That Hollywood thing has been Smith’s successful run in TV and movies (“Any Given Sunday,” “Deep Blue Sea”), the area where he’s put most of his focus of late. But acting was never supposed to eclipse what made Smith a household name in the first place. “Music keeps me honest and connected to the streets. Hollywood can make you forget that it’s not about a fantasy world.'' Apparently not. On his new CD Smith brings the realities of the street front and center with powerful songs like “Homicide”: “I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way/But Columbine happens in the ghetto every day/When the s–t goes down, y’all ain’t got nothing to say....

Dry skin, also known as xerosis, can be simply a cosmetic problem. Or, it may lead to symptoms such as itchiness, rash, or even pain and infection. Sometimes dry skin occurs on multiple areas of the body as part of an underlying health issue. But other times, only the feet are affected, resulting in cracked skin or calluses on the heels or soles of the feet. Ultimately, dryness and cracking occurs when there is a lack of moisture in the skin....

Religion and spirituality are central to many people’s lives and, when faced with an HIV infection, can provide a newly infected person a means to cope or come to terms with his or her disease. Religion vs. Spirituality Religion and spirituality are sometimes used interchangeably but, in many cases, people will separate a spiritual belief from a belief that is prescribed by “organized religion.” Some people like to define “spirituality” as a means to connect the past to the present, using the beliefs and moral ideals of their ancestors to guide one’s own personal beliefs....

A diagnosis of thyroid disease introduces you to a lifelong need for its management. And given the relentlessness of some of its symptoms, it can be easy to accept what you’re experiencing as being “just the way it is.” But there are strategies you can employ to feel better than OK. And knowing that symptoms associated with a thyroid condition are often confused with those related to another health concern can help you pursue other possible solutions to help you live your best life....

The huge operation pulled over two trailer trucks and a car escorting them along a highway leading away from the Mexican capital on Tuesday. The drugs were apparently set to be smuggled across the Mexican border into the United States before being taken to Los Angeles. A spokesperson for the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security, named as Omar Garcia Harfuch, said: “We are talking about the largest seizure of cocaine in Mexico City by far....

According to a report from WOOD-TV, Michigan attorney Tyrone Bynum is taking legal action against Grand Rapids police for “racially profiling” two Black men and one Latino man during a traffic stop in late March. “You don’t have to listen to me, look at the video,” Bynum told Michigan Live. Bodycam footage posted on social media shows multiple officers approach a Chevrolet sedan. Cops initially ask one of the passengers to step out of the car after he allegedly tossed trash out of the window....

Like influenza and other viruses, the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 can damage the respiratory system and force the heart to work faster and harder to supply oxygen-rich blood to major organs. If you have CAD (the narrowing or blockage of the major blood vessels supplying the heart), your heart muscle may be at higher risk of becoming inflamed and weakened, decreasing its ability to meet increased energy demands....

After the NBA suspended its season on March 11, the NHL was one of many leagues to follow suit the following day and announced it would be pausing the 2019-20 season. Since then, players were allowed to return home and, unless a rehabbing player, have not been allowed to skate. Rumors have swirled that the league may return over the summer to finish out the season and compete for the Stanley Cup; however, a definitive timeline or potentially an isolated location is still to be determined....

Professor Du Bin, who was sent to the city of Wuhan where the outbreak started in December last year, told Bloombergthat of a group of 170 patients who died in the city, almost half had the condition also known as hypertension. High blood pressure, which affects tens of millions of U.S. adults, means the heart must work harder to pump blood around the body. This is a risk factor for heart disease, heart attacks and strokes....

As the country’s first wave of its COVID-19 outbreak continues, cases have been increasing in 27 states over the past 14 days. This has been largely in the south and west, according to CovidExitStrategy.org, a tracking website run by public health and crisis experts. For instance, Hawaii, Arizona, and Florida, have seen their 14-day trend of COVID-19 cases rise by 456, 147 and 129 percent, respectively. On Sunday, the Washington Post reported the average daily number of new known coronavirus infections had climbed in 21 states compared with the previous week....

Heidi Hussli, 47, a Wisconsin native from Beaver Dam who taught German at Bay Port High School in Suamico of eastern Wisconsin, died Thursday following “a brief hospitalization related to COVID-19,” Howard-Suamico School District Superintendent Damian LaCroix confirmed in a statement. Hussli was reported to have been in classes the week of September 8 before falling ill over the weekend and being unable to return to school. She was reported to have been hospitalized at St....

All but one of 20 guests who attended the gathering—described to be a bachelorette party by the Rhode Island Department of Health—tested positive for COVID-19 following the event. Seventeen of those infected are from Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said. At a press briefing this week, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker confirmed: “There was a wedding that we figured out through our contact tracing program that took place in Rhode Island where a number of people from Massachusetts went to it....

The survey was conducted by The Marist Poll in conjunction with NPR and PBS News Hour and asked 835 American adults if they or someone in their household had been let go or had their work hours reduced during the coronavirus pandemic. The poll was conducted via telephone from March 13 to March 14 and has a margin of error of 5.7 percentage points. According to the poll, 18 percent of adults stated they or someone in their household has experienced a reduction in work hours or have been let go by their job....

The FTC’s data details consumer-reported fraud losses related to the coronavirus pandemic from the start of the year through Sunday. Nearly 35,000 fraud complaints related to COVID-19 have been filed so far, with 42.9 percent of those resulting in a monetary loss, the FTC’s report said. Those losses accounted for at least $23.3 million by Sunday, the agency said. Despite the monetary loss reflected in the data, Associate Director of the FTC’s Division of Consumer Response and Operations Monica Vaca told Newsweek the amount of fraud complaints the FTC has received this year is not unusually high....

The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics, involved five children aged between two and five from Wuhan, the Chinese city that was the original epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. In four of these patients, the disease first manifested with digestive tract symptoms. The children visited the emergency department of Wuhan Children’s Hospital between January 23 and February 20, 2020, for problems unrelated to COVID-19, but later tested positive for the coronavirus at the facility....

The latest cases have raised the total number of cases in the country to around 89, a jump from around 60 cases last Friday. Both Washington and Florida have declared a state of emergency since the latest cases. The two male patients who died in Washington were treated at a hospital in Kirkland and were reported to have had underlying health conditions. One of them was in his 50s, while the other was in his 70s....

China, where the virus was first detected in the city of Wuhan, has seen nearly 90 percent of its nearly 83,000 infected population recover, while over 3,200 have died. More cases are reported outside China than within but the country has seen an increase in imported cases. UK, France, Spain record highest daily death tolls A record number of new deaths in a day were reported in the U.K., Spain and France....

Even so, despite a reputation for being a dirty player, Finnegan said Odell Beckham Jr.’s antics Sunday crossed a line. MORE: The images that defined Week 15 | NFL stars in a different sort of Star Wars “Some things are uncalled for. Some things are out of the context of football,” Finnegan told reporters (via the New York Daily News) after Carolina’s 38-35 victory against the Giants. “Once those things start to happen, you kind of ask, ‘What’s really going on?...

Comer and Poussaint’s manual answers nearly 1,000 child-rearing questions they’ve heard repeatedly from black parents across the social-economic spectrum. Comer teaches psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. He’s spent more than two decades working with inner-city public schools. Poussaint teaches at Harvard Medical School and was a consultant to “The Cosby Show.” Their guidelines for how black families might deal with some common-and perplexing-issues: When a black child comes home from an integrated setting and says, “I’m white,” his parents may be surprised....