A decade after the government began trying to ensure that prescription drugs used to treat children work and are safe, doctors still have scant information to guide them when they administer many medications to kids.

  The bill that Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) signed into law this week to extend health coverage to an estimated 140,000 people puts Maryland among a growing group of states attempting to chip away at their soaring numbers of uninsured.

  Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) signed off yesterday on legislation to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, over the objections of religious and community groups that say the measure would give male cross-dressers access to women's restrooms and locker rooms.

  Tuesday's announcement that scientists had found a noncontroversial way to make cells equivalent to human embryonic stem cells did not just change the scientific and ethical landscape. It generated economic and geopolitical tremors through California, New York and about half a dozen other states...

  

  ST. LOUIS -- This shouldn't come as a surprise: Thanksgiving is not the green light to a six-week indulgence that precedes the waddle back to the gym Jan. 2.

  CONCORD, N.H. -- Democrat Barack Obama complained on Wednesday that rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards have promised to mandate health care coverage without providing specifics on enforcement or affordability.

  The discovery that it is possible to create equivalents to embryonic stem cells without destroying embryos has the potential to reshape -- and perhaps defuse -- the acrimonious political debate that has raged ever since human embryonic stem cells were discovered in 1998.

  Despite a record number of toy recalls and promises of more-aggressive testing by toymakers and retailers, toys with high levels of lead and dangerous small magnets are still for sale in stores, two public interest groups said yesterday.

  

  Even if you happen to really enjoy the folks you're spending Thanksgiving with (and we know that's a big if), Thursday's food frenzy can be a big stress-fest.

  The feelings of stress that Thanksgiving evokes sometimes overwhelm the seasonal beneficence. But research suggests that the actual process of giving thanks (whether it's for getting to the meal on time, for getting along with Aunt Jane or for getting by without salmonella) may hold benefits for the...

  With a comprehensive immigration overhaul now perhaps years away, Latin American governments concerned with the well-being of their nationals living in this country are taking on an equally thorny issue: the U.S. health-care system.

  Researchers in Wisconsin and Japan said yesterday that they have turned ordinary human skin cells into what are effectively embryonic stem cells without using embryos or women's eggs -- the previously essential ingredients that have embroiled the medically promising field in a nearly decade-long ...