Although high school students report drinking plenty of water, milk, and real fruit juice, they still gulp down more sugar-sweetened beverages than is probably good for them, CDC researchers found. Nearly three-quarters (72.4 percent) of the teens who responded to a national survey said they drank at least one glass of water a day over the preceding seven days, Nancy Brener of the CDC and colleagues reported in the June [Read the rest...]

SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 (Reuters) – Connecticut’s Attorney General is concerned over Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology to identify users and has requested a meeting with Facebook officials to discuss ways to alleviate those concerns. Attorney General George Jepsen said in a letter to Facebook earlier this week that the world’s No. 1 Internet social network appeared to have overlooked consumer privacy by analyzing the faces in photographs posted [Read the rest...]

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. International Business Machines Corp., more commonly known as IBM, turned 100 years old on Thursday. Surviving a century is impressive for a human being; it’s astonishing for a tech company that got its start a mere three years after the Ford Model T began production. IBM dates back to June 16, 1911, when three small companies — [Read the rest...]

BEIRUT — Tens of thousands of Syrians poured onto the streets of cities around the country after prayers on Friday to press their demand for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, apparently undeterred by concessions from a top member of Assad’s inner circle. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition group that organizes the protests, said eight people were killed when troops opened fire on demonstrators in four different locations. With [Read the rest...]

Reporting from London— European officials began scrambling to find ways to lend financial aid to Portugal on Thursday after the debt-ridden Iberian nation bowed to market pressure and decided it had no choice but to ask for help to pay its bills. Lisbon’s announcement Wednesday evening that it would seek outside assistance came as little surprise to many economists, who had predicted such an eventuality for months. Unsustainably high borrowing [Read the rest...]

Paris With its aircraft in the skies of Libya and Ivory Coast, France has suddenly escaped diplomatic obscurity to find itself taking a leading role in two military ventures that have arguably tipped the scales on behalf of civilians. This comes after France was embarrassingly late in embracing pro-democracy protests that successfully ousted its old allies in Egypt and Tunisia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his aides at the Élysée [Read the rest...]

Reporting from Washington— Even as President Obama lays out his vision of America’s obligations to civilians menaced by their own governments, the limits of what some are calling an “Obama Doctrine” are evident in his differing approaches to Libya and another Arab country in turmoil — Syria. Ignoring Libyans in danger from Moammar Kadafi‘s forces “would have been a betrayal of who we are,” the president said this week in [Read the rest...]

(Reuters) – Japan‘s government plans to take control of Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T), the operator of a stricken nuclear power plant, by injecting public funds, the Mainichi newspaper said on Friday. But the government is unlikely to take more than a 50 percent stake in the company, an unnamed government official was quoted by the daily as saying. “If the stake goes over 50 percent, it will be nationalized. [Read the rest...]

DUBAI — The self-styled “French Spiderman” braved a strong desert wind to climb the world’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa, in what organisers of the challenge in Dubai hailed as a memorable feat. Alain Robert, 48, scaled the exterior of the glass and steel skyscraper which stands 828-metres (2,717-feet) tall, over a seven-hour period on Sunday night. The climber, whose nickname comes from wearing the outfit of the fictional superhero while [Read the rest...]

A look at the latest developments in political unrest across the Middle East on Tuesday: ___ LIBYA Moammar Gadhafi’s tanks and rockets drive back rebels from near his hometown of Sirte, a key government stronghold on the road to the capital Tripoli, as international leaders struggle at a London conference to figure out an endgame for his tottering regime. After the rebels’ push westward restored all the territory they lost [Read the rest...]