Americans born in 1990 have double the risk of colon cancer and quadruple the risk of rectal cancer than those born around 1950, a new study suggests. The study found that colorectal cancer is on the rise among young and middle-aged adults in their early 50s. Rectal cancer is growing particularly fast among people younger than 55, with 30 percent of diagnoses in people under 55. “Trends in young people are a bellwether for the future disease burden,” said Rebecca Siegel, of the American Cancer Society and lead author of …

Humans are responsible for 84 percent of all wildfires in the United States, a new study suggests. Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst say during 20 years, human-started fires have “tripled the length of the fire season and dominated an area seven times greater than that affected by lightning-caused fires.” The study looked at the years 1992 to 2012 and found that of the 1.5 million fires that were large enough to require fire fighting, humans were responsible for …

Tens of thousands of London private hire drivers could lose their licenses due to new English reading and writing requirements, taxi app Uber said on Tuesday at the start of a court battle to halt the plans. San Francisco-based Uber, which allows users to book journeys at the touch of a button on their smartphone, has grown rapidly in recent years but faced bans and protests around the world as regulators play catch-up with technology disrupting traditional operators. Uber launched legal action in August after public body Transport for London …

The U.S. economy grew at an anemic 1.9 percent rate in the fourth quarter, unchanged from an initial estimate, although consumers performed better than first thought. The Commerce Department says that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, increased at an annual rate of 1.9 percent in the October-December quarter. That is a significant slowdown from 3.5 percent growth recorded in the third quarter.   The fourth quarter figure was unchanged from the first estimate a month ago, although some of the components were revised. The government …

President Donald Trump said he believes the extra $54 billion he has proposed spending on the U.S. military will be offset by a stronger economy as well as cuts in other areas. “I think the money is going to come from a revved up economy,” Trump said in a Fox News interview broadcast on Tuesday, hours before he was to address a joint session of Congress. “I mean you look at the kind of numbers we’re doing, we were probably GDP of a little more than 1 percent and if …

Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross easily won confirmation as U.S. commerce secretary on Monday, clearing President Donald Trump’s top trade official to start work on renegotiating trade relationships with China and Mexico. The U.S. Senate voted 72-27 to confirm the 79-year-old corporate turnaround expert’s nomination, with strong support from Democrats. Ross is set to become an influential voice in Trump’s economic team after helping shape the president’s opposition to multilateral free trade deals such as the now-scrapped Trans-Pacific Partnership. Ross drew votes from 19 Democrats and one independent, partly because of …