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The Alaska Supreme Court is considering whether to overturn a lower court ruling that removed restrictions on the kind of providers who can perform abortions in the state. A Superior Court judge last year struck down a law that required abortions to be performed only by a doctor licensed by the State Medical Board. The ruling came after Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky sued the state in 2019. (Samuels, 10/29)

Ohio’s move to cut off Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood could soon create a healthcare access crisis for tens of thousands of vulnerable patients across the state—especially in communities where few affordable alternatives exist. (10/29)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: The Quiet Collapse Of America’s Reproductive Health Safety Net

In late October, Maine Family Planning announced three rural clinics in northern Maine would close by month’s end. These primary care and reproductive health clinics served about 800 patients, many uninsured or on Medicaid. “People don’t realize how much these clinics hold together the local health system until they’re gone,” said George Hill, the group’s president and CEO. “For thousands of patients, that was their doctor, their lab, and their lifeline.” (Gounder, 10/30)

A Florida appeals court has vacated a $213 million judgment against St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in a case popularized by a Netflix documentary. The family of Maya Kowalski had sued the hospital for claims including false imprisonment, wrongful death and medical negligence after the institution held the then-10-year-old under state custody in 2016, suspecting her mother, Beata, of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Beata later died by suicide, and the family’s story became the subject of the documentary “Take Care of Maya.” (Bruce, 10/29)

A backlog of defendants deemed mentally unfit for trial persists despite public policy changes to address the crisis. (Bogan, 10/30)

California health officials are urging people at high risk of contracting mpox — a viral disease that causes painful rash and fever — to make sure they’re fully vaccinated, in light of three recent locally acquired cases in the state. “We want people to know Clade I is here, it’s circulating, and people should get up to date on the vaccine,” California Public Health Officer Dr. Erica Pan said Tuesday during a briefing with medical professionals. (Ho, 10/29)

The vast majority of urban, public grade schools in California are paved-over “nature deserts” sorely lacking in trees or shade — leaving most of the state’s 5.8 million school-age children to bake in the sun during breaks from the classroom as rising global temperatures usher in more dangerous heat waves. That’s the conclusion of a team of California researchers from UCLA, UC Davis and UC Berkeley who studied changes in the tree cover at 7,262 urban public schools across the Golden State between 2018 through 2022. (Beason, 10/29)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: California Faces Limits As It Directs Health Facilities To Push Back On Immigration Raids

In recent months, federal agents have camped out in the lobby of a Southern California hospital, guarded detained patients — sometimes shackled — in hospital rooms, and chased an immigrant landscaper into a surgical center. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have also shown up at community clinics. Health providers say that officers have tried to enter a parking lot hosting a mobile clinic, waved a machine gun in the faces of clinicians serving the homeless, and hauled a passerby into an unmarked car outside a community health center. (Boyd-Barrett, 10/30)