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The industrial plants in the riverside Louisiana city of Port Allen have worried Diana LeBlanc since her children were young. In 1978, an explosion at the nearby Placid oil refinery forced her family to evacuate. “We had to leave in the middle of the night with two babies,” said LeBlanc, now 70. “I always had to be on the alert.”LeBlanc worried an industrial accident would endanger her family. But she now thinks the threat was more insidious. LeBlanc, who has asthma, believes the symptoms she experienced while sick with the coronavirus were made worse by decades of breathing in toxic air pollution. (Younes and Sneath, 9/11)

The coronavirus pandemic has come with a few silver linings. The clear winner for me has been the delightful dearth of snot: My kids haven’t had a cold since March, and neither have I, and I haven’t missed those crusty red noses one little bit. Yet I know it can be good for kids to encounter bacteria and viruses, because microbial exposure shapes the development of the immune system. This is one of the reasons we have vaccines — when we inject our bodies with little bits of pathogens, or dead ones, they learn how to better recognize and fight these same (live) pathogens down the line. (Wenner Moyer, 9/10)

Two years ago, officials from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services vowed to rescue the children they called “stuck kids” — those in state care who had languished in psychiatric hospitals for weeks and sometimes months after doctors had cleared them for release because the agency could not find them proper homes. But children continue to be held at psychiatric hospitals long after they are ready for discharge, a practice our reporting showed leaves them feeling isolated and alone, falling behind in school and at risk of being sexually and physically abused during prolonged hospitalization. (Eldeib, 9/11)

A little over a decade ago, Deena Nyer Mendlowitz and Susan Messing began a conversation on Facebook Messenger that would grow to more than 5,000 chats and reveal the complexity of suicidal suffering. Their conversations – the kind that typically happen in hushed tones, if they happen at all – are full of violent fantasies and fragments of undelivered goodbyes, reflections on the limits of psychic pain and the capacity to heal. There is frustration and discomfort and desperation, but also encouragement, acceptance, optimism. (Dastagir, 9/14)

One May morning in 2017, just weeks after her 56th birthday, Bradley & Parker Chief Executive Wynne Nowland hit ‘send’ on an email to the insurance broker’s workforce. It was no routine memo. “I am writing to tell you about a matter that is essentially personal but will result in some changes at work,” she began. After a lifetime living as a man named Wayne but hiding her true self, she wrote, “I will be transitioning my gender.” (Fuhrmans, 9/13)

It was a night Dr. Bassam Osman says changed his life. At around 6 p.m. on Aug. 4, the 27-year-old surgical resident was about to leave his daily hospital shift. Then a massive explosion shook Beirut. The floodgates opened and hundreds of wounded poured into the American University of Beirut Medical Center, one of Lebanon’s best hospitals. (El Deeb, 9/16)

As COVID-19 appears to be fueling spikes in domestic violence, the Violence Against Women Act — the landmark legislation that enshrined federal protections and support for survivors — has emerged as a focal point of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. But for now, the law remains in a legislative limbo that could have severe health impacts — particularly during the pandemic. This weekend marked 26 years since the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was signed into law. Biden and his campaign surrogates have touted the law, which Biden sponsored when he was a Delaware senator as a centerpiece of his commitment to women. Between 1994 and 2010, intimate partner violence has dropped by more than 60 percent, according to the Department of Justice, a precipitous decline that experts at least partially attribute to the law’s passage. (Luthra, 9/16)

Twins Arie and Aidan Hiester were born in Indianapolis right around 9 a.m. ET, on September 11, 2001, in between the first crash at the World Trade Center and the moment that a second airliner roared onto TV screens across the country and hit the South Tower. “I’m the second twin, and I was born the same time that the second Twin Tower got hit,” Aidan recalls. ... Across the country, the 13,238 Americans born on September 11, 2001, represented the few rays of hope and happiness on the country’s darkest day. Now, 19 years later, many graduated from high school this spring and are beginning their adult lives—either jobs, if they can find them, or college—in the midst of a world-altering pandemic. (Graff, 9/11)