SAN FRANCISCO: A filing in a high-stakes legal battle between Samsung and Apple revealed that a "pinch-to-zoom" patent central to the case has been deemed invalid.
The patent was a centerpiece of a trial that ended in August with a jury ordering Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion in damages for illegally copying iPhone and iPad features for its flagship Galaxy S smartphones.
Samsung provided US District Judge Lucy Koh a copy of a US Patent and Trademark Office preliminary determination that, upon review, the Apple pinch-to-zoom technology wasn't original enough to merit a patent.
Samsung hoped the filing would bolster its argument for a new trial or to have the damages award slashed.
Since the verdict, US patent officials tentatively invalidated an Apple patent on technology that gives a "rubber-band" springing effect when a finger tugs at the edge of a touch-screen smartphone. That patent was also at issue at the trial.
Koh on Monday denied Apple's request to ban a set of Samsung smartphones from the US market based on the jury's finding that the South Korean firm was guilty of infringing on six of the Cupertino, California-company's patents.
Even though Apple was victorious in the patent case, the iPhone and iPad maker failed to prove that the technology at issue was the driving factor in people's buying decisions, Koh reasoned in the ruling.
Samsung -- the world's top mobile and smartphone maker -- has appealed the verdict.
Drivers in Colorado contend with heavy snow Wednesday.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: 156-mile stretch of freeway closed in Colorado
23-car pileup in Texas dust storm kills one, injures 17
Heavy snow, high winds stretch from Colorado to Wisconsin in season's first blizzard
Storm to crawl from Midwest to New England by Friday
(CNN) -- People traveling early for Christmas in the center of the country will be dashing through the snow and the rain and the wind.
The first major storm of the season has prompted the National Weather Service to issue a blizzard warning for a huge swath of the Midwest stretching from eastern Colorado to Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shoreline, including virtually all of Iowa. The declaration warns of snow accumulations of up to 12 inches, complemented by 25- to 35-mph winds that will occasionally gust to 45 to 50 mph.
A 156-mile stretch of Interstate Highway 70 between Denver and the Kansas state line was closed in both directions for a time Wednesday. The westbound side reopened about 7 p.m. MT, but the eastbound lanes remained closed.
Cheyenne Wells, in east-central Colorado, reported a 67-mph wind gust with zero visibility just after 2 p.m. MT, CNN meteorologist Sean Morris said. U.S. Highway 385 was closed for 65 miles in the Cheyenne Wells region, Colorado's Department of Transportation reported.
"Most of the storm is on its way out across the state, except for the Eastern Plains, where there are still high winds, blizzard conditions, and highway closures," the department's Facebook page said.
"Whiteout conditions are likely and travel could become impossible" Wednesday night and into Thursday, the service's Omaha, Nebraska, office warned.
Is the storm hitting you? Send images to iReport
"Far southeast Nebraska and extreme southwest Iowa could see rain or a wintry mix for several hours yet this evening, so blizzard conditions may not develop over that area until mid-evening or later," the service said.
Airlines were reporting relatively few cancellations or delays in areas affected by the storm Wednesday night, but that could change overnight.
The storm will race into western Illinois, the weather service said. Rain will quickly change over to snow as the storm advances northeast, with the heaviest snow occurring overnight.
"Snow drifts several feet deep will be possible given the strong winds," the blizzard warning states.
At least 17 people were sent to hospitals near Lubbock, Texas, after a 23-vehicle chain-reaction crash on Interstate Highway 27 north of New Deal, Texas, state safety officials told CNN. There was at least one fatality, said Clinton Thetford, emergency management coordinator of Lubbock County. A stretch of the freeway in Lubbock County remains closed indefinitely.
Wrapping around the blizzard warning on the north, south and east is a winter storm warning, which will be no picnic either. The winds won't be quite as strong, but residents should expect a strong dose of rain, sleet and snow, with a few hail-packing thunderstorms thrown in for good measure.
A winter weather advisory is in effect for the Indiana-Ohio-Michigan tri-state area, as well as central Missouri and Kansas.
The "intense cyclone" will crawl across the Great Lakes region Thursday and slog into northern New England by Friday evening, the National Weather Service predicted.
Dodging the heavy precipitation but not the high winds is an area from western Texas and eastern New Mexico through the Oklahoma Panhandle and into southwest Kansas.
Much of the Southwest and Mississippi Valley is extremely dry, and the high winds have kicked up blinding dust near Lubbock, Texas.
CNN's Carma Hassan and Joe Sutton contributed to this report.
NEWTOWN, Conn. The family of Noah Pozner was mourning the 6-year-old, killed in the Newtown school massacre, when outrage compounded their sorrow.
Someone they didn't know was soliciting donations in Noah's memory, claiming that they'd send any cards, packages and money collected to his parents and siblings. An official-looking website had been set up, with Noah's name as the address, even including petitions on gun control.
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Noah's uncle, Alexis Haller, called on law enforcement authorities to seek out "these despicable people."
"These scammers," he said, "are stealing from the families of victims of this horrible tragedy."
It's a problem as familiar as it is disturbing. Tragedy strikes — be it a natural disaster, a gunman's rampage or a terrorist attack — and scam artists move in.
It happened after 9/11. It happened after Columbine. It happened after Hurricane Katrina. And after this summer's movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo.
Sometimes fraud takes the form of bogus charities asking for donations that never get sent to victims. Natural disasters bring another dimension: Scammers try to get government relief money they're not eligible for.
"It's abominable," said Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, which evaluates the performance of charities. "It's just the lowest kind of thievery."
Noah Pozner's relatives found out about one bogus solicitation when a friend received an email asking for money for the family. Poorly punctuated, it gave details about Noah, his funeral and his family. It directed people to send donations to an address in the Bronx, one that the Pozners had never heard of.
It listed a New York City phone number to text with questions about how to donate. When a reporter texted that number Wednesday, a reply came advising the donation go to the United Way.
The Pozner family had the noahpozner.com website transferred to its ownership. Victoria Haller, Noah's aunt, emailed the person who had originally registered the name. The person, who went by the name Jason Martin, wrote back that he'd meant "to somehow honor Noah and help promote a safer gun culture. I had no ill intentions I assure you."
Alexis Haller said the experience "should serve as a warning signal to other victims' families. We urge people to watch out for these frauds on social media sites."
Consumer groups, state attorneys general and law enforcement authorities call for caution about unsolicited requests for donations, by phone or email. They tell people to be wary of callers who don't want to answer questions about their organization, who won't take "no" for an answer, or who convey what seems to be an unreasonable sense of urgency.
"This is a time of mourning for the people of Newtown and for our entire state," Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said in a statement this week. "Unfortunately, it's also a time when bad actors may seek to exploit those coping with this tragedy."
But scam artists know that calamity is fertile ground for profit, watered by the goodwill of strangers who want to help and may not be familiar with the cause or the people they're sending money to.
After the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., scammers asked for credit card donations for victims' families. After the 9/11 attacks, the North American Securities Administrators Association warned investors to be wary of Internet postings encouraging them to invest in supposed anti-terrorist technologies.
In 2006, the FBI warned about an email widely circulated after the Sago, W.Va., mine explosion, which claimed to be from a doctor treating one of the survivors and asking for donations to cover medical bills.
"As was learned after the tragic events of 9/11/01, the tsunami disaster, and more recently with Hurricane Katrina, unscrupulous cyber criminals have shown the desire and means to exploit human emotion by attempting to defraud the public when they are perceived to be most vulnerable," the FBI said at the time.
This fall, the police in Aurora, Colo., accused a local woman of trying to profit off the deadly movie theater rampage by a gunman who killed 12 people. The woman told people that she was the caretaker for a little girl named Kadence, whose mother had died in the shooting. The police said the child was made up. The scam unraveled when a donor got a phone call from what seemed to be a woman imitating a child's voice.
When the government doled out disaster aid after Hurricane Katrina, scammers asked for money to rebuild houses they never lived in or to pay benefits for relatives who never existed.
The government later set up the National Center for Disaster Fraud to try to root out such scams in the federal relief programs administered after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. It has since expanded its mandate to other disasters.
The cases brought since then by the Justice Department sketch a colorful picture of fraud:
— A woman who filed for small-business disaster benefits after the 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill, even though she'd sold the business before the accident.
— A judge and a commissioner in Texas who, after Hurricane Ike, were accused of awarding debris removal contracts to a company in return for kickbacks. The judge also commandeered a 155-kilowatt generator meant for the county to power his convenience store, according to the government.
— A pastor who submitted inflated claims to a government-funded program that reimbursed groups sheltering Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
Bob Webster, spokesman for the NASAA, knows the sad pattern.
"We know cons try to cash in on headlines, and any who would even think about stooping to capitalize on the tragedy in Newtown are the lowest of the low," he said.
Invoking the somber aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama today appealed to congressional Republicans to embrace a standing "fair deal" on taxes and spending that would avert the fiscal cliff in 13 days.
"If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important," Obama said at a midday news conference.
"I would like to think that members of that [Republican] caucus would say to themselves, 'You know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things,'" he said. "'But right now what the country needs is for us to compromise.'"
House Speaker John Boehner's response: "Get serious."
Boehner announced at a 52-second news conference that the House will vote Thursday to approve a "plan B" to a broad White House deal -- and authorize simply extending current tax rates for people earning less than $1 million a year and little more.
"Then, the president will have a decision to make," the Ohio Republican said. "He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he could be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."
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House Speaker John Boehner Proposes 'Plan B' on Taxes Watch Video
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Unless Congress acts by Dec. 31, every American will face higher income tax rates and government programs will get hit with deep automatic cuts starting in 2013.
Obama and Boehner have been inching closer to a deal on tax hikes and spending cuts to help reduce the deficit. But they have not yet had a breakthrough on a deal.
Obama's latest plan would raise $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years, largely through higher tax rates on incomes above $400,000. He also proposes roughly $930 billion in spending cuts, including new limits on entitlement spending, such as slower annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries.
Boehner has agreed to $1 trillion in new tax revenue, with a tax rate hike for households earning over $1 million. He is seeking more than $1 trillion in spending cuts, with significant changes to Medicare and Social Security.
The president said today that he remains "optimistic" about reaching a broad compromise by Christmas because both sides are "pretty close," a sentiment that has been publicly shared by Boehner.
But the speaker's backup plan has, at least temporarily, stymied talks, with no reported contact between the sides since Monday.
"The speaker should return to the negotiating table with the president because if he does I firmly believe we can have an agreement before Christmas," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a White House ally.
Schumer said Obama and Boehner are "not that far apart" in the negotiations.
"If they were to come to an agreement by Friday, they could write this stuff over the Christmas break and then we'd have to come back before the New Year and pass it," Schumer said.
Obama said he is "open to conversations" and planned to reach out to congressional leaders over the next few days to try to nudge Republicans to accept a "fair deal."
"At some point, there's got to be, I think, a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that -- you know, take the deal," he told reporters.
"They keep on finding ways to say no, as opposed to finding ways to say yes," Obama added. "At some point, you know, they've got take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what's best for the country."
Forget toolmaking, think fisticuffs. Did evolution shape our hands not for dexterity but to form fists so we could punch other people? That idea emerges from a new study, although it runs counter to conventional wisdom.
About the same time as we stopped hanging from trees and started walking upright, our hands become short and square, with opposable thumbs. These anatomical changes are thought to have evolved for tool manipulation, but David Carrier at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City has an alternative explanation.
He says there are several possible hand shapes that would have allowed greater dexterity, making it less clear why we ended up with the hands we have. But only one hand shape lets us make a fist with a thumb as buttress.
Among primates' hands, ours is unique for its ability to form a fist with the thumb outside the fingers. The fingers of other primates' hands are too long to curl into their palms, and their thumbs are too short to reach across the fingers. So when apes fight, they are far more likely to wrestle or hold their opponent down while others stomp on him, says Carrier.
To test the importance of fists, Carrier and his colleagues recruited 10 athletes and measured how hard they could hit a punching bag using a normal fist, a fist with the thumb stuck out, and with an open palm.
The athletes could generate more than twice the force with a normal fist as with the thumb-stuck-out fist, because of thumb's buttressing role. There was no difference in the force they could generate with a normal fist and with an open palm, but Carrier says it's possible that a fist concentrates the force into a smaller area and so does more damage.
Cause or effect?
Mary Marzke of Arizona State University in Tempe says the study is interesting, but it far from proves that the ability to make a strong fist was the main driver behind the evolution of our hands' shape. It is more likely that it was a useful side effect of a whole suite of modifications.
She points out that apes strike with the heel of their hand when knocking fruit out of trees. Carrier's study didn't assess the force that the heel of the hand generates, but if it turns out to be as good as a fist, it becomes less clear that our hands evolved so as to be perfect for fist-making, Marzke says.
But if the hypothesis is true, Carrier thinks it could explain another mystery. It has long been unclear why high levels of testosterone cause men's ring fingers to be longer than their index fingers. He says the finger-length ratio makes sense if it generates a better fist. This would make dominant males even better fighters.
Journal reference: Journal of Experimental Biology, doi:10.1242/jeb.075713
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SEOUL: South Koreans cast their votes Wednesday in a tight and potentially historic presidential election that could result in Asia's fourth-largest economy selecting its first female leader.
The ballot is a straight fight between Park Geun-Hye, the conservative daughter of assassinated dictator Park Chung-Hee, and her liberal rival Moon Jae-In, the son of North Korean refugees.
Opinion polls indicate the result could go either way.
The eventual occupant of the presidential Blue House will have to deal with a belligerent North Korea, a slowing economy and soaring welfare costs in one of the world's most rapidly ageing societies.
Park, 60, was looking to make history by becoming the first female president of a still male-dominated nation, and the first to be related to a former leader.
Her father remains one of modern Korea's most polarising figures -- admired for dragging the country out of poverty and reviled for his ruthless suppression of dissent during 18 years of military rule.
He was shot dead by his spy chief in 1979. Park's mother had been killed five years earlier by a pro-North Korea gunman aiming for her father.
Moon, who was chief of staff to the late left-wing president Roh Moo-Hyun, is a former human rights lawyer who was once jailed for protesting against the Park Chung-Hee regime.
Polling booths opened at 6:00am (2100 GMT Tuesday) on a bright, chilly winter's morning, with the temperature hovering around -10 Celsius (14 Fahrenheit).
Initial turnout among the 40 million-plus registered voters was strong, with 35 percent having cast their votes by midday -- a sharp increase on the 2007 election.
"It's freezing cold, but I plead with the people to come out and vote to open a new era for this country," Park, wrapped up in a long coat and red scarf, said as she cast her ballot in Seoul.
After locking in the support of their respective conservative and liberal bases, the two candidates put a lot of campaign effort into wooing crucial centrist voters, resulting in significant policy overlap.
Both have talked of "economic democratisation" -- a campaign buzzword about reducing the social disparities caused by rapid economic growth -- and promised to create new jobs and increase welfare spending.
Moon has been more aggressive than Park in his proposals for reining in the power of the giant family-run conglomerates, or "chaebol" that dominate the economy.
"This is the only way for the people to change the world," Moon said as he voted in the southern city of Busan.
"This election is about our livelihoods, economic democracy, welfare and peace on the Korean peninsula," he added.
While both have signalled a desire for greater engagement with Pyongyang, Park's approach is far more cautious than Moon's promise to resume aid without preconditions and seek an early summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Although North Korea has not been a major campaign issue, its long-range rocket launch last week -- seen by critics as a disguised ballistic missile test -- was a reminder of the unpredictable threat from across the border.
The never-married Park has promised a strong, parental style of leadership that would steer the country through the challenges of global economic troubles.
"Like a mother who dedicates her life to her family, I will become the president who takes care of the lives of each one of you," Park said in her last televised news conference on Tuesday.
A female president would be a big change for a country that the World Economic Forum recently ranked 108th out of 135 countries in terms of gender equality -- one place below the United Arab Emirates and just above Kuwait.
Older Koreans, who generally favour Park, are seen as more dependable voters and Moon's camp has pushed hard to ensure the younger demographic that make up his support base cast their ballots.
One early voter, Kim Su-Eun, 29, said she had opted for the ruling party candidate.
"I think Moon's election promises are too radical while Park says she will carry out reform step by step. That's why I voted for her", she told AFP.
NEW: The report cites "management deficiencies" at high levels of the State Department
NEW: It concludes "there was no protest prior to the attacks" on September 11
NEW: The Bureau of Diplomatic Security security staff in Benghazi was "inadequate," it says
Washington (CNN) -- An independent review of the September 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi released Tuesday cited "management deficiencies" at high levels of the State Department.
The attack left four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens,dead.
"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department resulted in a Special Mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the report read.
Read full report
It said "there was no protest prior to the attacks," which the report described as "unanticipated in their scale and intensity."
The report also cited as "inadequate" the Bureau of Diplomatic Security security staff in Benghazi on the day of the attack and in the months and weeks leading up to it, "despite repeated requests from Special Mission Benghazi and Embassy Tripoli for additional staffing."
Before the report was released, a source who had read it told CNN that senior management in charge of diplomatic security "does not come out well at all."
Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell is the head of diplomatic security, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charlene Lamb oversaw State Department decisions on security at the diplomatic outpost. Lamb testified before Congress about the security precautions; documents show Lamb denied repeated requests for additional security in Libya.
State Department: Clinton not dodging Benghazi hearings
The Accountability Review Board completed its investigation into the matter this week and sent a copy to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for review. A classified version of the report was delivered Tuesday afternoon to members and staff of the committees on Capitol Hill that have jurisdiction over the State Department.
The unclassified version was released Tuesday night.
Veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, both members of the review board, will brief members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees in a classified setting about the report on Wednesday.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Tuesday that Clinton, who is home recovering from a stomach virus and concussion, wrote a letter to members of Congress that will accompany the report being sent to Capitol Hill.
Clinton ordered the review in the aftermath of the attack. Such reports are mandated by Congress when Americans working on behalf of the United States government are killed overseas.
Read more: Benghazi attack back in the spotlight
In a notice sent to all State Department employees Tuesday, the department explained how the report would be implemented once it was released.
"To implement the Board's recommendations, the Secretary has directed the Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources to lead the implementation team, supported by the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the Under Secretary for Management, the Director General of the Foreign Service, the Executive Secretary and the Deputy Legal Advisor," the notice said.
Employees were told that the implementation team had met Tuesday and would continue to do so regularly to implement the recommendations of the board.
The politics surrounding the events that led to the report have claimed one political casualty, with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice last week pulling her name from consideration to succeed Clinton. Some Republican senators had said they would put a hold on her nomination if President Barack Obama had submitted it, based on comments Rice made in the days after the attack.
In place of Clinton, Deputy Secretaries of State William Burns and Thomas Nides will testify before the House and Senate committees Thursday.
Read Clinton's letter to the Committee on Foreign Affairs chairman
HARROLD, Texas -- There's at least one school that welcome firearms to class.
It believes nothing makes a school safer than teachers who are armed,
The Harrold Independent School District is one building with 103 students. It's 20 minutes away from the nearest sheriff's station. Superintendent David Thweatt created what he calls a "guardian plan" after the attack at Virginia Tech.
"These people that go in and do these horrible acts, they're evil. But they're not that crazy -- they always know where they are going to get resistance," Thweatt said.
NRA promises "meaningful contributions" to avert another Newtown The Newtown shootings, as they happened Complete Coverage: Elementary School Rampage
Teachers and administrators here carry concealed handguns. They won't say how many faculty members are armed. They get extra training, but the district would not give us details.
Some people are horrified when he starts talking about putting guns in schools with children, but Thweatt said it's important to be safe.
"Sure, but it's a pretty horrific thing that happened the other day." Thweatt said. "And quite a few people are not horrified. Quite a few people we have in our district, since we have a high-transfer district, people bring their students to us for that protection."
Texas law allows concealed weapons in schools with a district's permission. Harrold was the first district to do it. A similar proposal was vetoed by Michigan's governor Tuesday.
Thweatt says allowing the firearms into the school will dissuade anyone who wants to hurt the kids.
"That's the bottom line," he said.
Since the shootings in Connecticut, Superintendent Thweatt has gotten calls from districts around the state and as far away as Missouri from school administrators asking whether they might be able to implement similar plans.
When the private investment firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it would unload its interest in Bushmaster – the company that built the weapon used in last week's mass murder of 20 Connecticut first graders -- it marked the beginning of what experts say is likely to be a challenging period for the North Carolina-based weapons manufacturer.
"They are looking at a taint on their brand and looking at a marketplace that could change dramatically with respect to their weapon," said Chris Lehane, a crisis public relations expert who worked in the Clinton White House. "To me the fact that Cerberus is pulling out is a pretty significant defining moment."
For years, Bushmaster has been marketing itself to testosterone-fueled male customers, issuing "man cards" to customers who want to be "card carrying men." Now, Lehane and others said the company is facing the prospect of being branded the weapon of choice for mass killers. The Newtown, Connecticut shooting marked the fourth time a Bushmaster has been implicated in a mass shooting since 1999, including the Beltway sniper case that left 10 dead and three more wounded.
Cerberus announced Tuesday it wanted distance from Bushmaster, calling the murder of 20 first grade children at Sandy Hook Elementary School a "watershed event." The investment firm, which is chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle, noted in its statement that Bushmaster may not be an investment consistent with the interests of its clients. Its investors include the pension plans of firemen, teachers, and policemen.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo
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Lehane said the announcement could signal a shift in the way investors view companies that make military style weapons for a civilian market.
"It reminds me of the time when tobacco began to be associated with a negative light, or the divestiture movement surrounding companies in South Africa," he said. "Where financial markets believe they are going to pay a price."
In addition, a spokesman for Cerberus Group confirmed that the father of Stephen Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Group, lives in Newtown.
Gun control groups have also lined up to criticize the weapons manufacturer, arguing that the company was selling civilian customers a weapon clearly designed for war.
"This thing is just a killing machine," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "[I]t's a weapon that can easily shoot hundreds of … In fact it's very similar to the weapon that James Holmes used to shoot up the movie theater in Aurora."
The company has not responded to phone calls seeking comment, but gun enthusiasts say the weapon's menacing appearance can appeal to civilians looking for a means to secure their homes, and its ease of use can appeal to those looking for a weapon for target shooting.
"The [assault rifle] platform is the most popular in the country," said Frank Cornwall, a firearms instructor in Connecticut. "Civilians have always bought similar type arms to the military. And this is a very versatile platform. Quite a popular hunting and target shooting gun."
Phillip Stutts, a crisis management consultant who worked for President George W. Bush, said he has been surprised by the silence of the gun manufacturer.
"Bushmaster doesn't have to take responsibility for this tragedy, but they have a responsibility to respond to this tragedy," he said. "And they haven't. They have to get out in front of this. It needs to be corrected ASAP."
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Is the obesity epidemic caused by too much sugar?
In Fat Chance, endocrinologist Robert Lustig argues that insidious changes to our eating habits have caused disruptions to our endocrine systems
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