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DETROIT (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that all new vehicles in the U.S. be equipped with blood alcohol monitoring systems that can stop an intoxicated person from driving. The recommendation, if enacted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, could reduce the number of alcohol-related crashes, one of the biggest causes of highway deaths in the U.S. The new push to make roads safer was included in a report released Tuesday about a horrific crash last year in which a drunk driver collided head-on with another vehicle near Fresno, California, killing both adult drivers and seven...

A geofence is a technology that makes use of location data to set up an invisible barrier in the real world. Often the technology uses GPS, but it can also use other data signals such as cellular, WiFi or RFID. You can't see or feel anything when you pass through a geofence, but if you are carrying a connected device, it will send out a signal that you have crossed the electronic boundary. This may trigger a programmed action - such as a message to appear on your phone, or in the case of Ford's internet-connected cars, impose a speed...

On April 28, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a ban on menthol cigarettes, which are smoked by more than 18.5 million people ages 12 and older. More than 85% of menthol smokers are African American. By comparison, 30% of menthol smokers are white. Menthol cigarettes are also more popular in the Latin and Asian communities. From that date in April, the public, including the tobacco industry, has 60 days to make comments.According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 480,000 Americans die from tobacco-related disease, every year. This is including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from...

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, except when it's a "premium cigar." But what does "premium" mean, and do premium cigars affect people's health differently than other cigars, or cigarettes?These are just a few of the questions that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine tried to tackle in its report on "Health Effects and Patterns of Use of Premium Cigars." However, the 14-member committee that issued the report ran into some difficulties, one of which was determining what a "premium" cigar was."One of the challenges that we faced was that there was no single consistent definition of...

The United States Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the post office, was “not legally authorized” to conduct blanket keyword searches of social media for terms such as “protest,” “attack,” and “destroy,” an inspector general investigation found, because it is only supposed to investigate cases with some connection to the post office or the mail. The USPSIS is the oldest police agency in the country, called the United States Postal Inspection Service, or USPIS. Its job is to police the mail and crimes related to the mail such as mail fraud. USPIS dates back to a time when...

Back in the day, just about everything that used a battery had a hatch or a hutch that you could open to pull it out and replace it if need be. Whether it was a radio, a cordless phone, or a cellphone, it was a cinch to swap out a battery. These days, many devices hide their batteries, deep beneath tamper-proof stickers and warnings that state there are “no user serviceable components inside.” The EU wants to change all that, though, and has voted to mandate that everything from cellphones to e-bikes must have easily replaceable batteries, with the legislation...

Determined to reduce childhood obesity, Mayor Lori Lightfoot moved Wednesday to stop Chicago restaurants from automatically serving kids meals with sugary, high-calorie drinks. At a City Council meeting, Lightfoot introduced an ordinance that would prohibit Chicago restaurants from serving or marketing pop and other sugary drinks as the “default beverage” with kids meals. Parents would still be able to request sugary drinks for their children. Instead, the “default” beverages on kids meals would be: • Water or sparkling water or flavored water with “no added natural or artificial sweeteners” • Nonfat or 1% dairy milk containing “no more than 130...

At a City Council meeting, Lightfoot introduced an ordinance that would prohibit Chicago restaurants from serving or marketing pop and other sugary drinks as the “default beverage” with kids meals. Parents would still be able to request sugary drinks for their children.Why can't parents have that SAME SAY for the VAXX????

KATY, Texas — From a secluded spot in her high school library, a 17-year-old girl spoke softly into her cellphone, worried that someone might overhear her say the things she’d hidden from her parents for years. They don’t know she’s queer, the student told a reporter, and given their past comments about homosexuality’s being a sin, she’s long feared they would learn her secret if they saw what she reads in the library. That space, with its endless rows of books about characters from all sorts of backgrounds, has been her “safe haven,” she said — one of the few...

Florida lawmakers are debating a bill that would allow schools districts to put cameras in classrooms and microphones on teachers. The measure was proposed by state Representative Bob Rommel, a Republican from Naples. "I think if we can do it in a safe way to protect the privacy of students and teachers, I think we should do it," he told CBS Miami. "I haven't heard a response good or bad from any teachers, but … it's not their private space. It's our children's space, too." But Broward Teachers Union President Anna Fusco told the station a handful of Broward County...

A hardline judge has fined and ridiculed a 72-year-old Michigan man with lymphoma, ruling that he “should be ashamed” of being too weak to mow his overgrown lawn. Burhan Chowdhury of Hamtramck, a community about six miles north of Detroit, admittedly fell behind in yard maintenance after he was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes in 2019. His overgrown property prompted local officials to subpoena Chowdhury. In now-viral footage of the Zoom court hearing on Jan. 10, Chowdhury’s breathing appeared labored as Judge Alexis G. Krot of the 31st District Court berated him. “You should be ashamed of yourself,”...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — It’s not often that bacon leads a roundup of new laws taking effect with the New Year in California. But even in progressive California, that’s the headline-grabber. It’s among a host of other legislation designed to safeguard employees, shield those seeking abortions, protect protesters from police, spare children from gender influence in store displays, and further ease criminal penalties to reduce mass incarceration. Several of the laws mark national “firsts” — first minimum wage to reach $15 an hour, first to protect warehouse workers from quotas, first to mandate hourly wages for garment workers, first to...

People currently aged 14 and under will never be able to legally purchase tobacco. New Zealand has announced it will outlaw smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco. New legislation means the legal smoking age will increase every year, to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders, associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday. “This is a historic day for the health of our people,” she said. ...

Money from the Child Tax Credit program is set to hit U.S. parents' bank accounts on Monday. After that, the sixth and final check is scheduled to be deposited on December 15. The future of the expanded Child Tax Credit program remains in limbo amid negotiations over scaling back President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion social spending plan, which included an extension of the CTC through 2025. To slash spending in the bill, some lawmakers want to limit the tax credit's renewal to just one or two years. As talks among Democratic lawmakers continues, the future of the family assistance measure...

fficials in Phoenix voted Thursday to fully adopt a policy limiting access to certain hiking trails in extreme heat. The Phoenix Parks and Recreation board unanimously pushed through the measure, which will close trails at Camelback Mountain and Piestewa Peak from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. any day an excessive heat warning is issued. The policy was tested at Echo Canyon and Cholla Trail in the Camelback Mountains and the Piestewa Peak trails in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve from July 13 to Sept. 30. The trial run began after nearly a dozen members of the Phoenix Fire Department were sent...

During a press conference, Presidential Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted that "the last year and a half has taken its toll on people's health and sanity. But it has also enabled the government to pioneer new ways of governance. Things that might not ever occurred to us have been done with resounding success." "Among these things was a realization of how liberating a declared emergency can be," she said. "Normally, there are months or years between the origin of an idea for making the country better and getting it enacted by Congress. The emergency allowed the president, the state governors,...

httpThe jump in benefits, the biggest in the program’s history, comes after a revision of the initiative’s nutrition standards that supporters say will reduce hunger and better reflect how Americans eat.

Liberal outlets are trying to scare readers again about alcohol consumption. They are pushing a study that hasn’t been peer-reviewed to claim any alcohol consumption will damage the brain. The sensational anti-alcohol headlines based on the preprint study plagued the internet. CNN’s story on the matter was headlined: “Drinking any amount of alcohol causes damage to the brain, study finds.” The Guardian’s headline was no less blaring: “Any amount of alcohol consumption harmful to the brain, finds study.” Yahoo! News also hopped on the anti-alcohol train: “Drinking any amount of alcohol causes damage to the brain, study finds.” People magazine...

April 29 (UPI) -- The Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday that it is proposing a ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes in the United States. The announcement begins a long regulatory process, resulting in menthol cigarettes being available for about two more years even if the ban is eventually adopted. The tobacco industry is expected to challenge the decision. The FDA decision would also ban all flavored cigars. The agency did not include menthol-flavored electronic cigarettes. Menthol is the last allowable flavor for cigarettes. The proposed ban was prompted by a citizen petition that allows the public to...

The White House is waging war on menthol — the last allowable flavoring in cigarettes — and flavored cigars, announcing Thursday that the administration intends to ban the popular additives in tobacco products. It was the first shot in an uphill battle that advocates say would prevent the industry from marketing to children and minority communities with whom flavored tobacco has proven popular. "With these actions, the FDA will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ+ individuals, all of whom...