The New York Times: White House Asks Congress For Billions To Fight Coronavirus
The Trump administration, after weeks of pleading from lawmakers, asked Congress on Monday to allocate $1.25 billion in new emergency funds to bolster its coronavirus response. The request from the White House, which also called for $1.25 billion in money diverted from other federal programs, is a significant escalation in the administration’s response to the outbreak of the virus and a sign of how long the fight to stop it may be. The White House budget office also said it intended to move $535 million allocated for the prevention and treatment of the Ebola virus during the current fiscal year. (Weiland, Cochrane and Haberman, 2/24)

The Washington Post: White House Asks Congress For $1.8 Billion To Bolster Coronavirus Response
The request includes $1.25 billion in new funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the ability to transfer an additional $535 million set aside to fight Ebola and use it for the coronavirus response instead. “To this point, no agency has been inhibited in response efforts due to resources or authorities. However, much is still unknown about this virus and the disease it causes,” acting White House Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought wrote to congressional leaders. “The administration believes additional federal resources are necessary to take steps to prepare for a potential worsening of the situation in the United States.” (Werner, Stein and Sun, 2/24)

The Associated Press: Trump Defends $2.5B Coronavirus Request; Dems Say It's Low
The White House budget office said the funding would be used for vaccine development, treatment and protective equipment, but the amount of the request was quickly slammed by Democrats as insufficient. The budget request came as coronavirus fears were credited with Monday’s 1,000-plus-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. (LeMire, 2/25)

NBC News: White House Seeks $2.5B For Coronavirus, But Pelosi Says That's Not Enough
In India on Tuesday, President Donald Trump said the U.S. was in "very good shape" on handling coronavirus, while noting Monday’s drop in the financial markets as the virus continues to spread. “I think it’s going to be under control,” Trump told business leaders in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Helsel and Alexander, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Seeks $2.5 Billion To Fight Coronavirus
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) criticized the request in a statement, indicating a possible political battle over the funding package. “The President’s request for coronavirus response funding is long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency,” she said. Mr. Trump, who is traveling in India, wrote in a series of tweets on Monday that the disease was under control. (Duehren, 2/24)

ABC News: White House Requesting $1.25B As Part Of $2.5B Plan To Fight Coronavirus 
As of Monday, 53 people in the United States had tested positive for the newly discovered virus, known officially as COVID-19, which emerged in China back in December. Of those cases, 39 are among people who were repatriated to the United States on charter flights from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, or from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which remains quarantined in the Japanese port of Yokohama. (Nathanson, McLaughlin and Winsor, 2/25)

Roll Call: White House Seeks $1.25 Billion More For Coronavirus Response 
According to a letter accompanying the request from acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the U.S. government has "taken unprecedented steps" to shield Americans from the disease. "However, much is still unknown about this virus and the disease it causes. The Administration believes additional Federal resources are necessary to take steps to prepare for a potential worsening of the situation in the United States," Vought wrote to congressional leaders. (Krawzak and Siddons, 2/24)

The Hill: White House Asking Congress For $2.5 Billion To Fight Coronavirus 
However, the request met quick resistance from Democrats. Just $1.25 billion of the request is for new funding, with the rest requested to be taken from existing health programs, including $535 million from fighting Ebola. "The Trump administration’s request for emergency funding is woefully insufficient to protect Americans from the deadly coronavirus outbreak," said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.). (Sullivan, 2/24)

Reuters: Republicans Raise U.S. Drug Supply Concerns After Coronavirus Outbreak
Republicans raised concerns this week about the security of the U.S. drug supply chain in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak in China, where a significant portion of the ingredients used to make prescription drugs is manufactured. The outbreak highlights "severe, longstanding, and unresolved vulnerabilities in our capacity to produce life-saving pharmaceutical drugs and medical devices for our own citizens," Missouri Senator Josh Hawley wrote in a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "This is unacceptable." (2/24)

CBS News: How Coronavirus In China Could Cause Drug Shortages In America 
The raging coronavirus outbreak that has shut down employers and paralyzed business in China could soon constrain the production of core ingredients for critical drugs and medical products sold thousands of miles away in the U.S. Restrictions on travel to and from China have forced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to postpone inspections of Chinese factories. This delay could interfere with China's ability to continue supplying the U.S. with the active pharmaceutical ingredients for antibiotics and other medications used to treat serious illnesses, including tuberculosis, experts said. (Cerullo, 2/24)

In other coronavirus news from the United States —

Reuters: Judge Orders Talks Over Plans To Move Virus Patients To A California City
A U.S. judge barred the government from relocating coronavirus patients to southern California for another week on Monday and ordered it to discuss the move with state officials. U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton had on Friday halted the government's plans to send infected cruise ship passengers to a state-owned facility in Costa Mesa, after the Orange County city of 113,000 filed a legal action against the proposal. (Singh and Acharya, 2/25)

The Washington Post: U.S. Judge Delays Decision On Moving Coronavirus-Exposed Americans To Costa Mesa, Calif.
She said she would not make a decision in the city’s lawsuit based on people’s fears, but was also critical of state and federal officials for not doing more to allay people’s concerns. She urged them to answer residents’ questions about who would care for people who tested positive or were potentially exposed to the virus, how many quarantined individuals might be moved to Costa Mesa and what would happen if they developed symptoms and required hospitalization. (Rowe and Abutaleb, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Drugmaker Moderna Delivers First Experimental Coronavirus Vaccine For Human Testing
Drugmaker Moderna Inc. has shipped the first batch of its rapidly developed coronavirus vaccine to U.S. government researchers, who will launch the first human tests of whether the experimental shot could help suppress the epidemic originating in China. Moderna on Monday sent vaccine vials from its Norwood, Mass., manufacturing plant to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., the company said. (Loftus, 2/24)

The New York Times: How To Quarantine At Home
“You’ll be so lonely,” says Nicole Gadon, 68, who was required to stay inside her house after testing positive for tuberculosis in 2014. If you come down with (or are exposed to) certain communicable diseases, including cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fever, SARS or a pandemic influenza, the state and federal governments can force you into quarantine and isolation. Often you will be told to hole up in your house or apartment until you are no longer deemed a threat. (Wollan, 2/25)

CBS News: Amazon May Not Have Enough Goods From China For Prime Day, Report Says 
Apparently not even Amazon — the world's largest online retailer — is immune to the effects of the rapidly spreading coronavirus disease. The contagious disease, officially called COVID-19, has closed factories and slowed the production of everything from Apple iPhone parts to drug ingredients in China used by U.S. pharmaceutical makers. Now, Amazon, which sells everything from paper towels to power tools, is also concerned it could run out of stock on many of its China-made products, according to a New York Times report. (2/24)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: What You Need To Know About Coronavirus If You Live In Georgia 
The new coronavirus virus, officially named COVID-19, emerged in late December as a cluster of pneumonia-like cases linked to a live animal and seafood market in Wuhan, located in China’s Hubei province. Since then, the numbers have been growing dramatically every day. A global public health emergency was declared last month. (Oliviero, 2/24)

The New York Times: Wall Street Is (Finally) Waking Up To The Damage Coronavirus Could Do
For weeks, there has been a strange divergence among those trying to predict what coronavirus might mean for financial markets and the world economy. People in the trenches of global commerce — supply chain managers, travel industry experts, employers large and small — warned of substantial disruptions to their businesses. And public health authorities feared that the disease could spread far beyond Wuhan in China. (Irwin, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Fear Of Coronavirus, Rather Than Virus Itself, Hits Economies
The body’s immune response to infection is often more painful than the infection itself. The same is true of epidemics and the economy. As with terrorist attacks and financial crises, epidemics generate widespread uncertainty and sometimes panic. Government authorities and private individuals often respond by drastically reducing exposure to the shock, amplifying its global economic impact. (Ip, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Market Plunge Over Coronavirus Fears Underscores Political Risk To Trump
As President Trump spent Monday sightseeing in India, the U.S. stock market plunged amid growing concerns about a deadly virus spreading quickly across continents — a split screen that brought into stark relief how the coronavirus is testing the White House and undercutting Trump’s central reelection message. The Trump administration’s disjointed handling of the outbreak has faced mounting criticism as the president’s allies have scrambled to take preventive steps while seeking to reassure the public, at times struggling to explain their decisions and offer a consistent message. (Olorunnipa and Costa, 2/24)

Politico: Trump Faces ‘Black Swan’ Threat To The Economy And Reelection
With the possibility of a U.S. outbreak growing by the day, Trump allies and advisers have grown increasingly worried that a botched coronavirus response will hit the U.S. economy. Even Donald Trump Jr. has mused to associates he hopes the White House does not screw up the response and put the president’s best reelection message at risk, said two individuals with knowledge of his comments. “Trump’s reelection effort is so closely tied to the strength of the stock market and the economy,” said Moore, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and 2016 Trump campaign adviser. “Anything that shakes us off of that pro-growth track is a concern, but I think the view of officials in the White House is that this will be contained.” (Diamond and Cook, 2/24)

NBC News: Dow Closes Down 1,000 Points As Coronavirus Fears Slam Wall Street
Wall Street was rocked in a volatile trading session Monday that ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 1,031 points — the worst day in two years for the blue-chip index — as fears increased over the global economic shock of coronavirus. The market sell-off came amid a significant uptick in reported cases of the disease in Europe, pushing investors to ditch stocks and buy up safe-haven assets like gold, which hit a seven-year high. (White and Bayly, 2/24)

CNN: Coronavirus Concern Grips Washington As Trump Dispenses Optimism 
The White House insists Trump is more than on top of the situation. "I think that's a problem that's going to go away," Trump said Tuesday at the start of a CEO roundtable in New Delhi. Trump acknowledged Monday's Wall Street plunge, but noted futures were higher ahead of Tuesday's market open. (Collinson, 2/25)

The Hill: Stocks Sink As Coronavirus Spreads 
Markets took little comfort in his other remarks, that the virus seemed to have already “peaked and plateaued” in China, where the outbreak originated. There are now 77,262 cases in China, the vast majority of cases reported worldwide. Chinese President Xi Jinping said the outbreak was “the fastest spread, the widest range of infections, and the most difficult prevention and control in China” since its founding, according to state media. (Elis, 2/24)

Reuters: Health Insurer Shares Pummeled By Sanders Surge, Virus Worries
As concerns over the spreading coronavirus outbreak hammered U.S. stocks, one corner of the market was confronted with another potentially game-changing prospect: a Bernie Sanders nomination. The S&P 500 managed healthcare index of health insurance stocks tumbled over 7% early Monday afternoon, compared to a 3.5% fall for the overall S&P 500. Shares of industry bellwether UnitedHealth Group Inc dropped 7.6% and were the biggest individual drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, while shares of Centene Corp fell more than 10%. (Krauskopf, 2/24)

The New York Times: As Fears Of A Pandemic Mount, W.H.O. Says World Is Not Ready
As new cases of the coronavirus spiked on two continents, the World Health Organization warned on Monday that the world was not ready for a major outbreak, even as it praised China’s aggressive efforts to wrest the epidemic under control. After two weeks on the ground in China, a team sent by the W.H.O. concluded that the draconian measures China imposed a month ago may have saved hundreds of thousands of people from infection. Such measures — sealing off cities, shutting down businesses and schools, ordering people to remain indoors — have provoked anger in China and could be difficult to replicate in democratic countries with a greater emphasis on protecting civil liberties. (Myers and Wee, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus’s Global Spread May Not Be Contained, WHO Says
The WHO said it isn’t yet clear whether a world-wide spread is inevitable. The virus could be contained, develop a regular pattern of continual or seasonal transmission, or become a pandemic, said Michael Ryan, the WHO’s chief of health emergencies, speaking at a news conference. The agency said the outbreak doesn’t currently qualify as a pandemic—defined as widespread transmission on multiple continents, with impacts on society—and new cases are on the decline in China, where the majority of illnesses have occurred. (McKay, Stancati and Yoon, 2/24)

Stat: WHO Tells Countries To Prepare For Possibility Of A Coronavirus Pandemic
The World Health Organization said the coronavirus outbreak that has swept from China to a number of countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe is not yet a pandemic, but it urged countries to prepare for its arrival on the assumption that a declaration may come. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said countries should be working to protect health workers, engaging groups that are at highest risk — for instance, the elderly — and striving to contain spread of the virus to the highest degree possible to slow its arrival in countries that don’t have the means to respond to its threat. (Branswell, 2/24)

CIDRAP: WHO Notes COVID-19 Pandemic Potential As 5 More Mideast Nations Affected
At a media telebriefing in Geneva today, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, said the team learned more about the transmissibility of the virus, its severity, and the measures China took. He said the decline in China's cases is real, and that the epidemic peaked and plateaued between Jan 23 and Feb 2 and has been steadily declining since then. He said the group found that the fatality rate ranges from 2% to 4% in Wuhan, but is lower at 0.7% outside of the city. For people with mild disease, recovery takes about 2 weeks, but patients who experience severe or critical disease it may take 3 to 6 weeks to recover. (Schnirring, 2/24)

Reuters: South Korea's Moon Says Situation 'Very Grave' As Mass Virus Tests Get Going
South Korean health authorities said on Tuesday they aim to test more than 200,000 members of a church at the center of a surge of new coronavirus cases as President Moon Jae-in said the situation was "very grave". South Korea's tally of cases of coronavirus cases rose to 977, fuelling fears the outbreak, which is thought to have begun in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December, is developing into a pandemic. (Shin and Smith, 2/25)

Reuters: South Korea To Launch Mass Coronavirus Testing, U.S. Pledges $1 Billion For Vaccine
About 68% of South Korea's cases are linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where the outbreak is believed to have begun with a 61-year-old woman. It is not known how she became infected. The church said it would provide authorities with the names of all members in South Korea, estimated by media at about 215,000 people. The government would test them all as soon as possible, the prime minister's office said."It is essential to test all of the church members in order to contain the spread of the virus and relieve public anxiety," it said in a statement. (2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: South Korea Plans ‘Maximum’ Quarantine Steps In Coronavirus-Struck City
Shincheonji’s founder, Lee Man-hee, said in a statement posted on the group’s website that it would provide the government a complete membership list, though former members said that is unlikely. Shincheonji Church dispatches undercover “reapers” to other churches to recruit new members, they said, and revealing their identities would sabotage the church’s mission of expanding. Members often hide their religion from their families, they said. (Martin and Yoon, 2/25)

The Hill: CDC Tells Americans To Avoid Unessential Travel To South Korea Amid Coronavirus Outbreak 
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warned Americans against unnecessary travel to South Korea on Monday amid growing concerns about the outbreak of a novel form of coronavirus originating from China. A notice on the CDC's website Monday evening urged travelers to "avoid all nonessential travel to South Korea," citing limited access to medical services in areas where the coronavirus outbreak has been reported. (Bowden, 2/24)

The New York Times: ‘Recipe For A Massive Viral Outbreak’: Iran Emerges As A Worldwide Threat
Religious pilgrims, migrant workers, businessmen, soldiers and clerics all flow constantly across Iran’s frontiers, often crossing into countries with few border controls, weak and ineffective governments and fragile health systems. Now, as it struggles to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Iran is also emerging as the second focal point after China for the spread of the disease. Cases in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates — even one in Canada — have all been traced to Iran, sending tremors of fear rippling out from Kabul to Beirut. (Kirkpatrick, Fassihi and Mashal, 2/24)

The Associated Press: UAE Bans All Flights With Iran Over Coronavirus Outbreak
The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday banned all flights to and from Iran over the outbreak of the new coronavirus, just a day after its spread from the Islamic Republic was announced across multiple Mideast nations. Iran meanwhile raised the official death toll from the virus to 15 killed amid 95 confirmed infections. (Gambrell, 2/25)

The New York Times: Spanish Hotel Is Latest Site Of Possible Outbreak
A hotel on the Spanish resort island of Tenerife was placed under a police cordon on Tuesday after an Italian guest tested positive for the new coronavirus, the authorities said. According to local news reports, about 1,000 guests are booked at the hotel, the H10 Costa Adeje Palace, a resort popular with British tourists. It was initially unclear the extent to which the hotel had been locked down and whether an official quarantine had been put in place. (2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Virus Outbreak In Italy Disrupts One Of Europe’s Powerhouse Regions
The two Italian regions most affected by the virus—Lombardy, where Milan is the capital, and Veneto, home to Venice—account for almost a third of the country’s economic output and about 40% of Italy’s exports. The northern part of Italy is the country’s most affluent area and a large market for other European countries’ goods, meaning that dislocation in Italy is likely to affect its neighbors. (Sylvers and Fairless, 2/24)

The New York Times: Westerdam Passengers At Low Risk Of Coronavirus Infection, C.D.C. Says
Passengers aboard the cruise ship Westerdam who have returned to the United States no longer need to isolate themselves and can resume normal activities, despite the fact that one passenger tested positive for the new coronavirus in Malaysia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised. A spokesman for the agency said on Saturday that the passenger’s diagnosis, confirmed twice by health officials in Malaysia, was a false-positive and noted that no other infections among passengers aboard the ship had been reported. (Rabin, 2/24)

Reuters: All 16 Of Vietnam's Coronavirus Sufferers Cured
All 16 people in Vietnam infected with a new coronavirus have been cured, the health ministry said on Tuesday, adding that no new cases have been recorded since Feb. 13. The last known patient, a 50-year-old man infected by his daughter who returned from China's central city of Wuhan, where the virus first emerged, has recovered and is in good condition, the ministry said in a statement. (2/25)

PBS NewsHour: With New Outbreaks Of COVID-19, Are We On The ‘Precipice’ Of A Pandemic?
Will novel coronavirus, now known as COVID-19, morph into a global pandemic? Health officials worldwide are concerned about incidents of human-to-human transmission of the illness, although it continues to have a relatively low death rate. Amna Nawaz reports and Georgetown University’s Dr. Lawrence Gostin, who has advised the World Health Organization on pandemic preparedness, joins Judy Woodruff. (Nawaz, 2/24)

WBUR: H1N1 Was The Last Pandemic. Here's Why COVID-19 Isn't Yet In That Category
Despite worrisome new outbreaks in Iran, Italy and South Korea, the coronavirus disease called COVID-19 is not currently a pandemic, the World Health Organization said today. In fact, there are some encouraging trends, especially in Hubei Province, where most of the cases have been reported. (Harris, 2/24)

The Associated Press: Epidemic Vs. Pandemic? Glossary Of Terms For Virus Outbreak
COVID-19 is the name of the new illness caused by a coronavirus that was first identified in China in late 2019. (2/24)

Reuters: China Bans Trade, Consumption Of Wild Animals Due To Coronavirus
China's top legislature said it will immediately ban the trade and consumption of wild animals, in a fast-track decision it says will allow the country to win the battle against the coronavirus outbreak. The announcement, made late on Monday according to the official Xinhua News Agency, comes after an initial suspension of the trade and consumption of wildlife in January. (2/24)

Stat: Health Worker Infections Underscore The Chaos Of Coronavirus Response
Thousands of health care workers, largely in China, have been infected amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, a sign of the immensely difficult working conditions for medical staffers, who should be among those best protected against infection. The infections, along with the deaths of several doctors in China, underscore the deeply challenging, chaotic environment that health care workers confront when toiling on the front lines of a major outbreak. (Thielking, 2/25)

The New York Times: ‘I Felt Like Crying’: Coronavirus Shakes China’s Expecting Mothers
The hospital waiting room was filled with dozens of women wearing homemade hazmat suits. Their hair was tucked tightly under shower caps. Their rain ponchos zipped taut over winter coats. All of the women, anxious and pregnant during the coronavirus outbreak, had been waiting hours to see the same doctor. “I don’t feel at ease,” said Vigor Liu, who is five months pregnant with her first child. After waiting for three hours, Ms. Liu finally saw the doctor for a brief 10-minute conversation. His advice: stop reading the news. (Stevenson, 2/25)

The New York Times: Hong Kong Says It Will Begin Evacuating Residents From Wuhan
The Hong Kong government, which has faced growing demands to evacuate its residents from mainland China after one died of the coronavirus, said on Monday that it would begin bringing people back from Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak. Thousands of Hong Kong residents have been unable to return after much of Hubei was put on lockdown last month. Their worries were heightened when officials said on Sunday that a 77-year-old Hong Kong man who was infected with the coronavirus had died in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei. (Ramzy, Yu and May, 2/24)

The New York Times: Bernie Sanders Outlines Funding For His Plans, But It May Not All Add Up
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, under growing pressure to explain how he would pay for his very expensive policy agenda, released a checklist on Monday evening that he described as a full explanation of how he would finance all of his proposals. The actual document is somewhat limited, and in some cases the revenue Mr. Sanders identifies doesn’t match the costs of his plans. For example, he estimated Sunday night on “60 Minutes” that the price tag for his “Medicare for all” plan would be about $30 trillion over 10 years, but the revenue he identifies for it in the new outline totals about $17.5 trillion. It is possible that the gap could be filled by existing appropriations for Medicare and Medicaid, but Mr. Sanders did not mention those in his outline or in the Sunday interview. (Astor, 2/24)

WBUR: How 2020 Democrats' Health Care Plans Would Rock Hospital Budgets In Mass.
In this election season, when tackling health care costs is a top voter concern, the Democratic primary candidates are offering different visions for reform, and have spent debates arguing over the costs of those plans. What has gotten less attention, and what is at the heart of any reform, is the biggest factor in health care spending: hospital payments. (Bebinger, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Candidates Refuse To Release Detailed Health Records Amid An Aging Presidential Field
In the run-up to the 1976 presidential campaign, Sen. Frank Church of Idaho revealed that cancer had claimed his left testicle. Jimmy Carter disclosed that he had trouble swallowing due to an allergy to beans and Swiss cheese. And when he ran for president in 2000 and 2008, John McCain released more than 1,000 pages of medical records, including a psychiatric report that divulged his "histrionic personality." “At that moment in time, the idea of telling the national media to pound sand on the matter of his medical records was not reality,” said former McCain adviser Steve Schmidt. “There was a sense of obligation and responsibility still attached to the pursuit of the presidency.” (Viser and Bernstein, 2/24)

The Associated Press: US Appeals Court Upholds Trump Rules Involving Abortions
In a victory for the Trump administration, a U.S. appeals court on Monday upheld rules that bar taxpayer-funded family-planning clinics from referring women for abortions. The 7-4 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned decisions issued by judges in Washington, Oregon and California. The court had already allowed the administration's changes to start taking effect while the government appealed those rulings. (Johnson, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Appeals Court Upholds Trump Ban On Abortion Referrals By Family Planning Clinics
Monday’s ruling is the first substantive court decision on a move by the Department of Health and Human Services that heightened a long-brewing antagonism between social conservatives on one side and Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other family planning groups on the other. Under federal law, health-care groups were already barred from using federal funds for abortion services. The rule issued by HHS a year ago went further, forbidding health centers that provide abortions or refer patients for abortions elsewhere from receiving any money through the half-century-old family planning program — a change critics lambasted as a “gag rule.” The rule also requires health centers to erect “clear physical and financial separation” between services funded by the program and other activities. (Goldstein, 2/24)

Los Angeles Times: U.S. Court Upholds Trump's Rule Involving Abortion Cases
Monday’s ruling was a sign of just how much the 9th Circuit has changed since President Trump replaced 10 judges, more than one third of the active jurists. Randomly drawn panels that decide challenges to Trump policies are now much more likely to have Republican majorities. “The Supreme Court has long recognized that abortion need not be treated the same as other medical procedures,” Judge Sandra S. Ikuta, appointed by President George W. Bush, wrote for the majority. (Dolan, 2/24)

The Hill: Federal Appeals Court Sides With Trump Administration In Family Planning Case 
Julie Rabinovitz, president of Essential Access Health, the largest Title X grantee in California, said Monday it is reviewing the decision and discussing the next steps. "Despite today’s ruling, the facts remain the same — the Trump regulations are unlawful and harmful and put politics over public health," she said in a statement. (Hellmann, 2/24)

Roll Call: Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of Trump Family Planning Rule 
The rule, which prevents organizations that provide or refer for abortions from winning federal funds under the program known as Title X, was finalized last year. This led to a flurry of lawsuits from states, health providers, and advocacy groups, many of which were consolidated. Most of the rule took effect in July after a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a stay lifting three preliminary injunctions that had blocked the rule. But a portion, which prevents Title X grantees from locating in the same facilities as abortion providers, had a delayed start date and now will take effect March 4. (Raman, 2/24)

The Associated Press: Crackdown On Immigrants Who Use Public Benefits Takes Effect
Pastor Antonio Velasquez says that before the Trump administration announced a crackdown on immigrants using government social services, people lined up before sunrise outside a state office in a largely Latino Phoenix neighborhood to sign up for food stamps and Medicaid. No more. “You had to arrive at 3 in the morning, and it might take you until the end of the day,” he said, pointing behind the office in the Maryvale neighborhood to show how long the lines got. But no one lined up one recent weekday morning, and there were just a handful of people inside. (2/24)

Reuters: New U.S. Rule Targeting Poor Immigrants Sows Fear, Confusion, Advocates Say
The Trump administration rolled out a new immigration policy on Monday that bars people deemed likely to require government benefits such as housing and food assistance from obtaining permanent residency in the United States. Local and state officials overseeing public health and social services in New York said that some immigrants were disenrolling from certain food assistance programs and Medicare even if they might not be affected by the rule, which places new limits on eligibility for green cards. (2/24)

Boston Globe: Immigrant Advocates Concerned With Public Charge Rule
Advocates in Massachusetts are looking to ramp up efforts to protect immigrant families after a federal court ruling cleared the way for the Trump administration to limit immigration of people it believes will depend on government assistance. At a City Hall teach-in Monday, the advocates said the court ruling will open the door for the administration to discriminate against classes of immigrants, such as those from poorer countries. The event, attended by dozens of community leaders, was organized as an effort to inform community members about the extent of the administration’s effort. (Valencia, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Fewer Immigrants Sign Up For Food-Subsidy Program
New federal rules that could prevent some noncitizens from getting lawful permanent-resident status if they use public benefits is depressing the number of low-income immigrant women who enroll in a program to provide food and other assistance, New York City officials said. Enrollment in the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, is available to low-income pregnant women and children up to the age of five, regardless of immigration status. It provides nutrition education, food and breast-feeding support. (West, 2/24)

Dallas Morning News: Will Trump’s New Public Charge Rule Close Door On Immigrants’ Hope Of The American Dream?
Immigration attorneys in Dallas were working double time last week to file cases that could be postmarked by Friday or Saturday. That’s because starting Monday, immigrants applying for legal permanent resident status will be subjected to a revised “public charge” rule that essentially tests immigrants’ wealth before granting them legal status or admitting them to the country. (Manuel, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Trump Says Sotomayor, Ginsburg Should Recuse Themselves From All 'Trump Related' Cases
President Trump attacked Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a pair of tweets late Monday night, days after Sotomayor issued a dissent critical of both the Trump administration’s legal strategy and the court’s majority for enabling it. Tweeting just before appearing in a welcome ceremony at the Indian ceremonial president’s residence in New Delhi, Trump cited a Laura Ingraham segment on Fox News titled, “Sotomayor accuses GOP-appointed justices of being biased in favor of Trump.” He then called on Sotomayor and also Ginsburg to recuse themselves in “all Trump, or Trump related, matters!” (Flynn, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Juul Pitches Locked E-Cigarette In Bid To Stay On U.S. Market
Juul Labs Inc. plans to present to federal regulators a new version of its vaporizer designed to unlock only for users at least 21 years old, according to people familiar with the matter. The controversial e-cigarette maker will propose the next-generation device as part of an application that the company must file to keep its products in the U.S. market. All manufacturers must submit their vaping products for Food and Drug Administration review by May 12 to continue selling them in the U.S. after that date. The companies must demonstrate that their e-cigarettes present a net benefit to public health—in other words, that the benefit of helping adult cigarette smokers switch to a safer alternative outweighs the potential harm of hooking young people on nicotine. (Maloney, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Get Ready For Round Two Of The Vaping Wars
Robert Arnold has spent years building his company, Saffire Vapor, which cranks out 5,000 bottles of nicotine e-liquid a week including Red October (banana nut bread and strawberries), Naughty or Nice (sugar cookie) and Engineer (buttery cinnamon toast). He sells the “vape juice,” worth about $65,000, at his 24 vape shops in Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as online. But now, Arnold is worried he might lose everything. (McGinley, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Physicians, Hospitals Meet Their New Competitor: Insurer-Owned Clinics
Some of the largest health insurers are capitalizing on recent massive deals by steering patients toward clinics they now own, controlling both delivery and payment for health care. The trend creates worries for rival doctor groups and hospital companies that have invested deeply in buying up physician practices, which now increasingly compete against offerings from insurers. (Wilde Mathews, 2/23)

Bloomberg: Walmart Takes On CVS, Amazon With Low-Price Health-Care Clinics
The main drag of Calhoun, Ga., a town of about 16,000 an hour’s drive north of Atlanta, is dotted with pawnshops, liquor stores, and fast-food joints. Here, as in thousands of other communities across America, the local Walmart fulfills most everyday needs—groceries, car repairs, money transfers, even hair styling. But now visitors to the Calhoun Walmart can also get a $30 medical checkup or a $25 teeth cleaning, or talk about their anxieties with a counselor for $1 a minute. (Boyle, 2/25)

Kaiser Health News: Needy Patients ‘Caught In The Middle’ As Insurance Titan Drops Doctors
For five years, Rasha Salama has taken her two children to Dr. Inas Wassef, a pediatrician a few blocks from her home in this blue-collar town across the bay from New York City. Salama likes the doctor because Wassef speaks her native language — Arabic — and has office hours at convenient times for children. “She knows my kids, answers the phone, is open on Saturdays and is everything for me,” she said. (Galewitz, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Lawmakers Pressure U.S. Indian Health Service To Release Sex Abuse Report
Lawmakers who oversee the U.S. Indian Health Service are demanding the health care agency release a report on its mishandling of a pedophile doctor that it wants to keep confidential, saying the agency must be held accountable. On Monday, Sen. Tom Udall, (D., N.M.), vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, said in a statement that the IHS ran the risk of an “appearance of a desire to avoid accountability” if it didn’t disclose “as much of the report as is possible, as soon as possible.” The report focused on the IHS’s failure to protect children during the nearly 30-year-career of staff pediatrician, Stanley Patrick Weber, who was later convicted of sexually abusing Native American boys. (Frosch and Weaver, 2/24)

In other news from Capitol Hill —

The Washington Post: U.S. Passports: Bill Seeks To Add Gender-Neutral ‘X’ To Male And Female Categories
While filling out a passport application more than five years ago, Dana Zzyym didn’t want to lie. Instead of checking the box labeled “M” or “F” for gender, Zzyym — who is intersex and identifies as neither male nor female — wrote down an “X.” The application was denied, prompting Zzyym to begin a lengthy, landmark court fight with the State Department, arguing that the limited gender options violated their constitutional rights. (Schmidt, 2/24)

Roll Call: Road Ahead: House Tackles Lynching And Flavored Tobacco, While Senate Considers Anti-Abortion Bills 
The House will vote this week on measures to make lynching a federal hate crime and to ban the manufacturing and sale of flavored tobacco, while the Senate will take symbolic votes on two anti-abortion bills when it pauses from considering judicial and executive nominees. (McPherson and Connolly, 2/24)

Stat: Google's Labors To Anonymize Patient Data Suggest Its Uphill Battle 
Google has been exploring creative ways to protect sensitive health data, even as it has drawn criticism and federal scrutiny over the possibility its employees had access to identifiable patient information from one of the nation’s largest hospital systems. The tech giant’s researchers described their work in a recent paper, but also candidly laid out the magnitude of one of the biggest challenges facing health care: Even their best efforts to de-identify health data, or to render it anonymous, would leave some people exposed. (Brodwin, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: Predators Use The Internet To Hide—AI Is Trying To Unmask Them
When Rhiannon McDonald was 13, she was chatting online one night with someone she thought was a female modeling scout. In a matter of hours, from the computer in her bedroom, she was coerced into sending numerous photos of herself unclothed—and providing her home address. The next day, the person who had been writing to her showed up at her house. It was a man. He sexually assaulted her. (Jargon, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: State Justice Department Announces New Technology To Identify Unknown Persons
The state’s top law enforcement agency has gained the ability to fully sequence mitochondrial DNA, an advancement that justice officials hope will better enable investigators to identify the bodies of missing persons. “Anything we can do to help families find closure is critical,” California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra said in a statement Monday. “We’re proud of the work our scientists and technicians do every day at our Bureau of Forensic Services to help protect Californians, including our work with local law enforcement to help families locate their missing loved ones.” (Cosgrove, 2/24)

Modern Healthcare: HHS Focuses Its Interoperability Agenda On Researchers
The Trump administration's focus on interoperability continues, but this time it's homing in on researchers. Biomedical and health services researchers haven't been able to capitalize on the growing amount of electronic health data spawned by electronic health records and consumer electronics. They cite data and health IT infrastructure problems as a major hurdle, HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology said in its agenda for health IT research. (Brady, 2/24)

Boston Globe: A Novel Approach To Counseling Depressed, Anxious Teens: Video-Chatting With Therapists
Jerry is part of an experimental effort to address a pressing public health challenge confronting Massachusetts: how to deliver quality mental health care to all the teenagers who need it. The shortage of providers in rural areas is so severe that kids typically have to wait months to get an appointment, especially if their families are on Medicaid. Even when a therapist can be found, transportation is often an obstacle. (Lazar, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Tennessee Psychiatrist Richard Farmer Found Guilty In First Conviction For Appalachian Opioid Task Force
A Tennessee psychiatrist who prescribed more than 1,200 pills to three sisters in three years was found guilty in federal court Friday of distributing powerful opioid painkillers without a “legitimate medical purpose,” according to a statement from the Justice Department. The verdict against Richard Farmer, 83, marks the first conviction for a federal task force formed in 2018 to crack down on illegal opioid prescriptions in the Appalachian region amid the federal government’s sometimes-controversial effort to stem the opioid epidemic through prosecution. (Bellware, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Mallinckrodt Pitches At Least $1.6 Billion Opioid Settlement, Generics Unit Bankruptcy
Drugmaker Mallinckrodt PLC is finalizing a settlement proposal worth at least $1.6 billion that would place its U.S. generic-drug business into bankruptcy to address coming debt maturities and liabilities stemming from the opioid crisis, according to people familiar with the matter. The Ireland-based drugmaker is close to a proposed deal that includes a chapter 11 filing covering its U.S. generics business and a resolution of claims from hundreds of state and local governments stemming from the cost of combating opioid addiction, the people said. (Gladstone, Hopkins and Chung, 2/24)

Arizona Republic: Arizona Congressional Candidate Suspends Campaign After Overdose
Chris Taylor, a Safford city councilman who is running for Congress, overdosed on heroin last week and since has suspended his campaign. The Wednesday incident was a relapse for Taylor, a combat veteran who has battled opioid addiction since high school. In a written statement, Taylor said he was seeking treatment and not backing away from what happened. (Hansen, 2/24)

North Carolina Health News: For Some Opioid Users In NC, Jail Doesn’t Mean Detox 
For most people using substances, time in jail means forced detox. This is also true for those trying to improve their lives with opioid addiction programs, such as medication-assisted treatment (MAT). More and more North Carolinians are entering these MAT programs, where they receive daily doses of drugs, such as methadone or buprenorphine that hold off the symptoms of withdrawal. But if someone in MAT is arrested and put in a North Carolina jail, they’re usually cut off their medication. (Knopf, 2/25)

The Boston Globe: Alkermes Sued Over Man's Overdose Death After Taking Its Addiction Drug
The parents of a 26-year-old California man who died of an opioid overdose have sued the  manufacturer of Vivitrol, the medication he took to treat his addiction, in a case that highlights the controversies surrounding the response to the nation’s opioid crisis. The wrongful-death suit alleges Alkermes (ALKS) failed to warn of the high risk of overdose when patients stop taking Vivitrol and then relapse into opioid use. It also claims Vivitrol is ineffective and deceptively marketed. (Freyer, 2/24)

The New York Times: New Genomic Tests Aim To Diagnose Deadly Infections Faster
Ryan Springer’s mystery illness began last summer with a dull ache in his chest. Over the next few days, the symptoms grew more alarming: sharp pain with every breath, a rapid heartbeat and a spiking fever. Emergency room doctors at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Ill., were stumped. They ordered up a lung biopsy and started Mr. Springer, 47, on a broad-spectrum antibiotic. But his condition worsened, and doctors feared he might not survive the five or more days it would take to get the lab results back. (Jacobs, 2/24)

The New York Times: Mental-Health Researchers Ask: What Is ‘Recovery’?
For years, Claire Bien, a research associate at Yale, strained to manage the gossipy, mocking voices in her head and the ominous sense that other people were plotting against her. Told she had a psychotic disorder, she learned over time to manage her voices and fears with a lot of psychotherapy and, periodically, medication. But sometime in late 1990, she tried something entirely different: She began generating her own voices, internal allies, to counter her internal abusers. “I truly felt I was channeling my father, my ancestors, a wise psychiatrist, giving me advice,” said Ms. Bien, who has written a book about her experience, “Hearing Voices, Living Fully.” (Carey, 2/25)

The Wall Street Journal: An Unexpected New Diagnosis In Older Adults: ADHD
Many seniors get diagnosed with conditions like dementia or heart disease. Not Timothy McMichael. At the age of 60, he was diagnosed with a condition most often associated with school children: attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. He started taking a low dose of a stimulant about a year-and-a-half ago and says his attentiveness and concentration at work have never been better. (Reddy, 2/24)

Reuters: Mammograms Not Helpful In Women 75 And Older, Study Finds
Women 75 and older do not benefit from regular screening mammograms, researchers reported on Monday, offering some of the first evidence on whether screening makes sense in these women. Although studies clearly show mammograms starting at age 50 prevent breast cancer deaths, until now, doctors have had little evidence about when to end screening, Dr. Otis Brawley of Johns Hopkins University and former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, wrote in editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine. (2/24)

WBUR: America's Mental Health Crisis Hidden Behind Bars
Across the country, there are dozens of places like Los Angeles' Twin Towers, warehousing people in settings with inadequate staff, services and support. It's a culmination of decades of policies affecting those with a mental illness. Many of the nation's asylums and hospitals were closed over the past 60-plus years — some horrific places that needed to be shuttered, others emptied to cut costs. (Westervelt and Baker, 2/25)

ABC News: Thousands Of Public Housing Facilities Failed Smoke Alarm Inspections, ABC News Investigation Finds 
More than 1 million people in the U.S. are living in federally-funded housing complexes that inspectors found had fallen short on working smoke detectors, an ABC investigation found. Three out of four of those complexes were also cited for other issues considered “life threatening,” such as electrical hazards and blocked fire exits. (Leigh, Pradelli, Brown, Simpson and Kelly, 2/24)

Reuters: Keeping Up Regular AMD Treatment Visits Tied To Less Vision Loss Over Time
People with a common age-related eye disease who show up regularly for their doctor's visits get to keep more of their sight than those who skip appointments or stretch the time between visits, a new analysis suggests. Researchers examined data from a two-year study that compared different treatments for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss in the United States. (2/24)

Stat: Study: Adults Don’t Need Booster Vaccinations For Tetanus And Diphtheria
People who got all their vaccinations against tetanus and diphtheria in childhood don’t need booster shots to remain protected against the two rare but dangerous diseases, researchers conclude in a new study that found no difference in disease rates between countries that recommend adult revaccination every 10 years and countries that say completing childhood vaccinations is enough. (Cooney, 2/25)

CNN: Poor Diet Kills Sperm Count And Lowers Testosterone, Study Says 
If sperm was an animal, science might worry that it's heading toward extinction in Western nations. Total sperm count in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand dropped by up to 60% in the 38 years between 1973 and 2011, research found -- an acceleration of a trend that began in the 1940s. More recent studies show the trend is continuing. (LaMotte, 2/24)

CNN: Marijuana Use Is Rising Sharply Among Seniors Over 65, Study Says, And There Are Serious Risks 
The sweet scent of baking cookies wafting from grandma's house may be mixed with a more pungent aroma these days. The smell of marijuana. The numbers of American seniors over age 65 who now smoke marijuana or use edibles increased two-fold between 2015 and 2018, according to research published Monday in JAMA. (LaMotte, 2/24)

The New York Times: New Jersey May Raise Cigarette Taxes To Highest Level In Nation
Zahir Shabazz smokes about three packs of cigarettes each week. Each time, he hands a cashier $10, give or take, and a slim pack of Newports appears, feeding a habit of nearly 30 years. He said he knows it is time to quit. “It’s too much,” he said. But Mr. Shabazz, 42, of Union, N.J., could soon wind up paying even more. Gov. Philip D. Murphy is expected to release a proposed budget on Tuesday that includes a $1.65 increase in New Jersey’s cigarette tax, two policy advisers said. (Tully, 2/25)

The Associated Press: Rural Georgia Hospital Is Reborn But Without Its Costly ER
For years, the hospital in this small, south Georgia city was in grave financial trouble. Like other rural American hospitals, Cook Medical Center was saddled with an outdated building, trouble recruiting doctors and a patient population short on health insurance. In 2017, hospital officials shut down the emergency room, and the 60-bed hospital itself was next, local officials say, unless the city and county could cover some of the cost of a new building. (2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Anti-Vaccine Protesters Receive Assurances From Siebel Newsom
California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom told anti-vaccine protesters rallying outside her Sacramento-area home that her husband’s administration is looking into their concerns about California’s new laws limiting who can be exempted from shots required for school, while also saying she believes there needs to be more dialog about whether some immunizations are unnecessary. In a video taken Monday, Siebel Newsom is seen talking with the protesters about the vaccine laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year before she asks that they not post the video online. (Gutierrez, 2/24)

Georgia Health News: Surprise Billing Legislation OK’d By Senate, But Some See A Loophole
For at least five years, proposals to curb surprise medical billing have hit roadblocks in the Georgia General Assembly. Health insurers and physicians have been sharply split over how to fix the problem, and lawmakers have tended to line up with one side or the other. The state Senate on Monday took a major step to end those stalemates. The chamber unanimously passed Senate Bill 359, which sets up a process for regulating charges from out-of-network medical providers. An identical bill is working through the Georgia House as well. (Miller, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Virginia Senate Panel Advances Seven Gun Control Bills
A state Senate committee on Monday advanced seven of the eight gun-control bills advocated by Gov. Ralph Northam, a week after killing a proposed assault weapons ban that several Democrats said was going too far. Two of Monday’s bills were scaled back to help preserve support among more centrist members of the Democratic caucus, and another has already failed once on the floor of the Senate. But the Northam administration took the votes as a victory in the wake of last week’s disappointment. (Schneider, 2/24)

The CT Mirror: Lawmakers Advanced A Bill Barring New Religious Exemptions To Vaccines. Here's What It Would Do.
Amid pushback from Republicans and thousands of outraged parents, the legislature’s Public Health Committee voted Monday to advance a bill that would ban religious exemptions to mandatory immunizations in Connecticut. The measure, which started off with a strict timeline of barring all children who are not vaccinated on religious grounds from entering public and private schools next fall, was amended Monday to allow students already enrolled in school to finish their education. Only new children entering the school system or day care would be prohibited from claiming a religious exemption. (Carlesso, 2/24)

Dallas Morning News: Judge In Texas Foster Care Suit Wants All State Records On Teen Girl’s Death In Care, Restraints
The recent death of a foster child in a treatment center in Fort Bend County and allegations of restraints being used on foster kids at another Houston-area facility have prompted the federal judge overseeing Texas foster care to demand records to be turned over to her special masters. U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack also flashed with anger Friday that, according to her masters, her order for 24-hour awake supervision in large foster homes and institutions continues to be ignored by some providers. (Garrett, 2/24)

Georgia Health News: EPA Doubling Atlanta Area Under Investigation For Lead Contamination 
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is doubling the area it’s probing for lead contamination west of downtown Atlanta, and residents and volunteer researchers said they want more help from local governments to notify neighbors and urge lead testing of children. So far, the campaign to encourage testing of children for lead, a dangerous neurotoxin, is being run by volunteers, who say they need the city’s and county’s help to spread the word in the English Avenue and Vine City communities, among the city’s poorest. (Miller and Trubey, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: More States Consider Free Tampons In School Bathrooms
In schools around the country, more girls are making the same request: free tampons. Fueled by a wave of youth activism, students are raising money, lobbying their state representatives and school boards, holding schoolwide assemblies and launching Instagram accounts to help make tampons and other menstrual products free and accessible in their school bathrooms. Lawmakers have taken notice. (Calfas, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Dante Taylor's Family Accuses Prison
Among the last pictures the prison took of Dante Taylor, his face is warped and bruised, one of his eyes is swollen and black, his lips are bloated. The 22-year-old inmate at Wende Correctional Facility in New York posed for a snapshot hours before he tied a bedsheet around his neck on Oct. 7, 2017, according to a 47-page lawsuit filed in a federal court in Buffalo on Monday. His mother, Darlene McDay, and family allege that the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and prison staff drove Taylor to kill himself. They claim the prison guards beat Taylor, tied his arms and legs, and threw him down a flight of stairs. (Kornfield, 2/24)

WSB-TV.com: Georgia Among The Worst States For Seniors Contracting STDs, CDC Says
Georgia is one of the top states where senior citizens are contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention says the numbers are at record levels.According to TheSeniorList.com, a new study released Thursday says senior STD infections have increased 131% in Georgia between 2008 and 2017. Georgia is ranked 6th in the United States. (2/24)

WBUR: Health Workers Try Community Approach To Tackle Asthma On Navajo Reservation
Asthma rates are high on the Navajo reservation. Children are more likely to have asthma attacks and more likely to die from the condition than the general population. Researchers and health care providers are trying community-based education to try to lower asthma rates on the reservation. (O'Neill, 2/24)

Detroit Free Press: Detroit Home For Kids Of Incarcerated Parents Is Hit By Burglars
Sherelle Hogan envisions her nonprofit’s upcoming home as a safe haven — a clubhouse where kids can do their homework, receive counseling and enjoy a meal together on Detroit’s east side. But the Pure Heart Foundation, which helps children of incarcerated parents, is facing a setback after thieves raided the home early Friday morning, leaving an estimated $10,000 to $15,000 in damage one day before a scheduled open house for donors. (Jackson, 2/24)

Philadelphia Inquirer: UnitedHealthcare Tackles Homelessness As A Root Cause Of Poor Health, And Philly Is A Test Bed
After a long stay at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, Wright tried going home that September, but the West Oak Lane house where he had an apartment had been sold and all his belongings were gone. That setback forced Wright, 62, onto an odyssey of depending on siblings and homeless shelters for a roof and a bed.Things started looking up in November, when Cynthia Brown, a community health worker with Wright’s Medicaid plan, plucked Wright out of the swirling chaos and steered him toward a new housing program from UnitedHealthcare that the world’s largest health insurer was starting in Philadelphia for some of its homeless, chronically ill members. (Brubaker, 2/21)

Dallas Morning News: Confidential Access To Contraception For Texas Teens Has Declined, According To A New Study
Texas’ overhaul of family planning programs has left teens in the state with fewer options to get contraception without parental consent, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Adolescent Health. The study documents how publicly funded family planning providers struggled to provide teens with confidential access to contraception after Texas cut the state family planning budget in 2011 and excluded Planned Parenthood from funding. (Mendez, 2/24)

Detroit Free Press: U-M Officials Knew About Sexual Misconduct Allegations, But Didn't Act
Faculty members at the University of Michigan raised concerns during the hiring process of a noted opera singer in 2015, going so far as to wonder who was going to tell him to keep his hands off male students, according to depositions included in court filings. The previously unreported depositions, included in a mid-January lawsuit filing in U.S. District Court in Detroit, detail how faculty raised issues as singer David Daniels was being brought to Ann Arbor. Years after his hiring, an internal U-M investigation found in 2018 that Daniels had sexually harassed more than 20 students, including offering to pay them for sex. (Jesse, 2/24)

11alive.com: Nursing Home Where Woman Was 'Eaten Alive' By Mites Receives Over $8M In Taxpayer Money 
A Georgia nursing home once criticized for allowing an elderly woman to die from a scabies infestation is back in the spotlight. The latest complaints come from a widower, whose wife lived at the facility, and a former nursing home manager. Frances Palmer moved into Shepherd Hills Nursing Home in LaFayette, Georgia in the summer of 2018. In the time she lived there, her husband Jim, documented injuries related to three different falls reported to him by staff. (Basye and Pierrotti, 2/24)

The Washington Post: 10% Of D.C. High-Schoolers Say They Experience Dating Violence. The City Wants To Change That.
Jae’vion Walker, 13, told the middle and high school students arrayed before him about his best friend. They had been typical teens, texting constantly. Then, his friend stopped answering when he started dating someone. The middle-schooler said his friend would no longer play with him at recess because his girlfriend didn’t want him spending time with his friends. He stopped partaking of activities he loved, Jae’vion said. Jae’vion decided to approach his friend and tell him that the relationship was unhealthy and offer support if he wanted to end it. (Stein, 2/24)

The Baltimore Sun: Neil R. Woods Surrendered His Dental License Earlier This Month Due To Investigations
A Severna Park dentist has voluntarily surrendered his license after accusations that he provided poor dental care to patients that paid and pre-paid for thousand of dollars of care. Neil R. Woods “voluntarily, knowingly and freely” surrendered his license in a letter to the Maryland State Board of Dental Examiners that was dated Feb. 5. Because of this, he can no longer practice or identify himself as a dentist in Maryland. (Conaway, 2/25)

California Healthline: The Golden State’s Mixed Record On Lung Cancer
It was a bewildering moment for Zach Jump, the American Lung Association’s national director of epidemiology and statistics. The numbers leaped off the computer screen and prompted an immediate question: How could California, a leader in reducing lung cancer cases, fall so short on early diagnosis and treatment of the disease? “It’s like you’d found the needle in the haystack of results,” said Jump. “I don’t know if anyone knew this was going to show up.” (Kreidler, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Dangers Loom. Complacency Is One Of Them.
The coronavirus has shown the ability to transmit between people, cause serious illness and jump continents. These three conditions bring the world to the threshold of a pandemic. The word is scary, as Monday’s stock-market plunge reminded us, but most important is what to do about it. China might have blunted the virus with its draconian containment measures, but if containment fails, a host of problems will face every country, and few are ready. (2/24)

Stat: In The Race For A Covid-19 Vaccine, Don't Ignore Pregnant Women 
As several thousand people become newly infected each day with the novel coronavirus Covid-19, and some die of it, there are accelerated efforts to develop new coronavirus vaccines. The World Health Organization has activated its R&D Blueprint, new investments are in the pipeline, and multiple vaccine candidates are expected to advance to clinical trials. But as the world rushes to develop new vaccines against Covid-19, there is a real risk that pregnant women and their babies will not be among those who are able to benefit from them. (Carleigh Krubiner, Ruth R. Faden and Ruth A. Karron, 2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Stop The Coronavirus NIMBYism And Fearmongering
Costa Mesa officials are right to be concerned with the public health risk from COVID-19, the coronavirus that is slowly spreading across the globe. But they are wrong to try to block the state and federal government from using a state-owned medical facility in their city to isolate and treat coronavirus patients. Their objections are based on nothing more than unfounded fears that have become as widespread as the coronavirus itself. At issue are 30 to 50 people with confirmed COVID-19 infections who are quarantined at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, where American evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were taken. (2/25)

Bloomberg: Coronavirus: Going Global From Italy And Iran To South Korea
Fresh outbreaks in Italy and Iran, and a galloping rate of new infections in South Korea and Japan, suggest that Covid-19 is skipping past our quarantine cordons quite as easily as it jumps the body’s defenses. “Those countries are canaries in the coalmine that the virus is quite active — a sign that containment is reaching the end of its applicability,” said Ian Mackay, an associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland. “There could be these sorts of spot fires burning everywhere with us not knowing.” These outbreaks may still be just the tip of the iceberg. (David Fickling, 2/24)

CNN: US May Pay Price Of Trump's Ignorance On Global Health 
The coronavirus that emerged from Wuhan, China, last year is causing alarm across the world, with fear that this could become the next pandemic. Late last month, the World Health Organization declared the virus, named COVID-19, a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" and urged an immediate international response... Unfortunately, President Donald Trump has taken actions that many doctors and experts agree will leave the US less prepared to respond to COVID-19. He has eliminated the position of Global Health Czar and has repeatedly proposed cuts important to global health funding -- thankfully that have failed to pass in Congress. (Chelsea Clinton and Devi Sridhar, 2/24)

Stat: In The Race For A Covid-19 Vaccine, Don't Ignore Pregnant Women 
As several thousand people become newly infected each day with the novel coronavirus Covid-19, and some die of it, there are accelerated efforts to develop new coronavirus vaccines. The World Health Organization has activated its R&D Blueprint, new investments are in the pipeline, and multiple vaccine candidates are expected to advance to clinical trials. But as the world rushes to develop new vaccines against Covid-19, there is a real risk that pregnant women and their babies will not be among those who are able to benefit from them. (Carleigh Krubiner, Ruth R. Faden and Ruth A. Karron, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Iran’s Coronavirus Response Shows It Is Lying Its Way To A Catastrophe
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s inept and dishonest response to the initial outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus is exacerbating an already dangerous situation. Now it is arguably threatening to spark a regional epidemic as well. Under Iran’s theocratic rule, where human life holds little value, the state’s lackadaisical response was completely predictable. On Monday, a member of Iran’s parliament claimed that the death toll from the virus in the region he represents has already reached 50 people, far surpassing the 12 deaths the country’s health ministry has confirmed. (Rezaian, 2/24)

Bloomberg: Salvini And Le Pen Don't Have A European Coronavirus Cure
The surge in confirmed cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus in Italy has thrown up a classic dilemma for the European Union: How to protect unity between 27 member states when domestic political pressures call for national, beggar-thy-neighbor responses. In the face of a possible pandemic, the deceptively simple cry for tough national border controls is growing louder. But it’s not a decision that should be taken rashly. (Lionel Laurent, 2/25)

The Hill: Coronavirus And What Needs To Be Done To Get In Front Of Global Pandemics 
There’s a lot we don’t know about Covid-19 — the coronavirus now spreading around the world, aided by air travel. Fighting Covid-19 has been complicated by a lack of transparent information from China about the exact origin of the disease, but there’s much that we do know, including the genome of this virus, which will quickly lead to an accurate diagnostic tool. (Jonathan Fielding, 2/24)

The New York Times: The Coronavirus Is More Than A Disease. It’s A Test.
A truism of our times is that media hysteria quickly envelops every major story, with social media virality and cable-news imperatives combining to make any domestic controversy feel like Watergate, if not Fort Sumter, and any international incident feel like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand — until the next story rolls around and last week’s crisis is forgotten. So it’s been striking to watch media coverage of the coronavirus, which has now officially shaken free of its Chinese origins with outbreaks in Italy, South Korea and the Middle East, take a somewhat more muted tack these last few weeks. Of course there has been terrific reporting, much of it from my colleagues at this newspaper, on the surreal developments in the illness’s Wuhan epicenter. (Ross Douthat, 2/25)

Boston Globe: The Coronavirus Affected My Company In China. How Would It Affect Boston? 
The Chinese government’s thorough and invasive people-control policies to control the coronavirus outbreak enabled my startup’s Suzhou office to reopen last week but, as the virus spreads around the globe, I wonder how the United States and other countries will manage. Our company spent 10 days implementing procedures to pass the reopening protocols. We formed a virus protection committee. We bought 1,000 surgical masks, special disinfectant gloves, and a microwave to reheat homemade lunches, since gathering at restaurants is forbidden. We documented every employee’s Chinese New Year holiday itinerary, including modes of transportation, daily activities, the people they met, and the health status of everyone around them. (Heidi Wyle, 2/24)

Stat: To Fight Surprise Medical Bills, Create A Powerful United Patient Lobby 
Physicians are taught to prioritize the interests of their patients, using their knowledge, preferences, and values to guide clinical decisions. Political decisions about the U.S. health care system tend to take the reverse perspective: prioritizing the interests of everyone else — pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospitals, and physicians — above patients. (Soleil Shah and Bob Kocher, 2/25)

Boston Globe: Big Pharma’s Unconscionable Insulin Racket Endangers People With Diabetes
Nearly 100 years ago, Dr. Frederick Banting used insulin to treat patients with diabetes and shared a Nobel Prize for its discovery. He sold the patent rights to the University of Toronto for $1. “Insulin does not belong to me, it belongs to the world,” Banting proclaimed. Yet, here we are in 2020 and insulin does not belong to the world. Instead, greedy corporations are using it to line their pockets. Who will be the one to release insulin back where it belongs? (Erinne Magee, 2/24)

Roll Call: Taking Care Of Loved Ones Shouldn’t Be So Taxing 
The wafting smell of cleaning supplies and a lack of ventilation was overpowering as I walked through the nursing home door. I could feel the anxiety I shared with my parents and my uncle as we approached my great-aunt’s room... Seeing a loved one suffering from an illness such as dementia is stressful. But the anxiety I felt visiting my great-aunt last fall wasn’t only about her condition. I was haunted by the fact that a nursing home was her only option and that many Americans won’t get the care they need because our policies don’t support family caregiving. (Evan Preston, 2/24)

Boston Globe: My Son Was Killed In The Virginia Tech Shooting — Which Is Why I’m Voting For Mike Bloomberg
On April 16, 2007, I received the gut-wrenching phone call that my only son, Ross, had been murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre, which took the lives of 32 people and critically injured 17 others.My heart aches for Ross every day — he was an intelligent, kind, and musically talented young man with a dry wit who loved languages, technology, and building computers. But for the first time in more than a dozen years, today I am filled with hope — because when we cast our ballots in Massachusetts on March 3 we will have an opportunity to vote for a candidate who will actually tackle this issue and get the job done: former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. (Lynnette Alameddine, 2/25)

The New York Times: The Distorted Reflections Of An Eating Disorder
The rules were simple. Whenever Madonna sang, we strutted our stuff up and down the matted blue carpet. If the music stopped, we struck a pose in front of the full-length mirror. “Your face is crooked!” my friend Diana shrieked. “Your legs are 10 feet long!” I yelled back. (Abby Sher, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Bringing A Companion To A Doctor's Appointment Is Often Recommended, But That Means They Hear Everything
Sometimes it’s a good idea to bring a close friend or relative with you to a doctor’s appointment. They can provide support and another perspective. But not always. I’m a urologist, and I have discovered there are times when my patients have regretted bringing someone with them. Not everyone knows what urologists do, and many who know of the specialty think that we treat only men. (Marcos Del Rosario-Santiago, 2/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Just Say No To California’s Drug-Making Plan
Gov. Gavin Newsom just announced his intention to have the state contract with generic drug manufacturers to make drugs to sell to state residents, presumably at lower cost than they’re available on the market today.But the plan won’t deliver much in the way of savings. In fact, it could cost taxpayers a significant amount of money. There are far more effective ways to make prescription drugs more affordable — say, by injecting transparency into the notoriously opaque drug supply chain. (Wayne Winegarden, 2/24)