What happened
Michigan health officials yesterday confirmed the first two deaths linked to the ongoing cyclosporiasis outbreak. The fatalities mark the “first known deaths related to the multi-state outbreak of explosive diarrhea in the United States,” CNN said. 

Who said what
Both victims had “significant underlying health conditions” that may have been “impacted by cyclosporiasis and dehydration,” Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services said in a website update. The parasitic infection is “generally not a life-threatening illness.” This is the “worst year on record for cyclosporiasis” in the U.S., said the New York Times, and Michigan is “at the center” of the “nine-state outbreak linked to iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms.” 

What next?
Health experts in Michigan are “cautiously optimistic” that the outbreak there is “starting to wane,” said the Times. But the deaths reinforce the “importance of continuing efforts to investigate the outbreak, identify its source, and prevent additional illnesses,” food safety expert Wade Syers said to the Detroit Free Press. 

What happened
Ariana Grande “will be taking a step back from visibility” following the conclusion of her world tour due to “endless, ongoing public scrutiny,” a representative for the Grammy winner told People. The announcement follows the Friday release of Grande’s “Petal” music video, which “reignited fan concerns about her weight loss,” Variety said. 

Who said what
“She looks emaciated” in the video, with “sunken” cheeks and a “protruding” ribcage, said critic Monica Hesse in The Washington Post. Grande’s team is “thoroughly irresponsible for not guiding her away from this deeply damaging image for her young fans to see so glamorized,” actor and activist Jameela Jamil said in a now-deleted Instagram post. 

The hiatus decision “was made from a thoughtful and empowered place,” Grande told fans during a tour performance in Chicago yesterday. “Human beings can need a break sometimes.” She “performs a very physical show,” a source close to the star told People, “and there is a lot of athleticism involved.”

What next?
Grande will finish her Eternal Sunshine tour on September 1 and then take a “much-deserved break,” her representatives said. Her team confirmed that she is also pulling out of leading a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George,” which was expected to open next summer in London’s West End.

Microplastics could be responsible for a lot of heartache. The tiny pieces of plastic were “detected significantly more frequently” in patients who suffered heart attacks, according to a study published in the European Heart Journal. Among those who had heart attacks, “micro and nanoplastics were detected in 84% of patients” compared with “32% of patients with normal coronary arteries,” said a press release about the study.

The “highest levels of plastics were in blood drawn from the blocked artery itself,” said Time. These particles are “found virtually everywhere in the environment, including the air we breathe, the water we drink and many foods we consume,” study author Pasquale Paolisso said in the release. Scientists have now “begun to detect” them in “human tissues and organs, raising concerns about their potential health effects.”

The study also found that “people who smoke were six times more likely to have detectable micro and nanoplastics in the blood supplying their hearts than non-smokers,” David C. Gaze, a senior lecturer in chemical pathology at the University of Westminster, said on The Conversation. Along with their well-known detrimental effects, cigarettes “may also act as an efficient delivery system for microscopic plastic particles.” 

The study’s findings “do not prove that microplastics cause heart attacks, but they reveal a strong association between environmental exposures, microplastics in the blood and cardiovascular disease,” study author Emanuele Barbato said in the press release. Despite the ubiquity of microplastics, “we cannot measure our exposure” to them in an accessible way yet, interventional cardiologist Rocco Montone said to Time.