ATLANTA, Nov. 19 (UPI) — An outbreak of murine typhus was confirmed in Travis County, Texas, last year, federal health officials said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report said Thursday although murine typhus, a flea-borne disease often transmitted to humans through contact with rats, is endemic in southern Texas, only [...]

OTTAWA, Nov. 19 (UPI) — The cost of healthcare in Canada is forecast to rise 5.5 percent to $183 billion this year, the Canadian Institute for Health Information said Thursday.
“This represents a forecast increase of $241 per Canadian, bringing total health expenditure per capita to an estimated $5,452 this year,” the report said.
Hospitals remain the [...]

TEHRAN, Nov. 19 (UPI) — U.N. inspectors Thursday visited an Iranian nuclear power plant that Tehran didn’t disclosed until September, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
The visit to the facility near Qom was the second for IAEA inspectors, coming a day after Iran’s foreign minister rejected a critical portion of a draft agreement to allay [...]

TOURS, France, Nov. 19 (UPI) — French and U.S. scientists say they’ve found a species of sea star remains cool by retaining cold sea water as a buffer against damaging high temperatures.
The researchers from the University of South Carolina and Francois Rabelais University in Tours, France, say the strategy has never been seen in [...]

HEFEI, China, Nov. 19 (UPI) — More than 640,000 people in east China’s Anqing City have suffered power outages due to unexpectedly heavy snow this week, the local power company said.
Almost 115,600 people still had no power by Thursday afternoon, Hu Xiaoyan, press officer with the Anqing Municipal Electric Power Company, told the official [...]