Coins DIG

The debate over making cervical cancer vaccines available to young women is coming to the state Legislature today.

A group of anti-vaccine activists plans to attend this morning's Senate Codes Committee hearing to protest a bill that would let health care professionals give the vaccine to women younger than 18 without parental consent.

The measure, sponsored in the Senate by Liz Krueger and in the Assembly by Amy Paulin -- both Democrats -- aims to protect women against preventable cervical cancer. The legislation also notes that Planned Parenthood clinics have been seeing teenagers coming in and requesting the vaccine.

Krueger said such vaccines have a proven track record. "It has a direct correlation to preventing cancer," she said, adding the legislation wouldn't make such vaccines mandatory.

The deal, which comes as the U.S. unemployment level remains around 10 percent, would take Yahoo out of the online recruitment business, leaving Monster with only one major competitor, Careerbuilder.com.

Monster, which controls about one-third of online jobs postings in the United States, does not expect the deal to raise significant issues with antitrust regulators, since HotJobs has a smaller share of the market.

The virus first struck last spring and returned in the fall. "We still don't know whether there will be a third wave," said health department spokesman John Ricci.

A silver coin dug up as part of a hoard is the oldest piece of Roman money found in Britain, experts believe.

The coin, which has been dated to 221BC, was found near Hallaton in Leicestershire with 5,000 other coins, a helmet and decorated bowl.

Uncovered by archaeologists in 2000, the coin's significance has just been recognised, the county council said.

It said the coin, which has the Goddess Roma on one side, was "something very special".

The other side depicts mythical twins Castor and Pollux sat on galloping horses.

Iron Age shrine

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Supporters of legalized marijuana announced today that they have gathered about 700,000 signatures for their initiative, virtually guaranteeing voters will see it on the November ballot.

They plan to turn in the petitions today to elections officials in some of the state's major counties, including Los Angeles. Supporters need 433,971 valid signatures to qualify the measure.

The measure’s main proponent, Richard Lee, a highly successful Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, bankrolled a professional signature-gathering effort that was bolstered by volunteers from the state’s hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries.

Nintendo Co. said year-end holiday sales were "robust," suggesting that its Wii game console had regained its footing after a slowdown in demand, though a strong yen and price cuts continued to push down the company's profits.

Nintendo said group net income was 192.60 billion yen ($2.14 billion) for the nine months ended Dec. 31, down 9% from a profit of 212.52 billion yen for April-December of the previous year. Revenue fell 23% to 1.182 trillion yen, while operating profit fell 41% to 296.66 billion yen.

The research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, questions the wisdom of raising co-payments to save money, at least among the elderly.

That might be a way to cut health care costs among younger people, but not for people age 65 and older, Dr. Amal Trivedi of Brown University, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"It's a lose-lose proposition for most health plans," Trivedi said.

As Toyota’s problems mounted in North America with the announcement of a halt to sales and manufacturing of the bulk of its cars, commentators in Japan fretted Wednesday that the automaker’s problems could seriously hurt the reputation of the rest of Japan’s manufacturing sector.

“Toyota’s reputation for safety is in tatters, and it is inevitable that its image among consumers will suffer,” the Sankei Shimbun daily said.