Meditation may help ease anxiety and depression in certain patients, and in some cases the practice may be as effective as taking anti-depressant medications, said a study Monday.

However, a review of scientific literature on mindfulness meditation published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the effects of meditation are limited.

More than 300 people across Japan have fallen ill after eating frozen food products contaminated with pesticide, reports said Tuesday.

Shoppers have reported vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms of food poisoning after eating food produced at a plant in Gunma, north of Tokyo, according to surveys carried out by the Asahi Shimbun and other local media.

Fifty years ago, ashtrays seemed to be on every table and desk. Athletes and even Fred Flintstone endorsed cigarettes in TV commercials. Smoke hung in the air in restaurants, offices and airplane cabins. More than 42 percent of U.S. adults smoked, and many doctors were among them.

The turning point came on Jan. 11, 1964. It was on that Saturday morning that U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry released an emphatic and authoritative report that said smoking causes illness and death — and the government should do something about it.

France's government said Saturday it has recalled a batch of nutrient bags used by a hospital in the Alps to feed babies intravenously after three infants died because of a bacterial contamination.

The parents of the three newborns, who died on different days in early December, have filed criminal complaints for manslaughter against the hospital, located in the town of Chambery in southeast France.

A cardinal and bishops in Italy's so-called "Triangle of Death" have called for urgent action to tackle toxic mafia dumps blamed for rising cancer rates near Naples.

"Act quickly. We urge the authorities to intervene and be decisive, to stop the spread of worry, fears and ills," Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Archbishop of Naples, wrote in an open appeal to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, along with bishops from the affected areas.

The Obama administration proposed two new federal gun control rules Friday to ensure more information about the mentally ill reaches background check databases, after a series of high-profile U.S. shootings.

The rules come on top of a series of executive actions President Barack Obama announced after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting that left 20 young children and six staff dead in December 2012.

An H1N1 flu outbreak in Alberta has sickened nearly 1,000 people and killed five, the Canadian province's health minister said Friday, urging everyone to get vaccinated.

"Over the past few weeks, we have seen a surge in the number of influenza cases across Alberta. Many of those affected are healthy young adults," Health Minister Fred Horne said in a statement.

The number of obese and overweight people in the developing world nearly quadrupled to almost a billion between 1980 and 2008, a think-tank report said Friday.

There are now far more obese or overweight adults in the developing world than in richer countries, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) said.

Cheerios will be made without any genetically modified ingredients in the United States, producer General Mills announced, answering growing consumer concerns about the issue.

The popular breakfast cereal is already made in Europe without GMO (genetically modified organism) content, and the company said late Thursday that Original Cheerios had only contained a small bit of cornstarch from GMO corn.

Chinese health authorities say vaccines did not cause nine children to die shortly after they were inoculated.

The official Xinhua News Agency in a Friday report cited the director of disease control at the national health agency as saying 17 children were reported dead after receiving shots for the liver disease hepatitis B between Dec. 13 and Tuesday.