Author: Reporter

Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states. Calling New York City and Chicago “crime dens,” the criminally indicted front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination told his audience, “The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,” he said. “Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.” Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use...

As U.S. doctors scale back their use of opioid painkillers, a new option for hard-to-treat pain is taking root: ketamine, the decades-old surgical drug that is now a trendy psychedelic therapy. Prescriptions for ketamine have soared in recent years, driven by for-profit clinics and telehealth services offering the medication as a treatment for pain, depression, anxiety and other conditions. The generic drug can be purchased cheaply and prescribed by most physicians and some nurses, regardless of their training. With limited research on its effectiveness against pain, some experts worry the U.S. may be repeating mistakes that gave rise to...

The World Health Organization says it has made an official request to China for information about a potentially worrying spike in respiratory illnesses and clusters of pneumonia in children. The U.N. health agency cited unspecified media reports and a global infectious disease monitoring service as reporting clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children in northern China. In a statement on November 22, WHO said it was unclear whether those were linked to a rise in respiratory infections reported by Chinese authorities. Outside scientists said the situation warranted close monitoring, but were not convinced that the recent spike in respiratory illnesses...

As soon as the federal pandemic relief started arriving at America’s schools, so did the relentless calls. Tech companies by the dozens wanted a chance to prove their software was what schools needed. Best of all, they often added, it wouldn’t take a dime from district budgets: Schools could use their new federal money. They did, and at a tremendous scale. An analysis of public records found many of the largest school systems spent tens of millions of dollars in pandemic money on software and services from tech companies, including licenses for apps, games, and tutoring websites. Schools, however,...