CHAPEL HILL -- Patients with arthritis, the country's leading cause of disability, tend to be less fit than their peers who don't have this condition. Studies have shown, however, that they can safely participate in exercise programs to increase their fitness, strength and psychosocial status and health providers recommend that arthritis patients participate in exercise.

A new study published by a University of North Carolina (UNC) researcher, published in the most recent issue of Arthritis Care and Research, evaluated the effects of the People with Arthritis Can Exercise (PACE) program to promote managing arthritis through exercise. Although pilot studies had shown that PACE, developed by the Arthritis Foundation, led to improvements for arthritis patients, this was the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate the program.

A super Tuesday for Republicans

The rush of primaries this week all but handed the Republican nomination to John McCain, but the fight between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is going to drag on, at least for weeks and perhaps for months. The risk for the Democrats is clear. Mr McCain can start to rally support among the party's conservatives and evangelicals – at best cool towards him – and begin campaigning against the Democrats. Mrs Clinton and Mr Obama will be concentrating on each other.

This is not how it was supposed to be. It was the Republicans who lacked a candidate with broad appeal across the party. It was the Republicans who, demoralised by the unpopularity of the Bush administration and longing in vain for an heir to Ronald Reagan, would expend their depleted energies on internecine squabbles.

Equating ECs with CEC

They were also calling back the old culling teams for their re-deployment.

Bhattacharjee was busy in the partys works in the south 24-parganas during last two days and he could not personally monitor the progress of the bird flu situation vis--vis the culling operation. But Rahman visited the affected districts and supervised the culling operation. He regretted that while in one hand the bird flu situation was gradually normalising in the affected districts, it was spreading in several new areas, making new problems for the state to tackle. He said some areas at Canning town in south 24-parganas, only about 30 km from Sealdah, came under the grip of the bird flu only yesterday.

Official sources said so far, of the total target of 30 lakh, about 23 lakh infected birds and chickens had been culled.

Father Foley Cape Cod abuse case settled For $550,000

The Archdiocese of Hartford agreed this week to pay $550,000 to a man who accused the Rev. Stephen Foley of using his position as Hartford County fire chaplain to sodomize him when he was a 14-year-old parishioner in Windsor Locks. Foley, who has been accused of abuse by at least 11 men since 1993 and was removed from public ministry in 2002, is still affiliated with the county fire organization he belonged to when the alleged assault occurred. He now holds the title of "chaplain emeritus" of the group, according to board members... The current president of the group is Windsor Locks Fire Chief Gary Ruggiero. Haber said Ruggiero sent an e-mail to the board of directors Friday criticizing the newspaper for publishing a story last Sunday that exposed Foley's continued use of a police-equipped Crown Victoria with flashing lights, sirens and scanners... abuse took place on a weekend when the boy and his friend accompanied Foley to a home on Cape Cod, which Foley said was owned by his aunt, the brief said.

The orphan playwright

Next week, 380 years after he was buried, Thomas Middleton's reputation will be resurrected by a new edition of his collected works. It has taken 75 scholars from a dozen countries 20 years to produce, and the result revolutionises our understanding of the English Renaissance. Middleton is our other Shakespeare: the orphan of London is the only English playwright who can survive the comparison. That's why the new Oxford edition mimics, visually, the Oxford Shakespeare. Hundreds of new discoveries are contained in the edition. Perhaps most strikingly, using massive computer databases, it confirms and expands earlier claims that Middleton collaborated with Shakespeare on Timon of Athens, and that he posthumously adapted both Macbeth and Measure for Measure

.

Hotline activated for needy in region

A new hotline makes finding social services as easy as calling police or firefighters.

Beginning today, anyone in the Bay Area who needs help with food, housing, employment or health care can simply dial 211.

The three-digit hotline began operating in San Francisco nearly two years ago; and since then six other Bay Area counties - Solano, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa and Santa Clara - have been in various stages of operation.

But as of this morning, the service is officially up throughout the seven-county region.

Among the newcomers is Contra Costa County, where 211 has operated in test mode until today. Still, operators at the Contra Costa Crisis Center have been fielding hundreds of calls a month.

"Near Concord? OK, let's see, hmm," specialist Minerva Blaine told a caller Friday, scrolling through a computer database to find affordable housing units for the homeless mother of a new baby.