Health

Thana Prasongsin/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — Confusion abounded after a federal judge in Florida struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel mask mandate Monday. The mandate, first announced in January 2021, required travelers to wear masks on airplanes, in airports and other travel hubs, and while riding public transit. But Judge Kathryn […]

Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — After a federal judge struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s travel mask mandate Monday, several airlines and companies moved to act. All major airlines, including American, United, Southwest and Delta, said face coverings will now be optional for travelers. Ride-share companies, such as Uber and Lyft, […]

duckycards/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — In the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of Americans died from drug overdoses. Although months of data is still incomplete, statistics show that most of the deaths involve the potent drug fentanyl. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, fentanyl is 50 to 100 […]

ABC News (NEW YORK) — As experts warn about the spread of COVID-19 misinformation in online parent groups, one mom is speaking out about how she inadvertently became an anti-vaccine influencer. Heather Simpson of Dallas, Texas, said she turned to wellness groups and became an online influencer almost overnight when she posted anti-vaccine beliefs on […]

Courtesy Aliesha and Chris Smith (SAN DIEGO) — A 2-year-old girl who spent the first two years of her life in the hospital is back home with her parents and younger brother in California. It was a joyous homecoming for Addy Smith, who left the hospital on April 5 after 848 days of treatment at […]

iStock/NanoStockk (NEW YORK) — More than 8,000 nurses and health care workers in Northern California are planning a one-day strike Monday over staffing and other COVID-19-related concerns. The employees of Sutter Health, a health delivery system headquartered in Sacramento, are planning to strike at 15 facilities — including locations in Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Santa […]

InspectIR Systems (NEW YORK) — The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 test that uses breath samples — the first of its kind to get the agency’s green light. The device, called the InspectIR Covid-19 Breathalyzer, is “about the size of a piece of carry-on luggage,” and can accurately detect […]

Cavan Images/Getty Images (NEW YORK) — For years, Maria Sylvia ignored a straight, brown streak that had appeared on her right thumbnail. The 25-year-old shared what it looked like in a TikTok video last month and wrote, “me: having this for 10 years, thinking it was a cool streak on my nail.” In the next […]

Allison Dinner/Bloomberg via Getty Images (NEW YORK) — After the omicron wave of COVID-19 receded earlier this winter, states and cities across the country moved quickly to ease mitigation measures, leaving many officials hopeful that the virus would soon be in the rear-view mirror, ahead of the looming midterm elections in November. Much of the […]

Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images (NEW YORK) — By this fall, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its partner BioNTech could potentially have a COVID-19 booster that specifically addresses the omicron variant as well as its subvariants and other known strains of the virus, CEO Albert Bourla said during a panel Wednesday. “It is a possibility that […]