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A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care. A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law. (DeMillo, 8/5)

Utah’s two state prisons are in the midst of a “crisis” after the rollout of a new medical records system this month resulted in inmates missing medication refills, officials announced Wednesday. (Peterson, 8/25)

Starting in October, state employees in South Carolina are entitled to six weeks of parental leave after giving birth or adopting children. Surrounded by Republican and Democratic lawmakers who worked together to pass the bill, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster held a signing ceremony Thursday for the law he put his signature to back in May. (Collins, 8/25)

Pennsylvania’s highest court on Thursday reversed its own two-decade-old rule that required medical malpractice cases to be filed in the county where the alleged harm occurred, a win for civil plaintiffs and the lawyers who represent them but a potentially costly change for health care providers. The decision by the state Supreme Court is likely to mean the number of such lawsuits will increase in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where jurors are considered to be more sympathetic to patients and more likely to produce larger verdicts. (Scolforo, 8/25)

A Bangor dental clinic that serves low-income patients has seen a flood of new patients who previously only sought care for painful dental emergencies in the two months since the state’s Medicaid program expanded to cover routine dental care. (O'Brien, 8/26)

A Connecticut woman with cancer sued Vermont on Thursday for allowing only its own residents to take advantage of a state law that lets people who are terminally ill end their own lives. Lynda Bluestein, 75, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who has terminal fallopian tube cancer, and Dr. Diana Barnard, of Middlebury, Vermont, argue in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington that Vermont’s residency requirement violates the U.S. Constitution. (Ring, 8/25)

When consumers walk into one of the hundreds of legal marijuana dispensaries around Michigan, they have both the expectation that the product they will buy is safe, and that they will be able to view THC percentages on labels. This information is important to consumers for different reasons. (Roberts, 8/25)

Public health officials on Thursday confirmed Los Angeles County’s first human cases of West Nile virus of the year. (Martinez, 8/25)