Health

California’s wildfire-prone landscape stoked by human actions

By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

Scientists say California has a really flammable ecosystem and global warming is making it worse.

Michigan will pay residents $600 million for Flint water crisis

By John Flesher, Associated Press

It is intended to resolve all legal actions against the state for its role in a disaster that made the impoverished, majority-Black city a nationwide symbol of governmental mismanagement.

FDA blocks much-anticipated BioMarin hemophilia gene therapy

By Linda A. Johnson, Associated PRess

Investors fled drug developer BioMarin in droves on Wednesday, driving shares down by a third after U.S. regulators rejected the company's potentially game-changing hemophilia A gene therapy.

Pharmacists can give childhood shots, U.S. officials say

By Mike Stobbe, Associated Press

Public health officials have been worried that vaccination rates would fall because doctors' offices were closed by the pandemic. The authorization allows state-licensed pharmacies to administer childhood vaccines without a doctor's prescription.

Lax approach to virus at Trump campaign events sends confusing message, health experts say

By Thomas Beaumont, Associated Press

Hundreds of supporters of President Donald Trump stood and sat shoulder to shoulder in Yuma, Arizona, this week, against the advice of Trump's own health experts.

Why wearing a mask and breathing in less coronavirus probably means you get less sick

By Monica Gandhi, The Conversation

In places where everyone wears a mask, cases of COVID-19 seem to be less severe. Evidence from labs and outbreaks suggests that masks protect not only others, but the person wearing the mask, too.

California power operators plead for conservation, Gov. Newsom declares emergency over wildfires

By Janie Har, Associated Press

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared an emergency Tuesday over wildfires burning throughout California as the state's power grid operator pleaded for continued conservation to avoid rolling blackouts.