By Elise Haulund, CNN

Ann McNitt found herself in the emergency room in Michigan this month with an upset stomach, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. She had endured two full days of trips to the bathroom every 20 to 30 minutes and was concerned about her hydration and potassium levels.

“I went to the emergency room, still feeling horrible,” recalled McNitt, 67.

A retired nurse with over 40 years of experience — and decades-old memories of what she suspects was norovirus — McNitt recognized the symptoms of severe dehydration.

In the ER, doctors set her up with an IV for fluids and a prescription for potassium tablets. They also ordered a test for cyclospora, the infamous parasite causing thousands of cases of severe diarrhea across the country.

Since late June, thousands of people in Michigan have come down with the uncomfortable, longlasting symptoms associated with the parasite. Shredded iceberg lettuce sold at Taco Bell has been linked to the outbreak in at least five states, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Food and Drug Administration confirmed.

Taylor Fresh Foods, the produce supplier linked to the contaminated Taco Bell lettuce, said Friday that it is removing all of its iceberg lettuce from central Mexico from the US market. The company added that its other products were not affected and that its Taylor Farms branded salad kits do not include iceberg lettuce.

Taco Bell said Friday that it has removed Taylor Farms lettuce from its restaurants and its nationwide supply chain.

Two days after her visit to the hospital, McNitt got the call: She had tested positive for cyclosporiasis, the illness caused by the parasite, which is often linked to contaminated raw produce.

In the couple weeks before she got sick, she had eaten “a couple tacos at Taco Bell” and “a couple prepackaged salad kits from the grocery store” — information she remembered after a 45-minute phone call with a contact tracer with the Michigan Department of Health.

Cases in Michigan now total over 5,000, with over 100 hospitalizations. The CDC said it’s also investigating cases beyond the outbreak in the Midwest – 34 states are reporting cases around the country since May 1, maybe of them at higher levels than what’s typical.

But health officials acknowledge that cases are underreported. The symptoms of cyclospora resemble other, more common stomach bugs, and many people will try to wait it out at home rather than seeking care.

If you suspect you may have the misery-inducing bug of the summer, here’s what you need to know.

What are the signs of cyclosporiasis?

Symptoms of cyclospora infection don’t show up until two to 14 days after exposure, which can make it tricky to identify the source.

The telltale sign of a cyclospora infection is frequent, watery diarrhea. Along with that, you may have nausea, fatigue, increased gas, bloating, loss of appetite or weight loss. Other signs include vomiting, body aches, headache, low-grade fever and other flu-like symptoms.

The catch with cyclosporiasis is that symptoms can last weeks — and sometimes even over a month.

Until you have cyclosporiasis symptoms, there is no cause for concern if you have eaten at Taco Bell recently, especially in a state currently without a major outbreak, said

Por Dalia Faheid, Alea Motwane, Dakota Smith y Kate Petersen, CNN

Erin Cotton no se percató del humo hasta que le empezaron a llorar los ojos y sus dos hijos se quejaron de que les picaba la piel.

“Fue entonces cuando recordé cómo me sentí durante el incendio de Palisades”, declaró Cotton, una madre de Washington, con dos hijos de 5 y 1 año, que vivía en California cuando uno de los incendios forestales más destructivos en la historia del estado arrasó el año pasado.

Cotton es una de las más de 100 millones de personas en el Medio Oeste, el Noreste y la región del Atlántico Medio que respiran aire peligroso proveniente de densas y asfixiantes columnas de humo de los incendios forestales en Canadá.

El humo afectó negativamente a las actividades veraniegas al aire libre en más de una docena de estados debido a las alertas por la mala calidad del aire.

Eventos como un desfile de bebés en Flint, Michigan, un concierto de rock en Herndon, Virginia, y la maratón America’s Mile en Pittsburgh fueron cancelados el viernes debido a la persistencia del humo.

Los negocios también se han visto afectados durante la temporada alta: parques de atracciones como Kennywood y Sandcastle Water Park en Pensilvania cerraron sus puertas debido a la mala calidad del aire.

Eventos deportivos muy esperados, como el partido de los Cleveland Guardians contra los Pittsburgh Pirates y el Campeonato Nacional RowFest en Michigan, fueron cancelados o pospuestos.

Pero una pregunta se cierne sobre el ambiente con la misma densidad que el humo: ¿Supondrá la contaminación atmosférica un problema para la final del Mundial el domingo por la tarde en la ciudad de Nueva York?

La buena noticia: Es posible que el humo más denso se disipe de la región antes de la final. La mala noticia: Es posible que algunas columnas de humo menos densas y más finas lleguen a la zona.

Abigail Nguyen, residente de Washington, planeaba ver el Mundial en la explanada de Washington junto a miles de aficionados al fútbol. Ahora dice que lo verá en casa con sus compañeras de piso.

“No puedo captar del todo el ambiente y la energía del público, lo cual es muy triste, porque deberíamos estar celebrando este evento de verano en lugar de estar encerrados en casa”, se quejó.

Residentes desde Minnesota hasta Washington, declararon a CNN que el aire contaminado ha alterado sus vidas, afectando a todo, desde su salud y ocio hasta sus negocios y vida familiar.

Las autoridades de algunos de los estados más afectados aconsejaron a los residentes que permanecieran en sus casas y que usaran mascarillas si necesitaban salir.

Para algunos, los cierres y las recomendaciones sobre el uso de mascarillas les trajeron recuerdos de la pandemia de covid-19 de hace unos seis años. Otros, como Cotton, recordaron desastres naturales del pasado, lo que los hizo reacios a salir a la calle.

Las comunidades de algunas zonas del Atlántico Medio y del Noreste se enfrentarán a una mala calidad del aire hasta el sábado por la tarde, cuando llegue un sistema de tormentas que ayudará a despejar el aire.

Milwaukee, Chicago y Detroit registraron el viernes por la mañana una de las peores calidades del aire del país, pero los peligrosos niveles de contaminación se extendieron hasta el sur de Ohio y Virginia Occidental.

“Chicago está experimentando actualmente la peor calidad del aire de su historia”, informó la alcaldía en una publicación en redes sociales el jueves por la noche. “Por favor, permanezcan en interiores y, si deben salir, utilicen una mascarilla N95 o KN95 que les quede bien para su seguridad”.

By Daria Tarasova-Markina and Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) — Ukrainian drone attacks have killed at least eight people at warehouses in Russia, according to regional officials.

Seven of those killed were working at a distribution center at Kotovsk in the Tambov region. The eighth fatality was at a similar center in Elektrostal in the Moscow region.

The attacks are the most lethal Ukrainian strikes reported inside Russia in more than two years.

Both the facilities struck belonged to a Russian company, Wildberries, a major online retailer. Ukraine says the facilities were used in drone manufacture.

Twenty-five people were injured, seven of them critically, in the strike in Tambov, according to the region’s governor, Yevgeniy Pervyshov.

The drones “were equipped with warheads designed to cause a greater number of casualties,” Pervyshov claimed, adding 28 had been shot down.

In addition to the man killed at the plant in Elektrostal, 37 people were injured, eight seriously, according to Andrey Vorobiev, governor of the Moscow region.

Ukraine has acknowledged carrying out the attacks.

“Two major logistics facilities were hit – in the Moscow and Tambov regions, more than 500 and nearly 700 kilometers from the front line,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday.

The facilities were being used “to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment.”

“A huge Wildberries warehouse covering 188,000 square meters is blazing brightly,” a Ukrainian military statement said, “and black smoke can be seen for kilometers.”

Video from both sides showed large plumes of grey smoke billowing into the sky.

Wildberries said the fire at the Kotovsk site had been contained.

Ukraine has until now focused its long-range drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure and factories making weapons and military hardware, as well as Russian shipping.

Zelensky said that in addition to the warehouse attacks, an oil facility was also struck Saturday – as were additional targets in the Sea of Azov, the gateway to the Black Sea.

In the past two weeks, Ukrainian drones have struck 172 vessels belonging to Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, according to Robert Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

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By Meteorologist Mary Gilbert, CNN

(CNN) — Atlantic hurricane season is off to a quiet start and it’s probably time to start pointing fingers at El Niño.

A quick refresher: El Niño is a natural climate pattern marked by warmer than average water temperatures in the equatorial Pacific and corresponding shifts in upper atmosphere weather patterns. Together, these factors influence weather globally over extended periods.

This El Niño was officially declared in June, and it could become a record-breaking Super El Niño later this year.

Get your forecast in the CNN Weather app

Its potential fingerprints are taking the form of storm-killing wind shear, smudging up a hurricane season that’s produced one short-lived tropical storm to date. It’s the quietest start to the season since 2009.

Wind shear describes the changes in wind direction or speed between different levels of the atmosphere. It can tear apart tropical systems or prevent them from forming in the first place — and it’s established a firm grip over the Caribbean Sea and the western Atlantic Ocean. June and July are typically the quietest months of the season, but this shear has been a major roadblock and could have implications for the peak months, too.

“The number one calling card of El Niño is that wind shear,” said Michael Lowry, a Miami-based hurricane expert with CNN affiliate WPLG-TV.

Wind shear over the Caribbean had its second-highest start to July since satellite records began in 1979, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data parsed by Lowry.

And having such significant wind shear over the Caribbean and the western Atlantic — which should be active areas for tropical development — is “one of the stronger indicators that we look to for future seasonal hurricane activity,” Lowry said.

El Niño might not shoulder all the blame for the intense wind shear that’s been around at least since the season began on June 1, but it’s the prime suspect and the evidence is piling up.

Laying out the case

The current wind shear behavior is matching up closely enough with what’s expected from El Niño that the two are likely related, according to Matthew Rosencrans, a meteorologist with NOAA. The in-depth studies needed to confirm this link won’t come until after hurricane season ends in November, he noted.

The uncertainty lies in the chaotic, complex atmosphere: Global weather patterns that unfold over weeks — or months — and daily weather are all connected in a way that’s sometimes difficult to pick apart.

But signs of El Niño are starting to show up in other global-scale atmospheric wind and weather patterns, including the Walker Circulation, according to Lowry, which lends more credence to the idea that El Niño has its finger on the scales.

The Walker Circulation is part of the process that notches up wind shear over the Atlantic during El Niño years. It’s a loop consisting of rising and sinking air, which encourage and hinder storm development, respectively. Air rises above the now warmer Pacific, then sinks down over parts of the western Atlantic basin, helping suppress the storms that could grow into a tropical system.

Other experts have come to similar cautious conclusions.

By Shimon Prokupecz, Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — In the early morning of July 1, federal immigration officers in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, pulled over a white SUV. An unmarked Immigration and Customs Enforcement car stopped in front of the SUV to block its path, while other law enforcement vehicles parked behind it, according to surveillance video obtained by CNN affiliate WGAL.

“Get out of the car now,” one officer said after he approached the driver’s side.

When the driver did not emerge after officers repeatedly ordered him out of the SUV, an officer shattered the window. The SUV then drove away, appearing to clip the ICE vehicle stopped in front of it before turning the wrong way down a one-way street. One ICE officer fired his gun as the SUV drove away from the officers and hit a parked car.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson said the driver – who the agency said had a criminal history of assault, hit-and-run, and a domestic incident – had “weaponized his car and rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle.”

An ICE officer discharged his weapon, and the driver escaped, the statement said.

It’s the latest example of how surveillance footage can undermine the government’s public statements, and a law enforcement expert told CNN it clearly demonstrates some of the poor tactics being used by ICE officers.

“The vehicle pulls in front to stop the car from fleeing, but isn’t even effective at doing that. It’s not even properly positioned to do that because the guy’s pretty easily able to get around him,” said Kenneth Corey, former chief of department for the New York Police Department. “He takes a little sideswipe damage, but he doesn’t ram his way out of that, by any means.”

The officers missed multiple opportunities to conduct the car stop more safely, he said, likely due to their inexperience handling such situations – which could be contributing to similar confrontations across the country.

“I think that just goes to the lack of practice in these situations where the agents are almost having to kind of make it up as they go along,” Corey said. “While they received some training a number of years ago on how to do this, it’s not something that they’ve really executed well in the real world.”

The incident in Harrisburg occurred days before an ICE agent fatally shot a 52-year-old man during a car stop in Houston. Less than a week later, another ICE agent killed a 25-year-old man during a vehicle stop in Maine. Neither victim was the intended target of the immigration enforcement operations. The killings prompted community vigils for the victims and renewed outcry over the Trump administration’s aggressive tactics.

Following the shooting in Maine this week, the agency issued a pause on most vehicle stops conducted by ICE agents, which was swiftly overturned by President Donald Trump, who has made mass deportations a cornerstone of his second term.

ICE shifted its tactics

Vehicle stops were not always a major component of the agency’s actions, experts told CNN, as agents would typically take people into custody from a local jail or a targeted location, such as a residence or workplace. But car stops have ramped up during Trump’s immigration crackdown, as his administration set a goal of making 2,000 immigration-related arrests a day.

“They didn’t really try to pick people up off the street the way they are n