First Edition: February 11, 2020

Kaiser Health News: One Defensive Strategy Against Surprise Medical Bills: Set Your Own Terms
When Stacey Richter’s husband recently landed in a New Jersey emergency room, fearing a heart attack, she had an additional reason for alarm: a potential big bill from the hospital if the ER wasn’t in his insurer’s network. So she took an unusual step. Instead of simply signing the hospital’s financial and treatment consent form, Richter first crossed out sections calling for her to pay whatever amount the hospital charged. She wrote in her own payment rate of a “maximum of two times” what the federal government would pay under Medicare, which is in the ballpark, experts said, of what hospitals might consider an acceptable rate. (Appleby, 2/11)

Kaiser Health News: Better Than Other Plans Or Better Than Nothing? Trump’s Claim About ‘Affordable’ Options
In his wide-ranging State of the Union address, President Donald Trump returned to a favorite theme: the cost of health insurance. He cited the high cost of premiums for people who buy their coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces and said his administration has provided new, less costly coverage. (Appleby, 2/11)

Kaiser Health News: When It Comes To The New Coronavirus, Just Who Is A ‘Close Contact’?
Even as U.S. authorities have taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China, and temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their regular activities. But there are exceptions. People who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit to ongoing monitoring. (Barry-Jester, 2/10)

California Healthline: Newsom Touts California’s ‘Public Option.’ Wait — What Public Option?
Several Democratic presidential hopefuls are pitching a federal “public option” as a way to expand health coverage and make it more affordable. The details of their proposals vary, but the general idea is to create a government-sponsored plan that could compete with private insurance. “We have a public option, just so folks know,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed last month as he unveiled his proposed 2020-21 state budget. “It’s called Covered California.” (Ibarra, 2/10)

The New York Times: In Trump’s Budget, Big Health Care Cuts But Few Details
Mr. Trump is running for re-election this year, so his budget can be read as a policy blueprint for his second term if he wins. The budget leaves to the imagination just what that vision is. Unlike in previous years, when the health care budget laid out specific plans to repeal large sections of the Affordable Care Act and replace it, this year’s proposal barely mentions President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But the deep cuts enshrined in the budget’s numbers are not consistent with modest tweaks. Taken together with Medicaid changes recommended elsewhere in the budget, the proposal would strip about $1 trillion out of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies, the two pillars of the law’s expansion of insurance coverage. By 2029, the cuts to those programs in Mr. Trump’s budget would represent around 85 percent of the total that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would otherwise be spent on Obamacare coverage that year. (Sanger-Katz, 2/10)

The New York Times: Trump’s $4.8 Trillion Budget Would Cut Safety Net Programs And Boost Defense
President Trump released a $4.8 trillion budget proposal on Monday that includes a familiar list of deep cuts to student loan assistance, affordable housing efforts, food stamps and Medicaid, reflecting Mr. Trump’s election-year effort to continue shrinking the federal safety net. (Tankersley, Sanger-Katz, Rappeport and Cochrane, 2/10)

The Associated Press: Mystery $844B Pot In Trump Budget Signals Medicaid Cuts
The budget does telegraph that the administration is taking aim at Medicaid. The $600 billion federal-state program covers more than 70 million low-income people, ranging from newborns to elderly nursing home residents. A passage in a dense tome called “Analytical Perspectives” accompanying the budget calls for “ending the financial bias that currently favors able-bodied working-age adults over the truly vulnerable” in Medicaid. Translation: Repeal “Obamacare's" generous federal matching for states that expand their programs to cover low-income adults. A senior administration official briefing reporters on the budget said it would allow states that want more flexibility in Medicaid to accept their federal share as a lump sum. For states staying with traditional Medicaid, the program would grow by 3% on average instead of 5%. Such limits, rejected by Congress in the past, lead to program cuts that compound over time. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Trump Budget Cuts Funding For Health, Science, Environment Agencies
The budget request would trim funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by almost 16 percent. HHS officials said they want the CDC to focus on its core mission of preventing and controlling infectious diseases and on other emerging public health issues, such as opioid abuse. Officials propose to take the money that would normally go to fund individual disease prevention activities and funnel it into a single block grant to states. The budget says chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes have common risk factors, and thus consolidating funds “can help magnify the public health impact.” Although the budget reduces overall funding for global health, from $571 million to $532 million in 2021, officials carved out an extra $50 million for global health security, which are measures aimed at disease detection and emergencies. That bump comes at the expense of international HIV/AIDS programs, which is being cut by about $58 million. (Achenbach, McGinley, Goldstein and Guarino, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Proposes $4.8 Trillion Budget, With Cuts To Safety Nets
Mr. Trump’s plan also calls for a 6.5% funding cut for the National Institutes of Health, the primary driver of U.S. medical research. That includes a $430 million cut to the budget of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is seeking to produce a vaccine that could stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus and has a parallel program to test therapeutic products that could fight the outbreak. Separately, the administration has notified Capitol Hill that it might reprogram $136 million in funds from fiscal year 2020 to address the virus, the administration official said, though no decision has been made on whether the money is needed. (Davidson and Restuccia, 2/10)

Stat: Trump Doesn't Want The FDA To Regulate Tobacco
The Trump administration is proposing to strip the Food and Drug Administration of all authority to regulate tobacco products, according to budget documents released Monday. Under the budget proposal, a new agency would be created within the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated solely to regulating tobacco, including e-cigarettes. It’s a striking proposal that directly bucks the will of both Congress and the FDA. (Florko, 2/10)

Politico: The Quirky, The Odd And The Baffling In The Trump Budget Shuffle
Trump is adopting President Barack Obama’s approach to the politically tricky question of where to put the nuclear waste accumulating at power plants around the country. After promising in his previous three budgets to open the stalled Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada, Trump is now essentially conceding defeat in the face of widespread opposition in a state he hopes to win in November. His budget promises to “not stand idly by given the stalemate on Yucca Mountain” and to work with states to find a new location. (McCrimmon, 2/10)

Reuters: Trump's $4.8 Trillion Budget Gets Chilly Reception From Congress
Democrats said Trump's proposal upended his promise in last week's State of the Union speech to "always protect" the popular Social Security pension plan and the Medicare health plan for seniors. “Americans’ quality, affordable health care will never be safe with President Trump," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Everyone knows the latest Trump budget is dead on arrival in Congress," said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. (2/10)

The New York Times: Trump’s Budget Math Grapples With Economic Reality
President Trump’s budget proposals have been defined by a belief that the economy will grow significantly faster than most economists anticipate. The latest version, released on Monday, is a brief departure: It concedes, for the first time, that the administration’s past projections were too optimistic. Then it goes right back to forecasting 3 percent growth, for the better part of a decade. (Tankersley, 2/10)

The Washington Post: New Hampshire Voters Push Democratic Candidates On Health Care
In a union hall a mile from New Hampshire's gold-domed statehouse, Joe Biden was working a rope line, taking selfies, clapping voters on the shoulder, when a woman with a red plaid dress and a message got her turn. “Health care is so important,” Sheila Zakre told the former vice president running for the Democratic presidential nomination. A 61-year-old disability rights lawyer who works on her own, Zakre is part of the insured middle class. Still, she and her husband, Bob Sanders, are fighting an unexpected $2,400 hospital bill after a facility fee was tacked on for a scan in a doctor’s office. (Goldstein, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Democrats Make Last Pitches In New Hampshire As Iowa Fight Continues
Mr. Buttigieg, appearing during a snowstorm in the northern college town of Plymouth, was critical of his rival. “We cannot risk alienating Americans at this critical moment, and that’s where I part ways with my friend, Sen. Sanders,” Mr. Buttigieg said before finding fault with the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All plan. He said that health-insurance proposal was too expensive, would require higher taxes on the middle class and would be unfair to people who are happy with their private insurance. (Jamerson and Day, 2/10)

The Hill: Doctors Group Breaks From Health Care Industry With Support For 'Medicare For All'
But not the American College of Physicians (ACP). That group made waves last month when it broke with other leading health players to endorse Medicare for All, along with an optional government plan, as a way to get to universal coverage. The move by the ACP, which represents internal medicine doctors who are often a patient’s primary care physician, is a sign of changing attitudes among doctors. “A lot of this is driven from the grassroots membership,” Bob Doherty, senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy for the ACP, said in an interview last week in the group’s Washington office. “Physicians are increasingly frustrated with paperwork,” he said, which stems in part from having multiple insurers all with different rules and documentation requirements. One possible solution is to have just a single payer: the government. (Sullivan, 2/11)

Stat: In Reelection Bid, A GOP Lawmaker Campaigns On Pelosi’s Drug Pricing Bill
In the months before House Democrats passed their aggressive drug negotiation bill, GOP lawmakers derisively labeled it the “Fewer Cures Act,” and a conservative advocacy group spent millions on advertisements likening the legislation to a “socialist takeover of the health care system.” But in Washington state, one Republican lawmaker is effectively campaigning for reelection on her support for the bill. “Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler puts seniors ahead of drug companies,” according to mailing material that the GOP congresswoman’s office recently sent to constituents, which touts her support for the Democrats’ plan. “Jaime helped advance H.R. 3.” (Facher, 2/11)

The New York Times: A Grim Landmark As Official Death Toll In China Tops 1,000
The death toll from the coronavirus epidemic is continuing to climb, Chinese officials said Tuesday. The government put the nationwide figure at 1,016. That was up 108 from the day before, when it was 908. The number of cases of infection also grew, to over 42,638. The figure for the day before was put at 40,171. (2/10)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Deaths Climb As China Corrals Sick In Quarantine Facilities In Outbreak Epicenter
While Wuhan and Hubei province have been ravaged by the disease, Chinese officials say the number of new cases outside Hubei is declining, in a reflection of strict quarantine measures taking effect nationwide. (Shih, Horton and Iati, 2/10)

Reuters: Coronavirus Emergency 'Holds A Very Grave Threat' For World: WHO
China's coronavirus outbreak poses a "very grave threat for the rest of the world", the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday in an appeal for sharing virus samples and speeding up research into drugs and vaccines. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was addressing the start of a two-day meeting aimed at accelerating research into drugs, diagnostics and vaccines into the flu-like virus amid growing concerns about its ability to spread. (2/11)

The New York Times: ‘Like Europe In Medieval Times’: Virus Slows China’s Economy
Workers are stuck in their hometowns. Officials want detailed health plans before factories or offices can reopen. Assembly lines that make General Motors cars and Apple iPhones are standing silent. More than two weeks after China locked down a major city to stop a dangerous viral outbreak, one of the world’s largest economies remains largely idle. Much of the country was supposed to have reopened by now, but its empty streets, quiet factories and legions of inactive workers suggest that weeks or months could pass before this vital motor of global growth is humming again. (Bradsher, 2/10)

Reuters: Coronavirus May Be Over Soon In China, Expert Says, As WHO Warns Of Global Threat
China's coronavirus epidemic may peak in February and then plateau before easing, the government's top medical adviser on the outbreak said. In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Zhong Nanshan, a leading epidemiologist who won international fame for his role in combating the SARS epidemic in 2003, said the situation in some provinces was already improving, with the number of new cases declining. Zhong, who had previously predicted an earlier peak, said the forecast was based on modeling and developments in recent days, as well as government action. (Kirton, 2/11)

The New York Times: ‘Let’s Not Shake Hands’: Xi Jinping Tours Beijing Amid Coronavirus Crisis
When he stepped inside the municipal office five miles north of the Forbidden City, China’s most powerful leader in decades pulled up the sleeve of his black overcoat and held out his wrist. A woman in a mask and surgical gloves then checked to see if he had a fever. It was Xi Jinping’s first public appearance since meeting the Cambodian prime minister last week, and one of only a handful since the epidemic exploded into a crisis last month. It showed him on what state media declared the “front line” of China’s efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic — even if the actual center of the outbreak lies 600 miles south in the city of Wuhan. (Myers, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: President Xi Inspects Coronavirus Hospital In Beijing After Conspicuous Absence
At Chaoyang district’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Mr. Xi learned about how the district, on the eastern edge of central Beijing, was coping with the outbreak, CCTV reported. Mr. Xi in his remarks acknowledged that some medical workers had “sacrificed their lives,” an apparent indirect reference to a young Wuhan doctor, Li Wenliang, whose death last week triggered an emotional response across the country, much of it frustration directed at officials. Dr. Li had been taken in and interrogated by authorities in early January after warning about the dangers of the deadly new virus, before he contracted it himself. (Cheng and Mendell, 2/10)

Reuters: Here Is What WHO Experts Are Watching On The Coronavirus' Spread
The World Health Organization (WHO) is tracking the epidemic of the new coronavirus in China and how it is spread abroad, as its advance team of international experts travel there to help investigate the outbreak. Here are some issues that WHO epidemiologists are probing to deepen understanding of the virus, believed to have jumped the species barrier at a seafood market in Wuhan in December, to help accelerate development of drugs, diagnostics and vaccines. (Nebehay, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Wuhan Evacuees Hunker Down For Weeks In Quarantine
Tennessee resident David Mayes was in China visiting his girlfriend in Wuhan when officials locked down the city on Jan. 23, aiming to stop a rapidly spreading coronavirus that has killed hundreds there. Overnight, the city turned into a ghost town, Mr. Mayes said. Eight-lane highways were empty. Businesses were shuttered. But some Americans have made it out, on flights chartered by the U.S. State Department from an otherwise-closed airport. (Findell and Abbott, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: China’s Delivery Drivers Keep Supplies Flowing In Coronavirus Outbreak
Forced to stay home during the coronavirus outbreak, many residents of the central Chinese metropolis of Wuhan rely on delivery drivers such as Zhang Hao, who risks infection himself as he zooms around the city by moped to deliver groceries and other supplies. In return, some of his customers treat him as a potential carrier of the virus. One woman waited for Mr. Zhang, 36 years old, to back away from her package before she sprayed it with disinfecting alcohol and took it upstairs. Others ask why he is working and whether he worries about getting infected himself. (Woo and Deng, 2/11)

The Associated Press: Virus Storytellers Challenge China's Official Narrative
After nearly a week of roaming China's epidemic-struck city, filming the dead and the sickened in overwhelmed hospitals, the strain of being hounded by both the new virus and the country's dissent-quelling police started to tell. Chen Qiushi looked haggard and disheveled in his online posts, an almost unrecognizable shadow of the energetic young man who had rolled into Wuhan on a self-assigned mission to tell its inhabitants' stories, just as authorities locked the city down almost three weeks ago. (Leicester and Kang, 2/11)

The New York Times: Pangolins Are Suspected As A Potential Coronavirus Host
In the search for the animal source or sources of the coronavirus epidemic in China, the latest candidate is the pangolin, an endangered, scaly, ant-eating mammal that is imported in huge numbers to Chinese markets for food and medicine. The market in pangolins is so large that they are said to be the most trafficked mammals on the planet. All four Asian species are critically endangered, and it is far from clear whether being identified as a viral host would be good or bad for pangolins. It could decrease the trade in the animals, or cause a backlash. (Gorman, 2/10)

Reuters: Bat Meat Still Popular In Parts Of Indonesia, Despite Coronavirus Fears
Bat meat is still popular in some parts of Indonesia, despite research suggesting the coronavirus spreading from China might have originated in bats before being passed on to humans. Bats are traditionally eaten by the Minahasan people from North Sulawesi in the form of a curry-like dish called Paniki. Whole bats are used in Paniki, including the head and wings. (2/11)

The Associated Press: Virus Stretches Limits Of Strained Public Health Systems
The virus outbreak that began in China and has spread to more than 20 countries is stretching already-strained public health systems in Asia and beyond, raising questions over whether everyone can get equal access to treatment. Authorities in Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak, have been ordered to confine people suspected of having the illness in “quarantine camps" reminiscent of makeshift hospitals seen a century ago during the outbreak of Spanish flu. (Kurtenbach, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Misinformation Is Spreading Faster Than The Outbreak. The Problem Is Part Bad-Faith Actors, And Part Human Nature.
Meghan May, a university professor who researches emerging diseases, seemed an unlikely person to contribute to misinformation about the novel coronavirus. Yet last week, May shared a mea culpa on Twitter, owning up to unwittingly retweeting information that had origins in a Russian misinformation campaign. The story that managed to evade her typically discerning sensors: a claim that a Chinese Internet company had accidentally released death and infection totals — ones that exceeded official estimates — before quickly scrubbing evidence of them online. (Bellware, 2/10)

The New York Times: Some Experts Worry As A Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts A Growing Epidemic
When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act. Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa. (Crowley, 2/10)

Reuters: Coronavirus Case Confirmed In California, Takes U.S. Total To 13
The 13th case of coronavirus in the United States was detected in California in a person under federal quarantine after returning from Wuhan, China, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday. The adult patient was among U.S. nationals evacuated from Wuhan, the epicenter of the disease, who were under mandatory quarantine for 14 days at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, near San Diego, the CDC said in a statement. (2/10)

The Associated Press: Nearly 200 Evacuees To Leave Coronavirus Quarantine In US
Nearly 200 evacuees prepared Tuesday to end their two-week quarantine at a Southern California military base where they have been living since flying out of China during a deadly viral outbreak. None of those who flew into March Air Reserve Base have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, health authorities said, although one evacuee at another base had been found to have the highly infectious virus and was in hospital isolation. (2/11)

The New York Times: Cruise Ship’s Coronavirus Outbreak Leaves Crew Nowhere To Hide
In the passenger decks of the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, more than 2,500 travelers are carefully isolated. Meals are delivered to their cabins. They have permission to walk on deck, six feet apart, for a few minutes a day. Down below, more than 1,000 crew members live and work elbow-to-elbow, preparing the passengers’ dishes and eating simple buffet-style meals together, with as many as four sharing a bathroom — and sharing the risk of possible infection from the coronavirus. (Dooley and Rich, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Cruise Ship Coronavirus Infections Double, Exceeding The Total For Any Country But China
Karey Maniscalco, a real estate agent from St. George, Utah, who is traveling on the ship with her husband, said tensions increased as news spread of the sharp jump in the number of people on the ship with the respiratory infection. It “caused us to be a bit rattled and concerned,” Maniscalco said in a phone call from her room Monday. The spike in infections also triggered criticism of Japan’s handling of the outbreak, which was traced to a man from Hong Kong who had spent five days aboard the ship and was diagnosed with the infection Feb. 1. While a quarantine may have been a reasonable strategy when it was imposed Feb. 5, experts said it is no longer effective and perhaps dangerous. (Denyer, Johnson, Sampson and Bernstein, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Coronavirus Cases On Cruise Ship Climb To 135
he outbreak on the ship, docked in Yokohama south of Tokyo, has emerged as one of the most difficult virus challenges outside of China, with passengers on board increasingly anxious as the news each day gets worse. Officials have attributed the outbreak to a passenger who got off the cruise in Hong Kong and was later diagnosed with the virus. But it isn’t known how so many people got infected and whether there could be another source of infection. (Bhattacharya and Inada, 2/10)

The Washington Post: Coronavirus Fears Force Cancellations, Precautions At Big Tech Conferences
Coronavirus has already halted countless factories in China and grounded flights to and from the country. Now it’s hitting the global conference circuit, too. Several big tech companies are pulling out of the telecom industry’s largest annual meeting in Barcelona later this month, citing worries about a virus that has killed more than 1,000 people worldwide. Many Chinese researchers are unable to attend a major artificial-intelligence gathering in New York this week, and a number of conferences in Asia have been canceled or postponed. (Whalen, 2/11)

The Associated Press: Drugs Fail To Slow Decline In Inherited Alzheimer's Disease
Two experimental drugs failed to prevent or slow mental decline in a study of people who are virtually destined to develop Alzheimer's disease at a relatively young age because they inherited rare gene flaws. The results announced Monday are another disappointment for the approach that scientists have focused on for years -- trying to remove a harmful protein that builds up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's, the leading cause of dementia. (Marchione, 2/10)

The New York Times: An Alzheimer’s Treatment Fails: ‘We Don’t Have Anything Now’
For five years, on average, the volunteers received monthly infusions or injections of one of two experimental drugs, along with annual blood tests, brain scans, spinal taps and cognitive tests. Now, the verdict is in: The drugs did nothing to slow or stop cognitive decline in these subjects, dashing the hopes of scientists. Dr. Randall Bateman, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis and principal investigator of the study, said he was “shocked” when he first saw the data: “It was really crushing.” (Kolata, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: Lilly, Roche Drugs Fail To Stymie Inherited Form Of Alzheimer’s
The Lilly and Roche drugs are designed to work by reducing a sticky substance called beta amyloid that builds up in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Lilly and Roche have previously tested their drugs in clinical trials of patients with the more common form of Alzheimer’s that typically affects people 65 and older. Lilly’s drug failed to significantly help patients and Roche halted two studies of its drug after concluding it wouldn’t help. Lilly said it won’t pursue an application for regulatory approval of solanezumab to treat dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s. (Loftus, 2/10)

Stat: Two More Failed Alzheimer’s Drugs Sharpen Focus On Biogen’s Chances
The focus quickly shifted to Biogen (BIIB), which made global headlines last year after claiming a controversial victory with an amyloid-targeting therapy of its own. With that treatment expected to undergo Food and Drug Administration review this year, do the results from Lilly and Roche poke holes Biogen’s case for approval? There’s a compelling argument to be made. (Garde, 2/10)

The New York Times: More Than 100 Troops Have Brain Injuries From Iran Missile Strike, Pentagon Says
More than 100 American service members have traumatic brain injuries from Iranian airstrikes on Al Asad Air Base in Iraq in January, the Defense Department said, a number that was more than 50 percent higher than previously disclosed. Of the 109 troops who have been diagnosed with brain injuries, 76 had returned to duty, officials said Monday. (Zaveri, 2/10)

The Associated Press: Pentagon: 109 Troops Suffer Brain Injuries From Iran Strike
The number of injuries has been steadily increasing since the Pentagon began releasing data on the injuries about a week after the Jan. 8 attack at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq. Pentagon officials have warned that the number would continue to change. The department said 76 of the service members have returned to duty, while 26 are in Germany or the United States for treatment, and another seven are on their way from Iraq to Germany for evaluation and treatment. (Baldor, 2/10)

Politico: How The Debate Over The ERA Became A Fight Over Abortion
Conservative activists waged a successful campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment decades ago by warning it would force women into combat, legalize gay marriage and erode gender roles. But in 2020, opponents are zeroing in on one line of attack: a claim that ERA would require taxpayer-funded abortions. The House will vote later this week on a bill that would remove the deadline for ratifying the ERA, which permanently bans discrimination on the basis of sex. (Mueller and Ollstein, 2/11)

The New York Times: An ICE Officer Shot A Man In The Face. Who Is To Blame?
Gaspar Avendaño Hernández left his home in Brooklyn early last Thursday to go to his construction job. But Mr. Avendaño, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had previously been deported in 2011 after pleading guilty to an assault charge only to return, did not get far. He was confronted outside his house by federal immigration officers who were there to arrest him. (Correal and Shanahan, 2/11)

The Wall Street Journal: Justice Department Sues New Jersey, Washington County Over Sanctuary Policies
The Justice Department sued New Jersey and a Washington county Monday over their laws and policies limiting local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The moves escalated a Trump administration battle with liberal states and localities that adopt so-called sanctuary policies intended to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation. (Hackman, 2/10)

The New York Times: New Campus Sexual Misconduct Rules Will Tackle Dating Violence
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s pending rules on sexual misconduct at the nation’s schools and colleges will include provisions to shore up protections for victims of stalking and dating violence, a response to lethal attacks that have underscored the weakness of current policies. The rules will for the first time cement domestic violence, dating violence and stalking as forms of gender discrimination that schools must address under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive government funding. (Green, 2/10)

The Wall Street Journal: A Transplant Surgeon Is Operating Again—With A New Heart
Robert Montgomery was performing his first kidney transplant as the lead surgeon since his own heart transplant in September of 2018. “I’m super excited, totally excited,” the 60-year-old surgeon said shortly before operating on a recent Friday morning. His patient, Daniel Flori, had had a heart transplant about 12 years ago, and the two swapped stories about their experiences before the kidney operation. Mr. Flori, who is 59 and lives in New Hyde Park, N.Y., asked how Dr. Montgomery, the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute here, was doing with his new heart. (Reddy, 2/10)

NPR: Michael Pollan On Caffeine Addiction's Upside — And Ugly History
After wrapping up his book about the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelic drugs, author Michael Pollan turned his attention to a drug that's hidden "in plain sight" in many people's lives: caffeine. "Here's a drug we use every day. ... We never think about it as a drug or an addiction, but that's exactly what it is," Pollan says. "I thought, 'Why not explore that relationship?'" (Gross, 2/10)

NPR: Got A Cold? A Body Of Research Shows Zinc Supplements Can Help
The common cold is a top reason for missed work and school days. Most of us have two or three colds per year, each lasting at least a week. There's no real cure, but studies from the last several years show that some supplement containing zinc can help shorten the duration of cold symptoms by up to 40% — depending on the amount of the mineral in each dose and what it's combined with. (Aubrey, 2/10)

The New York Times: A Daily Aspirin For Pregnancy?
Pregnant women who take a daily baby aspirin may reduce the risk for premature birth. Researchers did a randomized, double-blinded placebo-controlled study of 11,976 women in six countries with high rates of premature birth: India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, Kenya, Pakistan and Zambia. Beginning in the first trimester of pregnancy, half the women received a daily 81 milligram aspirin tablet, while the rest took a placebo. (Bakalar, 2/11)

The Associated Press: Mississippi Inmate Death Toll Rises Amid Emergency Extension
Another Mississippi inmate died Monday, the same day the governor extended an emergency order allowing the state to quickly spend money to try to resolve problems in a prison system beset by violence and poor living conditions. The two developments were announced separately, and there was no indication that Gov. Tate Reeves’ extension of the emergency order was in response to the latest death. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Mississippi prisons after a string of inmate deaths. The death Monday brings the total to at least 16 since late December. (Pettus, 2/10)

The Hill: Mississippi Records 16th Inmate Death
James Allen Brown, 54, died at the hospital at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the Mississippi Department of Corrections confirmed in a release. He is the 10th to die at Parchman since the end of December. There was no foul play suspected in the first death in more than a week, according to the Sunflower County coroner. “The official cause and the manner are pending an autopsy,” the release said. Brown was in prison for murder/homicide and residential burglary. He was sentenced in June of 1993. Gov. Tate Reeves (R) addressed the state’s ongoing problem in his State of the State speech, in which he promised to shut down Parchman’s Unit 29, where a majority of deaths in the prison have occurred. (Coleman, 2/10)

The Associated Press: Ban On Treatments For Transgender Kids Fails In South Dakota
Legislation aimed at stopping South Dakota physicians from providing puberty blockers and gender confirmation surgery to transgender children under 16 failed to get enough support Monday in a Senate committee. A Republican-dominated Senate committee voted 5-2 to kill the proposal, likely ensuring the issue won't be considered by the Legislature again this year. (2/10)

The Associated Press: West Virginia Senate Passes 'Born Alive' Abortion Bill
After acknowledging that murder is already a crime, the West Virginia Senate on Monday passed a bill to penalize physicians who don't provide medical care to a baby born after an abortion attempt. Senators unanimously approved the measure following lone testimony from a Democrat who said lawmakers have wasted time angling for political points on a bill that has no impact instead of working on the state's more serious problems. (2/10)

The Washington Post: Northern Virginia Student Dies After Contracting Flu, Mother Says
A student at a high school in Loudoun County, Va., died last week after contracting the flu, her mother said. Katie Giovanniello, 16, a sophomore at Heritage High School in the Leesburg area, died at a hospital Friday morning, said her mother, Colette Giovanniello. The county health director and a spokesman for the county school system both confirmed the death but gave no cause. (Weil, 2/10)