Author: Reporter

Kat Renfroe was at Mass when she saw a volunteer opportunity in the bulletin. Her Catholic parish was looking for tutors for Afghan youth, newly arrived in the United States. There was a personal connection for Renfroe. Her husband, now retired from the Marine Corps, had deployed to Afghanistan four times. “He just never talked about any other region the way he did about the people there,” she said. She signed up to volunteer. “It changed my life,” she said. That was seven years ago. She and her husband are still close to the young man she tutored, along...

In the corners of social media dominated by wellness content, influencers recommend an assortment of treatments and products to support weight loss, fight exhaustion, or promote other desired health outcomes. Some of the endorsed approaches may be helpful. Many play into fads with scant evidence to back up enthusiasts’ claims, medical experts say. Some influencers encourage their followers to avoid specific food items, such as seed oils, while others advocate going all in on certain foods, such as the meat-heavy carnivore diet. There are video pitches for berberine, a chemical compound that has been touted online as “nature’s Ozempic,”...

Avian influenza has devastated poultry and dairy farms, and sent the price of eggs soaring in the United States since it was first detected in North America in late 2021. But what has been the toll on wild birds? More than 170 species of North American wild birds – including ducks, geese, gulls, owls, eagles, and others – have been infected with bird flu. Take precautions around sick or dead wild birds, experts recommend. But you can keep your bird feeder up. Despite the spread in birds and other wild animals, scientists say the threat to the general population...

Vaccination bills are popping up in more than 15 states as lawmakers aim to potentially resurrect or create new religious exemptions from immunization mandates, establish state-level vaccine injury databases, or dictate what providers must tell patients about the shots. Many saw a political opportunity to rewrite policies in their states, after President Donald Trump returned to the White House and he nominated anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency oversees virtually every aspect of vaccination efforts in the U.S., from funding their development to establishing recommendations...