Twisted Girl Throws Puppies in River **This video contains scenes of repeated animal cruelty**

TOKYO, Wednesday 25 August 2010 (AFP) – Japan will provide English translations in a professional nursing exam to remove a language hurdle for foreign applicants after almost all of them failed the test this year, officials said Wednesday. Hundreds of nurses and care-givers from Indonesia and the Philippines have been allowed to work temporarily in rapidly ageing Japan, but they have to pass the Japanese-language test if they hope to stay longer than a few years. To respond to rising complaints that the tests are discriminatory, the health ministry has also decided to simplify the wording...

By Robin Williams Adams WINTER HAVEN | Polk County, like Florida, faces a major shortage of nurses in the coming years as a huge group of baby boomer nurses retires. Florida’s shortage has eased somewhat as the recession causes nurses to delay retirement and work longer hours, according to the Florida Center for Nursing, but the center’s research still points to an impending crisis. “We can’t be misled into thinking there’s no longer a nursing shortage,” said Janet Fansler, vice president and chief nurse executive at Lakeland Regional Medical Center, which employs...

by Tessa Hoffman A $5000 cash incentive to attract maternal and child nurses to Moreland appears to be working. A state-wide maternal nurse shortage, compounded by a baby boom, has left parents waiting up to a month to get their child in to see a nurse at some of Moreland’s maternal and child health centres. The sign-on bonus was first advertised in July to recruit one full-time and a part-time nurse. Social development director Jenny Merkus said the incentive “seems to be helping” with a number of queries leading to four applications from nurses who were now being interviewed. Acting Mayor...

Carol Sorgen For years now, we’ve been hearing about the nursing shortage in this country. Is that still the case? On the whole, yes, say nurse recruiters throughout the Washington metropolitan area, though there has been a temporary “blip” as a result of the recession. “The economy has certainly had an impact on the job market for nurses, as nurses who were planning to retire have delayed those plans, part-time nurses have requested additional hours, and full-time nurses have sought additional shifts,” says Dennis Hoban, Senior Director of Recruitment for Washington...

By The Associated Press WASHINGTON – A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. And the microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, researchers led by Terry Hazen at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., reported Tuesday in the online journal Sciencexpress. “Our findings, which provide the first...

ELLE investigates a new study that suggests the fairer sex is seriously bummed By Rachael Combe If this doesn’t seem to reflect what’s going on in your home, the problem may be more qualitative than quantitative. While you and your husband may be logging about the same number of hours of work, some recent surveys show that he may be enjoying his more. In other words, men may be cherrypicking the good stuff and leaving the “shit work” to women, who are supposed to be grateful for the opportunities in the office and the help at home. “It’s a controversy in research, deciding if an activity...

Drinking water before meals can help people to lose weight, says a US study. Scientists from Virginia found that slimmers can lose an average of 5lb extra if they drink two glasses of water three times a day before meals. They tested the theory on 48 older adults, split into two groups, over 12 weeks. While drinking water can make you feel full on zero calories, say researchers, too much water can also lead to serious health problems. The researchers presented their findings at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. All adults who took part in the study were aged 55 to...

Surgeons have removed a tumour the size of a four-year-old child from a woman’s womb after a four-hour operation. The growth, which weighed 3st 9lb, was extracted from the 54-year-old patient by surgeons at a hospital in Buenos Aires. She had approached doctors after her abdomen became so swollen that she would no longer bend over and her weight rose rapidly to 22st over the course of a year of a half. The malignant tumour is thought to be the biggest ever to have been removed from a patient, with the average wight being between 4lbs and 7lbs. A team of surgeons had to open her abdomen...

The parents of a 5-year-old girl weighing more than 12 stone have been arrested on child abuse charges. The girl, classified as morbidly obese, is allegedly so overweight that she can barely walk without losing her breath. Police found the little girl and her four-year-old sister, who is also categorised as obese at six stone, in their home in Marietta, Georgia covered in bug bites, with the younger girl still drinking from a baby’s bottle. Weighing in at seven stone above the average weight of a five-year-old, she “cannot sit down without assistance, or stand up” claimed the arrest warrants. Parents,...