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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through its National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), are pleased to launch the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer online enrollment system for firefighters across the nation. The NFR for cancer is the largest effort undertaken by the nation to support and advance understanding of cancer in the fire service. President Biden has shown strong and enduring support for firefighters for decades and this step will help deliver on his commitment to end cancer as we know it as part of the Cancer Moonshot.

Numerous studies show that firefighters exposure on the fireground, where smoke and hazardous chemicals are released from burning materials, may increase the risk of certain types of cancer. President Biden has signed two laws that seek specifically to advance firefighter health, safety, and protection from toxic exposures on the job. The National Firefighter Registry (NFR) for Cancer will contribute to these broader efforts by helping scientists better understand the link between cancer and firefighting to ultimately improve firefighter health. The NFR will capture details about firefighters work and match it with cancer information from state cancer registries.

While participation is voluntary, all U.S. firefighters, with or without cancer, are encouraged to join the NFR for Cancer; these include:

Visit NFR.CDC.GOV to complete the NFR survey through the secure website. Enrollment takes about 30 minutes to complete. You will:

Visit the NIOSH NFR for Cancer webpage to learn more about:

John Howard, M.D., the Director of NIOSH, states that I encourage all firefighters across America to join the NFR for Cancer the more firefighters who join the NFR, the more researchers can learn about cancer arising from firefighting and how to prevent it. Firefighters are vital to the safety of our communities and their enrollment in the NFR for cancer can help protect them and the next generation of firefighters from cancer.

The NFR Team Lead, Kenny Fent, Ph.D., CIH adds that with more than 1 million career and volunteer firefighters across the U.S., protecting their health and safety is a top priority for NIOSH. We are excited to raise awareness about this groundbreaking effort to better understand and reduce cancer among all types of firefighters, including those who have traditionally been underrepresented in research, such as women, volunteers, and firefighters from racial and ethnic minority groups.

The NFR for Cancer is the largest existing effort undertaken to understand and reduce cancer among U.S. firefighters. In 2018, Congress passed the Firefighter Cancer Registry Act. This Act directed NIOSH to develop a voluntary registry of firefighters to better understand the link between firefighting and cancer. NIOSH worked with a national group of experts, in fire and emergency services, public health, epidemiology, and medical fields, to plan and launch the NFR for Cancer.

NIOSH is the federal institute that conducts research and makes recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths. For more information about NIOSH visit http://www.cdc.gov/niosh.

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NIOSH Launches the National Firefighter Registry for Cancer to ... - CDC

19 April 2023, 04:49 BST

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'Fox has admitted to telling lies about Dominion' - CEO

In a last-minute deal, Fox News has settled a defamation lawsuit from voting machine firm Dominion over its coverage of the 2020 US election.

The network, controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family, agreed to pay Dominion $787.5m (634m).

While the payout is large, it means Fox avoids what was billed by some as the defamation trial of the century.

However, the network faces a second, similar lawsuit from another election technology firm, Smartmatic.

The settlement means that Fox and Dominion can now put the case behind them with both firms being able to claim victory.

"The reality is two big companies in this case, are by nature risk averse. And any time you got a jury, it's risky," David Logan, professor of law at Roger Williams University, told the BBC.

At almost $800m, it is one of the biggest ever financial settlements in a defamation case.

"It's obviously a significant number, and we shouldn't dismiss that. I mean, it is a really, really large number," Angelo Carusone, president of left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America, told the BBC.

However, it is less than half the $1.6bn initially sought by Dominion.

To put the payout into context, parent company Fox Corporation reported net income of $1.23bn for the last financial year

It is also sitting on large reserves of cash - around $4bn, according to recent company filings.

Rupert Murdoch and his family - who control the News Corp media empire which includes Fox News, The Times of London and The Wall Street Journal - are estimated to have a fortune of $17.6bn, according to Forbes magazine.

The deal also spares Fox executives, including Mr Murdoch, and some of the network's anchors from having to testify in one of the most high-profile defamation trials in history.

"Fox was going to have to deal with another round of embarrassing revelations," Prof Logan said.

The company's legal team may have also been weighing the potential financial cost if the case had gone ahead and Dominion had won.

Fox issued a written statement acknowledging the court's findings that Fox made false claims about Dominion, but it did not include an apology.

"We are hopeful that our decision to resolve this dispute with Dominion amicably, instead of the acrimony of a divisive trial, allows the country to move forward from these issues," the statement said.

However, Fox will not be able to put the issues of its reporting on the 2020 presidential election behind it quite yet.

It still faces a second, similar defamation lawsuit from another election technology firm, Smartmatic, which is seeking $2.7bn.

For Dominion, the $787.5m Fox payout may be just the start.

It still has outstanding cases against Fox's smaller rivals Newsmax and OAN plus several of former President Donald Trump's associates.

Additional reporting by Monica Miller

Go here to see the original:
Fox News lawsuit: Can it afford the $787.5m Dominion settlement? - BBC

A defunct, 660-pound (300 kilograms) NASA satellite is set to tumble uncontrollably back to Earth after spending two decades studying the sun from our orbit.

NASA's Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) satellite will hurtle through the Earth's atmosphere at 9:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, April 19 (1:30 a.m. UTC on Thursday, April 20), plus or minus 16 hours, NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense said.

The bulk of the dead satellite which examined solar eruptions from 2002 until it was decommissioned in 2018 is expected to burn up while passing through our atmosphere. NASA has said it is not disclosing where the surviving debris will land.

Related: Should we really be worried about China's uncontrolled rocket booster reentries?

"The risk of harm coming to anyone on Earth is low approximately 1 in 2,467," NASA officials wrote in a blog post on Monday (April 17).

RHESSI was launched into a low-Earth orbit by the Pegasus XL rocket in 2002. The satellite used a spectrometer that detected X-rays and gamma rays high-energy waves from the sun that are largely blocked by Earth's atmosphere to capture data on eruptions from the sun in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

By observing more than 100,000 X-ray flashes, RHESSI documented solar flares ranging from miniscule nanoflares to gigantic superflares and even made improved measurements of the sun's shape.

The satellite is just one of many potentially hazardous pieces of space junk that have made headlines after tumbling uncontrollably out of orbit. Four of China's Long March 5B boosters the workhorses of the country's growing space program fell to Earth between 2020 and 2022, raining debris down on the Ivory Coast, Borneo and the Indian Ocean. In 2021 and 2022, debris from falling SpaceX rockets smashed into a farm in Washington state and landed on a sheep farm in Australia.

Space agencies around the world try to keep tabs on the more than 30,000 largest pieces of this junk, but many more pieces of debris are simply too small to monitor.

Space junk isn't just a problem when it falls on us, either. Researchers have found that the more than 9,300 tons (8,440 metric tons) of space objects orbiting Earth including inoperative satellites and chunks of spent rocket stages increase the overall brightness of the night sky by more than 10% over large parts of the planet, creating ambient light pollution that makes distant space phenomena harder to detect. These objects also pose a threat to the International Space Station and other spacecraft carrying humans.

Scientists have proposed multiple ways of tidying Earth's skies, such as gathering junk up in nets; collecting it with clawed robots; or firing a halfmile-long (0.8 km) tether from another spacecraft to grab it. On April 11, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced it will set up a space bureau responsible for managing orbital trash, as well as modernizing regulations on the space industry.

See the article here:
Out-of-control defunct NASA satellite will smash into Earth today - Livescience.com

Officials encourage people to protect themselves from mosquito bites by using bug spray. Harris County Public Health confirmed bug spray is one of the best ways to keep mosquitoes away as warmer weather arrives.

Local health officials say warmer weather means cookouts, swimming, and other outdoor activities, but also means a lot more mosquitoes.

Barbie Robinson is the Harris County Health Executive Director and said the Houston-area has the perfect conditions for a higher risk of mosquito-borne illnesses in humans and animals.

"We're prone to hurricanes, tropical storms, and wet conditions, as well as hot weather," she said. "And these types of conditions lead to an increase in mosquito problems in populations."

Robinson said mosquitos are considered the most dangerous insects in the world because of the way they can spread disease. The West Nile or Zika virus are examples of viruses most prominent in hot and humid areas like Houston.

Other officials warn that this year will likely see more mosquito problems than the last. County Mosquito Control Director Max Vigilant said Houston has seen a fluctuation in mosquito populations for the past few years.

"Usually, when we see this pattern, it's always like a two-year increase," he said. "So I'm looking at 2023, where our numbers may be higher than what 2022 presented to us."

Last year, five cases of mosquito-borne viruses were reported in Harris County. Of the five, one man in his 80s died form the West Nile Virus.

Health officials provided various ways residents can reduce mosquito activity around their homes and avoid mosquito-borne illnesses.

Read more:
Health officials remind Houstonians of ways to reduce mosquito activity around their homes - Houston Public Media

Most of the major U.S. professional sports leagues, plus the media companies Fox and NBCUniversal, are creating an alliance to ensure that sports betting advertising is done responsibly and does not target minors.

The Coalition for Responsible Sports Betting Advertising was created Wednesday, consisting of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the men's and women's leagues of the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, NASCAR, Major League Soccer, Fox and NBCUniversal.

They described the group as a voluntary alliance to control how sports betting advertising, which is ever-present on the airwaves, in print and online, is presented to consumers.

It includes a recommendation that "excessive" advertising be avoided.

Formation of the group follows a move last month by the commercial casino industry through its U.S. national trade association, the American Gaming Association, to adopt a new responsible sports betting marketing code.

Both efforts recognize the proliferation of sports betting advertising in the five years since the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for any state to offer legal sports wagering.

They also have a clear, if unstated, goal: to regulate their own advertising before the government might step in and do it for them.

One New York congressman has introduced legislation that would ban all online and digital sports betting advertising, and others have called for government-imposed regulation of sports betting ads.

"As the legalization of sports betting spreads nationwide, we feel it is critical to establish guardrails around how sports betting should be advertised to consumers across the United States," the group said in a joint statement.

"Each member of the coalition feels a responsibility to ensure sports betting advertising is not only targeted to an appropriate audience, but also that the message is thoughtfully crafted and carefully delivered."

David Schwartz, a gambling historian at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, said the prospects forgovernment control of sports betting ads are uncertain.

"I can see how it would be in the leagues' and operators' best interests to avoid formal federal oversight," he said.

"Advertising is an area that touches not just customers, but the public at large. As such, it may have more visibility than even the actual business of taking bets. It is understandable that those involved want to get out in front of this."

Speaking Wednesday at a gambling industry forum in Atlantic City, West Virginia state Delegate Shawn Fluharty said there is definitely concern among state lawmakers over the frequency of sports betting advertising.

"If you're talking to any people out there, they're probably a little tired of seeing Jamie Foxx on TV," he said, referring to the actor's widely broadcast ads for BetMGM's sportsbook.

He said the coalition is a good idea that also shows that the leagues recognize there is cause for concern about the possibility of government intervention regarding sports betting advertising.

The group has several core principles, including that sports betting should be marketed only to adults of legal betting age; that the ads should not promote irresponsible or excessive gambling; they should be in good taste and not be misleading; and that publishers of sports betting advertising should have strong internal reviews and should take seriously complaints from consumers about such advertising.

Kenny Gersh, executive vice-president of media and business development for the MLB, called the group "another important step for our industry as legal sports betting continues to grow."

Sports betting is currently legal in 33 U.S. states, plus Washington, D.C.

"While providing new fan engagement opportunities to enjoy our sport in more ways, we have to continue to be mindful and deliberate with how these sports betting options are presented and to whom they're directed," Gersh said.

"Layering this coalition's work in the advertising arena on top of our efforts to promote responsible gambling and address problem gambling challenges will lead to more thoughtful planning and implementation across the board."

David Highhill, general manager of sports betting for the NFL, said the leagues recognize advertising as an important component of responsible conduct.

"Legalized sports betting offers fans another way to engage with their favourite sports, but just as we must support problem gambling prevention and resourcing, we must also remain mindful of how sports betting is presented and advertised to consumers, and this coalition should greatly aid in that cause," he said.

Mike Mulvihill, an executive vice-president with Fox Sports, said:"We are committed to providing fans a responsible and ethical engagement with sports betting, keeping the integrity of the games and our broadcasts at the forefront at all times."

Keith Whyte, executive director of the U.S. National Council on Problem Gambling, praised the group for "taking steps to lead the industry in proactive change to protect consumers."

More here:
Big U.S. pro sports leagues join alliance pledging responsible ... - CBC.ca