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A decade after a landmark study proved that feeding peanut products to young babies could prevent the development of life-threatening allergies, new research finds the change has made a big difference in the real world.

About 60,000 children have avoided developing peanut allergies after guidance first issued in 2015 upended medical practice by recommending introducing the allergen to infants starting as early as 4 months.

“That’s a remarkable thing, right?” said Dr. David Hill, an allergist and researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and author of a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics. Hill and colleagues analyzed electronic health records from dozens of pediatric practices to track diagnoses of food allergies in young children before, during, and after the guidelines were issued.

The researchers found that peanut allergies in children ages 0 to 3 declined by more than 27% after guidance for high-risk kids was first issued in 2015 and by more than 40% after the recommendations were expanded in 2017.

The effort hasn't yet reduced the overall increase in food allergies in the U.S. in recent years. About 8% of children are affected, including more than 2% with a peanut allergy.

Peanut allergy is caused when the body’s immune system mistakenly identifies proteins in peanuts as harmful and releases chemicals that trigger allergic symptoms, including hives, respiratory symptoms, and, sometimes, life-threatening anaphylaxis.

For decades, doctors had recommended delaying feeding children peanuts and other foods likely to trigger allergies until age 3. But in 2015, Gideon Lack at King’s College London published the groundbreaking Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) trial.

Lack and colleagues showed that introducing peanut products in infancy reduced the future risk of developing food allergies by more than 80%. Later analysis showed that the protection persisted in about 70% of kids into adolescence.

Advocates for the 33 million people in the U.S. with food allergies welcomed signs that early introduction of peanut products is catching on.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Trump administration has agreed to resume student loan forgiveness for an estimated 2.5 million borrowers who are enrolled in certain federal repayment plans following a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

Under the agreement reached on October 17 between the teachers' union and the administration, the Education Department will process loan forgiveness for those eligible in certain repayment plans that offer lower monthly payments based on a borrower's earnings. The government had stopped providing forgiveness under those plans based on its interpretation of a different court decision.

The agreement will also protect borrowers from being hit with high tax bills on debt due to be forgiven this year.

“We took on the Trump administration when it refused to follow the law and denied borrowers the relief they were owed,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement. “Our agreement means that those borrowers stuck in limbo can either get immediate relief or finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

The Education Department said the Trump administration is reviewing forgiveness programs to identify ones that were not affected by court rulings that blocked much of the Biden administration's efforts to cancel student debt.

“The Administration looks forward to continuing its work to simplify the student loan repayment process through implementation of the President’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the department said in a statement.

According to the deal, the Trump administration must cancel student debt for eligible borrowers enrolled in the following plans: income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, income-contingent repayment plans, Pay As You Earn (PAYE), and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) plans.

If borrowers have made payments beyond what was needed for forgiveness, those payments will be reimbursed. The Education Department must also continue to process IDR and PSLF “buyback” applications. Balances forgiven before December 31 will not be treated as taxable income, as they will be in 2026 due to a recent change in tax law.

The administration must also file progress reports every six months with the court to show the pace of application processing and loan forgiveness, according to the AFT.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Millions of Indians celebrated Diwali in October as lamps illuminated homes and streets across the country to mark the Hindu festival symbolizing the victory of light over darkness.

Diwali, derived from the word “Deepavali,” meaning “a row of lights,” is typically celebrated by socializing and exchanging gifts. The dates of the festival are based on the Hindu lunar calendar, typically falling in late October or early November.

Shoppers crowded markets to buy flowers, lanterns, and candles.

The celebrations were most visible in Ayodhya city in Uttar Pradesh state. Hindus believe the deity Lord Rama was born there and returned after 14 years in exile. People light earthen lamps to mark his homecoming.

As dusk fell, more than 2.6 million lamps were lit on the banks of the Saryu River in Ayodhya, retaining the Guinness World Record set last year. At least 2,100 Hindu priests performed prayers in unison, their chants echoing across the shimmering riverfront.

The holy city was also decked with fairy lights, and a laser and fireworks show illuminated its lanes and riverbanks. Thousands of residents lit lamps at houses and temples.

Officials said more than 33,000 volunteers helped light the lamps. Nearly 40 families from nearby villages produced 1.6 million lamps. At least 73,000 liters of oil and 5.5 million cotton wicks were used to light the city.

“It is hard work lighting diyas (oil lamps) one by one,” said 19-year-old volunteer Rachit Singh, his face glowing in the firelight. “But when you see the whole ghat (stairs to the river) light up, every bit of effort feels worth it.”

In recent years, Diwali celebrations in New Delhi have been clouded by concerns over air pollution, as smoke-emitting firecrackers cause toxic smog that can take days to clear.

On the day of the event, the level of the tiniest particulates surged to 347 on the air quality index in parts of the city—about 14 times the World Health Organization’s daily recommended maximum exposure—according to SAFAR, the federal government’s air quality monitoring agency.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A large mushroom farm near the Kenyan capital of Nairobi is one of a kind. It grows fungi on an industrial scale—not as food for restaurants but as a building material that some Kenyans say could make more people homeowners.

The farm produces mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms that a local company then uses to make building materials, which it says are more sustainable than regular brick and mortar.

The company, MycoTile, combines the roots with natural fibers and agents to make panels that can be used for everything from roof and wall insulation to interior decor, at a fraction of the cost of building with standard clay bricks. It currently produces about 3,000 square meters of such materials every month.

Street vendor Jedidah Murugi, whose house was made with fungi-based construction materials, said she believes there is no huge difference in the quality of the houses made from brick and these boards.

MycoTile's work could be a boon for Nairobi, where local leaders cite a housing crisis that has left many homeless or living in informal settlements and dwelling enclaves, prone to fires and sanitary issues. Official figures say there is a housing deficit of at least two million units in this metropolis of over five million people.

Most Kenyans are renters, and those who are homeowners build from the ground up over many years instead of hiring contractors. It is common to find people living in badly finished or incomplete homes to avoid paying rent elsewhere.

Introducing affordable materials like ours taps into an existing huge market and contributes to providing affordable housing solutions, said Mtamu Kililo, MycoTile's founder. Kililo said his company's insulation products cost roughly two-thirds of the price of standard materials.

Building a one-bedroom unit in Nairobi using materials such as brick, timber, and tin sheets typically costs up to 150,000 Kenyan shillings (about $1,000) for a simple structure, and the figure can double depending on the quality of finishes, according to estimates from builders.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Robotaxi pioneer Waymo plans to expand to London next year, marking the company’s latest step in rolling out its driverless ride service internationally.

Waymo said that it will start testing its self-driving cars on London streets—with a human “safety driver” behind the wheel—as it seeks to win government approval for its services.

In a blog post, Waymo said it will lay the groundwork for its London service in the coming months. The company said it will “continue to engage with local and national leaders to secure the necessary permissions for our commercial ride-hailing service.”

Waymo’s self-driving taxis have been operating in the United States for years, and currently serve the cities of Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Austin. This year, the company made its first move to expand internationally by teaming up with local partners in Japan for testing, though no launch date has been set for commercial service there.

The company began as a secret project within Google and was then spun out from the tech giant.

Waymo will have to follow new U.K. regulations on self-driving cars that pave the way for autonomous vehicles to take to the country's roads. They require self-driving cars to have a safety level “at least as high as careful and competent human drivers” and meet rigorous safety checks.

The company will be able to take part in a pilot program for “small-scale” self-driving taxi and bus services that the government plans for spring 2026.

Waymo will also have to stick to rules from Transport for London, the city's transport authority, which oversees licensing for its famous traditional black cabs as well as other taxi operators like Uber.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

OpenAI introduced its own web browser, Atlas, on October 21, putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions.

Making its popular AI chatbot a gateway to online searches could allow OpenAI, the world's most valuable startup, to pull in more internet traffic and the revenue made from digital advertising. It could also further cut off the lifeblood of online publishers if ChatGPT so effectively feeds people summarized information that they stop exploring the internet and clicking on traditional web links.

OpenAI has said ChatGPT already has more than 800 million users, but many of them get it for free. The San Francisco-based company also sells paid subscriptions but is losing more money than it makes and has been looking for ways to turn a profit.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it a rare, once-a-decade opportunity to rethink what a browser can be about and how to use one. But analyst Paddy Harrington of market research group Forrester said it will be a big challenge competing with a giant who has ridiculous market share.

OpenAI's browser is coming out just a few months after one of its executives testified that the company would be interested in buying Google's industry-leading Chrome browser if a federal judge had required it to be sold to prevent the abuses that resulted in Google's ubiquitous search engine being declared an illegal monopoly.

But U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta last September issued a decision that rejected the Chrome sale sought by the U.S. Justice Department in the monopoly case, partly because he believed advances in the AI industry already are reshaping the competitive landscape.

OpenAI's browser will face a daunting challenge against Chrome, which has amassed about three billion worldwide users and has been adding some AI features from Google's Gemini technology.

Chrome's immense success could provide a blueprint for OpenAI as it enters the browser market. When Google released Chrome in 2008, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was so dominant that few observers believed a new browser could mount a formidable threat.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Hospitals and doctors' offices in the U.S. are inviting singers and musicians to help patients manage their pain.

No one is suggesting that a catchy song can completely eliminate serious pain. But several recent studies, including those in the journals PAIN and Scientific Reports, have suggested that listening to music can either reduce the perception of pain or enhance a person’s ability to tolerate it.

Nurse Rod Salaysay works with all kinds of instruments in the hospital: a thermometer, a stethoscope, and sometimes his guitar and ukulele. In the recovery unit of UC San Diego Health, Salaysay helps patients manage pain after surgery. Along with medications, he offers tunes on request and sometimes sings.

His repertoire ranges from folk songs in English and Spanish to Minuet in G Major and movie favorites like “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Patients often smile or nod along. Salaysay even sees changes in their vital signs: lower heart rate and blood pressure, and sometimes reduced requests for fewer painkillers. He is passionate about using music “as a holistic tool to help them get better because we just don't heal their physical and medical needs, but also the emotional and the spiritual needs of patients.”

Salaysay is a one-man band, but he’s not alone. Over the past two decades, live performances and recorded music have flowed into hospitals and doctors’ offices as research grows on how songs can help ease pain.

The healing power of song may sound intuitive, given music’s deep roots in human culture. But the science of whether and how music dulls acute and chronic pain—technically called music-induced analgesia—is just catching up.

Researchers at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands conducted a study on 548 participants to see how listening to five genres of music—classical, rock, pop, urban, and electronic—extended their ability to withstand acute pain, as measured by exposure to very cold temperatures. They found that all music helped, but there was no single winning genre; what's important is that you enjoy it.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Australian government has begun a public education campaign with tips on how to wean children off social media ahead of a world-first national 16-year age limit taking effect in December.

Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said that information on her agency's website, esafety.gov.au, explained the new laws and how to navigate them.

Starting December 10, platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube could be fined up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) if they don’t take reasonable steps to prevent Australians younger than 16 from holding accounts.

Messages raising awareness will also be shared across digital channels, television, radio, and billboards.

“We want children to have childhoods. We want parents to have peace of mind, and we want young people—young Australians—to have three more years to learn who they are before platforms assume who they are,” Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters, referring to the current de facto 13-year age limit for social media accounts based on U.S. privacy legislation.

The Australian age restrictions have already proved polarizing, with some experts warning the changes will harm as well as protect children. More than 140 Australian and international academics signed an open letter to the government last year opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”

Despite that warning, the laws passed with resounding support last year. The platforms had a year to figure out how to comply without foolproof technology available to verify ages. Inman Grant said the social media age restriction would be a “very monumental event for a lot of young people.”

Her agency offered checklists and conversation starters about ways to make the transition, such as following an online influencer through a website rather than a social media account, she said.

Australia’s move is being watched closely by countries that share concerns about social media's impacts on young children.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The J.M. Smucker Co. is suing Trader Joe's, alleging the grocery chain's new frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are too similar to Smucker's Uncrustables in their design and packaging.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Ohio, Smucker’s said the round, crustless sandwiches Trader Joe's sells have the same pie-like crimp markings on their edges that Uncrustables do. Smucker’s said the design violates its trademarks.

Smucker’s also asserted that the boxes Trader Joe's PBJ sandwiches come in violate the Orrville, Ohio-based company's trademarks because they are the same blue color it uses for the lettering on Uncrustables packages. Trader Joe's boxes also show a sandwich with a bite mark taken out of it, which is similar to the Uncrustables design, Smucker’s said.

Smucker’s does not take issue with others in the marketplace selling prepackaged, frozen, thaw-and-eat crustless sandwiches. But it cannot allow others to use Smucker's valuable intellectual property to make such sales, the company said in its lawsuit.

Smucker’s is seeking restitution from Trader Joe's. It also wants a judge to require Trader Joe's to deliver all products and packaging to Smucker’s to be destroyed.

Michael Kelber, chair of the intellectual property group at Neal Gerber Eisenberg, a Chicago law firm, said Smucker's registered trademarks will help bolster its argument. But Trader Joe's might argue that the crimping on its sandwiches is simply functional and not something that can be trademarked, Kelber said.

Trader Joe's sandwiches also appear to be slightly more square than Uncrustables, so the company could argue that the shape isn't the same, Kelber said.

Uncrustables were invented by two friends who began producing them in 1996 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Smucker’s bought their company in 1998 and secured patents for a sealed, crustless sandwich in 1999.

But it wasn't easy to mass-produce them. In the lawsuit, Smucker’s said it has spent more than $1 billion developing the Uncrustables brand over the last 20 years. Smucker’s spent years trying to perfect Uncrustables' stretchy bread and developing new filling flavors like chocolate and hazelnut.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Conditions aren’t friendly in the Faroe Islands for growing food. Raked by North Atlantic winds and nibbled by thousands of sheep, the nearly treeless islands have poor soil and little room for planting. Potatoes and rhubarb are local staples.

But some residents have had enough of importing almost all their food from the rest of Europe and beyond. Many products are stamped with the flag of Denmark, under which the islands are self-governing.

There are efforts to grow more adventurous crops like kale, seen as hardy elsewhere in the world, and to promote local products—from seaweed to meat and fish “fermented” by the salty air.

That work can be seen in the Faroese capital of Torshavn, where the tiny farmers’ market is held one Sunday a month for much of the year. In September, a few stalls offered meats, bags of kale and cabbage, and seasoned salt next to the overcast harbor.

The vegetables were priced at around 40 Faroese krona (over $6) per bag, a reminder of the high prices for food in the remote islands whose closest neighbors are Iceland, Scotland, and Norway.

Cups of soup made from fermented local radishes—and imported beans—sold for 75 krona (over $11), with a piece of bread.

The farmers’ market is part of Matkovin, a project set up by a local couple to promote food producers. It notes the growing international interest in Faroese food, including a Michelin-starred restaurant and a network of home-cooked meals for tourists called “heimablidni.”

“There is a divide, though, between this romantic vision of the Faroese food culture and the everyday state of things, where the majority of our food is imported from faraway countries,” the project says. It adds, “Few Faroese foods are available in the shops, and we are never told where the producer of these foods is located. The Faroese food producer is invisible.”

Some Faroese said the COVID-19 pandemic and its shocks to the supply chain raised serious questions about food security, along with a large labor strike in May 2024 in the islands that led to rationing.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.