Insomnia is costing U.S. companies more than $63 billion a year, according to a new white paper that examines the toll that insufficient sleep takes on safety and productivity at work. Entitled Sick, Unsafe, and Unproductive: Poor Employee Sleep Is Bad for Business, the publication from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP)  notes that sleep is a basic biological need, and getting less than seven hours of it a night (for the average person) can have serious detrimental consequences for an individuals’ long-term health, safety, and performance.

A natural gas explosion that killed a 12-year-old girl and injured four others in Dallas earlier this year wasn’t the only one that rocked that neighborhood, according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is investigating the incidents.

They won’t be getting an increase, but federal worker safety agencies will not, at least, see the slashes in funding that some were predicting. The FY 2018 budget passed by Congress recently maintains funding for OSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) at 2017 levels.

Sturdy new fiberglass railing were installed in a New York City subway tunnel last week - the day after one collapsed, sending a worker to his death. Killed in the nine foot fall from a local track to an express track was 23-year-old St. Clair Zaire Stephens Richards, who had six months on the job, according to news reports.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is taking steps that may exempt premium cigars from tobacco regulation – a move that is angering the American Heart Association. By asking for more information about the high end cigars, the AHA’s CEO Nancy Brown said the FDA is “sending mixed messages on tobacco regulation.”

OSHA has cited Summit Milk Products LLC, based in Waterloo, for ongoing failure to protect employees against burns at its facility. The cheese and dairy products manufacturer faces a total of $143,954 in proposed penalties for uncorrected and new hazards.

A new study may take some of the pleasure out of those burgers you enjoy grilling in your backyard. Researchers found that people who regularly eat meat, chicken and fish grilled, broiled or roasted at high temperatures are more likely to develop high blood pressure – although they were careful to note that they identified a trend, not a cause-and effect.

Hands-Only CPR training that uses new augmented reality technology developed by Google to create a life-like environment for users is now available to mobile device users, thanks to a partnership between the American Heart Association (AHA) and Google. The training can be accessed through the AHA’s mobile App, My Cardiac Coach™.

When the pedestrian bridge collapsed last week in Florida, workers were adjusting tension on the two tensioning rods located in the diagonal member at the north end of the span. That’s one of the findings of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) team that is investigating the incident, which crushed cars and killed at least six people - one of them a bridge worker.

A yellow cap left on during the manufacturing process is behind the recall that’s just been issued of more than 450,000 smoke alarms due to the risk of their not working in the event of a fire.