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When the news that Peter Jennings had lung cancer was reported earlier this week, many WebMD users asked why doctors don’t use chest X-rays to diagnose lung cancer at an early stage, when it’s more treatable. WebMD turned to cancer expert Harold Burstein, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard …

Women who quit smoking before pregnancy could help their future grandchildren avoid asthma. “If a woman smokes while she is pregnant, both her children and her grandchildren may be more likely to have asthma as a result,” says Frank Gilliland, MD, PhD, in a news release. About 11 percent of …

CHICAGO – Lucent Technologies Inc. (LU) Tuesday said quarterly earnings rose four-fold on strong sales of wireless network products and services, sending its shares up nearly 6 percent. Lucent also said it would combine its business to wireless service providers and traditional phone companies into one unit, simplifying operations and …

PHILADELPHIA – Federal prosecutors who spent more than a month presenting a complicated, sometimes dry corruption (search) case against Philadelphia’s former treasurer summed up their case with two words: “unrelenting greed.” The prosecutors told jurors Thursday that Corey Kemp (search) twice accepted $5,000 payments from the late Democratic fund-raiser Ronald …

DALLAS – Shares of Dell Inc. (DELL) took a beating after the world’s largest personal computer maker warned it will miss its own targets for sales and profits during the first quarter because of “pricing decisions.” Analysts said Dell’s move showed that it cannot dodge tough competition and savage price-cutting …

PHILADELPHIA – A couple and their quadriplegic son were fatally shot in their home early Sunday, police said. Authorities had no immediate motive for the slayings. The 20-year-old son was found dead in a hospital bed and the mother elsewhere in the row house, authorities said. The father was pronounced …

WASHINGTON – Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick was dispatched to Africa on Monday to push for a peace agreement to end political and ethnic conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. Zoellick’s trip was announced after the first day of a two-day extended deadline for a settlement ended without …

SAN DIEGO – Accused drug kingpin Francisco Javier Arellano Felix was brought to the United States Thursday morning after an arrest at sea and rushed to a downtown federal detention center to be booked, authorities said. Arellano Felix, accompanied by about a half-dozen other men, arrived on a U.S. Coast …

TAMPA, Florida – Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to an abortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy. Three days later, she sat in a reclining chair, medicated to dilate her cervix and otherwise get her ready for the procedure. …

HOUSTON – Two former chief executives of Enron Corp. “lied over and over and over again” to investors and employees in a widespread fraud that cost victims millions of dollars, a federal prosecutor said Monday. Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling carried out their crimes “through …