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Mayo Clinic Minute: Strategies to stay healthy during respiratory virus season

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

DeeDee Stiepan | Mayo Clinic News Network (TNS)Fall and winter are a time when highly contagious viruses that cause respiratory illness usually circulate heavily in communities. Because many of these viruses can lead to serious infection, hospitalization and even death, it’s crucial to arm yourself with strategies that can help prevent illness and keep you and your loved ones safe.In this Mayo Clinic Minute, Dr. Priya Sampathkumar, an infectious diseases expert, outlines some strategies you can use to keep you and your family healthy during respiratory virus season.“Each year we have what we call viral respiratory season where people seem to get colds, and some people get worse infections, including pneumonia,” says Dr. Sampathkumar.The viruses responsible for causing most infections in the fall and winter are influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).One of the best strategies to provide protection against these viruses is vaccination. Annual flu shots a...

Five officers shot and wounded in Minnesota, authorities say; suspect arrested

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

PRINCETON, Minn. (AP) — Five drug task force officers were shot and wounded Thursday while serving a search warrant near the east-central Minnesota city of Princeton, authorities said. The suspect was arrested after a standoff that lasted several hours.A news release from Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck said the officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect when they were confronted by the man, who was injured in the incident and was taken away for treatment after his arrest. The cause and extent of his injuries were not immediately known, the sheriff said.The officers’ injuries were not life-threatening, the sheriff said. Three of the officers were taken to North Memorial Hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale while two were taken to a hospital in St. Cloud.The confrontation started Thursday morning at a home in Glendorado Township, which is a few miles west of Princeton.The officers were part of the Sherburne County Drug Task Force. Three were from the Sherburne Cou...

Mothers of color can’t see if providers have a history of mistreatment. Why not?

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

Sarah Kwon | (TNS) KFF Health NewsWhen Selam Solomon Caldwell and her husband learned she was pregnant last year, the stakes for finding the right OB-GYN felt high. Caldwell, a Black woman, had heard stories from family and friends of maternity care providers who ignored their requests or pressured them into cesarean sections without clear medical justification.As a relative newcomer to Los Angeles, the recruiter, now 31, knew few Black people who could recommend doctors who had treated them with respect. She combed review sites, including Google reviews and Healthgrades, but couldn’t find how nearby physicians and hospitals might treat a Black woman like her.“It’s hard to tell if it’s a fellow Black person who’s giving the review,” Caldwell said.Consumer ratings sites rarely identify patient experiences by race or ethnicity and hospitals are under no obligation to reveal the racial and ethnic breakdowns of their patient satisfaction scores. Yet that information could be instrumenta...

US Defense Secretary Austin to visit Israel on Friday to discuss military aid following Hamas attack

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin plans to visit Israel on Friday, the second high-level U.S. official to visit Tel Aviv in two days, in a deliberate show of support and an effort to determine what additional military aid is needed in the war with Hamas.Austin is expected to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said a U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive travel details Austin’s arrival comes just a day after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited and vowed American support for Israel in a meeting with Netanyahu.Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Austin said the U.S. is “working urgently to get Israel what it needs to defend itself, including munitions and our iron Dome interceptor interceptors.”THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House announced that the U.S. government will begin operating evacuation flights to...

Canada committing $10M in humanitarian aid for Israel, Gaza as Canadian flights leave

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

OTTAWA — Canada is giving an initial $10 million in humanitarian assistance for urgent needs in Israel and the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday, while refusing to say whether he agrees with a United Nations warning that Israel is violating international humanitarian law.Meanwhile, the first airlift of Canadians out of Israel was completed earlier Thursday, with 130 citizens, permanent residents or their relatives landing in Athens on a military flight from Tel Aviv.“The situation on the ground is volatile,” Trudeau told reporters in Yellowknife.Canadian officials said Wednesday that about 700 people with a connection to Canada within Israel have asked for help to leave that country since violence broke out on Saturday. The federal government says each of its military flights can take up to 150 passengers.Canada does not usually provide military air transportation when commercial flights are still operating, but the government says people have been ...

Pharmacare would cost public sector billions more a year, but save economy money: PBO

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

OTTAWA — The parliamentary budget officer says a single-payer universal drug plan would cost federal and provincial governments an additional$11.2 billion in the first year, and $13.4 billion in five years.The PBOreleased a report on Thursday that provides an estimate for the cost of a pharmacare program between 2024-25 and 2027-28. It follows up on a previous costing the PBO published in 2017 for a pharmacare plan. The new report calculates the incremental cost of the program, taking into account current spending by governments on public drug plans as well as revenue that would be generated from co-pays under a pharmacare plan.The Liberals have promised to table pharmacare legislation this fall as part of the supply-and-confidence deal the government struck with the NDP.Currently, Canadians pay for their prescription drugs through a mix of public plans, private insurance and out-of-pocket spending. Excluding hospital drugs, the PBO says total prescription drug spending was $36.6 bi...

Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer struggles in cross-examination of the government’s key witness

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyer struggled through a meandering cross-examination of the FTX founder’s former girlfriend Thursday, keeping both the judge and the public guessing as to the defense team’s strategy in countering the testimony of the government’s key witness.Caroline Ellison had testified over the two previous days that Bankman-Fried directed her at several times over the years to pull money from FTX customer accounts to fund investments and trading strategies at Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency hedge fund, Alameda Research. Ellison was the CEO of Alameda when it and FTX collapsed in November of last year. Ellison spent much of her testimony walking the jury through how she repeatedly had to tap into the customer deposits at FTX to solve problems at the hedge fund or at the exchange. FTX deposits would be withdrawn to pay for new investments or political donations, or to hide steep losses on Alameda’s balance sheet, she testified. All of ...

Five months pass since man, 37, with Down Syndrome went missing

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

It has been five months since Nathan, a 37-year-old man with Down Syndrome, went missing and still, police have yet to locate him or provide any updates on where he might be.Police said Nathan was last seen around 7 p.m. on May 12 near Jane Street and Sheppard Avenue West. At the time, the search was upgraded to a level three because police were concerned that Nathan “does not have the ability to take care of himself for this amount of time.”Nathan was new to Toronto after moving to live with his brother and sister. He previously had lived in the Waterloo/Kitchener area and a possible sighting of Nathan in Guelph did not come to fruition. Police took an “all hands on deck” approach that included Toronto police mounted units and police dogs.Jason is Nathan’s cousin who grew up with him. “We were basically like brothers. We lived in the same apartment building, right up until almost our adult years,” said Jason.“And we love playing video games. He was always fu...

New York governor backs suspension of ‘right to shelter’ as migrant influx strains city

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is supporting the city’s effort to suspend a unique legal agreement that requires it to provide emergency housing to homeless people, as a large influx of migrants overwhelms the city’s shelter system. Hochul endorsed the New York City’s challenge to the requirement in a court filing this week, telling reporters Thursday that the mandate was never meant to apply to an international humanitarian crisis.The city has for months sought to roll back the so-called right to shelter rule following the arrival of more than 120,000 migrants since last year. Many of the migrants have arrived without housing or jobs, forcing the city to erect emergency shelters and provide various government services, with an estimated cost of $12 billion over the next few years. The shelter requirement has been in place for more than four decades in New York City, following a legal agreement that required the city to provide temporary housing for...

Federal effort to boost child care in three provinces off to ‘slow start’: report

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:56:17 GMT

An analysis by a public-policy group has found that federal funding meant to bring $10-a-day child care across Canada has stumbled with a “slow start” and “underwhelming results” in three provinces where data is available.The report by Cardus looking at the roll out of the programs in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick found that issues ranging from unspent funding to skilled labour shortages led to missed child care targets.The federal government signed separate, five-year funding agreements with provinces and territories in 2021, committing up to $30 billion in five years toward the establishment of $10-a-day child care.The Cardus report found that B.C. spent just 11 per cent of its federal funding from the initiative in its first year, while only nine per cent of the funding set aside for Indigenous child care was allocated. The report says similar issues arose in Saskatchewan, where a shortage of early-childhood educators limited the provinc...