State Highlights: New Jersey Considers Boosting Already High Cigarette Tax For First Time In 10 Years; Shutting Expensive ER Helps Save Rural Georgia Hospital

The New York Times: New Jersey May Raise Cigarette Taxes To Highest Level In Nation
Zahir Shabazz smokes about three packs of cigarettes each week. Each time, he hands a cashier $10, give or take, and a slim pack of Newports appears, feeding a habit of nearly 30 years. He said he knows it is time to quit. “It’s too much,” he said. But Mr. Shabazz, 42, of Union, N.J., could soon wind up paying even more. Gov. Philip D. Murphy is expected to release a proposed budget on Tuesday that includes a $1.65 increase in New Jersey’s cigarette tax, two policy advisers said. (Tully, 2/25)

The Associated Press: Rural Georgia Hospital Is Reborn But Without Its Costly ER
For years, the hospital in this small, south Georgia city was in grave financial trouble. Like other rural American hospitals, Cook Medical Center was saddled with an outdated building, trouble recruiting doctors and a patient population short on health insurance. In 2017, hospital officials shut down the emergency room, and the 60-bed hospital itself was next, local officials say, unless the city and county could cover some of the cost of a new building. (2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Anti-Vaccine Protesters Receive Assurances From Siebel Newsom
California First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom told anti-vaccine protesters rallying outside her Sacramento-area home that her husband’s administration is looking into their concerns about California’s new laws limiting who can be exempted from shots required for school, while also saying she believes there needs to be more dialog about whether some immunizations are unnecessary. In a video taken Monday, Siebel Newsom is seen talking with the protesters about the vaccine laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year before she asks that they not post the video online. (Gutierrez, 2/24)

Georgia Health News: Surprise Billing Legislation OK’d By Senate, But Some See A Loophole
For at least five years, proposals to curb surprise medical billing have hit roadblocks in the Georgia General Assembly. Health insurers and physicians have been sharply split over how to fix the problem, and lawmakers have tended to line up with one side or the other. The state Senate on Monday took a major step to end those stalemates. The chamber unanimously passed Senate Bill 359, which sets up a process for regulating charges from out-of-network medical providers. An identical bill is working through the Georgia House as well. (Miller, 2/24)

The Washington Post: Virginia Senate Panel Advances Seven Gun Control Bills
A state Senate committee on Monday advanced seven of the eight gun-control bills advocated by Gov. Ralph Northam, a week after killing a proposed assault weapons ban that several Democrats said was going too far. Two of Monday’s bills were scaled back to help preserve support among more centrist members of the Democratic caucus, and another has already failed once on the floor of the Senate. But the Northam administration took the votes as a victory in the wake of last week’s disappointment. (Schneider, 2/24)

The CT Mirror: Lawmakers Advanced A Bill Barring New Religious Exemptions To Vaccines. Here’s What It Would Do.
Amid pushback from Republicans and thousands of outraged parents, the legislature’s Public Health Committee voted Monday to advance a bill that would ban religious exemptions to mandatory immunizations in Connecticut. The measure, which started off with a strict timeline of barring all children who are not vaccinated on religious grounds from entering public and private schools next fall, was amended Monday to allow students already enrolled in school to finish their education. Only new children entering the school system or day care would be prohibited from claiming a religious exemption. (Carlesso, 2/24)

Dallas Morning News: Judge In Texas Foster Care Suit Wants All State Records On Teen Girl’s Death In Care, Restraints
The recent death of a foster child in a treatment center in Fort Bend County and allegations of restraints being used on foster kids at another Houston-area facility have prompted the federal judge overseeing Texas foster care to demand records to be turned over to her special masters. U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack also flashed with anger Friday that, according to her masters, her order for 24-hour awake supervision in large foster homes and institutions continues to be ignored by some providers. (Garrett, 2/24)

Georgia Health News: EPA Doubling Atlanta Area Under Investigation For Lead Contamination 
The federal Environmental Protection Agency is doubling the area it’s probing for lead contamination west of downtown Atlanta, and residents and volunteer researchers said they want more help from local governments to notify neighbors and urge lead testing of children. So far, the campaign to encourage testing of children for lead, a dangerous neurotoxin, is being run by volunteers, who say they need the city’s and county’s help to spread the word in the English Avenue and Vine City communities, among the city’s poorest. (Miller and Trubey, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: More States Consider Free Tampons In School Bathrooms
In schools around the country, more girls are making the same request: free tampons. Fueled by a wave of youth activism, students are raising money, lobbying their state representatives and school boards, holding schoolwide assemblies and launching Instagram accounts to help make tampons and other menstrual products free and accessible in their school bathrooms. Lawmakers have taken notice. (Calfas, 2/25)

The Washington Post: Dante Taylor’s Family Accuses Prison
Among the last pictures the prison took of Dante Taylor, his face is warped and bruised, one of his eyes is swollen and black, his lips are bloated. The 22-year-old inmate at Wende Correctional Facility in New York posed for a snapshot hours before he tied a bedsheet around his neck on Oct. 7, 2017, according to a 47-page lawsuit filed in a federal court in Buffalo on Monday. His mother, Darlene McDay, and family allege that the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and prison staff drove Taylor to kill himself. They claim the prison guards beat Taylor, tied his arms and legs, and threw him down a flight of stairs. (Kornfield, 2/24)

WSB-TV.com: Georgia Among The Worst States For Seniors Contracting STDs, CDC Says
Georgia is one of the top states where senior citizens are contracting sexually transmitted diseases. The Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention says the numbers are at record levels.According to TheSeniorList.com, a new study released Thursday says senior STD infections have increased 131% in Georgia between 2008 and 2017. Georgia is ranked 6th in the United States. (2/24)

WBUR: Health Workers Try Community Approach To Tackle Asthma On Navajo Reservation
Asthma rates are high on the Navajo reservation. Children are more likely to have asthma attacks and more likely to die from the condition than the general population. Researchers and health care providers are trying community-based education to try to lower asthma rates on the reservation. (O’Neill, 2/24)

Detroit Free Press: Detroit Home For Kids Of Incarcerated Parents Is Hit By Burglars
Sherelle Hogan envisions her nonprofit’s upcoming home as a safe haven — a clubhouse where kids can do their homework, receive counseling and enjoy a meal together on Detroit’s east side. But the Pure Heart Foundation, which helps children of incarcerated parents, is facing a setback after thieves raided the home early Friday morning, leaving an estimated $10,000 to $15,000 in damage one day before a scheduled open house for donors. (Jackson, 2/24)

Philadelphia Inquirer: UnitedHealthcare Tackles Homelessness As A Root Cause Of Poor Health, And Philly Is A Test Bed
After a long stay at Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, Wright tried going home that September, but the West Oak Lane house where he had an apartment had been sold and all his belongings were gone. That setback forced Wright, 62, onto an odyssey of depending on siblings and homeless shelters for a roof and a bed.Things started looking up in November, when Cynthia Brown, a community health worker with Wright’s Medicaid plan, plucked Wright out of the swirling chaos and steered him toward a new housing program from UnitedHealthcare that the world’s largest health insurer was starting in Philadelphia for some of its homeless, chronically ill members. (Brubaker, 2/21)

Dallas Morning News: Confidential Access To Contraception For Texas Teens Has Declined, According To A New Study
Texas’ overhaul of family planning programs has left teens in the state with fewer options to get contraception without parental consent, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Adolescent Health. The study documents how publicly funded family planning providers struggled to provide teens with confidential access to contraception after Texas cut the state family planning budget in 2011 and excluded Planned Parenthood from funding. (Mendez, 2/24)

Detroit Free Press: U-M Officials Knew About Sexual Misconduct Allegations, But Didn’t Act
Faculty members at the University of Michigan raised concerns during the hiring process of a noted opera singer in 2015, going so far as to wonder who was going to tell him to keep his hands off male students, according to depositions included in court filings. The previously unreported depositions, included in a mid-January lawsuit filing in U.S. District Court in Detroit, detail how faculty raised issues as singer David Daniels was being brought to Ann Arbor. Years after his hiring, an internal U-M investigation found in 2018 that Daniels had sexually harassed more than 20 students, including offering to pay them for sex. (Jesse, 2/24)

11alive.com: Nursing Home Where Woman Was ‘Eaten Alive’ By Mites Receives Over $8M In Taxpayer Money 
A Georgia nursing home once criticized for allowing an elderly woman to die from a scabies infestation is back in the spotlight. The latest complaints come from a widower, whose wife lived at the facility, and a former nursing home manager. Frances Palmer moved into Shepherd Hills Nursing Home in LaFayette, Georgia in the summer of 2018. In the time she lived there, her husband Jim, documented injuries related to three different falls reported to him by staff. (Basye and Pierrotti, 2/24)

The Washington Post: 10% Of D.C. High-Schoolers Say They Experience Dating Violence. The City Wants To Change That.
Jae’vion Walker, 13, told the middle and high school students arrayed before him about his best friend. They had been typical teens, texting constantly. Then, his friend stopped answering when he started dating someone. The middle-schooler said his friend would no longer play with him at recess because his girlfriend didn’t want him spending time with his friends. He stopped partaking of activities he loved, Jae’vion said. Jae’vion decided to approach his friend and tell him that the relationship was unhealthy and offer support if he wanted to end it. (Stein, 2/24)

The Baltimore Sun: Neil R. Woods Surrendered His Dental License Earlier This Month Due To Investigations
A Severna Park dentist has voluntarily surrendered his license after accusations that he provided poor dental care to patients that paid and pre-paid for thousand of dollars of care. Neil R. Woods “voluntarily, knowingly and freely” surrendered his license in a letter to the Maryland State Board of Dental Examiners that was dated Feb. 5. Because of this, he can no longer practice or identify himself as a dentist in Maryland. (Conaway, 2/25)

California Healthline: The Golden State’s Mixed Record On Lung Cancer
It was a bewildering moment for Zach Jump, the American Lung Association’s national director of epidemiology and statistics. The numbers leaped off the computer screen and prompted an immediate question: How could California, a leader in reducing lung cancer cases, fall so short on early diagnosis and treatment of the disease? “It’s like you’d found the needle in the haystack of results,” said Jump. “I don’t know if anyone knew this was going to show up.” (Kreidler, 2/24)