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It's been a long circuitous journey to restarting cruise travel in the United States. But more than 15 months after the pandemic halted the industry, the first big cruise ship has sail out of a US port on Saturday. Celebrity Edge left from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale just after 6 p.m. on a seven-night voyage with ports of call in Mexico and the Bahamas. The ship is sailing at 40% capacity as Celebrity -- and the industry -- sets off toward a US recovery. (Hunger, 6/26)

Two young unvaccinated passengers on a Royal Caribbean International cruise out of the Bahamas tested positive for the coronavirus, the cruise line said. The passengers, who were younger than 16 and traveling in the same group, left Adventure of the Seas before the end of the cruise on Thursday in Freeport with their companions. They returned home to Florida on a private flight arranged by the cruise company, CEO Michael Bayley said in a Facebook post. (Sampson, 6/25)

Next Sunday marks the Fourth of July, President Joe Biden's target date of getting 70% of adult Americans at least partially vaccinated for COVID-19. But the White House last week said that wasn't predicted to happen. Getting at least one shot into the arms of 70% of all American adults will take a few more weeks, said Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator. But with Transportation Security Association screening numbers trending upward, including its highest recorded number since March 7, 2020 reported Friday, neither the faulty prediction nor variants is not predicted to deter holiday revelry.  The spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 into the U.S. is becoming a concern for medical experts because of pockets of people in the nation who have yet to receive the vaccine. (Aspegren and Vargas, 6/28)

Health officials in New Jersey confirmed the state’s first mosquito-borne disease of the year after a man in his sixties from Sussex County tested positive for Jamestown Canyon virus. The unnamed patient experienced onset of fever and neurological symptoms in May, the state health department announced this week. The patient had not traveled, and was released from the hospital to a long-term rehabilitation center last week, a spokesperson for the health department told Fox News. The case marks the state's second such reported infection; the first case occurred in 2015 in Sussex County. (Rivas, 6/26)

A US Salmonella outbreak linked to backyard poultry has grown by 311 cases, to 474 illnesses, and the CDC has reported the first outbreak death, according to a CDC update yesterday. Three more states are affected (46 total) and a new serotype has been added (Salmonella Mbandaka) since the CDC's first notice of the outbreak on May 20. An Indiana patient has died. ... Of 271 people interviewed, 209 (77%) reported contact with backyard poultry before getting sick. (6/25)

Three years ago, Laura Gaither and her family spent their summer vacation in Panama City Beach. One afternoon, while rinsing sand off her feet, the 35-year-old Alabama resident felt something biting her legs and noticed tiny black bugs on her skin. Gaither brushed them away, and later, when she described the bites to local residents, they told her that she had likely been bitten by sand flies. Three of Gaither's five kids had been bitten, too, but she didn't worry. The marks on their legs and arms looked like ant or mosquito bites, which can cause burning and itching, but usually subside within a week. (Petroni, 6/25)

Laura Baker, a retired special education teacher from Santa Barbara, California, was 18 months into a brain cancer diagnosis when she typed out a distressing Facebook post in the fall of 2019.“I am currently having some concerning symptoms and nobody seems to know what to do,” Baker, then 57, wrote. What Baker really needed, she said, was a CT scan of her head. Her local hospital had a working CT scanner, but it wasn’t available to her. The reason: her size. (Schapiro, 6/27)

The week after Rebecca Grant took away her kids’ video games for a month, after a year of relaxed pandemic rules, her 10-year-old son was livid. He gave her the silent treatment, mostly ignoring her except to spit out a hurtful “I don’t love you” one night at bedtime. The ban wasn’t an easy decision for Grant. The 46-year-old mom of two from Fremont, Calif., did hours of research and read multiple books from parenting experts. She joined Facebook groups for families in similar situations and closely watched her children’s behavior, which had been worrisome for a while. Still, she was caught off guard by the reaction. (Kelly, 6/26)

She's an energetic and fun-loving 6-year-old, but beneath Violet Jackson's vibrant smile, she's battling B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She was diagnosed just last month. Violet is undergoing treatment at Omaha's Children's Hospital, where she's received pints of blood and platelets. "I was thankful the blood was available for Violet when she needed it," said Violet's mother, Wendy Jackson. "And I wanted to pay that gift forward, so I scheduled my blood donation." Then, big sister Eden got really inspired. (Preston, 6/27)

Though they’ve existed for more than a decade, weighted Hula-Hoops have emerged as a social media favorite during the pandemic, enticing fitness enthusiasts looking for new, affordable and convenient ways to work out at home with the promise of childlike fun (some gyms and studios are adding in-person classes as clients return). Videos tagged “weighted hula hoop” have generated more than 176 million views on TikTok, and some popular hoops have reportedly been selling out online. (Haupt, 6/23)