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More than two weeks after Alaska’s Department of Health and Social Services suffered a cyberattack, the agency has not fully recovered and Alaskans are still seeing effects. Background checks for hospital workers — everyone from front-line doctors to cleaning staff — are now being processed on paper instead of online. “It’s definitely a real problem at this point, and the impact is real,” said Jared Kosin, director of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association. Birth, marriage and death certificates are slow to arrive because the state’s vital statistics system is offline. (Brooks, 6/2)

Arizona has refurbished and tested a gas chamber and purchased chemicals used to make hydrogen cyanide, a recent report said, drawing a backlash over its possible use on death row inmates. Headlines noting that the chemicals could form the same poison found in Zyklon B, a lethal gas used by the Nazis, provoked fresh outrage, including among Auschwitz survivors in Germany and Israel, over the association with the Holocaust and hydrogen cyanide’s use in the death camps. (Hauser, 6/2)

Workers at a South Dakota meatpacking plant that became a coronavirus hotspot last year are considering a strike after contract negotiations between Smithfield Foods and the union have stalled, the union said Wednesday. The Sioux Falls chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union threatened to move for a walkout and work stoppage if the Virginia-based company does not resume negotiations on a new four-year contract. The dispute has centered on the wages for meatpacking employees, health care costs and break times. (Groves, 6/3)

Though a bridge too far a few years ago for Louisiana lawmakers, the Legislature Wednesday gave final clearance to allow patients to smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons. House Bill 391 approved minor wording changes added to the state Senate on a vote of 76-17 and sent the legislation off to Gov. John Bel Edwards, who has indicated he may very well sign it. The companion legislation, however, picked up a controversial rider and is still in the Senate. House Bill 514, which set out the taxes and fees for the sale of smokable medical marijuana, was amended to extend the temporary additional near-half cent state sales tax in order to fund road repairs. The tax and fee bill cleared Senate Finance on Wednesday. (Ballard, 6/2)

One spring day when Julia Gladeau was a child, her aunt asked her to keep an eye on her younger siblings. Her aunt and Gladeau’s pregnant mother walked across Hill 57 and out of sight. “We're going to go find the Easter Bunny for you up there at that other shack,” her aunt had said. “We'll be back in a little bit.” When they returned down the hill, her mother had a baby girl in her arms. “Look what the Easter Bunny brought you,” she said. “It’s a baby, and her name is Shirley.” (Beck, 6/2)

A Dallas high school valedictorian scrapped a speech approved by her school administrators and delivered an abortion rights call in its place. Paxton Smith, the 2021 valedictorian at Lake Highlands High School, submitted to school officials an address on the effect of the media on young minds. But when she spoke at Sunday’s graduation ceremony, she talked of what she called “a war on the rights” of her body and those of other girls and women by the “heartbeat bill” signed into law by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a week and a half before. (Wallace, 6/3)

State lawmakers took a critical step forward in expanding Texas’ psychiatric hospital system last week by pumping nearly $400 million into projects that would add more than 500 inpatient psychiatric beds across the state, as well as revamp old hospitals for mentally ill Texans. The money will go toward adding maximum security beds at Kerrville State Hospital, a 264-bed hospital in Harris County and planning for a new, 200-bed state hospital in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Additionally, the Legislature continued funding the rebuild of state hospitals in both Austin and San Antonio. (Stuckey, 6/2)

Parents of public-school students in kindergarten through fifth grade will be able to request that children be retained in their current grade levels for the 2021-2022 school year under a bill signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Lawmakers approved the issue during the spring legislative session to help combat lagging learning gains during the COVID-19 pandemic — what has become known as the “COVID slide.” (6/2)

Teachers sued, parents marched, and on both sides of last year’s school reopening debate, there were dire warnings. To some, Florida’s decision to reopen school buildings meant a death sentence for adults and perhaps even children. To others, it would have been child neglect to keep the schools closed as parents went out and earned their living. In the end, despite altered routines and daily contact tracing, COVID-19 levels in Tampa Bay area schools were considerable but not catastrophic. (Sokol, 6/2)

Florida State University is asking a judge to reject a potential class-action lawsuit that seeks to recoup money for students who were forced to learn online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. FSU attorneys last week filed a document in Leon County circuit court arguing that a judge should dismiss the case or issue a judgment in the university’s favor. In part, the document pointed to sovereign immunity, which helps shield governmental entities from lawsuits. (6/2)

When the pandemic arrived in Florida last year, the state had a position ready made for a public health crisis like the one on its doorstep: The Deputy Secretary for County Health Systems. On paper, it’s the third-highest ranking position in the state’s health agency because of its key role in coordinating with health offices in all 67 counties. “Preventing epidemics and spread of disease” is in the job description. (Contorno, 6/3)