The aftermath of last year's train derailment in East Palestine doesn't qualify as a public-health emergency because widespread health problems and ongoing chemical exposures haven't been documented, federal officials said. The Environmental Protection Agency never approved that designation after the February 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment even though the disaster forced the evacuation of half the [...]
Medicare can pay for the popular weight-loss drug Wegovy — as long as the patients using it also have heart disease and need to reduce the risk of future heart attacks, strokes and other serious problems, federal officials announced last week. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued new guidance that says Medicare Part [...]
Stress relievers, such as deep breathing and meditation, do far more to reduce rage than venting or blowing off steam, according to recently published research from The Ohio State University. The study, which included analysis of research that involved more than 10,000 participants, found there was no evidence to support the notion that venting about [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency earlier this week announced a comprehensive ban on asbestos, a carcinogen that studies say kills tens of thousands of Americans every year but is still used in some chlorine bleach, brake pads and other products. The final rule marks a major expansion of EPA regulation under a 2016 [...]
As rural hospitals continue to struggle financially, a new type of hospital is slowly taking root, especially in the Southeast. Rural emergency hospitals receive more than $3 million in federal funding a year and higher Medicare reimbursements in exchange for closing all inpatient beds and providing 24/7 emergency care. While that makes it easier for [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — As Salvatore LoGrande fought cancer and all the pain that came with it, his daughters promised to keep him in the white, pitched roof house he worked so hard to buy all those decades ago. Sandy LoGrande therefore thought it was a mistake when, a year after her father's death, Massachusetts billed [...]
HOBOKEN, N.J. — Street parking was already scarce in Hoboken when the death of an elderly pedestrian spurred city leaders to remove even more spaces in a bid to end traffic fatalities. For seven years now, the city of nearly 60,000 people has reported resounding success: Not a single automobile occupant, bicyclist or pedestrian has [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — There’s nothing complicated about the latest tobacco product trending online: Zyn is a tiny pouch filled with nicotine and flavoring. It has stoked a debate among politicians, parents and pundits that reflects an increasingly complex landscape in which Big Tobacco companies aggressively push alternative products while experts wrestle with their potential benefits [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Emily Hollenbeck lived with a deep, recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both of her parents had taken their lives. She was willing to try something extreme: Having [...]
NEW YORK (AP) — Smoking has surpassed injecting as the most common way of taking drugs in overdose deaths, a new government study suggests. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called its study published last week the largest to look at how Americans took the drugs that killed them. CDC officials decided to study [...]