Summer Parkways – the nonprofit groups that organizes giant car-free street parties where neighbors can bicycle and walk in the streets – is starting the season early with a child-focused three-mile bike ride in West Central on Saturday. The ride is part of West Central’s Neighborhood Days, and it starts at A.M. Cannon Park, next to the West Central Community Center, at 1 p.m. Children riding one-, two- and three-wheeled bikes are welcome. Read more

CHICAGO – Last summer Kelly Bruski went to the store with her sons to buy a birthday gift for her boyfriend. After the boys, now 6 and 9, chose a magnet desk-toy called Buckyballs, Bruski let her sons to play with the magnets under her supervision.Yet her older son, Brandon, wound up in the emergency room in January with stomach cramps and vomiting. He’d swallowed two magnets, leaving his small and large intestines bound together by magnetic attraction and ulcerations in his intestinal lining. Read more

Dear Annie: I wanted to share a bit of what it’s like to be the family member of a person who drinks too much. I know. I had more than 40 years of experience by the time I finally sought answers. I studied brain- and addiction-related research to assess my loved one’s drinking patterns in order to protect myself from secondhand drinking. Secondhand drinking is a term to describe the impact on the person on the receiving end of another person’s drinking behaviors. These drinking patterns cause brain changes – especially in the areas of the brain responsible for judgment, memory, coordination, pleasure/reward and reasoning. And we don’t fully understand the physical and emotional consequences to the health of a family member or friend who repeatedly deals with SHD. These include anxiety, depression, stomach ailments, skin problems, obesity, sleep problems, difficulties at work or in school, migraines and more. Read more

NEW YORK – More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk. Read more

One in six Washington youth ages 12 to 17 has seriously considered suicide, and 8 percent of students in eighth and 10th grades have attempted suicide in the past year, according to a state Department of Health survey. The figures are the result of an October 2012 survey. The survey included about 200,000 students from across the state and addressed sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, depression and commitment to school. Read more

When you think of accidental poisoning, you may imagine a toddler drinking a liquid soap or eating a brightly colored cleaner. Unfortunately, for every child in the emergency department for household product poisoning, there are two children there for medication poisoning. Symptoms of accidental poisoning depend on what has been ingested and how much. Some symptoms that could indicate poisoning are as follows: Read more

Drake Johnson takes Cheney Middle School’s after-school ethnic cooking class because the 14-year-old likes to eat. Alicia Fowler, 12, has a practical reason: “I’m depending on being a chef when I grow up.” Read more