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The 911 call came in the day before Thanksgiving. A person had been found in a bathroom, unconscious — maybe dead. It looked like a drug overdose, and 911 dispatcher Valerie Tucker was trying to figure out how to save the person’s life, if it wasn’t too late. (Moench, 12/9)

Many St. Louis area veterans may qualify for toxic exposure-related health care and benefits under the PACT Act. The new law, which Congress passed this summer, expands benefits and health care for veterans who have been exposed to hazardous toxins like radiation, smoke, toxic air, Agent Orange and burn pits. (Lewis-Thompson, 12/12)

Will Massachusetts become a right-to-die state in 2023?Though polls show a growing majority of residents favor it, legislation that would give the terminally ill the option to obtain lethal drugs has never been brought to a vote in the full state House or Senate. (Weisman, 12/11)

Despite the state’s near-total ban on abortion, just 12% of Texans think abortion should be illegal in all cases, according to an August poll from The Texas Politics Project. One Texas Democrat hopes to give voters more of a say in abortion policy. (Williams, 12/12)

Three Hartford-area hospitals have hired violence intervention specialists through federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding this year. Nationally, firearm related deaths among children and young people rose 28% during the pandemic from 2019-2020, latest data show. (Srinivasan, 12/11)

The Mosquito Man enters his lab with the energy of a kid bounding into a Chuck E. Cheese. All his friends are inside. There in one small screen-and-plexiglass enclosure is Sabethes cyaneus, a mosquito with an iridescent blue body and feathery paddles — what one researcher has called the “Hollywood showgirls of the mosquito world.” They float inside the box like dandelion seeds in the breeze. (Ingold, 12/11)