U.S. births fell a little in 2025, according to newly posted provisional data. Slightly over 3.6 million births have been reported through birth certificates, or about 24,000 fewer than in 2024. The decline seems to confirm predictions by some experts, who doubted a 22,250-birth increase in 2024 marked the start of an upward trend. The posted numbers account for nearly all of the babies born in 2025, according to the CDC.
Those extra subsidies were enacted in 2021 as part of temporary, pandemic-era relief, boosting financial help for people buying coverage on state-run insurance marketplaces such as Covered California. The law also expanded eligibility to people earning more than 400% of the federal poverty level, about $62,600 for a single person and $128,600 for a family of four. With the expiration of the enhanced subsidies, people above that income threshold no longer receive federal assistance,
One thing that stood out was the home environment. This was the largest contributor to children's daily particle pollution exposure more than school or commuting. This was mainly due to indoor sources such as wood burning and indoor smoking. Short peaks in particle pollution were linked to home cooking and secondhand tobacco smoke. Home heating with a fire or stove was linked to longer exposures. In some cases, these persisted overnight in children's bedrooms as fires remained lit or smouldering with poor ventilation.
The logic behind electric vehicles benefiting public health has long been solid: More EVs means fewer internal combustion engines on the road, and a reduction in harmful tailpipe emissions. But now researchers have confirmed, to the greatest extent yet, that this is indeed what's actually happening on the ground. What's more, they found that even relatively small upticks in EV adoption can have a measurably positive impact on a community.
"The Department's action makes clear that legal processes have not been followed. Floridians will now have a say in what happens to this program and its effect on them," Esteban Wood, AHF Director of Advocacy & Legislative Affairs, said in a statement. "It will also provide needed transparency, as the Department has not shown why it needs to make these harmful changes, and show how it now has a claimed $120 million deficit."
Bronx residents are more likely to experience systemic challenges that impact pregnancy, from living below the poverty line to limited access to healthy food and prenatal education. Yet the most preventable cause of maternal deaths is discrimination during hospital care. The maternal mortality rate is twice as high if the mother is Black, when compared to white moms. Over 71% of mothers who died during childbirth in the Bronx, were Black and Hispanic, according to the 2021 Health Department report.
Black people in the U.S. aren't just more likely to have HIV - they're more likely to be criminalized for it. Black Americans accounted for about 38 percent of new HIV diagnoses and 39 percent of people living with HIV in 2023, according to a report from the Williams Institute, despite making up around 12 percent of the population. Black women had the highest HIV diagnosis rate at 19.6 per 100,000, which is about 11 times the rate for white women at 1.8 per 100,000.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans aim to translate the most up-to-date nutrition science into practical advice for the public as well as to guide federal policy for programs such as school lunches. But the newest version of the guidelines, released on Jan. 7, 2026, seems to be spurring more confusion than clarity about what people should be eating. The latest dietary guidelines, published on Jan. 7, 2026, have received mixed reviews from nutrition experts.
This past year underscored the importance of continually strengthening the organ donation and transplant system. In New York, our state and community leaders advanced meaningful reforms to save and heal lives, maintain public trust in the system, and honor donors and their families. As a result, more than 3,200 New Yorkers received life-changing organ transplants this year, and more than 400,000 New Yorkers newly registered their consent to give the gift of life.
Boundaries have become part of our social understanding in recent years-the importance of setting boundaries has been the focus of many social media posts, books, podcasts, and blog posts right here on Psychology Today. And of course, boundaries are important-they delineate the separation between what is us and what is ours to manage and what belongs to someone else and is theirs to manage. As Prentis Hemphill said, "Boundaries are the distance I can love you and me simultaneously." Boundaries keep us safe.
There have been 36 clinical reports of children suffering symptoms consistent with toxin poisoning linked to recent baby formula recalls, the UK Health Security Agency has said. The UKHSA said it and partner agencies had received 24 notifications in England, seven in Scotland, three in Wales, one in Northern Ireland and one from the crown dependencies of children who had consumed implicated batches and developed symptoms.
These ads avoid the explicit "weight loss" pitches of the past, like the days of Jenny Craig. Many ads never even say the word "weight," it is simply implied. Instead, these brands frame GLP-1s as a route to better healthcare and medical well-being, positioning them as an easy step to "take charge of your health." While the message is polished, the subtext is the same: losing weight leads to confidence, health, and self-worth.
Isla first went to the GP in July 2022 with a lump in her breast, but she was told it was likely to be benign and caused by hormonal changes. "She was told it was hormonal - a fibroadenoma - and she would grow out of it," Isla's father Mark said. Two years later, Isla became ill and was taken to hospital, where doctors suspected she had cancer and made an urgent referral for biopsies.
Two years ago, I noticed changes in my friend's ability to carry on conversations and her lack of awareness of current events. After COVID's isolation, she and her husband seldom left their house, and her husband spent more time on his computer. My friend's calls to me became more frequent and repetitive even though she had no news or reason to phone. She repeated the same three or four stories and often within a five-minute span.
In 2024, the NHS began testing whether flying drones could do a better job than couriers shuttling blood samples between labs in Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. Instead of weaving through traffic, the drones simply lifted off, crossed central London, and landed minutes later. Delivery times dropped to barely a couple of minutes, reliability shot up thanks to a lack of roadworks in the sky, and the service turned out to be cheaper too. Since then, more than 6,000 samples have been transported by air.
Kennedy has also called for overhauling the current safety monitoring system for vaccine injury data collection, known as Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, claiming that it suppresses information about the true rate of vaccine side effects. He has also proposed changes to the federal Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that could make it easier for people to sue for adverse events that haven't been proven to be associated with vaccines.
In a matter of seconds, it exploded, causing burns to his face. "He was crying and just yelling, 'It burns, it burns,'" said Whitney Grubb, Caleb Chabolla's mother. Grubb says her son's Needoh Cube had burst. Inside the popular sensory toy, a thick, gel-like substance became hot because of the microwave and stuck to his face. "The right side of his face was kind of melting off, basically," Grubb said.
On January 23, 11-year-old Aline Asfour received her third-grade graduation certificate with honors, scoring in the 98th percentile and ranking first in her class. Her family celebrated her academic achievement and excellence. Two days later, Aline began feeling unwell. She started vomiting repeatedly and suffered from severe diarrhea. At first, her family believed she was experiencing a common cold due to the cold weather and living in displacement tents.
Developmental disabilities are actually quite common. In the United States, about 1 in 6 children has a developmental disability (CDC, 2024). Intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are a group of neurodevelopmental conditions usually present at birth that affect the trajectory of a person's physical, intellectual, and/or emotional development (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2021). Conditions such as Down Syndrome, Autism, Fragile X, Cerebral Palsy, and others are examples of intellectual or developmental disabilities.
Young men are being encouraged to undergo testosterone testing and start hormone therapy through Instagram and TikTok content that promotes unproven health claims while downplaying medical risks, a new international study has found. The study was done at the University of Sydney's Faculty of Medicine and Health, and led by Emma Grundtvig Gram, a visiting PhD student from the University of Copenhagen.
If you haven't yet bought candy for Valentine's Day, you might want to hold off. The Florida Department of Health has announced that certain candies tested as part of the state's new Healthy Florida First initiative were determined to have elevated levels of heavy metals. Forty-six types of candies from 10 different well-known brands were determined to have higher-than-safe levels of mercury, arsenic, cadmium, or lead.
