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For Vera Cooper, the time had come to buy a gun. In her mid-70s at the time and widowed several years earlier, she was already feeling vulnerable, living by herself. Then came the tipping point: The plumbing business that Ms. Cooper owns in the Florida Panhandle had to fire a worker, and he stormed out of the office, threatening vengeance. At a nearby gun store, she settled on a .22 caliber pistol that “felt good in my hand.” Then came the problem. A question on the firearms transaction form she was required to complete asked whether she was an “unlawful user” of marijuana or any other drug categorized by the federal government as a controlled substance. (Kovaleski, 11/29)

A growing scientific understanding of the cognition of octopuses and other cephalopods is now calling into question the idea of eating these problem-solving sea creatures — as well as our notion of what exactly makes an animal “intelligent” in the first place. (Grandoni, 11/29)

Healthy twins who ate a vegan diet for eight weeks had lower “bad” low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, cholesterol, better blood sugar levels, and greater weight loss than siblings who ate a diet of meat and vegetables, a new study found. (LaMotte, 11/30)

Get ready to eat more buckwheat, pickles, caramelized bananas, cinnamon sugar, dressed-up ramen, grilled halloumi cheese and Korean cuisine in 2024 — and to wash it down with a tall, cool glass of camel milk. Why it matters: It's the time of year when everyone in the food business predicts what we'll be seeing on restaurant menus and store shelves — trends that can translate to serious bucks when a particular dish or ingredient catches on. (Kingson, 12/1)

For the first time ever, a commercial plane flew across the Atlantic Ocean without using fossil fuels. Virgin Atlantic said the test flight Tuesday from London to New York was powered only by sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, a broad category of jet fuel that creates fewer carbon emissions than standard kerosene blends. The fuel on this flight was made from waste fats and plant sugars and emits 70% less carbon than petroleum-based jet fuel, according to a press release. It landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Tuesday afternoon. (Rivero, 11/28)

Kathy Fitts loved her roomy house in suburban Atlanta. But after her children moved out, and the pandemic exacerbated the isolation she often felt as a divorced woman, she left for Latitude Margaritaville, a Jimmy Buffett-themed housing development in Daytona Beach, Fla., for those “55 and better.” Visiting a friend who had relocated there, “I thought, wow, these people are having a good time,” Ms. Fitts, 68, said. She bought a two-bedroom villa and settled in almost two years ago. (Span, 11/25)

Effective drugs that have made the disease curable have yet to reach most of the region. (Nolen, 11/28)

There were an estimated 249 million cases of malaria around the globe last year, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, significantly more than before the Covid-19 pandemic and an increase of five million over 2021. Malaria remains a top killer of children. Those new cases were concentrated in just five countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, Uganda, Ethiopia and Papua-New Guinea. Climate change was a direct contributor in three of them, said Dr. Daniel Ngamije, who directs the W.H.O. malaria program. (Nolen, 11/30)