Comment on U.S. flu season appears milder, one year after brutal one

Corinne Purtill | Los Angeles Times (TNS) You feel a cold coming on, or maybe it’s already upon you: the telltale cough, sore throat and stuffy head. You swing by the drugstore, where a shelf full of over-the-counter products containing the mineral zinc claim to be able to shorten the duration of your symptoms. The promise of relief is tempting.

Zach Dyer | KFF Health News (TNS) Bill Thompson’s wife had never seen him smile with confidence. For the first 20 years of their relationship, an infection in his mouth robbed him of teeth, one by one. “I didn’t have any teeth to smile with,” the 53-year-old of Independence, Missouri, said. Thompson said he dealt with throbbing toothaches and painful swelling in his face from abscesses for years working as a cook at Burger King.

Terrible, soul-sucking commercials get written, made and, by the public, rejected all the time. This one is different. Apple’s “Crush” commercial, unveiled last week and no longer scheduled to air on TV in America because people just truly, madly, deeply hated it, constitutes something larger than a miss, or a flub.

Michael Scaturro | KFF Health News (TNS) When dermatologist Adewole “Ade” Adamson sees people spritzing sunscreen as if it’s cologne at the pool where he lives in Austin, Texas, he wants to intervene. “My wife says I shouldn’t,” he said, “even though most people rarely use enough sunscreen.” At issue is not just whether people are using enough sunscreen, but what ingredients are in it. The Food and Drug Administration’s ability to approve the chemical filters in sunscreens that are sold in countries such as Japan, South Korea, and France is hamstrung by a 1938 U.

“Bridgerton” returns this week with a racy third season. Meanwhile, in theaters, “Babes,” with its well-deserved R rating, is worthy of your time. And then there’s the metaphorical, trance-like “I Saw the TV Glow.” Here’s our roundup. “Bridgerton Season 3” Will that shrewd purveyor of Regency-era gossip — Lady Whistledown (voice of Julie Andrews) —  finally get her comeuppance and be unmasked as the one and only Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan)?

“IF” may get by. It’s sincere. As the song from “The Music Man” asks: How can there be any sin in that? It’s also maudlin enough to force you into a defensive emotional crouch for an hour and 44 minutes. I speak for an audience of one here. Others may experience an entirely different set of side effects to a movie with a weirdly groggy and medicinal aura. As his popular success with the first two “Quiet Place” monster movies asserted, writer-director John Krasinski knows how to balance thrills and miles and miles and miles of heart.