The US Preventive Services Task Force published final guidelines in the Journal of the American Medical Association calling for health care providers to screen all adults, including pregnant women, for unhealthy alcohol use and offer brief behavioral counseling interventions to patients who screen positive. The task force found insufficient evidence to make a similar recommendation for teens under age 18 and called for additional research.
The UK and EU reached a tentative deal on Britain's withdrawal from the union, but now Prime Minister Theresa May has to sell the agreement to doubters in her own party as well as the opposition in Parliament. May convened her Cabinet today to gather support for the deal.
A lawsuit filed this week against US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos accuses the Education Department of not granting loan relief to students who allege they were defrauded by colleges, even though a judge last month ordered an end to delays. DeVos has delayed so-called borrower defense rules, and the department has said they will now go into effect in July 2020.
The Woolsey Fire in suburban Los Angeles is now 35% contained, despite a flare-up Tuesday caused by strong Santa Ana winds, while the fire in total has scorched 97,000 acres, destroyed 435 buildings and "deep infrastructure," such as power lines, water lines, sewers and roads. The death toll from the Camp Fire has risen to 48 as forensic teams sift through charred homes in search of bodies.
Walmart is working with Ford and Postmates to test an autonomous grocery delivery service in the Miami market. Ford said it will experiment with different vehicle designs and systems to keep groceries fresh for delivery.
The CMS said a HealthCare.gov security breach detected on Oct. 16 may have affected 93,689 individuals, higher than the initial estimate of 75,000 consumers. The agency has already notified affected consumers and offered them free credit protection and other services such as identity theft insurance, identity monitoring and identity restoration, although the agency is not sure whether any personal information was compromised.
Snapchat has created a Bitmoji store where users can buy customized products -- such as comic strips, mugs, notebooks and sweatshirts -- featuring their avatars and those of their friends. The platform has also globally launched friendship profiles, which let users click on their friends' avatars to see their interactions and memories in one place.
Three California wildfires are threatening the region's supply chain as workers, businesses and residents continue to scramble. Amazon shuttered its Sacramento warehouse as smoke conditions for workers were too high, road closures have impacted logistics networks, and the USPS has closed eight post offices in the affected areas.
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Dolby's Dimension over-the-ear headphones, the first consumer product the company built itself, were designed specifically for use by individuals who want to binge watch TV shows or videos. The headphones offer up to 15 hours of battery life and are powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core ARM processor.
A major FDA initiative to fight smoking and vaping among underage youths will be launched this week and include action against flavored products, said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb. Meanwhile, Juul Labs said it will pull e-cigarette products with cucumber, mango and other popular flavors from retail stores until age-verification technology can be installed, and the company said it would also take action to stop promotion of its products on Facebook and Instagram to curb teen e-cigarette use.
The White House has issued a memorandum calling for reports and recommendations related to wireless technology, setting in motion a process intended to produce a national 5G connectivity strategy. At the same time, it made a blog post headlined "America Will Win the Global Race to 5G."
After long speculation, Amazon officially decided to split its $5 billion second headquarters and subsequent 50,000 jobs between Long Island City in the New York City borough of Queens and the newly dubbed "National Landing" in Northern Virginia. It also plans to invest upward of $230 million to build a new business operations unit Nashville, Tenn., that will employ 5,000 people.
Trump administration efforts to roll back regulations related to oil and natural gas drilling likely will face increased scrutiny after Democrats take control of the House. "We don't see them rolling President Trump, but the pace of deregulation at EPA will probably slow down because officials will be much busier dealing with subpoenas," said Robert McNally, president of consulting firm Rapidan Energy Group.
The airline industry is an example of how offering clear pricing tiers, starting with a cheap option that offers little or no perks, sets customer expectations and helps them decide whether to spend more, write Thomas A. Stewart and Patricia O'Connell. "By creating a class of service many passengers shun, basic economy appears to have made ordinary service seem less bad," they write.
David Marriott says his family's hotel company has always placed importance on its people. "My granddad was always late to meetings because he might be talking with a housekeeper about her personal problems. He cared about each person," Marriott said.