Author: Reporter

“Welcome to the USA,” says a note attached to a hand-crocheted blanket of purple, white and gray stripes. Hollie Shaner-McRae, of Burlington, who made the blanket as a gift for a refugee, wrote of her great-grandparents coming to the United States from Ukraine, Russia and Poland. One great-grandfather was a tailor and the other was a barrel maker, she wrote. “Both were so brave and came to America as teenagers,” she wrote in the note. “I hope you make friends and feel safe here,” Shaner-McRae wrote to whomever would receive the blanket. “Vermont is blessed to have new families...

A “stable share” of Americans has participated in religious services in some way, virtually or in person, during the coronavirus pandemic. However, in-person attendance is slightly lower than before the COVID-19 outbreak. Those are among the key findings in a comprehensive report released on March 28 by the Pew Research Center titled: “How the Pandemic Has Affected Attendance at U.S. Religious Services.” The poll surveyed 11,377 U.S. adults in November last year. Its margin of error for the full sample of respondents is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. The poll found that the share of U.S. adults typically...

Jessie Blanchard started small nearly five years ago, just trying to get enough of the rescue drug naloxone that reverses opioid overdoses to keep her daughter from dying from an overdose. She pleaded with colleagues at the college where she is an adjunct teacher in Albany, Georgia, to use their prescription benefits to get two doses every six months. Now she loads her Jeep every week and heads out with a few other volunteers to bring the antidote, commonly known by its brand name Narcan, to hundreds of others in the town of 70,000. At parking lots and intersections...

The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday there are too many unknowns about CBD products to regulate them as foods or supplements under the agency’s current structure and called on Congress to create new rules for the massive and growing market. The marijuana-derived products have become increasingly popular in lotions, tinctures and foods, while their legal status has been murky in the U.S. There is not enough evidence about CBD to confirm that it’s safe for use in foods or as a dietary supplement, FDA Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement. “For example, we have not...

U.S. health regulators are weighing the first-ever request to make a birth control pill available without a prescription. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration meet next week to review drugmaker Perrigo’s application to sell a decades-old pill over the counter. The two-day public meeting is one of the last steps before an FDA decision. If the FDA grants the company’s request, Opill would become the first contraceptive pill to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter onto store shelves or online. In an initial review posted on May 5, the FDA raised several concerns about studies of...