Kaitlin Washburn

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Kaitlin Washburn

Pope Leo XIV will always be Father Bob to Heidi Skokal. Her dad, Ed Schmit, was close friends with Robert Francis Prevost for decades. The two were both die-hard Sox fans and often went to games together. Prevost officiated her sister’s wedding in July 2014. He blessed her son Anthony when he was born five weeks early. And when Schmit was sick and dying from pancreatic cancer, Prevost called him and the family often.

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Kaitlin Washburn

Lost pets can now be reunited with their families faster, thanks to new free station for scanning their microchip. The station is open to the public all day, every day outside at the city’s Animal Care and Control shelter at 2741 S. Western Ave. The free scanner is intended to be a faster way for lost pets to reunite with their family faster, the agency said in a statement. “Anybody who has pets can use the station,” Susan Cappello, the agency’s acting executive director, said in the statement.

1 week ago | wbez.org | Kaitlin Washburn

DeLisa New Williams remembers when measles spread like wildfire through her elementary school. One day, a kid was out sick. Then suddenly everyone was infected, including her. “It knocked out the whole classroom,” Williams, 41, said. “And then it moved on to the next.”That was in the early 1990s in the midst of a massive, nationwide measles outbreak that lasted from 1989 to 1991. Tens of thousands of people were infected, and dozens died.

1 week ago | chicago.suntimes.com | Kaitlin Washburn

DeLisa New Williams remembers when measles spread like wildfire through her elementary school. One day, a kid was out sick. Then suddenly everyone was infected, including her. “It knocked out the whole classroom,” Williams, 41, said. “And then it moved on to the next.”That was in the early 1990s in the midst of a massive, nationwide measles outbreak that lasted from 1989 to 1991. Tens of thousands of people were infected, and dozens died.

1 week ago | healthjournalism.org | Kaitlin Washburn

Last summer, Vivek Murthy, M.D., declared firearm violence a public health crisis, the first time the Office of the Surgeon General had issued a publication focused on guns. Experts and violence prevention advocates celebrated this unique opportunity to draw attention and resources to this often undercovered issue. The advisory “outlines the urgent threat firearm violence poses to the health and well-being of our country,” Dr. Murthy said at the time.