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More than 2,400 patients at hospitals around Portland, Oregon, may have been exposed to infectious diseases such as hepatitis B and C, as well as HIV, because of an anesthesiologist who may not have followed infection control practices, officials said. Providence said in a statement Thursday that it is notifying about 2,200 people seen at Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center in Oregon City and two patients seen at Providence Portland Medical Center that the physician’s actions might have put them at low risk of exposure to possible infections. (7/12)

Health care centers and medical record-holders are targets for ransomware gangs. But why? The Florida Department of Health is working to recover systems that affect its efficiency in distributing birth and death certificates. The outages came after ransomware gang claimed it hacked into the network and stole 100 gigabytes of personal data. The department hasn't confirmed the cyberattack but said its Vital Statistics system was going through a temporary outage. (Pedersen, 7/11)

Despite a record 46-day streak of triple digit feels-like temperatures, Miami’s unprecedented brutal summer last year wasn’t that deadly, contrasting with the rest of the nation where federal records show heat fatalities nationally spiked to a 45-year high. One of the reasons is that Miami takes heat seriously, not just reacting when temperatures soar, but planning months in advance. ... The Miami-Dade government and the local National Weather Service office team up to treat heat like something more scary, but often less deadly. (Borenstein, 7/11)

A sweeping investigation into suspected drug trafficking rings has produced more than 200 arrests and drug seizures valued at nearly $685,000, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. He also touted prevention and treatment programs fighting the deadly addiction epidemic. ... The crackdown, dubbed Operation Summer Heat, is ongoing and will result in additional arrests, said State Police Commissioner Phillip Burnett Jr. (Schreiner, 7/11)

West Virginia and Idaho are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review rulings that blocked the enforcement of state laws prohibiting transgender athletes from competing in sports. “If the Supreme Court takes this up, it will determine the fate of women’s sports across the entire country for many years to come,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said Thursday at a briefing with reporters at the state Capitol in Charleston. (Willingham, 7/11)

As a child in Missouri, Anoela Martin sometimes lived in another person's garage. At other times, home was under a bridge. Occasionally, it was in an unsafe home with a parent. She bounced back and forth between her mom’s care in Kansas City and her dad’s in St. Joseph. “My dad was a raging alcoholic at that time, and my mom was a drug addict,” she said. “We didn’t really get to eat as much as we probably should have. He wasn’t home a lot. We kind of had to take care of ourselves.” (Husted, 7/11)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Lifesaving Drugs And Police Projects Mark First Use Of Opioid Settlement Cash In California

Sonja Verdugo lost her husband to an opioid overdose last year. She regularly delivers medical supplies to people using drugs who are living — and dying — on the streets of Los Angeles. And she advocates at Los Angeles City Hall for policies to address addiction and homelessness. Yet Verdugo didn’t know that hundreds of millions of dollars annually are flowing to California communities to combat the opioid crisis, a payout that began in 2022 and continues through 2038. (Pattani and Thompson, 7/12)