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President Trump on Friday became the first president to attend the March for Life event in Washington, expressing solidarity with tens of thousands of conservative and evangelical voters that his campaign considers a core constituency for his reelection bid. Trump made no mention of the ongoing Senate impeachment proceedings taking place just blocks away at the Capitol as he addressed throngs of antiabortion activists on the Mall. But his relatively brief appearance offered an implicit split screen for a president who has been consumed with the Democrats’ efforts to oust him. (Nakamura, 1/24)

President Trump's campaign has launched a coalition of anti-abortion advocates Friday that will work to reelect the president in 2020. The "Pro-Life Voices for Trump" coalition will mobilize voters who oppose abortion to support Trump in November. The coalition is led by Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, a campaign group that supports Trump and other anti-abortion candidates running for office. (Hellmann, 1/24)

Trump's appearance before thousands of mostly supportive anti-abortion rights activists comes at a key moment — during the impeachment trial, and just months to go before the 2020 election. Trump has leaned in to his connection to religious and social conservatives, frequently praising "the evangelicals" who make up a key portion of his base and courting anti-abortion rights groups such as the Susan B. Anthony List. (McCammon, 1/24)

In an announcement on the morning of the March for Life, the high-profile annual anti-abortion rights demonstration, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would give California 30 days to commit to lifting the requirement. If the state does not do so, the administration said it will take steps to cut off money from one or more federal funding streams. “People should not be forced to participate, or pay for, or cover other people’s abortions,” said Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services. (Belluck, 1/24)

Religious groups say the mandates force them to violate their beliefs by purchasing health insurance that covers abortions or by using their premiums to help pay for other consumers’ abortions. Abortion-rights groups say that states have the long-held right to regulate their own insurance markets. They say that abortion, which has been legal nationally for decades, is a medical procedure that should be covered just like prenatal and maternity care. (Armour and Lucey, 1/24)

California’s Democratic leaders were defiant Friday after the Trump administration threatened to cut federal health care funding to the nation’s most populous state over its requirement that insurance plans cover abortions. The administration's announcement came hours before President Donald Trump became the first president to address participants in the anti-abortion March for Life in person, telling marchers gathered in the nation's capital that “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House.” (Thompson and Alonso-Zaldivar, 1/24)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) dismissed the threat as a political maneuver. “The Trump administration would rather rile up its base to score cheap political points and risk access to care for millions than do what’s right,” he said in a statement. “California will continue to protect a woman’s right to choose, and we won’t back down from defending reproductive freedom for everybody — full stop.” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said on Twitter that California would defend the law. (Wan and Abutaleb, 1/24)

While public insurance programs like Medicaid have long been barred from covering abortion services, Friday’s announcement also marks an escalation of the administration’s efforts to extend the prohibition to private coverage. In December, HHS unveiled a rule requiring private insurers on Obamacare markets to send patients separate monthly bills to separate the portion of the premium that goes toward abortion coverage. The added administrative burden could prompt some insurers to drop abortion care altogether. (Ollstein, 1/24)

The decision by HHS also serves as a warning to the five other states that mandate abortion coverage in insurance plans, including Maine, Illinois and New York. (Hellmann, 1/24)

While threatening to cut off federal health care funding to California because it requires insurers to cover abortion, the Trump administration has quietly enacted a separate rule ordering insurers to bill separately for abortion and non-abortion services — a mandate that could lead to cutoffs of coverage. Under the rule, which took effect this month, the 1.4 million recipients of insurance under Covered California, the state entity overseeing coverage under the federal health care law sponsored by former President Barack Obama, will start receiving two bills a month as of June 27: one for the small amount of their premium that pays for abortion, the other for non-abortion care. (Egelko, 1/24)

Thousands of people who want to outlaw abortion marched across downtown San Francisco on Saturday in the 16th annual Walk for Life. The event, which included a Roman Catholic Mass and a rally near City Hall, came three days after the 47th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. It also came a day after the March for Life in Washington, where President Donald Trump became the first sitting president to speak at the annual gathering that is one of the movement’s highest profile and most symbolic events. (1/25)

Thousands took to downtown San Francisco on Saturday for an anti-abortion march, just one day after President Donald Trump threatened to withhold funds from the state over requirements that insurance plans cover abortion. The event began with the National Anthem followed by a prayer. Attendees held signs saying, “Vote Life” and “Abortion Hurts Women” as they marched through downtown. The first event of this kind took place in Washington D.C. in 1974, one year after the Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade — the ruling that affirmed women’s legal right to have an abortion. (McDede, 1/25)

Two decades after Donald Trump described himself as “pro-choice in every respect,” abortion opponents now unanimously regard him as their greatest convert and champion.So it wasn’t a surprise to the thousands of March for Life participants gathered on the National Mall on Friday that Trump became the first president to personally address them. Three years into his presidency, the once-unapologetic womanizer has not only earned the trust of the anti-abortion community, he’s irrevocably changed its standards for future Republican leaders. (Orr, 1/24)

Senate Democrats pledged Friday to replenish $2.1 million in federal funds the Trump administration has stripped from Planned Parenthood clinics in the region. But it remains to be seen whether the lawmakers will be able to maneuver around a state spending cap that will continue to clamp down on spending in the coming year. (Phaneuf, 1/24)

The mayor of Wuhan, which is at the center of the viral outbreak, said on Sunday that there could be about 1,000 more confirmed cases of the mysterious illness in the city — a sign that China’s monumental efforts to halt the disease may only just be starting. In a news conference, the mayor, Zhou Xianwang, said that the estimate was based on the assumption that around half of the city’s nearly 3,000 suspected cases of the coronavirus would eventually test positive for the disease. The youngest confirmed case involved a 9-month-old girl in Beijing, according to The People’s Daily, a state newspaper. (1/27)

Health authorities in Orange County and Los Angeles County in California, and Maricopa County in Arizona confirmed cases of the virus there. All had recently traveled to Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus originated, health authorities said. The news came hours after U.S. State Department officials said they would evacuate a planeload of diplomats and other U.S. citizens to San Francisco from Wuhan, which is under quarantine. (Findell and Armour, 1/26)

“The risk of local transmission remains low,” officials said. The L.A. County patient is a Wuhan resident who was flying through Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday on his way back to China, L.A. County public health officials said during a news conference Sunday. “The infected person presented themselves immediately for care at LAX airport once they noticed they weren’t feeling well,” said L.A. County public health director Dr. Barbara Ferrer. The patient was taken from LAX directly to a hospital, and no L.A. County residents were infected or at risk as of Sunday morning, Ferrer said. (Wigglesworth, Lin and Kohli, 1/26)

It’s a virus scientists have never seen before. Health officials don’t know exactly where it came from, but it has traveled more than 7,000 miles since it was discovered late last month in central China. New infections are confirmed every day despite an unprecedented quarantine. The death toll is rising, too. If this were a Hollywood movie, now would be time to panic. In real life, however, all that most Americans need to do is wash their hands and proceed with their usual weekend plans. (Baumgaertner, 1/24)

The deadly respiratory virus that has infected nearly 1,300 people worldwide — including at least two people in the United States — has not reached the Bay Area, but public health and infectious disease experts are bracing for potential cases and ramping up outreach to those most at risk of falling ill. In California, 18 people ranging from 3 to 58 years old had been tested as of Friday, and no cases of infection had been confirmed, according to the state Department of Public Health. (Allday, 1/24)

The U.S. has confirmed cases in Washington state, Chicago, Southern California and Arizona. Canada said it discovered its first case, a man in his 50s who was in Wuhan before flying to Toronto. Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea each reported one new case Sunday, while Thailand reported three new cases. A notice from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said there would be limited capacity to transport U.S. citizens on a Tuesday flight from Wuhan that will proceed directly to San Francisco. It said that in the event there are not enough seats, priority will be given to to individuals “at greater risk from coronavirus." (Moritsugu, 1/25)

But with more cases predicted, some in the Philadelphia area are responding with caution. The Main Line Chinese Culture Center has canceled a Chinese New Year celebration that had been scheduled for Sunday, at Great Valley High School in Malvern, citing the fact that many children and older people were expected to attend. “It’s just an extreme precaution,” said Qunbin Xiong, principal of the center, which offers educational programs to children and adults. “Even though we have no cases, and we’re so far away, some in the community feel like they’re closer to that virus.”The event typically draws a crowd of more than 1,000, and organizers would be unable to ensure that no visitors had recently traveled in the Wuhan area, he said. (Avril, 1/24)

The U.S. government is working to evacuate American citizens by air from the epidemic-stricken Chinese city of Wuhan as soon as possible, according to people familiar with the effort. The operation comes as the death toll from a newly identified coronavirus that originated in Wuhan climbs above 40 and the number of confirmed infections tops 1,300, with many of the cases in and around the central Chinese city of 11 million people. (Areddy and Lin, 1/25)

The U.S. State Department said it plans to evacuate its staff and some private citizens out of the Chinese city of Wuhan — the epicenter of the growing coronavirus outbreak — on a flight to San Francisco on Tuesday. ...Priority will be given to “individuals at greater risk” of contracting the virus, officials said. (Sanchez, 1/26)

Top U.S. public health officials on Friday briefed senators on the spread of coronavirus, which has infected hundreds of people in China and two in the United States. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the infectious disease unit of the National Institutes of Health, led the briefing. Most senators expressed satisfaction leaving the briefing that officials are taking appropriate steps to fight the virus. (Weixel and Sullivan, 1/24)

A GOP senator wants the Trump administration to declare the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency. “We have to get serious about the threat of coronavirus coming from China. I don’t trust Communist China to coordinate in a transparent and efficient manner when it comes to combatting the threat of the virus, so we have to do everything we can to protect Americans,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in a statement.“While all of the cases are still travel-related, we must take every precaution,” he added. (Weixel, 1/24)

Authorities on Sunday confirmed the fifth known case of the new coronavirus in the U.S. The newly identified case was out of Maricopa, Ariz., Centers for Disease Control (CDC) director of National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Nancy Messonier told reporters. The confirmation follows two confirmed cases reported Sunday out of California. Cases in California have been confirmed in Orange County and in Los Angeles, according to the CDC. (Klar, 1/26)

“We predict these things can occur, though it’s always unexpected when they do,” said Matthew Frieman, a coronavirus researcher and associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “We hope that the knowledge base from studying SARS and MERS is helpful in studying and responding to this one. ”SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, originated in Asia in 2003 and sickened 8,000 people and killed about 800. Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It sickened almost 2,500 and killed more than 850 and continues infecting people. (Cohn, 1/27)

The death toll from a novel coronavirus has now reached at least 76, with most of the more than 2,000 cases reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease. At least 10 other countries have also reported cases, and five people in the United States have been diagnosed; all had recently returned from China. Here’s what travelers making their way to or from China can expect. (Arnot, 1/26)

Travelers who unknowingly carry the coronavirus from Wuhan, China to the United States may pose the biggest risk for spreading the respiratory infection here, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already begun screening people who travel from Wuhan to the United States for fevers and other signs of illness at airports in five U.S. cities — Atlanta (ATL), Chicago (ORD), San Francisco (SFO), New York (JFK) and Los Angeles (LAX). But Monto questioned whether that will be enough to contain the virus."With the flu, you’re sick two days after you’re exposed," said Monto, who worked in Beijing, China, during another coronavirus outbreak, the 2002-2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, outbreak. "This is more like five days, and sometimes up to 11 days, which means that when you screen at ports of entry looking for fever, you may miss people who will get sick later. "It's those people, he said, who could be spreading coronavirus to others on airplanes, in airports and to health care workers who treat their symptoms. (Shamus, 1/25)

A Texas A&M student who had been suspected of possibly carrying the new strain of coronavirus tested negative for the illness, health officials and the school announced Sunday. The Brazos County Health District had said Thursday that it was investigating whether the student, who was identified as a male in his 20s, had the virus. The student had recently traveled from Wuhan, China, where the strain of coronavirus was first detected. Officials said he had mild symptoms associated with the virus and was already improving by the time he was admitted to the emergency room. (Smith, 1/26)

Josephine Hah was supposed to perform with her belly dancing class at another Lunar New Year celebration in Dallas this weekend, but the group canceled. “Two of my classmates that were supposed to dance with me have bailed out [because] they are worried about [the virus],” she said. Hah said she’s worried about her yoga instructor, who traveled to China earlier this month to visit her parents and is staying there for a few months. (Marfin, 1/26)

The Tennessee Tech University student tested for the potentially deadly coronavirus yielded negative results, the Tennessee Department of Health said Friday night in a news release. Test samples from the student were shipped Thursday to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta after he exhibited "very mild symptoms" possibly related to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus. (Wegner, 1/24)

An airline traveler who was tested for the coronavirus after landing at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Thursday does not have the potentially fatal virus, the N.C. Division of Public Health reported Saturday night. “Negative results were received this evening from testing performed at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),” according to a division news release. “We are pleased that test results were negative and that the patient remains in good health,” said Dr. Zack Moore, state epidemiologist, in the release. “We are working with CDC and local partners to be sure we are prepared to detect and respond to any possible cases that might occur in North Carolina in the future.” (Schultz and Murphy, 1/25)

Kaiser Health News: Something Far Deadlier Than The Wuhan Virus Lurks Near You

There’s a deadly virus spreading from state to state. It preys on the most vulnerable, striking the sick and the old without mercy. In just the past few months, it has claimed the lives of at least 39 children. The virus is influenza, and it poses a far greater threat to Americans than the coronavirus from China that has made headlines around the world. (Szabo, 1/24)

A top Chinese health official warned on Sunday that the spread of the dangerous new coronavirus, already extraordinarily rapid, is accelerating further, deepening global fears about an illness that has sickened more than 2,700 people worldwide and killed at least 80 people in China. The grim diagnosis came amid concerns that China’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease, despite a lockdown of unprecedented scope affecting 56 million people, may not only have come too late but could even make the situation worse, including by exacerbating shortages of medical supplies. (Buckley, Zhong, Grady and Rabin, 1/26)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned Saturday the "accelerating spread" of coronavirus infections had created a "grave" situation in his populous nation, which extended travel restrictions to 48 million people in hardest-hit Hubei province, banned inter-province buses to Beijing and canceled tour group travel abroad. As the Lunar New Year, China’s biggest holiday, began without much of the usual festivity, Hong Kong announced that schools would be closed through Feb. 17. The United States, France and Russia sought ways to evacuate their citizens from Wuhan, the central Chinese city of 11 million where the outbreak originated and is continuing to spread. (Shih, Abutaleb, Denyer and Bernstein, 1/25)

The effectiveness of an unprecedented quarantine around the viral epicenter in central China’s Hubei Province has become a key question as Chinese and international authorities ponder how to rein in the outbreak — and, at this point, whether it could be contained at all. “Radical times call for radical measures,” said Dong-Yan Jin, a professor of molecular virology and oncology at Hong Kong University’s School of Biomedical Sciences. “A lot of cities have followed Wuhan in announcing a lockdown, but don’t forget that many potential patients are already out there before such an administrative order. Are we going to shut down the whole country?” (Shih and Denyer, 1/27)

China’s quarantine of more than 35 million people, almost certainly the largest in modern public-health history, is surprising and troubling experts who said such drastic restrictions rarely work and often backfire. In the United States, mandatory limits on movement for people in whole cities or regions have received little serious consideration in planning for disease outbreaks like the coronavirus infection now sweeping across China,according to public-health authorities and a review of government reports. (Bernstein and Craig, 1/24)

Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect people. “The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS. (Branswell, 1/26)

The repercussions from a mysterious virus that has sickened hundreds of people began reverberating far from its epicenter in central China on Saturday, as Hong Kong closed its schools for several weeks, Beijing began restricting buses in and out of the capital, and the country’s travel association suspended Chinese tour groups heading overseas. The new measures, coming on top of previous travel restrictions that had effectively penned in tens of millions of people in Hubei, the province at the heart of the outbreak, are certain to further dampen celebrations of the Lunar New Year, which began on Saturday. (Buckley and May, 1/25)

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang traveled to the epicenter of the country’s dangerous viral outbreak to meet infected patients and front-line health workers, signaling the Beijing leadership’s concern as public frustration rises over how local officials have handled the crisis. The central government website published photos on Monday showing Mr. Li wearing a face mask and swaddled in blue protective gear as he toured medical facilities in Wuhan, a sprawling city in central China where the outbreak began. In one image, Mr. Li appeared to be speaking through a walkie-talkie to a patient on a video screen. (Chin, 1/27)

Hong Kong banned visitors from the Chinese province at the center of a new virus epidemic as echoes of SARS send panic through the community, threatening more misery for an economy already in recession after months of protests battered tourism and retail sales. Many people in the city donned masks as local authorities confirmed at least eight cases of infection by the deadly pathogen from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter. Disneyland shuttered, Lunar New Year festivities were scrapped and schools will remain closed until Feb. 17. (Yap and Wang, 1/27)

In early January, doctors in Wuhan, a transportation and tech hub in central China, worked frantically to save the life of a 61-year-old man infected with a new and unknown virus. He checked in with severe pneumonia, on top of his preexisting issues with abdominal tumors and chronic liver disease. Infection-fighting medicines didn’t work. His blood was pumped through an artificial lung, then he went into septic shock and his vital organs shut down. He slipped away on Jan. 9. This was no ordinary death. His passing was publicly flagged in an official statement posted by Wuhan’s city government and marked the first known fatality from a viral outbreak that has alarmed infectious disease experts worldwide since news of the illness surfaced in late December.As January draws to a close, the virus, a strain of the coronavirus family of pathogens, has spread to four continents. President Xi Jinping’s government has cordoned off much of the central Chinese province of Hubei, practically blockading more than 50 million people, in the biggest large-scale quarantine in the modern era. (Gale and Bremner, 1/26)

China’s death toll from the coronavirus climbed to at least 80 as the country extended the Lunar New Year holiday in an effort to contain an infection whose spread accelerated around the globe. Premier Li Keqiang visited Wuhan, the city at the epicenter of the disease, on Monday as the government faces pressure to combat the epidemic. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he’s heading to Beijing to meet with the government and assess the response. (Bloomberg News,1/26)

Fears around the virus, whose death toll has risen to at least 80, is spurring caution at the start of a week jam-packed with earnings and other events. Tech giants Apple, Facebook and Samsung are among those due to report this week. Investors will also have a Federal Reserve policy meeting and Mark Carney’s last monetary policy decision as the Bank of England’s governor to monitor. (White, 1/26)

Despite record scientific and market returns, the health-care industry’s future in the U.S. has never seemed less clear. Candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have proposed nationalizing the health-insurance system. The president has called for drug-price controls. And after years of struggle, there’s been no winner among the warring factions of drugmakers, health insurers, pharmacy-benefit managers and patients. (Court and Griffin, 1/24)

China wants to become a world leader in health and science. It has invested billions in cutting-edge drugs, state-of-the-art laboratories and research at the frontiers of medicine. Its political leaders want Chinese scientists to win Nobel Prizes. All that prowess and ambition is now being put to the test by an elementary health challenge: a deadly infectious disease outbreak. Early indications are that its performance is troubled. (McKay, Areddy and Deng, 1/24)

China is testing an HIV drug as a treatment for symptoms of the new coronavirus that is rapidly spreading, said drugmaker AbbVie Inc on Sunday. China health authorities requested the drug to help with the government's efforts to address the crisis, according to Adelle Infante, a spokeswoman for North Chicago, Illinois-based AbbVie. (1/26)

A 53-year-old fitness trainer died on Wednesday after checking into a hospital in Wuhan a little more than a week earlier, said his niece. His family had expected the death certificate to reflect the deadly coronavirus, because as his condition deteriorated, his doctors told his family he was suffering from an untreatable virus in his lungs. Instead, it recorded “severe pneumonia” as the cause of death, she said. The relatives of two other people who died in separate hospitals in Wuhan this week also described similar situations, saying the causes of death had been given as “viral pneumonia.” The relatives of all three said the deceased hadn’t been included in China’s official count of 41 deaths attributed to coronavirus. (Fan, 1/24)

As infectious disease specialists and epidemiologists race to contain the outbreak of the novel coronavirus centered on Wuhan, China, they’re getting backup that’s been possible only since the explosion in genetic technologies: a deep-dive into the DNA of the virus known as 2019-nCoV. Analyses of the viral genome are already providing clues to the origins of the outbreak and even possible ways to treat the infection, a need that is becoming more urgent by the day: Early on Saturday in China, health officials reported 15 new fatalities in a single day, bringing the death toll to 41. There are now nearly 1,100 confirmed cases there. Reading the DNA also allows researchers to monitor how 2019-nCoV is changing and provides a roadmap for developing a diagnostic test and a vaccine. (Begley, 1/24)

Two papers published Friday in the journal the Lancet offer some of the first rigorous analyses of patients who contracted a novel coronavirus that has broken out in China and spread to other countries. Among their discoveries: The virus does not only affect people with other, underlying health conditions, and people who are not showing symptoms can still be carrying the virus. (Joseph, 1/24)

Moderna Therapeutics and Inovio Pharmaceuticals are among the companies turning their focus to the emerging virus, called 2019-nCoV. Each has received millions in funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a global organization that has set an audacious goal: to have a vaccine ready for human testing, a process that traditionally takes years, in just 16 weeks. (Garde, 1/24)

As a novel coronavirus spreads through China and rattles the rest of the world, the pharmaceutical industry is on guard over the adequacy of its global supply chain. Over the past decade, China has become a bigger player in the market for active pharmaceutical ingredients, which are the building blocks found in each drug. China is now home to 13% of all facilities that make ingredients for medicines that are sold in the U.S., according to the Food and Drug Administration. By comparison, 28% of such facilities are in the U.S. and 26% are in the European Union. Most ingredient production is concentrated in Zhejiang province, which is something of a manufacturing hub that lies along the East China Sea, far from the city of Wuhan, where the outbreak began, explained a source familiar with the Chinese pharmaceutical market but who asked not to be named. (Silverman, 1/27)

The World Health Organization has declined to categorize the coronavirus outbreak in China as a global health emergency, and this week said there is no evidence of human-to-human infection outside China. But as of Friday, more than 800 people in China had been diagnosed with the virus and 26 had died from it and a small number of cases had been diagnosed in other countries, including at least one case in the U.S. (Alund, 1/24)

Sometimes, in especially intense moments in the emergency room, a staffer might have to take the drastic step of physically restraining a patient who is in mental health crisis. ER staffers themselves have described it as an exceedingly difficult process, rife with the tension between providing good care and feeling physically threatened. And it raises questions that providers alone can’t answer: How does a patient feel during the experience, and how does that affect a person’s care and recovery? To begin to answer those questions, researchers at Yale interviewed 25 patients who had been restrained in two urban ERs about their experiences. Their findings — published Friday in JAMA Network Open — shed light on the range of the patients’ perspectives. (Thielking, 1/24)

As the owner of a yellow lab named Gus, author Maria Goodavage has had many occasions to bathe her pooch when he rolls around in smelly muck at the park. Nevertheless, her appreciation for his keen sense of smell has inspired her write best-selling books about dogs with special assignments in the military and the U.S. Secret Service. (Schumann, 1/25)

Ohana Biosciences is hoping an emphasis on improving sperm quality and motility will ultimately improve in vitro fertilization or perhaps help even people without fertility issues have healthier pregnancies or children. It’s one of a number of “add-on” fertility treatments that have grown increasingly popular with investors in recent years. Ohana’s science is still in very early stages — its first clinical trial only launched in September. And experts caution that it’s still not clear that sperm has a long-term contribution to the health of either a pregnancy or a child. Ohana will have to fill that literature out if it hopes to win over skeptics — which the company’s CEO, Amber Salzman, believes it can do.“We have a deep understanding of sperm like nobody else,” Salzman told STAT. “We really are the gurus of sperm.” (Sheridan, 1/27)

He ate, played and learned like any other kid. But David Vetter’s life unfolded in a series of unusual environments: plastic, bubblelike enclosures that protected him from germs. He had severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), and even a seemingly harmless germ could kill him. The subject of pop culture scrutiny and medical fascination, David was called “the boy in the bubble” by the media. SCID is rare and often fatal; it affects about 1 in 58,000 infants. (Blakemore, 1/25)

Piedmont Healthcare executives, supply chain experts and clinicians huddled the night of Jan. 12 to mitigate one of the biggest supply chain disruptions the health system has encountered. They had just gotten word that their primary supplier of surgical gowns, Cardinal Health, distributed potentially contaminated products. Around half of Atlanta-based Piedmont's 11 hospitals were affected. (Kacik, 1/24)

For Americans who live in communities where prospects for economic advancement are scant, life is not only bleak — it’s shorter too. New research has found that people who live in counties with more opportunities to improve their lot in life can expect to live longer than those who live in counties where it’s virtually impossible to get ahead. (Healy, 1/24)

When Keanu Reeves walked into a Los Angeles gala holding hands with artist Alexandra Grant, fans applauded the 55-year-old actor for choosing an “age appropriate” romantic partner. Most striking about Grant, 46, was her steel-gray hair. Why wasn’t she coloring it? In an Instagram post, she explained: In her 20s, she began graying, and she covered it with various shades of dye until she could no longer tolerate the chemicals. (Cohen, 1/26)

Their December 2017 meeting was winding down when Albuquerque neurologist David R. Smith III decided to say something. His lawyer, Cid Lopez, looked very ill — much worse than he had a few months earlier. His skin had the grayish pallor common to cancer patients, he had dark circles under his eyes and had lost so much weight that his cheeks were sunken. What, Smith gently inquired, was wrong? (Boodman, 1/25)

Picky kids know what they like, and that’s usually pizza or chicken nuggets. Getting them to eat more fruits and veggies is always a challenge, parents and experts say. Now some worry that it will be even harder to get children to try healthier options if the Trump administration moves ahead with a plan to loosen school nutrition guidelines. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced the proposed changes during a stop in Texas last week, saying they will allow schools to curb food waste and have more flexibility in what they serve.Among the changes, schools would have more say in the types of fruits and vegetables they serve. Pasta, for example, could count as a vegetable if made from vegetable flour. More potatoes could be offered at breakfast. (Ayala, 1/27)

Even before the gas chambers were destroyed and the savage toll of years of industrialized mass murder revealed to the world, prisoners at the largest Nazi concentration camp were already repeating two words: Never again. But as the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approaches, an occasion being marked by events around the world and culminating in a solemn ceremony at the former death camp on Monday that will include dozens of aging Holocaust survivors, Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, is worried. (Santora, 1/25)

Jona Laks could smell the burning flesh as she walked towards death at the Auschwitz crematorium. More than 75 years later, aged 90, she has returned to what was the most notorious Nazi death camp of World War Two's Jewish Holocaust. "I can see it now," she says, gazing upon the crematorium where the corpses of Jews from across Europe who were murdered in gas chambers were later burned in furnaces. (Lubell, 1/26)

Survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp gathered Monday for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, using the testimony of survivors to warn about the signs of rising anti-Semitism and hatred in the world today. In all, some 200 survivors of the camp are expected, many of them elderly Jews who have traveled far from homes in Israel, the United States, Australia, Peru, Russia, Slovenia and elsewhere. Many lost parents and grandparents in Auschwitz or other Nazi death camps, but today were being joined in their journey back by children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. (Gera, 1/27)

Ralph Hakman thumbed through a display of books about the Holocaust on a table at the Jewish museum in Krakow, not far from where he was born. One was about Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death who performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp. “Oh yes, I remember him,” Hakman said. (Kaleem, 1/26)

Alina Dabrowska was 20 years old when she first heard about Auschwitz. She was an inmate at a prison in Nazi-occupied Poland — incarcerated for helping Allied forces — and one day in 1943, while walking the grounds, a new arrival warned her about it." She said, 'You're all going to Auschwitz! Do you know what kind of camp that is?'" Dabrowska recalls. "She told us that if someone is out of strength, they were immediately killed. She told us many horrible things. None of us believed her." (Schmitz, 1/27)

The 2020 election season officially gets underway next Monday with the Iowa Democratic caucuses. The New Hampshire primary follows on Feb. 11. Then it’s off to Super Tuesday on March 3. Early polling continues to show that healthcare will weigh heavily on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots, especially the cost of care. (1/25)

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is targeting 11 House Republicans over remarks President Trump made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week that suggested he could consider budget cuts to entitlements. The ads target 11 districts where Democrats think they have a chance of picking up seats in this year's elections. One is held by Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), a former Democrat who switched parties last month over Trump's impeachment. The six-second videos, which feature no audio, appear with the caption, “Trump’s turning his back on seniors. Will Washington Republicans follow his lead?” (Axelrod, 1/24)

The Medicare for All debate came to Annapolis Sunday with a tour of town halls making its fourth stop to discuss Medicare for All, a national health insurance plan that’s one of the pivotal aspects of the 2020 presidential election. Around 70 people came to the Stanton Community Center for the town hall hosted by Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition Sunday where physicians, nurses, politicians and activists discussed and pitched support for the government-run single-payer health plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Sanders is an independent and front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president. Jayapal is a Democrat. (Price, 1/27)

New Hampshire is among the states hardest hit by the drug overdose crisis. So perhaps it’s no surprise that a majority of voters who plan to vote in the Democratic presidential primary support even the most controversial measures to keep people who use drugs alive and guide them to treatment rather than jail. (Bebinger, 1/24)

Medicaid beneficiaries are 82% more likely to experience severe maternal morbidity and mortality than women with private health coverage, according to new research presented at the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission meeting Friday. People of color and women in rural areas are at the greatest risk for severe maternal morbidity and mortality among Medicaid recipients, said Katy Kozhimannil, associate professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health and director of research for the Rural Health Research Center. Black and indigenous women are about three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause as white women. (Brady, 1/24)

The Trump administration on Thursday will announce a long-developing plan to overhaul Medicaid by letting states shift some program funding to block grants, four individuals with knowledge of the announcement confirmed. “The status quo is unacceptable,” said a senior administration official. “We have to give states some more flexibility.”The plan — developed for more than a year by CMS Administrator Seema Verma — is slated to be announced at a Jan. 30 event that HHS has called “Transforming Medicaid: A New Opportunity for Better Health.” POLITICO obtained a copy of the invitation sent to outside groups. (Diamond, 1/25)

The merger of insurers Centene and WellCare will create a company with a dominant position in Georgia’s managed care market for Medicaid. The $17 billion deal, which closed Thursday, will give the resulting entity roughly two-thirds of the Medicaid HMO business in the state. (Miller, 1/24)

Arizona’s Medicaid program is working with three insurers to create a long-term-care workforce to address the expected shortage of in-home caregivers needed as the state’s elderly population rapidly increases in coming years. The insurers the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, or AHCCCS, contracted with are Southwest Catholic Health Network Corp., Banner-University Family Care and United Healthcare Community Plan. These insurers are contracted to build a long-term-care workforce within its AHCCCS network by 2024. Also working on the initiative is the Department of Economic Security’s Division of Developmental Disabilities. (Duarte, 1/26)

The number of Idaho residents who have signed up for Medicaid under the state's voter-approved expanded coverage has passed 60,000. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare posted updated numbers Thursday. The agency estimates 91,000 residents meet requirements. (1/25)

In some towns, it is getting harder to pick up your blood-pressure pills with that gallon of milk and rotisserie chicken. Hundreds of regional grocery stores in cities from Minneapolis to Seattle are closing or selling pharmacy counters, which have been struggling as consumers make fewer trips to fill prescriptions and big drugstore chains tighten their grip on the U.S. market. (Terlep and Kang, 1/26)

The majority of Americans have health insurance that includes coverage for prescription drugs. But unfortunately that doesn't ensure that they can afford the specific drugs their doctors prescribe for them. In fact, many Americans report that their insurance plans sometimes don't cover a drug they need — and nearly half the people whom this happens to say they simply don't fill the prescription. That's according to a poll released this month on income inequality from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (Neighmond, 1/27)

U.S. hospitals fed up with shortages of critical medicines — mostly generic drugs that aren’t profitable — have banded together. Seven hospital systems and three philanthropies formed nonprofit CivicaRx in 2018 to produce what they need. The group now includes 1,200 hospitals nationwide — about 1 in 4 — and already is shipping medicines. (Johnson, 1/26)

Kaiser Health News: Call For FDA To Withdraw Preterm Birth Drug Divides Doctors And Insurers

Doctors fear that the only drug approved to prevent preterm birth, the nation’s leading cause of infant mortality and disability, will no longer be available to expectant mothers. The drug, sold under the brand name Makena, has been in limbo since October, when an expert panel convened by the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the accumulated evidence and concluded that Makena is not effective in preventing preterm birth. (Huetteman, 1/27)

After a contentious, two-year battle with federal authorities, a patient charity called Patient Services agreed to pay $3 million to settle allegations of violating federal law by enabling drug makers to pay kickbacks to Medicare patients who took their medicines.The settlement marks the fourth time in as many months that a patient charity has reached a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been probing the ties between the pharmaceutical industry and these organizations over concerns they are gaming the system. Over the past two years, numerous pharmaceutical companies have similarly reached settlements. Federal authorities have argued that drug makers and charities, which provide patients with financial assistance to obtain drugs, created programs to favored specific medicines over lower-cost options. As a result, two lawmakers asked the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services to update its oversight and require more disclosure from charities about their operations. (Silverman, 1/24)

Analyses of CMS data on Medicare's largest bundled-payment demonstration suggest providers may have reached the limit of their ability to streamline joint replacement procedures. While the joint replacement bundle for hips and knees has been one of the most popular of Medicare's Bundled Payment for Care Improvement Advanced program, providers are shifting to bundles for medical and chronic conditions like sepsis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. (Meyer, 1/24)

Next month, Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s second largest, will begin sending letters and fliers, making phone calls and hosting information fairs to alert struggling citizens of a change about to befall them: Come April, able-bodied adults without children may lose their food stamps if they do not find work fast. A Trump administration rule change, long in the making, is about to become real, and by the administration’s own estimates, nearly 700,000 people across the country — 20,000 of them in Ohio, 3,000 alone in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County — will be dropped from the food-stamp rolls. (Fadulu, 1/25)

Margaret Bitsue's days are filled with prayer: that her son has a clear mind and that he remembers home, a traditional Navajo hogan at the end of a dirt road where a faded yellow ribbon hanging from the cedar trees points to her agony. Bitsue hasn't seen or heard from Brandon Lee Sandoval, the youngest of her four children, in more than two years. Wearing blue jeans, a black shirt and work boots, he left the home in northeastern Arizona before sunrise Sept. 3, 2017, saying he was going to see friends in Phoenix and would be back. (1/26)

So how is a tech company that began as a simple search engine starting to impact health care so broadly? One strategy involves buying health startups and speeding them toward their goals. Another involves picking up tech startups that can pivot to health applications. What appears to unite those acquisitions is a strategy focused on massive data gathering and surveillance — both in people’s homes, using devices like speakers and smart thermostats, and on their bodies, using smartwatches. (Brodwin, 1/27)

Sometimes, ransomware can feel like the flu. As soon as hospitals find a defense, a new and more sophisticated version appears—making it difficult for hospital leaders to keep up. Cryptic names like WannaCry, Petya and SamSam—all variants of ransomware—have become common points of discussion in healthcare. But while those ransomware campaigns targeted businesses across industries, it's becoming more prevalent to see hackers tailor their approaches within the healthcare industry, finding new technical vulnerabilities to exploit at specific hospitals and more closely customizing the phishing emails that deploy malware. (Cohen, 1/24)

General Electric Co. health-care stations and servers may be vulnerable to cyberattacks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a safety communication on Thursday. The FDA warned health providers, facilities and patients that an outside firm had identified cybersecurity vulnerabilities in GE medical servers used to display patient information like heartbeat or blood pressure. The security gaps could allow an attacker to take over and interfere with the monitors by, for example, silencing alarms or creating false ones. (Griffin, 1/23)

A contentious fight over gun control measures in Virginia is prompting hundreds of counties and localities around the country to declare themselves "Second Amendment sanctuaries. "The national movement is growing momentum as the newly-elected Democratic legislature in Virginia plans stricter actions against guns, including universal background checks and "red flag" laws that would allow officials to seize guns from people considered to pose a threat. The push has sparked a strong reaction by those who support gun rights. Tens of thousands gathered in Richmond last week to protest against the planned action, while at least 91 out of 95 counties in Virginia have declared themselves "sanctuaries" against gun control laws passed by the state. (Coleman, 1/26)

A Tennessee lawmaker wants to allow residents to petition the courts to temporarily remove firearms from relatives who may pose a threat. Sen. Sara Kyle, D-Memphis, is sponsoring a bill that would allow family members, household members, intimate partners or law enforcement to petition to temporarily confiscate guns from an individual who shows an immediate risk of harming themselves or others. This type of law, commonly known as "red flag" laws or extreme risk protection orders, is being introduced nationwide in response to gun violence. Under the proposed Senate Bill 1807, the petitioner would sign a sworn affidavit for the emergency protection order. If a judge grants the order, the person in question will be prohibited from purchasing or possessing a firearm during the period the order is in effect. (Hineman, 1/24)

After Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened a lawsuit, the Galveston City Council repealed a local rule this week that aimed to put some space between gun shops and schools. Galveston previously had on its books some regulations that required a minimum of 200 feet of distance between gun stores and a school, place of worship or public park, reported The Houston Chronicle. (Fernandez, 1/24)

One afternoon in October, the warden at the prison where Sandy Ray’s son was serving time called to say he was hospitalized in critical condition, she recalled. He had fought with correctional officers who accused him of rushing at them with handmade weapons, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections. When Ms. Ray arrived, her 35-year-old son, Steven Davis, lay in bed unconscious, his face swollen and disfigured, photos she took show. “He was unrecognizable,” Ms. Ray said in an interview after a demonstration for prison reform where she spoke publicly. “He looked like a monster.” (Campo-Flores, 1/26)

In all, though Shelton encountered seven people who identified as homeless that day, she only counted three – a reflection of the varied ways local governments conduct counts they rely on to show funders how many people are experiencing homelessness on any given night. Homeless point-in-time counts like these were conducted across the United States this week, because they are the main way cities and counties are able to solicit federal dollars to address homelessness. As rough as these counts can be, they are required for federal investment. But across the state, methods for counting people vary widely. Snohomish County uses an in-person and service-based count in which only people surveyed contribute to the overall total. (Brownstone and Greenstone, 1/24)

The Point In Time Count, as it is called, is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is conducted across the country each January. Volunteers in Fort Worth and San Antonio also fanned out across those regions to conduct similar counts Thursday. Austin volunteers will do the same Saturday. The Houston area’s count will be next week. (Garnham, 1/24)

A task force of Alaska legislators is proposing an overhaul of key elements of the state’s failing Village Public Safety Officer Program. The group of legislators spent five months looking for ways to fix the 40-year-old program, which uses state money to train and pay officers working in remote villages. In 2019, the number of VPSOs fell to an all-time low of 38 — compared with more than 100 in 2012. (Hopkins, 1/24)

Nearly 11 months after their historic merger, the hospitals that make up Beth Israel Lahey Health have started collaborating on a number of programs, and so far they’re meeting all the conditions that Attorney General Maura Healey imposed on them, according to a new report. Healey’s office allowed the merger of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Lahey Health system — despite concerns that the deal could raise costs and reduce competition. (McCluskey, 1/24)

In response to Wallach’s diagnosis, the couple, both 39, launched I AM ALS in 2019. Former staffers in the Obama White House, they marshaled lessons learned while campaigning — gathering information, forming consensus, considering the impossible possible — to build a force to mobilize hope and change for those facing a disease they say can and should be cured. Rays of hope are beginning to emerge through an innovative trial that received FDA approval this week to test several drugs at the same time, a bipartisan congressional caucus, doubled federal funding, and support from groups like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which gave the couple’s organization a $453,000 grant in September. (Bowen, 1/24)

Abortion is expected to play a key role in Missouri's 2020 governor’s race, when voters will decide whether to stick with a Republican who signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. or go with the only Democrat who holds statewide office. Republican Gov. Mike Parson, who served as lieutenant governor and assumed leadership after Gov. Eric Greitens resigned amid scandal in 2018, is heading into the race with good odds over state Auditor Nicole Galloway in the GOP-dominated state. (1/26)

Independent vape shops, feeling the squeeze of tighter government regulations and renewed scrutiny from health advocates, have found themselves weathering a market that had been, for nearly a decade, in constant growth. Store owners here and across the country have responded by trimming their stock, adding unrelated merchandise to their shops and cutting workers' hours. Some stores have closed. “It’s very hard to run a business when you’re constantly under the threat of being put out of business,” said Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. (Schrappen, 1/24)

San Francisco’s first-in-the-nation ban on e-cigarette sales, scheduled to take effect this week, is weighing heavily on Asad Sharifi, who owns Cheaper Cigarettes in the city’s Sunset District. Sharifi worries he may have to close his business, which sells cigarettes, cigars, pipes and vapes, because it’s poised to lose 40% of its profits. (Ho, 1/26)

Clark McVey, his public defender, hasn’t gotten to all of that yet. He said he’s been too busy addressing the bedsores that Estes may have developed in the Cole County Jail. “I have heard people flat-out say that he is just getting what he deserves,” said McVey. “We should all be given humane treatment. Furthermore, with Mr. Estes, these cases are pending. There has been no finding of guilt.” His client’s condition illustrates the costly challenge that many jails face since increasingly becoming repositories for the infirm. In Missouri, one of about 20 states that doesn’t have statewide jail standards, his situation is poised to go unnoticed beyond local authorities. (Bogan, 1/27)

The Miami Police Department has enacted changes to how it treats immigrant victims of crime in response to an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. The story found that dozens of law enforcement agencies across the country routinely undermine visa protections for immigrants. (Morel, 1/24)

For the first time, staff members employed by the Tennessee House of Representatives could be subject to drug testing. The change comes less than a year after a former employee admitted to using cocaine in a legislative office and as House Speaker Cameron Sexton, R-Crossville, looks to modernize the chamber's policies to align with the best practices of private companies. (Ebert, 1/25)

Three months of paid leave, maid service and a year of free diapers. Those are among the parental perks the Midtown software firm SalesLoft is using to lure top talent through its doors — and keep them there. SalesLoft is an outlier among companies in Georgia, which has long ranked among the bottom of states requiring paid leave benefits. But that’s beginning to change amid record-low unemployment as businesses court workers, particularly in highly paid, white-collar fields such as tech and consulting. (Hallerman, 1/24)

Eventually, a doctor referred the young couple to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where doctors were performing prenatal spina bifida surgery with promising results. “Hope is the word that always comes to mind," Oberio recalled. "It was a time we really felt hopeless, the way the previous doctors had described what was going on. CHOP didn’t make it seem like it was going to be easy, but they made it sound like things could be OK and that she could be happy.” (Gantz, 1/24)

A Cuyahoga County jail supervisor admitted Friday that he doused the face of a restrained woman with pepper foam and used bootlegged copies of jailhouse video to threaten a fellow guard to testify on his behalf. Idris-Farid Clark, 32, pleaded guilty to extortion and attempted felonious assault, both third-degree felony charges, and a misdemeanor charge of unlawful restraint of inmate Chantelle Glass. (Shaffer, 1/24)

Iron Stone Real Estate Partners, a Philadelphia developer known for acquiring financially distressed health-care properties, has agreed to pay $65 million for the buildings and other property occupied by St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, according to people with direct knowledge of the pending deal. The sale of St. Christopher’s real estate, expected to close next month, will remove the North Philadelphia safety-net hospital from the legal chaos surrounding the bankruptcies last summer of St. Christopher’s and the now-closed Hahnemann University Hospital in Center City. (Brubaker, 1/27)

Catlin has admitted as much in the stunning internal report that found four decades of sexual abuse and misconduct at the school. The report, released five weeks ago, named some of the best-known and most-liked instructors to ever work at Catlin as alleged serial sexual predators.With dozens, perhaps hundreds, of potential lawsuits in the works, the question becomes: Does Catlin have the resources to survive a flood of complaints?The school’s admission that its administrators repeatedly failed to heed warnings that students were being abused could prove especially expensive. (Manning, 1/26)

The chapel that patients and staff at Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Hospital attended for almost 60 years is getting a $2 million facelift and will greet visitors to Dix Park as well as offer concerts, community meetings, educational programs, spiritual events and more. The All Faiths Chapel opened in 1955 as a brand new resource for people at Dorothea Dix, a state-run hospital for people with mental illness, substance abuse problems, and intellectual disabilities that housed people from all over North Carolina. It closed along with the hospital in the 2010s, but the imposing red-brick building with a soaring sanctuary appears much as it did during its life as a church, when patients such as Lori Brinson, of Asheville, found it a refuge on the campus. (Goldsmith, 1/27)

The number of overdose deaths caused by prescription drugs decreased in much of Georgia in 2018, according to a GBI analysis released Friday. Autopsies performed by the GBI Medical Examiner’s Office in 152 counties determined the rate of prescription and opioid-related deaths was lower in 2018 than the previous three years, the agency said. (Abusaid, 1/24)

Maryland corrections officials plan to convert a Jessup facility into a center dedicated to preparing inmates to return home, but advocates say incarcerated women still won’t have the same access to services as men. The state wants to turn the Brockbridge Correctional Facility into a “comprehensive pre-release, re-entry, and workforce development facility” for both men and women. Corrections leaders say it will offer programs to get people on the right track as they leave prison, with a focus on job training, education and family mediation. “It represents the next step of going home,” said Secretary Robert Green of the state’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. But the plan doesn’t satisfy those who have been lobbying for several years for the state to open a prerelease center solely for female inmates. They say women haven’t had opportunities equal to those for men in terms of job training, housing referrals and other services to help them be successful once released. (Knezevich, 1/27)

The day after the Austin City Council approved a resolution to stop arresting or ticketing people for most low-level marijuana possession offenses, the police chief made clear he had no plans to do so. “[Marijuana] is still illegal, and we will still enforce marijuana law if we come across people smoking in the community,” Chief Brian Manley said during a news conference Friday afternoon. Although cracking down on those in possession of small amounts of marijuana has never been a priority for the department, he said, police will continue to either issue tickets under the city’s “cite-and-release” policy or arrest people if officers “come across it.” (McCullought, 1/24)

Plenty of New Englanders have made a pit stop at one of New Hampshire’s state-run liquor stores. Now, another state in the region is wondering: Why not state-run marijuana stores? Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo last week proposed creating a network of recreational pot shops owned by the government, a plan that would make the state the first in the country to hold a monopoly on selling cannabis to consumers 21 and older. (Adams and Gans, 1/24)

Forty medical marijuana dispensary facilities received licenses to operate in the Kansas City area, according to a list issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Friday.Missouri is required to license at least 192 facilities -- 24 per Congressional district -- where qualifying patients can purchase marijuana. As of Jan. 21, DHSS has issued medical marijuana ID cards to 29,457 Missourians and 820 to caregivers. (Gutierrez, Thomas and Hardy, 1/24)

Stevens, a paralegal of 30 years, filed a formal appeal of the state’s decision last week. But her complaints are hardly unique as would-be marijuana business owners have raised questions across Missouri about how the state selected winners and losers.Numerous attorneys, lobbyists and applicants spoke with The Star about inconsistencies and irregularities they saw in the scoring process. State officials maintain that their blind scoring process was secure and legitimate. Yet administrative appeals and lawsuits have started to pile up — so much so that the Department of Health and Senior Services solicited bids on Tuesday from attorneys who could help defend the state in legal action. (Hardy, Hancock and Vockrodt, 1/25)

No one knows whether the coronavirus will substantially threaten the U.S., where it has already been detected, but one thing is certain: American hospitals aren’t ready for the deadly virus or a future global contagion. Travelers from China’s Wuhan region are being diverted to five U.S. airports, where they can be screened. That’s sensible, but it’s no substitute for improving hospital readiness. If the virus becomes a domestic threat, American public safety will depend on what hospitals do when someone unknowingly infected with the coronavirus shows up in the emergency room. That is the lesson of severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known as SARS, which is caused by another coronavirus. (Betsy McCaughey, 1/25)

It’s the largest quarantine in human history, but will it stop the disease? In response to the new and still poorly understood coronavirus that recently emerged in Wuhan, central China, the Chinese government has placed the city and a dozen others in lockdown — in effect quarantining an estimated 56 million people. (Howard Markel, 1/27)

More than a half-century of efforts in the United States to get people to stop smoking tobacco has had a remarkably good effect. From 1965 to 2017, the prevalence of current smoking has tumbled from 52 percent to 15.8 percent among men and from 34.1 percent to 12.2 percent among women. At the same time, there are still 34.2 million adult smokers in the United States, many of whom want to quit but still suffer the addictive power of nicotine. The surgeon general’s latest report is about how to help them, and it raises two very important issues that require more attention and research. (1/25)

Conventional wisdom holds that big, self-insured companies do a better job controlling health care costs than firms that rely entirely on insurance companies to provide their workers’ coverage. But that’s not true. Why it matters: Although a handful of big self-insured companies get a lot of attention for their cost-control efforts, the data tell a different story: Self-insured and fully insured companies are equally bad at controlling health care costs. (Drew Altman, 1/27)

You know that cliché about the zeal of the newly converted? We’re about to find out whether it applies to Kansas Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning’s new support, after years of opposition, for expanding Medicaid coverage to as many as 150,000 more low-income Kansans. After nine years of can-kicking on making KanCare available to more of those who need it, the message from Denning’s constituents in increasingly diverse and Democratic Johnson County is pretty close to “get this done or else. ”In an election year, with a serious challenge from Democratic state Rep. Cindy Holsher, the Republican from Overland Park has every reason to stand up for his own Medicaid compromise with Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly. (1/27)

At that small hospital, the specialists treating my husband had recently transitioned from private practice to being employees of a health system. The system had bound the physicians so tightly with scheduling control, data and metrics, policies and punishments that they, too, could barely breathe. They had almost no control over their patient interactions or their referral options. (Wendy Dean, 1/24)

My husband and I were psychological opposites. I’ve always seen the glass as half-full; to him it was half-empty. That difference, research findings suggest, is likely why I pursue good health habits with a vengeance while he was far less inclined to follow the health-promoting lifestyle I advocated. I’m no cockeyed optimist, but I’ve long believed that how I eat and exercise, as well as how I view the world, can benefit my mental and physical well-being. (Jane E. Brody, 1/27)

Recognizing that education and awareness are critical weapons in this battle, I collaborated with the Department of Administrative Services to develop human trafficking awareness training program for 80,000 state employees and the general public. By taking this half-hour video course, citizens can learn the signs of trafficking and how to report suspicious activity. We are creating an army of trained eyes – in urban, suburban, and rural Georgia – equipped with the right knowledge and tools to save lives. (Marty Kemp, 1/25)

Epic, the nation’s largest electronic health record (EHR) company and a major beneficiary of a $48 billion Obama-era federal program to promote the adoption of EHRs, has launched a full-scale effort to block the flow of data out of its software and into apps that benefit doctors and patients. That’s wrong for many reasons. Epic is attempting to scuttle finalization of a rule from the Department of Health and Human Services that would implement the interoperability and information blocking provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act. (Kenneth D. Mandl and Isaac S. Kohane, 1/27)

Children who have been removed from abusive homes, often saddled with trauma and hurting for support, should not be left to sleep in government offices.And yet a shocking number are.As the Statesman’s Julie Chang recently reported, Texas had an average of 678 foster kids per month sleeping in temporary digs last year because case workers couldn’t find homes or other facilities to take them. Sometimes the kids were taken to hotels. Often they slept in state offices. (1/26)

Kudos to Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration for its candor in exposing big flaws in a computer system, called Ohio Benefits, that’s supposed to help the state manage its part of the Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamp (SNAP) programs. Instead, a system into which the state has already sunk more than a billion dollars -- yes, nine zeros -- is so flawed that it’s wrongly thrown an unknown number of Ohioans off Medicaid by erasing their eligibility histories, failing to handle renewals correctly or simply causing applications to disappear from the system. (1/26)

The details of the U.S. government’s descent into torture as an anti-terrorism tactic have been publicly rehearsed many times in the 18-plus years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Nevertheless, the mistreatment of alleged al-Qaeda detainees at CIA “black site” prisons around the world retain their power to shock. And so it was shocking to hear a retired Air Force psychologist describe it in his first public sworn statement, even though he has written a book and given many interviews. (1/26)

I grew up in public housing in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood, where I was raised by my grandmother. Violence was never far away, poverty was all around us and the odds were never in my favor that I would be the first person in my family to go to college, let alone one day become the Mayor of San Francisco. Earlier this month, when I was sworn in for my first full term as mayor, I looked into the crowd and saw friends, family and people from my community who helped raise me. I was so proud to see them, but I was also saddened. The truth is the majority of them no longer live in San Francisco, or even in California. Those who remain are barely hanging on. (San Francisco Mayor London Breed, 1/23)

I’m always curious about how much my dogs understand when I talk to them. I do know one thing: They know their names. Call either “Watson” or “Raylan,” and one looks up, even in a noisy room. They know who they are. Dog name recognition is valuable to scientists who study language perception and response in humans, especially in research on how babies process spoken words in noisy places. Studying dogs may be able to tell them. Experts already know that babies have difficulty with speech when it is noisy and that dogs respond better to it. (Marlene Cimons, 1/26)