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The Colorado funeral home owners who allegedly stored 190 decaying bodies and sent grieving families fake ashes were ordered by a judge to pay $950 million to the victims’ relatives in a civil case, the attorney announced Monday. The judgment is unlikely to be paid out since the owners, Jon and Carie Hallford, have been in financial trouble for years. They also face hundreds of criminal charges in separate state and federal cases, including abuse of a corpse, and allegations they took $130,000 from families for cremations and burials they never provided. (Bedayn, 8/5)

The city of Baltimore’s high-stakes lawsuit against opioid manufacturers and distributors is facing a major test in court this week that will decide whether the case goes to a jury. Baltimore City Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill heard arguments Monday on whether he should throw out the lawsuit because, the drug companies argue, the city has not provided enough evidence to show they are responsible for the harms of the opioid crisis. (O'Neill, 8/5)

Over the past year, Missouri has made significant progress in reducing its backlog of overdue nursing home inspections, recent federal data shows. However, the state continues to be notable for the low levels of nursing staff at many of its facilities. (Bates, 8/5)

Medical treatments often need to be pre-approved by insurance – what’s known as “prior authorization.” But many doctors and patients complain the process can be burdensome, causes delays and sometimes prevents people from getting necessary care. A new state law aims to address those issues, by reforming how prior authorizations work in New Hampshire starting next year. (Cuno-Booth, 8/5)

State officials Monday outlined a new safety program for home health care workers that will include GPS monitoring and escorts to potentially risky clients. The program comes in response to the murder last year of a visiting nurse who was killed when she went to administer medications to a registered sex offender. (Altimari, 8/5)

Frustrated by the lack of access to expensive weight loss drugs, North Carolina officials are urging the Biden administration to negotiate licenses with the manufacturers so that lower-cost alternatives can be made available. (Silverman, 8/5)

Texas lawmakers nearly three years ago promised changes to prevent the devastation from a deadly winter storm from happening again. But the damage caused by Hurricane Beryl last month shows that much remains the same, particularly when it comes to preventing carbon monoxide poisoning. (Churchill, 8/5)

A San Diego-based Catholic nonprofit filed a lawsuit this week against California Attorney General Rob Bonta that seeks to protect access to a treatment that’s said to reverse medication-induced abortions if taken quickly enough. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Diego, is a response to a state lawsuit Bonta filed last year alleging that a national anti-abortion group and five crisis pregnancy centers in Northern California were using “false and misleading statements” to advertise and promote what they call “abortion pill reversal,” or APR. (Riggins, 8/5)

States that ban or restrict abortion have flooded anti-abortion counseling centers with nearly $500 million in taxpayer funding since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, according to a new report. Equity Forward, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on issues including reproductive rights, analyzed budgets from 23 states that dedicate public funding to what are known as crisis pregnancy centers. ... The study found that ... $489 million, was appropriated in the last two years. (Kegu, 8/5)