Deaths

School shootings feel random in their location yet predictable in their occurrence. Killers target elementary, high school and college students in urban, suburban and rural communities. The children killed are Hispanic, white, Black, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, transgender and cisgender. This year school shootings have occurred more than weekly on average with 27 in 2022 (so far). Many go virtually unmentioned on the national stage, however, until the “unthinkable” happens, and 19 nine- to 11-year-old children…

The WHO said Wednesday that hundreds of monkeypox cases have surfaced beyond the African countries where the disease is typically found, warning the virus has likely been spreading under the radar.  "Investigations are ongoing, but the sudden appearance of monkeypox in many countries at the same time suggests there may have been undetected transmission for some time," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.Since Britain first reported a confirmed monkeypox case on May 7, more than 550…

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated mind-numbing statistics over the past two years: half a billion cases, 6 million deaths, 1 million in the US alone. But another, less-publicized global scourge preceded it and is likely to outlast it: traffic deaths and injuries.  Around 1.35 million people die each year on the world's roads, and another 20 million to 50 million are seriously injured. Half of these deaths and many of the injuries involve pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists – the most vulnerable users of roads and…

As part of a Twitter Spaces hosted to celebrate what would’ve been the Notorious B.I.G.’s 50th birthday, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs told Jay-Z he “filled” the shoes of Biggie and 2Pac after their deaths.Hov and Diddy were in attendance at the TIDAL-hosted event, when Jay said the death of Biggie and Pac left a “void” in the rap world.“As far as Big and ‘Pac and pushing forward, that’s just me being a student of the game and loving the game and loving the culture and wanting to push the culture forward," said Jay, as heard in the…

Cars and trucks are wedged together after a deadly multi-vehicle pileup on the ice covered I-35 in a still image from video in Fort Worth, Texas, February 11, 2021.NBC5 | via ReutersNew vehicles on sale in the U.S. today are the safest and most advanced ever made, yet roadway fatalities last year reached their highest level in 16 years.The problem is complex: It's a combination of reckless or distracted driving, largely due to cellphone usage; increased sales of trucks and SUVs; and higher performance of vehicles, among…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain COVID-19 has now claimed the lives of 1 million Americans—a grim milestone made worse by the fact that probably a third of those fatalities could have been avoided. Estimates suggest that more than 318,000 deaths from the disease occurred among individuals who had access to vaccines, but chose not to receive any.…

Investigators look over the scene of a crash between an SUV and a semi-truck full of gravel near Holtville, California on March 2, 2021.Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty ImagesMore people died on U.S. roadways last year than any year since 2005, according to new data released Tuesday by federal vehicle safety officials.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a division of the Department of Transportation, estimates 42,915 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes in 2021, a 10.5% increase from the 38,824…

Two shocking bereavements, separated by more than a century, will link unsuspecting sides of a family in Cressida Connolly’s haunting and beautiful novel. Other writers might have stretched this material to saga length. Bad Relations confines its scope to fewer than 300 pages and reverberates the more for its deft compression.It begins amid the smoke and chaos of a battlefield in the Crimea, where Captain William Gale cuts a lock of hair from the head of his dead younger brother, Algie – a memento for their parents back…

Buying drugs on the street is a game of Russian roulette. From Xanax to cocaine, drugs or counterfeit pills purchased in non-medical settings may contain life-threatening amounts of fentanyl.  Physicians like me have seen a rise in unintentional fentanyl use from people buying prescription opioids and other drugs laced, or adulterated, with fentanyl. Heroin users in my community in Massachusetts came to realize that fentanyl had entered the drug supply when overdose numbers exploded.In 2016, my colleagues and I found…

This illustration represents the core theory in a new modeling study led by the University of Washington: The circles represent the immune system’s aging, in which its ability to make new immunity cells remains constant until a person (represented by the human figures) reaches middle-age or older and then falls off significantly. The central blue figure represents an immune system T cell that attacks the virus. Credit: Michele Kellett and James Anderson/University of WashingtonYour immune system’s ability to fight…