TimeMagazine

(Vancouver, British Columbia) — Canada’s government said Tuesday it will allow British Columbia to try a three-year experiment in decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs, seeking to stem a record number of overdose deaths by easing fear of arrest by users in need of help. The policy approved by federal officials doesn’t legalize the … Read more

When the pandemic first began, many experts feared that even people who managed to avoid the virus would suffer from unprecedented levels of loneliness. What would happen when millions of people were told to stay at home and distance themselves from friends and loved ones? Two years of research later, experts have found that the … Read more

In mid-May, I traveled from London to Slovenia to interview the Ukrainian men’s soccer team on their bid to reach November’s Qatar World Cup. It was a four-day assignment, requiring travel via train stations, airports, and taxi ranks—but at no point was I asked to show a negative COVID-19 test, my vaccination status, nor even … Read more

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as a leaked draft opinion suggests it may, abortion will likely be banned or severely restricted in about half of the United States. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the country will return to a world before 1973, when the landmark Supreme Court case enshrined a … Read more

U.S. and Canadian regulators are investigating a hepatitis outbreak that may be linked to fresh organic strawberries. In a joint weekend statement, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Public Health Agency of Canada said illnesses in Minnesota, California, and Canada occurred after people consumed FreshKampo and H-E-B brand strawberries. The agencies said the … Read more

For a few months in the fall of 2021, reports of unchecked violence, abuse, and neglect at the jail on New York City’s Rikers Island were plastered across national news before receding back into the routinized cruelty that constitutes the underbelly of American life. This exceptional coverage of the brutality behind bars provoked universal condemnation. … Read more

LONDON — The World Health Organization’s top monkeypox expert said she doesn’t expect the hundreds of cases reported to date to turn into another pandemic, but acknowledged there are still many unknowns about the disease, including how exactly it’s spreading and whether the suspension of mass smallpox immunization decades ago may somehow be speeding its … Read more

The May 24 mass shooting in a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, in which a gunman killed 19 young children and two teachers, was the third-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. But it was also just the latest of an increasingly common type of U.S. tragedy—one that experts say is saddling American schoolchildren, even the youngest, … Read more

The U.S. is still in the throes of an unprecedented infant-formula shortage. Supply-chain issues caused by the pandemic started affecting baby formula in the summer of 2021, and inventory constricted even further after Abbott recalled certain formula products in February (then more in March) and shut down its Michigan plant. Families facing empty shelves are … Read more

It’s impossible to quantify the cost of gun violence. There’s no way to add up pain and grief. No way to multiply that by shock and outrage. But emotional suffering and physical injuries do become real numbers when traumatic shooting events, like other public-health epidemics, contribute to the national health care burden. A 2021 review … Read more