AP - Maybe it was a lifetime of chores on the family farm that accounts for Edna Parker’s long life. Or maybe just good genes explain why the world’s oldest known person will turn 115 on Sunday, defying staggering odds.

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AP - It turns out the golden years really are golden. Eye-opening new research finds the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The two go hand-in-hand: Being social can help keep away the blues.

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AP - Two years ago, Aida Torres rushed her feverish daughter to the emergency room. Doctors at the Brooklyn hospital tried telling Torres that her mentally retarded daughter, Madayeli, needed surgery for an ovarian cyst, but the scared mother didn’t understand them because she doesn’t speak English.

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AP - A San Francisco transplant surgeon accused of hastening the death of man so his organs could be harvested has been ordered to trial on one count of felony dependent adult abuse, but two other felony charges involving administration of drugs to the dying man were dismissed.

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AP - A happy marriage is good for your blood pressure, but a stressed one can be worse than being single, a preliminary study suggests.

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AP - The number of confirmed salmonella cases rose in a southern Colorado city on Thursday, as health officials investigated whether the outbreak was caused by tainted tap water.

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AP - President Bush was swept up in an outpouring of affection Monday in Tanzania’s rural north, where tens of thousands lined the road to see him, one woman burst into a dance of joy just from a hug and fierce-looking Maasai warriors leapt and chanted in his honor.

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AP - It’s a new way to push for patient safety: Don’t pay hospitals when they commit certain errors. Medicare will start hitting hospitals where it hurts in October, and other insurers are hot on the trail.

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AP - The Campbell Soup Co.’s kid-oriented soups, which feature characters such as Dora the Explorer and Batman on the cans, are getting their second sodium reduction in three years, the company announced Monday.

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AP - Now that surgeons have operated on Stacey Gayle’s brain, her favorite musician no longer makes her ill. Four years after being diagnosed with epilepsy, Gayle recently underwent brain surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center to cure a rare condition known as musicogenic epilepsy.

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