First Edition: May 17, 2019

Kaiser Health News: ‘Sham’ Sharing Ministries Test Faith Of Patients And Insurance Regulators
Sheri Lewis, 59, of Seattle, needed a hip transplant. Bradley Fuller, 63, of nearby Kirkland, needed chemotherapy and radiation when the pain in his jaw turned out to be throat cancer. And Kim Bruzas, 55, of Waitsburg, hundreds of miles away, needed emergency care to stop sudden —and severe — rectal bleeding.Each of these Washington state residents required medical treatment during the past few years, and each thought they had purchased health insurance through an online site. But when it was time to pay the bills, they learned that the products they bought through Aliera Healthcare Inc. weren’t insurance at all — and that the cost of their care wasn’t covered. (Aleccia, 5/17)

California Healthline: As ER Wait Times Grow, More Patients Leave Against Medical Advice
Emergency room patients increasingly leave California hospitals against medical advice, and experts say crowded ERs are likely to blame. About 352,000 California ER visits in 2017 ended when patients left after seeing a doctor but before their medical care was complete. That’s up by 57%, or 128,000 incidents, from 2012, according to data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. (Reese, 5/16)

Kaiser Health News: Podcast: KHN’s ‘What The Health?’ States Race To Reverse ‘Roe’
Alabama is the latest in a growing list of states passing bans on abortion in an attempt to get the Supreme Court to weaken or overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Unlike most of the other state laws that have passed this year, however, the Alabama law would completely ban abortion except when the woman’s life was in danger from the pregnancy. (5/16)

The Associated Press: Dems Push Bill On Health Care, Drug Prices Through House
Democrats pushed legislation buttressing the 2010 health care law and curbing prescription drug prices through the House Thursday, advancing a bill that has no chance of surviving in the Senate or getting President Donald Trump's signature and seemed engineered with next year's elections in mind. The measure forced Republicans into the uncomfortable political position of casting a single vote on legislation that contained popular drug pricing restraints they support, plus language strengthening President Barack Obama's health care statute that they oppose. (Fram, 5/16)

The New York Times: House Passes Legislation Aiming To Shore Up Health Law And Lower Drug Costs
By combining the bills to shore up the Affordable Care Act with several bipartisan measures to address high drug prices, Democrats had hoped to lure in some Republican support. But the minority party did not bite, calling the package “a bailout” for the health law and instead introducing a Republican bill that included only the drug-pricing measures, plus an extension of funding for community health centers and the National Health Service Corps. “By jamming together our bipartisan efforts to lower drug costs with clearly partisan bills to bail out Obamacare, Democrats are once again putting politics — and partisanship — over bipartisan policy,” said Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon. “Sadly, House Democrats couldn’t pass up a chance to play gotcha politics.” (Goodnough, 5/16)

The Washington Post: House Passes Legislation To Strengthen The ACA, Boost Generic Drugs
The 234-to-183 vote, with every Democrat and five Republicans casting ballots in favor, gave a partisan hue even to three strategies to boost the availability of generic drugs that initially attracted GOP support. Those were merged, however, with measures that would block several Trump administration policies that Democrats characterize as “sabotaging” the ACA. The upshot was a barbed debate: Democrats accused Republicans of disregarding consumers’ need for affordable, quality health care, and Republicans accused Democrats of thwarting a rare opportunity for bipartisanship. (Goldstein, 5/16)

Politico: House Passes Drug Pricing Bills Paired With Obamacare Fixes
The legislation includes three bipartisan drug pricing provisions restricting anti-competitive behaviors by pharmaceutical companies alongside a slate of proposals reversing Trump administration policies designed to undermine the Affordable Care Act. That combination infuriated Republicans who spent months negotiating the drug pricing measures, and even prompted some grumbling from moderate Democrats eager to show some semblance of bipartisanship on a top health care priority. “I’m not very happy at all,” said Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), whose bill limiting generic drugmakers’ ability to block competitors was included in the package. “They know that we’re not going to be able to support this, and for them to put that in there I think is just poor policy.” (Cancryn and Owermohle, 5/16)

The New York Times: Republicans’ Messaging On Abortion Puts Democrats On The Defensive
With grisly claims that Democrats promote “birth day abortions” and are “the party of death,” the Republican Party and its conservative allies have aggressively reset the terms of one of the country’s most divisive and emotionally fraught debates, forcing Democrats to reassess how they should respond to attacks and distortions that portray the entire party as extremist on abortion. The unusually forceful, carefully coordinated campaign has created challenges that Democrats did not expect as they struggle to combat misinformation and thwart further efforts to undercut access to abortion. (Peters, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Alabama Sen. Doug Jones Calls New Abortion Ban 'Shameful'
Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones condemned Alabama's new abortion ban as "extreme" and "irresponsible" Thursday, a day after the state's Republican governor signed the most restrictive abortion measure in the country into law. "I think this bill, frankly, is shameful. It is callous," Jones told reporters. "This bill uses rape victims and victims of incest at all ages, even minors, as political pawns." (Chandler and Paterson, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Gillibrand Travels To Georgia To Criticize New Abortion Laws
Democratic presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand says that, as president, she'd seek to write into law the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling that legalized abortion. During a rally at Georgia's state Capitol on Thursday, the New York senator criticized recent abortion bans signed into law in Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio, Georgia and Alabama as "a nationwide assault on women's constitutional rights by ideological extremists." (Nadler, 5/16)

The Wall Street Journal: With States’ Abortion Bans Stacking Up, Democrats See Opening To Rally Voters
Many Democrats running for president denounced the legislation. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass) called it “an unconstitutional attack on women.” Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) said “women’s health care is under attack.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) said “this is a war on women” and will speak at an event condemning anti-abortion legislation in Georgia, which this month passed a law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, as early as six week. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that supports Democratic candidates for state legislatures, sent out a fundraising plea tied to the bill’s passage. (Duehren, 5/16)

The Hill: Senate Republicans Running Away From Alabama Abortion Law 
Senate Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from a harsh new Alabama law that bans nearly all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest, and carries a penalty of up to 99 years in prison for anyone performing the procedure. Most GOP senators are trying their best to steer clear of the firestorm, arguing it’s a state-level issue that doesn’t involve Congress. (Bolton, 5/16)

The Hill: House GOP Leader Says Alabama Abortion Ban Goes 'Further Than I Believe'
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Thursday he believes an Alabama law banning nearly all abortions goes too far. “It goes further than I believe, yes,” McCarthy said during a press conference when asked about the restrictive policy. ...The comments from the GOP House leader came just a day after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) signed into law the most restrictive abortion policy in the nation. (Wise, 5/16)

The New York Times: In Alabama, Opposition To Abortion Runs Deep
Even before Alabama passed one of the nation’s most restrictive bans on abortions in decades, the procedure had been in decline in the state after years of limits. The remaining doctors who perform abortions — they have dwindled to a handful — work at only three clinics in a state where there once were more than a dozen. Dr. Yashica Robinson, who provides abortions in Huntsville, said she had been the target of a letter-writing campaign to have her hospital privileges revoked. Even some fellow medical workers, she said, have showed signs of hostility toward her. (Williams and Blinder, 5/16)

The New York Times: Abortion And The Future Of The New South
Two years ago, I got a text from a cousin I love announcing that she had moved to New Orleans, leaving behind a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn and a job of millennial fever dreams. At 26, Tess was head of research and development for Christina Tosi and her baking empire, Milk Bar, the great 21st-century dessert disrupter. At the age of 12, Tess was already selling her brownies to a gourmet market on Cape Cod; her ascent seemed the equivalent of an anointment at J.P. Morgan for the child who went to bed calculating short positions on foreign currencies. (Bellafante, 5/16)

The Washington Post: Before Alabama's Abortion Ban, Gov. Kay Ivey Pushed A Deeply Conservative Agenda
With a quick scribble of her pen Wednesday afternoon, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) essentially made abortion in her state illegal in all circumstances, with zero exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors who perform the procedure face a penalty of up to 99 years in prison. As other Republican-controlled states are rubber-stamping abortion restrictions in a legal gambit to challenge Roe v. Wade, Alabama’s new law has left even some staunch abortion opponents tepid. On Wednesday, televangelist Pat Robertson called the bill “extreme” and said Alabama politicians had “gone too far.” (Swenson, 5/16)

The Washington Post: The Widening Gap In Abortion Laws In This Country
Many other states have created new laws this year to limit abortion or even try to ban it altogether in the hope that the Supreme Court with President Trump’s two appointees will be more likely to approve them. Most of the new restrictions are in the South and Midwest. In contrast, New York removed old restrictions and affirmed access to abortion. Vermont approved the first step to amend its constitution to protect abortion rights. (Keating, Tierney, Meko and Rindler, 5/15)

The Wall Street Journal: States’ Abortion Curbs Put Supreme Court To The Test
Sweeping state-level abortion restrictions present a direct test of whether the newly constituted Supreme Court is willing to revisit Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion-rights precedent that has spurred deep divisions for nearly 50 years. States with antiabortion legislative majorities have long been weighing how to prompt a Supreme Court review of the 1973 ruling, but generally have preferred a strategy aimed at reducing the procedure’s availability through incremental restrictions that hamper providers, or by forbidding late-term abortions. (Kendall and Bravin, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Alabama Now Has The U.S.’s Strictest Abortion Law. Northern Ireland’s Is Even Stricter.
The passage of Alabama’s strictest-in-the-nation abortion bill has renewed calls to overhaul Northern Ireland’s abortion regulations, which are among the most restrictive in the developed world. Under the Alabama abortion legislation, signed by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday, doctors who perform abortions could face up to 99 years or life in prison, but a pregnant woman would not face penalties. In Northern Ireland, both women who have abortions and those who assist them can face up to life in prison. (Adam, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Missouri House Expected To Pass Abortion Ban At 8 Weeks
Missouri's Republican-led House is expected to pass a sweeping bill to ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy on lawmakers' final day in session Friday, joining Alabama and several other states that have moved recently to severely restrict the procedure. If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It would include exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Doctors would face five to 15 years in prison for violating the eight-week cutoff. Women who receive abortions wouldn't be prosecuted. (5/17)

Reuters: Missouri Senate Passes Bill To Ban Abortions After Eight Weeks
Missouri's Senate passed a bill on Thursday to ban abortions eight weeks after conception, except for medical emergencies, the latest attempt in a Republican-controlled state legislature to restrict the rights of women to terminate their pregnancies. The vote came a day after Alabama's governor signed into law the country's most restrictive abortion bill, outlawing nearly all abortions, absent a medical emergency. (5/16)

Boston Globe: In Rhode Island, Vote On Abortion-Rights Bill Reveals A Complicated State
The marble halls of the State House rang with chants of “Praise the Lord!” and “Shame! Shame!” Abortion-rights advocates lined a hallway dressed in “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes. And antiabortion activists thronged the rotunda, celebrating a legislative victory. That scene might not be surprising in deep-red Alabama, where the governor signed a near-total abortion ban on Wednesday. But it took place in deep-blue Rhode Island, where a state Senate committee on Tuesday rejected a bill to codify the right to an abortion in state law. (Fitzpatrick, McGowan and Milkovits, 5/15)

The Associated Press: Senate Confirms Abortion Opponent As US Judge In Louisiana
The Senate confirmed Louisiana lawyer Wendy Vitter as a federal judge Thursday, overcoming opposition from Democrats who criticized her anti-abortion stance and accused her of trying to hide her record on the issue. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican to oppose Vitter's nomination, which was approved 52-45. (Daly, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Abortion-Rights Groups Challenge Restrictions On Providers
As abortion opponents cheer the passage of fetal heartbeat laws and other bans on the procedure, abortion-rights groups have been waging a quieter battle in courthouses around the country to overturn less direct restrictions passed in recent years. At least a dozen lawsuits have been filed over the last two years challenging what abortion-rights groups call TRAP laws, Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers. (5/16)

The Associated Press: 5 States Announce New Suits Over Prescription Opioids
Five more state attorneys general announced legal filings Thursday seeking to hold the company that makes OxyContin responsible for an opioid addiction crisis that's now the leading cause of accidental deaths across the country and in many states. The company, Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma, blasted the claims, saying they're based on "stunningly overbroad legal theories, which if adopted by courts, will undermine the bedrock legal principle of causation." (Izaguirre and Mulvihill, 5/16)

Reuters: Five More U.S. States Sue OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma Over Opioid Epidemic
The lawsuits were announced six days after a North Dakota judge dismissed that state's lawsuit accusing Purdue Pharma of overstating the benefits and trivializing the addiction risks of prolonged opioid use. North Dakota is expected to appeal. Purdue Pharma called the new lawsuits "misleading attacks," and said it will defend itself against them. (Stempel, 5/16)

The Washington Post: Five More States Take Legal Action Against Purdue Pharma For Opioid Crisis
“Even when it became apparent that thousands of people were dying of opioid abuse, Purdue doubled down by continuing its relentless and deceptive campaign” to persuade doctors to write prescriptions for OxyContin, Morrisey said. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said his state’s efforts were based on “two foundational falsehoods” that Purdue promoted widely: That the risk of becoming addicted to Purdue’s drug was very low and that under-treating pain could cause great harm. (Bernstein, 5/16)

The Wall Street Journal: Purdue Pharma Hit With Fresh Round Of Opioid Lawsuits
Prescription opioid overdoses killed 217,530 people in the U.S. from 1999 to 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Total opioid-related deaths in that period reached nearly 400,000. A Purdue spokesman on Thursday denied the new allegations, calling them “stunningly overbroad legal theories.” He said the lawsuits “are part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system.” All told, 44 states and another 1,700 local municipalities and Native American tribes have brought claims against the makers and distributors of prescription opioids. (Randazzo, 5/16)

The Hill: Trump Administration Backs Off Medicare Drug Pricing Rule 
The Trump administration on Thursday backed off a controversial Medicare drug pricing proposal that would have allowed insurers to exclude certain drugs if prices rise faster than inflation. In a final rule, the administration said it was leaving in place the current policy about Medicare’s “protected classes” of drugs. (Weixel, 5/16)

Stat: White House Nixes Plan To Let Medicare Plans Exclude Certain Pricey Drugs
The initial proposal, which would have allowed private Medicare plans to refuse to pay for certain drugs for chronic conditions that spiked in price, was met with widespread criticism almost as soon as it was proposed last November. The Trump administration had suggested the change would help lower drug prices by giving private Medicare plans more leverage over high-cost drugs. But patient advocates and drug makers said it would jeopardize patient care in life-threatening situations. (Florko, 5/16)

The Washington Post: Gilead CEO Insists Government Patent For HIV Prevention Pill Is Invalid
The chief executive of Gilead Sciences, the nation’s leading manufacturer of HIV drugs, defended the high cost of a key drug that prevents the lethal infection, telling a House committee Thursday that its hefty profits pay for continued research. “We have taken the disease from a death sentence to a manageable clinical condition, but we’re not done yet,” Gilead CEO Daniel O’Day told committee members. “We have to be sure that Americans get our medicines at a price that allows us to invest in research.’’ (Rowland, 5/16)

Stat: Gilead CEO Parries With House Democrats Over HIV Prevention Pill 
The latest attempt to spotlight Gilead Sciences and its business practices shifted on Thursday to Congress, where a sometimes contentious hearing was held to explore the cost of an HIV prevention pill the company sells and the role the federal government played in discovering the pricey medicine. The three-hour session was punctuated by a mix of bipartisan sparring that, at times, addressed the larger issue of patients versus profits as much as the Gilead pill, which is called Truvada and has been the focus of intense controversy in recent weeks. (Silverman, 5/16)

The Hill: Ocasio-Cortez Confronts CEO For Nearly $2K Price Tag On HIV Drug That Costs $8 In Australia 
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) confronted a CEO Thursday for pricing a drug designed to reduce the risk of HIV transmission at $8 in Australia but over $1,500 in the U.S. ..."I think it's important here that we notice that we the public, we the people, developed this drug. We paid for this drug, we lead and developed all the patents to create Prep and then that patent has been privatized despite the fact that the patent is owned by the public, who refused to enforce it," Ocasio-Cortez said. (Rodrigo, 5/16)

The Hill: Bipartisan Senators Unveil Measure To End Surprise Medical Bills
A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced legislation to protect patients from massive, unexpected medical bills, as momentum grows around the issue. The legislation, led by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), comes as the House also introduced legislation this week, and President Trump called for action last week. (Sullivan, 5/16)

The Washington Post: Liver Transplant Rules Spark Open Conflict Among Transplant Centers
Open conflict broke out among U.S. liver transplant centers Thursday, with doctors and patients in less populous parts of the country seeking a contempt of court order against the Health and Human Services Department and the nonprofit organization that runs the transplant system. Hospitals and patients on the waiting list for livers in places such as Georgia, Michigan, Kansas, Missouri and elsewhere accused the government and the United Network for Organ Sharing of defying a judge’s order to temporarily halt a new way of distributing those organs for transplant. (Bernstein, 5/16)

The New York Times: A Daunting Operation Offers Relief To Obese Teenagers
At least six million obese teenagers in the United States are candidates for weight-loss surgery, experts estimate. Fewer than 1,000 of them get it each year. Many of these adolescents already have complications of obesity, like diabetes or high blood pressure. But doctors have been uncertain just how well surgery works for young patients, and whether they can handle the consequences, including a severely restricted diet. (Kolata, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Obesity Surgery Benefits May Be Bigger For Teens Than Adults
Teens who have obesity surgery lose as much weight as those who have the operation as adults and are more likely to have it resolve other health problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, a study finds. The results suggest there's a benefit from not waiting to address obesity. Researchers say longer study is still needed to know lifetime effects of this radical surgery and that it's a personal decision whether and when to try it. (Marchione, 5/16)

The Associated Press: 1 Year After Santa Fe Shooting, Texas Shuns Tougher Gun Laws
A year after a high school mass shooting near Houston that remains one of the deadliest in U.S. history, Texas lawmakers are on the brink of going home without passing any new gun restrictions, or even tougher firearm storage laws that Gov. Greg Abbott backed after the tragedy. A Republican governor pushing even a small restriction on firearms kept at home in gun-friendly Texas was a landmark shift after two decades of loosening weapons regulations. And it put Texas in line with other states exploring ways to prevent not just mass shootings, but thousands of lethal gun incidents involving minors. (Vertuno, 5/17)

The Washington Post: District To Study Victims Of Fatal Gun Violence To Help Understand Root Causes
Police and other officials trying to understand the District’s rising homicide count have attributed it in part to shootings becoming more lethal, and now they say they may know why. A new study found that more victims are being struck by multiple bullets. The report by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner found that 57 people killed in shootings in the city in 2017 were struck multiple times. That number rose to 74 last year. (Hermann, 5/17)

The New York Times: Why Eating Processed Foods Might Make You Fat
In recent years, many nutrition experts have linked the obesity epidemic to the spread of ultra-processed foods that are engineered to have a long shelf life and irresistible combinations of salt, sugar, fat and other additives. These foods tend to make people overeat because they are full of refined carbohydrates, added sugars and fat that appeal to the human palate, experts say. Most of these foods, however, tend to lack fiber, protein, vitamins and other important nutrients. (O'Connor, 5/16)

Los Angeles Times: Eating Ultra-Processed Foods Will Make You Gain Weight. Here's The Scientific Proof
The findings, published Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism, will force scientists to rethink the complicated relationship between dietary habits and health. “I thought it was all about the nutrients,” said study leader Kevin Hall, a section chief at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. (Baumgaertner, 5/16)

The New York Times: U.S. Birthrate Drops 4th Year In A Row, Possibly Echoing The Great Recession
The United States’ birthrate fell for a fourth consecutive year in 2018, bringing the number of people born in the country to its lowest level in 32 years, according to provisional figures published on Wednesday by the federal government. It said the fertility rate in the United States also fell to a record low. There were an estimated 3,788,235 people born in the United States last year, a 2 percent decrease from 2017 and the lowest number of births in any year since 1986, according to the report, published by the National Center for Health Statistics. (Stack, 5/17)

The New York Times: The Ins And Outs Of Knit Theory
On the eve of the American Physical Society’s annual March meeting, a Sunday “stitch ‘n bitch” session convened during happy hour at a lobby bar of the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel. Karen Daniels, a physicist at North Carolina State University, had tweeted notice of the meet-up earlier that day: “Are you a physicist into knitting, crocheting, or other fiber arts?” she asked. “I’ll be the one knitting a torus.” (A torus is a mathematized doughnut; hers was inspired by a figure in a friend’s scientific paper.) (Roberts, 5/17)

The New York Times: Cystic Fibrosis Patients Turn To Experimental Phage Therapy
Mallory Smith was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease affecting the lungs and digestive system, at age 3. She was living on borrowed time, and she knew it: Cystic fibrosis puts patients at an increased risk of serious infection, and the average life expectancy is about 37, according to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. (Ellin, 5/17)

Reuters: Bayer Bets On 'Silver Bullet' Defense In Roundup Litigation; Experts See Hurdles
Bayer AG plans to argue that a $2 billion jury award and thousands of U.S. lawsuits claiming its glyphosate-based weed killer Roundup causes cancer should be tossed because a U.S. regulatory agency said the herbicide is not a public health risk. Some legal experts believe Bayer will have a tough time convincing appellate courts to throw out verdicts and lawsuits on those grounds. Bayer has a better shot if a business-friendly U.S. Supreme Court takes up the case, experts said. But that could take years. (5/16)

The Associated Press: How 'Lunch Shaming' Is Facing Scrutiny Around The US
Denying children a hot meal apparently isn't a popular way for schools to deal with unpaid lunch money. After a flood of angry Facebook comments and phone calls, a Rhode Island district last week abandoned its plan to serve cold sandwiches to students whose families owe money."The outcry was global," said Catherine Bonang of Warwick Public Schools. (5/17)

The Washington Post: Oregon OKs Largest Expansion Of Federal Free Lunch Program
Oregon is spending $40 million to dramatically expand its federal free breakfast and lunch program, ensuring that more than 60 percent of its 400,000 public school students will be included, the largest statewide effort in the country. The program is based on providing free meals to any child whose family lives at up to three times the poverty level, which is $75,000 for a family of four. (Zimmerman, 5/16)

NPR: Washington State To Create 'Public Option' Health Care Plans
Millions of Americans who buy individual health insurance, and don't qualify for a federal subsidy, have been hit with sticker shock in recent years. Instability and uncertainty in the individual market — driven in part by changes Congress and the Trump administration made to the Affordable Care Act — have resulted in double-digit premium increases. Now Washington state has passed a law designed to give consumers another choice: a new, "public option" health insurance plan that, in theory, will be cheaper. (Jenkins, 5/16)

The Associated Press: Lawyer: Cop Who Killed Texas Woman Knew She Was Mentally Ill
A Houston-area police officer knew his neighbor suffered from mental illness and should have offered assistance when that was apparent, but instead he fatally shot the 44-year-old woman, a lawyer for the victim's family said Thursday. Pamela Turner had struggled with paranoid schizophrenia since her diagnosis in 2005, and may have been in crisis the night she was killed, attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference. (5/16)

The Wall Street Journal: New York’s First Proton Therapy Center To Open In July
New York City is set to get a new radiation-treatment center, nearly a decade in the making, that uses proton beams to treat cancerous tumors. Called the New York Proton Center, it is a for-profit partnership of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Montefiore Health System and Mount Sinai Health System, managed by the ProHEALTH company. Financing for the center was provided in part by the hospitals. (West, 5/16)

The Associated Press: 71-Year-Old Man Undertakes Cross-Country Walk For Veterans
A 71-year-old man, inspired by his work last year at a park where veterans were camping because they were homeless and struggling with addiction, embarked on a 3,600-mile, coast-to-coast walk this week to draw attention to their plight. William Shuttleworth, toting a 25-pound backpack and singing "America the Beautiful," departed his hometown of Newburyport, of Massachusetts, on Wednesday for what he estimates will be a 7½-month trek to Vandenberg Air Force Base in Lompoc, California. (5/16)

Los Angeles Times: Homeless Population Jumps By Thousands Across The San Francisco Bay Area
California is spending millions of dollars to stem the tide of homelessness without much to show for it. The latest evidence of that arrived Thursday, when several Bay Area cities and counties reported that their latest tallies of homeless people revealed big increases. San Francisco saw a 17% jump in the number of homeless residents over the last two years, according to preliminary results of the city’s point-in-time count. (Oreskes, 5/16)