Today's Globe

A group of community hospitals in Southeastern Massachusetts has taken the unusual step of partnering with doctors from an out-of-state academic medical center to provide cancer treatment — instead of one of Boston’s prestigious hospitals.

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo questioned yesterday whether legislation to control big-ticket health care costs will pass this year, a direct challenge to Senate President Therese Murray’s top policy hope (second item).

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. must pay $29.1 million to the widow of a Florida man who started smoking at age 13 and died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2008, a jury in Fort Lauderdale said yesterday.

A new government report shows one in eight public swimming pools were shut down two years ago because of dirty water or other problems, such as missing safety equipment.

Scientists reported yesterday that they had successfully created a partially synthetic bacterial cell, the latest step toward making life from scratch.

Drugs to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, taken by millions of people worldwide, increase the risk of cataracts, kidney failure, muscle pain, and liver dysfunction, a study of more than 2 million Britons found.

"A recent 7-2 Supreme Court decision affirming the constitutional power of Congress to allow the indefinite detention of sexually dangerous child pornographers after the end of their federal sentences has the surprising effect of showing just how far-fetched are the constitutional objections to the new health care legislation," Charles Fried, who teaches constitutional law at Harvard Law School, writes on the opinion page.

Gail Sheehy, the acclaimed author of "Passages," has written a new book about dealing with her husband’s 17-year battle with cancer.

"Where were you in January 2008? I know where I was; pawing through the New England Journal of Medicine’s disturbing overview 'Cardiovascular Events During World Cup Soccer,' " columnist Alex Beam writes. "And I thought Germans were tough. Guess not. If they had to watch Paul Pierce drive the lane, take a rib jab from Jameer Nelson, a hard foul across the throat from Dwight Howard, sink the basket and convert the three-point play . . . I guess das Volk would just lie down and expire."