DENVER (AP) — In the most prominent challenge of its kind, Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is asking a federal appeals court Thursday for an exemption from part of the federal health care law that requires it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's BTG said it would make two acquisitions, one extending its expertise in liver cancer and the other a treatment for severe blood clots, to create an interventional medicine business with potential sales of $1 billion. The company said on Thursday it had agreed to buy the targeted therapies division of Nordion Inc, for about $200 million in a deal that adds Therasphere radioactive glass beads treatment for liver cancer to its chemotherapy beads unit. ...

By Fredrik Dahl VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran is pressing ahead with the construction of a research reactor that Western experts say could eventually produce plutonium for a nuclear weapon if Tehran decides to make one, a U.N. report showed on Wednesday. In another development likely to worry the United States and its allies, the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran had added to its capacity to refine uranium, which can also provide the fissile core of a bomb if enriched to a high level. The IAEA also said Iran had asphalted a part of a military site, Parchin, that the U.N. ...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co Ltd will recall about 841,000 vehicles worldwide including the Micra compact car, also known as the March, as a result of a steering wheel glitch, Japan's No.2 automaker said on Thursday. Nissan is recalling certain models of the Micra compact car produced in Britain and Japan between 2002 and 2006, as well as the Cube, produced in Japan around the same period. It is pulling back vehicles in Japan, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. ...

An 80-year-old man became the oldest person to conquer the 29,035-foot peak.

By Julie Steenhuysen CHICAGO (Reuters) - Kathrin Jansen is a microbiologist with at least two breakthrough vaccines to her name: she brought the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to market for Merck and helped develop the $4 billion a year pneumonia and meningitis vaccine Prevnar 13 for Pfizer. Jansen's next vaccine success could come by taming the superbug MRSA, a drug-resistant bacterium that she has seen ravage a healthy man up close and personally. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infects an estimated 53 million people globally and costs more than $20 billion a year to treat. ...

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A government investigation found that "extremely" poor quality construction materials and a series of violations caused the collapse of a garment factory building in Bangladesh that has been called the worst garment-industry disaster in history, the committee head said Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report.

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report.

Census estimates show most large U.S. cities further enhanced their allure last year.

The U.S. teen birth rate fell 25 percent over five years to a record low of 31 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The president will use a Thursday speech to try to shift focus from a series of scandals.

By Katie Schubert OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning on Wednesday filed a petition to revoke the license of the only nurse at a controversial abortion clinic in the state for allegedly providing substandard care and improperly administering drugs. ...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A 33-year-old Polish man received a face transplant just three weeks after being disfigured in a workplace accident, in what his doctors said Wednesday is the fastest time frame to date for such an operation. It was Poland's first face transplant.

By Barbara Liston and Mark Hosenball ORLANDO, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Chechen immigrant who was being questioned about his possible links to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was shot and killed by a federal agent in Florida on Wednesday after he suddenly turned violent, the FBI said. A friend of the dead man identified him to Reuters as 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, who had previously lived in Boston and knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers suspected of planting two bombs at the marathon on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264. ...

Zach Sobiech's "Clouds" became a YouTube sensation with more than 4 million views.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen since 2009. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama in which he plans to pledge more transparency to Congress in his counterterrorism policy.

A fourth-grade field trip to a Mississippi River park popular with fossil hunters turned deadly Wednesday when gravel saturated by persistent rain gave way, killing one child and injuring two others.

A report shows responders didn't adequately train for the situation.

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Merck & Co's experimental insomnia drug moved a step closer to U.S. approval on Wednesday after a panel of medical experts said it is effective and safe at lower doses. The advisory panel was convened to help the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decide whether to approve the drug, suvorexant, which would be the first in a new class of sedatives that block chemicals in the brain called orexins that help keep people awake. The drugs are designed to help people fall asleep and stay asleep. ...

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Merck & Co's experimental insomnia drug moved a step closer to U.S. approval on Wednesday after a panel of medical experts said it is effective and safe at lower doses. The advisory panel was convened to help the U.S. Food and Drug Administration decide whether to approve the drug, suvorexant, which would be the first in a new class of sedatives that block chemicals in the brain called orexins that help keep people awake. The drugs are designed to help people fall asleep and stay asleep. ...

Rather than significantly hardening tooth enamel, fluoride may cut cavities by making it harder for oral bacteria to stick around. Karen Hopkin reports.

The horrific daylight attack that left one person dead could have been worse.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Voters approved a law limiting the number of medical pot shops in Los Angeles after politicians failed for years to corral the blossoming industry.

By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday unanimously approved legislation that would increase federal oversight for companies that compound and sell sterile drugs across state lines. The proposed legislation was introduced in response to a meningitis outbreak last fall that killed more than 50 people and sickened more than 700. The outbreak was traced to contamination found in steroid injections made by the New England Compounding Center. The bill was passed unanimously on a voice vote by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee. ...

By Toni Clarke WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Merck & Co's experimental insomnia drug was safe and effective at the lower of two doses studied, a panel of medical experts said on Wednesday, increasing the chance it will be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The advisory panel was convened to help the FDA decide whether to approve the drug, suvorexant, which would be the first in a new class of sedatives designed to help people fall asleep and stay asleep. ...

It promises full refunds for trips that are canceled due to mechanical failure.

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

Authorities in South Florida say a man is charged with murder because he was overheard discussing the killing when his cellphone pocket-dialed 911.

By Verna Gates BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - U.S. and state health authorities are investigating an unidentified respiratory illness that has killed two of 10 people hospitalized with it in Alabama since last week. Preliminary tests do not indicate the bird flu, nor a new mutation of any known influenza virus, said Dr. Mary McIntyre, an assistant state health officer at the Alabama Department of Public Health. Two patients did test positive for the H1N1 strain of the flu. ...