Dr. Bohdan Pomahac of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, the surgeon who led the country's second-ever face transplant operation said he is "cautiously optimistic" over the recovery of the patient and that "so far he is doing very, very well."

Pomahac and his team in a 17 hour surgery Thursday replaced the man's nose, palate, upper lip, and some skin, muscles and nerves with those of a dead donor. He added that the man who was severely injured in a freak accident several years ago has so far chosen to keep his identity a secret, is recovering as expected.

Boston/Berlin - Women who enjoy drinking coffee may be lowering their risk of suffering a stroke, new US research suggests. Women who drank five to seven cups of coffee a week were 12 per cent less likely to have a stroke than were those who downed just one cup a month, the study among 83,000 women revealed.

The survey was carried out over a 24-year period by Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and the findings published in the March issue of the journal Circulation.

According to a new study related to belly fat and heart failure, the body mass index (BMI) and the waist size of people influence their risk of being hospitalized with the heart failure condition or even death from the same.

The findings of the study indicated that each additional BMI point increased the risk of heart failure hospitalization or death by 3 percent in women and 7 percent in men; while a waist-size increase of 10 centimeters furthered the risk by 19 percent in women and 30 percent in men.

Boston (United States), Apr. 2: A US immigration judge has given President Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt ten more months to prepare an argument against her deportation.

The decision came six years after Aunt Zeituni Onyango was first ordered to leave the United States.

"Praise God," said Zeituni Onyango as she stepped out of a closed hearing yesterday morning using a cane and wearing a rust-colored wig.

Boston (US), Feb. 21 : Rumors are doing the rounds that a very sick Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy may pass on his political baton to wife Vicki, as he continues to battle with brain cancer.

Kennedy's friends say that his battle with brain cancer has entered its final rounds, and that he is presently at an undisclosed location in Florida, resting and sailing.

"He's someplace sunny, near the water, where he can rest and sail. Time is of the essence. It's very sad," the Boston Globe quoted one of his friends, as saying.

BOSTON, Dec. 2 - The Massachusetts State Police said an SUV that was pulled over during a routine traffic stop was found to contain more than $400,000 in a hidden compartment.

The State Police said in a statement that Trooper Christopher Coscia spotted the 2005 Honda Pilot weaving outside of marked lines Sunday morning on the Massachusetts Turnpike, WCVB-TV, Boston, reported Tuesday.

The statement said Coscia obtained permission to search the SUV after the driver said he could not offer much information about the vehicle's owner. A drug-sniffing dog, named Axel, was brought in and detected the presence of narcotics in the back of the SUV beneath the third row of seats.