Covid Worsened Shortages of Doctors and Nurses. Five Years On, Rural Hospitals Still Struggle.

According to Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil, the 20-year-old suspect is the son of one of his deputies, saying his mother has been with the force for 18 years and that he was involved in the sheriff’s office programs.

The shooter also used his mother’s former service weapon — now a personal handgun — which was found at the scene. “Not a surprise to us that he had access to weapons,” McNeil said. According to Revell, the shooter also had a shotgun with him during the shooting but could not confirm whether it was used. (Geisel, 4/17)

Twenty-year-old Phoenix Ikner was previously at the center of a protracted battle between his parents that featured a custody dispute stretching from the Florida panhandle to Norway, according to court documents. At the time of the custody dispute, the suspect was a child and was known as Christian Gunnar Eriksen. Christian was taken by his biological mother to Norway in March 2015 in violation of a child custody order, according to a 2015 probable cause affidavit from the Leon County Sheriff’s Office. …

“Mr. Ikner advised that Christian has developmental delays and has special needs which he feared would not be taken care of without access to his doctors here in the United States.” The sheriff’s affidavit said the child was on medication for “several health and mental issues, to include a growth hormone disorder and ADHD.” (Sarnoff, Shapiro, Katersky, Thomas, Margolin and Kofsky, 4/18)

It was not the first time some of them had barricaded themselves in a room at school. The sight of law enforcement officers in tactical gear, sweeping campus for a gunman, was familiar. So was the fear for several students who sheltered in place during Thursday’s deadly shooting at Florida State University and shared a traumatizing coincidence: They had endured the Parkland, Fla., school massacre in 2018. (Vigdor and Hassan, 4/17)

Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) officers were scheduled for a training session on Thursday afternoon as the first alerts involving a Florida State University (FSU) active shooter spread across social media. In a post to Facebook at 10:10 a.m. ET Thursday, TPD alerted the community of the training planned for the Tactical Apprehension and Control Team.

“During this training session, you may hear loud bangs, crashes, sirens, and see officers with firearms displayed,” the post said in part. … X account @Aesthetica, with nearly 500,000 followers, noted the training and added in part, “At first students didn’t realize it was a real shooting.” (Commander, 4/17)

This marks the sixth mass shooting in Florida so far in 2025 out of 81 in the United States, according to data from the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which defines “mass shooting” as incidents resulting in four or more people getting shot, not counting the shooter. (Bridges, 4/17)

President Trump said on Thursday that the shooting at Florida State University in Tallahassee that killed two people and injured six was a “shame,” but suggested that it would not prompt him to support any new gun control legislation. “These things are terrible, but the gun doesn’t do the shooting — the people do,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s, you know, a phrase that’s used probably too often. I will tell you that it’s a shame.” (Wolfe, 4/18)

Luigi Mangione was indicted on federal murder charges in the shooting of a UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive, paving the way for US prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against him. Mangione’s federal case has now been assigned to a US judge, who will rule on disputes in the case and oversee a trial. Mangione has separately been charged by New York state prosecutors with Brian Thompson’s murder and awaits trial. (Hurtado, Van Voris, and Voreacos, 4/17)

Inside UnitedHealth Group Inc., the company is a force for good. Employees often describe its work as a “mission.” The public perception, though, is that it’s a faceless giant denying care to boost profits. That narrative exploded through a barrage of sinister social media posts after executive Brian Thompson was killed on his way to an investor meeting in December. (Tozzi, 4/16)

The U.S. DOGE Service is putting new curbs on billions of dollars in federal health-care grants, requiring government officials to manually review and approve previously routine payments — and paralyzing grant awards to tens of thousands of organizations, according to 12 people familiar with the new arrangements.

The effort, which DOGE has dubbed “Defend the Spend,” has left thousands of payments backed up, including funding for doctors’ and nurses’ salaries at federal health centers for the poor. Some grantees are waiting on payments they expected last week. (Diamond, Johnson and Natanson, 4/17)

Health systems would be subject to greater oversight under a White House proposal to expand hospital cost report audits.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is seeking information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as it weighs whether to increase funding for hospital cost report auditing, according to a leaked draft of its fiscal 2026 budget plan, dated April 10. (Early, 4/17)

The Food and Drug Administration is drawing up plans that would end most of its routine food safety inspections work, multiple federal health officials tell CBS News, and effectively outsource this oversight to state and local authorities. The plans have not been finalized and might need congressional action to fully fund, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly. Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, denied that the FDA was making plans to do this. (Tin, 4/17)

The Food and Drug Administration will remove industry representatives from advisory committees and replace them with patients and caregivers, Commissioner Marty Makary announced Thursday. (Wilkerson, 4/17)

Americans suffering from brain tumors, liver cancer and heart attacks may find their medical care disrupted if President Donald Trump’s trade war cuts off access to rare earth minerals with health-care applications. China processes almost all the world’s rare earths, a group of 17 metals used in a wide array of products in the defense, health-care and technology sectors. But as part of its retaliation against escalating U.S. tariffs, Beijing this month restricted the export of several rare earth minerals, raising the risk that U.S. industries will face shortages. (Northrop and Li, 4/18)

Buried in a leaked draft budget from the Trump administration is an ask that may alarm (or elate?) health tech watchers. The administration is proposing to create a new office of the chief technology officer within the federal health department that would house the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, the department’s health IT regulator, and an “Office of Chief Information.” Under the proposal, ASTP would be funded with $9 million,  compared to the $66 million appropriated in the 2023 budget. (Aguilar, 4/17)

A federal judge on Thursday imposed new restrictions on billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, limiting its access to Social Security systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans. U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander issued a preliminary injunction in the case, which was brought by a group of labor unions and retirees who allege DOGE’s recent actions violate privacy laws and present massive information security risks. Hollander had previously issued a temporary restraining order. (Skene, 4/18)