The new rules under the Affordable Care Act would include emergency contraception, a newly approved nonprescription birth control pill, spermicides and condoms.The White House announced on Monday that it would propose new rules under the Affordable Care Act that would require insurers to cover over-the-counter birth control at no cost to patients, as it seeks to expand access to contraception and cut out-of-pocket costs.The rules would include emergency contraception, a newly approved nonprescription birth control pill, spermicides and condoms and would affect 52 million American women of reproductive age who rely on private health insurance. They will be subject to a 60-day public comment period and, if finalized, would represent “the most significant expansion of contraception benefits” in more than a decade, said Jennifer Klein, the director of the White House Gender Policy Council.The proposal comes just two weeks before the election as Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, make the case that the threat to reproductive rights extends beyond the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that eliminated the national right to abortion.“At a time when contraception access is under attack, Vice President Harris and I are resolute in our commitment to expanding access to quality, affordable contraception,” President Biden said in a statement. “We believe that women in every state must have the freedom to make deeply personal health care decisions, including the right to decide if and when to start or grow their family.”The court ruled in that case that the “right to privacy” did not confer a right to abortion. In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the same rationale should be used to overturn other “demonstrably erroneous decisions” that relied on a right to privacy, including Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 case declaring that married couples had a right to contraception.“Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud, that contraception could very much be at risk and it is at risk,” Ms. Harris told the late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in June.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.

More than 20 spice products including dips, curry powders and seasonings have been recalled over fears they may contain peanuts not mentioned on the label.

Cheshire PoliceNew evidence seen by the BBC suggests more babies in Lucy Letby’s care were harmed – and in one case poisoned with insulin.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has dismissed suggestions that plans to provide weight loss jabs to unemployed people with obesity are “dystopian.”.

Six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy has announced that his cancer is terminal.

In a downtown Los Angeles parking lot, a stretch of asphalt tucked between gleaming hotels and the 110 freeway, a psychiatrist named Shayan Rab was seeing his third patient of the day, a man he knew only as Yoh.Yoh lived in the underpass, his back pressed against the wall, a few feet from the rush of cars exiting the freeway. He made little effort to fend for himself, even to find food or water. When outreach workers dropped off supplies, he often let people walk away with them.He could barely converse, absorbed by an inner world that he described in fragments: a journey to Eden, a supersonic train, a slab of concrete hanging in space.But here he was, seated on a stool in the parking lot, talking to his psychiatrist. Two weeks earlier, Dr. Rab had persuaded Yoh to start an oral antipsychotic medication. Now the doctor wanted to go further.“One thing that can make your life a little bit easier,” he said. “We have the same medication that comes as a monthly injection, so you only have to take it once. Is that something you’d be interested in? It’s better for you.”“Yeah,” said Yoh, dreamily. His hair was matted, his ankles caked with dirt. He hadn’t slept well, he said, because he had been visited by a poltergeist.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.

BBCThere are two parallel universes in the Lucy Letby story.

Some products were sold under the brands of major retailers like Kroger, Price Chopper and Walmart. No illnesses so far have been linked to the waffles.Nearly 700 frozen waffle products, some of them sold under the brands of major retailers like Kroger, Target and Walmart, were recalled on Friday over concerns of potential contamination with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, according to their manufacturer.The manufacturer, TreeHouse Foods, issued a voluntary recall and said in a statement that the “issue was discovered through routine testing at the manufacturing facility.”There have been no confirmed reports of illness related to the recalled products, TreeHouse said.TreeHouse, which operates more than two dozen production facilities in the United States and Canada, said that the recall affected products distributed in both countries and in various formats.Frozen waffle brands affected by the recall included several of Kroger’s Simple Truth protein waffles, Target’s Good & Gather Homestyle and Buttermilk flavors, and Walmart’s Great Value Homestyle and Blueberry waffles.Infections from listeria, which are bacteria that can contaminate foods, are rare but can cause potentially serious illnesses.Typical symptoms include fever and headaches. Young children, older adults and pregnant women are at the greatest risk for more serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.Each year in the United States, an estimated 1,600 people are infected with listeria, and about 260 people die from those infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“We see it most severely in people with immune systems that are compromised in some way, and that can be the very young, the very old,” Dr. Stuart C. Ray, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said on Saturday.Symptoms “can be as simple as a gastroenteritis, but it can be as severe as a meningitis,” he added.If someone is infected with listeria bacteria, the incubation period can last several days and sometimes several weeks. An infection might not be immediately apparent.Several companies in the deli industry this year have issued recalls related to listeria outbreaks.The deli meat brand Boar’s Head faced scrutiny in recent months after one of its facilities in Virginia was found to contain black mold, dead flies and water dripping over meat. Foods distributed from that facility and containing listeria were linked to nine deaths.And BrucePac, another meat provider, this month recalled more than 10 million pounds of meats and poultry products because of listeria.Food plants and facilities are common epicenters of listeria outbreaks because of the bacteria’s ability to survive cold climates, Dr. Ray said.“It survives on damp surfaces, including in factories and food preparation facilities,” he said. “It can be shared by animals, including livestock, that don’t appear sick. It can creep into our food chain in ways that might not be obvious.”TreeHouse said that customers can check the lot code on their waffle products to see if they are a part of the recall. Consumers should dispose of any products they have in their freezers, or return them to the place of purchase for credit.

One of only about 150 people known to have the rare fatal condition, he traveled internationally to raise awareness and participated in the search for a cure.Sammy Basso, an advocate for research into progeria, an ultrarare fatal disease that causes rapid aging in children, who was known for living with gusto and humor as he faced the certainty of premature death, died on Oct. 5 near his home in Tezze sul Brenta, in the Veneto region of northern Italy. He was 28.Dr. Leslie B. Gordon, medical director of the Progeria Research Foundation, for which Mr. Basso served as global ambassador, said the cause was complications of the disease. Mr. Basso had survived longer than any other known person with progeria.Mr. Basso, who lived with his parents, was diagnosed with progeria at age 2.He was one of only about 150 people worldwide identified with the condition. He traveled internationally, most recently to China, to raise awareness; gave TED Talks; and participated with scientists from Harvard and the National Institutes of Health in a research group that is seeking a cure.“You couldn’t watch a presentation by Sammy without being captivated by his courage, his spunk, his smarts and his sense of humor,” Dr. Francis S. Collins, a former N.I.H. director who has long researched progeria, said in an email.Progeria, also known as Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, causes children to undergo rapidly accelerated aging; its effects include baldness, wrinkled skin, hardening of the arteries and a wizened stature. Mr. Basso was about 4 feet 5 inches tall and weighed about 44 pounds.At the same time, individuals with the condition, whose average life expectancy is 14.5 years, do not experience senility.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.

The small-town drugstore closed for the last time on a clear and chilly afternoon in February. Jon Jacobs, who owned Yough Valley Pharmacy, hugged his employees goodbye. He cleared the shelves and packed pill bottles into plastic bins.Mr. Jacobs, a 70-year-old pharmacist, had spent more than half his life building his drugstore into a bedrock of Confluence, Pa., a rural community of roughly 1,000 people. Now the town was losing its only health care provider.Obscure but powerful health care middlemen — companies known as pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s — had destroyed his business.This has been happening all over the country, a New York Times investigation found. P.B.M.s, which employers and government programs hire to oversee prescription drug benefits, have been systematically underpaying small pharmacies, helping to drive hundreds out of business.The pattern is benefiting the largest P.B.M.s, whose parent companies run their own competing pharmacies. When local drugstores fold, the benefit managers often scoop up their customers, according to dozens of patients and pharmacists.Jon Jacobs packed up medicine on the day he closed his pharmacy in February.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesMr. Jacobs hugged an employee.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesNewly Created DesertsNearly 800 ZIP codes that had at least one pharmacy in 2015 now have none.