Monday, Dec 23rd
Last update09:22:09 AM GMT
Health Glance
The world’s largest hornet, an invasive breed nicknamed the “murder hornet” for its dangerous sting and ability to slaughter a hive of honeybees in as little as 90 minutes, has been declared eradicated in the US, five years after being spotted for the first time in Washington state near the Canadian border.
The Washington and US Departments of Agriculture announced the eradication on Wednesday, saying there had been no detections of the northern giant hornet in Washington since 2021.
The case against the Montana law now goes to trial before District Court Judge Jason Marks in Missoula. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in June, as well, after the Biden administration sought to block bans in more than half the states.
A Montana law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors will remain temporarily blocked, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, after justices agreed with a lower court judge who found the law likely violates the state’s constitutional right to privacy.
More than 300,000 people die from drowning every year – and nearly all of these cases are preventable, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO).
It's the first-ever global report from WHO on how to prevent drownings, drawn from surveying 139 countries.
Children are the highest-risk group, the report found. Nearly a quarter of all drowning deaths happen among children under age 4. Another 19% of drowning deaths are among kids between ages 5 and 14.
That means drowning is a leading cause of death for children across the globe.
"It is definitely underrecognized, and it is extremely devastating -- yet so preventable," said Caroline Lukaszyk, a technical officer for injury prevention at the WHO. "No matter where you live, what context you're in, it's still preventable."
The global consulting firm McKinsey and Company Friday agreed to pay $650 million to settle a federal probe into its role in helping "turbocharge" sales of the highly addictive opioid painkiller OxyContin for Purdue Pharma, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Friday.
Federal officials said the influential consulting company - which often advises governments and powerful corporations around the globe - committed crimes while trying to aggressively boost opioid sales.
"It was a strategy, it was executed and it worked," said U.S. attorney Christopher Kavanaugh during a press conference on Friday. "McKinsey's strategy resulted in prescriptions for Oxycontin that were unsafe and medically unnecessary."
World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.
The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.
Although a viable mirror microbe would probably take at least a decade to build, a new risk assessment raised such serious concerns about the organisms that the 38-strong group urged scientists to stop work towards the goal and asked funders to make clear they will no longer support the research.
Providence is now home to the country’s first state-sanctioned facility for people to use illegal drugs under medical supervision. The nonprofit Project Weber/RENEW on Tuesday held a ribbon-cutting to celebrate a years-long effort to bring an overdose prevention center to the Ocean State.
Advocates hope that the new facility will lead to fewer overdose-related deaths in Rhode Island, and more people getting connected with drug treatment. Last year, more than 400 people in Rhode Island died of an overdose.
Three of the court's six conservatives − Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh − said they would have taken the appeal.
A group of Wisconsin parents argued challenges to gender identify support policies are being dismissed by judges across the country before they can be fully litigated because parents can’t show they’ve been affected.
But the policies usurp parental authority even before they’ve been applied to a particular student, the parents argue. And parents may not always know if a gender identify support plan is being used on their child.
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