Los Angeles Times: California’s Senior Population Is Growing Faster Than Any Other Age Group. How The Next Governor Responds Is Crucial
It was early in their courtship seven years ago when Manuel Villanueva warned his now-husband, “I come as a package of three.” The other parts of that deal: his father, Ramon Villanueva, whose failing kidneys forced him to stop working, and his mother, Maria Guadalupe Olague. Now they live as a family unit of four — six, if you count the cats — in a Highland Park two-bedroom apartment. As caring for his parents has increasingly taken a toll on his finances, time and psyche, Manuel Villanueva has taken up a matter-of-fact mantra to soldier on: “Adapt and understand your reality.” (Mason, 10/7)

Meanwhile —

Capital Public Radio: John Cox, Gavin Newsom Poised For Only Debate Monday As California Governor’s Race Enters Home Stretch
The California governor’s race enters the home stretch Monday as counties begin sending out vote-by-mail ballots while Democrat Gavin Newsom and Republican John Cox meet for their only general election debate. Newsom holds a wide lead over Cox in fundraising, although his strong advantage in polls has narrowed somewhat since the June primary. (Adler, 10/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Three SF Elected Leaders Announce Opposition To Prop. C — Raising Business Taxes For Homeless Services
San Francisco Mayor London Breed, Assemblyman David Chiu and Sen. Scott Wiener released statements Friday opposing Proposition C, a local ballot measure that would raise taxes on the city’s largest businesses to fund an array of homelessness services. ...The measure would impose an average of about 0.5 percent in gross receipts tax on corporate revenue above $50 million, impacting between 300 and 400 of the city’s biggest corporations. (Fracassa, 10/5)

In other news —

San Francisco Chronicle: Berkeley Navigation Center Helps Homeless Couple Find Apartment 
Berkeley’s Navigation Center opened in July on the site of a former sprawling tent encampment. It can house up to 45 people at one time in a pair of air-conditioned trailers, and residents can stay for up to six months. Bay Area Community Services, a nonprofit homeless outreach organization, runs the site, and social workers help residents find jobs, health services and permanent places to live. (Taylor Jr., 10/8)

Capital Public Radio: California Growers Adjust Safety Practices After Last Year's Deadly E. Coli Outbreak
A group that oversees food safety programs for big California lettuce growers has changed its protocols in the wake of an E. coli outbreak last spring which caused five deaths and sickened more than 200 people across 36 states.  The outbreak was linked to romaine lettuce grown in Yuma, Arizona. (Mitric, 10.5)

In other public health news —

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Study: Guns Used In Violent Crimes Less Often In San Diego Than National Average
Homicides, robberies and aggravated assaults committed in the San Diego region last year involved a gun far less often than in those same crimes nationwide, according to new research findings from a regional government group. The findings found that nationally, nearly three-quarters — 73 percent — of all homicides in 2017 involved a firearm, according to the San Diego Association of Governments Criminal Justice Clearinghouse. In the San Diego region, just a little over half — 53 percent — of all homicides involved a gun. (Riggins, 10/7)

Ventura County Star: Marijuana Damaged Teenagers' Brains More Than Alcohol, Study Finds
Marijuana use may pose a greater risk to the developing brains of teenagers than alcohol consumption, according to a new study  this week. The analysis, published Wednesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found that cannabis had greater short and long-term consequences than alcohol on four key components of teens' memory. The finding greatly surprised researchers. (Shannon, 10/6)

The Associated Press: UN Report On Global Warming Carries Life-Or-Death Warning
Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge. The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea. (10/8)

The New York Times: Major Climate Report Describes A Strong Risk Of Crisis As Early As 2040
The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, describes a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires, and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. The report “is quite a shock, and quite concerning,” said Bill Hare, an author of previous I.P.C.C. reports and a physicist with Climate Analytics, a nonprofit organization. “We were not aware of this just a few years ago.” The report was the first to be commissioned by world leaders under the Paris agreement, the 2015 pact by nations to fight global warming. (Davenport, 10/7)

The Washington Post: The World Has Just Over A Decade To Get Climate Change Under Control, U.N. Scientists Say
At the same time, however, the report is being received with hope in some quarters because it affirms that 1.5 degrees Celsius is still possible — if emissions stopped today, for instance, the planet would not reach that temperature. It is also likely to galvanize even stronger climate action by focusing on 1.5 degrees Celsius, rather than 2 degrees, as a target that the world cannot afford to miss. “Frankly, we’ve delivered a message to the governments,” said Jim Skea, a co-chair of the IPCC panel and professor at Imperial College London, at a press event following the document’s release. “It’s now their responsibility … to decide whether they can act on it.” He added, “What we’ve done is said what the world needs to do.” (Mooney and Dennis, 10/7)

The New York Times: Why Half A Degree Of Global Warming Is A Big Deal
Half a degree may not sound like much. But as the report details, even that much warming could expose tens of millions more people worldwide to life-threatening heat waves, water shortages and coastal flooding. Half a degree may mean the difference between a world with coral reefs and Arctic summer sea ice and a world without them. (Plumer and Popovich, 10/7)

Capital Public Radio: Extreme Heat Lines Up With Spikes In Stress, Birth Problems, California Experts Find 
Maithili Ramachandran, a public policy scholar at the University of California, Riverside, is part of a team of researchers comparing the relationship of heat waves, zip codes, and health symptoms. She said they found higher incidences of stress, anxiety and depression during hot periods, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors. (Caiola, 10/5)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Fentanyl Worries Have Police Changing The Way They Handle, Test For Illicit Drugs
Wearing gloves and working under a hood that vents fumes from the evidence room, La Mesa police Sgt. Katy Lynch pushed a button on the scanner in her hand and shined a laser on the plastic baggie in front of her. In less than a minute, the device, which is about the size of a Nintendo Game Boy, identified the white powder, flashing the word “methamphetamine” on its small screen. (Kucher, 10/7)

In other news on the opioid crisis —

Los Angeles Times: Costa Mesa Police Add Overdose-Reversal Drug To Opioid-Fighting Arsenal
As communities across the country face an ongoing opioid epidemic, the Costa Mesa Police Department has equipped vehicles and staff with a fast-acting drug that can help reverse an overdose. In the past month, all Costa Mesa police vehicles got kits containing Narcan, a nasal-spray device that administers the prescription drug naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote. (Sclafani, 10/5)

The New York Times: Life On The Dirtiest Block In San Francisco
The heroin needles, the pile of excrement between parked cars, the yellow soup oozing out of a large plastic bag by the curb and the stained, faux Persian carpet dumped on the corner. It’s a scene of detritus that might bring to mind any variety of developing-world squalor. But this is San Francisco, the capital of the nation’s technology industry, where a single span of Hyde street hosts an open-air narcotics market by day and at night is occupied by the unsheltered and drug-addled slumped on the sidewalk. (Fuller, 10/8)

Ventura County Star: Gold Coast Health Plan Warns Of Data Breach
Gold Coast Health Plan said about 37,000 clients’ health information may have gotten into crooks’ hands due to a data breach. Potentially affected by the breach are clients whose claim information was sent by email. The data included health plan ID numbers, dates of medical service, and in some cases, names, dates of birth and medical procedure codes, Gold Coast said Friday in a news release. (10/6)

In other news from across the state —

KPBS: SDSU To Offer Meningococcal Vaccines After County Declares Campus Outbreak  
San Diego State University will offer vaccines against meningococcal B to students Friday in response to a recent outbreak on the school's campus. County health officials declared a meningococcal outbreak after a pair of undergraduate students at SDSU were hospitalized in September with meningococcal symptoms. (Burks, 10/5)

The Associated Press: California Wildfire Victims Say Cleanup Crews Add To Woes
One year after a devastating series of wildfires ripped through Northern California wine country, destroying thousands of homes, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' first experience cleaning up after a wildfire has turned into an expensive bureaucratic mess and California's top emergency official suspects fraud played a role. (10/8)

The New York Times: Fact-Checking The President: Has He Saved Or Sabotaged Obamacare?
Even as President Trump boasts that he has “eliminated the core of Obamacare,” his health secretary is taking credit for making the law work better than ever. What gives? (10/6)

The Hill: Study: Insurers Returning To Pre-ObamaCare Profitability
Insurers in the individual market performed better financially in the first six months of 2018 than they have in all of the years of the Affordable Care Act, according to a brief released Friday. The brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows insurers returning to the levels of profitability seen before the passage of the ACA, but notes recent actions from the Trump administration "cloud expectations for the future." (Hellmann, 10/5)

The Associated Press: Supreme Court Moves Right, But How Far, How Fast?
The moment conservatives have dreamed about for decades has arrived with Brett Kavanaugh joining the Supreme Court. But with it comes the shadow of a bitter confirmation fight that is likely to hang over the court as it takes on divisive issues, especially those dealing with politics and women's rights. With Kavanaugh taking the place of the more moderate Anthony Kennedy, conservatives should have a working majority of five justices to restrict abortion rights, limit the use of race in college admissions and rein in federal regulators. (10/7)

The Hill: Hirono: Roe V. Wade Won't Be Overturned, But Will Be Nullified
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) said on Sunday that she does not think the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade now that Justice Brett Kavanaugh is a member, but that lower-level judicial and legislative decisions will instead undermine the landmark decision, which legalized abortion. "It matters if they overturn Roe v. Wade, which I doubt they're gonna do," Hirono told ABC's "This Week." (Keller, 10/7)

The Associated Press: FDA Expands Use Of Cervical Cancer Vaccine Up To Age 45
U.S. regulators Friday expanded the use of Merck's cervical cancer vaccine to adults up to age 45. The vaccine was previously only for preteens and young adults through 26. The Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil 9 for women and men through 45. (10/5)

The New York Times: HPV Vaccine Expanded For People Ages 27 To 45
The vaccine is Gardasil 9, made by Merck, and had been previously approved for minors and people up to age 26. It works against the human papillomavirus, HPV, which can also cause genital warts and cancers of the vulva, anus, penis and parts of the throat. The virus has many strains. It is sexually transmitted, and most adults encounter at least one strain at some point in their lives. The vaccine protects against nine strains, including those most likely to cause cancers and genital warts. (Grady and Hoffman, 10/5)

The Washington Post: FDA Approves HPV Vaccine For People Up To 45
Experts say the vaccine, which protects against nine HPV strains, is most effective when administered before the initiation of sexual activity. But data also indicate that the vaccine can benefit the older group. That’s because even though many adults have been exposed to some types of HPV, most have not been exposed to all nine types covered by the vaccine. Merck, which manufacturers the vaccine, requested the expanded age range this year. In June, the FDA granted the application priority review. (McGinley, 10/5)