NEW ORLEANS – They died on flooded city streets in the Big Easy and in country homes in Mississippi. One survived seven months of combat in Iraq only to die near his boyhood home. An 80-year-old woman died sitting in a bedroom chair when a tree crashed through the roof. …

The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first drug to treat children who suffer from a condition that prevents them from growing, the drug’s manufacturer says. Until now, growth hormones have been the only treatment option for children short in stature because of hormone deficiencies, said Dr. Philippe Backeljauw …

More people are hiring a professional to file their taxes. Here’s how to find someone you can really trust. If adulthood has taught me anything, it’s that my predictions of my future are about as accurate as Miss Cleo’s Psychic Hotline. But if there’s one prediction I can make with …

Go “On the Record” weeknights at 10 p.m. ET A gunman opens fire inside a busy shopping mall Sunday, wounding at least six people and taking three others hostage in a music store before he surrendered to a SWAT team. What could have caused Dominick Sergio Maldonado‘s rampage? We’ll investigate. …

LONDON – Women who are physically abused by a partner face a similar legacy of health problems whether they live in a modern city in the industrialized world or a traditional village in a developing country, the first global study on domestic violence has found. In interviews with 24,000 women …

WASHINGTON – Despite a month-old pledge, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to reopen four of its biggest no-bid contracts for Hurricane Katrina work and won’t do so until the contracts are virtually complete. A promise to hire more minority-owned firms also is largely unfulfilled. The no-bid contracts for …

LOS ANGELES – Shares of Pixar Animation Studios Inc. (PIXR) rose as much as 13 percent to a new 52-week high on Wednesday after the company beat quarterly earnings forecasts and said talks to extend its relationship with Walt Disney Co. (DIS) had been positive. Several analysts raised their estimates …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Bombers killed 40 people Thursday at a restaurant favored by police and an army recruiting center, while Iraqi troops along the Iranian border found 27 decomposing bodies, unidentified victims of the grisly violence plaguing the country. In the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since Sept. 19, two homicide …

DALLAS – Updating the way everyday people do CPR, new recommendations urge many more chest compressions for victims of cardiac arrest. The revised guidelines issued Monday by the American Heart Association on cardiopulmonary resuscitation advise giving 30 chest compressions — instead of 15 — for every two rescue breaths. “Basically, …

HOUSTON – A lawyer representing the widow of man who claims that Merck & Co.’s (MRK) Vioxx caused her husband’s death argued on Tuesday that taking the pain reliever for one month was enough to cause the 53-year-old man’s heart attack. But Merck countered in opening statements at the first …