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Congressional leaders reached a $1.66 trillion agreement Sunday to finance the federal government in 2024, preserving funding for key domestic and social safety net programs despite GOP demands to cut the budget. Now lawmakers are up against a stiff deadline to pass legislation to codify the deal and avert a partial government shutdown in less than two weeks. Funding runs out for roughly 20 percent of the government — including for essential programs such as some veterans assistance, and food and drug safety services — on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. (Bogage, 1/7)

Speaker Mike Johnson said the deal contains “hard fought concessions” from Democrats, including on the cancellation of unspent pandemic aid. Still, the overall number is above the levels that some conservatives had demanded. “These final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like,” Johnson said. (Ferek and Hughes, 1/7)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged ''concerns'' over his secret hospitalization but revealed no new details of his condition in a statement released by the Pentagon Saturday. It wasn't until late Friday that the Pentagon disclosed that Austin had been hospitalized after complications from an elective procedure. In the statement, Austin said he "could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better." (Vanden Brook, and Collins, 1/6)

Kathleen Hicks, the deputy secretary of defense, assumed the top role on Jan. 2, a not unusual transfer of power that sometimes occurs purely for operational reasons. She did not learn of Austin's hospitalization until Jan. 4, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. Hicks was on vacation in Puerto Rico at the time. ... The defense secretary resumed his full duties on Friday. In the intervening days, Hicks "was prepared to act for and exercise the powers of the Secretary, if required," Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement on Friday. (Doubek and Bowman, 1/7)

“My sense is his desire to be private about a routine medical procedure kind of backfired when it didn’t go as planned,” said one senior U.S. official. ... Concerns over Austin’s absence are bipartisan. Though most members of Biden’s party have either defended Austin or declined to comment on it, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee teamed up with his GOP counterpart to urge the Pentagon chief to provide more information. (Seligman, Ward and O'Brien, 1/7)

Former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci will once again face questions on the origins of COVID-19, vaccine mandates and how to prevent something like the COVID-19 pandemic from happening again in his upcoming closed-door congressional interview, according to the chair of the committee leading the investigation. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic announced in November that Fauci had agreed to a 2-day transcribed interview on Jan. 8 and 9. He will also testify in front of the panel later this year, with the date still to be determined. (Choi, 1/2)

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to let Idaho enforce its near-total ban on abortion in certain emergency medical situations while legal proceedings continue and said it will take up the dispute involving whether the Biden administration can require under federal law hospitals in states that ban abortion to perform the procedure on pregnant patients whose lives are at risk. (Quinn, 1/5)

It was 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, but 2024 is starting amid a wave of news about court cases and laws restricting abortion access in the United States — and there's even more decisions on the horizon. (Thornton and Santucci, 1/6)

A state constitutional amendment that would protect abortion access in Florida has received enough signatures of support to appear on ballots in the November election, but a challenge by the state's attorney general could still block it. The measure would ban laws that "prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient's health, as determined by the patient's healthcare provider." Abortions are currently illegal after 15 weeks in Florida. (1/8)

For the second time in less than three weeks, an appeals court rejected a minor’s attempt to have an abortion without notifying and getting consent from a parent or guardian. (Saunders, 1/5)

A new abortion bill aims to amend Tennessee's current law which bans the procedure in early stages of pregnancy. House Bill 1626 enacts the "Fundamental Right to Reproductive Health Care Act," meaning the state cannot interfere with abortion services because it falls under an individual's "fundamental right." ... Tennessee has one of the strictest abortion bans in the United States. There is no exception for rape or incest in current legislation. (Keller, 1/5)

Nearly every abortion is illegal in Missouri. But that hasn’t slowed the pace of anti-abortion legislation in the Missouri statehouse. As lawmakers return to the Capitol for the 2024 legislation session, Republican lawmakers have already filed numerous bills seeking further restrictions on abortion and abortion providers. Yet even the staunchest anti-abortion activists concede it’s unlikely they’ll get much traction this year. (Spoerre, 1/5)

President Joe Biden’s day one priority if he earns a second term? “First of all: Roe,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president has been adamant that we need to restore Roe. It is unfathomable that women today wake up in a country with less rights than their ancestors had years ago,” Fulks said. Biden has been poised to run on what has been described as the strongest abortion rights platform of any general election candidate as he and his allies look to notch a victory in the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. (Garrity, 1/7)

The Supreme Court’s expected decision this summer on whether to restrict access to medication abortion promises to keep the issue front and center of the 2024 election. Justices will hear a case weighing federal approval of the common abortion pill mifepristone, with a likely ruling in June — five months before voters decide who will go to the White House and Congress, and almost exactly two years after the high court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. (Vakil, 1/6)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Journalists Track Medical Device Malfunctions, Opioid Settlement Payments, And Abortion Bans

�鶹Ů�� Health News correspondent Daniel Chang discussed malfunctions of the LVAD Heart Mate 3, an FDA-approved mechanical heart pump, on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network on Jan. 3. ... �鶹Ů�� Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani joined a roundtable panel to discuss the drug crisis and opioid settlement funds on NPR on Dec. 28. Pattani also discussed opioid settlement funds on CBS News’ “Eye on Health” on Dec. 15. ... �鶹Ů�� Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed how abortion bans fared in courts in Texas and New Orleans on NPR’s “All Things Considered” on Jan. 3. (1/6)

The flu season in the U.S. is getting worse but it’s too soon to tell how much holiday gatherings contributed to a likely spike in illnesses. New government data posted Friday for last week — the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s — show 38 states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses with fever, cough and other symptoms. That’s up from 31 states the week before. The measure likely includes people with COVID-19, RSV and other winter viruses, and not just flu. But flu seems to be increasing most dramatically, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Stobbe, 1/5)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: There’s A New Covid-19 Variant And Cases Are Ticking Up. What Do You Need To Know? 

It’s winter, that cozy season that brings crackling fireplaces, indoor gatherings — and a wave of respiratory illness. Nearly four years since the pandemic emerged, people are growing weary of dealing with it, but the virus is not done with us. Nationally, a sharp uptick in emergency room visits and hospitalizations for covid-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, began in mid-December and appears to be gaining momentum. (Appleby, 1/8)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday that COVID subvariant JN.1 accounts for about 62% of cases in the U.S. as of Jan. 5, according to the agency's projections. The agency said JN.1, which is an offspring of BA.2.86, is now the most widely circulated variant in the U.S. and globally. It is also the dominant variant in Europe and is rising sharply in Asia, the CDC said. (1/5)

New data show pronounced recent jumps in the rate at which coronavirus and flu tests are coming back positive, as well as the number of hospital-admitted patients testing positive for the viruses. Workplaces are also seeing higher numbers of employees call in sick due to infections. National wastewater data suggest this winter could see the highest number of coronavirus infections occurring during any given week since the first Omicron wave began in fall 2021. (Lin II, 1/6)

Hospitals are beginning to revive mask mandates as the highly contagious COVID-19 variant known as JN.1 overspreads the United States and health systems grapple with a spike in other seasonal respiratory viruses. (Bettelheim and Millman, 1/5)

As COVID-19 hospitalization rates trend upward by 16.9% nationwide, hospitals and health systems are reinstating mask mandates. Several regions of the U.S. have seen a "substantial increase" of COVID-19 cases as of Dec. 30 and a rise in viral activity levels in wastewater between Dec. 9-28, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (DeSilva, 1/5)

Hospitalizations from COVID-19 and the flu have surged in the past month, prompting the Maryland Department of Health to recommend that hospitals and doctor’s offices double down on efforts to suppress the spread of illness, including requiring masks in all patient care areas. (Roberts, 1/8)

St. Louis health officials are again recommending that residents wear masks indoors or in crowded spaces where social distancing isn’t possible as cases of COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses rise throughout the region. The city also is recommending that city employees wear masks indoors starting Friday, said a spokesman for Mayor Tishaura Jones. (Fentem, 1/5)

The University of Maryland School of Medicine is conducting a "flu transmission" study. The study is designed to examine the person-to-person transmission of community-acquired influenza in healthy adults aged 18 to 59. ... "Viruses can be transmitted in different ways," Dr. Wilbur Chen, the study co-investigator at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which is partnering with the university's School of Public Health, told our media partner at The Baltimore Banner. "Some might be more airborne than others." (Thompson, 1/5)

Indian pharmaceutical companies must meet new manufacturing standards this year, according to a government notification released on Saturday, although small companies have asked for a delay, citing their debt load. Jolted by a string of overseas deaths linked to Indian-made drugs since 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has stepped up scrutiny of pharmaceutical factories to clean up the image of the $50 billion industry. "The manufacturer must assume responsibility for the quality of the pharmaceutical products to ensure that they are fit for their intended use, comply with the requirements of the licence and do not place patients at risk due to inadequate safety, quality or efficacy," said the notification, dated Dec. 28. Companies must market a finished product only after getting "satisfactory results" on tests of the ingredients and retain a sufficient quantity of the samples of intermediate and final products to allow repeated testing or verification of a batch, it says. (1/6)

The timing of the change is telling: Flovent’s price rose nearly 50% since 2014, according to GoodRx, leaving the drug vulnerable to the new Medicaid penalties going into effect as of this year for medications with price increases that outpace inflation. By discontinuing the brand-name inhaler but continuing to earn money from the authorized generic, GSK will be able to avoid paying a penalty. Doctors have warned that the change could make it hard for patients to continue accessing inhalers equivalent to the Flovent ones they have been using, especially at the time of the year when inhalers are most needed. This is because the generic version of Flovent may not be similarly covered by insurance. The trouble lies in the complex system of incentives shaping formularies determining what is and isn’t available to patients, and at what cost. (Merelli, 1/5)

Allogene Therapeutics is making unexpected changes to development plans for its off-the-shelf cell therapy for a type of blood cancer — a concession that competition from personalized CAR-T treatments, already entrenched in the market, has become more challenging. (Feuerstein, 1/4)

An experimental Bayer AG drug successfully alleviated hot flashes and other disturbances associated with menopause in two studies, clearing a path for a medicine that Bayer says could become a blockbuster. The drug, elinzanetant, lowered the frequency and severity of hot flashes and met all the research goals in studies that included about 800 post-menopausal women, the German company said Monday. Bayer was testing the therapy, which is administered orally once a day, against a placebo. (Loh, 1/8)

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. ... The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine. (Glazer and Grind, 1/6)

That was businessman and inventor Elon Musk responding on his X platform, to an article by The Wall Street Journal that discussed alleged illegal drug use by the Tesla CEO. Citing sources, the article that published on Saturday said Musk had used cocaine, ketamine, psychedelic mushrooms and other substances, and that some board members were worried about potential problems for his health and the empire he watches over. ... “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!” Musk responded. (Kollmeyer, 1/8)

Psychedelics spent a half-century in political and medical purgatory. Now they’re starting to go mainstream. Respected academic institutes and billionaires are funding research into their therapeutic benefits, and the Food and Drug Administration could soon approve MDMA (known more commonly as ecstasy) for a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The therapeutic potential of these drugs looks promising, but Wall Street and big pharma are still not convinced of the financial potential. Intellectual property is one big concern. While new compounds discovered in a lab can often lead to over a decade of exclusive profits for a pharma company, psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms,” have been around for a long time. This makes patenting them more controversial. Companies are patenting formulations of the drugs and even things like the cozy furniture in a treatment room, but questions about patent protection abound. (Wainer, 1/5)

Today a new study published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes an outbreak of tuberculosis (TB) linked to contaminated bone allografts (tissue transplant) from the same donor. On July 7, 2023, a patient who had spinal fusion surgery that incorporated a bone allograft product containing live cells experienced symptoms of meningitis 5 weeks after surgery. Mycobacterium tuberculosis was identified in the cerebrospinal fluid of the patient, and state health authorities contacted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Soucheray, 1/5)

CVS Health predicts its Aetna subsidiary will enroll one-third more Medicare Advantage beneficiaries than previously projected this year. Aetna signed up more people than anticipated for individual and Dual Eligible Special Needs plans during the open enrollment period that ended Dec. 7, CVS Health disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday. The company now expects 800,000 new enrollees in 2024. (Tepper, 1/5)

Memphis, Tennessee-based Methodist allegedly paid West Clinic, a physician group of oncologists and other specialists based in Memphis, for Medicare beneficiary referrals. The allegations stem from a federal whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2017 by Jeffrey Liebman, former president of Methodist University Hospital, and David Stern, former dean of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The federal government intervened in the whistleblower lawsuit in 2022. (Kacik, 1/5)

The H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa will pay more than $19.5 million in a settlement related to improper billing of government health care programs, the Department of Justice announced Thursday. (1/5)

Marshfield Clinic Health System and Essentia Health called off their merger plan, the nonprofit health systems said Friday.Marshfield, of Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota-based Essentia signed an integration agreement in July to form a 25-hospital system with roughly $6 billion in annual revenue. The heath system CEOs said in a news release that the “combination at this time is not the right path forward for our respective organizations, colleagues and patients,” but did not elaborate. (Kacik, 1/5)

Medical professionals face barriers to building and sustaining families, research published late last month in JAMA Network Open suggests. The study points to a variety of factors that make it hard for those with medical careers to have children, especially those with infertility or who decide on surrogacy, foster care or adoption. Researchers drew on data from a 2021 survey of 2,025 medical students, residents, fellows and practicing physicians. Ninety-two percent of the respondents were women, and 85 percent identified as heterosexual. The survey asked respondents to answer three open-ended questions about how their careers affected their family planning. (Blakemore, 1/6)

A group of academic hospitals and technology companies will form a new nonprofit venture to oversee a nationwide network of laboratories to test artificial intelligence tools designed for use in health care. (Ross, 1/8)

Clinicians at some health systems are turning to artificial intelligence-driven tools to predict and avert negative patient outcomes, though stakeholders say caution remains warranted. The provider organizations are using technology to flag patients who may need extra preventive or follow-up attention. Many major electronic health record vendors, including Epic Systems, Allscripts and Oracle's Cerner, have also integrated AI tools into their platforms to help providers forecast risk based on medical history. (Devereaux, 1/5)

New artificial intelligence technologies made headlines last year for their ability to do everything from generating fake musical duets to understanding how proteins fold. But in biotech, one of the most well-funded AI players has been quiet. (Herper, 1/7)

The patient is having trouble remembering things – names, recent events. They and their family are worried. The doctor asks how long it’s been going on, whether they’ve been in any accidents and if they have a family history of dementia. He does a physical and neurological exam, and orders an MRI. Based on the results, he diagnoses the patient with Alzheimer’s. The patient, in this case, is generated by AI. (Cuno-Booth, 1/5)

Former President Donald Trump is doubling down on his vow to repeal Obamacare if he wins the White House again, even though an increasing number of Americans have embraced the landmark health reform law in recent years. (Luhby, 1/7)

Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That's according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. A claim the beverage industry disputes. ... Kaplan and his colleagues found that, on average, prices for sugar-sweetened drinks went up by 33.1% and purchases went down by basically the same amount – 33%. (Godoy, 1/6)

Reducing people's sugar consumption is a boon to American health care, said Dr. Dean Schillinger, who directs the Health Communications Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco and led the research, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. "When you think about the fact that one in four dollars of our health care spending goes to diabetes alone, any kind of incremental improvement we can get will have massive effects," Schillinger said. (Weintraub, 1/5)

Federal investigators have discovered a second contaminant in recalled applesauce pouches — the naturally-occurring metal chromium, which in a certain form can cause a number of adverse health effects. The finding is the latest development in the Food and Drug Administration’s international investigation of high levels of lead found in cinnamon applesauce pouches marketed to children. The pouches of fruit puree that have been recalled were manufactured in Ecuador and sold under the brand names WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking at least 287 confirmed, probable and suspected cases of lead exposure in 37 states linked to the applesauce recall. (Amenabar, 1/5)

A Navy investigation of a suicide aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier last year has revealed deadly shortcomings in the service's peer-based method of addressing mental health, which depends on fellow sailors and deckplate leadership to provide support. The command-directed probe of the death aboard the Roosevelt as it was undergoing a long maintenance period in Washington state details failures by friends on the ship to report warning signs and poor leadership by enlisted supervisors that may have contributed to the death. It also suggests a separate recent suicide cluster aboard another carrier, the USS George Washington, was not an isolated issue. (Toropin, 1/5)

Mounting evidence shows the devastating toll online racism takes on Black youth. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, Black children and teens who experience racial discrimination online may develop symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Those PTSD symptoms, the researchers found, were also potentially linked to suicidal thoughts. (Bellamy 1/5)

When Andrew Alirez felt a pop in his left knee, it sounded as if someone had snapped their fingers, like a wizard finishing a spell. It made sense. It was as if he’d been transformed. (England, 1/5)

A student capstone research project at the University of West Florida is literally shining a light to help detect Alzheimer’s disease and other disorders. The light comes from a set of pulsed medical LED goggles that were developed, researched and designed by faculty and undergraduate students in different departments on the Pensacola campus. (Barrett, 1/5)

Miami-Dade has the nation's highest prevalence of Alzheimer's. But with monthly memory care costs in Florida averaging at more than $8,000 per month, one family talks about the difficult choices to come. (Zaragovia, 1/5)

A House Republican on Thursday renewed an attempt to lower the minimum age from 21 to 18 for people to buy rifles and other long guns in Florida, potentially reversing part of a law that passed in the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. ... The state law drew a legal challenge from the National Rifle Association, which contends that it violates Second Amendment rights. A federal district judge upheld the age restriction, but the case remains pending at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (1/5)

A new California gun law banning the concealed carry of firearms in “sensitive places” – including places of worship, public libraries, amusement parks, zoos and sporting events – is once again blocked after a decision Saturday by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The law signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom – Senate Bill 2 – was temporarily halted last month after District Judge Cormac Carney issued an injunction deeming the gun control measure unconstitutional and “repugnant to the Second Amendment.” (Campbell, 1/7)

Florida Senate President Kathleen Passidomo is making access to health care her top priority for the legislative session, which begins Tuesday in Tallahassee. She’s outlined plans for bills to expand the state’s health care workforce and encourage innovation in the health care field. And, Passidomo says she expects lawmakers to file at least a dozen other measures that could fit into her Live Healthy initiative. (McCarthy, 1/7)

The Biden administration has approved Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to import a limited set of brand drugs from Canada, paving the way for other states to follow suit and setting up a fight to take credit for the drug-price-lowering measure in the race for president. (Wilkerson, 1/5)

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is more aggressive and openly political in pushing to expand Medicaid in Kansas as the Republican-controlled Legislature prepares to open its annual session Monday following five years of failed efforts to provide state health coverage to another 150,000 people. Kelly faces leaders of GOP supermajorities whose priorities are to cut income taxes and rein in local property taxes, not to expand Medicaid. (Hanna, 1/6)

The measles outbreak in Philadelphia is growing. The Philadelphia Health Department said there are now five confirmed and three probable cases and there could be more. Dr. Cheryl Bettigole of the Philadelphia Health Department said this is a serious outbreak that has three children still hospitalized. It started because a quarantine order was violated. "This is a major event," she said. (Stahl, 1/5)

A woman who gave birth alone in her cell while detained at the Rappahannock Regional Jail in Virginia is alleging in federal court that correctional staff members ignored her cries for help as she went into labor in August 2021 and that her infant son died of a treatable infection. Attorneys for Jemika Johnson, 24, said she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was not receiving her prescribed anti-anxiety medications while on pretrial detention at the facility in Stafford. Jail officials have denied Johnson’s claims, arguing in court filings that she was not deprived of her constitutional rights and that the lawsuit should be dismissed because it was filed too late under the statute of limitations. (Rizzo, 1/6)

Bianca Williams was tired of trying to find a store that either accepted federal food benefits for low-income mothers and their children or a store that had quality produce. So the Milwaukee resident — who has seven kids, including two currently being breastfed — decided in November that she’d rather turn to frozen Thanksgiving leftovers and food from family and friends. More than 6 million people in the U.S. get benefits from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women and Children, commonly known as WIC. But it’s not always easy to get the fresh produce, baby formula and other nutritious WIC-approved items. (Hunter, 1/5)

We need to rethink our fear of cancer. Our dread of the Emperor of All Maladies, learned decades ago, is now out of date and doing great harm on its own. (David Ropeik, 1/8)

Turn on your TV or open a web browser this January, and you’ll be bombarded with ads for fitness trackers, smart scales, health apps, and other digital innovations promising to streamline your journey to a happier and healthier you. It’s the time of year when we’re most susceptible to such messaging: Surveys show that at least one-third of our New Year’s resolutions focus on exercising, losing weight, or eating better. (Samantha Kleinberg, 1/8)

Obstetric fistula happens when women go through prolonged labor without medical care, and a hole develops between the birth canal and either the bladder or rectum. Without maternal health care and treatment, it is one of the most ghastly and debilitating injuries that childbirth can cause, affecting an estimated two million women and girls worldwide. It is also the most common obstetric concern in lower-income countries. (Ashley Judd, 1/5)

In America, 48 million people struggle with addiction. Very few get the help they need. But Jeneen Interlandi, a member of the editorial board, believes we have effective tools to address this public health crisis. In this audio essay, she argues that Americans need to view addiction as a chronic health condition, and treat it as such. (Jeneen Interlandi, 1/6)

Have you ever been tested for HIV? I have served vulnerable populations in the inner city of Kansas City for the past seven years, and I have noticed that although we do not hear about HIV/AIDS as much as we used too, it still affects people in our own backyard. (Alyssa Sandfort, 1/5)

Last year saw a stream of dismal headlines about kids’ mental health. Children and teens in the United States are struggling with higher levels of depression and anxiety. Rates of suicides and eating disorders are on the rise. But now there’s reason to be hopeful. (Lisa Jarvis, 1/5)

As someone who has lived in multiple Chicago neighborhoods, I view our city as a blessing and a curse. Chicago offers a wealth of cultures, creative outlets and resources. The Chicago Public Library’s West Pullman branch on 119th Street, which I used to visit after school with my mother and brother, brought me closer to my community. It provided access to a space that allowed me to spend time with my family in my neighborhood. Despite these warm memories of afternoons at the library, my access was limited to many of the city’s blessings, such as mentorship programs specific for young girls or mental health services. (Lakaya Knight, 1/7)