that 44 states have yet to vote. Now, securing a win in Colorado, Minnesota, or Missouri will go a long way towards keeping his campaign alive.

Long-time presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) continues to draw crowds, but has yet to win an entire state. Tuesday could allow Paul to sneak a win while the big money candidates battle it out on the television airwaves and reinvigorate his support base.

At stake today are more GOP convention delegates than New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Carolina combined. Currently, Romney leads with 89 delegates, a far cry from the 1144 needed to secure the Republican presidential nomination, but enough to give him a strong lead heading into a packed election calendar.

Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – Madonna successfully performed at the 46th Super Bowl on Feb. 5 and received mostly rave reviews. So what’s next? No, the Material Girl is not going to Disneyland. She is heading out on a world tour.

The pop icon just posted dates for a six month tour through the Middle East, Europe and North American. Dates for South American and Australia are expected shortly.

Fans that can’t wait for the tour can get more of the star when Madonna’s new album, “MDNA,” hits stores on March 26.

The tour kicks off in Tel Aviv on May 29. Some foreign cities on the tour include: Istanbul, Milan, Florence, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Paris, Edinburgh, Dublin, Vienna, Moscow and Oslo, to name just a few.

U.S. cities on the tour include: Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Atlantic City, Chicago, Seattle, San Jose, Los Angles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, Kansas City, St. Louis, St. Paul, Cleveland, Charlotte, Atlanta and Miami.

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The Obama administration will push for a $156 million increase in funding for Alzheimer research over the next two years, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health will commit another $50 million in finding this year, and the White House will propose an additional $80 million as part of President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

The new research funding will help support both basic and clinical research designed to improve therapy, and to identify genes associated with a heightened risk of the disease.

Currently, the NIH spends $4560 million annually on research into Alzheimer’s.

Some 1.5 million Americans currently are afflicted with the disease associated with aging. By 2050, that number is predicted to more than double.

Alzheimer’s is a irreversible brain disorder that erodes memory overtime and hampers cognitive function. There is no cure or truly effective treatment. It is currently the sixth leading cause of death in the USA.

NYC, NY, United States (AHN) – The media would have you believe that most of the sex occurring these days goes on outside the married bedroom. But according to a new study, that is not the case.

Online women’s community iVillage, which is owned by NBC Universal, commissioned the nationwide survey as a means to find out what is “normal” in American bedrooms, and to highlight that fact that marital sex is alive and well in the USA.

Most of what is seen on television and in movies is extramarital and illicit sex. This study aims to shed some very positive light and eye-opening stats on how married women honest and truly feel about sex.

Some 1,000 women, between the ages of 18 and 49, were surveyed in January for the study. Just 16 percent said that sex was “some what important,” while a whopping 75 percent said it was “very important.” Among findings:

49 percent said that had better sex before they had children.

34 percent said kids didn’t change their sex lives

38 percent say they and their spouses both initiate sex equallly

22 percent have sent “sexts” (sexual texts or pictures via their cellphones to their husbands); 18 percent admit to have sent flirty email messages; and 12 percent said they have left sexy voicemails.

50 percent said stress reduces their desire to have sex; 49 percent say it’s exhaustion; 39 percent say it’s the children; 34 percent say it is due to lack of romance; 31 percent say it’s arguments; and 14 percent say it is loss of physical attraction.

12 percent admit they have had sex with someone else while married.

If appears the over used excuse of “Not tonight dear, I have a headache,” is not just passe, it is untrue.