Girls exposed to certain chemicals that are common ingredients in household products may be starting puberty comparatively early, a new study has found.
Substances of particular concern include musk ambrette — a fragrance used in some detergents, perfumes and personal care products — and a group of medications called cholinergic agonists, according to the study, published on Tuesday in Endocrinology.
These chemicals are all known as “hormone-disrupting” or “endocrine-disrupting” compounds, due to their tendency to block or interfere with hormone function in the body’s endocrine system.
To draw their conclusions, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers performed an initial screening of 10,000 environmental compounds and then studied the activities of select substances using lines of both rodent and human brain cells that control reproductive functions.
A lawsuit arguing that county election board members in 
Apple on Tuesday lost its last bid to avoid paying 13 billion euros ($14.34 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, in a finale to a dispute with the European Union that centered on sweetheart deals that Dublin was offering to attract multinational businesses with minimal taxes across the 27-nation bloc. The final decision by the EU’s top court was quickly hailed as a landmark victory over corporate greed.
The new school year in the Palestinian territories officially began on Monday, with all schools in Gaza shut after 
A traffic stop involving the Miami Dolphins star Tyreek Hill escalated rapidly on Sunday, as officers forcibly removed Hill from his car less than a minute after pulling him over and ultimately detained him in handcuffs for nearly 20 minutes, as footage released 
