Mildewed feed given to cows caused the high levels of a cancer-causing toxin found in milk from China's biggest dairy company and a smaller one, according to a government safety agency investigating the troubled dairy industry's latest scandal.

An expert review identified the mildewed feed as the cause of the excessive levels of aflatoxin in milk from industry giant Mengniu Dairy Group and the Fujian Changfu Dairy Industry Group, the quality supervision and inspection agency said in a statement posted on its website late Monday.

Drug companies are working to develop a pure, more powerful version of a highly abused medicine, which has addiction experts worried that it could spur a new wave of abuse.

The new pills contain the highly addictive painkiller hydrocodone, packing up to 10 times the amount of the drug as existing medications such as Vicodin. Four companies have begun patient testing, and one of them — Zogenix of San Diego — plans to apply early next year to begin marketing its product, Zohydro.

A surgeon and technician from a Mayo Clinic in Florida flying across the northern corner of the state to retrieve a heart for transplant died Monday in a helicopter crash that also killed the pilot, officials said.

The helicopter departed the clinic in Jacksonville around 5:45 a.m. but never arrived at the Gainesville hospital, Shands at University of Florida, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) to the southwest, said Kathy Barbour, a spokeswoman for Mayo, which is based in Rochester, Minnesota.

For more than a decade they toiled in the strange, boxy-looking building on the hill above the municipal airport, the building with no windows (except in the cafeteria), the building filled with secrets.

They wore protective white jumpsuits, and had to walk through air-shower chambers before entering the sanitized "cleanroom" where the equipment was stored.

The moon has come a long way since Galileo first peered at it through a telescope. Unmanned probes have circled around it and landed on its surface. Twelve American astronauts have walked on it. And lunar rocks and soil have been hauled back from it.

Despite being well studied, Earth's closest neighbor remains an enigma.

Utah police say a woman used Facebook to get help after she and her 17-month-old son were held hostage at a residence for nearly five days.

Salt Lake County Jail documents say the woman posted on Saturday that she and her son would be "dead by morning" if they were not rescued. That prompted a welfare check at the home by Sandy police.

A growing number of shoppers in the U.S. apparently need only the briefest of breaks before diving back in, especially if they can log in to shop.

IBM found that online shopping jumped 16.4 percent on Christmas Day over last year, and the dollar amount of those purchases that were made using mobile devices leaped 172.9 percent.

When told that his unborn son had only half a heart and little chance to survive, the lead singer of the Christian rock band Sanctus Real began pouring his fears and doubts into music.

The songs were meant to comfort his family while they searched for answers and sought to understand God's role during the months before and after the baby's birth that were filled with surgeries and life-threatening complications.

Detroit's Queen of Soul knows how to throw a Christmas party, and she welcomed in the holiday with glitter, a jazzy musical backdrop and a finale of "Silent Night" with the Four Tops.

Aretha Franklin held her annual Christmas party on Friday at the Detroit Athletic Club, greeting guests in a teal blue gown accented with a silver sequined bodice.

A new study says the 2007 cargo ship accident that dumped tens of thousands of gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay has caused lasting damage to the region's herring population.

The study released Monday found that Pacific herring embryos collected from shorelines left coated in oil after the Cosco Busan spill suffered unusually high death rates.