BEIJING (Reuters) - A ship carrying 130 tons of a corrosive chemical was sinking on China's vast Yangtze River on Friday, but there was immediate no sign of pollution, state media said.

The ship was carrying liquid caustic soda and was sinking in the middle reaches of China's longest river, Xinhua news agency said.

TRENTON, New Jersey (Reuters) - New Jersey on Thursday became the first U.S. state to legislatively abolish the death penalty since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

SILVER SPRING, Maryland (Reuters) - A U.S. advisory panel urged the government on Thursday to reject Merck & Co Inc's latest bid to sell a cholesterol-lowering drug without a prescription.

Seattle - In a scandal now ensnaring some of the nations leading retailers, a series of lawsuits have been filed accusing Wal-Mart, Costco, Target, Safeway, and Wild Oats of consumer fraud for marketing suspect organic milk.

The legal filings in federal courts in Seattle, Denver, and in Minneapolis, against the retailers, come on the heels of class action lawsuits against Aurora Dairy Corporation, based in Boulder, Colorado. The suits against Aurora and the grocery chains allege consumer fraud, negligence, and unjust enrichment concerning the sale of organic milk. This past April, Aurora officials received a notice from the USDA detailing multiple and "willful" violations of federal organic law that were found by federal investigators.

Ever since Freud described religious faith as an illusion and a neurosis there has been tension and at times hostility between religion and psychiatry. Psychiatrists are less religious on average than other physicians, according to previously published data from the same survey, and non-psychiatrist physicians who are religious are less willing to refer their patients to psychiatrists.

They said naturally occurring prostatic acidic phosphatase or PAP, an enzyme produced by the prostate, can form tiny fibers called amyloid fibrils that can capture bits of the human immunodeficiency virus and usher it into cells.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Infestations of sea lice at salmon farms on Canada's west coast are threatening local wild pink salmon populations and could result in their extinction in another four years, Canadian researchers said on Thursday.

BERKELEY -- A California earthquake early warning system now being tested accurately predicted the ground shaking in San Francisco a few seconds before the city felt the Oct. 30, 2007, magnitude 5.4 quake near San Jose, according to a statewide team of seismologists.

Active early warning systems already created in places like Japan, Taiwan, Mexico and Turkey automatically stop elevators at the nearest floor, halt trains, isolate hazardous chemical systems and machinery and move people to a safer location or position.