Author: Reporter

The ongoing bird flu outbreak has cost the government roughly $661 million and added to consumers’ pain at the grocery store after more than 58 million birds were slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus. In addition to the cost of the government response and rising prices for eggs, chicken and turkey, farmers who raise those animals have easily lost more than $1 billion, said an agricultural economist, though no one has calculated the total cost to the industry yet. The bad news is that with the outbreak entering its second year and the spring migratory season looming,...

The U.S. is poised to make COVID-19 vaccinations more like a yearly flu shot, a major shift in strategy despite a long list of questions about how to best protect against a still rapidly mutating virus. The Food and Drug Administration asked its scientific advisers recently to help lay the groundwork for switching to once-a-year boosters for most Americans, and how and when to periodically update the shots’ recipe. “This is a consequential meeting to determine if we’ve reached the point in the pandemic that allows for simplifying the use of current COVID-19 vaccines,” said FDA’s Dr. David Kaslow....

After sweeping through battles in statehouses across the country, the war against ESG investing is heating up in Congress. The Senate voted on March 1 to overturn a Labor Department rule allowing retirement plans to consider environmental, social and governance factors when making investment decisions, following a similar vote by House Republicans on previous day. It set the stage for a potential first veto by President Joe Biden. Critics say ESG investments allocate money based on political agendas, such as a drive against climate change, rather than on earning the best returns for savers. They say ESG is just...

The number of U.S. mass killings linked to extremism over the past decade was at least three times higher than the total from any other 10-year period since the 1970s, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League. The report also found that all extremist killings identified in 2022 were linked to right-wing extremism, with an especially high number linked to white supremacy. They include a racist mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 Black shoppers dead and a mass shooting that killed five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “It...