Health & Safety

Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter begins closing statements during the opioid trial at the Cleveland County Courthouse in Norman, Okla., on Monday, July 15. It's the first public trial to emerge from roughly 2,000 U.S. lawsuits aimed at holding drugma

Health & Safety

Pain Meds As Public Nuisance? Oklahoma Tests A Legal Strategy For Opioid Addiction

5:55pm July 16, 2019

by Jackie Fortier

The first civil trial against an opioid manufacturer, Johnson & Johnson, has ended in Oklahoma. The verdict could affect lawsuits filed by other local and state governments coping with addiction.

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Bacteria (purple) in the bloodstream can trigger sepsis, a life-threatening illness.

Health & Safety

Regulations That Mandate Sepsis Care Appear To Have Worked In New York

5:16pm July 16, 2019

by Richard Harris

Sepsis, the body's overreaction to infection, strikes more than a million Americans a year and kills more than 250,000. Evidence suggests that regulations can improve its diagnosis and patient care.

Medicare Advantage plans, administered by private insurance companies under contract with Medicare, treat more than 22 million seniors — more than 1 in 3 people on Medicare.

Health & Safety

Medicare Advantage Plans Overbill Taxpayers By Billions Annually, Records Show

3:08pm July 16, 2019

The federal government wants to deploy several new tools for catching insurers that have overcharged Medicare $30 billion in the past three years alone. But the insurance industry is balking.

Blue Cross And Blue Shield Creating Over 150 New Jobs In The Triad

11:35am July 16, 2019

by Neal Charnoff

Blue Cross and Blue Shield has announced it's bringing at least 350 new jobs to North Carolina. Many of the positions will be in the Triad.

Oklahoma Opioid Trial Ends

6:08pm July 15, 2019

by Jackie Fortier

Monday was the last day in a widely-watched trial about opioid addiction in Oklahoma. The state sued opioid manufacturers, but only Johnson & Johnson fought it in court after others settled.

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Huge crowds turn up each week to watch a game of baseball on a woodchip field, where the players wear snowshoes.

Crowds Gather Each Week In Wisconsin To Watch Their Teams Play Ball — In Snowshoes

4:16pm July 15, 2019

by Mackenzie Martin

Snowshoe baseball commentator Jimmy Soyck says you can't actually run in snowshoes. It's all in the shuffle.

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Parental drug use is increasingly cited as the reason to remove kids from their homes and place them in foster care. Some argue more should be done to keep families together.

More Kids Are Getting Placed In Foster Care Because Of Parents' Drug Use

12:36pm July 15, 2019

by Susie Neilson

With drug use surging in the past decade and a half, many parents are losing custody of their kids. But is foster care the best solution?

Smith Reynolds Airport Proposes Rifle Hunt To Manage Deer Population

11:43am July 15, 2019

by Neal Charnoff

Officials at Smith Reynolds Airport in Winston-Salem have proposed a rifle hunt to help manage the local deer population. Wildlife officials say the deer pose a major safety concern.

Taking care of a newborn can be relentless and at some point, many parents need the baby to sleep — alone and quietly — for a few hours. So what does science say about the controversial practice of sleep training?

Health & Safety

Sleep Training Truths: What Science Can (And Can't) Tell Us About Crying It Out

9:06am July 15, 2019

by Michaeleen Doucleff

Some parents swear by it. They say it's the only way they and their babies get any sleep. Others parents say it's harmful. So what does the science say? Here we separate fiction from fact.

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Federal Clampdown On Burning Man Imperils Festival's Free Spirit Ethos, Say Burners

11:11pm July 14, 2019

by Emma Bowman

As the Bureau of Land Management tightens its grip on the annual gathering's population growth at Nevada's Black Rock desert, a freewheeling community finds its core identity under threat.