A mural honoring scientists hung in Pfizer’s NYC lobby for 60 years. Now it’s up for grabs

A mural honoring scientists hung in Pfizer’s NYC lobby for 60 years. Now it’s up for grabs

NEW YORK — A mural honoring ancient and modern figures in medicine that has hung in the lobby of Pfizer’s original New York City headquarters for more than 60 years could soon end up in pieces if conservationists can’t find a new home for it in the next few weeks. “Medical Research Through the Ages,” … Read more

Nearly 2,000 drug plants are overdue for FDA checks after COVID delays, AP finds

Nearly 2,000 drug plants are overdue for FDA checks after COVID delays, AP finds

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators responsible for the safety of the U.S. drug supply are still struggling to get back to where they were in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic upended factory inspections in the U.S. and across the world, The Associated Press has found. An AP analysis of Food and Drug Administration data shows that … Read more

Nintendo reports trailing profit as sales of aging Switch game console slide

Nintendo reports trailing profit as sales of aging Switch game console slide

TOKYO — Japanese video game maker Nintendo reported Friday a 55% drop in profit in the April-June quarter as sales slipped in both machines and game software compared to last year. Game machine sales tend to trail off after they hit the market. The Nintendo Switch is in its eighth year after sales began, with … Read more

Mass shooting shutters Arkansas town’s only grocery store — for now

Mass shooting shutters Arkansas town’s only grocery store — for now

FORDYCE, Ark. — A steady rain was falling outside Fordyce High School, but that didn’t deter an army of volunteers who raced to hand out jugs of milk and bags of groceries to a line of cars snaked around the parking lot. In the days since a shooter killed four people and injured 10 others … Read more

FDA warns parents to avoid infant formula distributed by company due to contamination

FDA warns parents to avoid infant formula distributed by company due to contamination

WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials warned parents to avoid powdered infant formula sold by a Texas dairy producer, because a dangerous bacteria was found in one of the company’s products. The Food and Drug Administration issued the alert Friday on Crecelac Infant Powdered Goat Milk Infant Formula, after a sample collected from a Texas store … Read more

Georgia governor signs law adding regulations for production and sale of herbal supplement kratom

Georgia governor signs law adding regulations for production and sale of herbal supplement kratom

ATLANTA — Georgia’s governor on Thursday signed a bill putting new regulations on the production and sale of products containing kratom, a plant-based supplement. The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, prohibits the sale of kratom to anyone under 21 and says it must be kept behind a counter or in a display area that … Read more

Tough new EPA rules would force coal-fired power plants to capture emissions or shut down

Tough new EPA rules would force coal-fired power plants to capture emissions or shut down

WASHINGTON — Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency. New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s … Read more

Weedkiller manufacturer seeks lawmakers’ help to squelch claims it failed to warn about cancer

Weedkiller manufacturer seeks lawmakers’ help to squelch claims it failed to warn about cancer

DES MOINES, Iowa — Stung by paying billions of dollars for settlements and trials, chemical giant Bayer has been lobbying lawmakers in three states to pass bills providing it a legal shield from lawsuits that claim its popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. Nearly identical bills introduced in Iowa, Missouri and Idaho this year — with … Read more

Victims of Montana asbestos pollution that killed hundreds take Warren Buffet’s railroad to court

Victims of Montana asbestos pollution that killed hundreds take Warren Buffet’s railroad to court

LIBBY, Mont. — Paul Resch remembers playing baseball as a kid on a field constructed from asbestos-tainted vermiculite, mere yards from railroad tracks where trains kicked up clouds of dust as they hauled the contaminated material from a mountaintop mine through the northwestern Montana town of Libby. He liked to sneak into vermiculite-filled storage bins … Read more

Japanese authorities raid a factory making health supplements linked to 5 deaths

Japanese authorities raid a factory making health supplements linked to 5 deaths

TOKYO — Japanese government health officials raided a factory Saturday producing health supplements that they say have killed at least five people and hospitalized more than 100 others. About a dozen people wearing dark suits solemnly walked into the Osaka plant of Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. in the raid shown widely on Japanese TV news, including … Read more