LOUIS (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency distributed about $3 billion to states last year to replace harmful lead pipes based on unverified data, according to an agency inspector general's memo, likely meaning some states received too much money and others received too little. Investigators found two states had submitted inaccurate data, the memo dated [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — The number of fatal overdoses in the United States fell last year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data posted last week. Agency officials noted the data is provisional and could change after more analysis, but that they still expect a drop when the final counts are in. It [...]
Sales of raw milk appear to be on the rise, despite years of warnings about the health risks of drinking the unpasteurized products — and an outbreak of bird flu in dairy cows. Since March 25, when the bird flu virus was confirmed in U.S. cattle for the first time, weekly sales of raw cow's [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Deaths of moms around the time of childbirth have fallen back to pre-pandemic levels, new government data suggests. About 680 women died last year during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth, according to provisional CDC data. That’s down from 817 deaths in 2022 and 1,205 in 2021, when it was the highest [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Makers of medical tests that have long escaped government oversight will have about four years to show that their new offerings deliver accurate results, under a new government rule opposed by the testing industry. The regulation finalized earlier this week by the Food and Drug Administration will gradually phase in oversight of [...]
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency said it has finalized a ban on consumer uses of methylene chloride, a chemical that is widely used as a paint stripper but is known to cause liver cancer and other health problems. The EPA said its action will protect Americans from health risks while allowing certain commercial uses [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Ever since college, Brad Jobling struggled with his weight, fluctuating between a low of 155 pounds when he was in his 30s to as high as 220. He spent a decade tracking calories on WeightWatchers, but the pounds he dropped always crept back onto his 5-foot-5-inch frame. A little more than [...]
NEW YORK — Births in the United States fell last year, resuming a long national slide. A little under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, according to provisional statistics released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about 76,000 fewer than the year before and the lowest one-year tally since 1979. Births [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Coal miners will be better protected from poisonous silica dust that has contributed to the premature deaths of thousands of mine workers from a respiratory ailment commonly known as black lung disease, the Labor Department said earlier this week as it issued a new federal rule on miners' safety. The final rule, [...]
California officials voted this week to step in to monitor groundwater use in part of the crop-rich San Joaquin Valley in a first-of-its-kind move that comes a decade after local communities were tasked with managing the precious but strained resource. The State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to start overseeing groundwater pumping in the [...]