Meditech Wire

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” Vince Lahey of Carefree, Arizona, embraces chatbots. From Big Tech products to “shady” ones, they offer “someone that I could share more secrets with than my therapist.” He especially likes the apps for feedback and support, even though sometimes they berate him or lead him to fight with his ex-wife. “I feel more inclined to share more,” Lahey said.

(E+/Getty Images) LISTEN: Quashing innovation or risking a patient’s health? Lauren Sausser told WAMU’s Health Hub on April 15 why the White House and some states are at odds over how to regulate AI in health care. Speed, efficiency, and lower costs. Those are the traits artificial intelligence supporters celebrate. But the same qualities worry physicians who fear the technology could lead to insurance denials with humans left out of the loop.

The number of babies born in the United States fell again last year. According to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 3.6 million births in 2025, a 1% decline from 2024. The fertility rate dropped to 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, down 23% since 2007. The Trump administration has said it wants to reverse this trend.

Millions of people who apply for Medicaid in the coming years will have to prove they’ve been working, going to school, or volunteering for at least a month before they can gain or retain health insurance through the government program. But Republican lawmakers in some states think the new rules — part of the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed last July by President Donald Trump — don’t go far enough.

For months, a cloud of fear has hovered over the immigrant community in San Bernardino, California, making it hard for María González to do her job as a community health worker in this city where almost a quarter of residents are foreign-born.

HAY SPRINGS, Neb.— The sun was just warming the horizon as Mark Pieper left his house near his cattle ranch on a crisp February morning. It’s not unusual for the rancher to wake up early to tend to livestock, but at 5:45 a.m. this day his cattle wouldn’t come first. For the past 3½ years, three days a week, Pieper has made an early-morning commute to get dialysis at the nearest hospital. Pieper lives outside Hay Springs, which has 599 residents, according to a sign at the edge of town.

Verite reporter Tristan Baurick tests lead levels while reporter Halle Parker maps the GPS coordinates of the reading at Mirabeau Playground, in New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood, in September 2025.

As immigration authorities carry out what President Donald Trump has promised will be the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, several states are passing laws to keep children out of foster care when their detained parents have no family or friends available to take temporary custody of them. The federal government doesn’t track how many children have entered foster care because of immigration enforcement actions, leaving it unclear how often it happens.

North America’s largest coke plant hugs the west bank of Pennsylvania’s Monongahela River, belching out emissions from turning superheated coal into a carbon-rich fuel. Researchers say the children at Clairton Elementary School about a mile away pay the price. They discovered the students there and at other elementary schools near major pollution sites in Pennsylvania had higher asthma rates than other children in the state.

(Oona Zenda/KFF Health News) An elementary school teacher chose a low-price health insurance plan but soon realized she wasn’t clear about what it would mean for her family’s finances. “Once I got the insurance card, I compared our old plan to our new plan, and that’s when I really got worried, because I didn’t really understand what a deductible was.