State Highlights: Massachusetts Investigates Juul’s E-Cigarette Selling Practices; N.Y. Gubernatorial Candidate Nixon Vows To Support Single-Payer System

Reuters: Massachusetts To Probe E-Cigarette Maker Juul Over Sales To Minors
Massachusetts is investigating e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc and two online retailers to determine whether they violated state law by failing to prevent minors from buying their products, the state's attorney general said on Tuesday. The probe by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey comes as the fast-growing Silicon Valley e-cigarette start-up has faced increased scrutiny due the popularity of Juul's products with teenagers. (Raymond, 7/24)

The Hill: Cynthia Nixon Endorses Single-Payer Health Care In New York
New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon on Tuesday endorsed a state-wide single-payer health-care system amid her challenge against Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) from the left. ... As single-payer health care gains ground in the Democratic Party, Nixon is one of several governor candidates across the country who has endorsed the idea on a state level, including Gavin Newsom in California and Ben Jealous in Maryland. (Sullivan, 7/24)

Boston Globe: Governor Baker Signs Bill To Designate Cancer As Work-Related Injury For State’s Firefighters
Flanked by firefighters and their families, Governor Charlie Baker formally signed legislation at Broadway Fire Station Tuesday afternoon that will designate cancer as a work-related injury for firefighters across Massachusetts. The new law — championed by State Representative Daniel Cahill, a Lynn Democrat — will cover all medical treatments for firefighters diagnosed with cancer as well as their time missed because of the illness. (Mazurek, 7/24)

The Associated Press: Hospital Operator Begins Using Temporary Workers Amid Strike
A hospital operator in Rhode Island used temporary workers to care for hundreds of patients Tuesday after nurses went on strike. About 2,400 nurses and other health care workers at Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children's Hospital began what's expected to be a weeklong strike Monday. Local 5098 of the United Nurses and Allied Professionals called for the strike. (7/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Rutgers University Partners With N.J. Health-Care System In $1 Billion Deal
New Jersey’s largest health-care system and its largest university on Tuesday announced the launch of a partnership that would create one of the biggest health-care systems in the U.S. The agreement, which has been in the final stages for at least a year, has RWJBarnabas Health investing $100 million initially, and more than $1 billion over 20 years, into the partnership with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. (West, 7/24)

The Washington Post: In L.A., Skid Row’s Homeless Deal With Yet More Misery As Tents Go Up In Flames
He woke up hot and sweaty in his tent. But when he tried to crawl out for fresh air, he found a ring of flames around the sidewalk where he’d pitched the canvas. “I rolled out and come up fighting through the fire,” 58-year-old Bobby Holiday, a tall man with a Dodgers cap and a faraway gaze, recalled on a sweltering July afternoon. “Burned my heel. All the clothes I had all got burned up.” (Kuznia, 7/24)

Sacramento Bee: Homelessness Is Gavin Newsom’s Top Priority For California
It was here, as a new city supervisor in the early 2000s, that [Gavin] Newsom first confronted a problem that would follow him in elected office for the next 16 years: Worsening homelessness. San Francisco’s homeless population remained prevalent under Newsom’s watch as a two-term mayor from 2004 to 2010, despite his controversial efforts to eradicate its visibility and help place the most needy into housing. (Hart, 7/25)

Houston Chronicle: Texas Children's Doctor Network Opens First Austin Practices 
Texas Children's network of primary-care doctors has opened two practices in Austin, part of the Houston hospital's expansion into the central part of the state. Texas Children's Pediatrics, the nation's largest such primary-care network, opened TCP Austin Pediatrics in west Austin (5625 Eiger Road) in June and TCP Pediatric Partners in north Austin (3410 Far West Blvd.) Monday, TCH announced this week. The new locations are TCP's first outside Houston. (Ackerman, 7/24)

Columbus Dispatch: Minority, Appalachian Kids At Greater Risk Of Remaining Poor For Life, Report Says
Young children of color or who live in rural Appalachia are more at risk of starting behind — and staying behind, well into adulthood — than their more-affluent peers elsewhere in Ohio, a new report shows.Groundwork Ohio is scheduled to release the Ohio Early Childhood Race & Rural Equity Report 2018 on Wednesday. Shannon Jones, executive director of the nonpartisan child-advocacy organization, said it was the most-comprehensive early childhood report in the state’s history. (Candisky and Lane, 7/25)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Special Needs Vouchers Cost Public Schools $5.6 Million In First Two Years
A Wisconsin program that allows special needs students to attend private schools on taxpayer-funded vouchers cost local public schools almost $5.6 million in state funding over the last two years, including hundreds of districts where no residents participated in the program, according to a new state audit and related documents. And, while parents with children in the program voiced more favorable views of the private schools than their public-school counterparts, according to the audit, it also confirmed what many critics had feared: that it would serve primarily children already in private schools and leave children with the greatest needs to the public schools. (Johnson, 7/24)

New Hampshire Union Leader: $19M Cancer Facility To Be Built On Elliot Hospital Campus 
Elliot Health System wants to spend $19 million to build a “one-stop” cancer center on its Manchester campus in an effort to attract patients who would otherwise seek treatment in Massachusetts.“Patients are looking for a comprehensive center that can answer their needs and they like to do it in one stop,” Dr. Greg Baxter, Elliot’s chief medical officer, said in an interview Tuesday. A portion of the existing cancer center on the Elliot campus will be torn down starting in the spring. A new 22,000-square-foot building will be attached to the existing radiation oncology section of Elliot Hospital. (Cousineau, 7/25)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: New HIV Infections Fall In Cuyahoga County For Fifth Consecutive Year, Bucking Statewide Climb
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Cuyahoga County fell for the fifth consecutive year in 2017, even as the statewide infection rate continued to rise. New statistics from the Ohio Department of Health show an 18.6 percent drop in new cases in Cuyahoga County from 2016. (Christ, 7/24)

Chicago Tribune: Woman Dies After Botched Pacemaker Surgery At Stroger, $6.45 Million Settlement Proposed: Memo
Cook County officials have asked for authorization to settle for nearly $6.5 million a lawsuit alleging that a woman’s artery was cut during a 2013 pacemaker surgery at Stroger Hospital, according to a Cook County internal memo. Attorneys with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office this week requested authority from commissioners to settle the lawsuit, stemming from the death of Hermelinda Toro. (Pratt, 7/24)

Austin American-Statesman: Austin Woman Could Be Turned Over To ICE After Mental Health Crisis Call To Police, Records Show
An Austin woman who was experiencing a mental health crisis and hurt an officer after police were called for help could be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to law enforcement records. (Hall, 7/24)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Health, Education Officials Discuss Community Trauma
With plans to turn conversation into meaningful action, over 100 officials from the Sacramento region convened last week in Del Paso Heights to begin talks about the impact of trauma in the community. Local experts discussed the effective, meaningful work that can be done to process trauma of various forms. (Holzer, 7/25)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: UGA Worker Sues Over Discriminatory Benefit Policy
A University of Georgia employee who appeared on a recent episode of a Netflix reality show is suing his employer, the University System of Georgia, the university’s healthcare providers and administrators over health care guidelines he believes are discriminatory to him and other transgender workers. Skyler Jay, identified in his legal complaint as Skyler Musgrove, said he was denied reimbursement for a May 2017 surgery to treat gender dysphoria, described by medical organizations as a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender with which the person identifies. (Stirgus, 7/25)

Kansas City Star: Donation To RIP Medical Debt Helps Kansas City Residents
The Midwest Direct Primary Care Alliance announced Monday that it donated about $11,000 to buy $1.47 million worth of medical debt on behalf of 784 patients in Kansas and Missouri. ...The alliance is a group of 21 medical clinics where the doctors don’t take health insurance and instead charge patients a monthly membership fee. (Marso, 7/25)

The Star Tribune: Hennepin County Plans To Build Its First Secure Mental Health Facility 
Frustrated by the lack of secure psychiatric beds in the metro area, the Hennepin County Board voted Tuesday to move forward on a plan to build its own mental health facility. The board unanimously approved $200,000 to study the feasibility of converting an abandoned building at the workhouse in Plymouth. The short-term facility would house residents or inmates who couldn’t find a secure bed at the Anoka-Metro Regional Treatment Center, are ready to leave the county jail or are temporarily at Hennepin Healthcare. (Chansen, 7/24)