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 [...]
A bird flu outbreak in dairy cows has grown to affect more than two dozen herds in eight states, just weeks after the nation's largest egg producer found the virus in its chickens. Health officials, though, stress that the risk to the public is low and that the American food supply remains safe and stable. [...]
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s auto safety agency has opened an investigation into a Ford recall for gasoline leaks from cracked fuel injectors that can cause engine fires, saying in documents that the remedy doesn’t fix the leaks. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted last week that the probe will [...]
HELENA, Mont. (AP) — An attorney for two people who died of a rare lung cancer argued on this week for a jury to hold BNSF Railway responsible for pollution in a small Montana town near the U.S.-Canada border where thousands of people were exposed to toxic asbestos dust. BNSF — now owned by Warren [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The maker of a drug for Lou Gehrig's disease that recently failed in a large study last week said it will pull the medicine from the market, acknowledging it didn't help patients with the deadly neurological condition. Amylyx Pharmaceuticals announced it will voluntarily halt sales and marketing of the drug in the [...]
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Tucked away inside the teachers’ lounge at a New Hampshire elementary school, Amber Warner was having her teeth checked out for the first time. The 5-year-old sat back on what looked like a beach chair and wore a pair of dark sunglasses as certified public-health dental hygienist Mary Davis surveyed Amber's [...]