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A 25-year-old man the FBI believes was responsible for an explosion that ripped through a Southern California fertility clinic left behind “anti-pro-life” writings before carrying out an attack investigators called terrorism, authorities said Sunday. Guy Edward Bartkus of Twentynine Palms, California, was identified by the FBI as the suspect in the apparent car bomb detonation Saturday that damaged the clinic in the upscale city of Palm Springs in the desert east of Los Angeles. His writings seemed to indicate anti-natalist views, which hold that people should not continue to procreate, authorities said. (Raza and Tucker, 5/18)

“We believe he was the subject found by the vehicle,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, referencing a 2010 silver Ford Fusion sedan near the explosion site. Davis said investigators believed the suspect was attempting to livestream the attack, which he described as probably “the largest bombing scene that we’ve had in Southern California,” eclipsing the 2018 bombing of a day spa in Aliso Viejo. (Jany, St. John, Jarvie, Winton and Wick, 5/18)

The father of the man accused of setting off a bomb outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California, has said he does not recognize the person accused of the attack. Richard Bartkus, who hasn’t spoken to 25-year-old suspect Guy Edward Bartkus in more than a decade, gave an emotional interview to CBS News Los Angeles where he described how he remembered his son as someone who always “tried to help people.” (Palmer, 5/19)

More babies are being admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) across the country, according to a data brief from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The brief analyzed NICU admissions data between 2016 and 2023. (Thorp, 5/16)

Reproductive health advocates are sounding the alarm over the case of a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain dead months ago but must now stay on life support, according to her family, because of the state’s strict abortion ban law. (Panetta and Rodriguez, 5/16)

Convenience stores are aptly named. They’re stocked with essentials people need at all hours of the day or night, everything from a quart of milk to a package of condoms. But they haven’t stocked contraception for women. That’s slowly and steadily changing as an Oakland, California-based company, Cadence, has spent the last year stocking highway gas stations, corner delis and 24-hour convenience stores with its own emergency contraception brand called “Morning After Pill,” which prevents pregnancy by delaying ovulation if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex or a birth control mishap. (Varney, 5/18)

Among women with low-risk, early-stage cervical cancer, long-term survival outcomes were similar following simple, modified radical, or radical hysterectomy, according to an observational cohort study. For more than 2,600 patients, 7-year survival rates were 93.9% with simple hysterectomy versus 94.2% with modified radical hysterectomy and 95.4% with radical hysterectomy (P=0.15), reported Kathleen M. Darcy, PhD, of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Annandale, Virginia, and colleagues. (Bassett, 5/16)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies

Sophie Hofeldt planned to receive prenatal care and give birth at her local hospital, 10 minutes from her house. Instead, she’s driving more than three hours round trip for her appointments. The hospital, Winner Regional Health, recently joined the increasing number of rural hospitals shuttering their birthing units. “It’s going to be a lot more of a stress and a hassle for women to get the health care that they need because they have to go so much further,” said Hofeldt, who has a June 10 due date for her first child. (Zionts, 5/19)