Health - AP

CHICAGO - As New Orleans residents warily track another threatening storm, a new report presents the clearest picture yet of deaths from Katrina in Louisiana. Of the nearly 1,000 who died, almost half were 75 or older, according to researchers.

WASHINGTON - Scientists for the first time have peered into people's brains to directly measure the ebb and flow of a substance notorious for its role in Alzheimer's disease.

WASHINGTON - Almost 12 percent of the deaths among American Indians and Alaska Natives are alcohol-related — more than three times the percentage in the general population, a new federal report says.

NEW YORK - Talk about an extreme makeover: Scientists have transformed one type of cell into another in living mice, a big step toward the goal of growing replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases.

NEW YORK - New data show New York City residents are contracting the virus that causes AIDS at three times the national rate.

BEIT AWWA, West Bank - A Palestinian couple locked their disabled son and daughter away for decades out of fear they would ruin the marriage prospects of a healthy child if discovered, police said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Government regulators on Wednesday cleared the way for broader use of a blood test that can spare heart transplant patients the ordeal of repeated biopsies to check if their bodies are rejecting the new organ.

WASHINGTON - What does a company do when there's anecdotal evidence that two of its drugs are equally effective in treating a leading cause of blindness in the elderly, one costing patients $60 per treatment and the other $2,000?

WASHINGTON - The number of people without health insurance fell by more than 1 million in 2007, the first annual decline since the Bush administration took office, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Incomes edged up for the middle class while poverty held steady.

WASHINGTON - Infections may play a bigger role in premature birth than doctors have thought, says a new study that found almost one in seven women in preterm labor harbored bacteria or fungi in their amniotic fluid.

WASHINGTON - It's one of the biggest frustrations of life with food allergies: That hodgepodge of warnings that a food might accidentally contain the wrong ingredient.

CHICAGO - A new TV commercial shows kids eating hot dogs in a school cafeteria and one little boy's haunting lament: "I was dumbfounded when the doctor told me I have late-stage colon cancer."

WASHINGTON - Nearly three years into the Medicare drug benefit, federal officials have yet to ensure that private drug plans enacted programs to deter fraud and abuse, government investigators say.

PEEBLES, Scotland - Robert Mackie trembles with rage when he describes how he and his wife were kept in the dark about his HIV infection — and how doctors published his medical data in journals years before they gave him the devastating news.

NEW YORK - ConocoPhillips will sell the remainder of its gas stations in the United States, the company said Wednesday, though Conoco, Phillips 66, and 76 will continue to operate under those familiar signs.

SCRANTON, Pa. - Joe Biden left blue-collar, bare-knuckles Scranton for the greener pastures of Delaware when he was only 10 years old. But Scranton, it turns out, left an indelible impression on him.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Alabama, pushed to second in national obesity rankings by deep-fried Southern favorites, is cracking down on state workers who are too fat.

ATLANTA - Measles cases in the U.S. are at the highest level in more than a decade, with nearly half of those involving children whose parents rejected vaccination, health officials reported Thursday.

WASHINGTON - Consumers worried about salad safety may soon be able to buy fresh spinach and iceberg lettuce zapped with just enough radiation to kill E. coli and a few other germs.