Oil prices reached a six-month high Tuesday after the Trump administration announced it would no longer exempt countries from U.S. sanctions, if they continue to buy Iranian crude oil, a move aimed at imposing a complete oil embargo on Iran. Waivers granted to eight countries, including big Iranian crude importers China, India, Japan, Turkey and South Korea, are due to expire on May 2. RBC Capital Markets, a global investment bank, has told clients it anticipates a loss of 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of oil a day from markets as …

Oil prices reached a six-month high Tuesday after the Trump administration announced it would no longer exempt countries from U.S. sanctions, if they continue to buy Iranian crude oil, a move aimed at imposing a complete oil embargo on Iran. Waivers granted to eight countries, including big Iranian crude importers China, India, Japan, Turkey and South Korea, are due to expire on May 2. RBC Capital Markets, a global investment bank, has told clients it anticipates a loss of 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of oil a day from markets as …

Americans are becoming increasingly sedentary, spending almost a third of their waking hours sitting down, and computer use is partly to blame, a new study found.   Over almost a decade, average daily sitting time increased by roughly an hour, to about eight hours for U.S. teens and almost 6 1/2 hours for adults, according to the researchers. That includes school and work hours, but leisure-time computer use among all ages increased too.   By 2016, at least half of American kids and adults spent an hour or more of …

A fee dispute between actor Bill Cosby and one in a string of law firms hired to address his legal problems shows the firm was billing Cosby $1 million a month in the run-up to his first sex assault trial. The imprisoned Cosby is challenging a California arbitration award that trims the $9 million bill from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to below $7 million. Cosby, 81, accuses the firm of elder abuse and “egregious” billing practices, and of fraud for representing both him and the insurance company he was …

A new study shows that many teenagers who use e-cigarettes do not understand the amount of addictive nicotine they are inhaling.  The study, published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40 percent of adolescents who believed they were only using nicotine-free products were actually vaping significant amounts of the substance.  The research involved 517 adolescents, aged 12 to 21, who were questioned about their use of e-cigarettes, traditional cigarettes and marijuana.  Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York state compared adolescents’ responses about their use of such …

A new study shows that many teenagers who use e-cigarettes do not understand the amount of addictive nicotine they are inhaling.  The study, published in the American Academy of Pediatrics, found that 40 percent of adolescents who believed they were only using nicotine-free products were actually vaping significant amounts of the substance.  The research involved 517 adolescents, aged 12 to 21, who were questioned about their use of e-cigarettes, traditional cigarettes and marijuana.  Researchers from Stony Brook University in New York state compared adolescents’ responses about their use of such …

The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity. They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers. But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest. SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas …

The endangered killer whales of the Pacific Northwest live very different lives from orcas in captivity. They swim up to 100 miles (161 kilometers) a day in pursuit of salmon, instead of being fed a steady diet of baitfish and multivitamins. Their playful splashing awes and entertains kayakers and passengers on Washington state ferries instead of paying theme park customers. But the captive whales are nevertheless providing a boon to researchers urgently trying to save wild whales in the Northwest. SeaWorld, which displays orcas at its parks in California, Texas …