A review of poisonings among children 5 and younger found that opioids contributed to nearly half of deaths from 2005 to 2018, largely from accidental overdoses, according to new research.Opioids were the leading cause of fatal poisonings among children age 5 years old and younger in recent years, a study has found, underscoring how the opioid epidemic has not spared children.The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed 731 poisoning-related deaths that occurred from 2005 to 2018 across 40 states. The authors found that opioids, a class of synthetic drugs that includes prescribed pain relievers but also illegal narcotics such as heroin and fentanyl, contributed to nearly half, or 47 percent, of those deaths.About 41 percent of these poisoning deaths resulted from accidental overdoses, according to the study, which described 18 percent as “deliberate” poisonings.And over the 14-year period from 2005 to 2018, the frequency of pediatric opioid poisonings steadily rose, accounting for more than half of child poisoning fatalities in 2018, the authors concluded.“Strikingly, opioids accounted for a progressively greater proportion of the substances contributing to poisoning-related deaths over the study period, from 24 percent in 2005 to 52 percent in 2018,” the authors wrote, adding that this data emphasized the “increasing impact of the opioid epidemic on children.”The authors’ findings point to a shifting landscape of potential opiate exposure for children. In the last decade, children were not just exposed to the usual prescription opioids, but also surrounded by “new opioid sources,” such as heroin and synthetic opiates such as fentanyl and buprenorphine, a drug used in medication-assisted treatments to curb opiate reliance, the study said. These nonprescription opioids are not subject to long-established federal safeguards mandating child-resistant packaging for medicines.“As the burden of nonprescription opioids increases in our nation’s communities, there are more opportunities for children to be exposed to them, sometimes fatally,” Dr. Christopher E. Gaw, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the study’s lead author, said in an interview.The study cited statistics from the National Center for Fatality Review and Prevention.About 42 percent of the 731 fatalities were among infants one year old and younger and most of the incidents occurred in the child’s home, the study found. Many of the fatal poisonings happened while the child was supervised and nearly 100 of the children had open child protective services cases at the time of their deaths, the authors said.Over-the-counter pain, cold and allergy medications were the second most common substance contributing to the pediatric poisoning deaths. These accounted for about 15 percent and most often affected children two years old and younger, according to the study.Dr. Gaw said the results provide evidence of “how the opioid epidemic has not spared our nation’s infants or young children.” He said that prevention efforts could focus on boosting availability and familiarity with naloxone and better educating caregivers on the signs of poisoning.“There are so many toxic substances in our world that could harm children,” Dr. Gaw said. “It is truly striking how just one class of substances was implicated so frequently in child poisoning deaths.”

In places where recreational use is legal, smokers are tossing the remains of joints in the street. Dogs are eating them and getting sick in increasing numbers, veterinarians and poison-control centers say.Last weekend, Lola Star’s dog Dazzle, a mini goldendoodle just shy of 2 years old, ate a joint she found on the ground in Staten Island. It wasn’t the first or even the 10th time the dog had done this, Ms. Star said with a prolonged sigh.She had not seen it happen but there was a telltale sign. “I was taking her out of the car, and I saw her little head bobble,” Ms. Star, who lives in the Prospect Park South neighborhood of Brooklyn, said. “That’s when you know your dog is stoned.”Her dog is not the only unwitting weed consumer. Now that marijuana is widely available in New York City — after the city legalized adult recreational use of the drug in 2021 and the first legal dispensary opened in December — veterinarians are saying they’ve recently noticed a steady increase in the number of cases of dogs accidentally eating cannabis. And pet owners say their dogs are running into more discarded cannabis on streets and sidewalks during walks.Veterinarians who used to see a case once a month now say they see several a week. Though most dogs recover, the symptoms can be scary: Loss of balance and difficulty walking, nausea, sleepiness and even hallucinations. And some owners do not see right away when their dogs eat a small remnant of a joint while out on a walk.Off-leash hours at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. Dog owners say they have to be more vigilant about cannabis on the ground.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesThough dog owners are used to having to steer nosy pets away from trash, food and other dangers on the sidewalk, the weed is a new risk that’s suddenly everywhere, Ms. Star said. And so dogs like Dazzle get sick again and again.“It’s always been a little bit of a problem, but as of late, we are seeing a rise in cases now that marijuana has been legalized here” in New York, said Dr. Gabrielle Fadl, director of primary care at Bond Vet, which has offices throughout the East Coast.More About CannabisWith recreational marijuana becoming legal in several states, cannabis products are becoming more easily available and increasingly varied.A Weed Pioneer: Roland Conner is the first person with a criminal conviction to open a licensed cannabis dispensary with the state’s help.Risk for Children: A new study found that the ingestion of edibles by children under 6 has risen rapidly since the start of the pandemic, contributing to a “significant increase” in hospitalizations.Marijuana Pardons: President Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law. But many others, including those convicted on state charges, are not eligible.A New Competition: The New York Growers Cup showcases small craft growers who are hoping to come up with the next big strain in weed.There are no precise figures about the number of dogs picking it up on the street, but the data show they are getting sick from weed more often in places where recreational use is legal.The trend is not exclusive to New York City. In the past six years, there’s been a more than 400 percent increase in calls about marijuana poisoning to the Pet Poison Helpline, a 24-hour animal poison control center — with most reported in New York and California. Last year, the A.S.P.C.A.’s Animal Poison Control hotline fielded nearly 7,000 calls for marijuana toxicity, an 11 percent increase from the previous year.Here’s what to do if it happens to your pet.Call a veterinarian or poison help line.Veterinarians said they had seen cases of pets eating marijuana in a variety of forms: flower, discarded joints, edibles and even vape cartridges.The best protection is to train your dog to leave those items alone. When they do get into the substance, the first step is to reach out to a poison help line or call your veterinarian’s office, experts say. (The help lines charge between $85 and $95 for a consult.)Let them know what happened, especially if the cannabis belongs to you. The details, such as the THC strength, could be helpful. It’s natural to feel afraid or even embarrassed, but don’t hold back the details, said Dr. Sarah Hoggan of VCA California Veterinary Specialists.Dog owners are used to having to steer nosy pets away from trash and food on the sidewalk, but the weed is a new risk. Calla Kessler for The New York TimesLoss of balance and dilated pupils can be symptoms.There is no clear test made to confirm whether dogs are intoxicated, said Dr. Ryan Fortier, the medical director at All Ears in Downtown Brooklyn.But there are some clear signs.Dr. Fadl said that the behavior of a dog that has eaten cannabis can be “pretty alarming.” Generally the pet appears a “bit wobbly” and has difficulty balancing and walking, she said. They will likely also be pretty sleepy and dribble urine.Their eyes will probably be dilated, Dr. Hoggan said. They might also be very startled or scared when touched, she added.About an hour or two after ingestion, a dog’s vital signs — body temperature and heart rate — typically plummet, which can be dangerous, Dr. Fadl said.Vets emphasized that timing is key. The sooner you take your dog to its veterinarian, the greater the chance of removing the toxin from its body through methods such as inducing vomiting or administering an enema.Training your dogs the “leave it” or “drop it” commands can help avoid a visit to the vet. Calla Kessler for The New York TimesDon’t worry: Most dogs recover.The risks depend on the size of your dog and the amount of the drug it has consumed.Dr. Fadl said that treatment for most cases typically included intravenous fluids and careful monitoring of vital signs.“In general, the good news is most dogs that ingest marijuana will be OK with treatments and sometimes without,” Dr. Fadl said.But for particularly large doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, — such as when a small dog consumes food or candy infused with it — there can be risks of heart arrhythmia or seizures, she said.Dr. Hoggan said those dealing with pets that consumed THC should monitor them closely, keep them warm and place them away from other animals.There’s a “low probability” of lasting neurological damage, she added.Lindsay Lamb’s dogs Lulu and Murphy have accidentally eaten joints while walking in Brooklyn, N.Y.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesBest practices for avoiding accidental high times.Kimberlee Cruz, a dog trainer who also works as a vet assistant at the Veterinary Care Group in Brooklyn, said that reinforcing the “leave it” and “drop it” commands could help dogs prone to scavenging city streets or getting into trash in future weed encounters.“If the dog likes eating things off the ground,” she said, she recommended “a short leash and being aware of your surroundings, making sure you know you’re not on your cellphone.”She also said to place any marijuana products out of the reach of enterprising pets.Lindsay Lamb, whose dogs Lulu and Murphy have both accidentally eaten joints while walking in her neighborhood of Prospect Park South, said she had started telling people the dangers of throwing their leftovers on the ground.“I feel like people drop them thinking they’re organic,” Ms. Lamb, 35, said. “I tell them when it happens I have to take them to the emergency room.”

The ingestion of edibles by children under 6 has risen rapidly since the start of the pandemic, contributing to a “significant increase” in hospitalizations, the study found.The accidental consumption of marijuana edibles, such as brownies and gummies, among children under the age of 6 has surged in recent years as more states have legalized the recreational use of pot, a new study has found.The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Pediatrics, analyzed reports of child exposure to edibles from 2017 to 2021. The authors concluded that there had been a “consistent increase in pediatric edible cannabis exposures over the past five years, with the potential for significant toxicity.”In 2020, pediatric cases of edible marijuana ingestion accounted for more than 40 percent of all human poison exposures reported that year, according to the study, which relied on statistics from the National Poison Data System.“These exposures can cause significant toxicity and are responsible for an increasing number of hospitalizations,” the authors wrote.There were more than 7,000 reported cases of accidental ingestion by children 5 and under between 2017 and 2021, and cases rose 1,375 percent over that period, the study found. In virtually all of them, the edibles were ingested in a residential setting. About 90 percent of the cases originated from the child’s home, the study said.Nearly 23 percent of the patients were hospitalized, with a “significant increase in both I.C.U. and non-I.C.U. admissions,” the study found.The study found an increase in “acute toxicity” associated with such cases since the beginning of the pandemic, “as indicated by increasing critical care admissions, more patients admitted to noncritical care beds” and fewer patients being treated in emergency departments.The most frequent health outcome children experienced was central nervous system depression. Symptoms include drowsiness, lowered blood pressure and slurred speech, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.The authors offered several possible explanations for the increase in cases, including more time spent at home during the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when schools and day care centers were shuttered, and the greater availability of legal marijuana products over the last decade. They also noted that many edible marijuana products are “offered in brightly colored, enticing packaging that is identical in style to how candy and snack products are marketed,” contributing to their appeal among young children.After voters in Maryland and Missouri approved ballot measures in November, recreational marijuana use is now legal in 21 states, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. In New York, where recreational marijuana use became legal in 2021, the first dispensary for legal recreational marijuana sales opened in Greenwich Village last week to fanfare and long lines.Several studies conducted in recent years analyzing pediatric emergency care visits and reports to regional poison centers have found an uptick in accidental consumption of marijuana edibles by young people in states such as Massachusetts and Colorado, which were among the first to legalize marijuana for recreational use.Some states have taken measures to reduce child exposure, passing laws mandating childproof packaging for weed products. In Colorado, for example, edible marijuana cannot be sold in the shape of fruits, animals or humans.Most adults in the United States favor marijuana legalization, according to a recent Gallup survey, which also found that support has risen from year to year and now stands at a record 68 percent.

Clorox is voluntarily recalling tens of millions of bottles of scented Pine-Sol cleaning products that may be contaminated with bacteria.Clorox is voluntarily recalling about 37 million bottles of scented Pine-Sol because the cleaning products may contain bacteria that can cause serious infections in people with weakened immune systems, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said.Pine-Sol’s research and development team detected bacteria during a “routine product review,” a Clorox spokeswoman said. She said that Pseudomonas aeruginosa, bacteria broadly found in soil and water, had been identified in “certain recalled products.”There have been no reports of illness or injury from the recalled products. Clorox said in a statement that it was issuing the recall “in an abundance of caution.”Experts said that Pseudomonas aeruginosa is not a danger to most people. People who use external medical devices or have compromised immune systems are at heightened risk of infection, Clorox warned.Here’s what to know about the recall.Which products are being recalled?Several varieties of Pine-Sol cleaners produced at a Clorox plant in Forest Park, Ga., between January 2021 and September 2022 are being recalled. The affected bottles have printed codes starting with the prefix “A4,” followed by a five-digit number under 22249, Clorox said.Pine-scented Pine-Sol products are not included in the recall.The recall includes the following products: Pine-Sol Scented Multi-Surface Cleaners, in Lavender Clean, Sparkling Wave and Lemon Fresh scents; CloroxPro Pine-Sol All Purpose Cleaners, in Lavender Clean, Sparkling Wave, Lemon Fresh and Orange Energy scents; and Clorox Professional Pine-Sol Lemon Fresh Cleaners.These products were sold by major national retailers such as Walmart, Sam’s Club, Dollar General, Target, Home Depot, BJ’s, Kroger, Dollar Tree, Lowe’s and Publix, as well as by online retailers, notably Amazon.What should I do if I bought a recalled product?Stop using it immediately. Take photos of the codes on the bottle and then discard it. Do not return it to the point of purchase.Clorox has set up a website where consumers can request refunds. Retailers and distributors can also apply for reimbursement.What is Pseudomonas aeruginosa?It’s a type of bacteria that is commonly found in water or soil and can cause infections in the blood or lungs, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can be highly resistant to antibiotics.It can spread easily, including by contact with contaminated hands or by touching surfaces, said Dr. Martin Blaser, the director of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine at Rutgers University. Most people are exposed to it by consuming it, perhaps by eating a piece of fruit with the bacteria on its skin or by drinking contaminated water, Dr. Blaser said.Healthy people generally don’t have to worry about Pseudomonas aeruginosa, he said, saying that the risk of infection to the average person was “negligible.”How common are these infections and what are the risks?People in hospitals are at greatest risk of infection from exposure to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, including those on ventilators or with catheters, and patients with wounds from surgery or burns, the C.D.C. said.Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a “major cause” of lung infection for people with cystic fibrosis, according to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Dr. Blaser said that people undergoing chemotherapy are also particularly susceptible to infection, which he said could be lethal for them.“It can cause very severe infections in a relatively limited number of people,” he said.In 2017, there were about 32,600 Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections among hospitalized patients and an estimated 2,700 deaths in the United States, according to the C.D.C. These infections can be challenging to treat because the bacteria is resistant to nearly all antibiotics.How can I protect myself?Practice good hand hygiene and clean surfaces often.The C.D.C. advises health care facilities to follow guidelines for safe water quality. Steps can include disinfecting sinks and faucets at least daily, storing personal items away from sinks and covering toilets before flushing.

More than a dozen aerosol dry shampoo products from brands like Dove and Suave may have elevated levels of benzene, a carcinogen, the company said.Unilever has issued a voluntary recall of more than a dozen aerosol dry shampoo products sold in the United States, saying they may contain elevated levels of benzene, a carcinogen.The affected products were produced before October 2021, the conglomerate said, and are from several different brands owned by Unilever: Dove, Nexxus, Suave, TIGI and TRESemmé.The voluntary recall of select products, identified by production codes, applies to the United States and Canada. Unilever United States said in a statement that it had not yet received reports of “adverse events” from customers.“Unilever U.S. is recalling these products out of an abundance of caution,” the company said, adding that retailers had been instructed to pull the recalled products off shelves.An internal investigation resulted in the voluntary recall, Unilever said in its statement. The propellant in the spray can was the source of the benzene, it found, and the company said it was working with suppliers to address the issue.Unilever could not be immediately reached for comment.Benzene, a chemical used to create many industrial products such as nylon and plastics, is also released into the air through cigarette smoke and burning coal, oil and gasoline, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Some exposure by inhalation is unavoidable in daily life, but prolonged contact with high levels of the chemical causes cells “not to work correctly,” diminishing a person’s red blood cell count and wreaking havoc on the immune system, the public health agency said. Benzene can also be ingested and absorbed by the skin, according to the Food and Drug Administration.Long-term exposure can cause leukemia, cancer of the blood cells, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. It can also harm reproductive organs in women, the agency said.Unilever customers should immediately halt using the affected products, and they can request to be reimbursed, the company said.This dry shampoo recall was at least the sixth recall this year involving benzene, according to the F.D.A.’s data. Past product recalls have included a themed hand sanitizer from Disney for “The Mandalorian,” Banana Boat sunscreen and Suave spray deodorant.

For more than two years, Covid disrupted social rituals and rites of passage. Now a recent study suggests we have become less extroverted, creative, agreeable and conscientious. The declines in some traits were sharper among young people.Whether it was attending school lectures, making memorable first impressions at that first office job or packing the floor at a concert, many of the social rituals that had been rites of passage for young people were disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.That has left people like Thuan Phung, a junior at the Parsons School of Design who lives in Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan, feeling “weird” about real-life interactions. After two years of virtual instruction, he is back in the classroom.“On Zoom you can mute,” Mr. Phung, 25, said. “It took me a while to know how to talk to people.”Now, a recent study of people’s personalities suggests that the discomfort he’s feeling is not uncommon for people in his generation, who were forced into the isolation of pandemic restrictions in their 20s, already a time of social anxiety for many of them.Covid has not only reshaped the way we work and connect with others, but has also redrawn the way we are, according to the study, which found some of the most pronounced effects among young adults.Our key personality traits may have dimmed so that we have become less extroverted and creative, not as agreeable and less conscientious, according to the study, published last month in the journal PLOS ONE.These declines amounted to “about one decade of normative personality change,” the study said. People under 30 years old exhibited “disrupted maturity.” That change is the opposite of how a young adult’s personality normally develops over time, the study’s authors wrote.“If these changes are enduring, this evidence suggests population-wide stressful events can slightly bend the trajectory of personality, especially in younger adults,” the study said.The authors of the personality study relied on data from the Understanding America Study, an ongoing internet panel at the University of Southern California that first began collecting survey answers in 2014, drawing upon publicly available data from about 7,000 participants who responded to a personality assessment administered before and during the pandemic.Angelina Sutin, the paper’s lead author and a professor at Florida State University, said the study results showed that on average, personality was altered during the pandemic, though she emphasized that the findings captured “one snapshot in time” and could be temporary.“Personality tends to be pretty resistant to change. It might take something like a global pandemic,” Dr. Sutin said. “But it is hard to pinpoint exactly what it was about the pandemic that led to these changes.”Read More on the Coronavirus PandemicUpdated Boosters for Kids: The Food and Drug Administration broadened access to updated Covid booster shots to include children as young as 5.Long Covid: A study of tens of thousands of people in Scotland found that one in 20 who had been sick with Covid reported not recovering at all, and another four in 10 said they had not fully recovered many months later.A Persistent Variant: Ten months have passed since Omicron’s debut. Since then it has displayed a remarkable capacity to evolve new tricks.‘Anti-Vax’ Capital No More: Vaccine skeptics once found a home in Marin County, Calif. Now, the pandemic has made them unwelcome, as Covid vaccine rates soar there.Dr. Sutin and her co-authors also don’t know if those personality changes will persist.The researchers analyzed five dimensions of personality: neuroticism, one’s tolerance of stress and negative emotions; openness, defined as unconventionality and creativity; extroversion, or how outgoing a person is; agreeableness, or being “trusting and straightforward”; and conscientiousness, how responsible and organized a person is.Gerald Clore, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Virginia, said the authors were “appropriately cautious” in their conclusions and on emphasizing the need for further study to re-examine the findings.The pandemic itself was a “hell of an experiment,” said Dr. Clore, theorizing that it may have been the restructuring of routines instead of overall stress that reshaped people’s personalities.Perhaps echoing the changes, interest in psychotherapy soared throughout the pandemic, several therapists said. Virtual therapy has also boomed.At Talkspace, a platform that offers therapy online, the number of individual active users rose 60 percent from March 2020 to a year later, said John Kim, a spokesman for the company.The number of teens seeking therapy at BetterHelp grew nearly fourfold since 2019, a spokeswoman for the online therapy company said.Therapists practicing in the United States say they have observed their clients struggling with navigating the confines of pandemic living and dealing with the vicissitudes of social norms.Nedra Glover Tawwab, a therapist based in Charlotte, N.C., with a private practice and an Instagram following of more than a million, said that she noticed escalating discomfort as people slowly reintegrated into past routines, such as working in an office.“We have grown so accustomed to isolating that we now think we love it,” Ms. Glover Tawwab said. “But is that really who you are? Or is that what you had to accept during that time?”Some people have coped with the amplified stress, exhaustion and frustration of the period by finding a new outlet: screaming outside with others. The trend has been attracting participants for more than a year.Sarah Harmon, a therapist in Boston, organized her first primal scream event in March 2022 to let go of feelings that she said she was exploding with.“The pandemic didn’t give us anything; it didn’t allow any of that deflating, any of that recharging,” Ms. Harmon said.She said the proliferation and popularity of those scream events underscored how people had unmet needs and few ways to process or release pent-up feelings like rage.Since April, Heather Dinn, of Zionsville, Ind., has been hosting monthly group screams on a local soccer field. She said the scream was an opportunity for people who had bottled up frustrations to clear an “overflowing” emotional load before they erupted.Heather Dinn leads a group scream at the Zionsville Youth Soccer Fields.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York TimesLindsay Farley participates in the group scream.Kaiti Sullivan for The New York Times“When we let it all get stuck in there, it just sits there and it’s not going anywhere,” Ms. Dinn, a health and lifestyle coach, said.Delta Hunter, a therapist in New York City who facilitates a social-anxiety therapy group, said that the pandemic “compounded” existing anxiety.“People want to connect and process together and we weren’t able to do any of that,” Ms. Hunter said. “People felt really lost because of that.”Younger adults, and especially teens, have faced greater restrictions on activities and experiences typical of adolescence and youth, Ms. Sutin’s study concluded. It found that individuals under 30 exhibited the sharpest drops in conscientiousness and agreeableness.“When your whole world goes into the virtual space, you lose that training ground for being able to be more conscientious,” Ms. Harmon said, adding that she saw a lot of social anxiety in younger generations, perhaps because they had not accumulated as many in-person experiences and coping skills.Several months ago, Anviksha Kalscheur’s practice in Chicago established a teen support program to help young people address feelings of disconnect and isolation.The teenagers have expressed an overall negative outlook toward the future and heightened social anxiety, she said. The therapists picked up on a “little bit of a dark cloud” in their clients’ outlook when it came to perceiving the uncertainty of the years ahead, Ms. Kalscheur said.Connection, attachment and interaction with others are critical to developing personality, Ms. Kalscheur said, adding that identity and personality are still being formed in younger teens.“You’re at that stage of development, where they’re not getting those cues, those attachments, those learning, like all those different pieces that happen that you don’t even often think about,” she said. “So of course, your environment has such a huge impact and in that particular time frame.”How long the changes of the pandemic period will last remains an open question, the study’s authors said.Therapists like Ms. Glover Tawwab said the transition period into in-person life after the worst of the crisis could present an opportunity to reintegrate slowly and to reconnect with people and experiences more intentionally.“This is a wonderful time to really observe what things you miss, and what things you enjoy being away from,” she said. “So we have this time now to create what we really want.”Grace Wilentz, a 37-year-old poet who lives in Dublin, said that the pandemic’s silver lining for her has been gaining greater self-awareness that has caused her to rekindle lapsed friendships. She has been taking time to reconnect with old friends over workday lunches.“I was expecting that those relationships would be kind of hard to revive,” she said. “In a certain way, they’re kind of richer and more solid.”Positive transformation is possible in times of uncertainty, Ms. Kalscheur said.“Sometimes, like, it takes a real breakdown in our social, cultural, even our mental health norms to transform into something that’s better,” she said. “It’s almost like you break down to rebuild back up.”

Big Olaf Ice Cream products, which are made in Florida, have sickened people across 10 states, the federal authorities said.A listeria outbreak blamed for the death of one person and the hospitalization of 22 people across 10 states has been linked to ice cream made in Florida, the federal authorities said on Saturday.Big Olaf Creamery, a family-owned company in Sarasota, Fla., exclusively sells ice cream in Florida, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. Of those hospitalized, 10 people lived out of state and had visited Florida in the previous month, the C.D.C. said.The infections tied to Big Olaf ice cream products occurred over the last six months and affected people less than a year old to 92 years old, the C.D.C. said. Five became ill during pregnancy, with one experiencing a fetal loss.Of 17 people interviewed by the C.D.C., 14 said they had consumed ice cream. Six people reported eating ice cream made by Big Olaf or having ice cream at a location where the brand might have been supplied.Big Olaf’s ice cream is made by Amish craftsmen at a creamery near the village of Pinecraft, just outside of Sarasota, according to the company’s website.Big Olaf began contacting retail locations on Friday to recommend against selling the product, said the C.D.C., which advised customers to discard any remaining products from the brand. A full recall has not been issued.Big Olaf Creamery representatives were not immediately available for comment on Sunday.Listeria bacteria causes an illness that can be fatal. About 1,600 people contract listeriosis in the United States each year from contaminated food.Infections can cause flulike symptoms, including fever, muscle aches, vomiting and diarrhea, which generally begin roughly two weeks after ingesting food laced with the bacteria, though the onset can vary, the C.D.C. said. Severe cases can take months to develop, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said.Past listeria outbreaks have been connected to unpasteurized milks and ice cream, undercooked poultry, and raw vegetables, according to the F.D.A. Older adults, pregnant women and newborns, and people with compromised immune systems are particularly vulnerable to becoming ill.About one in five people with listeriosis die, according to the C.D.C. The infection is especially dangerous during pregnancy, causing fetal loss in about 20 percent of cases.The number of people affected by Listeria outbreaks generally is higher than reported, the C.D.C. said.

Justice Thomas, who was hospitalized on Friday, was being treated with intravenous antibiotics and was expected to be released in a day or two, the court said on Sunday.Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the U.S. Supreme Court, was hospitalized with an infection on Friday after experiencing flulike symptoms, the court said in a statement on Sunday.Justice Thomas was being treated with intravenous antibiotics at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, the statement said.Patricia McCabe, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, said that Justice Thomas’s illness was not Covid-19 or related to the virus.“His symptoms are abating, he is resting comfortably, and he expects to be released from the hospital in a day or two,” the statement said, adding that he would participate in the “consideration and discussion of any cases” that he cannot physically be present for “on the basis of the briefs, transcripts, and audio of the oral arguments.”Justice Thomas, 73, was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and was seated on Oct. 23, 1991, making him the court’s most senior conservative member.He and the eight other Supreme Court justices have been vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19.At least two justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett M. Kavanaugh, have previously contracted the virus.The Supreme Court reconvenes on Monday.Adam Liptak

Under a settlement agreement, the railroad will also overhaul 135 train stations to make them accessible to all.Amtrak has paid more than $2 million to over 1,500 people with disabilities whom it discriminated against at nearly 80 train stations across the country, from Tuscaloosa to Topeka, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday.The payments are the first of several actions mandated by a settlement reached last year between the railroad and the Justice Department that requires Amtrak to rectify persistent barriers across its rail system to those with disabilities.Obstacles included narrow waiting areas, parking spaces without signs marking them as accessible, steep inclines for passenger platforms and track crossings, and toilets that didn’t accommodate wheelchairs, according to a lawsuit that the Justice Department brought against Amtrak alleging that those “failures” caused continued harm and violated federal civil rights law.Under the terms of the settlement, Amtrak must, over the next nine years, redesign 90 stations across the country to make them accessible to all passengers and start construction at 45 other stations. It must also train its staff to comply with the requirements of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a landmark civil rights law passed in 1990 that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities.Those efforts will “bring both Amtrak and our nation one step closer to realizing the A.D.A.’s promise of equal opportunity for people with disabilities,” Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.In a statement on Wednesday, Marc Magliari, an Amtrak spokesman, said the railroad had “made significant progress in bringing numerous facilities into higher levels of accessibility.” He added that it had budgeted more than $143 million for accessibility improvements at 43 stations this year.The company operates about 500 stations in 46 states and the District of Columbia, according to court documents.The Justice Department opened its investigation into Amtrak after it had received complaints about inaccessible train stations and a critical report in 2013 by the National Disability Rights Network, an advocacy group that investigated the railroad in relation to civil rights law and found that the railroad had “lagged far behind” other transportation providers in providing accessible services to customers with disabilities. Passengers, the report concluded, had been forced to “suffer embarrassment, discomfort, and other indignities” throughout the process of train travel, from purchasing a ticket to disembarking.“Inaccessible train stations are more than just an inconvenience,” Curt Decker, the group’s executive director, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Transportation is the linchpin of community integration.”