By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) — Sexually transmitted disease rates for U.S. adults fell last year, but syphilis in newborns continued to rise, according to new government data posted Wednesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provisional data for 2024 showed a third consecutive year of fewer gonorrhea cases, and the second year in a row of fewer adult cases of chlamydia and the most infectious forms of syphilis.

But congenital syphilis cases, in which infected moms pass the disease to their babies, aren’t seeing the same improvements. Such infections in infants can lead to deaths or lifelong health problems such as deafness, blindness, and malformed bones.

The number and rate of newborn cases has been rising since 2012, when about 300 were reported, and last year rose t

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