Vehicle emission controls and cleaner-burning fuels have improved air quality in urban environments but children can still be exposed to particularly dangerous levels of air contamination in schools built near busy roadways or other sources of pollution. New research reported in the July 6, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine finds that the level of carbon particles in the air is correlated with reduced function in children's developing lungs.

Are you going to the Fourth of July parade? Well, Congress has already rained on it. Here's how:

As of July 1 students starting out for college, and many of those still paying off those college loans, will have to pay much higher interest rates, thanks to the budget deal Congress made to cut spending for student aid while expanding tax cuts for investments.

I remember my first Fluffernutter. Jiff Creamy Style peanut butter, carefully spread on Wonder Bread (because Wonder Bread just can't stand up to crunchy) topped with a layer of Marshmallow Fluff and another slice of squishy bread. This sweet nutritional black hole, a symphonic conglomeration of the emptiest calories in the universe, was packed into my lunchbox -- the one shaped like a barn with space for a thermos under the roof. And I knew it was going to be a good day.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that since January, when Georgia began requiring families to produce documents of their income (pay stub, W-2 form, income tax return), many Hispanic children in Georgia have been denied Medicaid coverage because their parents cannot provide the required documentation.

I'd like someone to launch a well-funded public service campaign to take on one of the less-recognized threats to a healthy pregnancy and healthy infancy. "Pregnancy: More Joy, Less Guilt." "Guilt: Bad for Moms, Bad for Babies." Any deep-pocket volunteers?

More than $22 billion -- that's how much researchers estimate underage drinkers spent on alcohol products in 2001. That's almost as much as was spent by alcohol-dependent adults -- $26 billion. And together, these two groups of people (who according to law and convention shouldn't be drinking at all) account for more than a third of the alcohol industry's sales.

Massachusetts' Republican Governor Mitt Romney is making a name for himself nationwide by championing a solution to the health care crisis in his state--a sweeping healthcare reform bill that aims to insure almost every citizen by requiring individuals to buy health insurance if their employers do not.

There's nothing quite like the first days of daylight savings time to remind us that no matter how plugged in we get, how wired our homes and our lives, we've evolved in tune with the sun, moon and stars. It's hard to get up in the dark; hard to sit down to dinner while the sun is shining brightly. Near impossible, as a young child, to go to bed on a midsummer night before the sun has truly set.

Right after World War II Congress created the National School Lunch Program as a “measure of national security.” It was a direct response to the fact that many of the young men responding to the World War II draft were rejected due to conditions arising from serious nutritional deficiencies.

Facing politically painful budget choices, House conservatives and Senate moderates are heading in different directions.

Determined to cut spending at all costs, House conservatives are demanding offsets for new hurricane recovery spending for the Gulf that is included in a $91.1 billion supplemental spending bill headed for the House floor Wednesday. They'll put Gulf recovery funds on the table for offsets but refuse to require tax expenditures to meet the same offset requirements.