State Highlights: California-Run Veterans Homes ‘Shortchanged, Exploited,’ Audit Finds; N.Y. Lawmakers Pass Gun Control Measures, Including Red Flag Bill

Los Angeles Times: California Has Mismanaged Its Veterans Home Properties, Audit Finds
California has “mismanaged” properties where its state-run veterans homes are located, failing to charge market rents to private users and shortchanging programs that should benefit from the leases, a state audit concluded Tuesday. The head of the California Department of Veterans Affairs agreed with the findings and said changes would be made, while a leading state lawmaker said Tuesday she was pursuing legislation to make sure the properties were handled properly. (McGreevy, 1/29)

The Wall Street Journal: New York Lawmakers Pass Tough Gun-Control Bills
New York lawmakers on Tuesday approved a package of gun-control measures, including a provision designed to keep firearms from people considered a risk of hurting themselves or others that is expected to spark a legal challenge. The so-called red flag bill, approved along largely party lines by both the state Senate and Assembly, would allow law-enforcement officials, family members and educators to seek an extreme-risk protection order that would prevent the purchase or possession of firearms by someone “likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to himself, herself or others.” (Vielkind, 1/29)

The New York Times: ‘I’m Going To Die Here,’ She Told The Guards. They Didn’t Listen.
“Offender Dockery stated to me around 0800 at the front counter that she was having stomach pains for 2 days and wanted to go to the hospital,” read the first entry in a corrections officer’s log. It was the first of what became multiple pleas for help by a newly arrived inmate, Lamekia Dockery. The response? “I advised her to stop over-talking me.” (Nir, 1/30)

The New York Times: Baltimore Will Stop Prosecuting Marijuana Possession Cases
Baltimore has both the highest murder rate among the nation’s big cities and one of the most broken relationships between its police and its citizenry. Only one out of four homicides were solved last year. And the city’s enforcement of marijuana laws has fallen almost exclusively on African-Americans. (Dewan, 1/29)

MPR: Legalizing Marijuana: Can Minnesota Learn From Other States?
Minnesota could be the next state to consider legalizing recreational marijuana. Bills to legalize and tax marijuana were introduced Monday in the state House and Senate, and DFL Gov. Tim Walz has said he supports legalization. Getting there, though, means state lawmakers must first confront some hard issues, including how to license growers and how to treat people previously convicted of crimes involving marijuana. (Collins, 1/29)

The Star Tribune: Minnesota Health Dept. Gets Tougher On Elder Abuse 
The state’s unusually swift and vigorous discipline of a northern Minnesota care facility where a vulnerable adult is believed to have been subjected to a fatal beating signals a larger effort by the Minnesota Department of Health to follow through on promises of tighter scrutiny over the senior care industry. …Under pressure from families and legislators, new Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm overhauled the agency’s system for responding to and investigating allegations, eliminating a vast backlog of never investigated cases while speeding up the pace of new investigations. (Serres, 1/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Mother’s Agonizing Wait Ends In SF: She’s Reunited With Baby Taken From Father By U.S. Officials At Border
A Honduran mother in San Francisco was reunited with her 17-month-old daughter on Tuesday night after spending a month desperately pleading with federal immigration authorities for the return of her baby who was separated from her father at the U.S.-Mexico border. The baby, Juliet, was sent to a shelter for migrant children in Texas after immigration officials took her from her father, whom they arrested Dec. 28 near Calexico. (Sanchez, 1/29)

Detroit Free Press: Michigan Child Dies Of Flu — It’s The Second Death Of Season
A second Michigan child has died from flu complications this season, the state Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday. The school-age child was from Alpena County, said Dr. Joshua Meyerson, medical director for District No. 4 Health Department, which includes Alpena, Montmorency, Cheboygan and Presque Isle counties. (Shamus, 1/29)

Wyoming Public Radio: Additional Tax On Tobacco Dies In Committee
The House Revenue Committee voted not to adopt an additional tax on tobacco products including e-cigarettes. It would have attached one more dollar on the end of tobacco sales. Those for the tax argued it would boost state revenue while improving public health. (McKim, 1/29)

Dallas Morning News: More Than 300 Middle-Schoolers Out Sick With Flulike Symptoms In Coppell ISD 
More than 300 students at a Coppell middle school were absent or left early Monday because of the flu or flulike symptoms, KXAS-TV (NBC5) reported. Coppell Middle School West told the state that 235 students were out Monday and at least 115 more went home early, according to Coppell ISD. The district sent a letter to parents Monday informing them of the flu cases and health attendance guidelines. (Cardona, 1/30)

New Hampshire Public Radio: Shaheen To Highlight PFAS Contamination In N.H. With Guest At The State Of The Union
The Environmental Protection Agency will reportedly not issue hard limits on two likely toxic industrial chemicals that have contaminated parts of New Hampshire. The report from Politico is drawing criticism from advocates and lawmakers. (Ropeik, 1/29)

St. Louis Public Radio: WashU Engineers Use Bacteria And Nanotechnology To Purify Dirty Water
Engineers at WashU are combining bacteria and tiny engineered particles to create a filter that can kill harmful bacteria. The United Nations expects that by 2025, about half of the world’s population will be living in areas where water is scarce. (Chen, 1/30)

KQED: California Approves Plan To Clean Up Central Valley’s Toxic Air
The California Air Resources Board on Thursday announced it’s moving forward with a plan to clean up the toxic air that plagues the San Joaquin Valley.The region, which stretches from roughly Stockton to Bakersfield through the middle of the state, suffers some of the most dangerous air quality in the country. (Arcuni, 1/29)

Boston Globe: David Torchiana, Chief Executive Of Partners HealthCare, Unexpectedly Announces Departure
Dr. David Torchiana, the chief executive of Partners HealthCare, has unexpectedly announced his departure, after his push to integrate the sprawling health system encountered rising tensions from other Partners leaders. Torchiana, 64, told the Partners board Monday night that he will retire at the end of April, after four years leading an organization that is also the state’s largest private employer. (Dayal McCluskey and Kowlaczyk, 1/29)

WBUR: CEO Of Powerful Partners HealthCare Unexpectedly Opts To Step Down
Dr. David Torchiana, a cardiologist who since 2015 has been CEO of the powerful Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest private employer, is stepping down. In a statement, Partners said Torchiana, 65, plans to retire effective April 29. (Bebinger, 1/29)

Miami Herald: Heart Surgery Technology Developed At Baptist In FL Debuts
The result of [Barry] Katzen’s work with Philips debuted on Monday with the unveiling of the Azurion with FlexArm — an X-ray machine capable of rotating around an operating table like a gyroscope around an axis at various angles, giving clinicians access to the patient’s whole body at any time during a procedure. …X-ray imaging is key to the growing number of diseases that can be treated with minimally invasive procedures, and he envisions the machine being useful for image-guided oncology treatment for cancer patients. (Chang, 1/29)

Sacramento Bee: Camp Fire: As Last Shelter Closes, Where Will Survivors Go?
Camp Fire survivors Lisa Butcher and Randy Viehmeyer remember waking up one night to the screams of a nearby shelter resident reliving the nightmare of watching her dog burn alive. Having bounced from one chaotic and sometimes dangerous shelter to another, the couple said they’ve experience a kind of volatile “hell” since their Paradise home burned down last November during the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. (Yoon-Hendricks, 1/30)

Boston Globe: State, Mass. Biotech Leaders Team Up To Offer Up Paid Internships
A new program unveiled by Massachusetts biotech leaders and government officials on Tuesday, Project Onramp will provide up to 50 paid internships to college students at life sciences companies this summer. All of the recipients will be the first generation in their families to attend a four-year college. (Saltzman, 1/29)

The Washington Post: District Leaders Urge Comprehensive Approach To Reducing Homicides
Amid a violent January in which 18 people have been killed in the District, city leaders on Tuesday pressed for additional resources for crime prevention, including a new effort to help find jobs for inmates nearing release from the city jail. Speaking at the monthly breakfast for the mayor and D.C. Council, authorities discussed a wide range of strategies to address a spike in killings in 2018 that has not abated with the start of the new year. (Hermann, 1/29)

Health News Florida: Judge Pokes Hole In ‘Dry Needling’ Rule
Administrative Law Judge Lawrence P. Stevenson issued an order rejecting a proposed rule by the Florida Board of Physical Therapy that set minimum standards for physical therapists to use dry needling. Stevenson said the proposal exceeded the Board of Physical Therapy’s “grant of rulemaking authority because it would expand the scope of physical therapy practice, not merely establish a standard of practice.” (Sexton, 1/29)

KQED: Sonoma County Spills Spewed Nearly 3 Million Gallons Of Sewage Into Creeks And Bay
Sonoma County water officials, under order from the state to improve the capacity of their sewage system, say a valve malfunction and leaky pipes resulted in a string of spills this month that released 2.7 million gallons of waste and stormwater, some of which flowed into local creeks and San Pablo Bay. The largest spill occurred Jan. 12, when a faulty valve at a Sonoma County Water Agency treatment plant caused sewage to run backward in a pipeline that handles waste from homes and businesses in the Sonoma Valley. (Goldberg, 1/29)

The Associated Press: Disney World Worker Has Hepatitis A, No Others Ill
Health officials in Florida say a worker at a Walt Disney World restaurant has been diagnosed with Hepatitis A, but no other colleagues or visitors have gotten sick. Authorities said that the virus was confirmed last week in a food service worker at the Hoop-Dee-Doo musical revue at the resort’s Fort Wilderness Campground. The health department has been vaccinating co-workers this week and last week. (1/29)