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After 17 million gallons of raw sewage were discharged into the ocean off Los Angeles beaches early Monday, county officials waited hours before notifying the public to avoid swimming in areas potentially affected by high levels of bacteria. The delay occurred even though officials from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which is responsible for notifying the public, were at the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant in Playa del Rey during the emergency discharge procedure that began Sunday evening and ended Monday around 4:30 a.m., according to interviews. (Lopez and Kuo, 7/13)

Seventeen million gallons of untreated sewage was discharged into the Santa Monica Bay on Sunday after a power outage, officials said Monday night. The sewage has forced beaches across Southern California to close to the public this week. Los Angeles County's largest and oldest sewage plant, Hyperion Water Reclamation, said Monday that it "became inundated with overwhelming quantities of debris, causing backup of the headworks facilities." The spill into Santa Monica Bay lasted for eight hours, where 6% of the plant's daily load was released, the plant said. (Powell, 7/13)

State officials on Tuesday added 59 deaths to the toll wrought by the Feb. 14 cold wave and the ensuing collapse of the Texas electric power grid. The deaths newly tallied by the Texas Department of State Health Services boost the toll from 151 to 210 deaths, most from exposure to the sometimes-subzero temperatures. Still, some were blamed on carbon monoxide poisoning as freezing Texans sought warmth from cars and outdoor grills. (7/14)

Tens of millions of Americans and Canadians have been greeted by gray skies, eerily fiery sunrises and sunsets, and a dingy veil of haze obscuring the sky overhead. The culprit? Dozens of raging wildfires burning across the West, emitting smoke some 40,000 feet into the atmosphere and signaling what may be a long, devastating fire season. The smoke is also compromising air quality in areas near the blazes. (Cappucci, 7/13)

The July Fourth holiday was a weekend of barbecues, time with family and fireworks displays by starlight. But the holiday also sparked something else: a question about the impacts of fireworks. For many, the bright lights of fireworks disappear as quickly as they came. But the explosions involve far more than just the flash. They leave something that’s a little harder to see in the dark: smoke. That’s the faint burning smell you might sometimes notice when you or your neighbors set off fireworks, or perhaps the haze you see when you go to a city display. That smoke is air pollution made up of harmful particulates and toxic chemicals that can hang in the air and get into the water, soil and your lungs. (Bowman, 7/13)

Over 4% of all new cancer cases in 2020 were attributable to alcohol consumption, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet Oncology. The researchers analyzed available data on population-level alcohol use in 2010 and on cancer cases in 2020. They assumed a 10-year period between alcohol consumption and the appearance of cancer, since the types of cancer included in the study -- lip and oral cavity cancer, laryngeal cancer and breast cancer (among females) -- have lengthy development periods and previous evidence of a causal relationship with alcohol consumption. (Rogers, 7/13)

Attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia are demanding federal regulators create a side-impact crash-test standard and better labeling standards for children's car seats. In a letter sent Tuesday to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Steven Cliff, the acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the attorneys general called for "NHTSA to take swift action." (Van Cleave, 7/13)

An Ohio hospital has acknowledged that a patient received a new kidney meant for someone else. Officials at University Hospitals in Cleveland on Monday apologized for the mistake and said two employees have been placed on administrative leave. The kidney given to the wrong patient is compatible and the person is expected to recover, officials said. (7/13)

A 3-year-old Kansas boy died after what police said was an "unanticipated reaction to medicine" given to him during a dental procedure, a local report said. Abiel Zapata-Valenzuela, of Scott City, was reportedly at the dentist to have teeth extracted. "The last thing I told him was cause he cried cause he felt the needle and stuff, so I told him, ‘Papi, everything is going to be okay.’ I’m like ‘You’re fine,’ and as a mother, you just feel like I failed him," Nancy Valenzuela, the boy’s mother, told KWCH.com. (Hein, 7/13)

When Miriam McDonald decided she wanted to have another baby at age 44, her doctor told her she had a better chance of winning the lottery. So when she got pregnant right away, she and her husband were thrilled. But within three days of giving birth to their son, in September 2019, everything turned. "I was thinking, 'Oh my God, what did I do?' I just brought this baby into this world and I can barely take care of myself right now," she says. "I feel exhausted. I haven't slept in three days. I haven't really eaten in three days." As the weeks went by, her depression got worse. She felt sad, but also indifferent. She didn't want to hold her baby, she didn't want to change him. She says she felt no connection with him at all. (Dembosky, 7/13)