Maryland lawmakers contemplated yesterday making deeper spending cuts and applying the state sales tax to different services from those Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has proposed in a special session to close a shortfall next year of at least $1.5 billion.

  Cargill said yesterday that it is recalling more than 1 million pounds of ground beef that may be contaminated with E. coli bacteria, the second time in less than a month it has recalled beef.

  KB Toys has targeted 156 stores across the country for closure -- six of them in the Washington area -- according to internal company documents, underscoring the cutthroat competition facing toy retailers this holiday season.

  Consumer Product Safety Commission chief Nancy Nord yesterday requested an outside review of her agency's travel policies after a report detailing dozens of trips paid by manufacturers' groups for her and her predecessor stoked outrage in Congress.

  Some members of the Prince George's legislative delegation are trying to organize an effort to use their votes on Gov. Martin O'Malley's tax package as leverage to get a funding plan for the financially troubled Prince George's Hospital Center passed during the current special session.

  The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by ...

  WASHINGTON -- Doctors who treat the elderly and disabled will face a 10 percent cut in their reimbursement rates from Medicare next year under a federal rule issued Thursday.

  BERKELEY, Calif. -- The effects are all too familiar: a fancy dinner, some fine wine and then, a few hours later, a racing heart and a pounding headache. But a device developed by University of California, Berkeley, researchers could help avoid the dreaded "red wine headache."

  MINNEAPOLIS -- The hips and knees are synthetic, but it's real money changing hands. Five makers of artificial joints have paid more than $200 million this year to doctors and hospitals, often the same ones who are deciding which company's joints to buy, according to an Associated Press calculation...

  In the days after the D.C. Council voted to use $79 million in public funds to bail out Greater Southeast Community Hospital, council members began having second thoughts about the deal and about the city leaders they trusted to negotiate the details.

  WASHINGTON -- Two-thirds of the foreign drug manufacturers subject to inspection by the Food and Drug Administration may never have been visited by agency inspectors, a government watchdog reported to Congress Thursday.

  Although the volume of prescription drugs and drug ingredients coming into the country from foreign manufacturers in developing nations such as India and China has exploded in recent years, the Food and Drug Administration's budget for foreign inspections has not kept pace and will be lower in 20...

  DURBAN, South Africa -- Few cases of AIDS have been as closely scrutinized as that of a former South African prostitute named Beauty. Scientists know when this 40-year-old woman became infected, how her body responded and what happened as her immune system collapsed.

  Sometime late last night, the after-hours calls began. Metal brackets glued to tooth enamel began to pop. Wires were twisted out of place, poking cheeks and irritating gums.