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Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday proposed a cautious budget that relies on improved revenue and modest spending cuts to close a shortfall while funding some new initiatives. Unlike in previous years, the plan he submitted to the General Assembly’s finance committees is not built around expanding Medicaid — a fight he has picked, and lost, for three straight sessions with the Republican-controlled legislature. (Schneider, 12/16)

Orange County health officials have ordered the closure of a children’s dental office in Anaheim after lab tests found bacteria in its new internal water system, which had replaced a system blamed for an earlier outbreak of bacterial infections. (Rocha and Lozano, 12/17)

Inova Health System, the giant nonprofit hospital network serving Northern Virginia, is creating a new start-up incubator and investment program focusing on “personalized” medicine innovations. Executives say they plan to invest at least $100 million over the next three to five years making $2 million to $5 million bets on promising young companies with products that have gained some traction in the marketplace. (Gregg, 12/17)

Initial results from the first-ever international clinical trial of the T-cell treatment,  presented recently at the American Society of Hematology meeting, put the pharmaceutical giant [Novartis] far ahead in the high-stakes race to market the first such immunotherapy. The company said it will file early next year for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the pediatric leukemia therapy, and later in 2017 for European regulatory approval. Twenty-five highly specialized medical centers in North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia are part of the ongoing trial. Of the first 50 children treated, 41, or 82 percent, had no signs of acute lymphoblastic leukemia three months later. At six months, 24 children remained cancer-free. Those results parallel the high rates of lasting remissions achieved over the last four years in nearly 150 children treated at CHOP. (McCullough, 12/16)

Clovis Unified maintains that it has deployed ample resources to educate students and parents. Students, teachers and staff members are encouraged to ask for help and report warning signs. The suicides may be part of a larger issue, as local government and health officials are working to curb an unusually large number of child suicides across Fresno County. (Appleton, 12/16)

A federal jury has convicted the owner of a Mesa medical transportation company of health-care fraud and aggravated identity theft after he billed Medicaid for thousands of trips that never occurred. Elseddig Elmarioud Musa, owner and operator of Arizona One Medical Transportation, was convicted Dec. 9 in U.S. District Court on 35 counts of health-care fraud and four counts of aggravated identity theft. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 6. (Alltucker, 12/16)

Two more heart-surgery patients in the Philadelphia area have tested positive for a worrisome, slow-growing bacteria that has been linked to a device called a heater-cooler. One of the two patients, at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., has died, though hospital officials said it was not yet clear what role the bacteria may have played in the death. In Pennsylvania, 21 cases have been reported at three facilities, according to the state department of health. (Avril, 12/16)

There's a grim chapter in American history that involves forced sterilization. And for much of this past century, California had one of the most active sterilization programs in the country. A state law from 1909 authorized the surgery for people judged to have "mental disease, which may have been inherited." That law remained on the books until 1979. (12/18)

Scientists have long studied the potential benefits of generosity, and by now the research speaks for itself: Those who give of their time tend to be happier, less stressed and physically healthier than those who do not. (Lagatta, 12/19)