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In the wake of two mass shootings, the divisive politics of gun control appeared to be in flux on Thursday as President Trump explored whether to back expanded background checks on gun purchasers and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, signaled that he would at least be open to considering the idea. It is not clear that either the president or Mr. McConnell will embrace such legislation, which both of them have opposed in the past and which would have to overcome opposition from the National Rifle Association and other powerful conservative constituencies. (Stolberg, Haberman and Martin, 8/8)

President Donald Trump sees a rare political opportunity to act on gun control — and if there was ever a time to do it, this is probably it. Nine out of 10 Trump voters support universal background checks, according to a new poll — and a majority favor other gun control measures. The NRA is in shambles. And Trump's reelection hopes would be helped mightily by more support among moderate suburban voters — who back the measures but abandoned Republicans in the midterms. (Kumar, 8/8)

The president has defined an end goal — keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill — in broad terms, seemingly conflating background checks and so-called red flag laws in a way so that either could be defined as a major accomplishment. But Trump’s optimism does not seem to align with Washington’s static political reality. While opinion polls show expanding background checks is broadly popular, a majority of Republican lawmakers oppose it, complicating the passage of federal legislation by a dysfunctional, deeply divided Congress. (Stokols, 8/8)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that strengthening background checks and red flag laws will “lead the discussion” on addressing gun violence in the wake of two mass shootings that left at least 31 people dead. McConnell’s remarks on a Kentucky news radio show follow a conversation he had Thursday morning with President Donald Trump, who has called for revisiting stricter background checks for gun buyers as well as red flag laws, which allows authorities to limit a person’s access to guns if they pose an imminent threat to others. (Levine, 8/8)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will discuss measures aimed at addressing gun violence in September. He said he expects background checks, assault weapons and "red flag" laws to be part of the debate. "What we can't do is fail to pass something," McConnell told WHAS radio in Kentucky, adding, "the urgency of this is not lost on any of us." (Taylor, 8/8)

But the Republican senator also said he won't call lawmakers back to Washington this month to address gun violence, following two mass shootings that left more than 30 people dead over the weekend. "If we did that we would just have people scoring points and nothing would happen," McConnell said in the brief interview. "If we do it prematurely it will just be another frustrating experience for all of us and the public." (Fox, 8/8)

Stakes are high for all sides, but particularly for Trump and his party. Republicans have long opposed expanding background checks — a bill passed by the Democratic-led House is stalled in the Senate — but they face enormous pressure to do something after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, that killed 31 people. McConnell, who is facing protests outside his Louisville home, can shift attention back to Democrats by showing a willingness to engage ahead of the 2020 election. (Mascaro and Daly, 8/9)

At the same time, McConnell, who faces reelection next year, underscored the difficulty in reaching consensus on a divisive issue. Congress has not passed significant gun-control legislation since the 1990s. (Itkowitz, 8/8)

The mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, are prompting Democrats to reevaluate their long-standing hesitation on an assault weapons ban, propelled by an influential grass-roots movement demanding more aggressive action on guns and the party’s growing political strength in the suburbs. Former president Bill Clinton threw fresh momentum behind the effort on Thursday, calling for the reinstatement of the ban in an essay for Time magazine. (Kim, 8/8)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called on President Donald Trump to use his constitutional powers to bring the Senate back into session, ramping up her efforts to force Republicans to act against gun violence. The unusual request — which would be extraordinary if Trump were to agree — comes as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected Democratic demands to cut short the August recess and vote to require universal background checks on gun sales after two deadly mass shootings over the weekend. (Caygle, 8/8)

“Mr. President, we have an opportunity to work in a bipartisan way to pass gun violence prevention background checks,” Pelosi, D- Calif., said in her letter. “This extraordinary moment in our history requires all of us to take extraordinary action to save lives.” Earlier this week, House Democrats sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office urging him to bring the Senate back into session to pass two bills expanding universal background checks and closing gun show loopholes. So far, McConnell, R-Ky., has not brought the legislation up for a vote. (McDonald, 8/8)

Rep. Don Bacon fielded questions on his stance on gun-control legislation here in an overflowing room in the back of a sports bar, and the loudest cheers for the swing-seat Republican were when he stated his opposition. Mr. Bacon, who represents Omaha and its surrounding areas and won re-election last year by a 2-point margin, laid out why he is against widening background checks for gun purchases. (Andrews, 8/8)

More than 200 mayors, including two anguished by mass shootings in Texas and Ohio, are urging the Senate to return to the Capitol to act on gun safety legislation amid criticism that Congress is failing to respond to back-to-back shootings that left 31 people dead. In a letter Thursday to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, the mayors wrote, “Our nation can no longer wait for our federal government to take the actions necessary to prevent people who should not have access to firearms from being able to purchase them.” (Daly and Mascaro, 8/8)

Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski on Thursday joined more than 200 mayors across the nation in signing a letter asking U.S. Senate leadership to take swift action on bipartisan gun safety legislation. “Feeling safe in your community should be a right in this country, not a privilege,” Biskupski said in a statement issued Thursday. “We have to work together to ensure that Washington takes immediate and meaningful action to ensure the safety of the people they represent.” (McKellar, 8/8)

Last year, a man who worked at a car dealership in San Diego told his co-workers that he would shoot up the place if he were fired, and he praised the man who had carried out the Las Vegas massacre. Another man told his fiancée he wanted to shoot her in the head, and also threatened to kill her ex-boyfriend. Still another told co-workers that he wished his supervisors would die, and that he could invite them hunting so it would look like an accident. (Oppel, 8/8)

Proposals for a federal law encouraging the removal of guns from people at risk of harming themselves or others have gained a rare measure of bipartisan support after back-to-back mass shootings last weekend in Texas and Ohio. But the experiences of states that have adopted similar measures show that the effects of such “red flag” laws have been widely uneven, depending on legislative fine print and the energy with which front-line law enforcement officials choose to implement them. (Jamison and Hermann, 8/8)

Gun control is again in the spotlight after weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio left dozens dead and more than 50 wounded. And while Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has signaled support for universal background checks and so-called red-flag laws that limit who can have guns, Wisconsin Republicans have shown few signs of doing anything on the issue so far. Here is what you need to know about these laws. (Andrea, 8/8)

Former Vice President Joe Biden said he has what it takes to strengthen gun laws in the country following mass shootings in Texas and Ohio last weekend. Biden told reporters at the Iowa State Fair Thursday that it violates no one’s Second Amendment right to tell people they can’t own certain weapons like an assault rifle. (Masters, 8/8)

Kaiser Health News: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’: Gun Violence And The Politics Of Public Health

Three mass shootings in eight days have refocused the nation’s attention on the problem of gun violence — and restarted the long-running debate over guns as a public health issue. Although Congress is on its summer break, before lawmakers left Washington they passed a two-year budget deal to make it easier to fund health programs — but it also cements funding restrictions like the Hyde Amendment, which bans most federal abortion funding. (8/8)

After dozens of people, including toddlers and teenagers, were gunned down in separate mass shootings at a church Sutherland Springs and a high school in suburban Houston, Texas Republicans came to the Capitol this year with their eyes on new gun laws. The goal was not to limit access to weapons or ban assault-style rifles, but to expand gun rights. (Vertuno, 8/8)

When it comes to passing laws designed to prevent the next mass shooting, Congress is deadlocked. Lawmakers have offered 110 gun bills this session that run the gamut from banning certain weapons and magazines to easing restrictions on openly carrying guns. With an absence of a national consensus on the issue, states have stepped up. The PBS NewsHour looked into what policies have gained traction at the state level. (Santhanam, 8/8)

Ohio's Republican governor and Dayton's Democratic mayor pledged Thursday they will work together in a bipartisan push for gun reforms as the city focuses on recovering from the nation's latest mass shooting. Mike DeWine and Nan Whaley announced their legislative plan while visiting the downtown entertainment district where a gunman killed nine people and injured dozens more early Sunday. They also publicly discussed a mental health initiative. (8/8)

Following two shootings inside its stores, Walmart is removing violent video game displays and signs from stores, the retailer confirmed Thursday. Stores were sent a memo that called for “immediate action” to remove signing and displays that "contain violent themes or aggressive behavior." The memo circulated on Twitter and Reddit, and Walmart officials confirmed its authenticity to USA TODAY. (Tyko, 8/8)

In the weeks before a gunman killed 22 people in a devastating rampage at an El Paso Walmart, the suspect’s mother called the police concerned about whether her 21-year-old son was mature or experienced enough for the powerful AK-style rifle he had ordered. In a short telephone conversation with the police in the Dallas suburb of Allen, the mother did not raise concerns that her son, Patrick Crusius, was a danger to others, a lawyer for the family said. (Healy and Mervosh, 8/8)

The family of Patrick Crusius, the alleged gunman in El Paso’s mass shooting, worried he was a little lost, with few friends, but thought he wasn’t any more aimless than many others his age, said family lawyer Christopher Ayres. When Mr. Crusius discussed current events, history and politics with his grandfather, with whom he lived for a while, his ideas didn’t appear to be out of the mainstream, according to Mr. Ayres. Like many young men in Texas, he occasionally went to the gun range with his father. (Ailworth, Wells and Lovett, 8/8)

The gun that was used on Sunday to kill nine people and wound more than a dozen others in Dayton, Ohio, inflicted that damage within just 30 seconds. But while the weapon might look like a rifle to many people, it's technically classified as a pistol under federal law. The AR-15-style pistol used in Dayton is capable of pouring a stream of high-velocity bullets, thanks to its huge ammunition magazine. Before it was turned against civilians, the gun was built from easily obtained components — leading to questions about America's gun laws and a gray area that exists between traditional categories such as rifles and pistols. (Chappell, 8/8)

Some of the victims were old, some were young. They included teachers, immigrants, a retired iron worker, a business owner, and longtime spouses. Now, their relatives and friends are struggling to go on after the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Some funerals already have been held, and more are scheduled in the coming days. (Stengle and Galvan, 8/8)

The nation's foremost public health agency shies away from discussing the important link in this country between suicide and access to guns. That's according to documents obtained by NPR that suggest the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention instead relies on vague language and messages about suicide that effectively downplay and obscure the risk posed by firearms. Guns in the United States kill more people through suicide than homicide. (Greenfieldboyce, 8/8)

At door after door, house after house, Dan Helmer, a Democrat running for the Virginia House of Delegates, found voters of both parties telling him one thing as he canvassed for support Tuesday night: Do something about the mass shootings. “I have it on the TV right now,” Reza Darvishian, a State Department security engineer, told Mr. Helmer on the porch of his home. “I’m sick of listening to all of this stuff.” (Epstein, 8/8)

A vigil would help. Yael Perlman would go to one Thursday evening. First, she needed to do something immediate and personal for the victims of El Paso and Dayton and Gilroy. Write letters to the families of the murdered. That’s what she could do. (Heller, 8/8)

A woman who survived a 2007 mass shooting in Utah said Thursday she has lead poisoning from 300 shotgun pellets still in her body, leaving her with debilitating headaches, nausea and other serious health problems. Carolyn Tuft, whose 15-year-old daughter died in the Trolley Square mall shooting in Salt Lake City, has been unable to work, resulting in the loss of her home and business, she told The Associated Press. (Whitehurst, 8/8)

Veronica Kelley was working at an office building across the street from the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif., in December 2015 when a county employee and his wife entered with semiautomatic rifles and opened fire, killing 14 and wounding 22. Most of the victims were the shooter’s own co-workers. The couple went on to wound two police officers later that day. (Almendrala, 8/8)

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) on Friday unveiled a plan to overhaul the nation's health care system that would implement a public insurance option while working to improve and expand health services in rural areas and on Native American reservations. The plan stipulates that Americans with private health insurance who wish to remain on their plans will be allowed to do so, while also calling to "[s]trengthen the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and protect it from Republican attacks" and implement a public insurance option. (Bowden, 8/9)

Buttigieg says he would expand access to medical care by offering a form of Medicare through the exchanges that anyone could purchase — a proposal he made earlier in the campaign that separated his ideas on health care from other candidates' single payer proposals. To build up the rural health workforce, his new proposal would expand the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which currently requires employment by government or non-profits, to include private or for-profit hospitals and practices in rural areas. He also wants to expand the size of the Conrad 30 waiver program, which waives the requirement that foreign doctors on J-1 visas return to their home countries for two years before re-entering the United States if they commit to working for a period of time in underserved or rural areas. (Ehley, 8/9)

This is a more moderate approach to healthcare coverage than some of his Democratic rivals, including progressive standard bearers and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who want to transfer all Americans to government-funded health coverage, known as Medicare for All. Buttigieg also wants to improve technology so more people can be treated from or near their homes, stop hospital closures, train and attract more doctors and nurses to rural areas and reduce care shortages with an emphasis on maternal care, primary care, mental health and addiction. (Reid, 8/9)

Buttigieg says part of the spectrum of steps needed to improve healthcare for rural outcomes includes recruiting American-born providers as well as to offer more visas for immigrant doctors to practice in rural areas. “When we think about the need for skills and talents in rural communities, we need to cultivate homegrown talent and make sure that we’re making the most of highly-skilled immigrants who can be part of population of physicians providing services where they’re desperately needed.” (Payne, 8/9)

When the unprecedented immigration raids were over, only the children remained. Some sobbed inconsolably. “Let my parents be free,” one girl cried. “I need my dad. He’s not a criminal.” Others clutched backpacks on a first day of school they would probably never forget. The latest salvo in the Trump administration’s hardline stance against immigration came Wednesday at seven Mississippi food-processing plants. Immigration officials described it as the largest single-state workplace enforcement action in US history. (Sanchez, 8/8)

Mississippi residents rallied around terrified children left with no parents and migrants locked themselves in their homes for fear of being arrested Thursday, a day after the United States’ largest immigration raid in a decade. A total of 680 people were arrested in Wednesday’s raids, but more than 300 had been released by Thursday morning with notices to appear before immigration judges, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Bryan Cox. (Amy and Sollis, 8/8)

The operation was so closely guarded that ICE officials did not even inform the White House before it began, according to Matthew Albence, the agency’s acting director, and other administration officials. Because previous plans for high-profile ICE raids had been disrupted by public disclosure — including tweets from President Trump telegraphing them — the agency this time stealthily streamed 600 agents to Mississippi, many flown from other parts of the country. (Craig, Wilson and Miroff, 8/8)

A day after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested nearly 700 people in sweeping raids at several food-processing plants in Mississippi, officials said Thursday that nearly half of those detained had already been released. (Neuman, 8/9)

Sarepta Therapeutics Inc said on Thursday it was informed that an adverse event report was erroneously submitted to the U.S. health regulator regarding an ongoing study of the company's gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Shares of the company plunged as much as 19% earlier after a notice from the Food and Drug Administration showed a patient in the study was reported to have developed a serious illness. The stock pared losses to close down about 7% after the company's statement. (8/9)

It was not an executive shakeup that pummeled shares of Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT) on Thursday. It was not rumors of a takeover Wall Street didn’t like. Instead, it was a mistake. Shares cratered 12.6% after an analyst pointed out that a patient in one of the company’s ongoing clinical trials for Duchenne muscular dystrophy reported a serious side effect. The stock was then halted, and remained halted for three hours. (Sheridan, 8/8)

Remember when Amarin (AMRN) said, a little more than one week ago, that the Food and Drug Administration was “unlikely” to convene an advisory committee meeting to review data on an expanded use of its heart drug Vascepa? Wrong. On Thursday, Amarin reversed course, announcing that, indeed, the FDA has scheduled a Vascepa advisory committee meeting for Nov. 14. The agency’s deadline for making an approval decision on the heart drug will also likely be extended into late December from Sept. 28, the company said. (Feuerstein, 8/8)

Officials with Medicare have decided to cover an innovative but extremely expensive cancer treatment, setting the stage for more patients to get it. That's good news for the University of Kansas Health System.KU has been a pioneer in using the treatment, known as CAR T-cell therapy, which involves removing a patient’s T cells (a type of white blood cell) and genetically engineering them to recognize and attack the patient’s tumors. The cells are then put back into the patient’s body. (Margolies, 8/8)

An eclectic group of mayors, union and business leaders launched a new transparency project aimed at influencing decision-makers in the government and private sectors to force pharmacy benefit managers to pass on lower drug costs to their customers and taxpayers. Based on a successful 2017 model in New Jersey that saved more than $1 billion, organizers of the PBM Accountability Project of New Hampshire claim the same reform here could save between $30 million and $40 million annually. (Landrigan, 8/8)

Renee Chelian remembers keeping her head bowed and counting the pairs of shoes of the women sitting around her. Chelian was 15 and too frightened to take in her surroundings or look at the faces of the many women who sat with her, waiting for an abortion at the Detroit warehouse where the floor was covered in grease stains, and folding chairs and card tables served as the only furniture. (8/8)

Federal appeals judges should restore a Kentucky law at the heart of a licensing fight that threatened to close the state's last abortion clinic, an attorney for Gov. Matt Bevin argued Thursday. Pointing to the high stakes involved, however, the clinic's attorney warned that the law's application by the anti-abortion governor's administration would be "tantamount to a ban on abortion" in Kentucky. (Schreiner, 8/8)

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this week that Republicans would push to repeal ObamaCare if they win back the House and President Trump is reelected in 2020. "If we can get the House back and keep our majority in the Senate, and President Trump wins reelection, I can promise you not only are we going to repeal ObamaCare, we're going to do it in a smart way where South Carolina will be the biggest winner," Graham said in an interview with a South Carolina radio station. (Hellmann, 8/8)

Realtors, small business owners and other employees in small businesses could have access to another option for health insurance if the state legislature has its way. In the coming days, it’s likely the General Assembly will be sending a bill to Gov. Roy Cooper that allows for the creation of association health plans, to allow for what could be plans with lower premiums. Senate Bill 86 represents a priority long held by many in the state as a way of getting health insurance to more North Carolinians. It would allow long-standing statewide associations such as the NC Realtors’ Association or the state Chamber of Commerce to create plans for their members. (Hoban, 8/9)

For the second year in a row, hundreds of thousands of Georgia teachers and state workers won’t see their health insurance premiums increase. But some retired teachers and employees on the State Health Benefit Plan could see their rates jump. (Salzer, 8/8)

It’s the second straight time that these health benefit costs will remain the same from one year to the next for non-Medicare members. The State Health Benefit Plan, with a budget of more than $3 billion, covers about 660,000 state employees, teachers, other school personnel, retirees and dependents. (Miller, 8/8)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has told four companies to remove 44 of their flavored e-liquid and hookah tobacco products that do not have the required approval for sale in the U.S., the agency said on Thursday. The move comes against the backdrop of the FDA's efforts to curb the usage of the addictive substances among young adults. (8/8)

Since July, a cluster of 15 cases of severe lung problems requiring hospitalization has emerged in the Midwest. All patients were teens or young adults, and all reported recent vaping. As of today, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (WDHS), in Madison, said it was studying 12 confirmed respiratory cases, and 13 more are under investigation. (Swift and Tuma, 8/8)

Centers in Maryland providing treatment to people with heroin and other opioid addictions will share in close to $9 million in federal grants aimed at reining in the still-raging epidemic, the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration announced Thursday. The latest round of funding will go to community health centers, rural organizations and the University of Maryland, and officials said they expect the grants to boost the number of people on medication-assisted treatment, which includes treatment with drugs such as buprenorphine and methadone that ease withdrawal symptoms and curb cravings. (Cohn, 8/8)

Waverly Willis didn’t hesitate to say yes when the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County asked him to hand out free fentanyl test strips at his Urban Kutz barbershops. He knew that for some drug users, the test strips could mean the difference between life and death. The test strips let users test drugs such as cocaine to determine if they’ve been mixed with fentanyl, the powerful opioid that has been a factor in a lion’s share of deaths in recent years in Northeast Ohio and elsewhere in the U.S. (MacDonald, 8/8)

Residents have been complaining for weeks, documenting with photos and videos that people just outside their windows are dealing and injecting drugs, bathing in the fountains, having sex, and leaving feces on the curb. At the same time, residents expressed concern for the homeless, and some speakers at a community meeting Wednesday expressed outrage over the seizure of wheelchairs during a police operation this week. (Freyer, Valenica and McDonald, 8/8)

David Morrison carries the scars of Ferguson’s upheaval. A veteran protester, he has fled gunshots and tear gas, marched, waved signs and played dead on the asphalt in years of activism that unspooled after a white police officer killed an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown. “I’m so angry!” he shouts. He is 7 years old. (Healy and Besman, 8/8)

Past research has found a consistent pattern of racial inequality in American health care. Now, new research from Brigham and Women's Hospital finds an island of racial equality — among patients in the military health care system. The research, published in the journal Health Affairs, looked at a common heart disease procedure among more than 8,000 patients insured by TRICARE, the military insurance for active-duty and retired personnel and their families. (Goldberg, 8/8)

Drugmaker Eli Lilly said on Thursday early results from a study suggest that Apple Inc devices, including the iPhone, in combination with digital apps could differentiate people with mild Alzheimer's disease dementia and those without symptoms. The study, tested in 113 participants over the age of 60, was conducted by Apple along with Eli Lilly and Evidation Health. (8/8)

Scientists have discovered what is by far the oldest evidence of human occupation at extreme altitudes: a rock shelter strewn with bones, tools and hearths 11,000 feet above sea level. People lived at the site, in the mountains of Ethiopia, as long as 47,000 years ago. The research, reported on Thursday in the journal Science, contradicts the long-held view that high elevations were the last places on Earth settled by humans. (Zimmer, 8/8)

Researchers may have identified a treatment alternative for older women with low-risk forms of breast cancer. It could offer fewer adverse side effects than anti-hormonal drug therapies. The study found slightly higher survival rates for women over 70 with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer and took anti-estrogen medications than those who were treated with a short dose of radiation. All of the patients had undergone a lumpectomy before these treatments, according to a new report published Monday in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology. (Johnson, 8/8)

The New York state comptroller is calling for improved oversight of a state program that works to prevent lead poisoning and help children with elevated blood lead levels, a major health risk to children. In a report released Thursday from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, auditors found that the state Department of Health regional offices didn’t consistently conduct on-site reviews of the local health departments that carry out the state’s lead-prevention program to ensure that children receive proper treatments. (West, 8/8)

The Board of Supervisors might cancel a $1.7-billion contract to replace the dungeon-like Men’s Central Jail downtown amid growing unease about whether Los Angeles County’s incarceration policy focuses enough attention on mental health treatment. County supervisors are expected to vote next week on whether to end the contract with McCarthy Building Cos. and start fresh on a plan for replacing the antiquated jail — a major policy change after months of grappling with the project’s direction. (Stiles, 8/8)

In March of 2014, Jim Hannan joined a group of executives at Georgia-Pacific to discuss a burgeoning crisis. Hannan was CEO of Georgia-Pacific, reporting to Charles Koch, the CEO of Koch Industries, which had bought the paper and pulp company in 2005. Hannan, a longtime Koch employee, had been doing a stellar job by some standards — the maker of Brawny paper towels and Quilted Northern toilet paper was paying down debt and delivering higher profits. But there was a hitch: The workplace was becoming more dangerous. (Leonard, 8/8)

Some metro Atlanta hospital prices are higher than those paid in many other states, according to a report by the Rand Corp. Health care prices are notoriously difficult for the public to figure out. Both insurance companies and health care providers are reluctant to give out the actual price they were willing to settle on in negotiations. So as they prepare for their next rounds of negotiations, self-insured companies and other health plans paid Rand to determine what they were paying compared with the rest of the market. (Hart, 8/8)

Allscripts Healthcare Solutions on Thursday announced it had reached a tentative settlement with the Justice Department to resolve investigations of a company the electronic health records vendor acquired last year. Practice Fusion, which Allscripts acquired in 2018, had been subpoenaed over "certain business practices," including the company's compliance with the anti-kickback statute and HIPAA. If finalized, Allscripts will pay the Justice Department $145 million to resolve possible civil and criminal liability from the investigation. (Cohen, 8/8)

Startled by a sharp increase in the deaths of sleeping babies this year, public health officials in Hamilton County and Northern Kentucky are cautioning parents to take steps to guard infants in sleep. Cradle Cincinnati, the nonprofit organization working to reduce infant mortality in Hamilton County, reports that 20 babies have died of sleep-related causes in 2019, twice the number the region would usually have through the first seven months of a year. (Saker, 8/8)

The YMCAs across Tampa Bay are now offering their 16-week EnhanceFitness course for free. The course is designed for seniors and will be free to any YMCA member or nonmember, after a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living. The course, said Summer Cruff, director of Community Integrated Health Programs at YMCA of the Suncoast, is particularly valuable in an area historically known for its older population. (Kumar, 8/8)

The Minnesota Department of Health says an outbreak of hepatitis A has sickened people in a number of counties who use street drugs, are homeless or have recently been incarcerated.The outbreak consists of 23 cases in nine counties, including Washington, Dakota and Hennepin in the metro area along with Pine, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, St. Louis, Chisago and Kandiyohi. Thirteen cases have resulted in hospitalization; all of the hospitalized people have since been discharged. The source of the infection is not known for all cases, suggesting that community transmission is occurring among high-risk groups, according to the Health Department. (Pross, 8/8)

The Minnesota Health Department on Thursday declared an outbreak of hepatitis A and urged vaccinations for those at high risk for the disease, including drug users and people recently incarcerated. The outbreak covers nearly two-dozen cases in nine counties, the agency said in a statement. (Moen, 8/8)

The owner of a Kansas City daycare was sentenced Thursday to nearly five years in prison for his role in defrauding the federal government of more than $500,000.Sharif Karie, 41, of Olathe, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kansas City to four years and 10 months in federal prison. In January, a jury found him guilty of 29 crimes that included conspiracy and theft of government money. (Nozicka, 8/8)

Curaleaf Massachusetts Inc. will pay the Cannabis Control Commission $250,000 over charges that it failed to obtain approval for a merger involving its Wakefield-based parent company, Curaleaf Inc., in October. The fine, which lets Curaleaf avoid a suspension or revocation of its licenses, is the largest to date issued by the agency and followed unanimous votes by the five commissioners in favor of the settlement and approving the merger. (Adams, 8/8)

Is it ethical for patients to want their bigotry to be accommodated? That’s an easy question: no, because expressing bigotry isn’t ethical. The harder question is whether health care professionals ought to accommodate their bigotry. Everyone knows that doctors must not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexuality, race, religion or national origin when they select or treat patients: It’s an obligation they accepted when they entered the health care profession. (That doesn’t mean they have to take all comers; they can turn away patients for various other reasons.) But should patients be able to choose clinicians on the basis of such attributes? The answer is: It depends. (Appiah, 8/6)

The boy, who appears in photos shared by the hospital but remains unnamed, only ever had a standard child’s set of 20 or so teeth visible to the naked eye. (The average adult has 32.) His parents first noticed a small lump pushing up against his right cheek when their son was 3; when they took the toddler to the doctor, however, he refused to sit still for any exams, so it remained untreated. By the time the boy’s parents brought him to the dental hospital, the lump was nearly the size of a golf ball. Last month, doctors surgically removed the growth and sliced it open. They found a sac with 526 tiny teeth inside, like a fleshy, overstuffed coin purse. The sac was an odontoma, a noncancerous growth that forms in some children during the years-long process of tooth development. Baby teeth, and then later on secondary teeth, grow from clusters of stem cells deep in the jaw, pushing up from below and erupting through the gums once fully formed. As the secondary set grows and baby teeth begin to fall out, the jaw stretches to accommodate its new, larger tenants. With all this growth and movement, the stem-cell hubs can sometimes forget what they were supposed to be doing and spin out of control, producing tooth-building materials. (Weiss, 8/6)

The labour and delivery nurses were suspicious. Five pregnant women, all in rapid labour, arrived at the North York General Hospital triage on the same day—a Saturday in May 2016. The deliveries were happening fast—too fast—and because it was the weekend, the nurses were short-handed. One patient, at term in her first pregnancy, was fully dilated just an hour after being admitted and gave birth 25 minutes later. Another arrived suffering from uterine hyperstimulation—when contractions come too frequently or last too long, a serious complication of being induced. As a result, her baby’s heart rate was slowing ominously, and the staff had to deliver it via emergency C-section. But the patients all said they hadn’t been induced, and their charts showed no indication of induction, either. What those five women had in common was their doctor: Paul Shuen, a highly respected ob-gyn and gynaecological oncologist. The nurses figured it must have had something to do with him. Staff wrote up a formal report of the incident and passed it up the chain of command. (Lista, 7/24)

The 75-year-old man carefully lowered the caged queen bee into the center of the newly assembled hive. Then, around her, he tipped a box buzzing with hundreds of worker bees, still groggy from the smoke. His wife lowered the lid, careful not to injure any wanderers. Their first hive was finished. The woman could tell that her husband was tired even before he took off the netted hood of his new beekeeping suit. His normally vigorous stride was slow and a little unsteady. He struggled onto the porch. “I need to lie down,” he told her. Even though it was early May, it was plenty hot in the small city of San Marcos, Tex., just northwest of San Antonio. (Sanders, 8/8)

As health care costs continue to rise, practitioners in India are working to lower prices -- and bring their innovations closer to American shores. Health City Cayman Islands is a new frontier for India’s largest for-profit hospital chain. Focused on efficient health care delivery, its services are now drawing Americans to the Cayman Islands. (de Sam Lazaro, 7/7)

It was 7 a.m. on Independence Day when a doctor told Rose and Roger Porter Jr. that their daughter could die within hours. For nearly a week, Mikayla, 10, had suffered intensifying bouts of fever, diarrhea and stabbing stomach pains. That morning, the Porters rushed her to a clinic where a doctor called for a helicopter to airlift her to a major medical center. The gravity of the girl’s illness was remarkable given its commonplace source. She had gotten food poisoning at a pig roast from meat her parents had bought at a local butcher in McKenna, Wash., and spit-roasted, as recommended, for 13 hours. (Richtel, 8/4)

I can’t remember when I first started feeling anxious in the wake of mass shootings, but I know it wasn’t Columbine. I was a freshman in college when it happened, and back then it felt like a terrible, singular event. We didn’t talk about systematic change in the aftermath, because it didn’t feel like a systematic problem yet. Two decades later, it has proven not to be an isolated incident, but simply a larger entry in an ever-growing list of US gun massacres. And in that time my anxiety has quietly grown, so subtly and steadily that I did not realize it. First it was simply in the aftermath of a shooting: I would walk with trepidation in public places, scanning bags that seemed large enough to conceal weapons. But it seems that we’re constantly in the aftermath of a shooting, and so that anxiety has become a sort of continual low-level hum, background noise for my life. I can’t remember when it became constant. Maybe it was Sandy Hook. Or Pulse. It was definitely there after Vegas, and never left me. (Geraldine DeRuiter, 8/9)

In one weekend, 31 people were murdered and dozens more injured in two mass shootings just hours apart in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The death toll may still grow. The shooters killed the young and old, men and women. In El Paso, the white-nationalist shooter’s intent was to claim as many Latino lives as possible. In both cities, the victims had their tomorrows taken or their futures forever altered by domestic terrorists as they shopped or enjoyed an evening out–everyday activities we all expect to pursue in safety. And in both cases, the gunmen used military-style assault weapons that were purchased legally. (Former President Bill Clinton, 8/8)

We must address why much of the gun violence in America happens — the hopelessness that blankets so many communities. Victims and community leaders fighting for their neighborhoods recognize that by the time someone picks up a gun, layers upon layers of systemic injustice have already failed them. Ending gun violence requires investing in hope to prevent people from picking up a gun in the first place. (Eric Swalwell, 8/8)

The fact that the Dayton shooter had a history of alleged physical assault, misogynist threats, fascination with sexual violence and resentment towards a “hit list” of people he wanted to kill or rape is no surprise. Mass killers and perpetrators of domestic violence share a deeply rooted grievance against people who “wronged” them and need to be taught a lesson. Much too often, this leads to the most horrific violence. (Toni Van Pelt, 8/8)

After a gunman massacred 22 people in an El Paso Walmart last week, President Trump declared that mass killers are “mentally ill monsters.” It was a convenient — and misleading — explanation that diverted public attention from a darker possibility behind such unimaginable horror: The killer might have been rational, just filled with hate. (Richard A. Friedman, 8/8)

Poverty is painful: emotional poverty, spiritual poverty, mental poverty and financial poverty all leave holes in our hearts and our rational thinking. It’s just that simple and it’s just that hard. We can’t legislate our way out of that. But we will certainly demand that someone (other than our ourselves) try. Let’s quit wasting time blaming the NRA and our legislators and get after this. We want action? Do something other than complain and blame. (Christine Marallen, 8/8)

I had just gotten home from the gym when I opened the email from 23andMe, saying a report was ready for me to read. That click changed my life forever: To my utter shock, the results showed that I have a mutation in a gene called BRCA1, which puts me at a huge risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. I broke into tears. At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. My father’s sister died of breast cancer when she was 37, but her mother (my grandmother) and her sisters all lived long healthy lives. My aunt’s death was always talked about as an unforeseeable tragedy, not a family legacy. I knew that being an Ashkenazi Jew (100%, according to 23andMe) put me at a higher risk of BRCA but at 1 in 40 that’s still only 2.5% of my tribe. (Dorothy Pomerantz, 8/8)

For the first time in years, there’s been a decline in the national number of drug overdose deaths, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control that looked at preliminary 2018 data. That’s good news, but make no mistake: The opioid crisis is far from over. At the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), we recently tracked all 57 federal funding sources directed at the epidemic and found that they fall far short of the amount necessary to reverse the rate of overdose deaths, address the consequences of the epidemic, permanently reverse the rate of overdose deaths and build a comprehensive addiction treatment and recovery system. (Regina Labelle and W. William Hoagland, 8/8)

Oklahoma’s recent settlements with Purdue Pharma and Teva Pharmaceuticals, and the trial in the state’s lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, signal that the opioid epidemic is entering a new era of accountability. Hundreds of cities and counties and about 2 dozen states are also pursuing litigation against opioid manufacturers. The legal system should hold the pharmaceutical industry responsible for the overzealous, misleading, and, at times, illegal marketing of opioids. Regulators should consider new ways to monitor drug manufacturers to reduce the chances of such conduct in the future. Yet the lessons of the opioid epidemic go further. It is important for physicians, payers, hospitals, and accreditors—as well as for patients and their families—to consider what else went wrong and what can be fixed moving forward, so that a tragedy of this scale does not occur again. Four critical lessons for the health care system have become clear, and others may emerge as the epidemic continues to evolve. (Joshua M. Sharfstein and Yngvild Olsen, 8/5)

If the Supreme Court rules the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, then make no mistake, the private health insurance companies will be able to once again to deny insurance coverage to those people with preexisting conditions. The Republicans in Congress have tried more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Even though the Republicans now claim to support the specific provision dealing with preexisting conditions, they have no replacement plan that will keep those key protections in place. (Byron Dorgan, 8/8)

Five years ago, we switched countries. Pasi Sahlberg came to the U.S. as a visiting professor at Harvard University, and William Doyle moved to Finland to study its world-renowned school system as a Fulbright scholar. We brought our families with us. And we were stunned by what we experienced. (Pasi Sahlberg and William Doyle, 8/8)

An online Connector database captures official complaints and their outcomes, but those data don’t represent all of the Connector’s customer service flaws. In its recently released survey scores, almost 1 of every 5 customers in the first quarter of 2019 was either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the overall customer service. And, as my experience shows, a call that seems successful can later prove dissatisfying — yet there’s no mechanism to retroactively evaluate the call. (Sarah Ruth Bates, 8/8)

We must consider all evidence-based and evidence-informed interventions that have a proven track record of saving lives and directing people toward treatment. The data supporting safe injection facilities as an effective tool to combat the opioid crisis could not be clearer.Study after study analyzing more than 90 facilities in Europe and Canada found that safe injection facilities not only save lives, but they also provide additional public health benefits through services that include clean-syringe exchange programs, drug checking, blood-borne virus testing, injection-site wound care, initiation of Medication-Assisted Treatment for substance-use disorder, and referrals for health and social services. (Cindy F. Friedman and Jeffrey N. Roy 8/9)