Author: Reporter

America’s drugstores are testing smaller locations and more ways to offer care as price-sensitive shoppers look elsewhere. Customers may see Walgreens stores that are one-fourth the size of a regular location or CVS drugstores with entire primary clinics stuffed inside. If these experiments succeed, the new stores might improve access to care and create a more lasting connection with customers, analysts say. “Everyone looks at health care and says, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a market that’s ripe for disruption,'” said Neil Saunders, managing director of consulting and data analysis firm GlobalData. “But it isn’t easy to disrupt.” Walgreens CEO Tim...

Lauren Bell was stressed out and just starting her first job post-college in New York City when she realized a bout of food poisoning was not going away after weeks. A doctor’s appointment revealed she had irritable bowel syndrome, a surprising diagnosis — until she learned more about the connection between mental health and gut health, as well as the prevalence of digestive problems among women. “Working in a pretty intense environment, living in the city, and being an adult for the first time was doing a number on my body,” the 27-year-old said of her diagnosis five years...

New blood tests could help doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s disease faster and more accurately, researchers reported in July. But some appear to work far better than others. It is tricky to tell if memory problems are caused by Alzheimer’s. That requires confirming one of the disease’s hallmark signs, the buildup of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid, with a hard-to-get brain scan or uncomfortable spinal tap. Many patients instead are diagnosed based on symptoms and cognitive exams. Labs have begun offering a variety of tests that can detect certain signs of Alzheimer’s in blood. Scientists are excited by their potential but...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is embroiled in a second flag controversy in as many weeks, this time over a banner that in recent years has come to symbolize sympathies with the Christian nationalist movement and the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. An “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown last summer outside Alito’s beach vacation home in New Jersey, according to The New York Times, which obtained several images showing it on different dates in July and September 2023. The Times previously reported that an upside-down American flag — a sign of distress —...

Tulsa officials announced the creation of a new commission to recommend how reparations can be made for a 1921 massacre that destroyed a thriving Black community in the city. The panel will review a 2023 report for the city and a 2001 report by a state commission on Tulsa Race Massacre in which a white mob killed as many as 300 Black residents and burned the city’s Greenwood District to the ground. Both reports called for financial reparations, which Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has opposed. Reparations will almost certainly include a housing equity program, as the Beyond Apology Commission’s...