Published Monday, May 6, 2024 | 10:58 p.m.
Updated Tuesday, May 7, 2024 | 12:05 a.m.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The go-broke dates for Medicare and Social Security have been pushed back as an improving economy has contributed to changed projected depletion dates. That's according to Monday's annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report. Still, officials warn that policy changes are needed lest the programs become unable to pay full benefits to retiring Americans. Medicare’s go-broke date for its hospital insurance trust fund was pushed back five years to 2036. Meanwhile, Social Security’s trust funds — which cover old age and disability recipients — will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035, instead of last year’s estimate of 2034.
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, researchers have identified a genetic form of late-in-life Alzheimer’s disease. Most cases of the mind-robbing disease occur after age 65. A gene called APOE4 has long been considered a key risk factor. But new research says if people inherit two copies of that gene it’s not just a risk — it appears to be the underlying cause. About 15% of Alzheimer’s patients are thought to carry the gene pair. Scientists say the distinction could have implications for both research and treatment. A study co-author says some doctors won’t offer the only drug that has been shown to modestly slow the disease, Leqembi, to people with the gene pair because they’re especially prone to a dangerous side effect. The findings were published Monday in Nature Medicine.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A Tennessee-based sanitation company has agreed to pay more than half a million dollars after a federal investigation found it illegally hired at least two dozen children to clean dangerous meat processing facilities in Iowa and Virginia. The work included sanitizing dangerous equipment like head splitters, jaw pullers and meat bandsaws in hazardous conditions where animals are killed and rendered. The U.S. Department of Labor announced Monday that Fayette Janitorial Service LLC entered into a consent judgment, in which the company agrees to nearly $650,000 in civil penalties and the court-ordered mandate that it no longer employs minors.
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — Court records say a Kansas City-area man who’s charged with killing his hospitalized wife told police he couldn’t take care of her or afford her medical bills. Ronnie Wiggs made his first appearance Monday on a second-degree murder charge and was referred to the public defender’s office. A hearing was set for Thursday to review his $250,000 bond. His wife was getting a new port for her dialysis when staff at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence called a “code blue” Friday because she was unresponsive. Staff managed to get her pulse back, but they determined she was brain dead. She died Saturday.
