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Natasha McClendon had $20 in her bank account and a bag of chicken in her fridge. It wasn’t going to be enough to feed her three daughters, her husband and herself, which meant it was time to take her monthly visit to the St. Sabina parish food pantry. (Levenson, 7/21)

Last week, officials from the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) issued a health alert about an increase in pertussis (whopping cough) cases this year. As of July 10, MSDH said 80 cases have been reported, compared to 49 cases in all of 2024. So far, no deaths have been recorded in Mississippi this year, but 10 patients have been hospitalized. Whopping cough, a highly contagious respiratory illness that leads to violent coughing bursts, is most common in children and can be fatal in infants under the age of 1. (Soucheray, 7/21)

As the number of Texas measles cases tied to a West Texas outbreak slows to a trickle, South Plains public health director Zach Holbrooks remembers the call from a colleague in an adjacent county six months ago that would change both his — and the state’s — entire 2025. (Langford, 7/21)

Texas lawmakers across the political spectrum have thrown around various claims about the dangers of hemp-derived THC to children, emphasizing its proliferation was a “life and death” matter that necessitated a ban on the intoxicating chemical. (Simpson and Keemahill, 7/22)

Two new COVID-19 variants are spreading through the U.S., and medical providers in Connecticut are expecting an uptick in cases in the coming weeks. NB.1.8.1, also known as Nimbus, has become the dominant variant throughout the country and health officials say that while sequencing efforts have declined, it appears to be a driver of new cases in Connecticut. (Carlesso, 7/21)

Sally Roberts has fought battles in both the wrestling ring and the war zone — but none prepared her for the fight she faced after coming home. Years after her U.S. Army deployment to Afghanistan, national champion wrestler Roberts dealt with nightmares, depression and thoughts of suicide that were shaped by childhood trauma, combat stress and the demands of running a business during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Chambliss, 7/22)

In the late aughts, Talia Eisenberg was living a glamorous life in New York City. At age 20, she founded the Heist Gallery, a small, subversive establishment for young up-and-coming creatives. Over the next couple of years, she collaborated with artists, attended exhibitions and stayed close with her large New York-based family. But behind the scenes she was struggling with a heroin habit — one that started with a bottle of painkillers left over from a dental surgery. (Allen, 7/21)

San Francisco is set to ban homeless people from living in RVs by adopting strict new parking limits the mayor says are necessary to keep sidewalks clear and prevent trash build-up. The policy, up for final approval by San Francisco supervisors Tuesday, targets at least 400 recreational vehicles in the city of 800,000 people. The RVs serve as shelter for people who can’t afford housing, including immigrant families with kids. Those who live in them say they’re a necessary option in an expensive city where affordable apartments are impossible to find. (Har and Chea, 7/22)

Children who lived near a St. Louis creek polluted with radioactive atomic bomb waste from the 1940s through the 1960s were more likely to be diagnosed with cancer over their lifetimes than children who lived farther from the waterway, a new study has found. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, corroborate worries that neighbors of Coldwater Creek have long held about the Missouri River tributary where generations of children played. (Cohen, 7/21)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Amid PFAS Fallout, A Maine Doctor Navigates Medical Risks With Her Patients

When Lawrence and Penny Higgins of Fairfield, Maine, first learned in 2020 that high levels of toxic chemicals called PFAS taint their home’s well water, they wondered how their health might suffer. They had consumed the water for decades, given it to their pets and farm animals, and used it to irrigate their vegetable garden and fruit trees. “We wanted to find out just what it’s going to do to us,” Penny Higgins said. They contacted a couple of doctors, but “we were met with a brick wall. Nobody knew anything.” Worse still, she added, they “really didn’t want to hear about it.” (Schauffler, 7/22)