Raw Farm of Fresno, California, said Thursday it is voluntarily recalling more than a half-dozen varieties of its cheddar cheese made from raw milk. The recalled batches carry expiration dates spanning from May 2026 to September 2026.

Interest in and sales of raw milk have been rising in recent years, fueled by social media and growing support from the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement. Raw milk has not been pasteurized, which kills germs like E. coli, salmonella, listeria and campylobacter.

The Food and Drug Administration began investigating cases of E. coli food poisoning among people who had reportedly consumed the company's products last month and previously requested a recall.

In an update last week, the FDA said it was conducting an inspection of the company's facilities but had not found positive testing for E. coli bacteria among the company's products.

Raw Farm reiterated that point in its announcement Thursday and added that it was conducting its recall “under protest” and in order to chart “a path forward.”

“This voluntary recall is limited to Raw Farm-brand cheddar cheese, and no other products are being voluntarily recalled,” the company said.

The FDA has the authority to order food companies to recall their products when there is a reasonable risk of serious injury or death, but the agency must first give the company the opportunity to voluntarily comply.

The FDA said last week that nine people, including children, have been sickened in the expanding outbreak.

Of eight people interviewed by health officials, seven reported consuming Raw Farm-brand products, according to the FDA. Two people in 2025 reported drinking Raw Farm milk and five people in 2026 said they ate or were served Raw Farm raw cheddar cheese.

Genetic sequencing of E. coli strains from sick people show that they are all closely related, indicating people in the outbreak “share a common source of infection,” the FDA said.

The federal government does not allow the sale of unpasteurized milk across state lines for human consumption. States have widely varying regulations regarding raw milk, with some allowing retail sales in stores and others allowing sale only at farms. Some states allow so-called cowshares, where people pay for milk from designated animals, and some allow consumption only by farm owners, employees or “non-paying guests.”

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The couple has a child with nonverbal autism and epilepsy who requires up to three hospital visits a week. And Creighton's critical access hospital has been a lifeline for Jane: not only is she employed there, but three years ago, doctors saved her life when she contracted bacterial pneumonia. If she had waited another day for care, doctors said, her organs would have begun to shut down.

“And if we had had to drive the hour to the Yankton (South Dakota) hospital," Rick Saint John said, his voice breaking with emotion, "it could have cost her her life.”

So the Saint Johns were shocked to hear that Avera Creighton Hospital faces financial peril. A $50 billion government fund meant to transform rural health care will do little to help. It's a problem that millions of Americans in rural areas are awakening to as they realize there's no windfall coming for the vulnerable hospitals near their homes.

Hundreds of rural hospitals across the country are facing closures after years of funding problems. The issue was compounded last summer by the Trump administration's massive cuts to Medicaid, the government's safety net for low-income Americans, whose reimbursements have long helped hospitals meet their bottom lines.

Outcry over the funding cuts prompted Republican lawmakers to create $50 billion in new rural health grants, but critics say that funding is intended for innovative health care delivery solutions — not propping up hospitals buckling under current pressures.

“It won’t pay to keep the lights on. And it won’t turn the lights back on once they’ve been turned off,” said Dr. Ben Young, an infectious disease specialist and policy expert with public health advocacy group Wellness Equity Alliance.

Rural Americans’ health care worries reflect broader national concerns about access and rising prices of care as the cost of living spikes — anxieties that could prove pivotal in this year’s midterm elections.

Rural health fund billed as a cure falls short

The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program included in President Donald Trump's tax-and-spending law last year was billed by Republicans as a way to help hospitals in rural areas. Last summer, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted it as the “biggest infusion in history” for rural hospitals and pledged it will “restore and revitalize these communities.”

Hospitals and health industry experts have warned that while the fund — $10 billion per year allocated across all states for five years — offers some support to struggling rural hospitals, it won’t save them. One reason is that the sum doesn't come close to offsetting the $137 billion that rural hospitals expect to lose over the next decade, according to health research nonprofit KFF. Millions of people are expected to lose Medicaid benefits as a result of new Medicaid work requirements going into effect in 2027 — changes the Trump administration has maintained will crack down on fraudsters rather than cut off eligible enrollees.

Administrators say the new $50 billion fund is not meant to shore up ailing rural hospitals or maintain the status quo, but to transform rural health care through tech, workforce and other innovations. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz in a December video said it “gives states the tools to design solutions that last, not Band-Aids that fail.”

The White House echoed that Wednesday, saying the fund is intended to fund “big ideas” to improve rural health care access long-term.

“Decades of mismanagement by career politicians in Washington have left rural communities with limited care options," White House spokesman Kush Desai said.

State applications show a wide range of proposals. Some pitches sought to improve emergency medical services and modernize rural facilities, while others looked to make school lunches healthier, expand physical fitness programs, beef up telehealth and expand AI-driven technologies to help monitor patients.

Nebraska will spend much of its grant on innovation

Avera Creighton Hospital CEO Theresa Guenther argues her hospital is not in danger of closing. but conceded that Medicaid cuts will be painful — a sentiment shared by most rural hospitals, she said.

“Medicaid cuts will have an impact to us, and we — as well as many others — will have to figure out what that looks like moving forward,” she said. Her hospital hopes to get a piece of the $50 billion fund to help manage patients' chronic diseases — like diabetes — and to help cover workforce costs.

Nebraska, which received $218 million for the rural health grants' first installment, plans to spend some $90 million on healthier food options at schools, recruiting more health care workers and mobile sensors to remotely monitor chronically ill patients in rural areas, among other things. But for rural critical access hospitals at risk of closing, it offers $10 million to “right size” them by getting rid of inpatient care, where bed occupancy is typically low.

Republican state Sen. Barry DeKay said hospitals like Creighton's are vital, despite it's low occupancy rate. The hospital is in his district; even his mother received life-extending care there following a hip replacement. He's worried that the Medicaid cuts could hurt all the state's rural hospitals.

“I'll try to be working as hard as I can to get as much money to rural hospitals — whether it's in my district or any other rural district in the state,” he said.

Rick Saint John acknowledged he knows little about how Nebraska will use the federal funds, but he thinks it should go to helping hospitals like Creighton’s remain intact.

“The hospital is very important to this community, and for more than just medical care,” he said, citing job losses if the hospital loses services or closes.

Hospital groups push back on fund

The fund has seen pushback from hospital groups over an issue that's shaping up as important for 2026 voters.

The Colorado Hospital Association sent a letter in December to state lawmakers accusing them of ignoring input from rural hospitals during the application process.

The Nebraska Hospital Association, which endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer’s 2024 reelection bid based on her advocacy for rural health care, has criticized both the cuts and the $50 billion fund. Fischer voted last summer for the Medicaid cuts.

That and other efforts by the state to limit Medicaid spending sends a message “that access to health care is not a priority," the group said.

Some Republican state lawmakers across the country have expressed unease with parts of the fund and have sought ways to use it to help struggling rural hospitals.

States hard-pressed to help

Under pressure, some rural states are making their own moves to help.

Wyoming enacted a law allowing rural hospitals to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy, normally reserved for financially stressed cities to reorganize debts and repay creditors while protecting them from legal action.

In North Dakota, during a special session to allocate the state’s federal rural health funds, the Republican-led Legislature passed an unrelated bill that aims to rescue a rural hospital with a low-interest loan of up to $5 million administered through the state-owned bank.

It's hoped the plan will keep the hospital open in a vast rural area where it employs 5% of the surrounding county's residents, hospital board member Matt Hager said.

Young, the expert with Wellness Equity Alliance, sees dark days ahead for rural hospitals.

“I am not optimistic in the short term,” he said. “Because these hospitals are facing immediate financial shortfalls, are barely financially operating currently, and they need operating support now.”

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Swenson reported from New York. Associated Press writer Jack Dura contributed to this report from Bismarck, North Dakota.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said they are responding to Americans who have worried about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. The gesture also aims to hand a win to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s MAHA movement, which for months has pressured Zeldin to further crack down on environmental contaminants.

The EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List identifies contaminants in drinking water not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency is publishing the draft of the sixth version of the list, which opens a 60-day public comment period. It expects to finalize the list by mid-November.

“I can’t think of an issue that hits closer to home for American families than the safety of their drinking water,” Zeldin said at EPA Headquarters.

Studies have looked at the prevalence of microplastics in drinking water and in people’s hearts, brains and testicles. Doctors and scientists are still assessing what it means in terms of human health threats, but say there's cause for concern. There is also growing worry about pharmaceutical drugs that get into the water supply because humans excrete them and conventional wastewater treatment plants fail to remove them.

The EPA uses the list to prioritize research, funding and regulatory decision making, but rarely moves pollutants off the list to set limits for how much is allowed in public drinking water. The EPA said in March that it will not develop regulations for any of the nine pollutants from the list it most recently examined.

“It’s the beginning of a very long process that routinely ends in nothing,” said Erik Olson, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who works on drinking water protection.

Still, some who are urging the government to do more to stop plastic pollution say the announcement is a good start.

“Including it in the list would be the first step toward eventually regulating microplastics in public water supplies and hopefully this is not the last step,” said Judith Enck, a former EPA regional administrator who now heads up Beyond Plastics.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, said that while the EPA is moving in the right direction, if the United States does not rein in the accelerating growth in plastic production, which leads to plastic pollution, it will make little difference. The U.S. is participating in talks on a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution, but strongly opposes limits on plastic production.

Food & Water Watch says the listing is important but it ultimately falls short of their call for monitoring. EPA uses the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule to collect data for contaminants that are suspected to be present in drinking water.

The American Chemistry Council, an industry group, said it supports monitoring of microplastics in drinking water and research to better understand potential impacts, as long as the monitoring is standardized and consistent nationwide.

Plastic pollution is part of the MAHA agenda

The joint move from Kennedy and Zeldin comes as activists from Kennedy’s MAHA movement have forged fragile political ties with the EPA but expressed frustration with lack of action on their priorities, including pesticide regulation.

The movement erupted earlier this year over an executive order from President Donald Trump that is aimed in part at boosting the production of a controversial herbicide ingredient known as glyphosate. Kennedy has said he was disappointed by the executive order but sees it as necessary for agricultural stability and national security.

The EPA has teased a forthcoming MAHA agenda that it says will address issues such as forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality, Superfund cleanups and lead pipes. In February, EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch told The Associated Press that the agenda was in its “final stages.”

Kennedy, whose 2024 independent presidential campaign focused in part on tackling plastic pollution, also announced a $144 million effort to better measure, understand and remove microplastics that have made their way into human bodies.

Called STOMP, or Systematic Targeting of Microplastics, it will involve building tools to detect and quantify microplastics, mapping how they move through the body, and ultimately removing microplastics from the human body, he said.

“We can’t treat what we cannot measure, we cannot regulate what we don’t understand,” Kennedy said at the EPA on Thursday. “Together, we’re going to define the risk, build the tools and act on the evidence regarding microplastics.”

MAHA leaders, farmers and organizations told Zeldin in a letter Tuesday to tackle the health impacts of pesticides, plastics and PFAS chemicals. On plastics, they said the agenda must include monitoring for microplastics, establishing new limits on microplastics exposure and placing a moratorium on permitting for new or expanding plastic production facilities.

David Murphy, a former fundraiser for Kennedy’s presidential campaign, now works with the MAHA movement on its priorities as the founder of United We Eat. Murphy said it’s encouraging to see progress on microplastics, but criticized Zeldin for approving new pesticides during his tenure.

“It’s one step forward, two steps back at the EPA,” he said Thursday.

EPA publishes the list every five years

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as amended in 1996, directed the EPA to publish the Contaminant Candidate List every five years. Afterward, the agency must determine whether to regulate at least five contaminants from the list. In five cycles of the process, the EPA has determined that no regulatory action is appropriate or necessary for most of the contaminants it considered.

Trump has sought fewer environmental rules. In May, the EPA announced plans to rescind limits on some less common “forever chemicals” in drinking water, roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The NRDC and other environmental advocates are fighting to keep the entire Biden-era rule in place.

The new draft list includes four contaminant groups — microplastics, pharmaceuticals,  PFAS and disinfection byproducts — as well as 75 chemicals and nine microbes that may be found in drinking water, the EPA said.

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Associated Press writers Michael Phillis and Matthew Daly in Washington contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Five of the cases involved hospice-care centers in cities of Glendale, Artesia, Tarzana and Simi Valley in the Los Angeles area that allegedly billed Medicare for patients that were not terminally ill and did not qualify for hospice services, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. One person was arrested in Idaho and another in LA for allegedly defrauding a West Coast labor union’s health care plans. An additional person arrested in LA was accused of forging immigration medical documents.

The Trump administration has made California, and the Los Angeles area in particular, a focus of its national anti-fraud efforts, alleging the Democratic-led state is failing to crack down on improper spending.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee, called the California the “kingdom of fraud,” during a news conference announcing the charges.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said the state has already aggressively cracked down on hospice fraud, noting that he signed a law in 2021 to stop providing new hospice licenses over fraud concerns. The office also said the state has revoked more than 280 hospice licenses in two years and 300 providers are under investigation.

“Glad the federal government is finally stepping up to do their part,” Newsom wrote in a post on X.

The administration has highlighted fraud around the country across federal benefits programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to create an anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance, which met for the first time last week. Most of the efforts have focused on states run by Democrats, though Republican-led Florida was among those asked to share more information on how they identify, prevent and address Medicaid fraud.

“We are enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for criminals who defraud American taxpayers,” Essayli said in a statement announcing the California charges.

Dr. Mehmet Oz said during a news conference that federal officials “took out” 221 hospices in the last 10 weeks. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which Oz runs, did not immediately respond to an email seeking more information about what that entailed. CMS certifies hospice provides to accept patients on government-subsidized health insurance.

“We're going to review every single hospice in California,” Oz said.

In January, Oz posted a video on social media in front of an Armenian bakery in Los Angeles, alleging that roughly $3.5 billion in hospice and home care fraud has taken place in the city and “quite a bit of it” was run by “the Russian Armenian mafia.” It led to a civil rights complaint by Newsom's office, who said Oz had targeted Armenians with “baseless and racially charged allegations.”

Oz's agency also announced that it is proposing a new, publicly available hospice scoring system using care metrics to better identify facilities that might be illegitimate.

The largest Medicare fraud case announced Thursday involved an Artesia-based hospice center, whose owner submitted more than $9 million in fraudulent hospice claims to Medicare, and was paid more than $8.5 million on the claims, prosecutors said.

The owner paid beneficiaries and marketers for referring purported hospice patients to her company. One couple said they were each promised $300 per month to sign up for hospice care even though they did not need it, and they received unnecessary items such as nutritional shakes, nonprescription vitamins and wheelchairs, prosecutors said.

Another person charged in a new hospice fraud case is currently serving federal prison time in Seattle after being convicted in a previous hospice fraud case in December 2024. Her husband was arrested as a co-defendant Thursday morning.

Authorities also announced charges against a Los Angeles nurse that used a hospice center in Tarzana to submit more than $3.8 million in claims, of which Medicare paid approximately $3.4 million. She has not yet been arrested.

Court dates have not been set and it wasn't immediately clear if any of those arrested had legal representation.

Companies that have signed a “most favored nation” pricing deal and are actively building facilities in the U.S. to onshore production of patented pharmaceuticals and their ingredients will have a 0% tariff. For those that don’t have a pricing deal but are building such projects in the U.S., a 20% tariff will apply but will increase to 100% in four years.

A senior administration official told reporters on a press call that companies still have months to negotiate before the 100% tariffs kick in — 120 days for bigger companies, and 180 days for everyone else. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to preview the executive order before it was issued, did not identify any companies or drugs that were in jeopardy of getting hit with the increased tariffs but noted the administration had already reached 17 pricing deals with major drugmakers, 13 of which have signed.

In the order, Trump wrote that he deemed such actions necessary “to address the threatened impairment of the national security posed by imports of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients.” It arrived on the first anniversary of Trump’s so-called Liberation Day, when the president unveiled sweeping new import taxes on nearly every country in the world that sent the stock market reeling. Those “Liberation Day” tariffs were among the duties the Supreme Court overturned in February.

Some warned of consequences of the coming tariffs announced Thursday. Stephen J. Ubl, CEO of pharmaceutical company trade group PhRMA, said taxes “on cutting-edge medicines will increase costs and could jeopardize billions in U.S. investments." He pointed to America's already large footprint in biopharmaceutical manufacturing and noted medicines sourced from other countries “overwhelmingly come from reliable U.S. allies.”

Trump has launched a barrage of new import taxes on America’s trading partners since the start of his second term and repeatedly pledged that sky-high levies on foreign-made drugs were on the way. But the administration has also used the threat of new levies to strike deals with major companies — like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb — over the last year, with promises of lower prices for new drugs.

Beyond company-specific rates, a handful of countries have reached trade frameworks with the U.S. to further cap tariffs on drugs sent to the U.S. The EU, Japan, Korea and Switzerland will see a 15% U.S. tariff on patented pharmaceuticals, matching previously agreed rates for most goods, and the U.K. will get 10% — which Thursday’s order noted would “then reduce to zero” under future trade agreements. The U.K. previously said it secured a 0% tariff rate for all British medicines exported to the U.S. for at least three years.

Trump also unveils update to metal tariffs

In addition Thursday, Trump rolled out an update on his 50% tariffs on imported steel, aluminum and copper. Starting Monday, tariff rates on those metals will be calculated based on the “full customs value” of what U.S. customers pay when buying foreign metal under the latest order, which the administration officials claimed will keep importers from other countries from escaping higher payments.

Products fully made of steel, aluminum and copper will continued to be tariffed at 50% for most countries. But the administration is also shifting how tariffs are calculated for derivative metals — or finished goods that contain some of these metals, but are not made entirely of them.

For a product with metal that amounts to less than 15% of its entire weight (like the cap on a perfume bottle) only country-specific tariffs will now apply, officials told reporters Thursday. But for products with more metal, such as a largely steel washing machine, they said a 25% tariff will apply to the whole value.

More sectoral taxes are piling up

Thursday’s orders reflect the latest example of Trump tapping into sectoral duties. The president used Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act to impose the levies, the same authority he cited to slap import taxes on cars, lumber and even kitchen cabinets. And many expect to see more product-specific import taxes down the road.

That’s because a ruling from the Supreme Court struck down tariffs Trump imposed using another law — the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act — to immediately slap tariffs on any country, at nearly any level.

While the Feb. 20 court decision marked a significant blow to Trump’s economic agenda, the president still has plenty of options to keep taxing imports aggressively. Beyond sectoral levies, Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under a separate legal power mere hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling, but that duty can only last for 150 days. Some two dozen states already challenged the new tariffs.

Trump has argued his steep new import taxes are necessary to bring back wealth that was “stolen” from the U.S. He says they will narrow America’s decades-old trade deficit and bring manufacturing back to the country. But Trump has also turned to tariffs amid personal grudges, or in response to political critics. And upending the global supply chain has proven costly for businesses and households that are already strained by rising prices.

Health Minister Roger Kamba told journalists that the government had made the determination that the outbreak was over and no longer a national emergency.

Congo, a vast country in central Africa, was at the center of an outbreak of the infectious viral disease that spread to neighboring countries in 2024 and prompted the World Health Organization to declare it a global health emergency as it spilled over borders. WHO ended the global health emergency declaration in September.

The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there were more than 161,000 suspected cases of mpox in Congo during the outbreak between 2024 and this year, with around 37,000 of them confirmed through tests.

The Africa CDC said there were 2,286 suspected deaths but only 127 were confirmed by tests.

Mpox, also known as monkeypox, was first identified by scientists in 1958 when there were outbreaks of a “pox-like” disease in monkeys. Until a few years ago, most human cases were seen in people in central and West Africa who had close contact with infected animals.

In 2022, the virus was confirmed to spread via sex for the first time and triggered outbreaks in more than 70 countries that had not previously reported mpox.

The most common symptoms of mpox, according to WHO, are a rash and fever, but it can sometimes cause serious illness. Most people recover fully.

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Experts say criminalization could lock up desperate Mississippians and scare doctors away from prescribing these medications in clinical settings for non-abortion purposes, such as stopping postpartum hemorrhaging and easing symptoms of miscarriages.

Lawmakers added restrictions on abortion-inducing drugs to a drug trafficking bill that passed the House 76-38 and the Senate 37-15 on Tuesday. Republicans control both chambers.

“I think we’re going to end up trapping a lot of people into the criminal justice system simply because they want to have autonomy over their own bodies,” said Rep. Zakiya Summers, a Democrat from Jackson, who voted against the bill.

Rep. Celeste Hurst, a Republican from Sandhill, said she introduced this amendment to keep abortion medication, such as mifepristone and misoprostol, from entering Mississippi.

“The intent is to keep doctors from out of state from circumventing our current law,” Hurst told Mississippi Today.

But there is virtually no way for Mississippi to prosecute providers who send abortion pills across state lines, according to Mary Ziegler, an expert on abortion law and a professor at University of California at Davis School of Law. Shield laws in states where abortion is legal protect abortion providers, patients and helpers from out-of-state investigations, lawsuits and prosecutions, Ziegler told Mississippi Today.

“I think lawmakers are imagining this will be primarily used against doctors or drug manufacturers in blue states,” Ziegler said. “But it will be much harder for prosecutors to actually get those people into court than it will be for them to get someone whose partner has these drugs.”

What makes the legislation especially harmful, Ziegler said, is its vagueness. The bill says possession would only be criminal if there were an intent to distribute, but Ziegler expects Mississippians using the drugs for their own purposes could be prosecuted.

Language around clinical settings is also vague. The bill says Mississippi providers would only be prosecuted if they prescribed abortion-inducing medication with the intent to cause an abortion, not in instances where those drugs are prescribed to aid in a miscarriage or stop hemorrhaging. Despite this exemption, the bill is sure to have a chilling effect on health care, Ziegler said.

In both cases, Ziegler said, “the differentiator is intent, which is really, really hard to prove.”

This kind of legislation primarily comes down to the fact that abortion opponents are disappointed that abortions have increased in recent years, Ziegler said.

In 2022, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, in a Mississippi case, overturned the constitutional protections around the right to abortion. At the time, it was considered a huge victory for the anti-abortion movement. But abortions have paradoxically increased across the nation in the years since then, largely due to increased access to mail-in abortion medication.

“That’s kind of a hollow thing for the state if that happens and then the number of abortions doesn’t go down,” Ziegler said. “It’s like, what did you really accomplish?”

Sen. Daniel Sparks, a Republican from Belmont and one of six lawmakers who hashed out the final details of the legislation, told Mississippi Today he supported the amendment as a way to enforce Mississippi’s abortion ban.

“The state of Mississippi has been pretty clear of where they are about their pro-life position,” Sparks said. “If people are circumventing that through the mail or through other mechanisms, then I think we’re trying to be consistent with what the law is.”

Sen. Bradford Blackmon, a Democrat from Canton who voted against the bill, said it’s “outrageous,” “ridiculous” and “unnecessary” to lump abortion medication in with scheduled drugs and allow the state to enforce imprisonment of one to 10 years for the offense. In the end, Blackmon said, it’s just going to hurt poor women.

“The wealthy Mississippians are still going to be able to go where they want to get abortions,” Blackmon said.

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This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

A one-month supply of insulin vials and a three-month supply of backup pens for the Mississippi toddler cost his parents $194 last week, according to his mom, 29-year-old Marlee Brandon. They can afford it right now — but she worries about the future.

“One day, Bain will be an adult, and he won’t be able to be on our insurance anymore,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t realize how much and how expensive it is.”

A bipartisan group of senators is aiming to relieve that cost burden with the INSULIN Act, a bill to cap the cost of the lifesaving drug at $35 per month for Americans with private insurance plans. The bill, introduced last week by Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and John Kennedy, R-La., would also start a pilot program to provide more affordable insulin to uninsured Americans in 10 states. A somewhat similar bill passed in 2022, as part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping package from Democrats that successfully capped the drug at $35 per month for older adults on Medicare.

The legislation, the latest in a long effort by some lawmakers of both parties to rein in the price of insulin, faces many hurdles, including concerns about the cost and other competing congressional priorities. Still, with Trump in the White House and Congress now controlled by his Republican Party, it creates an opportunity for a rare bipartisan victory on health affordability in a year when rising health care costs are a concern for voters of both parties.

Out-of-pocket costs for insulin, a vital drug for millions, vary widely

About 8.1 million people in the U.S. use insulin, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That includes more than 2 million who have Type 1 diabetes and will die without regular access to insulin. The drug also helps control glucose levels for people with other types of diabetes.

But the price of insulin can vary widely. While some people with private insurance pay zero or very little, others pay hundreds of dollars each month on top of other costs for their diabetes, like pumps, blood glucose sensors and other supplies.

In addition to the 2022 law lowering out-of-pocket costs on insulin for Medicare beneficiaries, more than half of states in recent years have passed their own insulin co-pay caps, ranging between $25 and $100 per month for patients with state-regulated insurance plans.

Major insulin makers Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk also have moved to cut the cost of insulin, with different combinations of cutting list prices, capping out-of-pocket costs and expanding affordability.

Still, not all patients are accessing lower prices. About 57% of Americans with private health insurance have self-insured plans that states can’t regulate, according to Matthew Fiedler, a senior fellow with the Center on Health Policy at the Brookings Institution. That means they are left out of state cost-cap bills. Some patients are also uninsured, or have difficulty with manufacturers' cost savings programs.

“It puts the onus on the patient, I think, to try to navigate and get the cost down,” said Dr. Leslie Eiland, an adult endocrinologist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who is advocating with the Endocrine Society for the latest bill.

Oliver Bogillot, Sanofi’s head of general medicines for North America, said in a statement that “no one should struggle to afford their insulin” and touted the company’s savings program that includes people without health insurance. Flavia Brakling, a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk, said expanding affordable access to medicine is a priority and noted the company hasn't raised list prices for its insulin products for 2026.

Chanse Jones, a spokesperson for the leading trade association for pharmaceutical companies, PhRMA, said pharmacy benefit managers and insurers are creating access and affordability barriers for patients even as manufacturers try to expand access.

“We look forward to working with policymakers to ensure middlemen don’t stand between patients and their medicines,” he said.

Efforts to pass similar bills haven't succeeded

While the new INSULIN Act has bipartisan support, it would not be the first time such legislation seemed to have momentum, only to fail.

In 2022, the House passed a $35 monthly insulin cap that would have applied to Americans with private insurance, but it didn’t pass the Senate.

A similar attempt to include it in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act that year ultimately failed after Republicans opposed it, saying it was attempted in a way that violated Senate rules.

Diabetes patients and advocates hold on to hope

Breana Glover, a 23-year-old restaurant server in Houston, moved to Texas from California because she needed cheaper living expenses to cover the high health costs associated with her Type 1 diabetes.

Paying for her insulin and other supplies is a balancing act. To afford her $50 co-pay for four vials of insulin, she limits her carbohydrate intake. That way, she can use less insulin each day and make it last longer.

Glover said a $35 per month cap would be a “small step towards everything becoming even more accessible,” in addition to helping her cover items like groceries and gas.

Advocates expect the young adult population to especially benefit from the bill, since many struggle to get high-quality health insurance plans or any insurance at all if they aren't able to access plans through parents, said Manny Hernandez, CEO of The Diabetes Link, a national nonprofit for young adults with diabetes.

Hernandez said he was encouraged by recent meetings with Republican members of Congress from his home state, Florida, but worries other priorities will drown out the bill, as has happened in the past.

“There’s many distractions and there’s many important things going on,” he said. “But I don’t lose hope.”

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This story has been updated to correct the description of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. She represents New Hampshire, not Maine.

For six weeks every year, millions of Orthodox Christians around the world adopt a largely vegan diet, abstaining from meat, dairy products, eggs, and fish with backbones. Oil and wine also are prohibited on weekdays during the 40-day Lenten period before Orthodox Easter, which often falls later than its Catholic and Anglican counterpart.

The annual adherence to a plant-based, Mediterranean-style meal plan drives a communal rediscovery of vegetables and oil-free cooking methods in majority-Orthodox countries.

In Greece, even McDonald’s franchises get into the lean Lent spirit by adding seasonal menu items that meet most of the proscriptions of the Greek Orthodox Church. The menu includes shrimp wraps, shrimp salad, vegetable spring rolls and plant-based McVeggie burgers but is not oil-free.

Although following Eastern Orthodox dietary guidelines before Easter is often referred to as fasting, the focus is on going without certain foods, not refraining from eating altogether. The rules are not rigid but can be adapted to account for personal needs.

Here’s a look at the annual alimentary tradition, along with reasons to consider sticking with a similar diet and cautionary advice from nutritionists.

Different dates, different traditions

Christian traditions diverge between East and West ahead of Easter, and not just in their methods for determining the most important date on their calendars. Catholics are encouraged to give up one or more personal indulgences during Lent but get to decide whether to deny themselves dessert, alcohol, video games, swearing or something else. Members of the Orthodox Church forgo animal products except for shellfish.

Gone are Greeks' beloved dishes like mousaka and souvlakia — grilled meat wrapped with toppings. So are dairy products like milk and cheese. Vertebrate fish like anchovies, mullet and hake are no-nos too, although shrimp, oysters and calamari are permitted.

On a lush coastal hillside in central Greece, 40 monks closely follow these rules at the Monastery of St. Augustine and Seraphim. The monks, who wear black robes and full beards, grow and harvest most of their own produce in the monastery's gardens, including an abudance of zucchini and tomatoes.

Their meals during Lent are basic but not bland. The monks have mastered methods to replicate familiar tastes and textures. Oven-roasted potatoes are coated with tahini instead of oil to preserve the crunch factor. Vegetable stock prepared from scratch gives lentil dishes a hearty flavor.

The monks listen to prayers read aloud as they eat.

Mind over meals

Father Nektarios Moulatsiotis, the monastery's affable abbot, says the practice of fasting and following a restricted diet is essential for deep reflection and focus required for the spiritual preparation for Easter. He compares it to endurance training.

“In the same way someone goes to the gym to shape their body," Nektarios said, "the church is a gym for the soul.”

Occasional hunger pangs aren't something to resist; they are part of the plan. The idea is simple: less indulgence, more clarity.

“You cannot really pray, study, chant or do any spiritual exercise with a full stomach,” he said with a chuckle.

Nektarios argues that a nutritious yet disciplined diet can produce benefits that apply outside of a religious setting as much as inside of one, such as a sense of greater self-control and enhanced awareness.

The science of a 6-week reset

Orthodox monks observe several fasting periods that limit what, when and how much they eat for most of the year. Researchers have studied their health and food intake for decades to determine if their customs hold any clues to preventing heart disease, type 2 diabetes and strokes.

However, the advantages of eating a balanced diet that includes whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes are well-established. Reduce consumption of meat, saturated fats and processed foods long enough, and the body typically responds.

“Fasting certainly has benefits, provided it’s done correctly,” Eirini Babaroutsi, a sports nutritionist at the Hellenic Athletics Federation, said. For example, Orthodox Christians tend to eat more fiber during Lent, which helps the digestive system function better, she said.

“It also matters what we do eat, not simply what we avoid," Babaroutsi said. "With the right combinations, we can get all the nutrients we need.”

Meals that meet the guidelines aren’t confined to the ingredients found in Orthodox-majority countries in Southern and Eastern Europe. Babaroutsi suggests porridge with oat milk, vegetable wraps with olive paste, and high-quality peanut butter as helpful international additions.

Luckily, one size doesn’t fit all

There are a few considerations.

A six-week fasting cycle is not advisable for older adults and young children, Babaroutsi said. The Eastern Orthodox church also exempts people with serious health conditions, special dietary requirements, and pregnant or nursing women from strict obedience.

Engaging in a post-Lent binge as a reward also is best avoided because loading up after a period of abstinence can strain the body, Babaroutsi said.

For those wary of making a full commitment, know that you're not alone. Orthodox Lent started on Feb. 23, but many Greeks participate only during Holy Week, which starts on April 5, Palm Sunday, and goes until April 11, the day before Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter this year.

Supermarkets and bakeries in Greece make it easier to abide by stocking fast, family-friendly meals and an assortment of seasonal goods.

These include jars of pickles and olives, bags of chickpeas and other pulses, squid sliced into rings in freezer cases, the creamy pink fish roe known as taramosalata, and slabs of unleavened bread shaped like small surfboards.

In central Athens, at the slippery-floored central fish market, vendors call out over piles of Lent-compliant clams, octopus and mussels, shoveling seafood into paper cones.

Gerasimos Mantalvanos, the market’s general manager, said many customers tend to overindulge when Easter Sunday's traditional lamb dishes and sweets arrive. For most, a spirit of moderation eventually returns, he said.

“It is good for eating habits to change from time to time during the year,” Mantalvanos said. “So a period of fasting, a little fish and some abstinence from meat, I think these are good for the body. It is a kind of small detox, a little break.”

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AP photographer Thanassis Stavrakis and videojournalist Srdjan Nedeljkovic contributed.

One of the first clinical trials of these custom models suggests it might improve care for ventricular tachycardia, a notoriously difficult-to-treat arrhythmia that is a major cause of sudden cardiac arrest, blamed for about 300,000 U.S. deaths a year.

The study, by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, was a small first step. The Food and Drug Administration allowed the digital twin technology to guide treatment for just 10 patients, and much larger studies will be needed.

But the results reported Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine come as doctors increasingly are exploring how a technology long used in aerospace and other industries might be harnessed for better health, too.

Dr. Jeffrey Goldberger, a heart specialist at the University of Miami who wasn’t involved with the study, experimented with more rudimentary iterations 15 years ago and praised the new findings. “This is what we envisioned,” he said.

Doctors have long used 3D models, both physical and computer-generated ones, to simulate disease and practice techniques. But Hopkins biomedical engineer Natalia Trayanova said true digital twins predict how a real organ can react to different treatments. Her lab is pioneering colorful interactive models developed with an advanced MRI scan and other data from each patient.

“We treat the twin before we treat the patient,” Trayanova said. “Did it work? And if it did, are there new things that arise” that will require more or different care?

The heart’s electrical system powers our heartbeat. Ventricular tachycardia is a super-fast heartbeat triggered when an electrical wave short-circuits in the organ’s bottom chambers, the ventricles, and prevents them from pumping blood out to the body.

“You see this heart that is basically quivering,” Trayanova said.

Medication can help but the main treatment is ablation, when doctors thread catheters to the heart to burn misfiring tissue. But it's a bit trial-and-error, as patients spend hours under anesthesia while doctors determine where to aim. Repeat ablations are common, and many patients have an implanted defibrillator as backup.

Enter Trayanova’s digital twins of patients’ ventricles. Colors swirl on a computer screen – blue, green, yellow and orange – showing how the heart’s electrical wave moves across the chamber’s healthy areas before getting stuck on damaged tissue. It’s trapped in a circular motion that she compares to the swirl of a hurricane.

“It allows me to recreate the functioning of the patient’s organ and then predict what is the best way to ablate,” she said.

The technology locates a dysfunctional region where the electrical wave repeatedly hits. Virtually ablating it will show if that solves the problem or if another arrhythmia forms that also will need zapping. “Then we poke it again,” she explained.

Trayanova’s team created customized ablation targets for each of the 10 study participants. Cardiologists transferred them to a mapping system they use as a guide and aimed just at those targets instead of hunting their own.

More than a year later, eight patients had no arrhythmias while two experienced only a single brief episode while they were healing -- better than the treatment’s typical 60% success rate, said Dr. Jonathan Chrispin, a Hopkins cardiologist and the study’s lead author. All but two also stopped their anti-arrhythmia medicine.

More importantly, cardiologists may burn away less tissue by targeting "specifically the areas that we think are critically important,” Chrispin said. “We could potentially make these procedures shorter, safer, more effective.”

The Hopkins team hopes to study the digital twin approach in a larger study with other hospitals, and has begun a trial using it to treat a more common type of irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. Other researchers are studying digital twins for cancer care.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Food and Drug Administration granted expedited approval to orforglipron, a GLP-1 drug that works like widely used injectable medications to mimic a natural hormone that controls appetite and feelings of fullness.

The drug, which will be branded as Foundayo, is expected to begin shipping Monday. The company said people with insurance may be able to get the drug starting at $25 per month with a Lilly discount card. Prices for people paying cash will range between $149 per month to $349 per month, depending on the dose.

The new pill joins drugmaker Novo Nordisk's oral Wegovy pill, which has spurred more than 600,000 prescriptions in the United States since it was approved in December.

The FDA authorized Eli Lilly's drug as part of a new program aimed at cutting drug approval times. The agency said it reviewed the company's application in 50 days.

In a clinical trial of more than 3,000 adults with obesity, participants who received the highest dose of orforglipron, 36 milligrams, lost 11.2% of their body weight –- about 25 pounds on average –- over more than 16 months. That compared with a 2.1% weight loss, or less than 5 pounds, in patients who received a placebo, or dummy pill, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

Both the Lilly and Novo Nordisk pills resulted in less weight loss than the average achieved with Lilly’s injectable Zepbound, which results in a 21% average weight loss, or Novo Nordisk’s injectable Wegovy, which averages about 15%.

Both once-daily pills promise convenience, but orforglipron is a small-molecule GLP-1 drug that can be taken without restrictions. The Wegovy pill, a peptide, must be taken with a sip of water in the morning on an empty stomach, with a 30-minute wait before eating or drinking.

Users of orforglipron also saw improvements in waist circumference, blood pressure, triglyceride levels and cholesterol levels, the study found.

Side effects, mostly gastrointestinal issues, led between 5% and 10% of participants in the orforglipron study to discontinue treatment, compared with nearly 3% in the placebo group.

About 1 in 8 people in the U.S. have used injectable GLP-1 drugs, according to a survey from KFF, a nonprofit health policy research group. But many more have trouble affording the costly shots.

The pill from Indianapolis-based Lilly will be included in a Trump administration deal to lower prices on GLP-1 drugs.

Shares of ELi Lilly and Company rose more than 4% in trading Wednesday afternoon.

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AP Health Writer Matthew Perrone contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Several nonprofits filed a lawsuit last year accusing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development of changing the rules for receiving $75 million to build housing for homeless families and individuals. The plaintiffs accused the Trump administration of issuing a new Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, for the Continuum of Care Builds program to better align with its social policies.

U.S District Judge Mary McElroy, nominated by President Donald Trump, said the department’s “slapdash imposition of political whims” was unlawful and she ordered it to scrap the new policy.

“Once again, this Court is faced with a case in which an executive agency has made a last-minute decision to make major, disruptive changes to grants within its purview, all for the express purpose of accomplishing the current administration’s policy objectives,” McElroy said in her ruling that the NOFO violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.

A spokesperson for HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Advocates for plaintiffs welcomed the ruling.

“For more than three decades, the federal government has supported housing providers and communities through HUD’s programs to help people experiencing homelessness move into stable housing,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “We are pleased that the court has stopped the Trump-Vance administration from holding life-saving funding hostage to a political agenda.”

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the ruling was “a victory for people across this nation who have overcome homelessness and stabilized in HUD’s permanent housing programs.”

“Today’s news reinforces a fundamental truth: that the work to end homelessness is not partisan, and never should be interfered with for political means," Oliva said in a statement.

Plaintiffs argued the Trump administration was aiming to upend polices in place for decades to satisfy its political considerations, including whether jurisdictions “support sanctuary protections, harm reduction practices, or inclusive policies for transgender people.”

The Alliance and the Women’s Development Corporation argued that HUD lacked the authority to make the changes, adding that the new award process was “shockingly unlawful” and would “irreparably injure qualified applicants for these funds and the communities they serve.”

In its court filings, HUD argued the new criteria was an effort “to ensure the availability of funding to protect our Nation’s most vulnerable individuals and families from the trauma of homelessness while simultaneously promoting self-sufficiency.”

“Defendants acted reasonably and prudently because the NOFO conditions, focusing on public safety, cooperation with law enforcement and prohibitions on illegal drug use, are sufficiently related to the funding goals of self-sufficiency and reduction of trauma,” HUD wrote.

An 8-1 high court majority sided with a Christian counselor who argues the law banning talk therapy violates the First Amendment. The justices agreed that the law raises free speech concerns and sent it back to a lower court to decide if it meets a legal standard that few laws pass.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court, said the law “censors speech based on viewpoint.” The First Amendment, he wrote, “stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

Gorsuch's opinion drew support from liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

A state could similarly not ban talk therapy designed to affirm a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, Kagan wrote. “Once again, because the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward,” she wrote.

In a solo dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that states should be free to regulate health care, even if that means incidental restrictions on speech. The decision, Jackson wrote, “opens a dangerous can of worms” that “threatens to impair states' ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.”

The decision is the latest in a line of recent cases in which the justices have backed claims of religious discrimination while taking a skeptical view of LGBTQ+ rights.

Counselor Kaley Chiles, with support from President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, said the law wrongly bars her from offering voluntary, faith-based therapy for kids.

Chiles contends her approach is different from “conversion therapy” practices from decades ago, like shock therapy. Her attorneys argued that the ban makes it hard for parents to find therapists willing to discuss gender identity with kids unless the counseling affirms transition.

“I look forward to being able to help them when they choose the goal of growing comfortable with their bodies," Chiles said in a statement. “Counselors walking alongside these young people shouldn’t be limited to promoting state-approved goals like gender transition, which often leads to harmful drugs and surgeries.”

Colorado disagreed, saying its law does allow wide-ranging conversations about gender identity and sexual orientation and exempts religious ministries. The state says the measure simply bars using therapy to try to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations, a practice that has been scientifically discredited and linked to serious harm.

The law doesn’t violate the First Amendment, Colorado argued, because therapy is different from other types of speech since it's a form of health care that the state has a responsibility to regulate.

Advocates for LGBTQ+ people condemned the ruling, as well as “conversion therapy.”

“This is a dangerous practice that has been condemned by every major medical association in the country. Today’s decision does not change the science, and it does not change the fact that conversion therapists who harm patients will still face legal consequences,” Polly Crozier, director of family policy at GLAD Law, said in a statement.

The 2019 law carries the possibility of fines and license suspension, but no one has been sanctioned under it. The ruling is expected to eventually make similar laws in other states unenforceable.

Chiles was represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that has appeared frequently at the court in recent years. The group also represented a Christian website designer who successfully challenged Colorado anti-discrimination law because she didn’t want to work with same-sex couples.

Twenty-three states have laws barring health care providers from offering “conversion therapy” for minors, and another four have some restrictions, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an advocacy group that tracks policies that impact LGBTQ+ people.

The high court agreed to hear the case after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver upheld the law. Another Atlanta-based appeals court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, had struck down similar bans in Florida.

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Nicole Daedone, co-founder of OneTaste Inc., was also ordered to forfeit $12 million, and seven victims were awarded roughly $890,000 in restitution, federal prosecutors said.

“Coercion disguised as wellness or empowerment is still exploitation and it is a crime that causes harm to vulnerable victims,” Joseph Nocella, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York said in a statement.

Daedone declined to speak in federal court in Brooklyn on Monday, but one victim told the judge that she had believed in Daedone's “so-called feminist mission” only to be “left with significant financial damages and emotional harm,” the Daily News reports.

“In reality, I fell into Nicole’s trap,” the woman said, according to the newspaper. “I was the perfect target.”

U.S. District Court Judge Diane Gujarati, in handing down her sentence, said Daedone didn't appear remorseful as more than two dozen supporters turned out for the packed hearing.

“What she was doing wasn’t about enlightenment or operating in a different dimension,” the judge said, according to The New York Times. “It was criminal.”

Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term for Daedone, arguing in presentencing court filings that her scheme left “scores of victims financially, emotionally and psychologically scarred.”

“Daedone and her co-conspirators exercised control through economic pressure, psychological manipulation, physical exhaustion and emotional degradation, leaving behind a trail of financial ruin and lasting trauma,” prosecutors wrote.

Her lawyers argued that imposing a lengthy imprisonment would be “bonkers” as they sought a term of around two years for Daedone.

They noted that the 58-year-old New York resident had no prior criminal record and that more than 200 people had submitted letters to the court “attesting to her character, her generosity, and her positive influence.”

“She has lived an uncommon and impactful life, and she is deeply respected by people from all walks of life, including many entirely unconnected to OneTaste,” the defense lawyers wrote in their sentencing memo.

Among those who penned letters of support was Van Jones, a CNN correspondent and former adviser to President Barack Obama. He described Daedone as “a woman of uncommon wisdom, grace and moral courage” who has “dedicated her life to helping others find healing, empowerment and a deeper sense of human connection.”

Actor Richard Schiff, of the television series “The West Wing,” wrote that Daedone was deserving of the court's leniency because she has “spent her life trying to bring compassion, awareness, and honesty to a part of human experience that is often shamed or misunderstood.”

Daedone's lawyers said after the sentencing that they're focused on appealing her conviction and that she's been teaching meditation to other inmates at the federal detention center in Brooklyn since her conviction last June on a charge of forced labor conspiracy.

Prominent attorney Alan Dershowitz has said he'll also seek a pardon from President Donald Trump for Daedone and Rachel Cherwitz, the company’s former sales director.

Cherwitz was sentenced to six and a half years on Monday for her role in the scheme. Her lawyers didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

During the roughly one-month trial, prosecutors said the two women ran a yearslong scheme that groomed adherents — many of them victims of sexual trauma — to do their bidding.

They said Daedone and Cherwitz, 45, used economic, sexual and psychological abuse, intimidation and indoctrination to force OneTaste members into sexual acts they found uncomfortable or repulsive, such as having sex with prospective investors or clients.

The two told followers the questionable acts were necessary in order to obtain “freedom” and “enlightenment,” and to demonstrate their commitment to the company’s principles.

One of Daedone’s lawyers, meanwhile, cast her as a “ceiling-shattering feminist entrepreneur” who created a unique business centered on women’s sexuality and empowerment.

Daedone co-founded OneTaste in San Francisco in 2004 as a sort of self-help commune that viewed female orgasms as key to sexual and psychological wellness and interpersonal connection.

A centerpiece was “orgasmic meditation,” or “OM,” which was carried out by men manually stimulating women in a group setting.

The company enjoyed glowing media coverage in the 2010s as a cutting-edge enterprise that prioritized women’s sexual pleasure, and quickly opened outposts from Los Angeles to London.

Daedone sold her stake in the company in 2017 for $12 million — a year before OneTaste’s marketing and labor practices came under scrutiny.

The company’s current owners maintain its work has been misconstrued and that the charges against its former executives were unjustified.

The EPA’s Office of Inspector General issued two new reports last week that are part of a series assessing the weather-related vulnerabilities of the 157 federal Superfund sites prioritized for cleanup due to the serious risk they pose to public health and the environment. About 3 million Americans live within a mile of a Superfund site, while 13 million people live within 3 miles (4.8 kilometers).

Some of the Superfund sites were found to be at risk from multiple natural-disaster threats. The studies found 49 in coastal areas are at risk from sea-level rise or storm surge from hurricanes, with many located near highly populated areas and important ecological locales like Chesapeake Bay. Another 47 are in low-lying sites prone specifically to inland flooding from heavy rain. The review also found 31 sites in areas at high risk for wildfires.

Despite these risks, the five-year plans governing the expensive and time-consuming cleanups at the sites often failed to account for damage posed by flooding from sea-level rise and more frequent storms and wildfire, the IG’s review found.

“That is a big problem because it means the site managers are not planning mitigation measures,” said Betsy Southerland, a former director of the agency’s water protection division who spent over 30 years at the EPA.

“The communities living near those sites should be made aware of this planning failure and should insist on robust plans,” she said.

At locations with little or no planning for floods, contaminants could be released into surrounding communities and taxpayer dollars already invested in remediation could be wasted, the review found.

The EPA said it is reviewing the IG’s findings and that the Superfund program does factor “the impacts of extreme weather events and other hazards as a standard operating practice in the development and implementation of cleanup projects.”

Last year, President Donald Trump fired EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell at the beginning of Trump's second term, and the office’s new review makes no mention of climate change, a term the Republican administration has scrubbed from federal websites. But the new reports issued by the IG’s remaining staff still lay out the risks posed by a warming planet to the nation’s most dangerous toxic waste sites.

Lara J. Cushing, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who has studied the effects of a changing climate on the nation’s toxic waste sites, petrochemical plants and other hazardous areas, called the new reports “noteworthy and important.”

“Although President Trump may wish to ignore it, the fact is the climate is changing and we need to be proactive in responding to rising seas and more extreme weather or face the consequences of increasingly frequent cascading natural-technological disasters that poison communities and local ecosystems,” said Cushing.

The inspector general’s findings echo a 2017 investigation by The Associated Press that found 327 Superfund sites vulnerable to flooding driven by climate change. The AP’s review was launched following Hurricane Harvey, which caused extensive flooding in parts of Houston that included seven Superfund sites and triggered spills from tanks holding cancer-causing toxic waste.

The EPA’s new report said that during Harvey, dioxin chemicals were carried by flooding into neighboring streets, yards and homes close to the San Jacinto River, an area highlighted by AP’s reporting.

At the time, the EPA under the first Trump administration criticized AP’s reporting as fear-mongering “yellow journalism.” Trump has called climate change a hoax, blocked renewable energy projects and sought to boost the burning of planet-warming fossil fuels.

“This series shines a light on potential threats to federal facility Superfund sites and the critical role of five-year reviews in addressing them,” said Kim Wheeler, the spokesperson for the Inspector General’s office. “By identifying sites at risk from these weather-related events, we aimed to raise awareness and encourage forward looking planning.”

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“It is definitely harder on your body. You just feel a lot more fatigued. There are certain complications to watch out for,” said Means, a Texas OB-GYN who had her first child at 37 and her second at 39. “It’s usually going to be fine, but there are things to be aware of.”

Like Means, more and more women are having babies later in life. A federal report showed that 21% of all births in the U.S. were to women 35 and older in 2023, up from 9% in 1990. And this “advanced maternal age” raises risks for both moms and babies.

Older pregnant women are more likely to have conditions like high blood pressure and obesity, for example, and are more prone to developing pregnancy complications. They’re more likely to undergo cesarean sections and give birth to twins or babies with some genetic abnormalities.

But don't be too worried. Risks are generally low; they're just higher than average. And while most older moms have normal pregnancies, doctors say there are ways lower to risk and prevent problems before, during and after pregnancy.

“Moms over 35 can still have a healthy pregnancy and a happy baby,” said Dr. Michael Warren, chief medical and health officer for the March of Dimes, a nonprofit that works to improve the health of mothers and babies.

Before getting pregnant, get as healthy as you can

Dr. Ashley Zink, a maternal-fetal specialist at the University of Texas Southwestern, said optimizing your health is like “building your baby’s first home.”

That involves following the time-honored advice of eating a well-balanced diet, staying active and avoiding risky behaviors like smoking.

“Make sure those good health habits that you’ve established over the course of your life are still in place,” Warren added. “If you have chronic diseases, make sure those are well-managed. Make sure you’re getting regular preventive medical care.”

Being as healthy as possible is important, Zink said, because pregnancy can be as rigorous as a marathon.

“Your volume of blood expands; it’s harder work for your heart,” she said. “And just the discomforts of pregnancy — all kinds of things — are a little bit better tolerated if you’re in good physical condition.”

A checkup before trying to conceive can be helpful, doctors said, allowing you to discuss health concerns, get treated for any conditions that might affect your pregnancy and make sure you’re up to date on vaccinations.

During pregnancy, ask your doctor about prenatal tests and scans

Doctors suggest getting a first-trimester ultrasound, which can measure the size of the fetus, help confirm the due date and check for multiple fetuses.

Women over 35 tend to produce more of the hormone that stimulates the ovaries to produce eggs, and they also may use in vitro fertilization to get pregnant. Both of these things increase the likelihood of twins or triplets, which puts you at a higher risk of complications such as premature birth.

Older women may also want to consider having blood drawn for noninvasive prenatal testing, which can screen for chromosomal abnormalities in a fetus such as Down syndrome and trisomy 13 or 18. According to Stanford Medicine Children's Health, the risk of Down syndrome is about 1 in 1,250 for a woman who conceives at age 25 and rises to about 1 in 100 for a woman who conceives at 40.

If the screening suggests the fetus is at risk, a doctor may recommend more invasive diagnostic tests. These include amniocentesis, in which a small amount of amniotic fluid is taken from the uterus; or chorionic villus sampling, in which cells are taken from the placenta.

Zink said older women can also ask about a “growth ultrasound” at around 32 or 34 weeks of pregnancy.

“It shows us if the placenta is still doing a good job,” she said. “Do you have normal fluid? Do you have normal growth?”

Ultrasounds late in pregnancy may also spot problems with the fetus.

“We know that when women are pregnant later in life, there’s an increased risk of birth defects,” particularly cardiac defects, Warren said.

There’s also a higher risk of stillbirth, although the risk is still very small.

“As the delivery date gets closer,” Warren said, “it’s so important to be mindful for those cues like fetal movement. Can you still feel the baby moving and kicking?”

Know the risks during birth

The percentage of babies delivered by C-section rises with maternal age, averaging 48% of live births for women 40 and older, according to the March of Dimes, which looked at the years 2022 to 2024. Women who undergo C-sections have a significantly higher risk of maternal complications such as infection and bleeding than those who deliver vaginally.

Medical reasons for C-sections include having chronic health conditions that may make vaginal birth risky, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, the March of Dimes said. Other reasons include complications during labor, such as having a very large baby, which can happen when a mom has gestational diabetes, which is diabetes you develop during pregnancy and can affect your and your baby's health.

Placenta problems, which can result in dangerous bleeding before or during labor, are also more likely in older women. (Like other issues, they don't occur that often. Placental abruption, when the placenta separates from the uterus, happens in about 1 in 100 pregnancies overall.)

Means gave birth to both of her children vaginally but had placenta-related issues. She also had gestational diabetes with both of her pregnancies.

After giving birth to her first child, a daughter, in 2023, some of her placenta was retained and had to be removed, and she needed treatment for a postpartum hemorrhage. A week after giving birth to her son last year, she suffered severe bleeding and had to be treated at the hospital.

“So both of my babies tried to kill me a little bit,” she joked. “Once I got past all those bleeding issues, I’ve been fine … And both my kids are super healthy, so I’m thankful for that.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

These Florida natives emerge this time of year, covering trees and structures as they search for places to make their cocoons.

“Caterpillars are an incredibly important piece of our ecosystem. They’re food for all sorts of creatures,” said Adam Dale, an associate professor of Entomology at the University of Florida.

Insect experts like Dale recommend using gloves or an object, such as a credit card, to move them and avoid direct contact.

“They have little spines on them that can break off into your skin, causing irritation,” he explained. “They look like little brushes along their back, but those are the ones you don’t want to come into contact with.”

If you do come in contact with a tussock moth caterpillar, here is what to do:

• Remove any hairs with tape.
• Wash the area with soap and water.
• Apply ice or baking soda and water paste to soothe the skin.

Dale warns that even their cocoons have those irritating hairs, so if you want to clear an area of them once they have become moths, use a broom.

In January, California became the first state to require food makers to add folic acid, a crucial vitamin, to corn masa flour used to make tortillas and other traditional foods widely used in her community.

It’s a long-delayed move aimed at reducing Hispanic infants' disproportionately high rates of serious conditions called neural tube defects, which claimed Lopez’s son, Gabriel Cude, when he was 10 days old.

“It’s such a small effort for such a tremendous impact,” said Lopez, 44, who lives in Bakersfield and is now a lawyer with two young daughters. “There is very little that I wouldn’t do to spare anybody this heartache.”

A similar law takes effect in Alabama in June, and legislation is pending or being considered in Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma and Oregon. Four more states — Texas, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — have expressed “active interest” in the issue, according to the Food Fortification Initiative, an advocacy group that focuses on addressing micronutrient deficiencies.

“All women and children in the United States should have access to folic acid and have healthy babies,” said Scott Montgomery, the group's director.

Corn masa was excluded from a national mandate

For nearly 30 years, folic acid, a key B vitamin, has been required to be added to enriched wheat and white breads, cereals and pastas in the U.S.

Decades of research show the 1998 requirement cut rates of serious defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly by about 30%, preventing about 1,300 cases a year. It is regarded as one of the top public health triumphs of the 20th century.

But corn masa flour, a staple used in Latino diets, was left out of the original fortification requirement — and rates of conditions such as spina bifida and anencephaly in that community have remained stubbornly high.

In 2016, federal regulators allowed, but did not require, folic acid to be added to corn masa products. By 2023, only about 1 in 7 corn masa flour products and no corn tortillas contained folic acid, a review found.

Higher rates of birth defects among Hispanic moms

Nationwide, Hispanic women have the highest rates of having those defects during pregnancy. In California, the rate among Hispanic mothers is twice as high as for white or Black women, state data show.

California’s new law — and the state’s huge buying power — could help expand its adoption nationwide, said state Assemblymember Joaquin Arambula, who sponsored the legislation passed in 2024.

“You have to be the first oftentimes to get the ball rolling,” he said. “So, I’m glad other states have taken up that mantle.”

California’s action and pressure from advocates have already spurred changes.

Gruma Corp., the parent company of Mission Foods and Azteca Milling, has been involved in the fortification issue for nearly two decades. Azteca began selling some — but not all — varieties of Maseca, its largest brand of corn masa flour, with folic acid in 2016.

As of this year, 97% of the company’s retail sales in the U.S. include folic acid. The rest are expected to be fortified before July, Gruma said in a statement.

Mission Foods began fortification in 2024. It now adds folic acid to all of its branded and private label corn tortillas in the U.S.

Such actions by large producers have helped pave the way for smaller manufacturers to follow suit, according to a recent report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group that has pushed for fortification.

Initially, the industry was concerned folic acid could affect flavor and the cost of changing labels, said Jim Kabbani, head of the Tortilla Industry Association. But he now expects tortilla makers will start selling fortified products on a broader scale.

“I think overall the train has left the station and it will be more and more states,” he said.

Public health experts cheer the growing momentum.

“The science is clear: Folic acid fortification works,” said Vijaya Kancherla, an Emory University epidemiology professor and director of the Center for Spina Bifida Prevention. “It’s safe. It’s proven. And it’s cost-effective.”

RFK Jr. calls corn masa fortification ‘insanity’

That view contrasts sharply with critics — including some at the highest level of government — who regard fortification of the food supply as a form of government overreach.

Late last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized California's new law in a post on X: “This is insanity. California is waging war against her children — targeting the poor and communities of color,” he wrote.

A spokesman for Kennedy declined to explain the comments.

Social media feeds are rife with people claiming that folic acid fortification is “toxic” or that people with a certain gene variation known as MTHFR can’t properly process the vitamin.

None of those claims is accurate, according to advocates and medical experts.

“What’s truly insane is that our nation’s top health official is spreading false claims and frightening people into avoiding a nutrient that’s proven to prevent birth defects and save babies' lives,” said Eva Greenthal, CSPI’s senior policy scientist.

At fortification doses, folic acid “has never been shown to harm individuals or populations,” said Dr. Jeffery Blount, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who works to prevent neural tube defects in the U.S. and globally.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes that “people with the MTHFR gene variant can process all types of folate, including folic acid.”

Even Kennedy’s new federal dietary guidelines support fortification. Documents backing the guidelines advise pregnant women to eat folate-rich foods, such as leafy green vegetables, beans and lentils. But they also acknowledge that folic acid from fortified foods or supplements is “critical” before conception and during early pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects.

“Folic acid fortification of corn masa flour could help prevent” neural tube defects, the CDC website adds.

Without fortification, ‘It’s just too late'

Neural tube defects, which affect about 2,000 babies each year in the U.S., occur in the first weeks after conception, when the tube that forms the spine and brain fails to develop properly.

That’s often before many women realize they’re pregnant. More than 40% of U.S. pregnancies are unintended. In those cases, many women won't have been preparing for pregnancy, noted Dr. Kimberly BeDell, medical director of a rehabilitation clinic that helps children with spina bifida at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, California.

“Even women’s best efforts in going to an OB right away and starting prenatal vitamins, it’s just too late,” BeDell said.

Adding folic acid to corn masa, the way it is added to other grains, is a way to ensure the nutrient reaches the wider population that needs it, she added.

At age 28, pregnant with her first child, Andrea Lopez didn’t know about the importance of folic acid or that the vitamin might be missing from her diet.

Then, an ultrasound mid-way through pregnancy showed that her baby had anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the skull fails to develop properly.

Lopez carried the pregnancy to term and Gabriel lived for 10 days. The pain of his loss never goes away, she said, adding that Gabriel would have been a high school freshman this year. She supports California’s law requiring folic acid fortification of corn masa and finds it “mind-boggling” that the action took so long to enforce.

“Trust me, you don’t want to go through this,” she said. “He’s the love of my life. I have two little girls that survived, but he’s my first born. He is my only son.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The 2024 crash nearly killed Stotko, who was raced to a hospital with severe brain injuries, a facial fracture and broken eardrum. But after being on a ventilator for two days, spending three weeks in the hospital and enduring brain surgery, she survived, surprising even her doctors.

At a checkup, she said, her doctors told her, “Wow, we can’t believe you’re here.”

Now, she's pushing for stricter laws regulating e-bikes in hopes that others won't be hurt.

E-bikes offer a convenient, eco-friendly and cost-effective alternative to cars, but their increasing use is drawing safety concerns. A study by the University of California, San Francisco found that rider injuries from e-bikes nearly doubled each year from 2017 to 2022, and a University of California, San Diego study showed injuries in San Diego among e-bike riders under 18 soared 300% from 2019 to 2023.

Under federal law, most e-bikes are considered nonmotorized vehicles just like traditional bicycles, so riders don't need a driver's license or insurance and they don't have to wear a helmet. But many states have more stringent rules, and regulations vary widely.

Health experts have called for new laws and better enforcement of existing regulations, and officials in many places are taking action.

Here’s what e-bikers should know to keep themselves and people around them safe.

Not all e-bikes are the same

Many states have adopted a three-tier classification of e-bikes: Class 1 have motors that kick in while riders pedal with maximum speeds of 20 mph; Class 2 have throttles that reach the 20 mph maximum without pedaling; and Class 3 provide pedal-assist up to 28 mph.

There are faster versions available, sometimes called e-motos, that can reach 40 mph even without pedaling. Many states treat these bikes like motorcycles, so they're not allowed on sidewalks or paths, but in some states there are no specific rules for the ultra-fast bikes.

As John Maa, a general surgeon at MarinHealth Medical Center in Northern California, notes, it's basic math that increased speeds lead to increased injuries.

“It’s Newton’s principles, right? Force equals mass times acceleration, and also kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared," Maa said.

Learn where you can and can’t ride

Speed limits, helmet requirements and other rules for e-bikes are changing rapidly, and what’s legal in one city or state might be illegal in the next.

New York City imposed a speed limit of 15 mph on all electric bikes in October, and Florida lawmakers recently sent the governor a bill limiting e-bike speeds to 10 mph within 50 feet of pedestrians. In Connecticut, an October law requires all e-bike riders to wear a helmet, and bikes without pedals equipped with batteries over 750 watts will require a driver's license.

“We were not only hearing from manufacturers and riders, but we were hearing from concerned citizens trying to share the road with these new electric bikes and e-scooters, and also law enforcement who really needed some clear policies set into place,” said Christine Cohen, the Connecticut state senator behind the legislation.

Know your bike

The market is full of vehicles that blur the line between a traditional e-bike and something closer to a motorcycle, and manufacturers don’t always make the distinction easy to spot.

To understand a bike's capabilities and where it can be legally ridden, check its top speed, motor wattage, and whether it requires pedaling or operates on throttle alone. Anything outside the three-class classification could be subject to motor vehicle regulations, making it illegal to ride on some shared-use paths where slower e-bikes are allowed.

“The first thing we always tell people is familiarize yourself, read the manual, look at some videos, look at your specific model,” said Charles DiMaggio, an injury public health researcher and professor at New York University’s medical school.

Going to a local bike shop instead of buying online can help, enabling riders to ask questions, take a test ride and learn what's legal and what isn't.

Follow traditional bike safety measures

Hospitals and medical groups like the American College of Surgeons and American Association of Neurological Surgeons have called for stricter policies and offered safety tips.

Above all, they stress wearing a helmet. Other tips include riding defensively around cars, using front and rear lights, wearing reflective vests in the dark, and avoiding biking under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Experts also recommend against altering an e-bike to make it faster.

Maa added that e-bike riders should consider wearing a motorcycle helmet that covers the neck to protect against spinal injuries. He also advises parents to make sure their children can comfortably ride a pedal bike before they graduate to e-bikes.

“Make sure they’re comfortable, they understand the rules of the road, they’re able to navigate turns, understand the flow of traffic, the use of bicycle lanes," Maa said.

Minnesota victim wants accountability

After she was injured, Stotko told the city council in her community of Hastings, Minnesota, about her crash to push for a stricter ordinance. The city agreed, reducing maximum e-bike speeds to 15 mph on city trails, prohibiting e-bikes on sidewalks and imposing penalties.

City police issued a citation to the 14-year-old rider for operating an e-bike underage, but no one was charged for the injury to Stotko.

“It’s really about taking accountability and ownership of owning an e-bike and operating one,” she said.

Bowens is a doula, a provider of physical and emotional support before, during and after birth — care that used to be seen as a luxury and was available only to those who could afford it. But doulas are becoming mainstream.

The country's once-reluctant medical establishment is increasingly welcoming the way doulas complement doctors and nurses, and with insurance coverage growing fast, parents from across the economic spectrum can now take advantage.

More than 30 states reimburse doulas through Medicaid or are in the process of implementing such coverage, up from 14 in late 2022, according to the nonprofit National Health Law Program. Private insurers are starting to do the same, with industry giant UnitedHealthcare launching a new benefit this year. Without insurance, costs vary widely but can exceed $2,000.

The changes are being driven by mounting research that shows these trained, non-medical professionals can significantly improve the health of moms and babies. Expanding doula care, experts say, is a relatively inexpensive way to help reduce maternal mortality, which kills Black mothers like Stewart at a rate more than three times higher than white women.

“Doulas can benefit everybody,” said Sierra Hill, maternal care access coordinator for Minnesota’s health department. “And that’s especially true for our communities that are facing a lot of inequities and health disparities.”

Stewart, who has Tennessee Medicaid, said Bowens shepherded her through the jitters of early pregnancy with her twin sons, blood pressure issues during delivery, a C-section and baby blues after birth.

“I felt safe. It didn’t feel like I was just by myself,” said Stewart, a 35-year-old single mother of four. “She was like my homegirl.”

Awareness of doulas has grown

In 2006, 3% of women in the U.S. got care from a doula during labor, according to a survey conducted for the nonprofit Childbirth Connection, now a program of the National Partnership for Women & Families. That figure has doubled or tripled since then, researchers estimate.

When Bowens was pregnant with the first of her six children more than two decades ago, a counselor recommended a doula.

“I’m like, ‘A doula, what is that?’” Bowens recalled.

Bowens was so inspired by the care she received that she ultimately became one herself. In addition to answering moms' questions and connecting them to community services, Bowens helps her clients navigate the health system and advocates for them.

“Oftentimes, we become friends with our clients – lifelong friends. We help connect them with resources in the community,” said Bowens, founder of Naturally Nurtured Birth Services. “We cater to them … so it looks different for each client.”

That help pays off, especially for moms from underserved communities.

Research comparing two groups of socially disadvantaged mothers found that those who used doulas were four times less likely to have a baby with low birth weight, two times less likely to have a birth complication and much more likely to start breastfeeding. Another study published last year found that Medicaid recipients with doulas had a 47% lower risk of C-sections and a 29% lower risk of preterm birth and were 46% more likely to go to a postpartum checkup.

That postpartum finding is key, said April Falconi, a scientist at Carelon Research who co-authored the recent study. More than half of maternal deaths occur during the postpartum period, she said. Causes include infection and excessive bleeding.

These sorts of results led Minnesota to become one of the first states to cover doulas through Medicaid in 2014. A decade later, the state expanded coverage, allowing Medicaid recipients 18 sessions with a doula without prior authorization, more than double what was allowed before.

“The return on investment is huge,” the health department’s Hill said.

Rising acceptance of doulas by doctors and nurses

There are no mandatory licenses for doulas, but there are state qualification standards to receive Medicaid payments and many doulas seek certification from private entities.

Naturally Nurtured is involved in a pilot project in Memphis in which doula services are paid for under a Tennessee Medicaid program run by UnitedHealthcare. Services are free to members.

UnitedHealthcare commercial clients with a doula benefit, on the other hand, get reimbursed for the care. Doulas are also included in a limited but growing number of other private plans.

“I see doulas becoming more and more integrated and accepted by all within the health care system," said Dr. Margaret-Mary Wilson, chief medical officer at UnitedHealth Group.

That extends to doctors and nurses in hospitals.

Dana Morrison, principal director of Doulas of Duluth in Minnesota, said there “was definitely” resistance to doulas by birth teams when she began her work 10 years ago. That was also true nationally. One point of friction was when doulas advocated for something different from what the medical professionals wanted. And since doulas weren't as integrated into care, they didn't have the time to build trust with doctors and nurses.

Today, Aspirus St. Luke’s hospital contracts with Doulas of Duluth on a grant-funded program, and patients can receive a scholarship to hire a doula through the organization.

Nurse Mallory Cummings, doula coordinator at Aspirus St. Luke's, said people on the birth team accept and appreciate doulas. “What it really comes down to is everyone’s knowledge of what a doula is,” she said.

Doulas support moms through trying times

On a recent afternoon, Mary Bey settled into a chair in a homey room at the Memphis doula center, cradling her sleeping infant, Ca’Mya. Bowens sat beside her, taking notes on her laptop.

After discussing breastfeeding and sleep, they talked about how Bey, 39, has been crying a lot since the delivery.

“What brings it on?” Bowens asked.

“I’ll be scared and I'll just be so protective and treat her like she’s just glass,” Bey replied.

Bey is haunted by a past loss. Before giving birth to her daughter last December, she suffered a stillbirth. Bowens helped her through.

“She was there when I had to push him out. She was there after, when I was healing. She came to the house. She brought groceries,” said Bey, a single mother of four who was connected with Bowens through the same pilot program as Stewart.

When Bey got pregnant again, she texted Bowens: “Hey, can you still be my doula?”

As the pregnancy progressed, Bowens answered all of Bey’s questions and kept her calm. She was there for Bey’s scheduled C-section and supported her when doctors monitored Ca'Mya for jaundice and what they briefly thought was a heart problem.

Later, Bey worried her C-section scar might be infected. Bowens advised her to get it checked out. It was.

Without her doula, Bey said she would never have gotten through either pregnancy as well as she did, physically or emotionally.

“She makes you feel like she’s family,” Bey said. “She was a friend — my best friend — a cousin, an auntie, a sister. All of the above.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.