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Anne-Marie Racovolis- 3rd article Jeopardy

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Anne-Marie Racovolis- 3rd article Jeopardy

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Another source picking up this same story. This can also be found at The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. I think i found enough references to this story to make it in(credibly) credible.

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What we covered here
What we covered here
Spoiler alert: We covered tonight's episode of "Jeopardy!" live as it aired at 7 p.m. ET. Our coverage contains spoilers.

Who is James Holzhauer?: The professional sports bettor from Las Vegas won his 19th episode of "Jeopardy!" tonight. He'll be back tomorrow for game No. 20.

His winnings: So far he's won $1,426,330, and he holds the all-time record for single game winnings.

The record: Holzhauer currently comes in second for highest overall winnings. Ken Jennings, who won $2,520,700 in 2004, holds the record.

Our live coverage has ended, but we'll be back tomorrow night again at the same time. Scroll through the posts below to see how tonight's episode unfolded.

James Holzhauer just won his 19th "Jeopardy!" game. With this win, he's now tied for the third-longest winning streak in the game's history.

This was tonight's final clue: "Founded, according, to tradition in 11 BC, this former capital lies about halfway between Paris and Berlin."

Holzhauer was the only one of the three to get the correct answer - Bonn - but Libby Wood came up with a good joke.

"What is congrats to James," she wrote.

Holzhauer wagered $40,000 and ended up with a daily total of $96,726. His 19-day total is $1,426,330.

Ken Jennings holds the record of the longest streak, which lasted 74 games in 2004, according to the show's Hall of Fame. Second place goes to Julia Collins in 2014. David Madden won 19 games in 2005.

James Holzhauer has $56,726 going into Final Jeopardy. That's (much) more than double of either of his competitors, who have $7,400 and $6,400.

Holzhauer has another runaway game, meaning the other contestants could bet their entire sums and they still wouldn't beat him.

That said, Holzhauer still needs to bet wisely in the final.

James Holzhauer just hit another Daily Double. He wagered $9,812 - a specific figure he's bet before.

Yesterday, Holzhauer explained the significance: He married his wife on Sept. 8, 2012.

"This counts as her gift," Holzhauer joked before answering the question.

The clue: "Captain Corcoran is in command of this title Gilbert & Sullivan Ship."

"Your wife is gonna love you," host Alex Trebek said.

After the first commercial break, James Holzhauer told his daughter's favorite story: The time a llama spit in his face.

"Oh, it's her favorite story ever," Holzhauer said.

He said he took his daughter to a petting zoo that gave visitors food to feed the animals. But not all of the animals cared for the food.

"I am trying to force feed this llama, and this llama had enough of it and he spit it in my face, not once, but twice," Holzhauer said.

His daughter thought it was hilarious. "So she wants to tell the whole world, 'Tell the story about llama spitting on papa,'" he said.

James Holzhauer picked the $1,000 clue from the "Brooklyn" category on his first pick tonight and ended up hitting a video Daily Double. He wagered the max - $1,000 - and was shown a photo of an iconic Brooklyn, New York, building.

"The edifice built as Brooklyn City Hall is now called this reflecting Brooklyn's status within New York City," host Alex Trebek said.

He answered correctly: "What is Borough Hall?"

Yesterday, Holzhauer also picked the the Daily Double as his first clue. However, he got the question wrong, and started out with a negative score.

James Holzhauer is playing his 19th game of "Jeopardy!" tonight. Last night's game was close - he won by just $18.
Here's who is taking on the champion tonight:

Jason Lau, a financial risk consultant from Duluth, Georgia

Libby Wood, a marketing writer from Seattle, Washington

It's 7 p.m. ET, and "Jeopardy!" just started in parts of the East Coast.

James Holzhauer, a professional sports bettor from Las Vegas, is competing in his 19th game. So far he's won $1,329,604.

We'll be covering tonight's game live right here.

James Holzhauer has been using a specific method during his time on "Jeopardy!" It's called the "Forrest Bounce"

How it works: The contestant jumps around from category to category, choosing tiles out of order to throw off his or her opponents.

Where it came from: Holzhauer is not the first to master the "Forrest Bounce." Previous contestants like Arthur Chu and Chuck Forrest (who the method is named after) have used it to both confuse opponents and rack up the most amount of money in a short span of time by starting from the bottom of each category, where the clues are hardest.

One thing to note: While effective if done right, it is not very popular among the show's staff, including host Alex Trebek, who has spoken out against the method.

Trebek argues that it disrupts the natural order of the show, which the writers work hard on preparing.

What we covered here
Spoiler alert: We covered tonight's episode of "Jeopardy!" live as it aired at 7 p.m. ET. Our coverage contains spoilers.

Who is James Holzhauer?: The professional sports bettor from Las Vegas won his 19th episode of "Jeopardy!" tonight. He'll be back tomorrow for game No. 20.

His winnings: So far he's won $1,426,330, and he holds the all-time record for single game winnings.

The record: Holzhauer currently comes in second for highest overall winnings. Ken Jennings, who won $2,520,700 in 2004, holds the record.

Our live coverage has ended, but we'll be back tomorrow night again at the same time. Scroll through the posts below to see how tonight's episode unfolded.

James Holzhauer just won his 19th "Jeopardy!" game. With this win, he's now tied for the third-longest winning streak in the game's history.

This was tonight's final clue: "Founded, according, to tradition in 11 BC, this former capital lies about halfway between Paris and Berlin."

Holzhauer was the only one of the three to get the correct answer - Bonn - but Libby Wood came up with a good joke.

"What is congrats to James," she wrote.

Holzhauer wagered $40,000 and ended up with a daily total of $96,726. His 19-day total is $1,426,330.

Ken Jennings holds the record of the longest streak, which lasted 74 games in 2004, according to the show's Hall of Fame. Second place goes to Julia Collins in 2014. David Madden won 19 games in 2005.

James Holzhauer has $56,726 going into Final Jeopardy. That's (much) more than double of either of his competitors, who have $7,400 and $6,400.

Holzhauer has another runaway game, meaning the other contestants could bet their entire sums and they still wouldn't beat him.

That said, Holzhauer still needs to bet wisely in the final.

James Holzhauer just hit another Daily Double. He wagered $9,812 - a specific figure he's bet before.

Yesterday, Holzhauer explained the significance: He married his wife on Sept. 8, 2012.

"This counts as her gift," Holzhauer joked before answering the question.

The clue: "Captain Corcoran is in command of this title Gilbert & Sullivan Ship."

"Your wife is gonna love you," host Alex Trebek said.

After the first commercial break, James Holzhauer told his daughter's favorite story: The time a llama spit in his face.

"Oh, it's her favorite story ever," Holzhauer said.

He said he took his daughter to a petting zoo that gave visitors food to feed the animals. But not all of the animals cared for the food.

"I am trying to force feed this llama, and this llama had enough of it and he spit it in my face, not once, but twice," Holzhauer said.

His daughter thought it was hilarious. "So she wants to tell the whole world, 'Tell the story about llama spitting on papa,'" he said.

James Holzhauer picked the $1,000 clue from the "Brooklyn" category on his first pick tonight and ended up hitting a video Daily Double. He wagered the max - $1,000 - and was shown a photo of an iconic Brooklyn, New York, building.

"The edifice built as Brooklyn City Hall is now called this reflecting Brooklyn's status within New York City," host Alex Trebek said.

He answered correctly: "What is Borough Hall?"

Yesterday, Holzhauer also picked the the Daily Double as his first clue. However, he got the question wrong, and started out with a negative score.

James Holzhauer is playing his 19th game of "Jeopardy!" tonight. Last night's game was close - he won by just $18.
Here's who is taking on the champion tonight:

Jason Lau, a financial risk consultant from Duluth, Georgia

Libby Wood, a marketing writer from Seattle, Washington

It's 7 p.m. ET, and "Jeopardy!" just started in parts of the East Coast.

James Holzhauer, a professional sports bettor from Las Vegas, is competing in his 19th game. So far he's won $1,329,604.

We'll be covering tonight's game live right here.

James Holzhauer has been using a specific method during his time on "Jeopardy!" It's called the "Forrest Bounce"

How it works: The contestant jumps around from category to category, choosing tiles out of order to throw off his or her opponents.

Where it came from: Holzhauer is not the first to master the "Forrest Bounce." Previous contestants like Arthur Chu and Chuck Forrest (who the method is named after) have used it to both confuse opponents and rack up the most amount of money in a short span of time by starting from the bottom of each category, where the clues are hardest.

One thing to note: While effective if done right, it is not very popular among the show's staff, including host Alex Trebek, who has spoken out against the method.

Trebek argues that it disrupts the natural order of the show, which the writers work hard on preparing.

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James Holzhauer chases 'Jeopardy!' history: Live updates

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What we covered here What we covered here Spoiler alert: We covered tonight's episode of "Jeopardy!" live as it aired at 7 p.m. ET. Our coverage contains spoilers. Who is James Holzhauer?: The professional sports bettor from Las Vegas won his 19th episode of "Jeopardy!" tonight. He'll be back tomorrow for game No.

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Anne-Marie Racovolis- real contestant article

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Anne-Marie Racovolis- real contestant article

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This news source is credible, 1- because it has enough of a following to require fact checking. This man has been winning for 19 games straight, gathering close to $1.5 million. This story was also picked up by CNN.

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Professional gambler James Holzhazuer is making all the right bets.

On Tuesday night, the 34-year-old "Jeopardy!" juggernaut notched his 19th straight victory. Finishing Final Jeopardy with $96,726, Holzauer's 19-day total is now a staggering $1,426,330.

He is now tied for third-longest winning streak in "Jeopardy" history with David Madden, an academic competition organizer and art historian who won his 19 matches in 2006, according to a sortable leaderboard on Jeopardy! blog The Final Wager.

If Holzauer wins again on Wednesday, he will share the title for second-longest winning streak with Julia Collins, a girls' nonprofit founder who triumphed in 20 straight games during 2014.

Of course, Holzhauer is still dozens of days away from capturing all-time champion Ken Jennings. The computer scientist turned author's 74-game streak in 2004 was a game-show milestone.

Holzhauer, though, does hold the record for the most money won in a single game. On April 17, he walked away with a whopping $131,127.

Experts attribute his success at the fan-favorite game show to adept buzzer skills and a dogged strategy to find Daily Doubles.

His aggressive wagering on Daily Doubles and in Final Jeopardy is chalked up to his extensive experience in sports betting.

Even past "Jeopardy" champions are in awe.

Holzhauer passed the $1 million mark on April 23. His total winnings make him the third-highest earner in the history of the game, after Brad Rutter's $4.6 million and Ken Jennings' $3.2 million. Rutter and Jennings, though, both played in tournaments and special matches outside of regular season play.

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James Holzhauer ties 3rd-longest 'Jeopardy!' streak with 19th win

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Professional gambler James Holzhazuer is making all the right bets. On Tuesday night, the 34-year-old "Jeopardy!" juggernaut notched his 19th straight victory. Finishing Final Jeopardy with $96,726, Holzauer's 19-day total is now a staggering $1,426,330.

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A Jeopardy contestant is seen to be threatening other contestants with a nail-studded baseball bat in order to gain an edge over the other contestants.
I have concluded that this story is fake, one of the reasons being at first glance, this picture appears to be photo shopped. I copied and pasted the sensational headline into google, and only found other references to the onion, or discussions on reddit. This was not covered by a news source i would consider credible, like CNN, MSN, ABC News- not really anything big.
Plus i watch Jeopardy- so i feel like this would have come up.
After further research, it is clear to me that this site has lots of satirical, eye-catching headlines and "fake news". The New York Post just wrote about how he was the 3rd-longest running contestant on this show.
I think that this article was to grab attention, and to drive traffic to the website, because Jeopardy is a known difficult game to stay afloat in.
This is just a sensational headline with the goal to "show his secrets". It reminds me of the ads that say "doctors hate him", or something similar to that.

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CULVER CITY, CA-Revealing the secret behind his lucrative run on the TV game show, unbeatable Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer told reporters Tuesday that the key to his success was threatening other contestants with a nail-studded baseball bat during commercial breaks. "My approach is pretty simple: I wait until a few seconds before a new round starts, get the other players' attention, and tell them I'll bash in their goddamn skulls if I don't win," said Holzhauer, 34, who explained that he had managed to win over $1 million in only 15 games by gripping the bat tightly, taking a few swings near the heads of the other contestants, and stowing the bat behind his podium before taping restarted to emphasize that a potential beating was only moments away. "It's really all about timing. You have to menace them with the nail-studded baseball bat before each and every round so they're absolutely terrified to buzz in before you do. You also have to remember that the clock's ticking and you only have a couple minutes of ads to warn the other players that you'll cave their fucking faces in and splatter their brains all over the set if they cross you. It's really less about knowing a lot of trivia, although that's definitely important, than it is to be able to really hone in on how you'll bludgeon them to a bloody pulp before attacking any of their loved ones in the studio audience if you lose." Holzhauer added that he believed his strategy to be more effective than that of fellow Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings, who has said the key to his success was holding a gun to his head before the Final Jeopardy! round and threatening to blow his brains out if he didn't win.

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Unbeatable 'Jeopardy!' Champ Says Key To Success Is Threatening Other Contestants With Nail-Studded Baseball Bat During Commercials

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CULVER CITY, CA-Revealing the secret behind his lucrative run on the TV game show, unbeatable Jeopardy! champion James Holzhauer told reporters Tuesday that the key to his success was threatening other contestants with a nail-studded baseball bat during commercial breaks.

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Iman Khanam: How a Chicago Woman Fell Victim to Candida Auris, a Drug-Resistant Fungus

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Iman Khanam: How a Chicago Woman Fell Victim to Candida Auris, a Drug-Resistant Fungus

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I believe that this story is legit. After reviewing the Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers, I was able to find evidence to support this claim. This evidence included lack of sponsored content on the webpage and investigating the author's credentials as well as the website's credibility.

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Deadly germs, lost cures

The mysterious infection has appeared at hospitals around the world but few institutions or families have discussed their experience.

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Stephanie Spoor, center, with her husband, Gregory, left, during a bedside wedding ceremony of her son, Zack, to his new wife, Carley (right), at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Ms. Spoor died just a few days later. Credit Credit Spoor family photo

Gregory Spoor got the distressing news about his wife on the morning of Jan. 16 while standing outside her room in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. The doctor explained that Stephanie Spoor, 64, had contracted a "rare, very rare, fungus."

The physician said the fungus was called Candida auris, and it appeared to have entered her bloodstream through a catheter or other intravenous line during her treatment. Mr. Spoor sent a text to the couple's four children.

"Hey guys, I'm very sorry to do this via text but you need to know and not fair to wait until all of us are together," he wrote. "The fungus mom has is the worst possible and can be terminal."

He added: "It is a day to day issue so I don't have any more answers or info at this time."

Mr. Spoor, 67, an executive at a plumbing equipment company, wasn't the only one with few answers. C. auris, a germ that typically is resistant to major antifungal medications, has been quietly confounding doctors, hospitals and infectious disease scientists around the world.

First identified in the ear of a woman in Japan in 2009 ("auris" is Latin for "ear"), the germ has spread around the globe, mostly appearing in hospitals and nursing homes, where it afflicts people with weakened immune systems.

Nearly 600 cases of C. auris have been reported in the United States, the majority of them in New York, New Jersey and Illinois. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly half of people who contract the illness die within 90 days. But the true death rate is difficult to quantify because most patients have other medical conditions and their deaths may be attributed to other causes.

About 90 percent of C. auris strains are resistant to at least one drug, and 30 percent are resistant to two or more of the three major classes of antifungal drugs. However, on Tuesday, the C.D.C. confirmed that it has learned in the last month of the first known cases in the United States of so-called "pan-resistant" C. auris - a strain resistant to all major antifungals, said Dr. Tom Chiller, head of the agency's fungal division, in an interview.

Such cases have been seen in several countries, including India and South Africa, but the two new cases, from New York State, have not been reported previously. Dr. Chiller said that it appeared that, in each case, the germ evolved during treatment and became pan-resistant, confirming a fear that the infection will continue to develop more effective defenses.

"It's happening and it's going to happen," Dr. Chiller said. "That's why we need to remain vigilant and rapidly identify and control these infections."

It often has been hard to gather details about the path of C. auris because hospitals and nursing homes have been unwilling to publicly disclose outbreaks or discuss cases, creating a culture of secrecy around the infection. States have kept confidential the locations of hospitals where outbreaks have occurred, citing patient confidentiality and a risk of unnecessarily scaring the public.

Ms. Spoor's family contacted The New York Times to share details of her case after reading an article in the newspaper about the emergence of C. auris and the growing threat of drug resistant infections. Her experience sheds some light on the experience of dealing with the new health threat.

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A petri dish of cultured Candida auris, right. When Ms. Spoor's infection didn't respond to antifungal medications, she was told to get her affairs in order. Credit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Northwestern Memorial has not issued any public announcement that it had cases of C. auris. The Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed Ms. Spoor's case after the family gave officials permission to discuss it with The Times. But it would not disclose the identities of what it called "numerous" hospitals and nursing homes that have reported a total of 158 cases in the state since 2016.

Northwestern Memorial declined to answer any questions from The Times about Ms. Spoor's case, despite receiving permission from the Spoor family to cooperate.

The hospital also declined to respond to questions about how many C. auris cases it has treated, whether there were any current cases, what precautions it was taking and other queries.

"After careful consideration, we are going to pass on participating in this story," Christopher King, a hospital spokesman, wrote in an email in response to questions.

Generally, health care institutions have said that they do not want to worry the public unnecessarily, given that they are working hard to control the spread of the infection and also that the germ is not a health threat to the general public. The people at the greatest risk are those who have compromised immune systems, typically through illness and age, and who are in hospitals and nursing homes where many infections are carried and transmitted.

Ms. Spoor's tale reveals the powerlessness of patients and institutions in the face of resistant infections.

Late last year, Ms. Spoor began experiencing shortness of breath and appeared to be having a surge of symptoms from lupus, an autoimmune disorder she had been diagnosed with years earlier but which did not seem to disrupt her daily life. Now, her lungs were having trouble absorbing oxygen.

Ms. Spoor's family kept a detailed diary of the events, at her request. She went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a highly-ranked academic medical center affiliated with Northwestern University. There, in mid-December, she had a biopsy that led to complications: The wound bled and she went into cardiac arrest. She was revived and put on a device called an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine to help her breathe.

That machine was considered a way-station to help Ms. Spoor survive until she could receive a lung transplant. She felt hopeful she would be able to see her youngest son, Zack, get married in a ceremony planned for June.

But a month later, a blood test found C. auris. Ms. Spoor's medical records, which the family shared with The Times, contained a note in mid-January in bold type: "This is a highly transmissible fungus that has a propensity to develop resistance." The records continued, again in bold type, that it was necessary to "discuss with nurses to maintain diligent contact precautions and limited visitors if possible."

Those records indicated that the hospital suspected Ms. Spoor picked up the infection from one of the tubes inserted into her body.

Ms. Spoor's son Nicholas, 40, a Chicago architect, said that the day his mother was diagnosed with C. auris, he noticed the nurses and doctors in full protective aprons and gloves, using bleach to wipe off their feet when they entered and left the room. Everything in the room had a white glaze, he said, from the chemicals used to clean it.

"It was like a laboratory," he said.

But the family was hopeful. A doctor told them, Nicholas recalled, "that the strain they had had at Northwestern had been susceptible to the drug cocktail they were currently giving her, and they expected it to clear up."
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Indeed, according to the medical records, initial lab tests suggested that the strain of C. auris that had infected Ms. Spoor's bloodstream was susceptible to the hospital's drug treatment.

The records also included hints of doubt. "Limited literature on C. auris indicates a relatively high mortality and this pathogen may be difficult to eradicate," a Jan. 19 notation said.

Ms. Spoor, a teacher and mother of four. Credit Spoor family photo

Over the latter half of January, doctors and nurses furiously tried to treat the fungus, but it kept growing back. The drugs weren't working. Ms. Spoor appeared fatigued, the family said, but was not showing any other particularly obvious signs of infection.

Barely two months earlier, before her biopsy, Ms. Spoor had been thrilled to accept an early Christmas present from the family: She attended a speech by Michelle Obama at the United Center in downtown Chicago.

Now, in the early days of February, she and her family were being told to put her affairs in order. A doctor told Ms. Spoor that there was nothing more to be done. A transplant wasn't realistic until she was clear of C. auris, but there seemed to be no effective treatment for the infection.

On February 8, their grief was suspended briefly and the atmosphere in her hospital room turned celebratory. The Spoors' youngest son, Zack, married his fiancée, Carley, in a wedding ceremony at her bedside.

Bride and groom wore protective blue hospital gowns over their formal wear, and blue gloves. After the chaplain pronounced them husband and wife, said a blessing and an "Amen," Ms. Spoor grinned as if she had beat the devil at cards.

A few days later, after consulting with the family, doctors removed Ms. Spoor from the oxygenation machine - her life support, essentially. In the hours before, Ms. Spoor said there was one last person she'd like to speak with: her son Nicholas, with whom she had not yet had a final heart-to-heart conversation.

"She just said what you'd expect a mom to say to you in that situation," Mr. Spoor recounted. He tried to elaborate, but began to cry: "I can't talk about it. She just said the exact right thing."

Ms. Spoor died on Feb. 11. Her death certificate describes the cause as respiratory failure.

Dr. Rosalind Ramsey-Goldman, a rheumatologist who treated Ms. Spoor, said she felt for the family. "Understandably, her family has had a hard time dealing with their loss," she said "And as providers, we too were saddened by the events that transpired, and that we were not able to help her when she had this infection."

Ms. Spoor's husband, Greg, said he bears no grudge against the hospital and, in fact, found its care exceptional. He said he wished that he had known to ask about C. auris and the precautions the hospital was taking.

"It was something that we didn't even know was out there, and then it happened and it was one of the major reasons she died," said her son Nicholas. "If you're not sharing the data about the patients, that's an issue."

More articles in this series

Matt Richtel is a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in San Francisco. He joined The Times staff in 2000, and his work has focused on science, technology, business and narrative-driven storytelling around these issues.

@mrichtel

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How a Chicago Woman Fell Victim to Candida Auris, a Drug-Resistant Fungus

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Deadly germs, lost cures The mysterious infection has appeared at hospitals around the world but few institutions or families have discussed their experience. Gregory Spoor got the distressing news about his wife on the morning of Jan. 16 while standing outside her room in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/us/ub-hazing-death/index.html
I believe this is credible because it took down responses to the news from the school and students. Also CNN is a website where they provide with current new stories.

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I think this is real because it's based on someones actual death and ABC news seems to be credible since it is a news page. There isn't a specific author. The information is given on a timeline basis so there must be a reliable source they are receiving this info from.

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Sosina Tadesse: In world, first, HIV-positive woman donates kidney to HIV-positive recip

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Sosina Tadesse: In world, first, HIV-positive woman donates kidney to HIV-positive recip

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I think this news article is legit because it's from CNN, which is one of the biggest credible news sources in the U.S. I've searched the news story to see if other sources had the same story and there were credible sources such as BBC that published a story about the woman.

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hiv-positive woman donates kidney to hiv-positive recipient in world first - cnn

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In world first, HIV-positive woman donates kidney to HIV-positive recipient

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An Atlanta woman became the first living HIV-positive kidney donor in the world on Monday when doctors at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore transferred her organ to a recipient who is also HIV-positive.

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Soreti Shasho: Heavy Rains, End Of Drought Could Help Keep West Nile Virus Subdued — For Now

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Soreti Shasho: Heavy Rains, End Of Drought Could Help Keep West Nile Virus Subdued — For Now

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I believe this story is credible because it has been published on different medical websites and news websites. Also, the data; graphs and original publishers have been cited.

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The end of California's drought, announced last month amid one of the rainiest winters in memory, could offer a surprising benefit: reduced transmission of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus.

Longer term, however, more severe droughts associated with climate change could contribute to an increase in the number of infections in the state and nationally.

Drought is the most important weather-related factor that affects the rate of West Nile infection, researchers say. Even though mosquito eggs need water to hatch, dry conditions tend to spur greater transmission of the virus.

"Ironically, when we have drought conditions, that does seem to amplify the West Nile virus transmission cycle," said Vicki Kramer, chief of the Vector-Borne Disease Section at the California Department of Public Health.

West Nile is transmitted between mosquitoes and birds, and people can become infected if bitten by an infected mosquito. The illness is rarely transmitted from one person to another. According to one theory, when drought forces mosquitoes and birds into closer proximity around the few remaining sources of water, it increases the chance of infection.

Some researchers think another explanation for the link between drought and West Nile transmission could be that dry conditions tax birds' immune systems, leaving them more vulnerable to infection.

In 2015, amid California's worst drought in over 500 years, the number of severe West Nile infections - known as "neuroinvasive" cases - hit their highest level since the state began tracking the virus. Then, as the dry conditions eased, the number declined by 75% over the next three years, despite an uptick in 2017.

Researchers say neuroinvasive West Nile virus - cases accompanied by meningitis, encephalitis or a type of acute paralysis - is the best measure for comparing the prevalence of the virus from year to year. The total number of cases is a less reliable indicator, because people with only mild symptoms - the vast majority - are more likely to get tested in years when public concern about the disease is running high.

Fewer than 1% of those infected suffer severe symptoms.

Scientists and public health officials say that while drought plays a significant role in increasing the rate of infection, other factors - especially the extent of human immunity - are also important and can cut the other way, making it hard to predict infection rates from year to year. More people have immunity following years with high infection rates, and that can help reduce the number of new infections.

Last year, 10 people died in California from complications of West Nile virus, down from 44 in 2017.

Numerous states have higher rates of West Nile infection than California, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states with the highest rates of West Nile virus last year were Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Mississippi.

Nationally, the number of severe West Nile cases in the U.S. increased slightly last year to 1,594, with 137 deaths.

Scientists fear that, in the long term, drought driven by climate change could generate much higher rates of West Nile infection around the country.

"Predictions suggest that on average there will be quite a bit more cases of West Nile virus nationally, and in high drought years it could be about three times as high as the current average," said Marm Kilpatrick, a disease ecologist at the University of California-Santa Cruz and co-author of a 2017 research paper published by the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Jeremy Wittie, president of the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California, noted that changes in the number of West Nile virus cases vary by region. Despite an overall drop in West Nile last year, a few places, including Sacramento, saw a higher number of cases.

State health officials and vector-control agencies monitor West Nile activity closely, with periodic testing of "sentinel chickens," dead birds and mosquito samples, which are tracked and published on the state's West Nile virus portal at westnile.ca.gov. California residents can report dead birds to the state's West Nile monitoring program via the same site. Testing them provides a key indicator for public health officials tracking West Nile activity.

This KHN story first published on California Healthline, a service of the California Health Care Foundation.

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Heavy Rains, End Of Drought Could Help Keep West Nile Virus Subdued - For Now

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The end of California's drought, announced last month amid one of the rainiest winters in memory, could offer a surprising benefit: reduced transmission of the mosquito-borne West Nile virus. Longer term, however, more severe droughts associated with climate change could contribute to an increase in the number of infections in the state and nationally.

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The journal publication I found seems credible for several reasons. The article is titled "Children’s Health in Latin America: The Influence of Environmental Exposure" and it was published by the World Health Organization. It being submitted into publications by WHO makes me believe it's credible if it's by a world renown health organization. Second, the publication was cited 9 times which isnt a lot but according to the Fact Check reading, this is still a good thing. The article has the name of all authors, who it was cited by and throughout the long article there is in text citations listed. The article also allows you to click on the scholars and read what their current job profession and school is. Amalia Laborde, the first author listed is works in Faculty of Medicine at University of the Republic of Uruguay. I was curious to see if Amalia Laborde was cited before. The Fact Check reading showed how it's important to google scholar search authors to see. Amalia was cited many times (7-118 times just off first page of results), some publications were by herself and some with other authors.

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Melanie Aquino - New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines

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Melanie Aquino - New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines

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I believe this story is credible. It is credible because it is posted on nationalgeographic.com, which I believe to be is a trusted website for news about science.

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Humankind's tangled shrub of ancestry now has a new branch: Researchers in the Philippines announced today that they have discovered a species of ancient human previously unknown to science.

The small-bodied hominin, named Homo luzonensis, lived on the island of Luzon at least 50,000 to 67,000 years ago. The hominin-identified from a total of seven teeth and six small bones-hosts a patchwork of ancient and more advanced features. The landmark discovery, announced in Nature on Wednesday, makes Luzon the third Southeast Asian island in the last 15 years to bear signs of unexpectedly ancient human activity.

"For a long, long time, the Philippine islands [have] been more or less left [out]," says study coauthor and project leader Armand Mijares, an archaeologist at the University of the Philippines Diliman and a National Geographic grantee. But H. luzonensis flips the script, and it continues to challenge the outdated idea that the human line neatly progressed from less advanced to more advanced species.

"This new discovery made me thrilled," Yousuke Kaifu, a paleoanthropologist at Tokyo's National Museum of Nature and Science who was not part of the new study, says via email. "It further highlights remarkable diversity of archaic (primitive) hominins once present in Asia, in a way beyond my expectation."

Aida Gómez-Robles, a paleoanthropologist at University College London who reviewed the study before publication, is hesitant to unequivocally say the find represents a new species. But she adds that all possibilities to explain the unusual fossils are equally intriguing.

"It's absolutely one of the most important findings that [will] be out in a number of years," she says.

Digging deeper into Asia's past

Decades ago, the story of Asia seemed far more straightforward, if incomplete. Paleoanthropologists knew that archaic hominins such as Homo erectus ventured over land bridges into parts of what is now Indonesia nearly a million years ago. But farther east, it was thought that these hominins ran into ocean currents considered impassable without boats.

Luzon seemed especially difficult for ancient hominins to reach, as it had never been connected to the mainland by land bridges, so archaeologists thought that digging into deeper, older layers of soil wouldn't yield much. When Mijares first excavated Callao Cave in 2003, he found 25,000-year-old evidence of human activity -but he didn't dig any deeper than about four feet down.

"Most Southeast Asian archaeologists would only excavate cave sites up to two meters, and they would stop," Mijares says.

That all changed in 2004, when researchers unveiled Homo floresiensis-a diminutive hominin, also known as the "hobbit," that inhabited the Indonesian island of Flores until 50,000 years ago. Inspired, Mijares returned to Callao Cave in 2007 to literally dig deeper.

The team excavated more than five feet of clay below where they had stopped digging in 2003, with no fossils in sight. But then they found a layer of breccia, a type of rock formed from a jumble of other materials. Tantalizingly, this layer contained fragments of bone that had washed into the cave long ago. At first, the bones seemed to include only animals such as deer and pigs. But under closer inspection, one piece stood out: a nearly complete foot bone that looked human. The team sent the fossil to Philip Piper, a coauthor of the new study, who was looking through the animal remains.

"He called me up and said, Hello mate, you've got human remains," Mijares says. "And I said, Really? Then we'll go grab a beer!"

In 2010, Mijares and his colleagues unveiled the 67,000-year-old fossil, which they tentatively suggested belonged to a small-bodied member of Homo sapiens, making it perhaps the oldest sign of our species anywhere in the Philippines at the time. But Mijares suspected that it might actually belong to a new species, maybe even a Luzon analog to H. floresiensis. The team needed more fossils to be sure.

Something old, something new

As luck would have it, excavations uncovered two more toe bones along with seven teeth, two finger bones, and part of a femur on return trips to Callao Cave in 2011 and 2015. In all, the remains represent at least three individuals.

The small fossils' curves and grooves reveal an unexpected mix of both ancient and more advanced traits. The teeth's small sizes and relatively simple shapes, for instance, point to a more "modern" individual, but one upper premolar has three roots-a trait found in fewer than 3 percent of modern humans. And one foot bone resembles those of the ancient australopithecines, a group that includes the famous human relative Lucy, who trekked across Africa roughly three million years ago.

"I agree with [the] authors that the combination of features is like nothing we have seen before," says María Martinón-Torres, the director of Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution.

New York University anthropologist Shara Bailey, an expert on ancient teeth, notes that South Africa's Homo naledi-discovered by a team including National Geographic grantee Lee Berger -also has features that look both ancient and modern. She takes the two discoveries as a sign that "mosaic" evolution was more common among hominins than once thought.

Martinón-Torres further suggests that the mix of dental features somewhat resembles that seen in 15,000-year-old hominin remains from Dushan in southern China, which she and her colleagues recently described. Along with H. luzonensis, the discoveries join recent finds hinting that by 12,000 years ago, as the Pleistocene epoch drew to a close, hominins in Asia had a startling amount of diversity.

What's in a name?

While many scientists laud the research for its thoroughness, defining a species from just 13 small bones and teeth is tricky. Though the scientists attempted to extract DNA, they were unsuccessful, as is common for samples that have stewed for millennia in the heat and humidity of tropical locales.

The small stature of H. luzonensis could also cause some traits of the bones to appear more primitive than they truly are, says John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved in the study. This muddles comparisons of this species to other known hominins. While there are compelling features, and he thinks the case for a new species is reasonable, his overall take is: "I really wish there were more bones."

Other researchers are more confident in holding up H. luzonensis as a new species.

"The discovery team has done a very meticulous and commendable job describing these new fossils, and their naming of a new species, in my opinion, is valid," Griffith University archaeologist Adam Brumm, an expert on H. floresiensis who wasn't involved with the study, says in an email. "This is a truly sensational finding."

Lead study author Florent Détroit, a lecturer at France's National Museum of Natural History, adds that "species" are human-made categories that aim to clarify evolutionary history, not necessarily hard-and-fast biological realities.

"[If] in the future, colleagues are able to show that we were wrong because the fossils can enter one of the already known hominin species, we will just lump it and forget about it, but in the meantime, I am convinced it is the way we had to do it," he says via email.

Tools of the trade

However the new hominin is ultimately defined, researchers are excited by hints that our ancient relatives in the Philippines were engaging in some very familiar activities, including signs of tool use.

The 2010 paper that introduced the Callao cave foot bone-which is now considered a part of H. luzonensis-mentions that a deer bone found in the same sediments bears what look like stone-tool cut marks. Michael Petraglia, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, takes the bone as a sign that H. luzonensis was a proficient toolmaker and hunter.

There's also evidence that H. luzonensis, or another ancient hominin, lived on Luzon even further back in time. In 2018, Mijares and his colleagues announced the discovery of stone tools and a butchered rhinoceros skeleton that are more than 700,000 years old, found not too far from Callao Cave. Because of the time gap between the remains and the tool site, however, it's tough to say whether the stone tool users were predecessors of H. luzonensis or an unrelated hominin.

Raft of possibilities

While evolution sculpted H. luzonensis into a small form similar to that of H. floresiensis, we don't know which island conditions drove the differences between the two species. Also, while a barrage of studies makes clear that interspecies unions happened regularly, we don't know whether H. luzonensis ancestors interacted or bred with other hominin species that lived in Asia at the time, such as the enigmatic Denisovans.

"You could see this as kind of a natural experiment in human evolution," says Gerrit van den Bergh of the University of Wollongong, an expert on H. floresiensis.

Another major unknown is how the ancestors of H. luzonensis even reached the Philippines. In 2016, researchers unveiled stone tools on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi that date to between 118,000 and 194,000 years old -or at least 60,000 years older than the island's oldest known modern humans. Taken alongside the remains from Flores and Luzon, the sites suggest that ancient hominin dispersal throughout the region wasn't necessarily as rare-or as accidental-as researchers once thought.

"If rhinos can swim and get to places, certainly we can think of erectus, floresiensis, and luzonensis not necessarily just swimming but at least rafting, if not boating," Petraglia says. "It's just pure speculation, but you could posit that and make some convincing arguments."

One thing remains clear: Southeast Asia probably was home to more hominin species than current fossils let on. For his part, Mijares is continuing to look for other signs of H. luzonensis, including a current search at Luzon's Biak na Bato National Park, done with support from the National Geographic Society. Through it all, Mijares sees the future for H. luzonensis -and for Asian anthropology-as bright.

"I'm very proud, because as a Filipino and Southeast Asian, we tend to be on the periphery of this debate. Now, we can be actively engaged in the debate, because our areas-our sites-are now recognized," Mijares says. "And that is, I guess, my legacy in this world."

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New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines

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Humankind's tangled shrub of ancestry now has a new branch: Researchers in the Philippines announced today that they have discovered a species of ancient human previously unknown to science. The small-bodied hominin, named Homo luzonensis, lived on the island of Luzon at least 50,000 to 67,000 years ago.

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This story is very credible especially in the science world. This has become one of the biggest achievements in the history as well as in the space and aeronautics sector. This obviously has not been achieved before. This phenomenon can lead to advanced knowledge about the world beyond earth with the use of advanced technology. This article was also posted on NASA, a resource that is a .gov. They are credible because they are world wide known organization in history that have achieved so much, change the world and bring an abundant knowledge about earth, aeronautics, space and the solar system and beyond.

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The first-ever image of a black hole's shadow has been revealed. NASA telescopes helped characterize the black hole's environment.

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Timothy Wong "Pig brains partially revived four hours after death"

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Timothy Wong "Pig brains partially revived four hours after death"

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While I do not believe that this news story is necessarily fake news, I do believe that it is quite misleading. This Articles has a title that can be considered as clickbait as the actual content in the article does differ from the title.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47960874

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"Amazon Workers are listening to Alexa owners whether they are talking to it or not"

I believe that this story is real/credible because it uses facts from various credible websites such a the New York Times, CNN, and Bloomberg. I compared the similarities of each of the facts presented on each of those websites and came to the conclusion that this article is credible.

https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/daily-news-article/amazon-workers-are-listening-to-alexa-owners-whether-they-are-talking-to-it-or-not/

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Michelene Nguyen - "Alzheimer's: Synthetic protein blocks toxic beta-amyloid"

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Michelene Nguyen - "Alzheimer's: Synthetic protein blocks toxic beta-amyloid"

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I believe this news article to be credible because the article came from a well-known source, Medical News Today, and the content contains information that I have learned about in my biology classes. I also believe this to be true because the research has been done by students from the University of Washington, which is a renowned institution.

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Alzheimer's is a relentless disease in which toxic clusters of beta-amyloid protein collect in brain cells. Now, scientists have designed a synthetic peptide, or small protein, that can block beta-amyloid in its early and most harmful stages.

New research may have found a way to stop Alzheimer's-related brain damage in its early stages.
The synthetic peptide, which has only 23 amino acids, folds into structures called alpha sheets. The sheets bind to early-stage, small clumps of beta-amyloid and stop them forming larger masses.
The tests showed that alpha sheets of the peptide reduced the toxic impact of beta-amyloid in cultured human brain cells. The sheets also blocked early forms of beta-amyloid in animal models of Alzheimer's disease.
A team from the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and other research centers in the United States designed and produced the synthetic peptide and also tested it in cells and animals.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is shortly to feature a paper about the study.

The researchers say that the findings could lead to treatments that clear away toxic beta-amyloid in its early forms. They also see potential for using the peptide as the basis of a test for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease before symptoms emerge.

Forms of beta-amyloid

Toxic beta-amyloid is a distinguishing hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. But not all forms of beta-amyloid are toxic. Brain cells, or neurons, make the protein in a simple form called a monomer. Monomer forms of beta-amyloid carry out essential jobs in brains cells.

However, in people with Alzheimer's disease, beta-amyloid monomers cluster into oligomers, which can contain up to 12 monomers.
In Alzheimer's disease, the oligomers continue to grow into longer shapes, and then eventually, they form much bigger deposits, or plaques.
The formation of protein deposits is a typical feature of diseases in which a protein fails to fold properly into the shape necessary for it to do its job.

At first, scientists thought that plaques were the most toxic form of beta-amyloid that produced symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, such as loss of memory and thinking capacity.

However, due to growing evidence, an increasing number of experts are suggesting that the earlier oligomer stages of beta-amyloid are likely to be the most toxic to brain cells.

Synthetic peptide targets oligomers

The researchers designed the synthetic peptide alpha sheets to target beta-amyloid while it is at the oligomer-forming stage.

"This is," says corresponding study author Valerie Daggett, who is a professor of bioengineering at UW, "about targeting a specific structure of [beta-amyloid] formed by the toxic oligomers."

The study shows, she adds, that it is possible to devise synthetic peptide alpha sheets whose structures "complement" those of beta-amyloid as it assumes a toxic form, "while leaving the biologically active monomers intact."

The process of making proteins in cells eventually produces molecules of diverse 3D shapes. The first stage of this involves folding the long chain into one of several basic shapes.

Prof. Daggett's team had discovered one such basic shape - the alpha sheet - in earlier work in which they had simulated production of proteins on computers.

The recent study reveals that beta-amyloid oligomers adopt the alpha-sheet shape as they form longer clumps and plaques.

It also shows that the synthetic peptide alpha sheet binds only to beta-amyloid oligomer alpha sheets and that this neutralizes their toxicity.

Big drop in beta-amyloid oligomers
They also confirmed that oligomers were more harmful to brain cells than plaques. This finding supports studies that have found beta-amyloid plaques in the brains of people without Alzheimer's disease.
The team used traditional and state-of-the-art spectroscopes to watch how beta-amyloid progressed from monomers to oligomers to plaques in cultured human brain cells.

The team showed that treating samples of brain tissue from a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease with alpha sheets of synthetic peptide led to an 82 percent reduction in beta-amyloid oligomers.

In addition, treating the live mice with alpha sheets of synthetic peptide reduced their beta-amyloid oligomer levels by 40 percent within 24 hours.

The team also carried out experiments on another common model of Alzheimer's disease, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. These showed that treatment with alpha sheets of synthetic peptide was able to delay paralysis due to beta-amyloid.

Treated worms also showed less of the gut damage that develops when they feed on bacteria that produces beta-amyloid.

Finally, the researchers showed that it could be possible to use alpha sheets of synthetic peptide to test for levels of beta-amyloid oligomers.

Prof. Daggett and her team are already experimenting with new versions of synthetic peptide alpha sheets to find those that can neutralize beta-amyloid oligomers even more effectively.

"[Beta-amyloid] definitely plays a lead role in Alzheimer's disease, but while historically attention has been on the plaques, more and more research instead indicates that amyloid beta oligomers are the toxic agents that disrupt neurons."

Prof. Valerie Daggett

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Alzheimer's: Synthetic protein blocks toxic beta-amyloid

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Alzheimer's is a relentless disease in which toxic clusters of beta-amyloid protein collect in brain cells. Now, scientists have designed a synthetic peptide, or small protein, that can block beta-amyloid in its early and most harmful stages. New research may have found a way to stop Alzheimer's-related brain damage in its early stages.

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Anna Chou - "CDC reports 90 new measles cases as outbreak approaches record" Written by Lena H. Sun from The Washington Post 

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Anna Chou - "CDC reports 90 new measles cases as outbreak approaches record" Written by Lena H. Sun from The Washington Post 

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What leads me to believe that this source is credible is the fact that there were hyperlinks that verified the information discussed in the article. Also, the article had information regarding the name of the author, the date, and the citations for each picture/graphs throughout the article. When diving deeper into the author’s credibility on The Washington Post site, it verified that Sun was indeed a credible source. She is recognized as a national reporter focusing on health for the Washington Post who specialized in public health and infectious disease. Sun has also displayed high achievements and honor in respect to most of her works as well as having an educated background and extensive experience to back her up. When using one of the methods (Google Reverse Image Search) to fact check her work; it turns out that the front page picture is linked to the CDC website; more specifically with concerns to measles. Another method that I used to verify the source is by following the “27 WHAT MAKES A TRUSTWORTHY NEWS SOURCE?,” on Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers website. Where I checked off the categories that the article fall into, which makes it credible. Such as the reported article having something called best practice (diverse voices, accuracy, and strong value of ethics), author expertise, the type of work is labeled, and has diverse voices. To support my belief that this article is credible, I fact check it using DuckDuckGo and Washington Post Fact Checker, which concluded that this source was indeed true.

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These myths about sleep are hurting your health, study warns

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These myths about sleep are hurting your health, study warns

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This story can be seen as a misleading one because they mention some of the research that has been done. It also mentions that some of the information comes from the CDC.  But as mentioned in the title they don't talk about the "study" so that can get the reader a little iffy. The author is known for focusing on maternal/women's health.

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CLOSE

Snoring is harmless. Five hours of sleep is enough. Alcohol before bed helps. These are all sleep myths debunked as false in a peer-reviewed study published Tuesday in National Sleep Foundation's journal Sleep Health.

After reviewing more than 8,000 websites, researchers at New York University School of Medicine identified 20 sleep myths and debunked them using a "falseness" scale and a panel of sleep experts.

"Sleep is a vital part of life that affects our productivity, mood, and general health and well-being," said Rebecca Robbins, lead investigator and postdoctoral research fellow at NYU Langone Health, in a statement. "Dispelling myths about sleep promotes healthier sleep habits which, in turn, promote overall better health."

Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine identified the most common assumptions about sleep, and debunked myths among them in a new study published in Sleep Health. (Photo: LaylaBird, Getty Images)

Myths spanned sleep duration, sleep timing, behaviors during sleep, daytime behaviors related to sleep, pre-sleep behaviors and brain function and sleep.

They included "during sleep the brain is not active," "sleeping in during the weekends is a good way to ensure you get adequate sleep" and "many adults need only five or less hours of sleep for general health."

Snoring, while cited as annoying for bed partners, also was viewed as "mostly harmless," in searches. Researchers cited that snoring is a primary symptom of obstructive sleep apnea and could place individuals at high risk for cardiovascular problems.

Napping in the afternoon also was debunked as unhealthy, when it is habitual. Researchers say this is because napping can enable nighttime insomnia.

More: Using weekends to catch up on sleep is not healthy, study says

More: Having a baby? You won't get a good night's sleep for 6 years, study says

Alcohol shouldn't be viewed as a sleeping aide, as researchers said it often causes sleep disturbances in the second half of the night and can negatively impact REM sleep.

The idea that hitting the snooze button could be better than waking up when the alarm first goes off also was deemed false. Fragmenting sleep like this can decrease "mental flexibility" and negatively affect mood, according to the study.

Watching TV before bed, exercising within four hours of bedtime and keeping a warmer bedroom for better sleep also were found to be false.

Some myths did cause disagreement between experts, and study authors suggest more research should be done.

A third of U.S. adults say they do not get the recommended amount of sleep each night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For adults, that's at least seven hours a night.
Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2019/04/17/sleep-health-myths-debunked-nyu-study-tv-alcohol-naps-snoring/3494553002/

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These myths about sleep are hurting your health, study warns

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CLOSE Snoring is harmless. Five hours of sleep is enough. Alcohol before bed helps. These are all sleep myths debunked as false in a peer-reviewed study published Tuesday in National Sleep Foundation's journal Sleep Health.

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I think that this is a credible source because it is post by New York Times and is one of the largest newspaper. They are also known for many of their other other sources to be credible. Also I looked into the author and she is a business reporter covering retail for The New York Times and has written many other credible articles.

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Rite Aid, one of the country's biggest pharmacy chains, will stop selling e-cigarettes and vaping products because of concern that they are fueling tobacco use among middle and high school students across the United States.

Rite Aid said Thursday that it would remove the products from its more than 2,400 stores over the next 90 days. The chain will continue to sell regular tobacco products, a decision that some public health advocates criticized.

"We're concerned about some of the alarming statistics regarding the use of e-cigarettes and vaping products by children and teens," Bryan Everett, the chain's chief operating officer, said on an earnings call. He added that "while many feel these products are beneficial to those of legal age who are trying to quit the use of tobacco," the company had decided to stop selling them because of their growing popularity with young people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the use of tobacco products, a category that includes e-cigarettes and vaping products, jumped 38 percent last year among high school students and 29 percent among middle school students. The surge, driven by the growth of e-cigarettes, countered the declining use of such products among young people in previous years, the C.D.C. found.

Public health experts warn that while teenage smoking remains at record lows, that could be reversed if vaping and e-cigarettes end up leading a new generation to traditional tobacco products.

Last month, the Food and Drug Administration moved to restrict the sales of flavored e-cigarettes, which are particularly attractive to young people. The F.D.A. has directed retailers to place e-cigarette products in areas that are not accessible to people under age 18.

The agency identified Walgreens stores this year as a top violator of restrictions against selling tobacco products to minors. The F.D.A. has sought a meeting with the company's leadership to address the problem.

Walgreens said in an emailed statement on Friday that it would "welcome the opportunity to meet with the commissioner of food and drugs to discuss all of the steps we are taking regarding this important issue." The chain said it prohibited the sale of tobacco products to minors and immediately fired employees who violated the ban.

The F.D.A. also issued letters this month to a dozen retailers, including Walmart and Family Dollar, asking them to submit plans within 30 days that described how they planned to address and mitigate sales of tobacco products to minors. Rite Aid and Walgreens were not sent letters.

Despite the latest move by Rite Aid, public health advocates were not pleased to hear the chain would continue to sell traditional tobacco products. They said the company should follow the example set by CVS, which stopped selling tobacco altogether in 2014 and subsequently branded itself as a health care giant. CVS was the first major pharmacy chain to stop selling tobacco, which had brought in $2 billion in sales a year.

"There is a fundamental conflict between their stated mission of improving health and wellness and selling tobacco products, which are the leading cause of preventable death," said Vince Willmore, a spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "Pharmacies cannot have it both ways. Other drugstores should follow CVS's lead and end tobacco sales once and for all."

Rite Aid said in a statement that many of its customers still wanted to be able to buy traditional tobacco products, but that it had decreased the visibility of those items in its stores in recent years. The company added that it had also expanded its offering of smoking cessation products and trained its pharmacists in a program that can help customers quit smoking.

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Rite Aid to Stop Selling E-Cigarettes, Citing Surge in Young Users

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Rite Aid, one of the country's biggest pharmacy chains, will stop selling e-cigarettes and vaping products because of concern that they are fueling tobacco use among middle and high school students across the United States. Rite Aid said Thursday that it would remove the products from its more than 2,400 stores over the next 90 days.

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Jenn Morse
I believe this is a credible source because it has an author, date, and typically a credible site of CBS. There are hyper links embedded in the article leading me to believe a lot of effort was put into making it factual and informational.

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While hitting the snooze button in the morning or having a nightcap before bed may seem like ways to get more sleep, these myths may actually be harming your health, according to new research.

A good night's sleep is essential for overall health, yet sleep issues plague millions of Americans. A number of factors affect sleep, including genetics and various medical issues, but researchers from NYU School of Medicine were curious about the role common myths and misconceptions about sleep might play.

"Sleep is a vital part of life that affects our productivity, mood, and general health and well-being," the study's lead investigator, Rebecca Robbins, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow at NYU Langone Health, said in a statement. "Dispelling myths about sleep promotes healthier sleep habits which, in turn, promote overall better health."

The researchers reviewed more than 8,000 websites to identify the 20 most common assumptions about sleep that were based on questionable scientific evidence. With a team of sleep medicine experts, they ranked them on both their degree of truth or falsehood, and on the harm that the myth could cause to health.

Here are some of the most significant sleep myths they found.

Myth 1: Many adults need only 5 or fewer hours of sleep

Researchers ranked this myth as "a great deal" false and as having "a great deal" of public health significance.

Adults aged 18 to 60 should sleep at least 7 hours per night for optimal health and wellness, according to sleep specialists and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Only a very tiny percentage of the population truly functions as well on less sleep.

Long-term, getting insufficient sleep has been linked to a number of chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, and obesity, as well as mood disorders like depression and anxiety. Lack of sleep can also affect productivity and concentration and lead to preventable accidents.

Myth 2: Snoring is mostly harmless

While snoring from time to time can be normal, chronic snoring can be a sign of sleep apnea, a potentially serious sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts. This can lead to daytime fatigue, and the repeated awakenings make regular, quality sleep impossible.

If left untreated, sleep apnea can also increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart problems, type 2 diabetes, abnormal cholesterol levels, liver problems, and complications with medications and surgery.

Therefore, loud or bothersome snoring may be an indication that you should consult with a doctor, the researchers say.

Myth 3: Alcohol before bed will help you sleep

While folklore suggests that a nightcap brings on sweet slumber, alcohol before bed can actually have a negative impact on sleep.

"The literature on sleep and alcohol shows alcohol consumed close to bedtime reduces sleep latency but subsequently causes sleep disturbances in the second half of the night," the researchers write. In other words, drinking alcohol may help you fall asleep quicker, but it delays the onset of deep REM sleep.

Alcohol consumption has also been shown to worsen the symptoms of sleep apnea.

Myth 4: It doesn't matter what time you sleep

While the researchers acknowledge that getting sleep during the day is better than no sleep at all, there's significant evidence that the timing of sleep is related to health.

Studies of night shift workers, whose circadian rhythms are disrupted, show they report less sleep and lower sleep quality than daytime workers. Night shift workers are also at a higher risk for long-term health issues like depression, diabetes, and cancer.

Myth 5: Your brain and body can learn to function just as well with less sleep

While many people may believe that they can learn to adapt to getting less sleep, the researchers found this to be false. Instead, studies show that even after weeks of tracking, reduced sleep leads to decreased daytime performance.

The researchers again point to night shift workers, who typically sleep less than those with daytime schedules and face a higher risk of death from any cause.

Myth 6: Hitting the snooze is better than getting up when the alarm first goes off

While there is little research looking at the effects of hitting the snooze button, disturbing sleep is "not optimal," the researchers say, and can have a negative impact on mood and cognition.

"Evidence suggests it may be best to set the alarm when one needs to get up instead of setting multiple alarms that might interrupt sleep," they write.

Myth 7: If you have difficulty falling asleep, it's best to stay in bed and keep trying

While it may seem counterintuitive, the sleep experts say this common practice is based on false assumptions. Instead, they recommend people having difficulty falling asleep should get out of bed and return only when they are tired.

However, if your goal is to get to sleep, it is important to avoid blue light from electronics, which disrupts circadian rhythms, so watching television and scrolling through social media are off limits. Try reading a book, listening to music or a podcast, or meditating.

Changing the perceptions of sleep myths

The researchers say their study sheds light on common misconceptions about sleep that, if cleared up, could improve overall health.

"Sleep is important to health, and there needs to be greater effort to inform the public regarding this important public health issue," said study senior investigator Girardin Jean Louis, PhD, a professor in the departments of Population Health and Psychiatry at NYU Langone. "For example, by discussing sleep habits with their patients, doctors can help prevent sleep myths from increasing risks for heart disease, obesity, and diabetes."

He notes the study also provides a framework for public health campaigns.

"Beliefs are associated with behaviors," the authors conclude. "Thus, altering health-related beliefs that are untrue is one promising strategy for promoting population health."

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7 common sleep myths that could be affecting your health

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While hitting the snooze button in the morning or having a nightcap before bed may seem like ways to get more sleep, these myths may actually be harming your health, according to new research. A good night's sleep is essential for overall health, yet sleep issues plague millions of Americans.

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Karina Blancas: "Your cellphone is spreading Ebola"

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Karina Blancas: "Your cellphone is spreading Ebola"

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This I believe is from Voice and right from the start it seems to be misleading and although it does include all the information that seems to support Ebola but doesn’t support the topic of how cellphones cause Ebola. This may have a lot of information that support the idea but its not very clear once again. And this wouldn’t be a good source because you have to pay so it doesn’t have the whole article which maybe something that one could say makes it a legit article but I still don’t see it because I didn’t really read much on how Cellphones are causing Ebola.

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Last week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declined to declare the ongoing outbreak of Ebola a global emergency. His decision came on the advice of an expert scientific panel; it was dubious nevertheless. Whatever the world chooses to call it, the disease is now on the edge of catastrophe that requires an urgent response.

The most urgent of all is also among the least direct. It doesn't involve Ebola at all but rather the inside of our cell phones.

As of April 13, the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sickened 1,251 people, killing 803, or 64 percent, of the infected. (This is well past the threshold of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which was formally declared a global health emergency by WHO on Aug. 8, 2014.) Despite the fact that nearly 100,000 people have been immunized with a vaccine that is 97.5 percent effective, infections are soaring, spread over a wide geography that is constantly catching international epidemic control experts by surprise. Many of the Ebola dead never sought care, remaining unknown to authorities until their demise and dying in their homes surrounded by virally exposed friends and family, risking further expansion of the epidemic.

This is occurring in an atmosphere of anger, warfare, distrust, and violence that increasingly targets the international health care response. North Kivu, the main area of infection, has been a war zone since 1994, when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hutus fled there from Rwanda, fearing reprisal attacks from Tutsis after 75 percent of the population was slaughtered in a mass genocide. The Rwandan army swept into the region in 1996, spawning a massive war involving multiple African nations that eventually claimed more than 6 million lives. Though that war officially ended in 2003, fighting never stopped in North Kivu and today involves an estimated 120 groups that range from sophisticated, well-armed armies to ragtag bands of self-proclaimed "liberators" that operate as criminal gangs (for which the international health care responders' foreign funds are a lucrative target).

Although Americans have played a minor role in this epidemic, because the U.S. State Department forbids federal employees from venturing into the dangerous North Kivu area, the global response has been aggressive and smart. Past mistakes in epidemic responses have largely been corrected, WHO has executed bold leadership, there is an effective vaccine, and despite the constant threat of violence, hundreds of health responders from all over the world are on the scene. Yet the epidemic continues to expand, and in late-night conversations with WHO's Tedros, I have asked why he is reluctant to declare a global emergency. The audibly exhausted director-general quizzed back, "What is to be gained by doing so?"

He has a point. Other than perhaps loosening U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's restrictions limiting scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from joining the response, and putting an enormous guilt trip on the World Bank to offer a few million dollars, it's hard to identify what a heightened state of urgency might offer. Any enhancement in military presence-increasing the numbers of United Nations peacekeepers over the roughly 20,000 now in North Kivu or expanding the size of the Congolese national army presence-would invite counteraction from rebel forces, likely escalating warfare. Moreover, many local citizens are already convinced that the entire Ebola crisis was concocted by corrupt officials in Congo's faraway capital, Kinshasa, for a variety of nefarious purposes; a military escalation would only appear to validate their conspiracy theories.

One set of actions, however, can and should be taken immediately by the Trump administration, the U.N. Security Council, the G-20, and international trade offices in countries with significant mobile phone and laptop production and manufacturing facilities. It concerns the vast mineral riches in the soils of North Kivu, sales of which finance weapons purchases for all of the rival forces in the region and constitute a key incentive behind the ongoing violence.

Conflict seems to have deepened in North Kivu alongside the spectacular global growth in the mobile phones market, which has made the locally plentiful black stones of columbite-tantalite, or coltan, potentially more valuable than Congo's gold, diamonds, uranium, and other minerals and gems. (The mineral trade brings as much as $1.4 billion per year.) Coltan is a heat-resistant mix of compounds that conduct high-energy signals inside laptops, electric cars, and cell phones, allowing compressed signals to display videos and games without exploding and batteries to safely store energy. Médecins Sans Frontières and other NGOs doing humanitarian work in the region noted a clear increase in regional violence in 2018, and rape, possibly linked to higher coltan demand.

Coltan is labeled a "conflict mineral," which, like "blood diamonds," is meant to be shunned. Nine years ago, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1952, calling for an end to the trade in conflict minerals and stipulating that "all States, particularly those in the region, regularly publish full import and export statistics for natural resources including gold, cassiterite, coltan, wolframite, timber, and charcoal and enhance information sharing and joint action at the regional level to investigate and combat regional criminal networks and armed groups involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources."

Numerous other coltan-related resolutions from the U.N. have followed since the 2010 conflict mineral declaration. Countries across Africa, as well as the European Union and Chinese government, have subsequently vowed to ban the purchase and use of Congolese coltan. In 2016, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued strict guidelines for the mining and purchasing of coltan from conflicted-affected areas.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, aimed at regulating the financial industry against future market failures. Included in that, Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act specifically requires U.S. computer and technology companies to trace the origins of their supplies of essential minerals, guaranteeing that none were mined from North Kivu. Under the act, companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, Dell, and their entire global supply chain of subcomponent manufacturers are required to demonstrate due diligence in ensuring that they know the origins of the minerals used in manufacturing their products and can prove none were derived from the Congolese conflict zone. In 2015, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals, and Chemicals Importers and Exporters adopted similar language, aimed at assuring their tech manufacturing sector shuns conflict minerals.

Yet scrutiny of corporate practices in purchasing coltan and other conflict minerals reveals low levels of genuine compliance. Given that about 80 percent of the global supply of coltan lies in North Kivu soils, it is hard to understand how the electronics industry could continue its worldwide expansion without buying conflict minerals, though perhaps through a series of untraceable shell companies located outside of Congo.

In 2017, the Trump administration vowed to eliminate Section 1502, using executive powers, and in April of that year the Securities and Exchange Commission ceased enforcing it. Manufacturers claimed that full implementation of the due-diligence tracking of mineral supplies, and the need to make purchases outside of the Congolese war zone, could cost $4 billion. Some researchers found that implementation of Section 1502 actually increased lawlessness and violence in the mining sector in North Kivu, bankrupting established businesses and promoting slavelike conditions in the mines. In June 2017, the Republican-led House voted to repeal Section 1502.

Where does this leave us? Coltan, gold, diamonds, and other minerals may not be the only sources of funding for the rival militias and armies of North Kivu, but they are certainly significant components of financing. The Trump administration, G-20, and OECD should immediately scrutinize the conflict minerals trade and the many government attempts to limit their use in cell phones and other electronics. Japan, as the host of the upcoming G-20 Summit, should place trade in coltan and its impact on the Ebola epidemic on the June gathering's Osaka agenda.

Unless the flow of cash-for-coltan comes to a halt, our cell phones will indirectly fuel violence and spur further spread of Ebola. It's hard to believe that anybody would think watching videos on a smartphone was a reasonable trade-off for an assassinated health care worker or spread of the Ebola virus to another Congolese town.

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Last week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declined to declare the ongoing outbreak of Ebola a global emergency. His decision came on the advice of an expert scientific panel; it was dubious nevertheless. Whatever the world chooses to call it, the disease is now on the edge of catastrophe that requires an urgent response.

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Danielle Lee: "5 Reasons That Alcohol Makes You Fat

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Danielle Lee: "5 Reasons That Alcohol Makes You Fat

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The first clue that lead me to believe that the article was fake or misleading was the title. It was biased towards alcohol making you fat verse being neutral about the topic and then explaining. The article that the website was posted on as well had plenty of advertisements and "clickbait" to other articles posted on the site. There were also no sources listed and when researching about the physchologytoday.com it was found that the website is biased with studies full of dramatic claims with small sample sizes to back them up.

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Alcoholic beverages don't feature nutrition labels the way that other foods we eat do. The food police might rail against sugar, fats, and over-processing. But nutritionist Nicole Senior, allied with the University of Sydney that invented the glycemic index, points to alcohol as "the pink elephant in the room."

At the very least, alcohol poses a five-fold challenge for those trying to watch their waistline.

The first unpleasant fact is that at 7 calories per gram, alcohol contains nearly twice the number of calories as do carbohydrates (4 calories per gram) and proteins (4.2 calories per gram). On top of that we need to consider other components such as the carbs inherent in beer itself, the sugar contained in fruit juices and mixers, and the fat in the cream that goes into cocktails.

The second problem is a straightforward one of storage. The body stores protein as muscle. It stores carbohydrate and fat as both glycogen in liver and muscle, and as fat in adipose tissue as many of us are all too well aware. (Glycogen is a multi-chain form of sugar.)

The body cannot store alcohol, however. Once ingested it must be burnt immediately. It takes precedence over any foods we eat with it or even what we consume over the course of a day. Worse given alcohol's high energy density, what food we do eat will count as surplus to our daily requirements. This surplus also gets turned into fat.

A third factor is that alcohol is a well-known appetite stimulant. For centuries physicians have prescribed the elderly, who often lose their appetites, a glass of wine before dinner. Enjoying an "aperitif" began as a French custom. The word means "to open," and alcohol certainly opens us up as anyone can see from the widespread pairing of drinks with cocktail nuts, canapés, and hors d'oeuvres. A drink or two makes these high calorie accompaniments go down the hatch with ease.

A fourth related factor is alcohol's well-known effect as a central nervous system suppressant. In small doses a drink or two preferentially suppresses inhibition more than other brain functions. This is why imbibers become more loquacious and uninhibited as a party wears on. Non-drinkers are quick to notice that conversation becomes louder and more boisterous within a short time. Inhibitions progressively fall away with each drink so that we find ourselves eating more of what's before us or digging into ice cream, pastries, and calorie-dense treats that we'd normally forswear when not under the influence. As the alcohol dose increases, judgment increasingly goes out the window.

The food police routinely rail against sugar a poison. But it isn't at all. It is merely an example of "empty calories," meaning calories that have no nutritive value. Alcohol, on the other hand, actually is a poison. In high enough doses kept up over time it kills brain cells, peripheral nerves, muscle, kidney, liver, the retina, and just about all organs in the body. As with all poisons the dose matters. Ask King Mithras from whom we get the word mithridatic, a draught which bestows immunity to a given poison by ingesting gradually larger doses of it.

The final reason that alcohol easily makes us fat is that it undergoes a rare form of metabolism called "zero order kinetics." Nearly all foodstuffs follow first order kinetics. In physiologic terms first order kinetics mean that you can speed up a given substance's metabolism in the body's furnace by piling on more of it in the way that shoveling more coal into a boiler makes the fire burn hotter. Alcohol is a notable exception to this rule. No matter how much you ingest - even if you chug from the bottle - nothing whatsoever can speed up the metabolism of alcohol. It burns at a steady rate of one ounce per hour. This is why coffee can't sober up drunks. All you get is a wide-awake drunk.

This inability to speed up Mother Nature is the prime reason why the above factors are so powerful, and why their effects persist for a long time.

To sum up, most of the calories in drinks come from the alcohol more than the carbs or sugars they contain. Fake beers such as O'Doul's, Clausthaler, and St. Pauli Girl that have an alcohol content of 0.1-1% are far better for your waistline and your inhibitions than are lite low-carb beers. Not only can you not fool Mother Nature, you also can't fool the science.

If this topic strikes a note, drop me a line.

E-mail neuroman@gwu.edu to reveive my newsletter. Follow me @Cytowic, at LinkedIn, or visit Cytowic.net and for my reviews at The New York Journal of Books.

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Alcoholic beverages don't feature nutrition labels the way that other foods we eat do. The food police might rail against sugar, fats, and over-processing. But nutritionist Nicole Senior, allied with the University of Sydney that invented the glycemic index, points to alcohol as "the pink elephant in the room."

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Wes Nakour - "A cognitive scientist explains why humans are so susceptible to fake news and misinformation"

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Wes Nakour - "A cognitive scientist explains why humans are so susceptible to fake news and misinformation"

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This article is credible because the 3 main paragraphs are all cited through research article sources. A credible article must have credible sources. Also, the author breaks down the research articles and explains the studies of fake news exposure and increased sense of misinformation.
https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/04/a-cognitive-scientist-explains-why-humans-are-so-susceptible-to-fake-news-and-misinformation/

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Chloe Koehler "Proposed ban on dog breeds must have 'good citizen' exemption in Washington

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Chloe Koehler "Proposed ban on dog breeds must have 'good citizen' exemption in Washington

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I believe this article to be real because it is written by the Associated Press which is a news agency that is pretty credible and it seems to be giving light to a future possibility for some dog breed owners to be able to keep their dogs no matter the breed if they pass a certain program.

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OLYMPIA, Wash - Finding out just who's a good dog is set to become the responsibility of local jurisdictions under new rules on breed bans passed by the Legislature.

Passed by the Senate Wednesday on a 25-23 vote, the rules wouldn't block breed bans entirely, but would require exceptions for owners who can prove their pets are well-behaved.

Often targeting larger, muscular breeds including Pitbulls and Rottweilers, bans have been an instrument of critics who say some breeds are innately dangerous.

Related: Yakima to revisit ban on pit bull terriers

The rules would allow owners to get around such bans based on completion of the American Kennel Club's Canine Good Citizen programs, which includes tests of whether an animal will react aggressively to strangers, being petted, and interacting with unfamiliar dogs.

Local jurisdictions would be allowed to enforce breed bans, but would have to exempt dogs that passed the test.

The proposal now heads to Gov. Jay Inslee for consideration.

Related: Delta to ban all pit bull type dogs as service, support animals

Related: Redmond plumber pays to save life of client's dog

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Proposed ban on dog breeds must have 'good citizen' exemption in Washington

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OLYMPIA, Wash - Finding out just who's a good dog is set to become the responsibility of local jurisdictions under new rules on breed bans passed by the Legislature. Passed by the Senate Wednesday on a 25-23 vote, the rules wouldn't block breed bans entirely, but would require exceptions for owners who can prove their pets are well-behaved.

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"your cell phone is spreading Ebola"
This I believe is from Voice and from the start I thought this was real news but in a way clickbait because I thought this was going to talk more about the ways Ebola has killed because of phone like it says on the tittle but it doesn't really clarify why thats the thought it more on stuff we already know. Although this seems legit by the places they got information it doesn't really cover the topic its mostly about Ebola and it killing in Congo.

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Last week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declined to declare the ongoing outbreak of Ebola a global emergency. His decision came on the advice of an expert scientific panel; it was dubious nevertheless. Whatever the world chooses to call it, the disease is now on the edge of catastrophe that requires an urgent response.

The most urgent of all is also among the least direct. It doesn't involve Ebola at all but rather the inside of our cell phones.

As of April 13, the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sickened 1,251 people, killing 803, or 64 percent, of the infected. (This is well past the threshold of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which was formally declared a global health emergency by WHO on Aug. 8, 2014.) Despite the fact that nearly 100,000 people have been immunized with a vaccine that is 97.5 percent effective, infections are soaring, spread over a wide geography that is constantly catching international epidemic control experts by surprise. Many of the Ebola dead never sought care, remaining unknown to authorities until their demise and dying in their homes surrounded by virally exposed friends and family, risking further expansion of the epidemic.

This is occurring in an atmosphere of anger, warfare, distrust, and violence that increasingly targets the international health care response. North Kivu, the main area of infection, has been a war zone since 1994, when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Hutus fled there from Rwanda, fearing reprisal attacks from Tutsis after 75 percent of the population was slaughtered in a mass genocide. The Rwandan army swept into the region in 1996, spawning a massive war involving multiple African nations that eventually claimed more than 6 million lives. Though that war officially ended in 2003, fighting never stopped in North Kivu and today involves an estimated 120 groups that range from sophisticated, well-armed armies to ragtag bands of self-proclaimed "liberators" that operate as criminal gangs (for which the international health care responders' foreign funds are a lucrative target).

Although Americans have played a minor role in this epidemic, because the U.S. State Department forbids federal employees from venturing into the dangerous North Kivu area, the global response has been aggressive and smart. Past mistakes in epidemic responses have largely been corrected, WHO has executed bold leadership, there is an effective vaccine, and despite the constant threat of violence, hundreds of health responders from all over the world are on the scene. Yet the epidemic continues to expand, and in late-night conversations with WHO's Tedros, I have asked why he is reluctant to declare a global emergency. The audibly exhausted director-general quizzed back, "What is to be gained by doing so?"

He has a point. Other than perhaps loosening U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's restrictions limiting scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from joining the response, and putting an enormous guilt trip on the World Bank to offer a few million dollars, it's hard to identify what a heightened state of urgency might offer. Any enhancement in military presence-increasing the numbers of United Nations peacekeepers over the roughly 20,000 now in North Kivu or expanding the size of the Congolese national army presence-would invite counteraction from rebel forces, likely escalating warfare. Moreover, many local citizens are already convinced that the entire Ebola crisis was concocted by corrupt officials in Congo's faraway capital, Kinshasa, for a variety of nefarious purposes; a military escalation would only appear to validate their conspiracy theories.

One set of actions, however, can and should be taken immediately by the Trump administration, the U.N. Security Council, the G-20, and international trade offices in countries with significant mobile phone and laptop production and manufacturing facilities. It concerns the vast mineral riches in the soils of North Kivu, sales of which finance weapons purchases for all of the rival forces in the region and constitute a key incentive behind the ongoing violence.

Conflict seems to have deepened in North Kivu alongside the spectacular global growth in the mobile phones market, which has made the locally plentiful black stones of columbite-tantalite, or coltan, potentially more valuable than Congo's gold, diamonds, uranium, and other minerals and gems. (The mineral trade brings as much as $1.4 billion per year.) Coltan is a heat-resistant mix of compounds that conduct high-energy signals inside laptops, electric cars, and cell phones, allowing compressed signals to display videos and games without exploding and batteries to safely store energy. Médecins Sans Frontières and other NGOs doing humanitarian work in the region noted a clear increase in regional violence in 2018, and rape, possibly linked to higher coltan demand.

Coltan is labeled a "conflict mineral," which, like "blood diamonds," is meant to be shunned. Nine years ago, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1952, calling for an end to the trade in conflict minerals and stipulating that "all States, particularly those in the region, regularly publish full import and export statistics for natural resources including gold, cassiterite, coltan, wolframite, timber, and charcoal and enhance information sharing and joint action at the regional level to investigate and combat regional criminal networks and armed groups involved in the illegal exploitation of natural resources."

Numerous other coltan-related resolutions from the U.N. have followed since the 2010 conflict mineral declaration. Countries across Africa, as well as the European Union and Chinese government, have subsequently vowed to ban the purchase and use of Congolese coltan. In 2016, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) issued strict guidelines for the mining and purchasing of coltan from conflicted-affected areas.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act, aimed at regulating the financial industry against future market failures. Included in that, Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act specifically requires U.S. computer and technology companies to trace the origins of their supplies of essential minerals, guaranteeing that none were mined from North Kivu. Under the act, companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Tesla, Dell, and their entire global supply chain of subcomponent manufacturers are required to demonstrate due diligence in ensuring that they know the origins of the minerals used in manufacturing their products and can prove none were derived from the Congolese conflict zone. In 2015, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals, and Chemicals Importers and Exporters adopted similar language, aimed at assuring their tech manufacturing sector shuns conflict minerals.

Yet scrutiny of corporate practices in purchasing coltan and other conflict minerals reveals low levels of genuine compliance. Given that about 80 percent of the global supply of coltan lies in North Kivu soils, it is hard to understand how the electronics industry could continue its worldwide expansion without buying conflict minerals, though perhaps through a series of untraceable shell companies located outside of Congo.

In 2017, the Trump administration vowed to eliminate Section 1502, using executive powers, and in April of that year the Securities and Exchange Commission ceased enforcing it. Manufacturers claimed that full implementation of the due-diligence tracking of mineral supplies, and the need to make purchases outside of the Congolese war zone, could cost $4 billion. Some researchers found that implementation of Section 1502 actually increased lawlessness and violence in the mining sector in North Kivu, bankrupting established businesses and promoting slavelike conditions in the mines. In June 2017, the Republican-led House voted to repeal Section 1502.

Where does this leave us? Coltan, gold, diamonds, and other minerals may not be the only sources of funding for the rival militias and armies of North Kivu, but they are certainly significant components of financing. The Trump administration, G-20, and OECD should immediately scrutinize the conflict minerals trade and the many government attempts to limit their use in cell phones and other electronics. Japan, as the host of the upcoming G-20 Summit, should place trade in coltan and its impact on the Ebola epidemic on the June gathering's Osaka agenda.

Unless the flow of cash-for-coltan comes to a halt, our cell phones will indirectly fuel violence and spur further spread of Ebola. It's hard to believe that anybody would think watching videos on a smartphone was a reasonable trade-off for an assassinated health care worker or spread of the Ebola virus to another Congolese town.

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Last week, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), declined to declare the ongoing outbreak of Ebola a global emergency. His decision came on the advice of an expert scientific panel; it was dubious nevertheless. Whatever the world chooses to call it, the disease is now on the edge of catastrophe that requires an urgent response.

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Rebecca Samuel: "50 Unexpected Benefits of Cannabis (you might not know)"

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Rebecca Samuel: "50 Unexpected Benefits of Cannabis (you might not know)"

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I see this being somewhat fake and misleading. Although they try to back up their points with research, there isn't enough hardcore evidence to generate the credibility of their points. Lots of their links we are also linked to other sights that made similar claims and not to possible research or data. When it comes to defining if a substance is used for cure and overall certain health benefits, data and research by credible individuals, institutions, organizations, or even the government (big stakeholders),help generate the credibility. Some of their claims such as it being helpful for those with ADHD, have been studied before but, in the source it didn't back it up with any findings. This again has led me to believe that not all their claims are true.

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It comes as no shock to anyone who knows cannabis that this is a valuable plant with a lot of benefits.

As we bring this plant out of the dark and into the light, it continues to blow our minds - just how great the benefits of cannabis actually are!

We are talking about benefits to public health, to the economy, and to each and every person who develops a positive relationship with this therapeutic plant.

Here are 50 emerging benefits of cannabis that will no doubt inspire further research:

The Health Benefits of Cannabis

1. It Could Help You Lose Weight

If you're an avid Green Flower reader, then you're already aware that cannabis users have been shown to be slimmer, on average, than non-users. That's because cannabis helps the body regulate insulin production, and manage caloric intake more efficiently.

2. It Appears to Help Regulate and Prevent Diabetes

Because cannabis helps regulate body weight, it only makes sense that it would help prevent and regulate Diabetes. Again, you can thank the herb's ability to regulate insulin production for this medical breakthrough.

3. It Fights Cancer

This is the big one that everybody's been talking about. Both scientists and the federal government have released a good amount of evidence showing that cannabinoids fight certain types of cancer. It doesn't get much more substantial than that.

4. It Can Help Depression

Research is important, but so are the voices and smiles of those whom cannabis actually helps!

Depression is one of the more widespread, yet least talked about medical conditions in America. And research is showing that cannabis can help relieve people.

"Using compounds derived from cannabis - marijuana - to restore normal endocannabinoid function could potentially help stabilize moods and ease depression," said Samir Haj-Dahmane, who is spearheading the research at Buffalo University - research that is only just now beginning to ramp up.

5. It's Showing Promise in Treating Autism

Like many other high-profile disorders, autism may be a prime target for cannabis-based treatments. Science is digging into it, but in the meantime, some parents are using it to help manage violent mood swings in autistic children.

6. It Provides a Safer Alternative to Other Drugs and Alcohol

Cannabis can be harmful if you use it irresponsibly, but it's nowhere near as destructive as alcohol for example. With wider availability, cannabis can and will become a substance of choice - and likely save a lot of lives (and livers) in the process.

7. It Helps Regulate Seizures for a lot of People

Using medical cannabis to regulate seizures is another one of the more high-profile findings coming out of medical science. For folks with disorders like Epilepsy, cannabis is showing immense promise.

8. CBD Can Apparently Help Broken Bones Heal Faster

Can you believe that cannabis can actually mend broken bones? It's true, as CBD evidently reacts chemically with collagen, spurring along the healing process. Another very exciting find.

9. It's Helping People with ADHD

For those with serious trouble concentrating, or who have children suffering from ADD or ADHD, cannabis might be the treatment you've been waiting for. It's safer and more effective than medications like Ritalin or Adderall.

10. It Can Help Treat Serious Addictions

We already mentioned that cannabis can be a viable, safer alternative to substances like alcohol and tobacco, but did you know that it can also be used as a treatment for addictions to these substances, and more? Individuals addicted to serious drugs like heroin, opiates, and cocaine, are showing promise in ridding themselves of their addictions through cannabis therapy.

Of course, it's entirely possible to develop a dependency to marijuana, also - so responsible and mindful use is key.
11. It Treats Glaucoma
One of the first big medical issue that cannabis was shown to effectively treat is glaucoma. Ingesting cannabis helps lower the pressure in the eyeball, giving patients at least temporary relief.

12. It Can Improve Lung Health

You probably never saw this one coming - especially since pot is commonly associated with smoking, and smoking with chronic lung problems. But some conditions, including lung cancer and Emphysema, have been shown to regress when cannabis is thrown into the mix.

13. It Helps Anxiety in Correct Doses

Fact: cannabis can actually cause anxiety but there are ways to potentially avoid that. And it's also true that for many people, cannabis can help alleviate anxiety disorders.

14. It Appears to Slow the Development of Alzheimer's Disease

Cognitive degeneration is pretty much unavoidable as we age, and Alzheimer's disease falls under that umbrella. The good news is that studies are showing cannabis can stop the progression of Alzheimer's, which may lead to longer, richer lives for millions.

15. It Helps M.S. Patients

Cannabis helps alleviate many of the symptoms associated with Multiple Sclerosis, most notably the tremors, spasms, and pain.

RECOMMENDED FOR CHRONIC PAIN:
Cannabis For Back Pain, Chronic Pain, & Nerve Damage
Watch Green Flower's online session with Mara Gordon today...

16. It Can Relieve Muscle Spasms

We've mentioned M.S. and seizures, but general muscle spasms are an ailment that affect millions. Cannabis can help calm those muscles, stop them from twitching, and deal with the pain associated with spasms.

17. It Could Help with Eating Disorders

A common use for medical cannabis is to help regulate eating patterns. Whether you eat too much, or too little, cannabis can help. This is especially helpful for people suffering from disorders like Bulimia and Anorexia.

18. It Relieves Arthritis

Another common ailment that cannabis is used to treat is arthritis. The THC and CBD - as well as other cannabinoids - help sufferers deal with the pain, especially when using quality cannabis creams and balms.

19. It's Helpful for Those with PTSD

With so many veterans in need of effective treatments for PTSD after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the discovery that cannabis is a viable option is fantastic news. Now, the trick is to get the VA and doctors to actually prescribe it.

And of course not all PTSD is combat-related. All sorts of traumatic experiences can put that fight-or-flight response into overdrive, and cannabis is the only medication to address that.

20. It Could Help Regulate Your Metabolism

We touched on how cannabis helps your body process and deal with food, and obesity. This plays into how it also helps maintain and regulate your metabolism. That not only means sticking to an ideal weight level but generally being healthier and happier!

21. It Helps People with AIDS/HIV

Cannabis can't directly cure the AIDS virus, but it can and does help those living with it cope. Specifically, cannabis helps those living with AIDS/HIV maintain their diets and handle associated pains and aches.

22. It's Proved Effective for Treating Nausea

Next up on our list of marijuana facts: nausea. This is a relatively common feeling, and one that is brought on by any number of things. Some people live with constant bouts on a daily basis, and as you can imagine, it can be debilitating. How does cannabis come into the picture? Chemical compounds in cannabis react with brain receptors to regulate feelings of nausea. This is a particular boon for chemotherapy patients (see #27).

23. It's an Alternative Treatment for Headaches

Lots of people experience headaches every day, and taking the typical medicines - be it acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil) - can take its toll on your body, leading to ulcers, liver damage, and other complications. Cannabis offers a natural alternative, and one that won't chew threw your stomach lining.

24. It Looks the Herb Can Treat Certain STDs

It's true - cannabis has been found to be at least somewhat effective in the treatment of a handful of sexually transmitted diseases, including herpes and chlamydia.

25. It Could Help with Speech Problems

If you, or someone you know, has an issue with stuttering, cannabis can help. Research is by and large still lacking, but in the same way that cannabis helps calm spasms and twitches, those with speech problems can potentially benefit from its effects.

26. It Can Improve Skin Conditions

Who would've thought that cannabis could be a viable treatment option for skin conditions like eczema? The only issue? Smoking won't do much good, as smoking actually harms your skin. A quality cannabis topical, on the other hand, can do wonders.

27. It Can Help You Get Through Chemotherapy

This is another extremely popular use for medical cannabis. Those suffering from cancers and its treatments - like chemotherapy - have found comfort in cannabis's soothing effects.

28. It Could Help with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Those living with OCD might also use cannabis as a therapeutic option. CBD, which effectively regulates anxiety to some extent, is the main active ingredient which helps those with OCD get a handle on the disorder - and live more functional lives.

29. Cannabis Can Calm Asthma Attacks

You probably never saw this one coming. Cannabis and asthma? They're apparently compatible, or so says science. Again, it has to do with cannabinoid receptors which help control coughing fits as well as the herb's ability to act as a bronchodilator. Smoking is obviously not the best method of delivery here, as that will likely only make things worse.

30. It Can Replace Viagra for Some Men

How about a natural cure for erectile dysfunction? This is another one of the many benefits of marijuana. No more hiding that Viagra in the back of the medicine cabinet, merely stick to cannabis. The research is ongoing, but there is evidence that cannabis can help men overcome this frustrating issue.

RECOMMENDED FOR COUPLES:
Can Cannabis Solve Our Sex & Intimacy Problems? Watch Green Flower's online talk with Jordan Tishler today, MD
31. It Can Lower Your Blood Pressure

Smoking and low blood pressure are rarely synonymous. Thankfully there are several other ways to ingest cannabis, which can help with hypertension and other blood pressure issues. Although if you have serious heart issues, caution is advised because we still have a lot to learn about cannabis and the heart.

32. It'll Calm Your Panic Attacks in Proper Doses

As mentioned, calming anxiety is one of cannabis's more sought-after effects. As a result, it can help people control panic attacks. Of course, it'll depend on several physical factors, and what specific strains you use.

The Economic Benefits of Cannabis

33. It Can Be Used as a Food Source

Despite the fact that cannabis is hard to find at your local grocery store, throughout history, it's been a dietary staple for many civilizations. Hemp has often been cultivated as a source of protein, and even today is used to create protein powders, or seeds can be purchased for consumption. On a large production scale, hemp can feed a lot of hungry people if prohibitive laws are overturned.

34. It Makes for an Attractive Investment

Want to make green, from green? Lots of venture capitalists are starting to see the explosive potential in the cannabis industry, and as a result, are dumping money into cannabis-based startups and businesses. Cannabis capital summits are even popping up, attracting investors and entrepreneurs.

35. It Can Help Fight Climate Change

If we are able to get large-scale cannabis farms into production, it could help curb emissions, and fight climate change. This would happen through a number of ways, from providing more carbon-absorbing plants across vast farmlands, to trading off emission-producing animal farms for greener, cleaner cannabis grows.

36. It Creates Jobs

The creation of literally tens of thousands of jobs in the wake of legalization in places like Colorado and Washington is hard to ignore. And in an economy that has been in slow-recovery mode since 2009, looking at any opportunity to add more jobs can't be overlooked.

37. It Generates Revenue for Schools and Public Health Programs

Instead of having money funnel into the hands of low-level street dealers, or even cartels on the other side of the border, legal marijuana markets are putting money to work in local communities through tax revenue. Marijuana is now supplying millions to schools and public health programs, among other things.

38. Legalizing Cannabis is Getting People Out of Jail

A big point of contention in the U.S. recently has been the large rate of incarceration, and the amount of money flowing to the prison industrial complex. Legalization is clearing out prisons, and freeing up time and resources for law enforcement.

39. It's Creating New Industries

We mentioned that cannabis is creating a lot of jobs, and that's because it's creating new industries which house them. Cultivation, processing, sales outlets - there are numerous facets to the cannabis industry, and as legalization spreads, it'll continue to grow.

40. It Lowers Crime Rates

Yes, making a previously illegal product legal lowers the crime rate - but it goes deeper than that. Numbers show that states in post-legalization status are seeing drops in crime, and perhaps most importantly, violent crime.

41. It Leads to Safer Roads

Traffic deaths have gone down in Colorado after legalization, which is fantastic news. This could be due to the substitution effect, people choosing pot over alcohol.

42. It Makes Law Enforcement Cheaper and Easier

In legalized states, police no longer need to spend time chasing marijuana offenders, which also clears up the courtrooms for more serious cases. This makes things easier for everybody, and cheaper for the tax payers.

How Cannabis Can Improve Your Daily Life

43. It Can Keep Your Pets Healthy

Cannabis, in some forms, can make for a healthy supplement for your pets. And for animals that are sick, or living with chronic pain, cannabis-based treats can offer some relief.

44. It Can Stop Nightmares

Plagued by bad dreams? Try cannabis before you hit the sack, and see if it makes a difference. For some people, it's doing the trick. For others, particularly those with PTSD, it can also eliminate dreams completely. The reason, it turns out, is that cannabis impacts REM sleep - the part of the cycle during which you dream.

45. It Can Bring Your Energy Levels up

A lot of people are tired. But a small subset of individuals suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - a disorder that is effectively treated with certain cannabis compounds and strains. Just make sure you're picking the right ones if you want to avoid fatigue.

46. It'll Help You Sleep

On the flip side, you can use cannabis to help you get to sleep. Again, though, it'll depend on what specific strains you're using, and your physical and psychological makeup. You may have to experiment a bit to get the desired effect.

47. It Can Help You Get Through the Work Day

No matter what kind of job you have, cannabis can probably give you a boost in some way - be it mentally or physically. Even consuming after work can be a help. If you do decide to experiment with cannabis at work, be careful not to let things get out of hand. Be mindful of what works and what doesn't.

And if you're operating machinery, or driving? Abstain. Better to get high AFTER work.

48. It Can Make You More Productive

If you can get your cannabis regimen just right, productivity could increase significantly. For a lot of people that may be due to the medical benefits gained from cannabis, or the inspiration, or simply because they're happier. On the other hand, productivity can also take a complete nosedive if you're not careful.

What we do know is in medical cannabis states employee absenteeism is down.

49. It Could Make You More Creative

Surprise, surprise - cannabis can help you be more creative. There's still some debate as to how or why this happens, but cannabis does inspire lateral and divergent thinking, an important mindset for innovation and progress.

50. It Can Protect Your Brain

Cannabis as a brain protector? It's true. Scientists are finding that chemical compounds found in cannabis actually help protect our brains.

Let's spread the word!

Wow, that's a lot of benefits! If this list hasn't provided you with enough marijuana facts to convert even the most strident prohibitionist, what will?

And of course we have to be realistic. Marijuana does have its own advantages AND disadvantages. Just like anything else it can be abused or misused. But if we're going to educate, we've got to de-stigmatize and spark more conversations. The truth is that everybody, everywhere deserves access to all the benefits of marijuana.
Cannabis education is critical. If you want to dive deeper, an entire universe of trusted cannabis knowledge awaits you...

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Small Trials Find Cannabis May May Improve T-Cell Count In HIV Patients

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It comes as no shock to anyone who knows cannabis that this is a valuable plant with a lot of benefits. As we bring this plant out of the dark and into the light, it continues to blow our minds - just how great the benefits of cannabis actually are!

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Neida Hernandez- “Doctors in seven states charged with prescribing pain killers for cash, sex"

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Neida Hernandez- “Doctors in seven states charged with prescribing pain killers for cash, sex"

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I believe the news story of medical professionals being charged with illegally prescribing opioids is credible due to many reasons. For instance, the same news story across many credible sources such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and CNN and USA TODAY. As well, both authors covering their issue have a Bachelor of Arts within the policy or history field along with honors and awards in which relates to their expertise on the topic. Also, within the article contains in-text links to statistics on where information was gathered from, and a video of from the justice department is included that declares 60 defendants are being charged for illegally prescribing and supplying opioids.

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Doctors in five states charged with prescribing pain killers for cash, sex

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April 17 at 11:00 AM Dozens of medical professionals in five states were charged Wednesday with participating in the illegal prescribing of more than 32 million pain pills, including doctors who prosecutors said traded sex for prescriptions and a dentist who unnecessarily pulled teeth from patients to justify giving them opioids.

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Personally I think that this news story is credible because I have cross-checked with other news outlet and they all provided similar information. In addition, nbc New York is consistent source of news. The article also did not express a lot of biased opinions and just provided some basic details on the case. There was really no advertisement in the article so that was also a good sign.

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Ten students at a Connecticut high school face charges after a food fight-turned-riot ended with a teacher and school resource officer hurt, authorities say.

The students, who attend Westhill High School in Stamford and are between the ages of 15 and 17, are charged with first-degree rioting, breach of peace, reckless endangerment and assault on a police officer.

School officials said Friday's food fight had been in the planning for days and developed in a courtyard next to the cafeteria.

Police said the resource officer was struck in the head by a full soda can while the teacher was "trampled by a mass of students." He is recovering at home.

Stamford Superintendent Earl Kim called the incident "ugly and disappointing."

Sharon Beadle, Stamford Public School spokesperson, said the administration handled the situation "quickly" and that "the district doesn't condone that soirt of behavior."

Principal Michael Rinaldi issued a statement through a letter on the school's website, which reads in part: "Connected with this event were a number of other actions that Westhill High School and the Stamford Police are investigating and will work together to issue consequences including, but not limited to suspension, expulsions and arrests."

Ten students have since been arrested in connection to the incident following an investigation that included reviewing security video, Stamford police says. Only one arrest took place on site as the incident unfolded.

Those arrested face charges that range from riot in the first degree to reckless endangerment and assault on a police officer, according to police.

The students are scheduled to appear in juvenile court but because of their ages their identities will not be disclosed.

"We realize that the citizens, parents, teachers and vast majority of the students do not condone this behavior. This is not the learning environment we expect and demand for our children in this City," the police department said in a statement.

Additionally, authorities are using the incident as an example and are urging parents to monitor their children's social media use.

While the school is currently on spring break, three information sessions are scheduled for next week.

Food fights have apparently taken place at the school in the past, but not at the scale of the recent incident.

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Teacher 'Trampled' in Wild CT Food Fight; 10 Kids Arrested

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Ten students at a Connecticut high school face charges after a food fight-turned-riot ended with a teacher and school resource officer hurt, authorities say. The students, who attend Westhill High School in Stamford and are between the ages of 15 and 17, are charged with first-degree rioting, breach of peace, reckless endangerment and assault on a police officer.

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Monserrat Morales "A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy"

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Monserrat Morales "A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy"

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I think this story is credible. A lot of people are not aware of the rise of Candida auris, just like with the measles outbreak when it first started to rise in January. For the past few weeks I have been seeing multiple articles regarding this fungus which can be deadly for people with weakened immune systems. The story reported is real. The article is from the New York Times which is one of the best newspapers in the U.S. and worldwide. It has won multiple awards and is considered a credible source. Both authors are cited along with the sources that they use which include the CDC and BMC journals.

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Deadly germs, Lost cures

The rise of Candida auris embodies a serious and growing public health threat: drug-resistant germs.

Bacteria are rebelling. They're turning the tide against antibiotics by outsmarting our wonder drugs. This video explores the surprising reasons.

Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious. Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit.

The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe. Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa.

Recently C. auris reached New York, New Jersey and Illinois, leading the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed "urgent threats."
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The man at Mount Sinai died after 90 days in the hospital, but C. auris did not. Tests showed it was everywhere in his room, so invasive that the hospital needed special cleaning equipment and had to rip out some of the ceiling and floor tiles to eradicate it.

"Everything was positive - the walls, the bed, the doors, the curtains, the phones, the sink, the whiteboard, the poles, the pump," said Dr. Scott Lorin, the hospital's president. "The mattress, the bed rails, the canister holes, the window shades, the ceiling, everything in the room was positive."

C. auris is so tenacious, in part, because it is impervious to major antifungal medications, making it a new example of one of the world's most intractable health threats: the rise of drug-resistant infections.

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For decades, public health experts have warned that the overuse of antibiotics was reducing the effectiveness of drugs that have lengthened life spans by curing bacterial infections once commonly fatal. But lately, there has been an explosion of resistant fungi as well, adding a new and frightening dimension to a phenomenon that is undermining a pillar of modern medicine.

"It's an enormous problem," said Matthew Fisher, a professor of fungal epidemiology at Imperial College London, who was a co-author of a recent scientific review on the rise of resistant fungi. "We depend on being able to treat those patients with antifungals."

Simply put, fungi, just like bacteria, are evolving defenses to survive modern medicines.

Yet even as world health leaders have pleaded for more restraint in prescribing antimicrobial drugs to combat bacteria and fungi - convening the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 to manage an emerging crisis - gluttonous overuse of them in hospitals, clinics and farming has continued.

Resistant germs are often called "superbugs," but this is simplistic because they don't typically kill everyone. Instead, they are most lethal to people with immature or compromised immune systems, including newborns and the elderly, smokers, diabetics and people with autoimmune disorders who take steroids that suppress the body's defenses.

Scientists say that unless more effective new medicines are developed and unnecessary use of antimicrobial drugs is sharply curbed, risk will spread to healthier populations. A study the British government funded projects that if policies are not put in place to slow the rise of drug resistance, 10 million people could die worldwide of all such infections in 2050, eclipsing the eight million expected to die that year from cancer.

Antibiotics and antifungals are both essential to combat infections in people, but antibiotics are also used widely to prevent disease in farm animals, and antifungals are also applied to prevent agricultural plants from rotting. Some scientists cite evidence that rampant use of fungicides on crops is contributing to the surge in drug-resistant fungi infecting humans.

Yet as the problem grows, it is little understood by the public - in part because the very existence of resistant infections is often cloaked in secrecy.

With bacteria and fungi alike, hospitals and local governments are reluctant to disclose outbreaks for fear of being seen as infection hubs. Even the C.D.C., under its agreement with states, is not allowed to make public the location or name of hospitals involved in outbreaks. State governments have in many cases declined to publicly share information beyond acknowledging that they have had cases.

All the while, the germs are easily spread - carried on hands and equipment inside hospitals; ferried on meat and manure-fertilized vegetables from farms; transported across borders by travelers and on exports and imports; and transferred by patients from nursing home to hospital and back.

C. auris, which infected the man at Mount Sinai, is one of dozens of dangerous bacteria and fungi that have developed resistance.

Other prominent strains of the fungus Candida - one of the most common causes of bloodstream infections in hospitals - have not developed significant resistance to drugs, but more than 90 percent of C. auris infections are resistant to at least one drug, and 30 percent are resistant to two or more drugs, the C.D.C. said.

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In late 2015, Dr. Johanna Rhodes, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College London, got a panicked call from the Royal Brompton Hospital, a British medical center in London. C. auris had taken root there months earlier, and the hospital couldn't clear it.

"'We have no idea where it's coming from. We've never heard of it. It's just spread like wildfire,'" Dr. Rhodes said she was told. She agreed to help the hospital identify the fungus's genetic profile and clean it from rooms.

Under her direction, hospital workers used a special device to spray aerosolized hydrogen peroxide around a room used for a patient with C. auris, the theory being that the vapor would scour each nook and cranny. They left the device going for a week. Then they put a "settle plate" in the middle of the room with a gel at the bottom that would serve as a place for any surviving microbes to grow, Dr. Rhodes said.

Read the next article in this series

By the end of June 2016, a scientific paper reported "an ongoing outbreak of 50 C. auris cases" at Royal Brompton, and the hospital took an extraordinary step: It shut down its I.C.U. for 11 days, moving intensive care patients to another floor, again with no announcement.

Days later the hospital finally acknowledged to a newspaper that it had a problem. A headline in The Daily Telegraph warned, "Intensive Care Unit Closed After Deadly New Superbug Emerges in the U.K." (Later research said there were eventually 72 total cases, though some patients were only carriers and were not infected by the fungus.)

Yet the issue remained little known internationally, while an even bigger outbreak had begun in Valencia, Spain, at the 992-bed Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe. There, unbeknown to the public or unaffected patients, 372 people were colonized - meaning they had the germ on their body but were not sick with it - and 85 developed bloodstream infections. A paper in the journal Mycoses reported that 41 percent of the infected patients died within 30 days.

The secrecy infuriates patient advocates, who say people have a right to know if there is an outbreak so they can decide whether to go to a hospital, particularly when dealing with a nonurgent matter, like elective surgery.

"Why the heck are we reading about an outbreak almost a year and a half later - and not have it front-page news the day after it happens?" said Dr. Kevin Kavanagh, a physician in Kentucky and board chairman of Health Watch USA, a nonprofit patient advocacy group. "You wouldn't tolerate this at a restaurant with a food poisoning outbreak."

Health officials say that disclosing outbreaks frightens patients about a situation they can do nothing about, particularly when the risks are unclear.

"It's hard enough with these organisms for health care providers to wrap their heads around it," said Dr. Anna Yaffee, a former C.D.C. outbreak investigator who dealt with resistant infection outbreaks in Kentucky in which the hospitals were not publicly disclosed. "It's really impossible to message to the public."

Officials in London did alert the C.D.C. to the Royal Brompton outbreak while it was occurring. And the C.D.C. realized it needed to get the word to American hospitals. On June 24, 2016, the C.D.C. blasted a nationwide warning to hospitals and medical groups and set up an email address, candidaauris@cdc.gov, to field queries. Dr. Snigdha Vallabhaneni, a key member of the fungal team, expected to get a trickle - "maybe a message every month."

Instead, within weeks, her inbox exploded.

In the United States, 587 cases of people having contracted C. auris have been reported, concentrated with 309 in New York, 104 in New Jersey and 144 in Illinois, according to the C.D.C.

The symptoms - fever, aches and fatigue - are seemingly ordinary, but when a person gets infected, particularly someone already unhealthy, such commonplace symptoms can be fatal.

The earliest known case in the United States involved a woman who arrived at a New York hospital on May 6, 2013, seeking care for respiratory failure. She was 61 and from the United Arab Emirates, and she died a week later, after testing positive for the fungus. At the time, the hospital hadn't thought much of it, but three years later, it sent the case to the C.D.C. after reading the agency's June 2016 advisory.

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This woman probably was not America's first C. auris patient. She carried a strain different from the South Asian one most common here. It killed a 56-year-old American woman who had traveled to India in March 2017 for elective abdominal surgery, contracted C. auris and was airlifted back to a hospital in Connecticut that officials will not identify. She was later transferred to a Texas hospital, where she died.

The germ has spread into long-term care facilities. In Chicago, 50 percent of the residents at some nursing homes have tested positive for it, the C.D.C. has reported. The fungus can grow on intravenous lines and ventilators.

Workers who care for patients infected with C. auris worry for their own safety. Dr. Matthew McCarthy, who has treated several C. auris patients at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, described experiencing an unusual fear when treating a 30-year-old man.

"I found myself not wanting to touch the guy," he said. "I didn't want to take it from the guy and bring it to someone else." He did his job and thoroughly examined the patient, but said, "There was an overwhelming feeling of being terrified of accidentally picking it up on a sock or tie or gown."

As the C.D.C. works to limit the spread of drug-resistant C. auris, its investigators have been trying to answer the vexing question: Where in the world did it come from?

The first time doctors encountered C. auris was in the ear of a woman in Japan in 2009 (auris is Latin for ear). It seemed innocuous at the time, a cousin of common, easily treated fungal infections.

Three years later, it appeared in an unusual test result in the lab of Dr. Jacques Meis, a microbiologist in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who was analyzing a bloodstream infection in 18 patients from four hospitals in India. Soon, new clusters of C. auris seemed to emerge with each passing month in different parts of the world.

The C.D.C. investigators theorized that C. auris started in Asia and spread across the globe. But when the agency compared the entire genome of auris samples from India and Pakistan, Venezuela, South Africa and Japan, it found that its origin was not a single place, and there was not a single auris strain.

The genome sequencing showed that there were four distinctive versions of the fungus, with differences so profound that they suggested that these strains had diverged thousands of years ago and emerged as resistant pathogens from harmless environmental strains in four different places at the same time.

"Somehow, it made a jump almost seemingly simultaneously, and seemed to spread and it is drug resistant, which is really mind-boggling," Dr. Vallabhaneni said.

There are different theories as to what happened with C. auris. Dr. Meis, the Dutch researcher, said he believed that drug-resistant fungi were developing thanks to heavy use of fungicides on crops.

Dr. Meis became intrigued by resistant fungi when he heard about the case of a 63-year-old patient in the Netherlands who died in 2005 from a fungus called Aspergillus. It proved resistant to a front-line antifungal treatment called itraconazole. That drug is a virtual copy of the azole pesticides that are used to dust crops the world over and account for more than one-third of all fungicide sales.

A 2013 paper in Plos Pathogens said that it appeared to be no coincidence that drug-resistant Aspergillus was showing up in the environment where the azole fungicides were used. The fungus appeared in 12 percent of Dutch soil samples, for example, but also in "flower beds, compost, leaves, plant seeds, soil samples of tea gardens, paddy fields, hospital surroundings, and aerial samples of hospitals."

Dr. Meis visited the C.D.C. last summer to share research and theorize that the same thing is happening with C. auris, which is also found in the soil: Azoles have created an environment so hostile that the fungi are evolving, with resistant strains surviving.

This is similar to concerns that resistant bacteria are growing because of excessive use of antibiotics in livestock for health and growth promotion. As with antibiotics in farm animals, azoles are used widely on crops.

"On everything - potatoes, beans, wheat, anything you can think of, tomatoes, onions," said Dr. Rhodes, the infectious disease specialist who worked on the London outbreak. "We are driving this with the use of antifungicides on crops."

Dr. Chiller theorizes that C. auris may have benefited from the heavy use of fungicides. His idea is that C. auris actually has existed for thousands of years, hidden in the world's crevices, a not particularly aggressive bug. But as azoles began destroying more prevalent fungi, an opportunity arrived for C. auris to enter the breach, a germ that had the ability to readily resist fungicides now suitable for a world in which fungi less able to resist are under attack.

The mystery of C. auris's emergence remains unsolved, and its origin seems, for the moment, to be less important than stopping its spread.

For now, the uncertainty around C. auris has led to a climate of fear, and sometimes denial.

Last spring, Jasmine Cutler, 29, went to visit her 72-year-old father at a hospital in New York City, where he had been admitted because of complications from a surgery the previous month.

When she arrived at his room, she discovered that he had been sitting for at least an hour in a recliner, in his own feces, because no one had come when he had called for help to use the bathroom. Ms. Cutler said it became clear to her that the staff was afraid to touch him because a test had shown that he was carrying C. auris.

"I saw doctors and nurses looking in the window of his room," she said. "My father's not a guinea pig. You're not going to treat him like a freak at a show."

He was eventually discharged and told he no longer carried the fungus. But he declined to be named, saying he feared being associated with the frightening infection.
Ana Harrero contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela, and Raphael Minder from Valencia, Spain.

Matt Richtel is a best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in San Francisco. He joined The Times staff in 2000, and his work has focused on science, technology, business and narrative-driven storytelling around these issues.

@mrichtel

Andrew Jacobs is a reporter with the Health and Science Desk, based in New York. He previously reported from Beijing and Brazil and had stints as a Metro reporter, Styles writer and National correspondent, covering the American South. @AndrewJacobsNYT

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fungus Immune to Drugs Quietly Sweeps the Globe. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy

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Deadly germs, Lost cures The rise of Candida auris embodies a serious and growing public health threat: drug-resistant germs. Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious.

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Sagal Aden - Ebola Disbelief widespread in DR Congo hotspots

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Sagal Aden - Ebola Disbelief widespread in DR Congo hotspots

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I personally don't trust lots of the news channels, such as fox news; CNN and others. Since most of the news that delivery is filtered in so many different ways before sharing with the world. I believe the BBC is a credible source because they don't discriminate against the types of news they share with the world. They cover many different stories that our local and national news outlets won't cover in general. I believe the article is legit but I could be wrong as well.

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More than a quarter of people surveyed in Ebola-hit areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo told researchers they do not believe the disease exists.

Some 36% of respondents also believed that the disease had been fabricated to destabilise the country.

The authors of the study said this mistrust was a factor in prolonging the epidemic.

The current outbreak started in August and more than 600 people have died, according to the health ministry.

More than 1,000 people have contracted the virus during the current outbreak, which is the second-largest ever recorded.

The study for journal, Lancet Infectious Diseases, surveyed 961 people in the central Congolese cities of Beni and Butembo.

Election officials cited the Ebola outbreak as a reason to cancel the December presidential elections in the affected regions.

Why don't people trust the authorities?

Distrust contributed to four violent attacks on Ebola treatment and transit centres in the past month, reports the BBC's Gaius Kowene from the capital, Kinshasa.

The lead author, Patrick Vinck, from Harvard Medical School, told the BBC's Newsday programme that people don't trust the authorities due to decades of conflict and this has an impact on the disease spreading.

"The lack of trust combines with the epidemic to really make people not want to follow advice, not want to listen to what authorities have to tell them to prevent the spread of the epidemic," he said.

Local militias are active in the area and health workers are often accompanied by police and soldiers for security.

This makes villagers suspicious, Jean-Philippe Marcoux, country director for international aid group Mercy Corps told Reuters news agency.

"We need to - as much as possible and rapidly - scale down the presence of security forces with response teams, because it is creating more harm than good right now," he said.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga told the BBC that the authorities were trying to involve local communities more.

Less than two-thirds of people questioned in the survey said they would take a vaccine for Ebola.

Is suspicion of vaccines a problem elsewhere in the world?

Yes.

Some Islamist militants oppose the polio vaccination, saying it is a Western conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.

This has had deadly consequences.

Seven Pakistani policemen, three of whom were guarding polio workers, were killed in Pakistan in 2016.

In 2013 nine female health workers killed in Kano state in Nigeria for the same reason.

Suspicions about vaccinations, accompanied by the growth of the so-called anti-vaxxers movement, have also been seen across Europe and the US.

Some parents refuse to get their children vaccinated against measles because they believe discredited information that vaccines cause autism in children.

On Wednesday a county in New York state banned unvaccinated children from public spaces after a severe outbreak of measles.

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Ebola disbelief widespread in Congo hotspots

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More than a quarter of people surveyed in Ebola-hit areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo told researchers they do not believe the disease exists. Some 36% of respondents also believed that the disease had been fabricated to destabilise the country. The authors of the study said this mistrust was a factor in prolonging the epidemic.

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"London transplant doctors report a second person likely cured of HIV"

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"London transplant doctors report a second person likely cured of HIV"

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This story is credible because it is posted by the Fred Hutchinson
Cancer Research Center in Seattle.  The article references the scientific journal, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. The author of this article, Sabin Russell is also a staff writer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center and has experience in medical health, infectious disease, and HIV.

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Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service

Seattle-born Timothy Ray Brown was once known as the "Berlin Patient" because that is where he lived when he became the first person in the world to be cured of HIV.

On Monday, after 12 long years, there is now a "London Patient," only the second person likely cured of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS - and word about it came Monday at a scientific conference in Seattle.

The report by British and other European authors about this second patient was also released in the scientific journal Nature.

Both of these HIV-positive men were struggling with a lethal blood cancer, and both were saved from that cancer by transplants of blood stem cells. They both were apparently cured of HIV because the donors of those stem cells each carried rare genes that confer natural resistance to the virus.

Because the transplant wiped out his HIV, Brown's case made world headlines when the "Berlin Patient's" story was first revealed in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2009. It has taken so long to repeat this cure that Brown's case began to look like a fluke, but now it has happened again, and the headlines are back.

Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service

"This is very exciting," said Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, director of the Stem Cell and Gene Therapy Program at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where bone marrow transplants to cure cancer were pioneered 40 years ago. Holder of the Stephanus Family Endowed Chair for Cell and Gene Therapy, Kiem is a world leader in efforts to genetically engineer HIV resistance into blood cells as a potential cure for HIV.

"I think this supports our thinking that this kind of stem cell transplant can cure HIV," he said. "Now we just need to make it more tolerable for patients without cancer and better understand the mechanisms involved."

Kiem and other scientists stress that there is no certainty that the unnamed man treated at a London hospital will remain HIV-free. In their Nature report, the doctors involved cautiously state that because the patient stopped taking antiviral drugs for only 18 months, it is "premature to conclude" he has been cured.

Yet signs do point to a second cure. Typically, when antiviral drugs are stopped in any patient with no detectable virus, HIV returns from hidden reservoirs within the body to high levels in blood within just a few weeks.

The Berlin Patient's advice to the London Patient

Brown, 52, now lives in Palm Springs, California. But he was in Seattle on Sunday to attend a workshop hosted by defeatHIV, a research group based at Fred Hutch that is working on ways to develop a cure for HIV. The public-private partnership, which receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and is co-directed by Kiem and colleague Dr. Keith Jerome, was inspired by Brown's transplant, which proved for the first time that a cure was possible.

Brown has worked closely with defeatHIV and Fred Hutch in recent years. As has become a tradition, the all-day workshop ended Sunday with a ceremonial birthday cake to celebrate Brown's 12 th anniversary of being HIV-free, and he blew out the candle with gusto.

Not surprisingly, Brown said he hoped one day to meet the London Patient, whose name he does not know. They will have a lot of notes to compare.

"I would say this guy should take his time to come out," he advised. "I took a couple of years before I decided to go public, and I'm glad I did. It was an important decision. When he is ready to reveal who he is, he can do that. And if not, I completely understand."

Brown protected his privacy for two years after his successful treatment in Germany, but on his return to the United States he revealed in 2010 that he was the "Berlin Patient" because he wanted to help raise awareness of the possibility of a cure.

How the 'London Patient' was likely cured of HIV

Release of the report was set to coincide with a presentation about the London Patient's case at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, or CROI, the world's premier annual scientific conference that tracks developments in HIV/AIDS research, now underway in Seattle. But the place had been buzzing with rumors of a second Timothy Ray Brown case, and the story leaked.

As described by the Nature paper's lead authors, Drs. Ravindra Gupta of University College London and Eduardo Olavarria of Imperial College London, their transplant patient experienced quite similar treatment to Brown's, with some notable differences.

Brown was HIV positive and desperately ill with acute myeloid leukemia when he had the first of two transplants; the second required 20 months of waiting after the first because the leukemia, not the HIV, came back. The London Patient received a single blood stem cell transplant for Hodgkin lymphoma. Both are serious, life-threatening blood cancers.

While transplantation is a risky procedure that is difficult for many patients to endure, the London Patient recovered quickly, whereas Brown's two transplants were a brutal ordeal that nearly killed him. Transplant requires a procedure called conditioning, which involves intense chemotherapy and sometimes radiation to destroy the diseased immune cells, many lodged in the bone marrow and gut. Brown received both radiation and intensive chemotherapy. The London Patient received a much milder regimen of chemotherapy drugs. That is an important distinction, because it hints that it is not necessary to use a "sledgehammer" of intensive radiation to eliminate HIV reservoirs.

Photo by Robert Hood / Fred Hutch News Service

Hutch virologist and defeatHIV Co-Director Jerome said the goal of cure researchers is to go even gentler. "Our long-term goal is to develop a simple and inexpensive version of this cure, which can be offered to everyone living with HIV, regardless of where they are in the world," he said.

Brown stopped taking antiviral drugs at the time of this first transplant; the London Patient stayed on his anti-HIV medications throughout the first 17 months of his transplant recovery. He stopped them only 18 months ago.

Both patients received blood stem cells from donors who carried HIV-resistant genes. The so-called CCR5 mutation deletes part of a protein on the surface of blood cells that HIV uses like a mechanical gate to pry its way in and infect the cell. About 1 percent of people of northern European ancestry carry that mutation from both their mothers and fathers. Another 10 percent of people from those northern climes carry at least one of those genes.

The donors for both Brown and the London Patient carried two copies of that mutation, one from the mother and one from the father, a "homozygous" trait that makes them virtually immune to HIV infection.

Transplant as an HIV cure: many attempts, few successes

As the Nature authors noted, the apparent cure of a second patient shows that Brown's success "was not an anomaly." Yet the news is tempered by the fact that it took doctors 12 years to repeat his favorable result.

One reason it has taken so long, Jerome said, is that it is difficult to find that 1 percent of donors who carry both copies of the rare gene. HIV-positive patients who require a transplant to survive cancer are also unfortunately rare, because they are often too sick to qualify for the difficult procedure.

Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, who heads AIDS research for the National Institues of Health and who was in Seattle for CROI, said that experiments like these - which put patients at great risk - are still appropriate because the people involved are so desperately ill.

"These therapies are used in situations where the life of the patient is on the line," he said. "It is important to remember there have been a significant number of attempts to achieve this, and many other cases resulted in the death of the patient from their cancers. That just points to the difficulty."

Dr. Monique Nijhuis of the University Medical Center of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and a co-author of the Nature paper, described significant efforts in Europe to provide transplants to HIV-positive patients. Through a consortium, IciStem, doctors have amassed a registry of 22,000 potential transplant donors who carry HIV-resistant genes. The European group has also been tracking results from 39 HIV-positive blood stem cell transplant patients, 26 of whom are still living. The London Patient is one of those cases.

In the Nature paper, the authors said they know of only one other case of a patient who was transplanted and also interrupted his HIV treatment like Brown and the London Patient have done. That case involved a German known as the "Essen Patient," and after stopping antivirals he experienced a rapid rebound of HIV.

In another closely watched set of cases, three HIV-positive patients from the Boston area received transplants of blood stem cells that did not carry the mutation. The idea was to see if the rigorous transplant procedure alone, rather than the mutant cell types, cleared HIV. In fact, the virus did not rebound quickly, but it eventually did, at 12, 32 and 41 weeks, respectively, for the three.
Sabin Russell is a staff writer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. For two decades he covered medical science, global health and health care economics for the San Francisco Chronicle, and wrote extensively about infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS. He was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT, and a freelance writer for the New York Times and Health Affairs. Reach him at Are you interested in reprinting or republishing this story? Be our guest! We want to help connect people with the information they need. We just ask that you link back to the original article, preserve the author's byline and refrain from making edits that alter the original context. Questions? Email us at communications@fredhutch.org srussell@fredhutch.org.

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the delaney cell and genome engineering initiative

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London transplant doctors report a second person likely cured of HIV

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Seattle-born Timothy Ray Brown was once known as the "Berlin Patient" because that is where he lived when he became the first person in the world to be cured of HIV. On March 4, after 12 long years, there is now a "London Patient," only the second person likely cured of HIV - and word about it came Monday at a scientific conference in Seattle.

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Tina Le: Celery Juice: Benefits and myths 

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Tina Le: Celery Juice: Benefits and myths 

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I believe this story is credible because I have a lot of people that drinks celery juice every morning before their meal. And it has been their routine for years. Celery juice, helps with a lot of health problems like acne, any skin problems, loosing weight, and it helps with reduce inflammation outside of your body and inside. This is beneficial because once they started drink celery, things like acne went away or really bad asthma. But if you have an allergy with celery, you should not take it because it will cause a lot more worse symptoms. I think this article is legit because there are some benefits in celery juice, celery has folate, potassium, manganese, pantothenic acid, and dietary fiber; which are all good for you.

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Celery has received a lot of attention as a 'superfood,' with supporters claiming that celery juice helps combat a range of ailments, including inflammation, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

Celery is a member of the carrot family. The plant and its seeds provide an abundant source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. But is celery juice a 'superfood' and what health benefits does it have?

In this article, we look at what the science says about celery juice, and what people need to know before they drink it.

Scientific evidence

This article outlines the evidence behind the superfood claims of celery juice and explores the benefits it may have for our health.

Nutritional value

Celery is a good source of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.
Celery contains high levels of vitamin K and good amounts of vitamin A, vitamins B-2 and B-6, and vitamin C. Celery is also a good source of the following nutrients:

The celery plant and its seeds both contain chemicals that nutritionists call phytonutrients. These chemicals have potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Celery is also low in calories and sugar, making it a popular choice for a quick and healthful snack.

Health benefits of celery

Despite recent claims, few studies have investigated whether drinking celery juice improves people's health. Instead, most research has examined the health benefits that experts associate with consuming specific nutrients that celery and its seeds contain.

Notably, celery contains two beneficial antioxidants. Scientists call these two compounds apigenin and luteolin.

Research shows that apigenin and luteolin reduce inflammation and may help treat a range of inflammatory diseases.

The apigenin and luteolin in celery may also ease the following conditions:

Inflammation and allergies

Celery contains luteolin, which may help reduce inflammation for people with allergic asthma.
Allergic asthma and rhinitis are inflammatory diseases affecting the upper and lower airway.

A 2017 study investigated whether luteolin could reduce inflammation and lower allergic responses in mice with these conditions.

Results showed that giving the mice luteolin 30 minutes before exposing them to an allergen significantly reduced the levels of inflammation within their lungs and nasal passages.

However, scientists still need to do further studies to confirm whether luteolin has similar anti-allergy effects in humans.

Arthritis

A 2017 study investigated whether apigenin could suppress arthritis in mice. The investigators first treated the mice with apigenin. Afterward, the animals showed less tissue inflammation and delayed onset and severity of arthritis in comparison with mice that did not receive treatment.

The researchers concluded that apigenin works by suppressing the immune system. It does this by interrupting the transportation and signaling capabilities of cells that trigger inflammation.

Neurodegenerative diseases

Luteolin and apigenin may also offer protection against certain brain diseases.

A 2013 study investigated whether luteolin could reduce inflammation and protect against neurodegeneration in rodents with diabetic encephalopathy (DE). DE refers to brain abnormalities and impaired cognitive function that may affect people with type 2 diabetes.

In the study, rats that the investigators continuously treated with luteolin had reduced brain cell damage and improved learning and memory.

A separate 2015 review looked at the effect of different plant chemicals on rodents with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers found that apigenin limits damage to a variety of brain processes, thereby delaying and slowing the progression of Alzheimer's.

Cancer

According to a 2016 review, luteolin can halt the growth of some types of cancer cells in rodents.

Luteolin may also prevent cancer cells from invading other areas of the body, or 'metastasizing.' Scientists think that it may do this is by preventing new blood vessels from growing around existing tumors.

Furthermore, studies on animals suggest that luteolin could enhance the potency of chemotherapy drugs that act on cancer cells while reducing the toxic effects of these drugs on the body.

High cholesterol

A 2014 study investigated the effects of celery leaf extract on the cholesterol levels of rats fed a high-fat diet.

The researchers fed rats celery leaf extract for 30 days after which the animals showed a significant decrease in low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or 'bad' cholesterol when the study compared them with rats that did not receive the extract.

A later study, again using animal models, suggested that the antioxidants in celery may be responsible for lowering cholesterol levels by preventing stores of cholesterol from breaking down and entering the blood.

High blood pressure

Some foods contain chemicals known as antihypertensives, which help to lower blood pressure.

A 2013 study investigated whether the chemical 3-n-butylphthalide (3nB) in celery seed extract has antihypertensive properties.

Thirty participants with high blood pressure took part in the trial. Each consumed a capsule containing 75 milligrams (mg) of celery seed extract, twice a day for 6 weeks.

After this time, the participants showed a significant decrease in blood pressure.

According to the researchers, 3nB may lower blood pressure by reducing the buildup of fatty deposits within the arteries and increasing the elasticity of artery walls.

Cardiovascular health

The term cardiovascular remodeling (CR) refers to changes in the shape, size, structure, and function of the heart, usually as a result of chronic high blood pressure or heart disease.

CR is a compensatory mechanism that allows a strained or damaged heart to pump blood around the body.

Over time, however, CR reduces the efficiency of the heart muscle and increases the risk of heart failure. Chemicals called free radicals can contribute to this process.

A 2015 animal study that gave rats luteolin found that they showed less CR than those that did not receive the supplement. Scientists think this might be because luteolin's antioxidant properties disable free radicals and limit heart damage.

Fertility

A 2016 review investigated the effects of celery on fertility in animals.

Of the 16 papers the study reviewed, 13 reported that celery has a protective effect on fertility, while the remaining three found that celery reduces fertility.

The review concluded that celery could have protective effects against substances that can damage sperm production in males.

However, celery contains chemicals, such as apigenin, which may lower fertility when people consume it in high doses.

Safety and side effects

Celery and celery juice may have some side effects, and they may not be suitable for everyone.

Toxicity

Celery contains the chemical psoralen, which reacts to sunlight. Eating celery and other foods high in psoralen may increase the skin's sensitivity to ultraviolet light, increasing the risk of dermatitis, sun damage, and photoaging.

For people who are particularly sensitive to psoralen, simply touching psoralen-rich foods can cause skin irritation.

A food allergen

Some people may have an allergy to celery, which can cause a range of symptoms, including skin reactions, digestive upset, and respiratory problems.

In rare cases, a person with celery allergy may experience the potentially deadly allergic reaction anaphylaxis.

Anyone who experiences any of the following symptoms of anaphylaxis should seek urgent medical treatment:

difficulty breathing

hives or swelling

tightness within the throat

hoarseness

nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea

abdominal pain

rapid heartbeat

low blood pressure

dizziness or fainting

feeling of doom

cardiac arrest

Salt content

Celery contains about 30 milligrams (mg) of sodium per 1 medium (40 g) stalk.

People must be mindful of how much sodium they consume, as a high-sodium diet may increase blood pressure and cause fluid retention, both of which can contribute to more severe health issues.

Eating celery each day should not cause problems for most people.

A person can make celery juice at home using a juicer or blender.
Celery juice recipe

You will need approximately two bunches of celery to make the following recipe for celery juice, using a juicer:

cut the base and ends off the celery

rinse the celery in a colander

feed the celery through the juicer

serve the juice immediately

store any leftover juice in a sealed jar in the fridge

If making celery juice in a blender, chop the celery into 1-inch pieces, and add one-half of a cup of water or fresh fruit juice to the blender. Blend for a minute before straining the juice through a sieve.

Ready-made celery juice is also available to buy online and in health food stores.

Summary

Few studies have investigated the health effects of celery juice. However, celery does contain many essential nutrients that scientists believe are beneficial for people's health.

Most research has concentrated on investigating the effects of some of the nutrients and antioxidants that the plant and its seeds contain. Scientists believe that these chemicals are beneficial in treating several health conditions.

People who are allergic or sensitive to celery should avoid eating this plant. Those who are trying to reduce their sodium consumption should be mindful of total intake for the day from all foods, including celery. However, eating celery should not cause problems for most people.

Celery juice is available to purchase in health food stores or online.

We picked linked items based on the quality of products, and list the pros and cons of each to help you determine which will work best for you. We partner with some of the companies that sell these products, which means Healthline UK and our partners may receive a portion of revenues if you make a purchase using a link(s) above.

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Celery is a member of the carrot family. It contains lots of essential nutrients, and many people believe that it has a range of health benefits. Find out whether drinking celery juice can aid health and about its potential side effects.

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Darlina Souvatdy "Manhunt underway for fake deliveryman who shot woman with crossbow"

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Darlina Souvatdy "Manhunt underway for fake deliveryman who shot woman with crossbow"

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I believe this story is credible because the author is well-known and has a lot of experience, the network where the article is posted is trustworthy (ABC) and popular, and I did a reverse image search and the date the image was first posted aligns with the article's posting date.

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Canadian authorities have released surveillance footage of a suspect who shot a woman with a crossbow on her front porch while posing as a delivery person.

The video, released Monday, showed a masked man approaching the 44-year-old woman's home near Toronto with a large cardboard box in his hand and a hidden crossbow. He rang the doorbell, chatted with the woman for a few moments and fired an arrow into her chest, leaving her with life-threatening injuries.

Officers with the Peel Regional Police are investigating the November 2018 attack as an attempted murder and asked for the public's help with identifying the suspect, who ran and fled the scene in a vehicle parked nearby. He is still on the run.

(Peel Regional Police) Canadian authorities released surveillance footage on Monday, April 15, 2019, showing a suspect who shot a woman with a crossbow on her front porch.

"The victim suffered massive trauma that was both life-threatening and life-altering," Peel Regional Police Superintendent Heather Ramore said at a news conference Monday. "It is clear that this attack was meant to end the victim's life."

Ramore said the suspect may have been hired to carry out the attack.

"Comments that were made to the victim by the suspect indicate that the victim was targeted and that the suspect may have carried out the attack at the request of another individual," Ramore said. "This was not a random act."

Investigators declined to offer details about the victim, citing the ongoing investigation, but said she did not know her assailant.

(Peel Regional Police) Canadian authorities released surveillance footage on Monday, April 15, 2019, showing a suspect who shot a woman with a crossbow on her front porch.

Peel Regional Police Detective Sgt. Jim Kettles said the woman spent several months in the hospital and will be "in a recovery phase for the rest of her life."

"The injuries that she sustained were absolutely devastating. It involved damage to a lot of her internal organs," Kettles said. "She'll be still undergoing medical treatment for her injuries. Her life will never be the same."

The department said it released the video in the hopes that someone may recognize the suspect.

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Manhunt underway for fake deliveryman who shot woman with crossbow

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Canadian authorities have released surveillance footage of a suspect who shot a woman with a crossbow on her front porch while posing as a delivery person. The video, released Monday, showed a masked man approaching the 44-year-old woman's home near Toronto with a large cardboard box in his hand and a hidden crossbow.

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Chris Koenig: "Carl’s Jr. will test a CBD-infused burger"

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Chris Koenig: "Carl’s Jr. will test a CBD-infused burger"

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I thought this story was not only hilarious but credible because it comes from CNBC who cited Carl's Jr directly in their story. CNBC is generally a trustworthy source for news. A quick google search further verified that this story is real because many other news cites had similar headlines.

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Carl's Jr. is adding something special to its signature sauce.

The restaurant will test a CBD-infused burger at one of its Denver locations for one day only: April 20, the unofficial holiday for cannabis enthusiasts.

The limited-time offer makes Carl's Jr. the first national fast food chain to add CBD-infused food to its menu. In another nod to the marijuana holiday, the burger will sell for $4.20.

The burger chain's Rocky Mountain High: CheeseBurger Delight features two beef patties, pickled jalapenos, pepper jack cheese, waffle fries - and about 5 milligrams of hemp-derived CBD extract in the burger chain's Santa Fe Sauce.

Proponents claim that CBD, a non-psychoactive compound found in hemp and marijuana, can help with anxiety and pain relief, among other ailments, although little scientific research has been done to back up those assertions.

There is also a lack of agreement about dosage, particularly when CBD is added to food. Compared to its close cousin marijuana, hemp contains less THC, the psychoactive chemical in cannabis. So Carl's Jr.'s burger is unlikely to get you high.

Most products that contain CBD became legal in December when President Donald Trump signed the farm bill. However, chefs eager to cook with the ingredient have had to operate under the radar because the Food and Drug Administration prohibits adding CBD to food and beverages. The agency will hold its first public hearing next month to decide how it will regulate CBD.

In the meantime, local health departments across the country, from Los Angeles to New York City, have been cracking down on restaurants that sell on CBD-infused food and drinks.

The choice to debut the burger in the Mile High City is no mistake. Colorado was one of the first U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana. As a result, cannabis is one of the state's fastest growing industries. Last year, the state's medical and retail dispensaries sold $1.55 billion of marijuana, according to Colorado's marijuana sales report.

The limited-time offer not only puts Carl's Jr. ahead of the competition but also on par with those in fine dining chasing the craze. Professional chefs named CBD- and cannabis-infused food and beverages as the top food trend for 2019 in a National Restaurant Association survey.

Carl's Jr. might be willing to take the plunge because unlike McDonald's, Wendy's or many of its other rivals, the chain is not publicly traded. Roark Capital Group, the same private equity firm that owns Sonic, Arby's and Buffalo Wild Wings, also owns Carl's Jr.

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Carl's Jr. will test a CBD-infused burger

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Carl's Jr. is adding something special to its signature sauce. The restaurant will test a CBD-infused burger at one of its Denver locations for one day only: April 20, the unofficial holiday for cannabis enthusiasts. The limited-time offer makes Carl's Jr. the first national fast food chain to add CBD-infused food to its menu.

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Alvin Nguyen - "Scientists 'Printed' 3D Heart Using Patient's Tissue"

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Alvin Nguyen - "Scientists 'Printed' 3D Heart Using Patient's Tissue"

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After an attempt on trying to read “laterally,” I would have to say that the news article I believe is credible. The news site, Medical News Today, seems to be known for writing articles that are related to health, and the writer, Tim Newman, has received a Neuroscience degree from the University of Manchester and has broadened his interest towards medicine.

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Although 3D printing has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few years, using it to print functioning human organs is still a far-flung dream. Recently, however, scientists have brought this dream one step closer.

A 3D-printed heart engineered from the patient's own tissues and cells.
Image credit: Advanced Science 2019 The Authors
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 610,000 people in the U.S. die from heart disease each year.

Once it has progressed to its final stages, the only treatment option is a heart transplant.

Because there are too few heart donors, the wait for a life-saving transplant is long.

Scientists are keen to find ways of patching up existing heart tissue to remove or postpone the need for a transplant.

For instance, if surgeons could impant a material into the heart, it could form a temporary scaffold to support cells and boost cellular reorganization.

This so-called cardiac tissue engineering has a number of problems; primarily, scientists need to find a type of material that the body would not reject. Researchers have already tried a range of materials and methods, but the perfect candidates are cells from the body of the patient.

Bioink and stem cells

During recent years, researchers have made some progress toward artificially replicating human tissue.

A group of scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel has taken this work one step further and moved cardiac tissue engineering to the next stage.

"This is the first time anyone anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles, and chambers."

Lead researcher Prof. Tal Dvir

The scientists have designed a groundbreaking approach that allows them to create the closest thing to an artificial heart to date.

Their first step was to take a biopsy of fatty tissue from the patient; then, they separated cellular material from noncellular material.

The researchers reprogrammed the cells of the fatty tissue to become pluripotent stem cells, which can develop into the range of cell types necessary to grow a heart.

The noncellular material consists of structural components, such as glycoproteins and collagen; the scientists modified these to turn them into a "bioink."

Then, they mixed this bioink with the stem cells. The cells differentiated into cardiac or endothelial cells (which line blood vessels), which the scientists could use to create cardiac patches, including blood vessels.

They describe their methods in detail in a recent paper published in the journal Advanced Science.

'The size of a rabbit's heart'

"This heart is made from human cells and patient-specific biological materials. In our process these materials serve as the bioinks, substances made of sugars and proteins that can be used for 3D printing of complex tissue models," says Prof. Dvir.

He goes on to say: "People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future."
"At this stage, our 3D heart is small, the size of a rabbit's heart," says Prof. Dvir. "But larger human hearts require the same technology."
To demonstrate the potential of their technique, the scientists created a small but anatomically precise heart, complete with blood vessels and cells.

It is worth noting that this technology is still very far from being able to replace heart transplants. This is just another step along the path - albeit a rather large step.

The crucial next task, as Prof. Dvir says, is to teach them to behave like hearts; he explains that they "need to develop the printed heart further. The cells need to form a pumping ability; they can currently contract, but we need them to work together."

"Our hope," he goes on, "is that we will succeed and prove our method's efficacy and usefulness."

There is still a long road ahead, but the researchers are excited about how far they have come.

"Maybe, in 10 years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world, and these procedures will be conducted routinely."

Prof. Tal Dvir

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Scientists 'print' 3D heart using patient's tissue

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Although 3D printing has advanced in leaps and bounds over the past few years, using it to print functioning human organs is still a far-flung dream. Recently, however, scientists have brought this dream one step closer.

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This article to me I believe is credible because the site I found it on writes about mental health therefore they what they are talking about. Also the foundation this article belongs to has been around for 70 years. There are no other sites this article is posted on also.

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What we eat doesn't just affect our physical health: it can also affect our mental health and wellbeing.
* Last updated 14 September 2021
Eating well - which means having a balanced diet full of vegetables and nutrients - can improve your sense of wellbeing and your mood.

How are diet and mental health linked?

The relationship between our diet and our mental health is complex. However, research shows a link between what we eat and how we feel.

Our diet can affect our brain. Some foods can help us feel better. A Mediterranean-style diet (one with lots of vegetables, seafood, fresh herbs, garlic, olive oil, cereal and grains) supplemented with fish oil can reduce the symptoms of depression. Research has also shown that our gut can reflect how we're feeling: if we're stressed, it can speed up or slow down. Healthy food for our gut includes fruit, vegetables, beans and probiotics.

On the other hand, there are two groups of foods that have a negative effect on the brain:

foods that trick the brain into releasing chemicals we may be lacking, temporarily altering our mood (for example, caffeine and chocolate)

foods that prevent the conversion of other foods into nutrients the brain needs (for example, saturated fat such as butter, lard and palm oil).

Caffeine can also cause sleep problems, which can worsen your mood. Some people find it makes them irritable and anxious too.

What should I eat?

The Eatwell guide on the NHS website has detailed information on how to achieve a healthy, balanced diet. It's very similar to the Mediterranean diet.

Mind has more tips on eating well. It also has advice on managing your mood with food, including foods to avoid if you're taking certain medications.

Sharing meals with other people

There are many psychological, social and biological benefits of eating meals with other people. They give us a sense of rhythm and regularity in our lives, a chance to reflect on the day, and feel connected to others. Biologically, eating in upright chairs helps with our digestion. Talking and listening also slows us down so we don't eat too fast.

Make the most of mealtimes by setting aside at least one day a week to eat with family and friends. Choose a meal that's easy to prepare so it doesn't become a chore. Share responsibility so everyone has a different task: doing the shopping, setting the table, cooking or washing up, for example. Keep the television off so you can all talk and share.

Eating disorders

If you feel you're using food as a negative coping mechanism to deal with emotional pain or as a way to feel in control, you may have an eating disorder. Read our page on eating disorders to find out more, including where to go for help.

Other ways I can take care of my mental health

A healthy diet is one way you can improve your mental health. Other things include staying physically active, spending time in nature, avoiding cigarettes and alcohol and developing good sleep habits. Our guide on How to look after your mental health has more ideas.

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What we eat doesn't just affect our physical health: it can also affect our mental health and wellbeing. * Last updated 14 September 2021 Eating well - which means having a balanced diet full of vegetables and nutrients - can improve your sense of wellbeing and your mood.

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Ayan Adan : "In India, a Renewed Fight Against Leprosay"

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Ayan Adan : "In India, a Renewed Fight Against Leprosay"

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I believe this article is credible because it's a lengthy article that breaks down what's happening in India and the solutions being provided to those dealing with the disease. I looked up the authors previous articles and she is an award winning science journalist, who wrote many other articles on global health issues and world disasters.

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Health workers thought they had vanquished the disease in 2005. But it lived on, cloaked in stigma and medical mystery.

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The hands of Bodhe Annasuya, 45, who acquired leprosy when she was 12 years old. She lives in Balaji Nagar, a leprosy colony, with her husband and adopted son, in Hyderabad, India. Credit Credit Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times

Three years ago, Siddamma's mother-in-law developed pale patches on her arms. But Siddamma, 32, did not get along with her, and did not pry. A year or so later, she noticed that her husband had similar marks on his back - but he was on a rare visit home from herding goats, so she was reluctant to raise the issue. She suggested that he see a doctor, and left it at that.

Then, one day in 2017, she returned home from work and saw her son Lingappa, then 9, crying. He told her he couldn't go back to school because the other boys were making fun of the ulcers on his face. That did it, Siddamma said: "I have only one son."

Eventually she brought him 50 miles from Mudumal, where the family lives, to Mahabubnagar, a town of 200,000 people in the southern Indian state of Telangana. A dermatologist in the town referred Siddamma to a specialized clinic, where a doctor diagnosed the boy with leprosy. "I didn't know anything about it before then," Siddamma said.

Leprosy is the result of infection with Mycobacterium leprae, a close cousin of the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. The disease has been around for centuries, but because it cannot be cultured in the lab, its mysteries remain unsolved.

Leprosy often starts off with the sort of discolored, numb patches that appeared on Siddamma's family members, or with tiny nodules under the skin. Left untreated, the bacteria slowly destroy nerves and muscles, eventually leading to the deformities associated with the disease, and to permanent disability.

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Siddamma with her three children, from left, Lingappa, Akshita and Aishwarya, during a visit to the Lepra Society Center in Mahabubnagar. Credit Saumya Khandelwal for The New York Times

The disease has all but disappeared from most parts of the world, thanks in part to a yearlong multi-drug treatment, donated by the pharmaceutical company Novartis. In 2005, India declared that leprosy was no longer a problem in the country. But that announcement was premature: According to the World Health Organization, India harbors 60 percent of the world's cases, with more than 100,000 new diagnoses each year.

As India's health officials concede, the prevalence of leprosy was low in 2005 not because fewer residents were being infected, but because the government stopped trying to find them.
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"Sometimes the program managers start making less effort, so they get less cases, so that they can say that prevalence is going down," said Dr. Anil Kumar, who has led the country's leprosy program since 2015.

There is no blood test for the disease, and scientists aren't entirely sure how it is transmitted. Contact with infected people is one way, but not a certain one: Siddamma's younger daughters also became infected, but an older daughter, and Siddamma herself, remained unaffected.

"Does genetics play a role? Maybe," said Dr. Paul Fine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "Does prior immune status play a role? Maybe." Nutrition, access to health care and socioeconomic status all might be involved, he said: "We frankly don't know."

Clarity or no, the World Health Organization has long made the elimination of leprosy one its goals. In 1991, the organization announced that by 2005 leprosy would be "eliminated as a public health problem," meaning that there would be fewer than one case per 10,000 people.

The odds were long - the deadline had been deferred once already - but "sometimes you put intentionally targets which are rather aspirational," said Dr. Erwin Cooreman, team leader of the organization's Global Leprosy Program.

But the subtleties of that aspiration were lost on most people in India.

"People actually just completely misunderstood it," said Dr. Diana Lockwood, a leprosy expert at the London School. "For them, elimination means no cases."

People infected with the leprosy bacterium may not show symptoms for 20 years. Meanwhile, they still can infect others, who in turn may remain symptom-free, and infectious, for years. Reducing the number of visible cases of leprosy is a start toward eliminating the disease, but it is hardly the end.

Still, health officials in India took the goal of elimination seriously, and by 2005 the number of symptomatic cases dropped to fewer than 1 case per 10,000 people. Then the country dismantled most of its leprosy programs and redirected its resources to more urgent priorities such as AIDS and tuberculosis; public awareness of leprosy plunged.

But out of view, the bacterium remained active. The number of infected, disabled people remained low for nearly a decade, and then began to rise. The disease was being detected way too late, generating "lot of collateral damage," Dr. Cooreman said.

Leprosy causes distinct deformities and imposes a heavy social stigma. Indian law forbids people with the disease from working and traveling in public. One returning patient at the Mahabubnagar clinic, a well-educated man in his late 20s, had not told anyone in his family, not even his mother, because he was terrified that the news might leak to his neighbors. People with the disease sometimes exile themselves to leprosy "colonies" - there are 700 or so in the country - where they interact only with one another and beg for money.

The stigma, in turn, makes the disease harder to detect and eliminate. "In countries like India, people from all classes get leprosy," said Mr. Ashim Chowla, who heads a nonprofit agency called Lepra. "But because of discrimination and prejudice, we don't talk about it. And because we don't talk about it, we don't know who's got leprosy and who doesn't."

Organizations such as Lepra help people with the disease fight for government benefits. Pressured by the organization, India's Supreme Court ruled in September that the government must end discriminatory laws, conduct regular surveillance to detect new cases, provide treatment to everyone who needs it, and promote awareness of leprosy as a curable disease. "We work to make leprosy a disease of no consequence, which is what it should be," said Mr. Chowla.

The organization runs 26 local clinics in India including the one in Mahabubnagar that Siddamma visited with her son. On one hot day in February, the staff tested three new cases and followed up with 17 previously diagnosed ones: men and women, children and older adults, rich and poor.

The awareness campaigns are key to combating the myths and misinformation that surround leprosy. Mr. Chowla recalled a tribal woman he had met in Chattisgarh, a locus of the disease in northern India. The woman's fingers were clawed, a signature effect of leprosy. But she saw no point in visiting a doctor. The disease was an intergenerational curse, she said: Her grandmother once had boiled frogs in a fit of annoyance at their loud croaking, and the frogs had taken revenge on her, the granddaughter.

Mr. Chowla had leprosy as a child; he thought the hairless patch on his left arm was magical, and dared his friends to plunge sharp objects through his numb skin. He has been cured for decades, but doctors still shrink from him when they hear about his diagnosis.

"Just because my mum was clever enough to get me to a dermatologist, and the dermatologist was clever enough to diagnose me, I got cured," he said.

Dr. Kumar, the head of India's leprosy program, has taken steps to raise awareness of the disease and combat the stigma around it. On World Leprosy Day - January 30 - he encourages the leaders of the more than 600,000 villages in the country to talk about the disease.

Mr. Chowla recalled an awareness session that Lepra held in a remote village in September of 2017. About one-quarter of the village's 1,000 residents attended and were examined, and nine cases were diagnosed. When Dr. Kumar heard about the cases, he immediately launched a district-wide awareness campaign. By November 2018, the reported prevalence of leprosy in that district had more than doubled, a sign that health officials were becoming more successful at finding hidden cases.

The numbers of cases must first go up, as such cases are revealed, before they can go down, Dr. Kumar said. More important is that the number of visible deformities has fallen by 25 percent. "It means we are preventing disability," he said. "We are detecting cases early. And it also means we have cut down transmission at the community level."

He has embraced the WHO's latest targets for leprosy, to be achieved by 2020: To decrease the number of new patients diagnosed with visible deformities to less than one per million, and the number of children with disabilities to zero.

With luck, Siddamma's children received treatment early enough to avoid disability. But it came at the cost of great effort. Few doctors in India are familiar with leprosy, and they are far between.

To reach the leprosy clinic, Siddamma and her children woke early, took a three-wheeler from their home to a bus stop several miles away, then took a long bus ride to the clinic. The cost of the ticket was not trivial. Siddamma was tired. At one point, she unconsciously lapsed into her native Kannada from her patchy Telugu, the language spoken at the clinic.

And she was worried about her youngest daughter who, despite three months of treatment, still has many patches on her arms. To make sure she is cured, Sidemma would need to make the long journey at least once more.

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In India, a Renewed Fight Against Leprosy

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Health workers thought they had vanquished the disease in 2005. But it lived on, cloaked in stigma and medical mystery. Three years ago, Siddamma's mother-in-law developed pale patches on her arms. But Siddamma, 32, did not get along with her, and did not pry.

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Yuta Chen: "Stop letting your kids stare at iPads in restaurants, science says"

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Yuta Chen: "Stop letting your kids stare at iPads in restaurants, science says"

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I believed this article is a credible source because it is from CNN which is one of the biggest American-news based channel in the United States. The article also provided the information from different organizations with links for people to look at them. Lastly, the author David G. Allen is the editorial director of CNN Health, Wellness, and parenting. He had published more than one article on CNN.

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stop letting your kids stare at ipads in restaurants

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Stop letting your kids stare at iPads in restaurants, science says

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It may seem innocuous and convenient, but research suggests that screens during meals have a big downside.

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Nhi My Ly: Climate Change Was The Engine That Powered Hurricane Maria's Devastating Rains.

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Nhi My Ly: Climate Change Was The Engine That Powered Hurricane Maria's Devastating Rains.

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I think this article is best described as credible because it comes from an organization and it references to other credible papers published by scientists to back up the factual information. In addition, it provides pictures from Hurricane Maria’s aftermath and the author is a reporter for NPR’s Science Desk, where she reports on outbreaks, natural disasters, and environmental and health research.

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subscribe to Short Wave podcast

Hurricane Maria was the rainiest storm known to have hit Puerto Rico, and climate change is partly to blame, according to a new study.

The worst rain fell in the mountainous central part of Puerto Rico, from the northwest to the southeast. That part of the island is rainy under normal conditions. In an average year, it gets more than 150 inches of rain.

When Maria hit in 2017, it dropped nearly a quarter of that annual rainfall in just one day.

In a paper published Tuesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, scientists at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Sonoma State University in California analyzed rainfall from all 129 hurricanes that have affected Puerto Rico since reliable record keeping began in 1956.

They found that Maria was a behemoth compared with past storms that raked the U.S. territory. The average amount of rain Maria dropped on the island in a day - about 15 inches - was 30 percent more than the previous record set by a tropical storm in 1985, and 66 percent more rain than fell on average during what was previously the largest and costliest storm to ever hit the island, 1998's Hurricane Georges.

The rain was extremely destructive. It caused widespread flooding, destroyed crucial dams and helped knock out drinking water to nearly the entire island. A previous paper, published by another group of scientists in February, found that extreme rain triggered tens of thousands of landslides in the island's interior, "in some cases isolating communities for days and weeks."

In all, current estimates suggest the storm killed about 3,000 people.

The new study also set out to answer a question that, just a few years ago, scientists generally shied away from: What was the role of climate change in this single storm?

As climate change models have grown more sophisticated, the field of so-called attribution science has grown more robust, allowing scientists to start investigating how our current global climate affects specific weather events. Last year, scientists directly connected the warmest water ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico to the record-setting rains that fell when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas.

This latest paper on Hurricane Maria makes a similar connection. The authors found that a storm of Maria's rain magnitude is nearly five times more likely to occur today, with warmer air and ocean water, than it would have in the 1950s, when global warming's effects were in their infancy.

That backs up results published in another paper last year that found climate change is causing some storms to dump 5 percent to 10 percent more rain than they would otherwise.

However, the authors caution, more research is necessary to investigate the complex relationship between our current climate and storms such as Maria, especially if policymakers hope to use such research to predict future storm impacts.

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Climate Change Was The Engine That Powered Hurricane Maria's Devastating Rains

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subscribe to Short Wave podcast Hurricane Maria was the rainiest storm known to have hit Puerto Rico, and climate change is partly to blame, according to a new study. The worst rain fell in the mountainous central part of Puerto Rico, from the northwest to the southeast.

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"At least 19 school districts close while the FBI searches for armed 18-year-old 'infatuated' with Columbine"

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"At least 19 school districts close while the FBI searches for armed 18-year-old 'infatuated' with Columbine"

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I can tell you that this source is credible because it is from our local  news network where they provide news on crimes, justice, what goes on globally, sports and more. This story was developed by two authors within the CNN media company. This story had also been on other media that provides news as well, such as FOX, Q13 and more. This story also updates every time there is something to update about and it shows that they want the audience to keep up with the story and how it will affect us in the long run.

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the florida teen who was 'infatuated' with columbine

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The Florida teen who was 'infatuated' with Columbine bought weapon near school

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An FBI official has confirmed investigators are looking into a website believed to be connected to Sol Pais, the Florida high school student who was "infatuated" with the Columbine High massacre and traveled cross-country to Colorado while making threats.

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Amina Issack-"Common blood pressure drug may increase cardiac arrest risk"

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Amina Issack-"Common blood pressure drug may increase cardiac arrest risk"

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I believe this is a credible because the article is been published in credible source. it has publication date plus the author and it also contains many pieces of factual information and study results from other researcher. It also used facts from various credible websites.he article has been through fact checked and medically reviewed by the source admins to ensure that it is as accurate as possible which I really liked because not all credible sources tell things like this.

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A preliminary study concludes that a drug that doctors commonly prescribe to treat angina and blood pressure might increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest.

A recent study looked at the risk factors behind cardiac arrest.
Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood around the body. If a person does not receive treatment, cardiac arrest can be lethal within minutes.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), in the United States, around 475,000 people die from cardiac arrest each year.

It claims more lives than colorectal cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, pneumonia, influenza, vehicle accidents, firearms, HIV, and house fires combined.

The AHA describe cardiac arrest "as one of the most lethal public health problems in the U.S." So, because cardiac arrest is both serious and common, understanding the risk factors involved is essential.

To this end, the European Resuscitation Council set up a project that collects data on cardiac arrest, called the European Sudden Cardiac Arrest network ( ESCAPE-NET).

A new risk factor?

A recent study using ESCAPE-NET data investigated whether a common group of drugs might play a role in cardiac arrest.

Healthcare providers use dihydropyridines to treat high blood pressure and angina, which is chest pain related to reduced blood flow to the heart. The project focused on two dihydropyridines: nifedipine and amlodipine.

The scientists had access to data from the Dutch Amsterdam Resuscitation Studies registry and the Danish Cardiac Arrest Registry, both of which form part of ESCAPE-NET.

The researchers presented their findings at EHRA 2019, the annual congress of the European Heart Rhythm Association, which is taking place in Lisbon, Portugal.

In total, they had access to data from more than 10,000 people who were taking dihydropyridines and 50,000 controls.

Their analysis showed that those who took high-dose nifedipine were significantly more likely to have an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest than those who were not taking dihydropyridines or who were taking amlodipine.

Why might this be happening?

The scientists moved into the laboratory to examine why the actions of the two drugs differed. Both use the same mechanism, so why does one increase the risk of cardiac arrest while the other appears to make no difference?

Dihydropyridines work by blocking L-type calcium channels. When these channels are blocked, the action potential of cardiac cells becomes shorter.

The phrase "action potential" describes a change in the charge of a membrane associated with the transmission of an impulse. They occur in nerves and muscle cells.

This change could, potentially, drive the arrhythmias that lead to cardiac arrests.

Interestingly, these in vitro experiments matched the findings of the population study. High doses of nifedipine shortened action potentials significantly more than high-dose amlodipine.

"Nifedipine and amlodipine are often used by many cardiologists and other physicians, and the choice often depends on the prescriber's preference and personal experience."

ESCAPE-NET project leader Dr. Hanno Tan

Dr. Tan adds, "Both drugs are generally considered to be equally effective and safe and neither has been associated with sudden cardiac arrest."

"This study suggests that high-dose nifedipine may increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest due to fatal cardiac arrhythmia while amlodipine does not."

It is important to note that because this is a new line of investigation, it will be vital to replicate the findings using more participants and other demographics.

As Dr. Tan concludes, "If these findings are confirmed in other studies, they may have to be taken into account when the use of either drug is considered."

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Common blood pressure drug may increase cardiac arrest risk

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A preliminary study concludes that a drug that doctors commonly prescribe to treat angina and blood pressure might increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest. A recent study looked at the risk factors behind cardiac arrest. Cardiac arrest occurs when the heart stops pumping blood around the body.

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Eric Kim: "Don't Count on 23andMe to Detect Most Breast Cancer Risks, Study Warns"

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Eric Kim: "Don't Count on 23andMe to Detect Most Breast Cancer Risks, Study Warns"

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This article is published by a credible source, it contains hyperlinks to the studies it references, and it has an author.

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More than 10 million people have signed up for 23andMe. Many are initially drawn in by ancestry data, but later opt in for health risk tests. Credit Credit George Frey/Reuters

In 2010, Dr. Pamela Munster mailed her saliva to 23andMe, a relatively new DNA testing company, and later opted in for a BRCA test. As an oncologist, she knew a mutation of this gene would put her at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. She was relieved by the negative result.

Two years later, after she learned she had breast cancer, she took a more complete genetic test from a different lab. This time it was positive.

A study released earlier this month suggested that this experience could be widespread. Nearly 90 percent of the 100,000 participants, who carried a BRCA mutation, would have been missed by 23andMe's test, geneticists found. The finding has ignited a debate about the risk and value of online health tests.

23andMe's BRCA testing formula is built around just three genetic variants, most prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. The study demonstrated that most people carry other BRCA mutations, something many doctors have long suspected.

"It's as if you offered a pregnancy test, but only the Jewish women would turn positive," said Dr. Munster, who is the co-leader of the Center for BRCA Research at the University of California, San Francisco.

23andMe said response to the study had been overblown because the site makes it clear that it is testing only for three BRCA mutations.

Dr. Munster said that 23andMe was "not doing anything actively deceptive." But she is still concerned that many customers do not grasp the limits of mail-in DNA testing.

23andMe now has more than 10 million customers. Even if only a small percentage take the test, that's thousands who could be misled.

Mary-Claire King, a professor at the University of Washington who discovered the region on the genome that became known as BRCA1, had a more blunt assessment.

"The F.D.A. should not have permitted this out-of-date approach to be used for medical purposes," she said. "Misleading, falsely reassuring results from their incomplete testing can cost women's lives."

The study, which was presented at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics annual meeting and has not been peer reviewed, was built around more than 100,000 patients who underwent breast cancer risk testing with Invitae, a diagnostic company.

Invitae is a potential competitor of 23andMe. BRCA experts not affiliated with Invitae said in interviews that they found the work to be credible, particularly as the company's findings echo other, smaller studies.

23andMe's test focuses on BRCA1 and BRCA2, genes involved in suppressing growth of abnormal cells. Specifically, it looks for three notorious genetic variants, known as founder mutations. Invitae's analysts expanded their search to include thousands of BRCA variants.

Dr. Susan Klugman, vice president for clinical genetics at the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics, likened it to a broader spell-check. Whereas 23andMe looks for errors in a few paragraphs, the Invitae analysts used more advanced genetic technology to search through 25 chapters. (Dr. Klugman was not involved in the study.)

In about 5,000 subjects, analysts identified at least one variant known to significantly increase an individual's risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Among the Ashkenazi Jews in the positive group, 81 percent had one of the three founder mutations, suggesting that 23andMe's test could be helpful for them. Among the rest, 94 percent carried variants that would have failed detection by 23andMe.

One reason is purely technical: To return to the literary metaphor, 23andMe isn't set up to scan entire genetic books the way some labs are. So even if the company wanted to look for other variants, that would not be possible without changing its approach, said Dr. Robert C. Green, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Green said that though this is a limitation it's not necessarily a problem.

"I think people have the right to their own genetic information, but with that right comes a responsibility," he said. "If you are going to go around the medical mainstream, read the caveats."

Dr. Jeffrey Pollard, 23andMe's director of medical affairs, said that the company's focus was far from arbitrary.

"We test for these three variants since they are three of the most well-studied and carry clear, documented risk for breast and ovarian cancer," he said. "About one in 40 individuals of Ashkenazi Jewish descent has one of these three variants. Women with one of these variants have a 45 to 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer by age 70."

The company warns customers that it is not testing for all variants, and its approach has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, he said. (The company said that data on how many people have taken the BRCA test was not available.)

Yes. Alongside the primary study, Invitae analysts also presented a smaller study investigating this question, built around 102 patients. All participants had been told that they had a BRCA mutation from a mail-in genetic test or other online analysis service. (Whether they used 23andMe or another service was not documented. 23andMe analysts disputed that their company was used based on their reading of the data.)

In nearly half of the patients, Invitae could not confirm the presence of the BRCA mutation. That means that had these patients not taken a second test, they would have gone on thinking that they were at greater risk than they really were.

A positive result can be a major life event: Some people may opt to get a preventive mastectomy or hysterectomy. Others may increase the frequency of their doctors' visits or alter other habits.

Another small study published last year produced similar results. Forty percent of individuals who tested positive for genetic variants associated with Parkinson's disease, late-onset Alzheimer's disease and a number of other diseases using mail-in genetic tests were negative in a confirmation test.

One of the primary arguments for genetic testing that does not involve a physician is that it reaches people who would not do it otherwise. Around one in 25 American adults has now taken an at-home ancestry test.

Regardless of who does the test, talking to a genetic counselor is advisable, Dr. Klugman said. Genetic counselors can help patients make sense of their results, and sometimes they sniff out incorrect findings.

In 2017, for example, a genetic counselor was skeptical of tests showing that two patients from a family with a history of Lynch syndrome did not carry the mutation. Retesting showed they did.

In that case, the faulty results could not be blamed on a mail-in test: Invitae, the company behind the recent studies, produced the incorrect results. In an email last week, the company said that it had corrected the reports and learned from the error.

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Don't Count on 23andMe to Detect Most Breast Cancer Risks, Study Warns

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In 2010, Dr. Pamela Munster mailed her saliva to 23andMe, a relatively new DNA testing company, and later opted in for a BRCA test. As an oncologist, she knew a mutation of this gene would put her at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. She was relieved by the negative result.

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Tina Nguyen: "Measles cases quadruple globally in 2019, says UN"

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Tina Nguyen: "Measles cases quadruple globally in 2019, says UN"

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I believe this is credible because there are many articles written about measles being quadruple in 2019. I was skeptical because there is no author but since it was written by BBC news, I knew it was a news source in Britain and it is credible.

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The number of measles cases reported worldwide in the first three months of 2019 has quadrupled compared with the same time last year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The UN body said provisional data indicated a "a clear trend", with all regions of the world seeing outbreaks.

Africa had witnessed the most dramatic rise - up 700%.

The agency said actual numbers may be far greater, since only one in 10 cases globally are reported.

Measles is a highly infectious viral illness that can sometimes lead to serious health complications, including infections of the lungs and brain.

Ukraine, Madagascar and India have been worst affected by the disease, with tens of thousands of reported cases per million people.

Since September, at least 800 people have died from measles in Madagascar alone.

Outbreaks have also hit Brazil, Pakistan and Yemen, "causing many deaths - mostly among young children", while a spike in case numbers was reported for countries including the US and Thailand with high levels of vaccination coverage.

How a preventable disease returned from the past

Measles cases triple in Europe

Vaccine deniers gaining ground - NHS boss

YouTube takes ads off 'anti-vax' videos

In total, some 170 countries reported 112,163 measles cases to WHO, in comparison to 28,124 cases across 163 countries during the same period in 2018.

The UN says the disease is "entirely preventable" with the right vaccines, but global coverage of the first immunisation stage has "stalled" at 85%, "still short of the 95% needed to prevent outbreaks".

In an opinion piece for CNN, WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UNICEF head Henrietta Fore said the world was "in the middle of a measles crisis" and that "the proliferation of confusing and contradictory information" about vaccines was partly to blame.

Why the sudden 'global measles crisis'?
By James Gallagher, health and science correspondent, BBC News
It is one of the most contagious viruses around. However, nothing about measles has changed. It has not mutated to become more infectious or more dangerous. Instead the answers are entirely human.

There are two stories here - one of poverty and one of misinformation. In poorer countries fewer people are vaccinated and a larger portion of the population is left vulnerable to the virus.

This creates the environment for a large outbreak to occur - such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kyrgyzstan and Madagascar.

But rich countries with seemingly high vaccination rates are seeing cases spike too. This is because clusters of people are choosing not to vaccinate their children due to the spread of untrue anti-vax messages on social media.

It is worth noting these figures are provisional, the WHO says the true figures will be much higher. And that measles is far from harmless. It kills around 100,000 people, mostly children, every year.

The pair wrote that it was "understandable, in such a climate, how loving parents can feel lost" but that "ultimately, there is no 'debate' to be had about the profound benefits of vaccines".

They added: "More than 20 million lives have been saved through measles vaccination since the year 2000 alone."

In response to recent measles outbreaks, calls have mounted in several countries to make immunisation mandatory.

Last month, Italy banned children under six from attending schools unless they had received vaccines for chickenpox, measles and other illnesses.

A public health emergency has also been declared in areas of New York, ordering all residents to be vaccinated or face a fine.

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The number of measles cases reported worldwide in the first three months of 2019 has quadrupled compared with the same time last year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The UN body said provisional data indicated a "a clear trend", with all regions of the world seeing outbreaks.

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Yasmin Guzman: "Scientists Create World's First 3D-Printed Heart Using Patient's Own Cells"

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Yasmin Guzman: "Scientists Create World's First 3D-Printed Heart Using Patient's Own Cells"

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This story seems credible for a few reasons. One, this story has been shared through different newcast and news providers like ScienceDaily, NY Post, and CNN. I also saw this report live on the Spanish newscast my family watches. Additionally, IFL Science is a site I have used in the past to find about our latest scientific research and it's also been a fact check site.

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Researchers at Tel Aviv University have successfully printed the world's first 3D heart using a patient's own cells and biological materials to "completely match the immunological, cellular, biochemical, and anatomical properties of the patient."

Until now, researchers have only been able to 3D-print simple tissues lacking blood vessels.

"This heart is made from human cells and patient-specific biological materials. In our process these materials serve as the bioinks, substances made of sugars and proteins that can be used for 3D printing of complex tissue models," said lead researcher Tal Dvir in a statement. "People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future."

F, G) A printed heart within a support bath. H) After extraction, the left and right ventricles were injected with red and blue dyes, respectively, in order to demonstrate hollow chambers and the septum in‐between them. Advanced Science

Describing their work in Advanced Science, the research team started by taking biopsies of fatty tissues from abdominal structures known as the omentum in both humans and pigs. The tissue's cellular materials were separated from those that weren't and reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells, " master cells" able to make cells from all three body layers with the potential to produce any cell or tissue in the body. The team then made the extracellular matrix - made up of collagen and glycoproteins - into a hydrogel used as the printing "ink". Cells were mixed with the hydrogel and then differentiated into cardiac or endothelial cells (those that line the interior surface of blood and lymphatic vessels) to create patient-specific, immune-compatible cardiac patches complete with blood vessels and, ultimately, an entire heart bioengineered from "native" patient-specific materials.

Though promising, the team is quick to remind us that their hearts are not yet ready for human transplantation.

"At this stage, our 3D heart is small, the size of a rabbit's heart," said Dvir. "But larger human hearts require the same technology."

For starters, creating a human heart would take much longer and require billions of cells - not just millions. Furthermore, the cherry-sized hearts don't necessarily behave like hearts, requiring researchers to further develop and "train" them to be like human hearts and form a pumping ability. Currently, the cells can contract but do not work together.

Regardless, the development is a massive step for the advancement of organ transplantation. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men and women in the US, with heart transplants being the only treatment available to those with end-stage heart failure. Not only does a shortage of donors require the development of new strategies, but creating hearts that jive with a patient's unique biological makeup could prevent the risk of rejection.

"The biocompatibility of engineered materials is crucial to eliminating the risk of implant rejection, which jeopardizes the success of such treatments," said Dvir. "Ideally, the biomaterial should possess the same biochemical, mechanical and topographical properties of the patient's own tissues. Here, we can report a simple approach to 3D-printed thick, vascularized and perfusable cardiac tissues that completely match the immunological, cellular, biochemical and anatomical properties of the patient."

After "training" the hearts to efficiently pump, the team hopes to transplant them into animals for further testing.

Cells from a patient's omentum tissue are separated and processed into a personalized thermoresponsive hydrogel. The cells are reprogrammed to become pluripotent and are then differentiated to cardiomyocytes and endothelial cells before encapsulation within the hydrogel to generate the bioinks used for printing. The bioinks are then printed to engineer vascularized patches and complex cellularized structures. Advanced Science

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Scientists Create World's First 3D-Printed Heart Using Patient's Own Cells

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Researchers at Tel Aviv University have successfully printed the world's first 3D heart using a patient's own cells and biological materials to "completely match the immunological, cellular, biochemical, and anatomical properties of the patient." Until now, researchers have only been able to 3D-print simple tissues lacking blood vessels.

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Police investigate more cases connected to suspected rapist posing as ride-share driver.

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Police investigate more cases connected to suspected rapist posing as ride-share driver.

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I believe this article is credible because there are other articles that state the same facts/events. This is also a case I had heard about by word of mouth in my community so I decided to research it for this assignment. This article is from Q13 Fox which is a Seattle new channel but articles with supporting arguments can be found on other news sources such as KOMO and Seattle Weekly.

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SEATTLE -- More women have come forward to share their run-ins with a suspected rapist posing as a ride-share driver.

While police have now arrested a 34-year-old man for investigation of rape, more charges could be coming.

On Tuesday, police released surveillance video looking for the man who they say posed as a ride-share driver and then sexually assaulted a woman last December.

According to detectives in this case, the suspect picked up a woman in the 5100 block of Ballard Avenue in Seattle, then pulled the car over in White Center and raped her.

Now, more stories from possible victims are coming to the light.

The King County Sheriff's Department is investigating another case after a woman posted a video on Reddit showing a man trying to lure her into his car in Fremont a few months ago.

While she didn't take the ride; police say the same suspect may be involved in this case.

"He says 'I could be your ride, I could be your Uber,' but she refuses to get in," Sgt. Ryan Abbott with The King County Sheriff's Office explained. "There's a lot of similarities in that one, we are really close to saying it's the same guy as well."

Police have already confirmed it's the same suspect connected to another case dating back to August of last year. A woman says she was also offered a ride from a bar on Ballard Ave in Seattle.

According to police, the fake-ride share driver took her home and later tried to get inside.

"He told her she forgot her cell phone which she knew wasn't true because she was talking on her cell phone," said Sgt. Abbott. "He then tried to push the door open towards her but she was able to push back and actually close the door and it locked."

On Thursday, the suspect made his first court appearance, where his bond was set at $750,000.

"If he's already done this twice, maybe three times how many more people are out there we don't know about?" said Sgt. Abbott.

The King County Sheriff's Office is asking any other victims out there to come forward with information.

They're also reminding ride share users to always check the vehicle information as well as the driver's information before getting into a vehicle.

You can ask the driver to tell you your name; information a legitimate driver would have in their app.

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Police investigate more cases connected to suspected rapist posing as ride-share driver

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SEATTLE -- More women have come forward to share their run-ins with a suspected rapist posing as a ride-share driver. While police have now arrested a 34-year-old man for investigation of rape, more charges could be coming. On Tuesday, police released surveillance video looking for the man who they say posed as a ride-share driver and then sexually assaulted a woman last December.

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Dureti Bilal: "Do This Today To Sleep Well Tonight"

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Dureti Bilal: "Do This Today To Sleep Well Tonight"

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I believe that this article is credible because other research sources also highlights the benefits/affect that exercising and cutting back on caffeine after late morning can have on the quality of our sleep. This article also references the original source, making these claims credible.

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subscribe to Sleep Better With Help From Science podcast

subscribe to Sleep Better With Help From Science podcast

From the moment you wake up, your body starts to prepare for sleep. We show you how to adjust your daytime habits to get the best possible night of rest.

Here's what to remember:

Start the day with natural light - from an east-facing window, or even better, go outside - to put the brakes on melatonin.

Cut the caffeine off by late morning. Even if it doesn't keep you up, caffeine impacts how much deep sleep you're getting. If you have a cup of coffee at noon, a quarter of that caffeine is still circulating in your brain at midnight, says sleep researcher and author Matthew Walker.

Get moving during the day. Exercise can increase the quantity and quality of your sleep if it's not in the last two hours before bed. The benefit is bidirectional: If you sleep well tonight, research shows you're more likely to exercise tomorrow.

Avoid the nightcap. Alcohol makes you feel drowsy but disrupts deep sleep.

Ban the smartphone and TV from the bedroom. Those devices are stimulating, when you should be letting go.

Give yourself a go 7-9 hours every night, Walker says. "Every species that we've studied to date appears to sleep," he says. "That must mean that if sleep does not serve an absolutely vital set of functions, then it is the biggest mistake that the evolutionary process has ever made."

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From the moment you wake up, your body starts to prepare for sleep. We show you how to adjust your daytime habits to get the best possible night of rest.Here's what to remember:- Start the day with natural light - from an east-facing window, or even better, go outside - to put the brakes on melatonin.

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Aliyah Sop: 27 possible graves have been discovered at a reform school with a history of brutality

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Aliyah Sop: 27 possible graves have been discovered at a reform school with a history of brutality

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I have concluded that both of these sources where I've found this article are real and credible news sources and the articles are factual. Some of the indicators that I used to determine if these sources are credible/real are: advertisements on the website, the website in general, the tone of both articles, identifying any biases that may be apparent in the websites, etc. (all things that the web literacy for student fact checkers recommended to check for)

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April 15 at 12:49 PM
The Florida School for Boys, opened at the turn of the 20th century, was supposed to provide a new start for troubled young men who had committed crimes ranging from theft to rape. Instead, it was the beginning of a horrifying, 111-year-long chapter of Florida history that has yielded troubling revelations to this day.

Twenty-seven geological "anomalies consistent with possible graves" based on their shape and size were discovered by a contractor near the now-shuttered school, according to an April 10 letter issued by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to Jackson County officials and obtained by The Washington Post.

More than 50 sets of human remains had previously been exhumed by researchers from a small cemetery on the grounds.

DeSantis's letter explains that a contractor employed by Geosyntec, an environmental cleanup company, was using radar to survey the grounds when they found the "anomalies." Given the history of the site, the company issued a report to the Department of Environmental Protection, recommending the area be treated as graves until further testing could be done.

DeSantis directed state officials to work with Jackson County "as a first step to understanding and addressing these preliminary findings" and vowed to "ensure this issue is handled with the utmost sensitivity and care."

The Tampa Bay Times first reported the contents of the letter Friday.

The school opened in the Florida Panhandle town of Marianna on Jan. 1, 1900, and disturbing stories began to emerge almost immediately afterward. Decades of reports detail how boys were dragged into a building called the "White House," where they were flogged and beaten bloody by school staff. Children were chained or tied up, forced into solitary confinement or attacked by violent peers. Others allegedly suffered sexual abuse by staff or other boys. Those who tried to run away faced severe corporal punishment. Some survivors were haunted by the memory of a "one-armed man" who distributed lashings.

Some of the boys who entered the notorious reform school never came out.

A 15-year-old boy named Thomas Curry died just 29 days after arriving at the school in 1925, according to a 2016 report by the University of South Florida on deaths and burials at the school. He had tried to run away, and a coroner's report states that he "came to his death from a wound to the forehead, skull crushed from unknown cause." Though his remains were reportedly shipped to his grandmother in Philadelphia, testing and research conclude he may have actually been buried at the school's Boot Hill Burial Ground.

In April 1960, another boy, Robert Hewitt, attempted to escape. His cause of death was documented as "gunshot wounds in chest inflicted by person or persons unknown."

In three cases documented by researchers, boys were killed by other boys at the school. Others perished in a 1914 fire or died of illnesses such as influenza. However, the reasons for several deaths remain unknown.

Those who survived the brutality remained haunted by their experience long after they left.

"I'll be laying in bed," a former student, Eddie Horn, told the Times in 2009, "and I can feel the pain from where they beat me."

Nearly 100 deaths took place at the school between 1900 and 1973, according to the report, many of which went undocumented by the school or unreported to the state. Researchers excavated 55 graves on the grounds - far more than the state had previously known about. Some of the remains, but not all, have been identified.

Much work would need to be done to verify that the newly discovered anomalies were, indeed, graves. Erin Kimmerle, a member of the team that investigated the burials, told CBS News that "from a forensic and archaeological perspective, additional fieldwork is critically important to establish if these are in fact burials, the actual number, and context."

She noted to CBS News that the historical record did not support the existence of another burial ground.
Read more: A man beat his 5-year-old daughter to death for not doing homework, police say A chiropractor has been charged with killing four people in a North Dakota warehouse. But the details are still a mystery. A student thought she was getting into an Uber. Lawmakers want to prevent another deadly mistake.

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27 possible graves have been discovered at a reform school with a history of brutality

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April 15 at 12:49 PM The Florida School for Boys, opened at the turn of the 20th century, was supposed to provide a new start for troubled young men who had committed crimes ranging from theft to rape. Instead, it was the beginning of a horrifying, 111-year-long chapter of Florida history that has yielded troubling revelations to this day.

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Stephanie Cruz: "Cheers to the 7 Health Benefits of Tequila When You Grab the Lime and Salt"

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Stephanie Cruz: "Cheers to the 7 Health Benefits of Tequila When You Grab the Lime and Salt"

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The first thing that tipped me off and lead me to believe this article was fake and misleading was that each benefit listed didn’t have evidence. Secondly it was hard to believe that tequila could be the solution to avoiding dementia. Lastly, the author used other products such as vitamin c packets, kombucha, etc to compare how tequila may be similar in terms of fighting colds and being a probiotic to make/trigger the audience’s attention. By her mentioning such popular products like kombucha it could mislead people like me reading this article to believe that tequila gives off the similar health benefits but in reality it is a distraction. Stanz simply states tequilla will help do so and so without any proof. Many advertisements and articles like to compare other products and use distractions to make there point seem true/real.

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Haley Barton: "Men with beards carry more germs than dogs, study says"

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Haley Barton: "Men with beards carry more germs than dogs, study says"

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I believe that this story is fake for a few reasons including, the ‘clickbait’ title, no author listed, and the lack of sources. I have never heard of the site this article was posted on and cannot find any other credible stories when browsing the site.

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Surprised? A new study out of Switzerland claims that men carry more germ in their bears than dogs carry in their fur.

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) - Surprised?

A new study out of Switzerland claims that men carry more germs in their beards than dogs carry in their fur.

Professor Andreas Gutzeit of the Hirslanden Clinic said that researchers "found a significantly higher bacteria load in specimens taken from the men's beards compared with the dogs' fur."

Researchers took two swabs of human male hair from 18 men and the necks of 30 dogs of varying breeds.

The study showed that all of the bearded men ages 18 to 76 had "high microbial counts, while only 23 of the 30 dogs showed similarly high microbial presence."

Seven men were even found with microbes that "posed a threat to human health."

"On the basis of these findings, dogs can be considered as clean compared with bearded men," Gutzeit said.

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Men with beards carry more germs than dogs, study says

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SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) - Surprised? A new study out of Switzerland claims that men carry more germs in their beards than dogs carry in their fur. Professor Andreas Gutzeit of the Hirslanden Clinic said that researchers "found a significantly higher bacteria load in specimens taken from the men's beards compared with the dogs' fur."

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"Not Up for Debate: The Science Behind Vaccination"

I believe this New York Times article is credible. There were many pieces of factual information and data presented from the studies conducted. The author is a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.

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Not Up for Debate: The Science Behind Vaccination (Published 2015)

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The candidates discussed lots of topics at the second Republican debate, but there was one they would have done better to leave alone.

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"Notre-Dame cathedral: Macron pledges reconstruction after fire"

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"Notre-Dame cathedral: Macron pledges reconstruction after fire"

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I believe that this is a credible source because it is from BBC News, which is known to be the most trusted news provider in the UK. Their editorial values stated, "We are committed to achieving the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality and strive to avoid knowingly or materially misleading our audiences". They also explain on their website what type of information you are reading/watching, who and where the information is from, and how a news story was written the way it was.

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French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame after a major fire partially destroyed the Paris landmark.

Firefighters managed to save the 850-year-old Gothic building's main stone structure, including its two towers, but the spire and roof collapsed.

The fire was declared under control almost nine hours after it started.

The cause is not yet clear but officials say it could be linked to extensive renovation works under way.

Paris prosecutor's office said it was currently being investigated as an accident. A firefighter was seriously injured while tackling the blaze.

Macron: 'Terrible tragedy'

Visiting the site on Monday night, Mr Macron said the "worst had been avoided" with the preservation of the cathedral's main structure as he pledged to launch an international fundraising scheme for the reconstruction.

In pictures: Blaze at Notre-Dame

What makes the cathedral so special

"We'll rebuild this cathedral all together and it's undoubtedly part of the French destiny and the project we'll have for the coming years," said Mr Macron.

"That's what the French expect [and] because it's what our history deserves," he added, visibly emotional, calling it a "terrible tragedy".

Billionaire François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of the Kering group that owns the Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent fashion brands, has already pledged €100m (£86m; $113m) towards rebuilding Notre-Dame, a Unesco World Heritage site.

The French charity Fondation du Patrimoine is launching an international appeal for funds.

The fire started at around 18:30 (16:30 GMT) on Monday and quickly reached the roof of the cathedral, destroying its stained-glass windows and the wooden interior before toppling the spire.

Sections of the building were under scaffolding as part of the renovations and 16 copper statues had been removed last week. Work began after cracks appeared in the stone, sparking fears the structure could become unstable.

Mr Macron said the iconic cathedral was "for all French people", including those who had never been there, and praised the "extreme courage" of the 500 firefighters involved in the operation.

Mayor: 'Artwork in safe place'

Emergency teams managed to rescue valuable artwork and religious items, including what is said to be the crown of thorns worn by Jesus before his crucifixion, which were stored inside the cathedral, built in the 12th and 13th centuries.

WATCH: Why cathedral had to be renovated

The massive cost of restoring Notre-Dame

"We had a chain of solidarity, especially in saving the works of art... [They] were able to be saved and put in a safe place," said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. "This is a tragedy for the whole world... Notre-Dame is the entire history of Paris."

Historian Camille Pascal told French broadcaster BFMTV that "invaluable heritage" had been destroyed. "Happy and unfortunate events for centuries have been marked by the bells of Notre-Dame. We can be only horrified by what we see".

A symbol of a country

No other site represents France quite like Notre-Dame. Its main rival as a national symbol, the Eiffel Tower, is little more than a century old. Notre-Dame has stood tall above Paris since the 1200s.

It has given its name to one of the country's literary masterpieces. Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is known to the French simply as Notre-Dame de Paris.

The last time the cathedral suffered major damage was during the French Revolution. It survived two world wars largely unscathed.

Watching such an embodiment of the permanence of a nation burn and its spire collapse is profoundly shocking to any French person.

Reaction: 'France is crying'

Notre-Dame receives almost 13 million visitors each year, more than the Eiffel Tower.

Thousands of people gathered in the streets around the cathedral, observing the flames in silence. Some could be seen openly weeping, while others sang hymns or said prayers.

Several churches around Paris rang their bells in response to the blaze, which happened as Catholics celebrate Holy Week.

"Notre-Dame is burning, France is crying and the whole world, too. It is extremely emotional," Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit said.

The Vatican expressed "shock and sadness" while UK Prime Minister Theresa May described the fire as "terrible".

Unesco said it stood "at France's side to save and restore this priceless heritage."

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel called the Notre-Dame a "symbol of French and European culture".

US President Donald Trump said it was "horrible to watch" the fire and suggested that "flying water tankers" could be used to extinguish the blaze.

In an apparent response, the French Civil Security service said that was not an option as it might result in the collapse of the entire building.

Because of the fire, Mr Macron cancelled a speech on TV in which he was due to address the street protests that have rocked France for months.

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French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild the medieval cathedral of Notre-Dame after a major fire partially destroyed the Paris landmark. Firefighters managed to save the 850-year-old Gothic building's main stone structure, including its two towers, but the spire and roof collapsed. The fire was declared under control almost nine hours after it started.

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"13 Health Benefits of Coffee, based on Science"

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"13 Health Benefits of Coffee, based on Science"

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I think this is a credible source because there are hyperlinked, in-text sources. Many of the sp come from PubMed, reinforcing the evidence in this article.

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Coffee is a beloved beverage known for its ability to fine-tune your focus and boost your energy levels.

In fact, many people depend on their daily cup of joe right when they wake up to get their day started on the right foot.

In addition to its energizing effects, coffee has been linked to a long list of potential health benefits, giving you all the more reason to get brewing.

This article takes an in-depth look at 9 of the top evidence-based benefits of coffee.

This is because caffeine blocks the receptors of a neurotransmitter called adenosine, and this increases levels of other neurotransmitters in your brain that regulate your energy levels, including dopamine (, ).

One small study found that consuming caffeine increased time to exhaustion during a cycling exercise by 12% and significantly reduced subjective levels of fatigue in participants ().

Another study had similar findings, reporting that consuming caffeine before and during a round of golf improved performance, increased subjective energy levels, and reduced feelings of fatigue ().

Summary
Coffee contains caffeine, a stimulant that has been shown to increase energy levels and decrease fatigue by altering levels of certain neurotransmitters in the brain.

Some research suggests that consuming coffee regularly could be associated with a decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the long term.

In fact, one review of 30 studies found that each cup of coffee people consumed per day was linked to a 6% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes ().

Summary
Regular coffee consumption may be linked to a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes over the long term.

Although studies have turned up mixed results, some research suggests that coffee may help protect against certain neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

According to one review of 13 studies, people who regularly consumed caffeine had a significantly lower risk of developing Parkinson's disease. What's more, caffeine consumption also slowed the progression of Parkinson's disease over time ().

Another review of 11 observational studies in more than 29,000 people also found that the more coffee people consumed, the lower their risk of Alzheimer's disease ().

Additionally, several studies have demonstrated that moderate coffee consumption could be associated with a lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline (, ).

Summary
Some research suggests that drinking coffee could help protect against Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and cognitive decline.

According to some research, coffee could alter fat storage and support gut health, both of which may be beneficial for weight management ().

For example, one review of 12 studies concluded that higher coffee consumption could be associated with decreased body fat, especially in men ().

In another study, increased coffee intake was linked to decreased body fat in women ().

Furthermore, one study found that people who drank one to two cups of coffee per day were 17% more likely to meet recommended physical activity levels, compared with those who drank less than one cup per day ().

Higher levels of physical activity could help promote weight management ().

Summary
Coffee could help support weight management and may be linked to decreased body fat. One study also found that people who consumed coffee were more likely to be physically active.

Some studies have found that drinking coffee could be associated with a lower risk of depression.

According to one review of seven studies, each cup of coffee people consumed per day was linked to an 8% lower risk of depression ().

Another study found that drinking at least four cups of coffee each day was associated with a significantly lower risk of depression, compared with drinking just one cup per day ().

What's more, one study in more than 200,000 people showed that drinking coffee was linked to a lower risk of death by suicide ().

Summary
Several studies have found that coffee could be linked to a lower risk of depression and may even be linked to a lower risk of death by suicide.

Interestingly, several studies suggest that coffee could support liver health and protect against disease.

Other research shows that the more coffee people drank, the lower their risk of death from chronic liver disease. Drinking one cup of coffee per day was tied to a 15% lower risk, while drinking four cups per day was linked to a 71% lower risk ().

Another recent study found that coffee consumption was associated with decreased liver stiffness, which is a measure healthcare professionals use to assess fibrosis, the formation of scar tissue in the liver ().

Summary
Coffee consumption could be linked to a decreased risk of death from chronic liver disease, along with other conditions, like liver scarring and liver cancer.

Some research shows that drinking coffee may benefit heart health.

Another review of 21 studies showed that drinking three to four cups of coffee daily was associated with a 21% lower risk of stroke ().

What's more, one study in more than 21,000 people also found that increased coffee intake was associated with a significantly decreased risk of heart failure ().

However, keep in mind that caffeine could affect blood pressure levels. Therefore, people with unmanaged blood pressure may need to limit or moderate their caffeine intake (, ).

Summary
Some research shows that drinking coffee could be linked to a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, and heart failure.

Some research suggests that coffee could help extend longevity, thanks to its multitude of potential health benefits.

For example, one review of 40 studies concluded that drinking two to four cups of coffee daily was associated with a lower risk of death, regardless of factors like age, weight status, and alcohol consumption ().

Similarly, another study in 1,567 people found that drinking caffeinated coffee was linked to a lower risk of death after 12 and 18 years of follow-up. Furthermore, drinking at least one cup of coffee per day was also associated with a lower risk of death from cancer ().

However, more research is needed to determine whether this could also apply to humans.

Summary
Coffee could be associated with a lower risk of death, regardless of other factors, like age, weight status, or alcohol consumption. Still, more research is needed.

Coffee is often used as an ergogenic aid by athletes looking to improve performance and increase energy levels ( 30).

An ergogenic aid is also called a performance enhancer.

Another study in 126 older adults found that drinking coffee was associated with improved physical performance and faster gait speed, even after the researchers adjusted for factors like age, belly fat, and physical activity levels ().

Additionally, a large review reported that moderate caffeine consumption could slightly improve power output and time-trial completion time. However, results varied, so the researchers also noted that caffeine may affect people differently ().

Summary
Coffee could improve physical performance and endurance when consumed before exercising. However, some studies have turned up mixed results.

Coffee is a popular beverage that researchers have studied extensively for its many health benefits, including its ability to increase energy levels, promote weight management, enhance athletic performance, and protect against chronic disease.

Keep in mind that some people may need to limit their intake, including people who are pregnant or breastfeeding, children and adolescents, and people with certain health conditions ().

Still, drinking coffee in moderation - about three to four cups per day - has been associated with several health benefits and is generally considered safe for most adults ().

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9 Health Benefits of Coffee, Based on Science

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Coffee is a beloved beverage known for its ability to fine-tune your focus and boost your energy levels. In fact, many people depend on their daily cup of joe right when they wake up to get their day started on the right foot.