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In August 2024, 26-year-old Conor Hylton checked into Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut. Overnight, he was transferred to critical care, where he died.

It was only after his passing that his family found out that Conor was treated at what’s known as a “tele-ICU.” His story shines a light on a practice that’s been around for decades despite a lack of substantial research about its outcomes.

A tele-ICU is a hospital unit where patient care is handled off-site by remote doctors, nurses, or specialists. Up to a third of ICU beds in the U.S. are in tele-ICUs. That’s according to a study from the American Hospital Association.

In Wisconsin, as of May 1, critical care physicians are no longer physically present in the ICUs of a few Ascension satellite hospitals. They remain available via video call to help bedside nurses and on-site hospital medicine doctors, known as hospitalists, who do not specialize in critical care.

These facilities do present an opportunity to expand and improve the health care people receive. But what are the risks of replacing in-person care in the most critical, life or death moments?

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Last year, when Columbia University found itself embroiled by anti-war protests and fighting with the Trump administration, journalist Jodi Kantor was invited to speak at the school’s commencement.

“My friends actually tried to stop me. Like, ‘Don’t do it. Call in sick,'” remembers Kantor.

The Pulitzer prize-winner did wind up giving that speech. And that experience led her to write a new book about how young people can find their life’s work. We sit down with Kantor to talk about ‘How to Start.’

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Public trust in the Supreme Court is at a 30-year low, according to Pew Research Center. For some, this month marked a turning point in perceptions of its legitimacy.

The court recently ruled in Louisiana v. Callais. Its decision undermined a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that protected minority voters and sought to prevent racial discrimination in elections.

Following the court’s ruling, Tennessee’s GOP-controlled legislature passed a new congressional map, dismantling the state’s majority-Black district. The map gives Republicans a competitive advantage in all nine districts ahead of the state’s midterms. Other red states are now scrambling to redraw their congressional maps as well.

Justice Samuel Alito justified the court’s ruling by claiming that Black voter turnout, both nationwide and in Louisiana, exceeded white voter turnout in two of the five recent presidential elections, writing that the kind of discrimination the Voting Rights Act was designed to prevent no longer exists.

However, reporting from The Guardian found that Alito’s claim was based on misleading data from the Justice Department.

As trust in the Supreme Court continues to remain low, calls for reform grow. In this installment of our weekly politics series, “If You Can Keep It,” we unpack what that reform might actually look like and what’s at stake for our democracy if it doesn’t happen.

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President Donald Trump told PBS News this week that his offensive in the Middle East has a “very good chance of ending.” Just days later though, the U.S. traded fire with Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, threatening an already fragile ceasefire. The U.S. is still hoping for a “serious offer” from Iran on a proposal to end the war, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, even as the threat of escalation looms.

Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot in the upcoming Indiana primary. But his agenda certainly is. In late 2025, GOP state lawmakers resisted efforts by the White House to redraw Indiana’s congressional map. Now, Trump allies are running to unseat them.

The Trump administration has opened an investigation into Smith College, a women-only institution of higher education, over its 2015 decision to admit trans women as students.

And, in global news, the fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was tested this week when American forces launched “self-defense strikes” in the Strait of Hormuz after Iranian forces targeted three Navy destroyers, though none were struck.

These strikes come as Iran reviews the latest U.S. proposal to end the war which American officials hope will result in a “serious offer” from Iran, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

President Donald Trump claimed this week that the U.S. will be taking over Cuba “almost immediately.” The backlash from the island nation was swift, with Cuban leader Miguel Diaz-Canel calling the American administration fascist.

On Monday, and despite the ceasefire, Israeli attacks killed 17 people in southern Lebanon.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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One drug is at the center of the current legal battle over abortion: mifepristone.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, mifepristone has become the dominant method of abortion in the United States, filling the gap left by clinic closures in states with abortion bans. And the number of abortions has actually risen nationally as a result.

That’s a problem for abortion access opponents. Now, they’re taking aim at one of the main ways it’s prescribed – via telehealth. And last week, they scored their first big win.

A federal appeals court blocked remote prescription of mifepristone. Louisiana sued the FDA, arguing that mail access undermines the state’s near-total ban on abortion. But two days later, the drug’s manufacturers went to the Supreme Court and it temporarily restored telehealth access while it considers the case. But that stay is set to expire soon.

So, what’s next in this legal battle? And what does it mean for patients and reproductive health providers?

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