State Highlights: Texas Community Still Grappling With Fallout After School Shooting; New York’s Highest Court Knocks Down ‘Soft Cap’ On Insurers’ Executive Pay

The Wall Street Journal: After A School Shooting, A Town Frays
At a September school-board meeting in this rural town, a group of families stood before a lectern to recite the names of loved ones killed in a school shooting last May. When Scot Rice, whose wife Flo was shot five times that day, began reading the names of those injured, board president J.R. “Rusty” Norman interrupted to tell him his allotted time was up. “There’s dead bodies between me and you,” Mr. Rice shot back, as two police officers approached him. (Frosch and Hobbs, 10/24)

Modern Healthcare: New York Court Lifts Some Limits On Providers' And Insurers' Executive Pay
New York providers and health plans that contract with the state have fewer restrictions on how much they pay their executives, thanks to a recent ruling from New York state's highest court. They may pay executives more than $199,000 a year as long as they are not using state funds, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled last week. (Kacik, 10/23)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Governor Sununu Proposes $24 Million To Boost N.H.'s Healthcare Workforce
Governor Sununu unveiled a $24 million plan on Tuesday to tackle New Hampshire's nursing shortage. The Governor says he expects a major surplus in state funds this year and that the majority of it should go to expanding college nursing programs. (Gibson, 10/23)

Georgia Health News: More Transparency Urged On Tax Donation Program For Rural Hospitals
Tens of millions of dollars in business and individual donations have gone to Georgia rural hospitals this year, thanks to a popular state tax credit program. But how hospitals are spending that money this year has not been officially tracked, the state says. And right now, there apparently isn’t publicly available information on how much in donations that each eligible hospital has received so far in 2018. (Miller, 10/23)

Reuters: USC, Gynecologist Face More Claims Despite Class-Action Settlement
Fourteen more women accusing a former University of Southern California gynecologist of sexual misconduct sued the physician and the university on Tuesday, as their lawyer decried a proposed class-action settlement with the school as "grossly inadequate." Women's rights attorney Gloria Allred said the tentative $215 million deal reached last week to settle claims brought in federal court against Dr. George Tyndall and USC by his former patients would let the university off too easy, without the school fully accounting for its role in the scandal. (10/23)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: More Focus Needed On Lowering Healthcare Costs: Former Speaker Of The House John Boehner
John Boehner, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, challenged the healthcare industry to find a way to broaden access, improve quality and lower costs Monday during the Cleveland Clinic's 2018 Medical Innovation Summit. "I know that's a Rubik's Cube I just gave you to solve," Boehner told Dr. Tom Mihaljevic, president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, during the keynote discussion at the Huntington Convention Center. (Christ, 10/23)

The Baltimore Sun: Lead Poisoning Cases Fell 19 Percent In Baltimore Last Year, Even As More Children Tested For Exposure
The number of Baltimore children with lead poisoning fell 19 percent in 2017, even as more children were tested for exposure to the powerful neurotoxin. Statewide, the number of Maryland children found to have elevated levels of lead in their blood held steady even as the number of children tested increased by 10 percent, according to a Maryland Department of the Environment report released Tuesday. (Dance, 10/23)

The Associated Press: Sentencing Resumes For Texas Woman Accused Of Starving Son
Friends and family members are urging leniency for a Texas woman convicted of attempted murder for withholding food and nutrients from her son. Danita Tutt was convicted last week but a jury acquitted her of two counts of injury to a child, which was related to allegations from prosecutors that Tutt had lied to doctors to subject the boy, now 13, to unneeded surgeries. (10/23)

Sacramento Bee: UC Davis Spars With Largest Employee Union Over Second Strike
The University of California and its largest employee union, AFSCME Local 3299, both came out throwing punches Tuesday as the university’s lowest-paid workers hit the picket line for the second time in six months to push for better wage increases and job security. Roughly 500 employees marched at Sacramento’s UC Davis Medical Center and chanted union slogans such as “What do we want? Contracts! When do we want them? Now!” in a picket line that stretched down the block. (Anderson, 10/23)

The Oregonian: Nurse Says Legacy Health Punished Him For Speaking Out About Problems At Unity 
A Unity Center for Behavioral Health employee claims he has been punished by the center's leaders for his public criticism of the facility's operations. Christopher Lambert filed a civil rights complaint Oct. 10 with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Lambert was a nurse at Unity when it opened in February 2017. Over the next year and a half, he said he identified and reported issues of patient-on-patient violence, patient-on-staff violence, sexual assault and self-harm by patients. (Harbarger, 10/23)

The Washington Post: Traffic Deaths In D.C. Are On The Rise. Here’s What Mayor Bowser Proposes.
An increase in traffic fatalities in the District is prompting Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and police to consider several new enforcement strategies, including restricting right turns on red and limiting left turns at some intersections to make roads safer. “We are very concerned about people dying on the streets of Washington D.C., because of traffic collisions and we are especially concerned about those incidents where we think they are entirely preventable,” Bowser (D) said in an interview Monday. “We want to look at everything that the government can control — how we invest in improving intersections, how we help educate our public and how we enforce the rules of the road.” (Lazo, 10/23)

The Associated Press: Texas Requires Large Schools To Report Player Concussions
Texas officials are requiring that the state's largest schools report concussions suffered by high school athletes in a move seen as the nation's biggest effort to track brain injuries among young athletes. The University Interscholastic League, Texas' governing body for public high school sports, on Monday ordered the schools to submit individual concussion reports. Texas has more high school athletes than any other state with about 825,000. (10/23)

Houston Chronicle: Both Men And Women Say State Must Spend More On Health Care, Study Says
Half of Texas men and 59 percent of the state's women say lawmakers need to push for more spending on health care, according to a survey released Tuesday. Also, nearly four in 10 Texas women report it's too difficult to get family planning or contraceptive services in the state, the survey by Houston's Episcopal Health Foundation and Kaiser Family Foundation found. The survey is part of a continuing project studying health care issues facing Texans. (Deam, 10/23)

Sacramento Bee: Meals On Wheels Asks The Elderly About LGBT Status, Per CA Law
Carol Alexander received a phone call from Sacramento County’s Meals on Wheels program last Friday and it wasn’t her usual case worker. Alexander, 83, said she was hit with a barrage of about a half-dozen questions she considered invasive or unnecessary: What is your sex? Do you still associate with your gender? Are you heterosexual? Are you white or Hispanic? “I was in shock. I took offense to that,” she said. (McGough and Dickman, 10/23)

Kansas City Star: Merriam Is Third JoCo City Now Pushing LGBTQ Protections
Four years ago, the Roeland Park City Council fought a fierce battle over an ordinance to protect gay and transgender individuals from discrimination within the city. The measure died at one point and was only resurrected in August 2014 when the mayor cast the deciding vote. But now, northern Johnson County cities are lining up to give serious consideration to non-discrimination ordinances protecting the LGBTQ community, using the model from Roeland Park as well as from Manhattan, Kan., Lawrence and Wyandotte County. (Horsley, 10/23)

Chicago Tribune: Advocate, NorthShore, Comer Partnering On Pediatric Care 
Three of the biggest local names in health care are partnering to expand their pediatric offerings and their reach — the latest effort by area hospital systems to spread services to wider swaths of Chicagoland. Advocate Children’s Hospital and NorthShore University HealthSystem, which teamed up on pediatric care earlier this year, began their new collaboration with University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital this month. (Schencker, 10/24)

The Associated Press: Hand, Foot And Mouth Disease Outbreak Hits Johns Hopkins
More than 100 people have been sickened by hand, foot and mouth disease at one of Johns Hopkins University’s four Baltimore campuses. News outlets report that the Maryland Department of Health has classified it as an outbreak. University spokesman Dennis O’Shea tells The Baltimore Sun that officials have been broadcasting information about the outbreak at the Homewood campus. The university says 129 cases have been reported since early September. (10/23)

Los Angeles Times: Judge Reverses Order That Barred Reporting On Search Warrant In Case Of Newport Beach Surgeon
An Orange County Superior Court judge Tuesday reversed an order barring journalists from reporting on a search warrant filed in the case against a Newport Beach surgeon facing felony charges of drugging and raping seven women dating to 2009. Grant Robicheaux, 38, once dubbed Orange County’s most eligible bachelor, and his girlfriend, Cerissa Riley, 31, are accused of rape by drugs, kidnapping, oral copulation by anesthesia, assault with intent to commit sexual offenses and other crimes. They have denied all accusations of nonconsensual sex. (Fry, Winton and Sclafani, 10/23)

Kansas City Star: As Warren Powers Fights Alzheimer’s, His Wife Inspires
Gathered above the north end zone of Memorial Stadium on Saturday stood three of the four living former University of Missouri football coaches: Warren Powers, Bob Stull and Gary Pinkel. Stull was as engaged as ever on a variety of topics, including how his protégé Andy Reid is enjoying this Chiefs team. Wearing blue jeans, Pinkel exuded the opposite of his intense coaching persona as he spoke of such things as the “it” factor radiating from Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes. (Gregorian, 10/23)