Health, Science & Environment

Updated at 7:45 a.m. ET

The fate of the Biden administration's ambitious climate goals — plans that, if fully implemented, would overhaul the United States' energy economy in the span of just 15 years — will largely rest in the hands of two longtime government officials who have obsessed on the topic for decades.

President-elect Joe Biden will name Michael Regan, North Carolina's environment secretary and a former EPA official, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a source familiar with the decision who spoke about private conversations on the basis of anonymity.

Drug manufacturers have released promising early results for their COVID-19 vaccines, but skepticism among Americans remains high -- especially for African Americans, who the virus has hit harder than other groups.

Updated at 9:30 p.m. ET

The Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general across the nation filed much-anticipated lawsuits against Facebook on Wednesday, accusing the social media giant of gobbling up competitive threats in a way that has entrenched its popular apps so deeply into the lives of billions of people that rivals can no longer put up a fight.

The Trump administration wants to require the incoming Department of Health and Human Services team to review most HHS regulations by 2023 — and automatically void those that haven't been assessed by then.

The recently proposed rule would require HHS to analyze within 24 months about 2,400 regulations — rules that affect tens of millions of Americans on everything from Medicare benefits to prescription drug approvals.

Note: This story was updated at 12:00 p.m. ET Tuesday, Jan. 19, and will be updated periodically, as new data are released.

The federal government on Monday released an updated set of detailed hospital-level data showing the toll COVID-19 is taking on health care facilities, including how many inpatient and ICU beds are available on a weekly basis.

As the cooler weather takes hold, a viral pandemic is blanketing the U.S. with infection rates like we've never seen.

As of early December, there are more than 200,000 new U.S. cases reported every day. More than 100,000 people are currently hospitalized with severe cases. But far more people are having to manage less severe cases at home.

Climate change is making people sick and leading to premature death, according to a pair of influential reports on the connections between global warming and health.

Scientists from the World Meteorological Organization released a preliminary report on the global climate which shows that the last decade was the warmest on record and that millions of people were affected by wildfires, floods and extreme heat this year on top of the global pandemic.