The New York Times: Justices Take Cases On Free Speech At Pregnancy Centers And Polling Places
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear two cases on the limits of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. One asks whether California may require “crisis pregnancy centers” to provide information about abortion. The other is a challenge to a Minnesota law that forbids wearing political buttons, badges and other insignia at polling places. The California case, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, No. 16-1140, concerns a state law that requires centers operated by opponents of abortion to provide women with information about the availability of the procedure. The centers seek to persuade women to choose parenting or adoption. (Liptak, 11/13)

The Associated Press: Justices Add Anti-Abortion Counseling To Free-Speech Lineup
The justices said Monday they will review the centers’ complaint that the new law, pushed by an abortion-rights group, forces them to provide information about abortion and other services. Lower courts had allowed the law to take effect. Unlicensed centers also must inform clients of their status. (Sherman, 11/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: US Supreme Court To Decide California Law On ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’
“Forcing anyone to provide free advertising for the abortion industry is unthinkable — especially when it’s the government doing the forcing,” said Kevin Theriot, a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious conservative group representing the clinics. (Egelko, 11/13)

KQED: Supreme Court Takes On Case About Free Speech And Abortion
In taking the case on, the Supreme Court justices limited their participation to one question: “Whether the disclosures required by the California Reproductive FACT Act violate the protections set forth in the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.” (Chappell, 11/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Supreme Court To Review California Law On Disclosure Of Abortion Availability
California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed the abortion-clinic measure in 2015 and it took effect last year. The law, the Reproductive FACT Act, requires certain licensed pregnancy-related centers to post notices and include disclaimers in their literature advising patients that Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, covers abortions for eligible low-income residents. It also requires unlicensed facilities to disclose that they don’t have a license. The Legislature said the law was necessary because the targeted facilities, in their efforts to discourage abortions, “often confuse [and] misinform women” about their rights and available benefits. Lawmakers said the dissemination of accurate information was hindered by so-called crisis pregnancy centers that offered women some services but discourage abortion. (Kendall and Bravin, 11/13)

Los Angeles Times: Supreme Court Agrees To Hear Antiabortion Challenge To California Disclosure Law For Pregnancy Centers
The case presents a clash between the state's power to regulate the medical profession and the Constitution's protection for the freedom of speech. Historically, states have had broad authority to regulate physicians and medical providers to protect patients from fraud and sub-standard care. But in recent years, doctors have sued and won claims that state lawmakers had gone too far and were wrongly interfering with the doctor-patient relationship. (Savage, 11/13)

Politico: Pence’s Health Care Power Play
Vice President Mike Pence is exerting growing influence over the American health care system, overseeing the appointments of more than a half-dozen allies and former aides to positions driving the White House's health agenda. On Monday President Donald Trump nominated Alex Azar, a former Indianapolis-based drug executive and longtime Pence supporter as HHS secretary. If confirmed, Azar would join an Indiana brain trust that already includes CMS Administrator Seema Verma and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. Two of Verma’s top deputies — Medicaid director Brian Neale and deputy chief of staff Brady Brookes — are former Pence hands as well, as is HHS’ top spokesman, Matt Lloyd. (Cancryn, 11/13)

NPR: AARP Foundation Sues Nursing Home To Stop Illegal Evictions
A California judge could decide Tuesday if Gloria Single will be reunited with her husband, Bill. She's 83 years old. He's 93. The two have been married for 30 years. They lived in the same nursing home until last March, when Gloria Single was evicted without warning. Her situation isn't unique. Nationwide, eviction is the leading complaint about nursing homes. In California last year, more than 1,500 nursing home residents complained that they were discharged involuntarily. That's an increase of 73 percent since 2011. (Jaffe, 11/13)

The Associated Press: CA Doctor's License Suspended After 2 Patient Deaths
The board's ruling says one of the patients experienced respiratory arrest after waking up from breast augmentation surgery in 2013 and died after being taken to a hospital. It says another patient's 2013 death was "likely due to 'trauma' caused by the surgical procedure." Yoho's attorney, Albert Garcia, said that the women died from fat embolisms but he decided to settle with the medical board. (11/13)

Fresno Bee: They Went To A Plastic Surgeon To Improve Their Looks, But Wound Up Dead
The suspension was part of a five-year probation the board imposed. Yoho agreed to the suspension and probation in a stipulated settlement with the board. Agreement to discipline is not an admission of guilt. The four cases cited by the medical board occurred between 2013 and 2015. The medical board said one of the four patients had pain and bleeding in her left breast after having surgery in Visalia in July 2015. She was taken to an emergency department. In August 2015, she was treated by another physician for corrective surgery of her left breast, the board said. (Anderson, 11/13)

Los Angeles Times: USC Had Many Warnings About Medical School Dean'S Behavior But Took Little Action
For years, the troubling reports circulated among the faculty of USC's Keck School of Medicine: Their dean had a drinking problem. ... Complaints of Puliafito's drinking began to reach USC administrators more than five years ago. Then in 2016, and again last March, the university received information that Puliafito was in a hotel room with a young woman who suffered a drug overdose. But USC allowed Puliafito to remain at the Keck school, where the renowned eye surgeon continued to treat patients. The university did not report him to the California Medical Board during that period, a USC source confirmed. (Pringle and Elmahrek, 11/14)

In other news from across the state —

KQED: From Murders To Suicides: A Coroner Finds ‘Lessons In Investigating Death’
In his 36 years as a Marin County coroner, Ken Holmes saw everyone from murder victims to people who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Over the years, he learned how to interview witnesses, search crime scenes for clues and how to be the first person to notify families of their loved one’s death. He also learned to identify a wide array of guns and drugs, and other lesser known ways people die. Holmes left the coroner’s office in 2010, but his story is the subject of author John Bateson’s book “The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death.” Both men join Forum to talk about the dead, and what can be learned from the clues they leave behind. (Krasny, 11/13)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento County Could Place Homeless People In 15 Rentals Rather Than Central Shelter
After months of developing plans for a San Francisco-style “full service” homeless shelter housing 75 men and women under one roof, Sacramento County staff are recommending – at least in the short-term – a plan to put those homeless people in 15 rental homes scattered across the county. (Fletcher, 11/14)

Capital Public Radio: Parents, Neighbors Train To Stop Street Violence
Residents of Oak Park, Valley Hi and other neighborhoods where homicides among black youth are more prevalent say it's time to band with law enforcement to stop the problem. More than 30 neighborhood leaders recently finished a series of violence prevention training sessions, some with the Sacramento Police Department and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office. The trainings were organized by the Black Child Legacy Campaign — a county-supported project that aims to reduce deaths from violence, child abuse, unsafe sleeping and perinatal conditions by 10 to 20 percent by 2020. (Caiola, 11/13)

KQED: Benicia Still Looking for Answers from Valero Six Months After Refinery Outage
When a massive refinery outage sent flames, black smoke and toxic gas shooting into the sky from Valero’s Benicia plant last spring, the city’s mayor said the local government had little information about what was going on. Days later Mayor Elizabeth Patterson called for the city to develop regulations that would give Benicia more oversight over the oil giant it hosts. She proposed regulations similar to those in Contra Costa County, home to several refineries, that require oil refining facilities to undergo safety audits and share their risk management plans. ... But six months after one the Bay Area’s worst refinery malfunctions in the last five years, the refinery oversight measure has not moved through the City Council. (Goldberg, 11/14)

KQED: A Food Community Unites To Pay Local Farmers And Feed Fire Evacuees Nourishing, Home-Cooked Meals
On the first Friday after the North Bay fires swept through Sonoma County, displacing an estimated 100,000 people, Tim Page drove from San Francisco to the Salvation Army in Sonoma County with 2,000 fresh, chef-made breakfasts, courtesy of SF Fights Fire, stacked in the back of his company van. The trip was the first of many made over the next two weeks by Page and his employees at F.E.E.D. Sonoma, a micro-regional produce aggregation and distribution food hub in Sebastopol that functions as a conduit between dozens of small, organic farms and chefs and restaurants across the Bay Area. (Clark, 11/13)

The San Francisco Business Times: First Drug OK'd With Peninsula Company's Digital Tracker
With Proteus Digital Health's tracker riding in a tablet treating mental health disorders, patients (and their caregivers and doctors) will be able to tell that the medicine has been ingested. (Leuty, 11/13)

The New York Times: First Digital Pill Approved To Worries About Biomedical ‘Big Brother’
For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a digital pill — a medication embedded with a sensor that can tell doctors whether, and when, patients take their medicine. The approval, announced late on Monday, marks a significant advance in the growing field of digital devices designed to monitor medicine-taking and to address the expensive, longstanding problem that millions of patients do not take drugs as prescribed. (Belluck, 11/13)

In other health and technology news —

The Mercury News: Palo Alto Entrepreneur Brings Tech Savvy To An Illness That Hits Home: ALD
Newly diagnosed with a deadly genetic disease, Palo Alto entrepreneur Ben LeNail walked into a conference of fellow patients and was stunned by what he saw: a tableau of young boys in wheelchairs, profoundly disabled and hopeless. In shock, he turned and walked back out. Then he stopped, and returned. And vowed to make a difference. (Krieger, 11/13)

The San Francisco Business Times: Precision Medicine Startup Syapse Raises $30 Million To Expand Cancer Tech, S.F. Workforce
San Francisco-based Syapse today raised $30 million in Series D funding to expand operations for its precision medicine software. (Siu, 11/14)

Los Angeles Times: San Diego's Fancy $2-Million Public Restroom Raises Eyebrows Amid Hepatitis Outbreak
The city of San Diego helped install an aesthetically pleasing structure on its signature waterfront in 2014, designed by an artist to invoke "Jonathan Livingston Seagull," the popular 1970 novella about a seagull who wanted to be special. Its function? A restroom. Its cost? Two million dollars. (Cook, 11/13)

In other public health news —

Orange County Register: California Sees Increase In West Nile Virus Deaths This Year, Compared To 2016
More people were infected and died of West Nile virus across California this year compared to last year, especially in Los Angeles County. That’s where the number of infections peaked in September, recent data show. Statewide, there have been 25 deaths so far this year, or six more than all of last year, according to recent data from the California Department of Public Health. In addition, 454 people from across the Golden State were infected this year, a 17 percent increase from 2016. (Abram, 11/13)

The Mercury News: Does Sex Trigger Heart Attacks?
Worried whether your heart is strong enough for sex? Relax — and go back to bed. A new study published this weekend shows that even though the chance of suffering a heart attack while having sex is greater for men than women, it’s still pretty rare overall. One in 100 men and 1 in 1,000 women had sudden cardiac arrest during sex, according to data published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. (Seipel, 11/13)

The New York Times: Former Eli Lilly Executive Is Trump’s Choice For Health Secretary
President Trump, who has repeatedly assailed pharmaceutical companies for the high cost of prescription medications in the United States, nominated on Monday a former executive of one of the nation’s largest drug companies to be secretary of health and human services, which has responsibility for regulating the pharmaceutical industry. Mr. Trump announced his choice of Alex M. Azar II, a former president of the American division of Eli Lilly and a health official in the George W. Bush administration, on Twitter while traveling in Asia. (Shear, 11/13)

The Washington Post: Trump Picks Alex Azar To Lead Health And Human Services
In announcing his decision on Monday, Trump tweeted that Azar “will be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices!” He has a close rapport with the department’s top political appointees as well as Vice President Pence. Azar has been highly critical of the Affordable Care Act, saying in interviews in recent months that the law was “certainly circling the drain” and that many of its problems “were entirely predictable as a matter of economic and individual behavior.” (Eilperin and Goldstein, 11/13)

The Associated Press: Trump Turns To Drug Industry For His New Health Secretary
If confirmed, Alex Azar would oversee a $1 trillion department responsible for major health insurance programs, including "Obamacare," as well as medical research, food and drug safety, and public health. The nomination of Azar is unusual because Health and Human Services secretaries have come from the ranks of elected officials such as governors, leaders in academia and medicine, or top executive branch managers — not industries regulated by the department. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 11/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Nominates Alex Azar As Health And Human Services Secretary
The choice of a detail-oriented lawyer familiar with the workings of the federal government drew praise from Republicans, who said that Mr. Azar would bring significant institutional knowledge to the job. Some consumer groups criticized Mr. Azar’s pharmaceuticals background, saying he might neglect to focus on lowering drug costs. Democrats also said they would press broad objections to the administration’s desire to overturn the ACA during his confirmation process. (Armour and Radnofsky, 11/13)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Goes A Different Direction In His Choice Of Health And Human Services Secretary
[A]mong many of those those well-versed in healthcare policy, Azar's pick was seen as heartening. Andy Slavitt, who oversaw Medicare, Medicaid and insurance markets during the Obama administration, said that while he differed with any Trump pick over "political values…realistically, it could have been a helluva lot worse." "He's somebody who has been a career civil servant; he has a lot of respect for the people in the department and that's a good start," Slavitt said. (Decker, 11/13)

The Washington Post: The Senate GOP Tax Bill Keeps The Medical Expense Tax Deduction
Let the negotiations begin. The Senate Republican tax bill differs in a lot of ways from the House version. And one chief difference is the deduction for medical expenses. It’s left alone in the Senate bill. House Republicans want it gone. (Singletary, 11/13)

The New York Times: Trump Again Wades Into Tax Debate, Suggesting Repeal Of Obamacare Mandate
As Republican lawmakers worked on Monday toward a delicate compromise on a $1.5 trillion tax cut, President Trump threw himself back into the discussion, suggesting that Republicans could reduce taxes even further by repealing the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that most people have health insurance. (Rappeport and Kaplan, 11/13)