Health & Safety

Exterior view of the main historic building (Building 1) of National Institutes of Health (NIH) inside Bethesda campus

National Institutes of Health cancel scientific meetings after Trump directives

1:40pm January 23, 2025

An email obtained by NPR says NIH employees are subject to a travel freeze and offers of employment are being rescinded. Scientists worry about disruptions to critical research.

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January 26, 2014 - U.S. Army Rangers fire an AT-4 at a range on Camp Roberts, California.

Blasts from military weapons may injure the brain through its blood vessels

7:36am January 23, 2025

When military personnel fire certain powerful weapons, they may be exposed to blast waves that damage blood vessels in the brain.

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This scientist studies climate change. Then the Los Angeles fire destroyed his home

7:00am January 23, 2025

by Lauren Sommer

Climate scientist Ben Hamlington works on understanding the impacts of climate change. Losing his house in the Eaton Fire has given that work new meaning.

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This economist survived a wildfire. Now she's taking on California's insurance crisis

6:30am January 23, 2025

An economist's harrowing escape from fire, and her big ideas to rescue California from its insurance doom spiral.

Staff for Promega, a biotechnology company, research colorectal cancer inside a lab. AP PHOTO

Health & Safety

Novant health equity team raised the rate of cancer screenings in Waughtown last year

5:00am January 23, 2025

by Santiago Ochoa

After finding a major health care gap in Winston-Salem's Waughtown neighborhood, a team from Novant Health spent a year increasing colorectal cancer awareness.

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Health & Safety

What life is like in cancer survivorship

6:20pm January 22, 2025

by Yuki Noguchi

Cancer is increasingly survivable, but younger people are getting the disease at higher rates, then facing myriad challenges with life afterward.

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Health & Safety

Trump administration tells federal health agencies to pause external communications

6:04pm January 22, 2025

by John Ketchum

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Washington Post reporter Dan Diamond about the Trump Administration's directive to Department of Health and Human Services agencies to pause all external communications.

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Assessing Trump's claim that U.S. pays 'unfair' share of dues to WHO

4:48pm January 22, 2025

While signing the order to end U.S. membership in the World Health Organization, the President spoke of the disparity between contributions from the U.S. and China. Here's how WHO funding works.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services at 200 Independence Ave. SW i

Federal health agencies told to halt all external communications

3:25pm January 22, 2025

In a memo obtained by NPR, acting Health Secretary Dorothy Fink forbade staff from public communications on most matters until Feb. 1, unless they get express approval from "a presidential appointee."

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Another casualty of Israel's war in Lebanon: Efforts to save endangered turtles

1:00pm January 22, 2025

Lebanese volunteers are anxious to get back to sea turtle conservation on southern beaches that were off-limits to civilians when fighting escalated between Israel and Hezbollah.

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