Latest Health News

UN report says 282 million people faced acute hunger in 2023, with the worst famine in Gaza

Apr. 25, 2024 01:47 AM EDT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Nearly 282 million people in 59 countries suffered from acute hunger in 2023, with war-torn Gaza as the territory with the largest number of people facing famine, according to the Global Report on Food Crises released Wednesday. The U.N. report said 24 million...

Climate change is bringing malaria to new areas. In Africa, it never left

Apr. 25, 2024 01:13 AM EDT

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — When a small number of cases of locally transmitted malaria were found in the United States last year, it was a reminder that climate change is reviving or migrating the threat of some diseases. But across the African continent malaria has never left, killing or sickening...

Malaria is still killing people in Kenya, but a vaccine and local drug production may help

Apr. 25, 2024 01:08 AM EDT

MIGORI, Kenya (AP) — As the coffin bearing the body of Rosebella Awuor was lowered into the grave, heart-wrenching sobs from mourners filled the air. Her sister Winnie Akinyi, the guardian to Awuor’s orphaned son, fell to the ground, wailing. It was the latest of five deaths in...

US births fell last year, marking an end to the late pandemic rebound, experts say

Apr. 25, 2024 00:20 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. births fell last year, resuming a long national slide. A little under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, according to provisional statistics released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's about 76,000 fewer than the year before...

US abortion battle rages on with moves to repeal Arizona ban and a Supreme Court case

Apr. 25, 2024 00:15 AM EDT

Action in courts and state capitals around the U.S. this week have made it clear again: The overturning of Roe v. Wade and the nationwide right to abortion did not settle the issue. One iteration of the issue was back before the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday for the second time in...

Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to let Arizona doctors provide abortions in California

Apr. 24, 2024 20:11 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Arizona doctors could give their patients abortions in California under a proposal announced Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom to circumvent a ban on nearly all abortions in the neighboring state. It would apply only to doctors licensed in good standing in...

New California rule aims to limit health care cost increases to 3% annually

Apr. 24, 2024 19:49 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Doctors, hospitals and health insurance companies in California will be limited to annual price increases of 3% starting in 2029 under a new rule state regulators approved Wednesday in the latest attempt to corral the ever-increasing costs of medical care in the United...

Relatives of those who died waiting for livers at now halted Houston transplant program seek answers

Apr. 24, 2024 19:47 PM EDT

DALLAS (AP) — Several relatives of patients who died while waiting for a new liver said Wednesday they want to know if their loved ones were wrongfully denied a transplant by a Houston doctor accused of manipulating the waitlist to make some patients ineligible to receive a new organ. ...

Key moments in the Supreme Court's latest abortion case that could change how women get care

Apr. 24, 2024 18:29 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court heard its first test on Wednesday of state abortion bans that have been enacted since the court upended the Roe v. Wade constitutional right to abortion. While the current case involves an Idaho abortion ban, the court’s ruling could have implications...

Tennessee lawmakers join movement allowing some teachers to take guns into schools

Apr. 24, 2024 18:27 PM EDT

Some public school teachers in Tennessee could gain new powers to carry concealed guns into the classroom, a year after a deadly school shooting in the state's capital city stirred impassioned debate about the best ways to curb such violence. The Republican-led Legislature in...