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Save your food scraps, save the Earth: More cities and states look to composting

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

Matt Vasilogambros | Stateline.org (TNS)In its fight against both climate change and rats, the New York City Council overwhelmingly passed a new ordinance earlier this month that will require residents to dispose of food scraps and yard waste in vermin-proof curbside containers for future compost, diverting organic materials from landfills and turning them into rich soil.If signed by Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, the city’s mandate would be the largest municipal composting program in the country, keeping 8 million pounds of organic waste every day out of landfills (around the weight of 160 full garbage trucks) and drastically reducing the city’s methane emissions.The Big Apple’s composting plans are both ambitious and aggressive, said Council Member Sandy Nurse, who chairs the Committee on Sanitation and pushed for a “zero waste” legislative package that includes the composting measure. The council passed it by a veto-proof margin. Once the city rolls out curbside organic waste colle...

Is a cancer clinical trial right for me?

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

Mayo Clinic Staff | (TNS) Mayo Clinic News NetworkClinical trials, also known as clinical studies, help medical researchers understand how to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer and other diseases and conditions. Healthcare professionals translate findings from clinical trials into treatments that can lead to longer, healthier lives for people with cancer.Clinical trials are an important option to consider if you’re facing a cancer diagnosis. Joining a clinical trial may provide experimental treatment options you may not otherwise have.What is a clinical trial?Research studies that involve people are called clinical trials. Researchers design cancer clinical trials to test new ways to find, diagnose, prevent and treat cancer and to manage cancer symptoms and the side effects of cancer treatment.People who volunteer to participate in clinical trials help researchers test:— New drugs or drug combinations.— New medical procedures.— New devices or surgical techniq...

Bruins trade Taylor Hall to Blackhawks to clear cap space

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

The first shoe to drop in the Bruins’ offseason was a big one – if not an unexpected one.To clear up cap space, the B’s traded Taylor Hall to the Chicago Blakchawks on Monday. The B’s also included the rights to Nick Foligno, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent on Saturday.The move sends Hall and his $6 million cap hit for the next two seasons to the Hawks, who may still be in rebuilding mode but Hall could get the chance to ride shotgun with the player many believe will be the next great player in Connor Bedard, who is expected to be taken by Chicago with the first overall pick in Wednesday’s draft.In return, the B’s get two young defensmen, 22-year-old Alec Regula, a 6-foot-4, 208-pound third round draft pick in 2018, and 24-year-old Ian Mitchell, a second round pick in 2017, a 5-foot-11, 173-pound blueliner who played for coach Jim Montgomery at the University of Denver.Both are right shot defensemen, which could signal there could be a D...

Drugmakers are abandoning cheap generics, and now US cancer patients can’t get meds

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

Arthur Allen | KFF Health News (TNS)On Nov. 22, three FDA inspectors arrived at the sprawling Intas Pharmaceuticals plant south of Ahmedabad, India, and found hundreds of trash bags full of shredded documents tossed into a garbage truck. Over the next 10 days, the inspectors assessed what looked like a systematic effort to conceal quality problems at the plant, which provided more than half of the U.S. supply of generic cisplatin and carboplatin, two cheap drugs used to treat as many as 500,000 new cancer cases every year.Seven months later, doctors and their patients are facing the unimaginable: In California, Virginia, and everywhere in between, they are being forced into grim contemplation of untested rationing plans for breast, cervical, bladder, ovarian, lung, testicular, and other cancers. Their decisions are likely to result in preventable deaths.Cisplatin and carboplatin are among scores of drugs in shortage, including 12 other cancer drugs, attention-deficit/hyperactivity d...

Lupica: Bad as it looks for Yankees, things could be worse

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

You know all the things Yankee fans don’t like about their team, and the way the season has gone so far, starting with what really has become the most famous stubbed toe maybe in baseball history. It’s the one belonging to Aaron Judge. Big toe for the big guy, big problem for the Yankees, probably you’ve noticed.So go ahead and start there, and then move quickly to a Yankee offense that is scoring about as well lately as New York City FC. Then there’s the roster, one that never really had a leftfielder coming into the season, and still had Josh Donaldson on it. You can throw in Giancarlo Stanton, the other big guy, who moves up on the Fourth of July in baseball barely hitting more than Domingo German’s weight.Sometimes you get the idea that the only thing making Yankee fans happy at this point in the season is that they’re not rooting for the Mets.But as mad as they are at Hal Steinbrenner and Brian Cashman, as mad as they constantly are with a ma...

Florida couple drop suit against OceanGate CEO who died in Titan sub

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

The Winter Park, Florida, couple who sued OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush for fraud have dropped the lawsuit in light of his death aboard the lost Titan submersible, according to a statement released by the couple’s spokesperson Monday.Marc and Sharon Hagle, the millionaire adventurers who previously were the first married couple to go on a commercial space flight in 2022, sued Rush for fraud in February after multiple planned expeditions to the wreckage of the Titanic were delayed and they said they were denied a refund.“Like most around the world, we have watched the coverage of the OceanGate Titan capsule with great concern and enormous amount of sadness and compassion for the families of those who lost their lives,” the statement said. “We honor their zest for life, as well as their commitment to the exploration of our oceans.”The couple have informed their attorneys to withdraw all legal actions against Rush in light of his death, according to the statement. The spokesperson, Jessi...

Trying to save his life, lawyers for Pittsburgh synagogue gunman argue he is mentally ill

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The gunman convicted in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history had psychotic, delusional and paranoid symptoms that made him unable to understand the world or make appropriate decisions, his lawyer said Monday, launching an effort to persuade jurors to spare his life.Robert Bowers has had a psychotic condition since childhood, as well as serious brain defects and a history of suicide attempts, defense lawyer Michael Burt said on the opening day of the penalty phase of Bowers’ federal trial. Bowers was convicted this month in the 2018 killings of 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.The defense argues that Bowers was unable to form the requisite level of intent to allow the jury to impose a death sentence. Medical tests found Bowers’ brain to be “structurally deficient,” with symptoms of epilepsy and schizophrenia, Burt said.Prosecutor Troy Rivetti, in his opening statement Monday, said the government wa...

Supreme Court unfreezes Louisiana redistricting case that could boost Black voting power before 2024

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday lifted its hold on a Louisiana political remap case, increasing the likelihood that the Republican-dominated state will have to redraw boundary lines to create a second mostly Black congressional district. The development revived Black Louisianans’ optimism of creating a second majority-Black district in the Deep South state. For more than a year, there has been a legal battle over the GOP-drawn political boundaries, with a federal judge, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and opponents saying that the map is unfair and discriminates against Black voters. The map, which was used in Louisiana’s November congressional election, has white majorities in five of six districts — despite Black people accounting for one-third of the state’s population. “I’m super excited,” Ashley Shelton, head of the Louisiana-based Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, one of the groups challenging the maps, said following Monday’s news. “What...

Trudeau taking cautious approach with uprising to avoid fuelling Russian propaganda

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada is monitoring the events in Russia after a short-lived uprising over the weekend, but taking a cautious approach to avoid fuelling Russian propaganda. “We are watching, of course, and we are reflecting carefully on what the implications could be either in Ukraine or elsewhere along eastern Europe, including in Latvia where Canadians are stationed right now,” Trudeau told reporters in Iceland on Monday. “I think we need to make sure that we are not facilitating the liberal use of propaganda and disinformation that we know the Russians tend to do.”A brief armed revolt in Russia over the weekend by Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the mercenary paramilitary organization known as the Wagner Group, has loomed large over the two-day gathering of Nordic leaders in Iceland, pushing security to the top of the agenda.Prigozhin, who is feuding with Russia’s top military leaders, had led his troops through ...

Air quality statements in effect for smoky, northeastern parts of Ontario

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:00:25 GMT

Anne Pegg has never seen wildfire smoke linger for so long in the northeastern Ontario mining town of Kirkland Lake, where she’s lived for more than 40 years.Outside her window, the 71-year-old said she sees nothing but hazy skies caused by a number of wildfires burning around her community, triggering special air quality statements across northern and eastern Ontario and causing high levels of air pollution.“It’s affecting a lot of people in different ways,” Pegg said in a phone interview on Monday as wildfires burned near Watabeag Lake, only about an hour drive northwest from her home.“I was getting some prescriptions delivered, and the girl was so late bringing them because she has been so busy. She told me, ‘Between the heat and the smoke, the seniors won’t leave their house.'”Quebec wildfires causing high levels of pollutionEnvironment Canada says the municipality is expected to be under a blanket of smoke along with other norther...