HEALTH

A special Italian court has shut down a probe into whether the country’s former premier and former health minister caused unnecessary deaths by failing to extend a lockdown zone in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

A growing number of states are decriminalizing fentanyl testing strips, seeking to protect people who use drugs from unwitting exposure to the highly potent synthetic opioid ravaging the U.S. with overdose deaths.

Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs.

Transgender minors and some adults soon will be banned from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and gender-affirming surgeries under a bill signed by Missouri’s Republican governor.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has been admitted to a Rome hospital for abdominal surgery after developing a hernia linked to a 2021 operation.

Federal appeals court judges are seeking compromise among attorneys involved in a fight over government mandates for preventive health care.

Pope Francis has had three hospitalizations since he was elected pope in 2013, and underwent major surgery as a young man to have part of one lung removed.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has revoked a crucial federal permit for the proposed NewRange Copper Nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota, saying the permit did not comply with the water quality standards set by a sovereign downstream tribe.

A federal appeals court in New Orleans is weighing whether to continue blocking enforcement of a judge's ruling limiting coverage requirements under former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

A new Florida law banning gender-affirming care for minors is getting a lot of attention nationally as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for president, but it's also impacting transgender adults.

New York's fledgling marijuana market doesn't have enough licensed retailers to sell the 300,000 pounds (136,000 kilograms) of cannabis grown by farmers in the state.

Texas has become the most populous state to ban gender-affirming care for minors.

The company that makes the opioid addiction treatment drug Suboxone has reached a $102.5 million settlement of antitrust claims with 41 states and the District of Columbia.

Critics accuse the British administration of running “government by WhatsApp” due to the popularity of the messaging app with politicians and officials.

Dozens of transgender people in Florida who can't afford to move are turning to crowdfunding to help them leave after the passage of new legislation that targets the LGBTQ community.

A college student who authorities say admitted setting fire to a building slated to become Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic is scheduled to appear in federal court.

The Lake County Animal Shelter is set to provide free vaccines for your furry friends on Friday.

The families of two transgender teenagers are suing Idaho officials to block enforcement of a ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers not to use versions of the popular weight-loss drug used in Ozempic and Wegovy and sold online because they might not contain the same ingredients as prescription products and may not be safe or effective.

An Austrian federal court says the state can’t be held liable for a COVID-19 infection from an outbreak at an Alpine ski resort as the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe The Supreme Court of Justice on Thursday announced its verdict in a long-running legal battle involving a German resident who traveled to Ischgl in March 2020 and visited several apres-ski venues before returning home six days later.

U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation continues to see fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court has ruled two state laws banning abortion are unconstitutional, but the procedure remains illegal in the state in most cases.

Summer is in the air, cigarette smoke is not, in Sweden's outdoor bars and restaurants.

A former Connecticut state representative has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for stealing more than $1.2 million from the city of West Haven.

Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo signed a bill into law enshrining existing protections for out-of-state abortion patients and in-state providers on Tuesday, marking a rare occurrence of a Republican governor approving measures that are part of Democrats’ vow to make the western swing state an abortion safe haven.

A study found that a 5,000-mile-long Sargassum seaweed clump off of Florida's east coast has been carrying floating plastics that hold the bacteria.

Federal health officials say people who worked with food while sick or contagious were linked to about 40% of food poisoning outbreaks from restaurants with a known cause between 2017 and 2019.

The Carter Center is sharing the news that former first lady Rosalynn Carter has dementia.

A federal court ruling has cleared the way for OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to settle thousands of legal claims over the toll of opioids.

Boris Johnson established an independent inquiry while he was U.K. prime minister into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A humanitarian charity says that hundreds of refugees in Kenya’s Dadaab camps have been affected by a cholera outbreak as the population in the facilities grows rapidly.

Recent allegations by WNBA player Dearica Hamby that her coach harassed her for being pregnant have shined a renewed spotlight on one of the biggest challenges that female professional athletes face.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has signed legislation that will ban discrimination based on body size by adding weight and height to the list of protected categories such as race, sex and religion.

Emergency dispatch logs in Portland, Oregon, show that a man died while waiting over a half-hour for an ambulance after being struck by a hit-and-run driver last month.

Elon Musk’s brain implant company Neuralink says it's gotten permission from U.S. regulators to begin testing its device in people.

Iowa teachers are now banned from raising gender identity or sexual orientation issues with children through the sixth grade.

A judge has put a temporary halt to South Carolina’s new law banning most abortions around six weeks of pregnancy until the state Supreme Court can review the measure.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has stripped one of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors of its license to sell highly addictive painkillers after determining it failed to flag thousands of suspicious, high-volume orders at the height of the opioid crisis.

United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on social media and youth mental health, noting that social media can pose risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children.

A U.S. study suggests 1 in 10 people are getting long COVID after an omicron infection, a lower estimate than earlier in the pandemic.

Colorado medical providers will need to get patients’ prior consent before medical students can perform pelvic exams on them while they are unconscious for a procedure under a bill signed into law.

A new study suggests dozens of U.S. cities are at risk for mpox outbreaks this summer.

U.S. health regulators have given full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 pill Paxlovid.

A wave of newly approved abortion restrictions in the Southeastern United States has sent providers scrambling to reconfigure their services for a region with already severely limited access.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on Wednesday pledged to sign a federal ban on abortion but again did not set down a marker for what timeline such a proposal should encompass.

A new study shows a daily multivitamin may boost memory function in some people, although the results don't change recommendations about use of the supplements.

Planned Parenthood is shifting funding to its state affiliates and cutting national office staff.

Jimmy Carter's grandson says the former president remains in good spirits three months after entering end-of-life care at home.

Orange County Fire Rescue teamed up with Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children for a water rescue drill early Tuesday.

The only five women in South Carolina’s 46-member Senate have vowed to resist new abortion restrictions up for debate after the group filibustered a near-total ban last month.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, is calling for “immediate action” by tech companies and lawmakers to protect kids’ and adolescents’ mental health on social media.

The U_S_ Surgeon General is warning there is not enough evidence to show that social media is safe for young people — and is calling on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now.”.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee is condemning an unusual rise in the number of withdrawal requests to the city's organ donation system, saying police will investigate suspicious cases.

A lawsuit has been filed against medical transport provider American Medical Response West, saying the ambulance company’s lax oversight allowed a paramedic to sexually assault two women in their 80s while en route to a hospital.

U.S. health regulators have approved a new nasal spray to reverse overdoses due to fentanyl and other powerful opioids.

Republican Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is scheduled to sign a bill Monday that bans abortion at 12 weeks of pregnancy and restricts gender-affirming medical care for people younger than 19.

More Texas women who were told they could not end pregnancies with fatal fetal anomalies or that endangered their health are challenging the state's restrictive abortion laws.

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has tested positive for COVID-19 for the first time after returning home from work trips in Africa and Asia.

The death in Border Patrol custody of an 8-year-old Panamanian girl is the second child migrant fatality in two weeks under government supervision, raising questions about how prepared authorities are to address medical emergencies of people arriving after an often-exhausting journey.

Martina Navratilova is doing “OK” after being diagnosed with throat cancer and breast cancer.

Before Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman checked himself in to a hospital for clinical depression in February, he used to walk the halls of the Senate stone-faced and dressed in formal suits.

Unfounded claims about Indiana University’s sex research institute, its founder and child sex abuse have been so persistent over the years that when the Legislature prohibited the institute from using state dollars, one lawmaker hailed the move as “long overdue.”.

Officials in Colorado and Montana have issued air quality alerts due to smoke from dozens of wildfires in Canada that has drifted south into the United States.

A nonprofit that describes itself as a collection of doctors and others uniting to “protect healthcare from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology” has become a significant presence in statehouses.

Legislation to restrict gender-affirming care is often pre-written and shopped out by a handful of interest groups.

An Associated Press analysis has found that many of this year’s statehouse proposals to restrict gender-affirming care for youths are identical or very similar to some model legislation.

U.S. health officials are reporting another death and several more cases of vision loss linked to eyedrops tainted with a drug-resistant bacteria.

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis that killed more than 1 million Americans were perhaps “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”.

The parents of three transgender children in Florida are trying to get a federal judge to block a new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors, a signature policy of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis as he nears his presidential campaign.

Transgender people in El Salvador face violence and discrimination in their deeply religious country.

Holding this week’s Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, the site of the world’s first atomic bomb attack, is an attempt by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to promote an anti-nuclear message.

Conservative Nebraska lawmakers are expected to have just enough votes to pass a bill Friday that combines restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors with a 12-week abortion ban.

Rhode Island Gov. Daniel McKee has signed a bill into law that would let state funds be used to pay for health insurance plans that cover state workers and Medicaid recipients seeking abortions.

A group of parents and their transgender children asked a federal court Wednesday to block a Florida law signed hours earlier by Gov. Ron DeSantis that bans gender-affirming care for minors.

Federal health advisers are debating a first-of-its-kind RSV vaccine to protect newborns by immunizing their moms late in pregnancy.

Factors largely outside of farmers’ control – from the increasingly unpredictable weather to growing costs of everything from fuel to loans – make the threat of losing the beloved family farm a constant worry.

Hundreds of measures targeting transgender people have been proposed in statehouses this year, and several have moved forward this week.

Soccer officials, scientists, medical professionals and others have gathered in Chicago for a head injury summit.

Work requirements for federal aid programs have emerged as a sticking point in ongoing negotiations over raising the nation’s debt ceiling, and President Joe Biden has signaled openness to a possible compromise even as many in his party have balked.

Illinois is more protective of abortion access than most any state.

Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has asked a federal judge to allow her to remain free through the Memorial Day weekend before surrendering to authorities on May 30.

Drug overdose deaths in the U.S. rose slightly in 2022.

Florida is banning gender affirming care for minors among a series of anti-LGBTQ+ bills signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Abortion bans are back on the agenda for lawmakers in the Carolinas and Nebraska this week.

As more Southern states pass new restrictions on abortion, Virginia is poised to become an outlier in the region for its relatively permissive laws.

A federal appeals court in New Orleans hears arguments Wednesday on whether a drug used in the most common method of abortion was properly approved by a government agency more than two decades ago.

Missouri officials terminated the Republican attorney general’s emergency rule that would have placed limits on transgender care for minors and some adults.

YouTube is great at sending users videos that it thinks they'll like based on their interests.

Federal regulators are suing to block biotech drug developer Amgen’s more than $26 billion deal for Horizon Therapeutics.

Four more former professional soccer players have been diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

The Templeton Prize — one of the world's largest annual individual awards — is being awarded this year to a nurse-midwife who for decades has strived to improve women’s health care in East Africa.

American lore is full of tales of the lone cowboy, the rugged individualist who will do what needs to be done and ride off into the sunset.

Lawmakers in the state of Washington are going into special session hoping to avert a crisis over the decriminalization of drugs.

Three appeals court judges with a history of supporting restrictions on abortion will hear arguments May 17 on whether a widely used abortion drug should remain available.

North Carolina’s Republican-controlled Senate voted Tuesday to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy in the first of two steps necessary to enact the policy over Gov. Roy Cooper’s opposition.

Democratic and Republican leaders in the Washington Statehouse have reached a tentative deal on a major new drug policy, one that would avoid making the state the second to decriminalize the possession of controlled substances.

A federal judge’s ruling striking down a key part of the Affordable Care Act has been temporarily put on hold by a federal appeals court in New Orleans.

Coverage of fertility treatments remains hard to find in many corners of health insurance even as it grows briskly with big employers that see it as a must-have benefit to keep workers.

President Joe Biden has tapped a cancer specialist to become director of the National Institutes of Health.

Vending machines that have long been stocked with snacks are getting repurposed to distribute life-saving supplies to fight the opioid epidemic.