State Highlights: Kansas’ Child Welfare Leader Requests $24M To Turn System Around; Minnesota County Launches New Focus On HIV Prevention

Kansas City Star: Kansas DCF Leader: More Money, Workers Needed To Fix System
Kansas' child welfare leader said Monday her agency needs an additional $24 million over three years to help fix a troubled system that has a shortage of workers and foster care beds across the state. Gina Meier-Hummel, secretary of the Department for Children and Families, said in a news conference that the agency has made progress since she took over in December. (Bauer and Woodall, 4/23)

Minnesota Public Radio: Hennepin County Says End To HIV Epidemic Is In Sight
Hennepin County became the fourth county in the country today to join an international campaign that changes how public health officials respond to HIV prevention and care. The "U=U" campaign states that people who have HIV cannot sexually transmit the virus if they are being treated and the virus is undetectable in their blood. (Wurzer, 4/23)

Nashville Tennessean: Network Dispute Leads To $14 Million In Balance Bills
Are you covered under BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Network S? You may not have known that prior to this year, BlueCross had an agreement with HCA TriStar hospitals to provide emergency care at in-network rates, even though HCA TriStar hospitals are not a part of Network S. That agreement ended as of January, and the result is a $14 million headache that may soon affect patients’ pocketbooks. HCA has announced it will soon begin balance billing BlueCross members for out-of-network care received at TriStar facilities. (Tolbert, 4/23)

Dallas Morning News: Group Asks Dallas City Council For City Land To Build New Mental, Primary Health Clinic
Christie Myers, a general manager for the mayor's private Neighbor Up program, said the only thing the group — called Education Corridor Integrated Health Clinic, or EdCor IHC — wants for now from City Hall is four acres worth of land near the University of North Texas at Dallas. The possible site at Camp Wisdom and Lancaster roads became city property in a land-swap with the developer of the Statler project downtown, where The Dallas Morning News has its offices. Private fundraising efforts, as well as $6 million in new-market tax credits, will help pay for the project, Myers said. (Hallman, 4/23)

The Washington Post: These Teens Saw How Poor Mental Health Hurt Their Peers. So They Got A Law Passed.
Lucas Johnson’s résumé is characteristic of any high-achieving high school senior. There’s the raft of Advanced Placement classes, a dozen during his four years at Monticello High School in Virginia’s Albemarle County. There are the extracurriculars — tutoring and Model United Nations and student council and cross-country. During his junior year, there was the stress that accompanied all of it — stress that, at times, made him ask: “What is the point of all of this?” The 18-year-old witnessed distress among his peers, too — troubling Facebook and Instagram posts, bullying that went unaddressed, students without a place to turn. (Truong, 4/23)

Texas Tribune: Report: Women At Texas Community Colleges Aren’t Getting The Kind Of Birth Control They Want
A new study from the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin found that Texas community college women are using condoms and withdrawal even though they would prefer to use more effective methods like intrauterine devices, or IUDs, and birth control pills. (Greene, 4/24)

The Associated Press: Norovirus Confirmed After 100 College Students Fall Ill
Health officials have confirmed that norovirus sickened about 100 students at Western Connecticut State University and prompted the school to close for the day for disinfecting. State Department of Public Health officials said Monday that testing confirmed norovirus, which is a highly contagious bug that causes diarrhea, nausea, muscle pain, vomiting and other symptoms.University officials said both campuses in Danbury are closed Monday as maintenance crews clean and disinfect school buildings. About 5,700 students attend WCSU. (4/23)

The CT Mirror: Parties Sharply Divided Over Higher Ed, Labor Costs, Transportation
Democrats and Republicans have offered sharply contrasting spending plans for the next fiscal year. While they share some common ground involving municipal aid and health care for the elderly and disabled, major disagreements involving labor costs, higher education and revenue stand in the way of another bipartisan budget agreement. (Phaneuf and Thomas, 4/23)

Columbus Dispatch: Frontline Documentary Focuses On Human Trafficking At Ohio Egg Farms
Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline television documentary series this week will revisit the arrest and conviction of several individuals who smuggled Central American teens into the country and forced them to work at Trillium Farms’ Ohio egg production facilities.“ Trafficked in America,” a joint effort of Frontline and the Investigative Reporting Program at the University of California, Berkeley, includes an interview with the man who allegedly organized the labor trafficking and who has since been arrested. (Kovac, 4/24)

Los Angeles Times: With Money Tied Up In Court, California Lawmakers Try Again With New Plan To Spend $2 Billion On Homeless Housing
A measure to spend $2 billion on housing homeless Californians could be on the November statewide ballot. State Sen. Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) is pushing the idea to deal with what he said was a “burgeoning humanitarian crisis whose epicenter is here in California.” De León’s new measure is a do-over for a 2016 plan passed by the Legislature to redirect $2 billion toward building homeless housing from a voter-approved 1% income tax surcharge on millionaires that funds mental health services. (Dillon, 4/24)

Houston Chronicle: $250 Million Medical Research Campus Coming To Texas Medical Center 
A sweeping medical research campus being planned for 30 acres of Texas Medical Center land will establish Houston as an international hub for biomedical innovations and bring together four of the city's powerhouse research institutions, officials said Monday afternoon. The project, called TMC3, will be a collaboration between the TMC, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas A&M University Health Science Center, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. (Sarnoff, 4/23)

California Healthline: Choice Of Bay Area For AIDS Conference Exposes Tension Among Activists
After George Ayala learned last month that San Francisco and Oakland had been chosen to co-host the International AIDS Conference in 2020, he quickly published a statement of disapproval. Ayala, an Oakland-based AIDS advocate, does not want the conference in his own city — or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. (Wiener, 4/20)

Iowa Public Radio: Senate On Medical Marijuana: Cover More Patients With Stronger Drug
A stronger form of medical marijuana would become available in Iowa for a larger number of patients under a bill that advanced in the Iowa Senate today. It’s the second year in a row that the Senate has tried to pass a more expansive medical marijuana law than the one Gov. Branstad signed last year. (Russell, 4/23)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Panel OKs $2 Million To Defend Ohio's Medical Marijuana Program In Court, Appeals Hearings
The Ohio Department of Commerce is setting aside $2 million for legal costs associated with lawsuits and administrative appeals over its competitive medical marijuana license application process. The department, one of three agencies administering Ohio's medical marijuana program, is a defendant in three lawsuits challenging how it scored applications to grow medical marijuana. (Borchardt, 4/23)