TV News LIES

Abortion rights advocates filed a federal lawsuit in Austin Wednesday challenging part of the state’s strict new abortion law requiring all abortion facilities to meet the same structural standards as ambulatory surgical centers beginning in September.

The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the suit on behalf of several abortion providers in Texas. Currently, only six of the 24 operating abortion facilities meet the structural requirements, which include specific room and doorway sizes, air sterilization systems, back-up generators, blood supplies, and male and female locker rooms on site.

About 9.5 million Americans who were previously uninsured have gotten health coverage under Obamacare, according to a new analysis.

The Los Angeles Times reported the number, which combines data from an unpublished study by RAND Corp. with other publicly available figures. It's one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to asses the law's impact on the uninsured as open enrollment comes to a close.

The numbers break down like this:

A study involving almost 60,000 healthy postmenopausal women correlated diet drinks with increased risk of heart attack, stroke or a cardiovascular event.

"Our findings are in line with and extend data from previous studies showing an association between diet drinks and metabolic syndrome," lead investigator Dr. Ankur Vyas of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics said in a statement. "We were interested in this research because there was a relative lack of data about diet drinks and cardiovascular outcomes and mortality."

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Texas' tough new abortion restrictions that shuttered many of the abortions clinics in the state.

A panel of judges at the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court judge who said the rules violate the U.S. Constitution and served no medical purpose. In its opinion, the appeals court said the law "on its face does not impose an undue burden on the life and health of a woman."

One in 68 children in the U.S. are identified with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) according to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC); this estimate is 30 percent higher than the prevalence reported in 2012. CDC says that since the previous estimate of 1 in 88 children identified with ASD, the criteria used to diagnose, treat, and provide services have not changed.

Overall, the surveillance summary report, “Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder among Children Aged 8 Years—Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2010,” estimates that there are 1.2 million children under the age of 21 with autism. The study based its numbers off of data solely from eight-year-olds (the “peak age of identification,” according to the CDC) in communities from 11 states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Planned Parenthood will open a $5 million surgical abortion facility in San Antonio in a few months as other providers have been forced to close because of stringent restrictions passed by Texas lawmakers last year.

The facility is expected to be completed by September, when new restrictions take effect, imposing surgical center standards for abortion clinics, even those that perform nonsurgical medication abortions.

Opponents of the regulations said they are a veiled attempt to shut clinics by imposing unnecessary and costly requirements, while supporters maintain they are aimed at protecting women's health and should be adopted by other states.