Hospitals encourage breastfeeding
ELKGROVE VILLAGE, Ill. — Fewer U.S. hospitals are giving away free infant formula, a study published Monday finds, a shift that may help encourage more new mothers to breastfeed.
Pediatricians recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed infants until at least 6 months of age because it can reduce babies’ risk of ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome, allergies, childhood obesity and diabetes. Formula provides nutrients needed for growth and development but doesn’t offer added protection against illness or infection.
Only about a third of hospitals distributed free formula in 2013, down from 73 percent six years earlier, according to the study in the journal Pediatrics.
2 more planes threatened
NEW YORK — Delta says two of its international planes have been threatened Monday, bringing to at least six the number of planes to receive such threats. The threats have been deemed not credible. Planes have been searched and cleared.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc. says threats were to a Paris-to-Boston flight and a London-to-Newark, N.J., flight.
Anonymous telephone threats against commercial airliners caused a scare on Monday involving other international flights to New York. The FBI says in one instance U.S. military jets escorted an Air France flight into New York City after someone claimed a chemical weapon was aboard.
B.B. King poisoned?
LOS ANGELES — Two of B.B. King’s daughters, Karen Williams and Patty King, are alleging that two of the late musician’s closest aides sped up his death by poisoning him, according to a report from the Associated Press on Monday.
The heirs reportedly say that family was kept away from Mr. King in his final days while personal assistant Myron Johnson and business manager LaVerne Toney administered poison to him. Mr. King died May 14 in hospice care. Mr. Johnson was present, though no family members were.
Illinois Dems’ budget
CHICAGO — Democrats in the Illinois state legislature will move ahead with their own fiscal 2016 budget that includes spending cuts as well as new revenue that will be “responsive to the needs of the people in the state,” House Speaker Michael Madigan said on Monday.
He added that Democrats, who control both the House and the Senate, do not have the approximately $3 billion in revenue needed to balance their $36.3 billion general funds budget.
Republican Governor Bruce Rauner proposed a $32 billion budget in February that included no new revenue, relying instead on $6.6 billion in spending cuts with a third coming from his plan to freeze worker pensions and move retirement benefits earned in the future into a less-generous program.
Protester leaves Shell ship
BELLINGHAM, Wash. — The woman who had been hanging off the anchor chain of a support ship that is part of Royal Dutch Shell’s plans to explore for oil in the Arctic Ocean ended her dayslong protest north of Seattle on Monday morning.
Student activist Chiara D’Angelo requested assistance getting down from her perch on the Arctic Challenger in the Bellingham harbor around 9:30 a.m. Monday. She spent the weekend attached to the ship in an environmental protest against Shell’s plans to drill for oil.
Shell said Sunday that the illegal stunt would not delay its plans.