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A federal judge on Monday denied a request by a Maine family planning provider to block the law that prevents such providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for a year if they also offer abortions. (Hellmann, 8/26)

Illinois hospital staff will soon be required by law to refer parents of severely premature infants to services that can help prevent years of intensive and expensive therapy later, when the children are older. The new law follows reporting from The Hechinger Report that exposed how hospitals often fail to connect many eligible parents to these opportunities for their children after they leave neonatal intensive care units. (8/25)

Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo is recommending against the use of dental amalgam for routine fillings, citing potential risks from mercury exposure. Dental amalgam is a mixture of metals, roughly 50% elemental (liquid) mercury by weight, combined with a powdered alloy of silver, tin and copper. Mercury binds the alloy particles into a strong, durable, and solid filling, according to the FDA. (Mayer, 8/25)

Since last year, ProPublica has been reporting on the troubled system for death investigations in Idaho, where a person’s cause of death is determined by elected coroners with no oversight or state support and, often, little training or education. The Idaho Office of Performance Evaluations in January sent the state’s coroners a formal survey about their work, drawing responses from just over half. The office told coroners that it wouldn’t attach names to their responses when it made the survey results public, and some gave unvarnished critiques. “The coroner system in Idaho is broken and a joke,” one wrote. They also took the opportunity to plead for help, for changes they believe could transform Idaho into a place where death investigations consistently meet national standards. (Dutton, 8/26)

Bernie Rogoff is a Korean War-era Army veteran who’s spent his life advocating for fellow service members. This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. The 95-year-old led the push for Denver’s modern Veterans Affairs medical center, which opened in 2018 to serve Colorado’s nearly 400,000 veterans. Rogoff still calls it one of his proudest achievements. He remembers it finally felt like “someone is listening.” (McKinnon, 8/26)

As fentanyl propelled overdose deaths to ever more alarming numbers several years ago, public health officials throughout the United States stepped up a blunt, pragmatic response. Desperate to save lives, they tried making drug use safer. ... Now, across the country, states and communities are turning away from harm reduction strategies. (Hoffman, 8/25)