State Highlights: Challenges To States’ Abortion Laws Stack Up At Supreme Court; California Prison Suicide Rates Still Going Up

Bloomberg: Abortion Law Cases Stack Up In US Supreme Court's 2019-2020 Term 
Abortion cases are coming to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they’re only getting harder for the justices to avoid. The court next week starts a new term that will give the clearest indication yet of how eager the justices are to roll back the right to end a pregnancy. ... Abortion opponents are likely to get a more receptive audience now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh has replaced the retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. The eventual goal is to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which legalized the procedure nationwide. (Stohr, 9/30)

San Francisco Chronicle: Suicides In California Prisons Rise Despite Decades Of Demands For Reform
The suicide rate inside California prisons, long one of the highest among the nation’s largest prison systems, jumped to a new peak in 2018 and remains elevated in 2019, despite decades of effort by federal courts and psychiatric experts to fix a system they say is broken and putting lives at risk, a Chronicle investigation has found. Last year, an average of three California inmates killed themselves each month in state cells — 34 total suicides in a system with 129,000 inmates. That amounts to an annual rate of 26.3 deaths per 100,000 people, the highest rate in California since at least 2006. (Fagone and Cassidy, 9/29)

Nashville Tennessean: Best Data On Nashville Health In Two Decades Now Available To Public
Nashville knows a lot about health care, but for the past two decades, the city hasn't known enough about it's own health. Now, hopefully, that will change. Nashville officials publicized results and data from a landmark health survey conducted in city over the past year. The Nashville Community Health + Well-being Survey, which gathered data from 1,805 respondents spread throughout Davidson County, is the most detailed study of city health since at least 2000. (Kelman, 9/30)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Georgia Liver Transplant Advocates Lose Court Battle, At Least For Now
The U.S. liver donation system hasn’t decided whether to start its redistribution of the organs, a proposal that is likely to mean fewer livers for Georgia patients and more for states such as New York.But it could, at least for now. A federal appeals court has ruled that while the court fight goes on, the new liver distribution system can begin. (Hart, 9/27)

WBUR: The Health Benefits At The Center Of The United Auto Workers Strike
A key issue in the contract dispute between General Motors and the United Auto Workers is health benefits. Workers have had famously great health plans, paying just 3% of costs. (Simmons-Duffin, 9/28)

MPR: Final 2020 Individual And Small Group Market Health Insurance Rates To Be Announced
The Minnesota Department of Commerce will publish the final individual and small group health insurance rates for next year on Tuesday. The insurance companies selling health plans for next year proposed average price changes ranging from a 10 percent decrease to a nearly 5 percent increase over this year’s rate. (Zdechlik, 9/29)

Seattle Times: Thousands Of Washington Students Could Soon Be Barred From School As Families Fail To Comply With New Vaccination Law 
Thousands of Washington K-12 students still haven’t met their vaccination requirements — and because they’re not compliant with a new state law, schools could soon ban them from classes. The measure, approved by state lawmakers this year, stops families from citing personal or philosophical beliefs to excuse their students from the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine. (Takahama, 9/29)

The Philadelphia Inquirer: 5 Reasons Why There’s A Medical Marijuana Drought In Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania is in the grip of a medical marijuana drought, according to multiple dispensary owners from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. Some dispensaries are rationing dried flower. At Restore Integrative Health Care, a dispensary in Fishtown, there’s a seven-gram limit per patient per day. At Keystone Shops in South Philadelphia there’s a 14 gram a day maximum while TerraVida Holistic Centers in Abington caps it at an ounce (about 28 grams). (Wood, 9/29)

The Baltimore Sun: Record Jury Award Reduced In Case Of Baby Injured At Baltimore’s Hopkins Bayview, Still Exceeds $200 Million 
A Baltimore judge has reduced the $229.6 million awarded by a jury to a 16-year-old Prince George’s County mother whose baby suffered a brain injury at birth, but the sum still exceeds $200 million. The move this week by a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge was expected because Maryland has a cap on non-economic damages. That portion of the award was reduced to $740,000 from $25 million. (Cohn, 9/27)

Dallas Morning News: Texas Leads The Nation In Transgender Murders. After The Latest Attack, The Dallas Trans Community Asks Why
In the past five years, more transgender people have been killed in Texas than any other state, according to a list kept by the LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. More than California, which has a higher population. More than New York, with its highly visible LGBTQ community. And more than Florida, which dealt with a spate of murders just last year. (McGaughy, 9/29)

The Associated Press: Tyler Perry Says He Can't 'Up And Leave' Filming In Georgia
Tyler Perry said he cannot “just up and leave” filming in Georgia despite Hollywood’s backlash against the state’s “heartbeat” abortion law. The actor-director-writer made the remarks to The Associated Press on Friday while discussing the upcoming opening of his massive Atlanta-based studio. Some celebs have urged TV and film companies to abandon the state after Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the restrictive abortion bill in May. (Landrum Jr., 9/27)

The New York Times: A Fake Psychologist Treated Troubled Children, Prosecutors Say
The parents all needed a therapist who could help their children with behavioral and mental health issues. Glenn Payne, 60, appeared to fit the bill. He said he was a neuropsychologist with advanced degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, affiliations with two Brooklyn hospitals and years of experience. But those credentials were a lie, the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said. (Gold, 9/29)