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For several decades, King/Drew hospital in South Los Angeles served one of the neediest parts of Los Angeles .... Its opening in 1972 was viewed as a victory of the civil rights era and a source of pride for black Los Angeles. But plagued in later years by poor medical care, staff errors and a series of controversial patient deaths, it came to be viewed by many as a place of peril, nicknamed Killer King. On Tuesday, delivering on a long-delayed promise to replace the facility, officials will open the doors on the new, state-of-the-art Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital. It shares the site of the original medical center, but it has a new management structure and operating philosophy as it enters a dramatically different healthcare landscape than the one exited by its predecessor. (Karlamangla and Jennings, 7/6)

In the latest move in a legal and political battle, a circuit judge has issued an order blocking a new law that requires women to wait 24 hours before having an abortion in Florida. After a hearing by conference call on Thursday, Leon Circuit Judge Charles Dodson granted a motion by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights to vacate a stay that had allowed the 24-hour waiting period to remain in effect. (Menzel, 7/6)

San Francisco wants to take Nevada to court. That's after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Nevada's appeal of a lawsuit over what's known as patient dumping. San Francisco had sued, wanting the state to reimburse it for busing indigent psychiatric patients from Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital to the Bay Area. Nevada filed the appeal of that suit. (Morell, 7/6)

Oregon women will no longer have to visit a health clinic for a birth control prescription starting next year. Instead, they can head straight to their pharmacist for contraception under a measure signed into law Monday by Gov. Kate Brown. Advocates said the measure gives Oregon women the easiest access to birth control in the nation. Rep. Knute Buehler, a Bend Republican who sponsored the measure, said it gives women more control over their health care while helping prevent unwanted pregnancies. (7/6)

Gov. Terry Branstad, who pushed through a controversial plan to close two of Iowa's four state mental hospitals, is leaving open the possibility of closing one or both of the remaining two. Reporters asked Branstad on Monday if he would propose closing the mental hospitals at Independence and Cherokee, as he did with the ones at Clarinda and Mount Pleasant. He declined to make a commitment, but suggested such closures were possible. (Leys and Pfannenstiel, 7/6)

In six years, the number of beds at the state-run psychiatric hospital at Fort Logan has dropped from 222 to 94, forcing the mental institution to admit only patients with the most severe illnesses. Yet while the overall level of severity of patients with psychosis, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder has increased, the staff-to-patient ratio has not budged. Five staff members per shift run each 24-patient unit at Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan in south Denver. (Brown, 7/7)

Maine is undergoing its worst acute hepatitis C outbreak since it began recording cases in the 1990s. Reported cases of the disease have soared since 2013, corresponding with skyrocketing heroin use, and are more than triple the national average. The heroin epidemic is causing many undesirable ripple effects in Maine, public health advocates say, including the spread of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C. (Lawlor, 7/6)

In an unusual bit of collaboration between a private and a public school, Texas Christian University and the University of North Texas Health Science Center announced plans Monday to open a medical school together. The school will operate on the Fort Worth campuses of the UNT Health Science Center and TCU. Administrators hope to enroll the first class of students in the fall of 2018. At full enrollment, the school will have about 240 students working toward medical degrees. (Watkins, 7/6)

On January 5, 2014, [Keith] Vidal's mother said, her son was having a particularly bad day. He wasn't acting violently, but "it didn't seem like Keith was in reality," Mary Wilsey said. He refused to go to the hospital for an evaluation, so his family called 911 for help. ... Police responded to the family's home in Brunswick County, North Carolina. Law enforcement from three different agencies arrived, and Vidal was shot. ... Wilsey, Keith Vidal's mother, said she believes that specialized training in mental health issues would have led to a different outcome for her son. She's advocating for "Keith's Law," which would make mental health training mandatory for North Carolina police departments. (Lucas, 7/6)

At 52, Dajaun Alexander says he's looking for a fresh start. He graduated from a cooking course here last month and has been chosen for a paid apprenticeship. His prospects for a full-time job after that are very good, his chef instructor said. For Alexander, completing Community Servings' 12-week course represents a rare achievement in a life punctuated by what he calls "bad decisions." He is a recovering alcoholic with a history of incarcerations, broken relationships and spotty employment. Cooking, he said, "is my passion." It may also be his path to sobriety. (Vestal, 7/1)