Walgreens slashes offer for Rite Aid, pushes back deadline

Walgreens substantially lowered its offering price for drugstore rival Rite Aid and, facing resistance from U.S. regulators, raised the number of stores it would be willing to unload to ease monopoly concerns.

The companies initially expected to sell no more than 500 stores, but that was pushed to 1,200 under the new terms announced Monday.

2 billion children breathe toxic air worldwide, UNICEF says

As Indians awoke Monday to smoke-filled skies from a weekend of festival fireworks, New Delhi's worst season for air pollution began — with dire consequences.

A new report from UNICEF says about a third of the 2 billion children in the world who are breathing toxic air live in northern India and neighboring countries, risking serious health effects including damage to their lungs, brains and other organs. Of that global total, 300 million kids are exposed to pollution levels more than six times higher than standards set by the World Health Organization, including 220 million in South Asia.

For Brazil's rich and poor, disparate response to Zika

Two Brazilian women, two pregnancies, one nightmare. But two very different stories.

Regina de Lima and Tainara Lourenco became pregnant at a scary moment — the dawn of an extraordinary Zika outbreak, as authorities came to suspect that the virus was causing an alarming spike in a rare birth defect called microcephaly. Both have reason to fear for the health of their unborn offspring.

But that is where the similarities end.

Alarm over Delhi pollution doesn't stop Diwali fireworks

The fireworks have fizzled. The festival lights are coming down. What's left of the Hindu holiday of Diwali in the Indian capital — already considered the world's most polluted — is a toxic haze that has residents gagging for oxygen and hiding indoors.

Air pollution levels across New Delhi on Thursday, a day after the ancient festival of lights, were described as severe-to-critical, up to eight times higher than what India deems acceptable and 20 times what's recommended by the World Health Organization.

Indian hospitals warned not to turn away dengue patients

As India's capital struggles with its worst outbreak of dengue fever in five years, officials threatened Wednesday to cancel private hospitals' licenses if they turn away patients.

More than 11 people have died from the mosquito-borne disease in New Delhi this year and about 1,900 cases have been recorded at city hospitals.