By Lori Kersey | Deputy editor
“We felt it would be good to offer a prophylaxis, so that someone might prevent an ER visit, prevent an urgent care visit or a (primary care physician) visit to get that prophylactic dose earlier rather than later. Because timing is everything on it.” — Dr. Steven Eshanaur on the Kanawha-Charleston and Fayette County health departments offering an antibiotic to people who have tick bites to help prevent Lyme disease
The lone star tick can cause alpha-gal syndrome, a meat allergy, in those it has bitten. (Centers For Disease Control and Prevention)
By Lori Kersey
Amidst an increase in tick bites and cases of Lyme disease, two West Virginia health departments are offering medication that can prevent the onset of the disease.
Doxyclycline, an antibiotic, can prevent Lyme disease when taken within 72 hours of a tick bite. The medication is now available at the Kanawha-Charleston and Fayette County health departments.
More than $700,000 in grants are being made available by the state of West Virginia to support services at five organizations focused on helping victims of domestic violence. A display of purple flags raises awareness for domestic violence outside the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
By Caity Coyne
The state this week released more than $700,000 in grant funds to support services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking in rural areas across West Virginia, according to a Thursday news release from Gov. Patrick Morrisey.
NATIONAL
A pregnant patient receives an examination at the Southern Birth Justice Network’s mobile midwifery unit in Miami earlier this year. A national survey published this month found that access to prenatal care remains limited for some patients, with a fifth of them not receiving prenatal care until the second trimester or later. (Photo by Nada Hassanein/Stateline)
By Kelcie Moseley-Morris
A survey of more than 3,800 people nationwide who gave birth in 2023 and 2024 found those using Medicaid described worse outcomes than those on private insurance, that access to care remains limited for some, and that women often feel unheard and disregarded during pregnancy and labor and delivery.
By Jacob Fischler and Jonathan Sherman
Democrats are growing hopeful they can recapture the U.S. Senate in this fall’s midterm elections amid President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval ratings.
But they still need nearly everything to break their way against a map that put them at a starting disadvantage, analysts and campaign officials say.
By Ashley Murray
Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a late morning press conference in Washington, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal.
By Ariana Figueroa
Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a late morning press conference in Washington, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal.
By Shauneen Miranda
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education will temporarily reduce interest rates for federal student loan borrowers enrolled in auto pay starting July 1, the agency announced Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of former slaves, with a line of girls from the Daytona Normal and Industrial School for Negro Girls that she founded. Daytona Beach, Florida, 1905. (Photo retrieved from the Library of Congress)
By Rodney Coates, Miami University
The abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass is known for many things, but perhaps among the most significant is his views on education’s relationship to slavery. Douglass himself was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818.
Douglass described in his 1845 autobiography how one of his enslavers, Mrs. Auld, began teaching him to read when he was a child. Mrs. Auld’s husband ordered her to stop giving Douglass lessons.
ICYMI
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