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Early spring can be good for trees and blossoms but miserable for allergy sufferers. Springtime has arrived three weeks earlier than usual in several southeastern states this year. In the mid-Atlantic and northeast regions, it has arrived nearly four weeks ahead of schedule. (Loehrke, 3/8)

Temperatures have been on the rise in 203 U.S. cities since 1970, leading to longer allergy seasons in over 170 cities across the U.S., a new report by Climate Central finds. Climate change is bringing an earlier spring and later fall, the report found. This means a longer growing season for plants, allowing more than two weeks longer on average to grow, flower and release pollen. (Loo, 3/8)

People were twice as likely to die prematurely from a respiratory disease if they had contracted one as a young child in a decades-long study looking at how childhood lung infections impact adult health. (Ring, 3/7)

Nearly half of American children ages 1 to 5 — 49 percent — do not eat a vegetable daily, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, not quite 1 in 3 young children (32 percent) eat fruit daily, and more than half (57 percent) drink a sugar-sweetened beverage at least once a week. (Searing, 3/7)

Many people are cutting back on their sugar intake for health reasons. But the food industry has found another way to give consumers their sweet fix. It is quietly replacing the sugar in many packaged foods with sucralose, stevia, allulose, erythritol and a wide variety of other artificial sweeteners and sugar substitutes. ... These include bread, yogurt, oatmeal, muffins, canned soups, salad dressings, condiments and snack bars. (O'Connor, Steckelberg and Reiley, 3/7)

More than 300 people on board a Galveston-based cruise ship became ill with vomiting and diarrhea during their eight-day voyage from Texas to Mexico and back, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the Feb. 26 voyage of Princess Cruises' Ruby Princess, 284 passengers and 34 crew members reported becoming ill from the the yet-to-be identified illness. The ship returned to Galveston on Sunday. (Wayne Ferguson, 3/7)

Carnival Cruise Line said Tuesday that "all indications" are a passenger died of a medical condition and that it continues to cooperate with authorities. The passenger died Feb. 27 on a trip on the Carnival Sunshine to Nassau, Bahamas, the FBI said in a statement Sunday. (Helsel, 3/8)

According to the United Nations, the Earth reached a population of 8 billion people in November 2022. The UN predicts it will take until 2037 to reach 9 billion. But this prediction is not based on a linear birth rate. In fact, the UN expects the global fertility rate to gradually decrease between now and 2037. (Livesay, 3/7)

In 2020, Sandra Coplin, now 66, moved her life from her native New York — at the time, an epicenter of Covid’s devastation — to North Haven, Conn., to be close to family. She had retired earlier that year from a 42-year career as a legal records manager for seven law firms in the city. And she had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which left her with flagging energy levels and an unsteady gait. (Cueto, 3/8)

KHN: Listen To The Latest ‘KHN Health Minute’ 

The KHN Health Minute this week looks at how profit-driven policies influence emergency room staffing and why Mark Cuban’s new discount drug company may not always be the cheapest option. (3/7)