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Negotiators will return to the bargaining table Friday in hopes of averting a nurses' strike at five Twin Cities hospitals. The Minnesota Nurses Association represents 4,800 nurses at the affected hospitals. Union officials and Allina Health representatives said Tuesday that federal mediators have called both sides back together. The union is scheduled to strike at 7 a.m. Monday, Labor Day, in a dispute over health insurance, workplace safety and staffing. (8/30)

A federal mediator is calling negotiators for Allina Health and roughly 4,800 hospital nurses back for a last-chance round of talks on Friday. Absent a deal, the nurses are scheduled to go on strike at 7 a.m. Monday — Labor Day — at United Hospital in St. Paul, Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, Unity Hospital in Fridley, and Abbott Northwestern Hospital and the Phillips Eye Institute in Minneapolis. The nurses staged a one-week strike in late June, but the latest walkout is considered open-ended. (Olson, 8/30)

A deal has been struck on a controversial bill sponsored by Planned Parenthood to create new penalties for distributing illegal recordings in the wake of high-profile secret videos circulated by anti-abortion activists. The bill, by Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D-Echo Park), had sought to create a new crime for distributing video or audio recordings involving a healthcare professional that were taken without a person's consent. In California, it is already illegal to make such recordings without all parties' authorization. (Mason, 8/30)

A November ballot proposal in Arkansas would impose new limits on attorneys’ fees and pain-and-suffering damages in medical-malpractice claims. Lawyers in the state are fighting the initiative by relying on an essential tool of the trade: they’re suing. The battle over the so-called Lawsuit Reform Amendment of 2016, also known as Issue 4, pits the state’s bar association against health-care interests, including nursing homes, that helped finance the effort to get the proposal on the ballot. (Gershman, 8/30)

U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst said Tuesday that suicide threats by veterans should always be treated seriously, and her staff is investigating the circumstances of Marine veteran in eastern Iowa who was reportedly denied inpatient treatment just hours before taking his life in early July. "If a veteran comes in and expresses to a physician that I am going to kill myself, they are stating I need to be placed in a hospital, that should never be discounted," Ernst told reporters after touring the Department of Veterans Affairs Central Iowa Health Care System in Des Moines. (Petroski, 8/30)

The University of Minnesota has filed a lawsuit that alleges patent infringement by a drug company related to the sale of blockbuster medications that can cure patients of hepatitis C. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the U alleges that California-based Gilead Sciences has infringed, and continues to infringe, on the university’s intellectual property rights by selling three medicines that contain the drug sofosbuvir. (Snowbeck, 8/30)

Tenet Healthcare Corp. has offered $514 million to settle a federal fraud case, but that’s not the end of the bad numbers. The Dallas-based hospital operator has lost $3.6 billion in market cap since last summer.  At $24 a share on Tuesday, the stock price has fallen 60 percent since July 2015. That's among the worst declines in the hospital segment and over a third of the drop came this month, after Tenet reported the latest settlement figure and a fifth consecutive quarter of net losses. (Schnurman, 8/30)

A year after a bipolar inmate was beaten to death in Santa Clara County while awaiting a bed in a mental health facility, the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a diversion plan aimed at reducing the number of mentally ill people warehoused in jail. The plan was crafted by a subcommittee charged with studying alternatives to incarceration after inmate Michael Tyree was beaten to death in late August 2015. Three jail guards have been charged with murder in his death. (Kaplan, 8/30)

As W.C. Fields sorta said, a rich man is nothing but a poor man with money. And a medical degree. At least when it comes to compensation for jobs in Georgia, a bit of medical training – actually, quite a bit – is the most likely way to wend your way to the top of the list. Or, perhaps, you could run the hospital. Of the ten best-compensated jobs in the state, nine are medical professions and medical specialties and the other is chief executive. (Kanell, 8/30)

The high cost of housing has created a public health crisis in Oakland, Dr. Muntu Davis, head of the Alameda County Public Health Department, said during a news conference at Oakland City Hall on Tuesday. Hypertension and asthma rates are increasing as residents grapple with increased rents and lack of stability. The associated stress can cause depression, anxiety and even schizophrenia, according to a new study by the Health Department and the Oakland research firm PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity. (Swan, 8/30)

The number of people infected with a contagious diarrheal disease continues to grow in central Ohio and public-health officials say poor home hygiene could be to blame. This year's cases of diagnosed cryptosporidiosis spiked to 423 Monday, up from 250 last week, marking a nearly 70 percent increase in just a few days, according to Jose Rodriguez, spokesman for Columbus Public Health. (Neese, 8/31)