�鶹Ů��

First, there was the deputy chief facing mandatory retirement as his 63rd birthday approached. The next day, it was a veteran homicide detective who had talked dozens of people out of killing themselves. A week later, it was a young patrolman handling domestic violence cases and going through a divorce. Then on Wednesday, a veteran officer was found dead at his home on Long Island. (Southall, 6/27)

Prosecutors who dropped charges against eight people in the Flint water scandal will talk about the decision in a public forum. Kym Worthy and Fadwa Hammoud will speak to the public Friday night at a Flint union hall, two weeks after dismissing charges against former Michigan health director Nick Lyon and other officials. Hammoud of the attorney general's office took over the investigation of Flint's lead-contaminated water in January. (6/28)

Across New York City, some community members are pushing back as city leaders lay the groundwork to build four new jails within the next seven years. The new facilities are at the center of a plan to close the city jail complex at Rikers Island, which critics say has a culture of violence, aging infrastructure, and is located in the East River between Queens and the Bronx. (Gravely, 6/27)

The more than 700,000 teachers and other state employees who receive health coverage from the North Carolina State Health Plan could soon face higher medical bills when visiting hospitals in the state. That's because no hospitals have signed contracts to join the State Health Plan's new network in which providers will be reimbursed for their services at a percentage tied to the what Medicare pays for the same service. The deadline to sign a contract is Monday, July 1. (Livingston, 6/27)

San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she supports a citywide ban on the sale of e-cigarettes, signaling her intention to sign an ordinance recently passed by the city’s board of supervisors into law, but showed less enthusiasm for proposed taxes intended to target the technology industry. With the mayor’s backing, San Francisco will become the first U.S. city to implement a ban on nicotine vaporizer products. Breed is expected to sign the law in the next week. After that, stores will have seven months before they must remove all e-cigarettes from shelves. Cigarettes, other tobacco products and recreational marijuana will remain legal. (Varghese and Stone, 6/27)

Colorado’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling last week that required a juvenile boy to register as a sex offender after sexting and trading erotic pictures with two girls roughly his age, a split decision that highlights states’ recent struggles with applying laws passed in a less tech-heavy age. It began, according to the court’s decision, at a 2012 Future Farmers of America conference, where the 15-year-old met two girls, one 17 and the other 15. In the months that followed, both girls came to believe they were romantically involved with the boy. (Paul, 6/27)

Milwaukee officials announced plans Thursday for a local effort to meet the environmental standards of the Paris Climate Accord and address economic inequality through the creation of green infrastructure jobs. The city's Steering and Rules Committee announced the resolution Thursday creating a joint city-county task force to chart a path to reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to 45% by 2030 and eliminate them by 2050. (Langhorne, 6/27)

Starting Monday, anyone looking to buy ammunition in California will be subject to a background check. Voters approved the first-in-the-nation requirement as part of 2016’s Proposition 63, the slate of gun control measures that also banned the possession of high-capacity magazines. It’s not clear, though, whether the law would have prevented a quadruple homicide and suicide inside a San Jose home earlier this week that was carried out by a man whose criminal record was supposed to bar him from possessing guns or bullets. (Savidge, 6/27)

Delaware’s state Senate has given final approval to a bill mandating that restaurants that serve children’s meals must offer something other than a soft drink as the “default beverage.” Default beverages under the bill approved Thursday include water, flavored water with no sweeteners, milk, flavored milk, 100% fruit juice or vegetable juice, and juice combinations with no added sweeteners. Customers could still opt for a soft drink or other sugary concoction. (6/27)

As the state budget moves toward what looks to be an inevitable veto from Gov. Roy Cooper, state health leaders are raising alarm about some of the budget provisions drafted by Republican state lawmakers. Health and Human Services Sec. Mandy Cohen argues that some of the deep cuts could prevent her department from doing its job. Cohen has spent a lot of time at the legislative building in Raleigh this week, working the halls and talking to budget writers about her qualms with the budget. She’s also been making media appearances to reiterate her priorities and concerns. (Knopf and Hoban, 6/28)

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on June 27 announced that a discrimination lawsuit has been filed against Rogers Behavioral Health, which is based in Oconomowoc. According to a news release from the EEOC, the inpatient residential health facility violated federal law when it rescinded an applicant's job offer because she tested positive for a prescribed medication. (Frank, 6/27)

Anna Hernandez called the police for help. Her 26-year-old brother Alejandro was in the throes of a drug binge — crystal meth, she said — so the family phoned in an order-of-protection violation in an attempt to get him off the street and into treatment. Police found Alejandro a few blocks away from their parents’ door. Hernandez heard their gunshots from the driveway. Her brother, she would soon find out from a local news station’s alert, had been killed. (Rosenberg, 6/27)

The college announced Thursday that starting Monday, use of all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, will be outlawed on university property except at designated outdoor smoking areas. A new state law raising the legal age to buy tobacco to 21 takes effect the same day. (Mattingly, 6/27)

The lawsuit was brought in 2012 by the Arizona Center for Disability Law, American Civil Liberties Union and Prison Law Office on behalf of 13 inmates in Department of Corrections prisons alleging the department failed to provide adequate medical, health and dental care for prisoners. Parties in the case reached a settlement in 2014 that required the state to comply with 100 performance measures. More than four years after the settlement, the state is facing the possibility of being found in contempt of court for a second time if it fails to bring 34 measures into compliance by July 1. (Oldham, 6/27)

A new pediatric specialty health care center designed by KAI opened in Ferguson. HBD Construction was the general contractor. The 15,000-square-foot building, owned by Sansone Group, houses the SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Pediatric Specialty Services, as well as an office of SSM Health Medical Group Pediatrics. Specialty services offered include gastroenterology, ENT (otolaryngology), orthopedics, pulmonology, neurology and endocrinology. (6/28)

The circumstances surrounding the death of an inmate at the crowded Taycheedah Correctional Institution have been turned over to the Fond du Lac Police Department, a state corrections official said Thursday. And while confirming that the Department of Corrections has asked police to look into the level of health care provided to Barbara Jean Krause before she died, DOC spokeswoman Molly Vidal would not confirm or deny that any employees at the institution have been fired or disciplined in connection with her death. (Garza, 6/27)

California will increase its spending on public education, expand healthcare services and stash away more money than ever for an economic downturn under the state budget signed Thursday by Gov. Gavin Newsom — a plan that was stalled for two weeks over how it would address the state’s growing housing crisis. The $214.8-billion budget is the largest in state history. The majority of its provisions take effect next week, though some new services won’t be funded until January in an effort to lower the short-term cost. (Myers, 6/27)

The deaths of three children in separate incidents since mid-April, all while in the care of the state’s child protection agency, are under investigation by the Essex district attorney’s office, officials said Thursday. The deaths come amid a push to beef up child protection services at the state’s Department of Children and Families, which has struggled with high caseloads for swamped social workers, a severe lack of foster families, and archaic technology to track children in state custody. (Ellement and Lazar,6/27)

Kansas City took a more cautious approach Thursday to regulation of medical marijuana than some Missouri cities as the entire state prepares for the rise of the industry. Missouri voters in November approved a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana that provided some flexibility for cities to set their own rules. (Kite, 6/27)

Three women who accused a prominent Newburyport psychiatrist of drawing them into demeaning sexual relationships while he was treating them for depression have settled medical malpractice lawsuits that alleged he preyed on vulnerable patients. Lawyers for Dr. Keith R. Ablow, a nationally known author and former Fox News contributor, and the three accusers recently reached out-of-court settlements, according to court filings. (Crimaldi, 6/27)

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed a bill Thursday setting up a legal framework for the sale of recreational marijuana to adults as early as next year. Her office said Thursday that the state’s Office of Marijuana Policy plans to accept applications for licenses by the end of 2019. The Democratic governor said her administration has worked quickly to implement the voter-approved law since she took office earlier this year. (Villeneuve, 6/27)