State Highlights: Activists Sue Mississippi Over ‘Heartbeat’ Abortion Law; Alabama Prisons On Trial After 15 Inmate Suicides

The Washington Post: Abortion-Rights Group Sues Mississippi Over ‘Heartbeat’ Law
An abortion-rights group is asking a federal judge to block a Mississippi law that will ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy. The Center for Reproductive Rights on Thursday expanded a lawsuit it filed last year challenging a Mississippi law that banned abortions after 15 weeks’ pregnancy. A federal judge declared that law unconstitutional. Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed the heartbeat bill March 21, and it is set to become law July 1. It’s one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation. (Pettus, 3/28)

The Associated Press: Federal Judge Holding Trial On Alabama Prisoner Suicides
After 15 inmates killed themselves within 15 months, a federal judge will weigh whether the Alabama prison system is doing enough to prevent suicides. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson on Thursday began a mini-trial on suicide prevention measures. It comes almost two years after his initial 2017 ruling that the Alabama prison system provides "horrendously inadequate" mental health care. (3/28)

WBUR: After Inmate Suicides, Alabama Prisons On Trial
A federal judge in Montgomery is again hearing arguments over efforts to stop a wave on inmate suicides in Alabama's overcrowded and understaffed prison system. U.S District Judge Myron Thompson is hearing testimony on whether the state has adequately responded to 15 suicide deaths in the past 15 months. (Gonzales, 3/28)

The Washington Post: Hawaii Weighs Nation’s First Statewide Ban On E-Cig Flavors
The first state to limit tobacco and electronic cigarette sales to people 21 and older is contemplating a new nicotine crackdown: outlawing flavored electronic cigarette liquids and flavored tobacco to combat a spike in teenage vaping. Hawaii would be the first state to adopt such a ban under a bill before the Legislature. San Francisco was the first U.S. city to do so. The proposal would ban flavored e-cigarette liquids such as Maui Mango and Cookie Monsta, along with cloves and other flavored tobacco products, but it would exempt menthol cigarettes and vaping liquids. (McAvoy, 3/29)

Tampa Bay Times: Florida Could Have Fined All Children’s Millions For Late Reports. It Went With $4,500.
Late last year, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital made a striking admission to state regulators: It had failed to report at least nine cases where its care had hurt patients. Worse, All Children’s had gotten in trouble for not disclosing similar issues just months before. (McGrory and Bedi, 3/29)

Nashville Tennessean: Tennesseans Largely Support Raising The Smoking Age To 21, Survey Says
Nearly two thirds of Tennesseans favor raising the legal age for smoking tobacco and e-cigarettes from 18 to 21, a dramatic shift in what has long been one of the nation’s most smoking-friendly states, according to a new poll from Nashville health leaders. Sixty-three percent of participants supported raising the smoking age, with 48 percent supporting the proposal "strongly," poll results show. Concern about young adults smoking was consistent across demographics, political affiliation and all regions of Tennessee. (Kelman, 3/28)

Boston Globe: Report On Laura Levis’s Death Cites Somerville Hospital’s Parent Company
A report released Thursday identified serious flaws at Somerville Hospital and its parent company, after a 34-year-old woman dying from an asthma attack was locked outside the emergency room, but the review stopped short of blaming any individuals for the 2016 tragedy. The report criticized hospital officials for failing to share key details about the death of Laura Levis with her family and with hospital board members, and describes Cambridge Health Alliance, the parent of Somerville Hospital, as beset by internal divisions. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/28)

KCUR: An Overland Park Weight-Loss Hospital Struggles To Regain Its Medicare Certification 
An Overland Park weight-loss hospital that lost its Medicare certification last year remains in legal limbo. On Wednesday, a federal appeals court upheld on procedural grounds a lower court’s dismissal of Blue Valley Hospital’s lawsuit challenging the loss of its certification. The hospital’s lawyer, Randy Schultz, said it would now attempt to make its case before the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that revoked its certification. (Margolies, 3/28)

Boston Globe: Mass. Lawmakers Pass Gay Conversion Therapy Ban
The state Senate passed legislation Thursday banning so-called gay conversion therapy for minors, moving Massachusetts closer to being the 16th state to outlaw a practice critics have likened to child abuse. The Senate approved the bill, 34 to 0, with five Republicans voting “present,” weeks after the House overwhelmingly approved the measure. (Stout, 3/28)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lincoln Hills: Legislators Seek Delay In Closing Youth Prison
A group of lawmakers that championed a law closing the state's long-troubled youth prison is now proposing to delay the facility's closure to give county governments more time to build facilities to replace it. The closure of the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls and the completion of smaller, regional facilities would be delayed by six months under a bill being circulated among lawmakers for support. (Beck, 3/28)

Arizona Republic: Arizona's Sonora Quest Laboratories Offers Blood Test For Colon Cancer
The $170 blood test, called BeScreened-CRC, was developed by Phoenix-based diagnostics laboratory Beacon Biomedical and is a screening tool for colon cancer, its developer says. Sonora Quest Laboratories in Arizona has offered the test since December, and no doctor's order is required. It's not covered by Medicare. Coverage by commercial insurance plans varies. (Innes, 3/28)

Health News Florida: Mental Health Draws Debate After Student Suicides
Two suicides in the span of a week involving student survivors of the Parkland school shooting have sparked a new question at the Florida Capitol: How much mental-health money should the state provide to schools? The Senate has proposed setting aside $100 million for schools to offer mental-health services next year, $30 million more than what the House has recommended. (Ceballos, 3/28)

The Oregonian: Beaverton-Area Mental Health Hospital Worker Accused Of Sexually Abusing Patient 
A former night shift employee of a mental health treatment center in unincorporated Washington County was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of sexually abusing a patient last year. Christopher Zeisler, who worked as a mental health technician at Cedar Hills Hospital, remained held Thursday at the Washington County Jail on suspicion of first-degree sexual abuse. (Bailey, 3/28)

Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Calls To N.H. Suicide Prevention Hotline Doubled This Year 
Between 2016 and 2017, operators answered 882 suicide calls at Headrest, Ford said. From 2017 to 2018, it was 1,218. And so far in the first three months of 2019, there have been 898 suicide calls. Callers from Concord make up the third-largest group of suicide-related calls Headrest answered in the state behind Manchester and Nashua, [Headrest executive director Cameron] Ford said. (Willingham, 3/28)

The Washington Post: ‘We’re Human Beings!’ The Homeless Woman Yelled. ‘Acknowledge Us!’ Then People Did — In A Way She Didn’t Expect.
The city didn’t seem to be doing enough. Neither were the nonprofit groups. But maybe she — as nothing more than another human who cared — could accomplish what they couldn’t. Maybe she could get this couple out of a tent where they’d lived for more than two years, at the base of Union Station, and into housing. When The Washington Post published a profile Friday of Monica Diaz, a fast-food restaurant employee simultaneously navigating the homeless and working worlds, Howard University law student Gabriela Sevilla immediately got to work. (McCoy, 3/28)