As the virus continues to mutate, scientific advisers to the C.D.C. are urging Americans to roll up their sleeves again for annual vaccinations.All Americans ages 6 months and older should receive one of the new Covid-19 vaccines when they become available this fall, scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.The recommendation comes as the nation faces a summer wave of Covid, with the number of infections rising in at least 39 states and territories.Most Americans have acquired layers of immunity against the coronavirus from repeat infections or vaccine doses, or both. The vaccines now offer an incremental boost, remaining effective for only a few months as immunity wanes and the virus continues to evolve.Still, across every age group, a vast majority of Americans who were hospitalized for Covid did not receive one of the shots offered last fall, according to data presented at a meeting of the C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.“Professionals and the public in general do not understand how much this virus has mutated,” said Carol Hayes, the committee’s liaison to the American College of Nurse-Midwives. “You need this year’s vaccine to be protected against this year’s strain of the virus.”A vaccine by Novavax will target JN.1, the variant that prevailed for months in the winter and spring. The shots to be made by Pfizer and Moderna are aimed at KP.2, which until recently seemed poised to be the dominant variant.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.

A majority of the justices voted to dismiss the case, reinstating a lower-court ruling that paused the state’s near-total abortion ban. The ruling mirrored a version inadvertently posted a day earlier.The Supreme Court said on Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk.The one-sentence, unsigned decision declared that the case had been “improvidently granted,” meaning a majority of the justices had changed their minds about the need to take up the case now. It reinstates a lower-court ruling that had halted Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and permitted emergency abortions at hospitals if needed to protect the health of the mother while the case makes its way through the courts.The decision, which did not rule on the substance of the case, closely mirrored a version that appeared briefly on the court’s website a day earlier and was reported by Bloomberg. A court spokeswoman acknowledged on Wednesday that the publications unit had “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document” and said a ruling in the case would appear in due time.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. announced the court’s decision from the bench, as is the custom for unsigned opinions.Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in part disagreed with the court’s decision and asserted that the justices should have addressed the case on its merits, read her dissent from the bench. Such a move is rare and signals profound disagreement.The joined cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, focus on whether a federal law aimed at ensuring emergency care for any patient supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest. The state outlaws the procedure with few exceptions unless a woman’s life is in danger.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.

Plaintiffs and the company vowed to renegotiate but the talks will be challenging after the court struck down a provision the Sacklers had insisted on in exchange for $6 billion.The hard-fought settlement of thousands of lawsuits against Purdue Pharma was close to capsizing on Thursday, after the Supreme Court rejected liability protections for the company’s owners. The ruling effectively prevents the release of billions of dollars that could help alleviate the ravages of opioid addiction.The future of the cases, some of which are a decade old, is now in limbo, as states, local governments, tribes and more than 100,000 individuals who sued the company, best-known for its prescription painkiller OxyContin, figure out next moves.The court effectively upended the settlement by striking down a provision that Purdue’s owners, members of the billionaire Sackler family, had insisted upon: immunity from all current and future opioid lawsuits in return for payments of up to $6 billion to plaintiffs.In a statement, Purdue called the decision “heart-crushing,” because the settlement had been agreed to by an overwhelming majority of plaintiffs.“We will immediately reach back out to the same creditors who have already proven they can unite to forge a settlement,” the company said, so that Purdue could emerge from bankruptcy and funds could begin to flow.In statements, a number of states said they, too, were eager to resume talks.“The court’s ruling means we now have to go back to the negotiating table. Purdue and the Sacklers must pay so we can save lives and help people live free of addiction.,” Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, said. “If they won’t pay up, I’ll see them in court.”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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The species survived on an island north of Siberia for thousands of years, scientists reported, but were most likely plagued by genetic abnormalities.For millions of years, mammoths lumbered across Europe, Asia and North America. Starting roughly 15,000 years ago, the giant animals began to vanish from their vast range until they survived on only a few islands.Eventually they disappeared from those refuges, too, with one exception: Wrangel Island, a land mass the size of Delaware over 80 miles north of the coast of Siberia. There, mammoths held on for thousands of years — they were still alive when the Great Pyramids were built in Egypt.When the Wrangel Island mammoths disappeared 4,000 years ago, mammoths became extinct for good.For two decades, Love Dalén, a geneticist at Stockholm University, and his colleagues have been extracting bits of DNA from fossils on Wrangel Island. In recent years, they have gathered entire mammoth genomes. On Thursday, they published a reconstruction of the genetic history of these enigmatic animals.The scientists concluded that the island’s population was founded about 10,000 years ago by a tiny herd made up of fewer than 10 animals. The colony survived for 6,000 years, but the mammoths suffered from a host of genetic disorders.Oliver Ryder, the director of conservation genetics at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said that the study held important lessons for trying to save species from extinction today. It shows that inbreeding could cause long-term harm.“The mammoth study allows one to examine that process over thousands of years,” said Dr. Ryder, who was not involved in the new study. “We don’t have data like that for the species we are trying to save now.”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 liability shield would have protected members of the Sackler family from civil claims related to the opioid epidemic.The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a provision at the heart of a multibillion-dollar settlement with Purdue Pharma that would have channeled billions of dollars to help curb the opioid epidemic in exchange for shielding members of the wealthy Sackler family from related lawsuits.In a 5-to-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a majority of the justices held that the federal bankruptcy code does not authorize a liability shield for third parties in bankruptcy agreements. Justice Gorsuch was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.In a strongly worded dissent, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote that the “decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families.” He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The decision jeopardizes a carefully negotiated settlement Purdue and the Sacklers had reached in which members of the family promised to give up to $6 billion to states, local governments, tribes and individuals to address a devastating public health crisis.It all but ensures that members of the Sackler family, who controlled Purdue Pharma, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, will no longer be subject to a condition of the deal that had generated significant criticism: immunity from liability in opioid-related lawsuits, even as they had not declared bankruptcy.The U.S. Trustee Program, a watchdog office in the Justice Department, had asked the Supreme Court to intervene. The liability shield, which binds potential claimants without their consent and offers wide-ranging legal protection for the Sacklers, was a misuse of a bankruptcy system aimed at addressing “true financial distress, the office said.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.

One person in England has died linked to the ongoing E. coli outbreak, the UK Health Security Agency has said.

An urgent warning has been issued to people seeking cosmetic procedures including Brazilian butt lifts and breast augmentation – amid fears unregulated surgery is taking place in local hotel rooms.

Kiyomi Lowe regularly hears people mispronounce her name or sometimes forget it altogether. “I get Naomi, Kaiomi, sometimes Kimmy,” she said. It doesn’t bother her: “I’ll respond to anything.”She is less forgiving when friends and acquaintances forget the name of her dog, a shar-pei. “I get Bruno a lot,” she said. To which she responds: “‘No, it’s Brutus!’ The dog doesn’t care. But I care for the dog.”Ms. Lowe is a stylist at Al’s Barber Shop, a popular six-chair salon in Boulder near the campus of the University of Colorado. On a recent morning, she fell into a spirited conversation with her fellow stylists and several customers over a delicate question: Should you be responsible for remembering the name of a friend’s pet? What’s the etiquette?“A big question,” said Jen Himes, a stylist, who conceded that she sometimes made a naming mistake, which pained her. “I’ve gotten a lot of pet names wrong. I’m, like, ‘How’s Pookie?’ And they’re, like, ‘It’s Rufus!’ or whatever.”“Most people laugh,” she said. “But some people are, like, ‘That’s offensive.’”Kiyomi Lowe with Brutus, her shar-pei. “The funnier the name is, the easier it is to remember,” Ms. Lowe said. “Like Derek.”Tilly, left, and Frida. Does the burden of recollection lie with the friend? Or is it the pet owner’s responsibility to pick a memorable name?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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