The showdown catapults the interstate abortion wars to a new level.A New York state court on Thursday blocked Texas from filing a legal action against a New York doctor for prescribing and sending abortion pills to a Texas woman.The unprecedented move catapults the interstate abortion wars to a new level, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal battle between states that ban abortion and states that support abortion rights.The dispute is widely expected to reach the Supreme Court, pitting Texas, which has a near-total abortion ban, against New York, which has a shield law that is intended to protect abortion providers who send medications to patients in other states.New York is one of eight states that have enacted “telemedicine abortion shield laws” after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to an abortion in 2022. The laws prevent officials from extraditing abortion providers to other states or from responding to subpoenas and other legal actions — a stark departure from typical interstate practices of cooperating in such cases.The action by the New York court is the first time that an abortion shield law has been used.This case involves Dr. Margaret Daley Carpenter of New Paltz, N.Y., who works with telemedicine abortion organizations to provide abortion pills to patients across the country. In December, the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, sued Dr. Carpenter, who is not licensed in Texas, accusing her of sending abortion pills to a Texas woman, in violation of the state’s ban.Dr. Carpenter and her lawyers did not respond to the lawsuit and did not show up for a court hearing last month in Texas. Judge Bryan Gantt of Collin County District Court issued a default judgment, ordering Dr. Carpenter to pay a penalty of $113,000 and to stop sending abortion medication to Texas.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.

51 minutes ago

The Trump administration on Thursday announced a massive layoff of 10,000 employees at the Health and Human Services Department, as part of a dramatic reorganization designed to bring communications and other functions directly under the purview of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.The layoffs, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, amount to a drastic reduction in personnel for the health department, which now employs about 80,000 people. The restructuring will include creating a new division called the Administration for a Healthy America — which will go by the acronym A.H.A.The 28 divisions of the health agency will be consolidated into 15 new divisions, according to a statement issued by the department.Mr. Kennedy’s department touches the lives of every American. Through its various agencies — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health — it regulates drugs, monitors food safety, tracks infectious disease and conducts biomedical research.All of those agencies have campuses outside of Washington and tend to operate under their own authority — and Mr. Kennedy has been at odds with all of them.

The first time I read a book by the best-selling young adult novelist John Green, I was on a plane. “The Fault in Our Stars,” about a teenage cancer patient who falls in love, made me cry so hard that a flight attendant repeatedly came to check on me.Mr. Green’s new book is nonfiction and it’s about tuberculosis, the infectious disease. TB, he says, has become his great obsession; he talks about it to his millions of young followers on TikTok and YouTube, who at times have mobilized to confront drug manufacturers about high TB drug prices. The book, “Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection,” explains how TB is responsible for everything from romantic poetry to New Mexico’s statehood, and asks why a fully curable disease nevertheless killed 1.3 million people last year alone.It’s a chronicle of slow but hopeful progress. But that progress was derailed recently when the Trump administration’s abruptly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, ending American support for key health programs around the world. I invited Mr. Green to The New York Times for a conversation about where tuberculosis came from, why it hasn’t gone away and where it all goes from here.Listen to the Full Conversation with John GreenThe Times’s global health reporter Stephanie Nolen sits down with the novelist and YouTuber for a conversation about tuberculosis and his new book.The transcript below has been edited for clarity and brevity.Stephanie Nolen: I really love talking about tuberculosis; I can talk about TB all day. But there aren’t a lot of people in my life who are super happy to sit and talk about TB with me. So this feels like a real luxury. I’m so glad that you’ve come to see us at The Times. Want to sit and talk about TB?John Green: I do, so badly, not least because I am in the same boat. Like, every time I get three or four words into an observation, my kids will raise their hands and say, “Yeah, Dad, we know: It’s tuberculosis.”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.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called them poison, but doctors say prescription stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall help millions of people.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has often criticized prescription stimulants, such as Adderall, that are primarily used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.“We have damaged this entire generation,” he said last year during a podcast, referring to the number of children taking psychiatric medications. “We have poisoned them.”In February, the “Make America Healthy Again” commission, led by Mr. Kennedy, announced plans to evaluate the “threat” posed by drugs like prescription stimulants.But are they a threat? And if so, to whom?Like many medications, prescription stimulants have potential side effects, and there are people who misuse them. Yet these drugs are also considered some of the most effective and well-researched treatments that psychiatry has to offer, said Dr. Jeffrey H. Newcorn, the director of the Division of A.D.H.D. and Learning Disorders at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.Here are some answers to common questions and concerns about stimulants.What are prescription stimulants?Prescription stimulants are drugs that help change the way the brain works by increasing the communication among neurons.They are divided into two classes: methylphenidates (like Ritalin, Focalin and Concerta) and amphetamines (like Vyvanse and Adderall).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.

An NHS software provider has been fined £3m by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) over security failings that led to a ransomware attack on the NHS.

State health officials worry that declining vaccination rates have left many communities vulnerable nationwide.Measles cases in Kansas more than doubled in the last week, bringing the tally to 20, while another outbreak in Ohio has sickened 10 people, local public health officials reported on Wednesday.There have been several large outbreaks in the United States this year, including one in West Texas that has spread to more than 320 people and hospitalized 40. Health officials have worried that the Texas outbreak may be seeding others.More than 40 measles cases have been reported in New Mexico, and seven have been identified in Oklahoma. In both states, health officials said the infections were connected to the Texas outbreak.In Kansas, the virus has mainly infected unvaccinated children in the southwest corner of the state. Genetic sequencing has suggested a link to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, state health officials told The New York Times on Wednesday.Fourteen other states have reported isolated measles cases in 2025, more often the result of international travel. In Ohio, nine of the 10 cases were traced to an unvaccinated man who recently traveled abroad.“Given the measles activity in Texas, New Mexico and other states around the country, we’re disappointed but not surprised we now have several cases here in Ohio,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, director of the state’s Department of Health.Experts fear that declining vaccination rates nationwide have left the country vulnerable to a resurgence of preventable illnesses, including measles.Just under 93 percent of children in kindergarten had the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella in the 2023-24 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Experts recommend that at least 95 percent of people in a community be vaccinated in order to avoid outbreaks.In Kansas, about 90 percent of kindergartners were given the M.M.R. shot in the 2023-24 school year, according to state data.About 89 percent of kindergartners in Ohio had the M.M.R. shot that year.Measles, which spreads when an infected person breathes, coughs or sneezes, is one of the most contagious known viruses.Within a few weeks of exposure, those who are infected may develop a high fever, a cough, a runny nose and red, watery eyes. Within a few days, a telltale rash breaks out, first as flat, red spots on the face and then spreading down the neck and the torso to the rest of the bodyIn most cases, these symptoms resolve in a few weeks. But in rare cases, the virus causes pneumonia, making it difficult for patients, especially children, to draw oxygen into their lungs.The infection can also lead to brain swelling, which can cause lasting damage, including blindness, deafness and intellectual disabilities. For every 1,000 children who contract measles, one or two will die, according to the C.D.C.One child has died in the Texas outbreak, the first such death in the United States in a decade. One suspected measles death was also reported in New Mexico.

Federal officials cited the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in halting the research. But much of the work was focused on preventing outbreaks of other pathogens.The Trump administration has canceled funding for dozens of studies seeking new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and other pathogens that may cause future pandemics.The government’s rationale is that the Covid pandemic has ended, which “provides cause to terminate Covid-related grant funds,” according to an internal N.I.H. document viewed by The New York Times.But the research was not just about Covid. Nine of the terminated awards funded centers conducting research on antiviral drugs to combat so-called priority pathogens that could give rise to entirely new pandemics.“This includes the antiviral projects designed to cover a wide range of families that could cause outbreaks or pandemics,” said one senior N.I.H. official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.The vaccine research also was not focused on Covid, but rather on other coronaviruses that one day might jump from animals to humans.Describing all the research as Covid-related is “a complete inaccuracy and simply a way to defund infectious disease research,” the official said. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has said that the N.I.H. is too focused on infectious diseases, the official noted.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.

States were told Monday that they could no longer use grants that were funding infectious disease management and addiction services.The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu.State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.”No additional activities can be conducted, and no additional costs may be incurred, as it relates to these funds,” the notices said.For some, the effect was immediate.In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health.On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists. Others, including Texas, Maine and Rhode Island, were still scrambling to understand the impact of the cuts before taking any action.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.

37 minutes ago