Rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of the joints. In rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system ― which is designed to protect our health by attacking foreign cells such as viruses and bacteria ― instead attacks the body’s own tissues, specifically the joints. As a result, fluid buildup causes pain and inflammation. Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic disea...

MINNEAPOLIS ― Christian Peterson has heard the questions so many times that he has stock answers ready: Yes, he knows that he’s running barefoot. No, he didn’t run so fast that he came out of his shoes. And, for the record, he’s not crazy. He has one more answer that typically comes as surprise: It’s not painful. “People are always asking: Does that hurt?” said Peterson, president of the Minneso...

KANSAS CITY ― Forty-nine children in the United States died of heatstroke after they were left in hot cars last year, a grim record. But as child-welfare groups try to prevent more deaths with information campaigns and as inventors work on technical fixes, both efforts founder on a hard reality: Good parents don’t think it can happen to them. It can, experts and statistics say, and new recommen...

Giant book event to feature exhibitions, seminars and meetings with authors The 17th Seoul International Book Fair, one of the biggest book events in Korea, opens June 15 at COEX in southern Seoul with a total of 572 publishers from 23 countries participating. The five-day event is filled with diverse special exhibitions, seminars, and events on a variety of themes in today’s international publ...

PARIS (AFP) - Just in time for Global Smurfs Day and a Smurfs movie in 3-D comes a little blue book from a French academic that has some fans of the sock-topped comic book characters seeing red. Antoine Bueno, who lectures at the high-brow Paris Institute of Political Studies, thought he was just having fun when he penned his 177-page analysis of the politics of Smurfland that's just been publis...

Kim Jun-yop, a renowned historian on China and North Korea and the former president of Korea University, died Tuesday at a hospital in Seoul. He was 90. Born in Ganggye, North Pyongyang Province in 1920, Kim was one of Korean independence fighters organized by the Gwangbok Association to end Japanese colonial rule. After Korea’s liberation from Japan, he attended National Central University ― l...

NEW YORK (AP) ― It was Scott Pelley’s first night as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” on Monday, but you’d hardly know it. The veteran “60 Minutes” correspondent made no mention of the change. From Afghanistan to France, through wayward public officials and promising cancer treatments, he covered the news. “I’m Scott Pelley,” the Texan said at the broadcast’s end. “For all of us at CBS News aro...

A girl who has dreamed of being a police officer like her father since she was young is now assigned to work at the police station alongside her father. Shim Soon-tae, 24, has been appointed as police constable and assigned to work at the regional office in Eumseong County in North Chungcheong Province, since June 1. Her father Shim Seong-bo, 52, has been praised for his police work in the regi...

Actress returns in a new type of role in ‘Moby Dick’ Actress Kim Min-hee has returned in a new type of role in the movie “Moby Dick,” set for release on June 9. Kim, who debuted in 1999 with the drama “School 2,” now hopes to broaden the work of her 12-year acting career by playing a wider variety of characters. Her previous roles have been pretty, bubbly characters in romantic comedies. In he...

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― The iconic black and red jacket worn by Michael Jackson in his “Thriller” video is to go under the hammer at a two-day Music Icons Exhibition in Beverly Hills. The jacket is among 600 items that will go on sale at Julien’s Auction Gallery, including memorabilia from musicians such as The Beatles, Madonna and Lady Gaga, Frank Sinatra, Elvis and Justin Bieber on June 25 and 26....