Researchers found children with highly addictive use of phones, video games or social media were two to three times as likely to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves.As Americans scramble to respond to rising rates of suicidal behavior among youth, many policymakers have locked in on an alarming metric: the number of hours a day that American children spend glued to a glowing screen.But a study published on Wednesday in the medical journal JAMA, which followed more than 4,000 children across the country, arrived at a surprising conclusion: Longer screen time at age 10 was not associated with higher rates of suicidal behavior four years later.Instead, the authors found, the children at higher risk for suicidal behaviors were those who told researchers their use of technology had become “addictive” — that they had trouble putting it down, or felt the need to use it more and more. Some children exhibited addictive behavior even if their screen time was relatively low, they said.The researchers found addictive behavior to be very common among children — especially in their use of mobile phones, where nearly half had high addictive use. By age 14, children with high or increasing addictive behavior were two to three times as likely as other children to have thoughts of suicide or to harm themselves, the study found.“This is the first study to identify that addictive use is important, and is actually the root cause, instead of time,” said Yunyu Xiao, an assistant professor of psychiatry and population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College and the study’s lead author.Addictive behavior may be more difficult to control during childhood, before the prefrontal cortex, which acts as a brake on impulsivity, is fully developed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

About 70,000 years ago in Africa, humans expanded into more extreme environments, a new study finds, setting the stage for our global migration.Geography is one of the things that sets apart modern humans.Our closest living relatives — chimpanzees and bonobos — are confined to a belt of Central African forests. But humans have spread across every continent, even remote islands. Our species can thrive not only in forests, but in grasslands, swamps, deserts and just about every other ecosystem dry land has to offer.In a study published on Wednesday, scientists pinpoint the origin of our extraordinary adaptability: Africa, about 70,000 years ago.That’s when modern humans learned to thrive in more extreme habitats. We’ve been expanding our range ever since. The finding could help resolve a paradox that has puzzled researchers for years.Our species arose in Africa about a million years ago and then departed the continent a number of times over the past few hundred thousand years. But those migrants eventually disappeared, with no descendants.Finally, about 50,000 years ago, one last wave spread out of Africa. All non-Africans can trace their ancestry to this last migration. The new study might explain why the final expansion was so successful.In the new study, Eleanor Scerri, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and her colleagues sought to understand what sort of habitats early humans lived in across Africa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

21 minutes agoShareSaveSteve Jones & Rachel RussellBBC News, YorkshireShareSaveGetty ImagesA British woman has died from rabies after she was “scratched” by a puppy in Morocco, her family said.Yvonne Ford, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, had light contact with the stray dog while on holiday in February in the North African country.In a social media post, reported by the Press Association, Mrs Ford’s family said she developed a headache two weeks ago and later couldn’t “walk, talk, sleep, swallow”.The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said there was no risk to the wider public due to no documented evidence of rabies passing between people.Mrs Ford was diagnosed at Barnsley Hospital after returning to the UK, the hospital trust confirmed.In the Facebook post, her daughter Robyn Thomson said the family “is still processing this unimaginable loss”.”She was scratched very slightly by a puppy in Morocco in February,” she wrote. “At the time, she did not think any harm would come of it and didn’t think much of it.She continued: “Two weeks ago she became ill, starting with a headache and resulted in her losing her ability to walk, talk, sleep, swallow. Resulting in her passing.”Close contacts of Mrs Ford and health workers were being assessed and offered vaccinations when necessary as a precaution, a UKHSA spokesperson added.Michael HallRabies can cause a life-threatening infection of the brain and nervous system in humans.It is passed on through injuries such as bites and scratches from an infected animal.It is nearly always fatal, the UKHSA said, but post-exposure treatment is “very effective” at preventing disease if given promptly after exposure to the virus.Ms Thomson added: “We never thought something like this could happen to someone we love. “Please take animal bites seriously, vaccinate your pets, and educate those around you.”Dr Katherine Russell, from the UKHSA, said: “Human cases of rabies are extremely rare in the UK.”If you are bitten, scratched or licked by an animal in a country where rabies is found then you should wash the wound or site of exposure with plenty of soap and water and seek medical advice without delay.”Six cases of human rabies connected to animal exposure abroad have been reported in the UK between 2000 and 2024.Rabies is particularly common in Asia and Africa, the UKHSA said, with people visiting affected countries advised to avoid contact with dogs, cats and other animals wherever they can.The agency also advised people to seek advice about the need for a rabies vaccine before travel.

Most treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) only slow disease progression. Early intervention for the neurological disease that worsens over time is therefore critical to optimize care, but that requires early diagnosis. Current tests, like clinical rating scales and neural imaging, can be subjective and costly. Now, researchers in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry report the initial development of a system that inexpensively screens for PD from the odors in a person’s earwax.
Previous research has shown that changes in sebum, an oily substance secreted by the skin, could help identify people with PD. Specifically, sebum from people with PD may have a characteristic smell because volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by sebum are altered by disease progression — including neurodegeneration, systemic inflammation and oxidative stress. However, when sebum on the skin is exposed to environmental factors like air pollution and humidity, its composition can be altered, making it an unreliable testing medium. But the skin inside the ear canal is kept away from the elements. So, Hao Dong, Danhua Zhu and colleagues wanted to focus their PD screening efforts on ear wax, which mostly consists of sebum and is easily sampled.
To identify potential VOCs related to PD in ear wax, the researchers swabbed the ear canals of 209 human subjects (108 of whom were diagnosed with PD). They analyzed the collected secretions using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques. Four of the VOCs the researchers found in ear wax from people with PD were significantly different than the ear wax from people without the disease. They concluded that these four VOCs, including ethylbenzene, 4-ethyltoluene, pentanal, and 2-pentadecyl-1,3-dioxolane, are potential biomarkers for PD.
Dong, Zhu and colleagues then trained an artificial intelligence olfactory (AIO) system with their ear wax VOC data. The resulting AIO-based screening model categorized with 94% accuracy ear wax samples from people with and without PD. The AIO system, the researchers say, could be used as a first-line screening tool for early PD detection and could pave the way for early medical intervention, thereby improving patient care.
“This method is a small-scale single-center experiment in China,” says Dong. “The next step is to conduct further research at different stages of the disease, in multiple research centers and among multiple ethnic groups, in order to determine whether this method has greater practical application value.”
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Natural Sciences Foundation of Science, Pioneer and Leading Goose R&D Program of Zhejiang Province, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

Dr. Fiona Havers is influential among researchers who study immunizations. The wholesale dismissal of the agency’s scientific advisers crossed the line, she said.In 13 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Fiona Havers crafted guidance for contending with Zika virus, helped China respond to outbreaks of bird flu and guided safe burial practices for Ebola deaths in Liberia.More recently, she was a senior adviser on vaccine policy, leading a team that produced data on hospitalizations related to Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus. To the select group of scientists, federal officials and advocates who study who should get immunizations and when, Dr. Havers is well known, an embodiment of the C.D.C.’s intensive data-gathering operations.On Monday, Dr. Havers resigned, saying she could no longer continue while the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., dismantled the careful processes that help formulate vaccination standards in the United States.“If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, a lot of Americans are going to die as a result of vaccine-preventable diseases,” she said in an interview with The New York Times, the first since her resignation.Dr. Havers, 49, cited an escalating series of attacks on federal vaccine policy by Mr. Kennedy. Three weeks ago, the health secretary announced in a minute-long video on X that the agency would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women.Last week, he fired all 17 members of the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, saying without evidence that the group was beset with conflicts of interest and that a clean sweep was needed to restore public trust.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

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27 minutes agoShareSaveAnnabel RackhamBBC NewsShareSaveGetty ImagesCosmetic procedures such as fillers, Botox and Brazilian butt lifts are taking place in public toilets, hotel rooms and other “shocking locations” in Britain, officials have warned.People’s lives “are being put at risk every single day” by the lack of regulation in the industry, the Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI) says, as it called for urgent action to set up a licensing scheme.It has also uncovered unsafe fillers and fat-dissolving injections being sold online.The Department for Health and Social Care says the government is looking into new regulations to protect people. Getty ImagesKerry Nicol, external affairs manager at the CTSI, said she was “genuinely shocked by the scale of potential harm facing the public due to the alarming lack of regulation in the aesthetic industry”.She added that “action is urgently needed” to crack down on “bad players operating in this sector” and a cross-government approach was required.The priority is giving the public a clear indication of who is qualified to carry out these procedures, Ms Nicol said.Trading standards officials said they were particularly worried about young people getting injections, because finding practitioners who checked for the minimum age of 18 was a “postcode lottery”.Their advice is always to:check the qualifications of those advertising cosmetic proceduresbe wary of practitioners who advertise and operate through social mediado not buy products to inject at homeTrading standards officials are also concerned about fillers being sold online for as little as £20 and fat loss injections, such as Lemon Bottle, which have no “regulatory oversight” in the UK.Earlier this month, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) reported a number of people had suffered adverse side-effects after being injected with suspected counterfeit botox.Officials are also worried about consumers undergoing fat injections, such as liquid BBLs (Brazilian butt lifts), which involve injecting filler into the buttocks to lift them and make them look bigger or more rounded.The procedure is very risky and can cause serious side-effects such as blood clots and sepsis.In September last year, 33-year-old Alice Webb is believed to have died after suffering complications from having a liquid BBL in Gloucestershire.As it stands, you do not need a licence to perform cosmetic procedures in England, but this could change if an amendment brought forward in 2022 is passed by parliament.The government has previously suggested making changes to the Health and Care Act, which would bring in a scheme to protect consumers from unlicensed practitioners.A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “People’s lives are being put at risk by inadequately trained operators in the cosmetic sector, which is why the government is looking into new regulations to protect people.”The safety of patients is paramount and we urge anyone considering cosmetic procedures to consider the possible health impacts and find a reputable, insured and qualified practitioner.” To improve safety for consumers, the Scottish government announced plans in May to regulate aesthetic treatments.There are currently no plans to do the same in Northern Ireland and Wales. Ashton Collins, director at Save Face, which provides a register of accredited practitioners, said her organisation had been campaigning “to ban liquid BBLs from the high street”.She added: “We are focused on reinforcing existing legislation that has long failed to protect patients from unscrupulous practitioners who continue to flaunt the law with impunity.”For too long, regulations intended to safeguard patients have been inadequately policed and enforced.”

49 minutes agoShareSaveDivya Talwar & Tammi WalkerShareSaveBBCWhen Tassie Weaver went into labour at full term, she thought she was hours away from holding her first child. But, by the time she was giving birth, she knew her son had died.Doctors had previously told Tassie to call her local maternity unit immediately when she went into labour, she says, because her high blood pressure and concerns about the baby’s growth meant she needed monitoring. But when she first phoned, despite being considered high risk, a midwife told her to stay at home.Three hours later, worried she now could not feel her baby moving, she called again. Once more the same midwife told her to stay put – saying this was normal because women can be too distracted by their contractions to feel anything else.”I was treated as just a kind of hysterical woman in pain who doesn’t know what’s going on because it’s their first pregnancy,” the 39-year-old tells us.When she rang a third time, a couple of hours later, a different midwife told her to come to hospital straight away, but by the time she arrived it was too late. Her son’s heart had stopped beating.Tassie and her husband, John, believe Baxter’s stillbirth four years ago at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI),could have been prevented. A review by the NHS trust that runs the hospital identified care issues “likely to have made a difference to the outcome”.The couple are among 47 new families who have contacted the BBC with concerns about inadequate maternity care at Leeds Teaching Hospitals (LTH) NHS Trust between 2017 and 2024. These include parents who told us their babies died or had been injured, and women who described injury and trauma following inadequate care.They had all seen our January investigation into the potentially avoidable deaths of 56 babies and two mothers at the trust between 2019 and 2024.Responding to the latest concerns, LTH told the BBC it was “deeply sorry” that families had been let down by the care they had received. It said it recognised it needed to make improvements.The trust had taken “clear steps to make real and lasting changes”, said its chief medical officer Dr Magnus Harrison, since unannounced inspections in December 2024 and January 2025 by England’s regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC).”We are investing in our workforce, focusing on consistently safe staffing levels, and strengthening our culture to prioritise openness, compassion and respect,” he added.As well as the new families, three more whistleblowers – in addition to the two in our first investigation – have also shared concerns about the standard of care at LTH maternity units, at LGI and St James’ University Hospital.Both sites are rated “good” by the CQC, but all the whistleblowers believe that rating does not reflect reality.There is a problem with the culture, one senior staff member told us. “People [staff] are scared to raise concerns because nothing ever happens when they are raised. So there’s a ‘what’s the point’ attitude.”There were also 107 clinical claims made against LTH for obstetric-related deaths and injuries between April 2015 and April 2024, the BBC has learned via a Freedom of Information request to NHS Resolution – the health service’s insurance arm.More than £71m was paid during this period including for 14 stillbirths, and 13 fatalities involving mothers or babies, including Tassie’s son, Baxter.’The door is definitely unlocked’A total of 67 families have now told the BBC they experienced inadequate care at LTH’s two maternity units. All want an independent review into the trust’s maternity services – and a group of them have asked Health Secretary Wes Streeting for senior midwife Donna Ockenden to lead it. Some Leeds families also joined others from across England this week, to urge Mr Streeting to hold a national inquiry into maternity safety. On Tuesday, he met parents who said they “got a very clear message” that he was considering one. Jack Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet died in 2016 in Nottingham, told us afterwards: “The door is definitely unlocked. It’s the only way we can improve what’s going on.”Mr Streeting had told a different group on Monday, however, that he would not hold an inquiry, preferring instead to announce a separate plan – opposed by families – to improve safety.The BBC understands such a plan would include an improvement taskforce led by non-NHS officials, a buddying system between poorly performing and better trusts, and a restorative justice approach where hospitals and families would meet and vow to be open and honest.Mr Streeting continues to meet bereaved families “to best understand how we can improve maternity services as swiftly as possible”, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said in a statement.”We are finalising measures to strengthen leadership and build a culture rooted in safety, respect, and compassion in maternity services,” they added.’I knew we needed help’Tassie’s care was graded “D” – the lowest possible – by the trust’s review team.It confirmed “the mother presented with reduced fetal movements but management was not appropriate”.”I knew that me and my baby needed help, and I tried to communicate that as clearly as I could, and I didn’t get that help,” Tassie says.”I had another 17 hours in labour… having to sign consent forms for a post mortem whilst having contractions trying to deliver my son, who I knew wasn’t alive.”That’s not something anyone should ever have to do.”Given her combined risks, Tassie should have been offered an induction earlier, at 39 weeks, concluded the review group.The trust told us it offered “sincere apologies and condolences” to Ms Weaver and her family for their “distressing experiences and loss”.”Immediate internal and external reviews of the care provided were undertaken and we made a number of changes as a result of this tragic case,” added Dr Harrison.Common themes were expressed repeatedly by the latest families to contact us – including women feeling like they had not been listened to when they raised concerns, a lack of compassion, and families saying the trust made them feel like they were alone in their experience.One couple paid an undisclosed settlement by NHS Resolution on behalf of the trust was Heidi Mayman and her partner Dale Morton. Heidi gave birth to their first daughter Lyla in 2019, two years before Tassie gave birth to Baxter. Lyla died aged four days.Heidi believes her concerns were not taken seriously during her “traumatic” labour. Lyla was born in poor condition about 37 hours after Heidi says she first called the LGI’s maternity assessment centre, reporting blood and fluid loss.Heidi says she repeatedly raised concerns about reduced fetal movements and worsening pain and, like Tassie, made multiple calls before being advised to attend. “I just wish she [Lyla] were here. I feel like it’s just ruined our lives, I’ll never get over it,” Heidi told us.The protocols the midwives had failed to follow were outlined, along with future safety recommendations, in an external investigation by the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB).Lyla’s dad, Dale says the investigation reads “just like a catalogue of errors”.’Swept under the carpet’In January, we reported that 27 stillbirths and 29 neonatal deaths at LTH between 2019 and mid-2024 – plus two deaths of mothers – had been judged to have been potentially preventable by a trust review group.The deaths reviewed included babies with congenital abnormalities – and newborns and mothers transferred after birth for specialist care. The trust said in response to our initial story that the number of potentially-avoidable neonatal deaths had been “very small”.A senior clinical staff member working at the trust – one of the new whistleblowers – told us inadequate staffing levels had led to what they described as “near misses”.They also said a baby had died unnecessarily on one occasion, because issues had not been recognised earlier during the mother’s labour.The trust does not “learn from their mistakes”, they added, and often things are “swept under the carpet”.’Taking concerns very seriously’A full report of the CQC’s findings following its inspections of the trust’s maternity and neonatal services, including all action it has told the trust to take, is due to be published shortly.The trust was given immediate feedback regarding urgent concerns which required action to address identified risks, the CQC told us. It also took enforcement action requiring the implementation of safe staffing levels.Two months after our report in January, NHS England placed LTH under its maternity safety support programme (MSSP) which works to improve trusts where serious concerns have been identified.”We are taking the concerns raised by families about the quality and safety of maternity care in Leeds incredibly seriously,” chief midwifery officer for England, Kate Brintworth, told us.LTH’s Dr Magnus Harrison said in a statement: “We are fully committed to ensuring that every family receives safe, respectful and compassionate care. We recognise we need to make improvements.”He added: “We have commissioned an independent external review to complement NHS England’s Peer Quality Review of our neonatal services, so that we can better understand the data on neonatal outcomes.”Do you have more information about this story?You can reach Divya directly and securely through encrypted messaging app Signal on: +44 7961 390 325, by email at divya.talwar@bbc.co.uk, or her Instagram account.

Republicans are seeking to limit a tax loophole that gives states more federal matching funds. Many state budgets could be hurt.The Senate policy bill released Monday would cut billions of dollars more from Medicaid than the earlier, House-passed legislation — in large part by cracking down on a budgeting maneuver used by 49 states that congressional Republicans have called a scam or gimmick.It does this by limiting Medicaid provider taxes, a loophole that states use to collect more federal matching funds for Medicaid, an insurance program for the poor that covers roughly 70 million Americans.For decades, taxing providers like hospitals has been a major part of how states pay Medicaid bills, but this tactic has come under scrutiny in Congress this year as Republicans look for ways to help pay for President Trump’s tax cuts.Cutting provider taxes would probably mean funding shortfalls of hundreds of billions of dollars for states over the next decade, leaving them with budget holes to fill. To offset the losses, states would most likely need to explore cutting other services or raising other taxes.In scaling back Medicaid provider taxes, Senate Republicans are pursuing cuts that their House colleagues were hesitant to propose. House members had landed on freezing provider tax rates at current levels instead of reducing them. If the Senate passes its plan for provider taxes, the House and the Senate will have to reconcile their differences.

MPs have voted to change abortion legislation to stop women in England and Wales being prosecuted for ending their pregnancy.The Labour MP for Gower, Tonia Antoniazzi, led the call to decriminalise the 1% of abortions that happen after 24 weeks, saying these were “desperate women” who need “compassion not criminalisation”.As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs, and backed the plan by a big majority of 242 votes.The current law in England and Wales states that abortion is illegal but allowed up to the first 24 weeks of pregnancy and beyond that in certain circumstances such as if the woman’s life is in danger.Antoniazzi’s amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill will remove the threat of investigation, arrest, prosecution, or imprisonment for late term abortion.Setting out her arguments, she flagged that nearly 99% of abortions happen before a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks, leaving just 1% of women “in desperate circumstances”.Antoniazzi highlighted a series of cases where women had been arrested for illegal abortion offences and urged MPs to support her amendment to recognise “these women need care and support, and not criminalisation”.”Each one of these cases is a travesty, enabled by our outdated abortion law,” she said. “Originally passed by an all-male parliament elected by men alone, this Victorian law is increasingly used against vulnerable women and girls.”Stella Creasy asked why MPs would want to retain outdated laws “in any shape or form, rather than learning from what is best practice around the world for all of our constituents”.The Labour MP for Walthamstow put forward a second amendment urging MPs to go further, ditch any abortion-related clauses the 1861 Act, and enshrine abortion access as a human right.This was publicly backed by 108 MPs before the debate – but abortion providers, including the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said the amendment was not the right way to achieve “generational change”, and it did not go to a vote.Conservative shadow health minister Dr Caroline Johnson put forward a third amendment, aimed at stopping pills by post abortions by requiring a pregnant woman to have an in-person consultation before being prescribed medication to terminate her pregnancy.The Johnson amendment fell, with 379 MPs voting against and 117 voting for.Earlier, the Antoniazzi amendment had won support from 379 MPs, with 137 against.The new Antoniazzi clause would not change any law regarding the provision of abortion services within a healthcare setting, including but not limited to the time limit, telemedicine, the grounds for abortion, or the requirement for two doctors’ approval.It was backed by all the main abortion providers, as well as 180 MPs from across the Commons and 50 organisations including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).However, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children has called it an “extreme and dangerous proposal” that would “effectively decriminalise abortions”.Only three women were convicted of having an illegal abortion between 1861 and November 2022, when the law was changed to allow women to take abortion pills at home up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.Records collected by the UK’s largest abortion services have found at least 100 women have been investigated for having an abortion in the last five years, and six have appeared in court.