Health - AP

SEATTLE - Parents who thought their preschoolers were spending time in home-based day cares, taking naps, eating healthy snacks and learning to play nicely with others may be surprised to discover they are sitting as many as two hours a day in front of a TV, according to a study published Monday.

WASHINGTON - The former director of the National Institutes of Health is advising women to ignore new guidelines that delay the start of routine mammogram testing for breast cancer.

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers broke along party lines on a new aspect of the health care debate Sunday as a former National Institutes of Health chief urged women to ignore guidelines that delay the start of breast cancer screenings.

WASHINGTON - Republicans are seizing on this week's recommendations for fewer Pap smears and mammograms to fuel concern about government-rationed medical care — and to try to chip away support by women for President Barack Obama's proposed health care overhaul.

MONTREAL - A Canadian woman on sick leave for depression says she lost her benefits after her insurance agent found photos of her apparently having fun on Facebook.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - Marines treated at Camp Lejeune for post-traumatic stress had to undergo therapy for months in temporary trailers where they could hear bomb blasts, machine-gun fire and war cries through the thin walls, according to servicemen and their former psychiatrist.

BALTIMORE - A preliminary report commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on the roots of the clergy sex abuse scandal found no evidence that gay priests are more likely than heterosexual clergy to molest children, the lead authors of the study said Tuesday.

ATLANTA - Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday.

Several doctors groups and advocacy groups set guidelines for cancer screening, and they update that advice periodically as new information emerges. Sometimes they agree, sometimes they don't. Last year, a number of groups got together and issued consensus guidelines for colon cancer.

WASHINGTON - First mammograms. Now — in an apparent coincidence — Pap smears.

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A bitter dispute over abortion that prompted Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop to ask Rep. Patrick Kennedy not to receive Holy Communion has revealed the depth of the divide among Catholics over how politicians should reconcile their faith with their public duties.

PHILADELPHIA - A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.

DENVER - Federal regulators have accused four people and two companies of fraud in an alleged $30 million Ponzi scheme that lured 300 investors nationwide in purported eco-friendly investments.

ATLANTA - When the nation's swine flu vaccination program began in early October, health officials predicted it was going to be "messy." They were right.

ATLANTA - The first county-by-county survey of obesity reflects past studies that show the rate of obesity is highest in the Southeast and Appalachia. High rates of obesity and diabetes were reported in more than 80 percent of counties in the Appalachian region that includes Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. - Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images.

BEIJING - China's health ministry said it will punish officials who underreport cases of swine flu after a doctor famous for exposing the extent of the 2003 SARS epidemic said he believes the true number of swine flu deaths is being covered up.

BRUSSELS - A man who emerged from what doctors thought was a vegetative state says he was fully conscious for 23 years but could not respond because he was paralyzed, his mother said Monday.