Los Angeles Times: California Tops 12 Million COVID Cases; XBB.1.5 Now Dominant 
The total number of coronavirus cases reported in California has topped 12 million. That milestone — reached last week, according to data compiled by The Times — comes as California is seeing increased circulation of the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, which has been described as perhaps the most infectious strain of the coronavirus. (Money, 2/13)

VC Star: End Of COVID Emergencies Means Ventura County Residents May Pay More
COVID-19 vaccines will remain free for everyone at least temporarily after local, state and federal emergency orders end. (Kisken, 2/13)

VC Star: Many In Ventura County Could Lose Medi-Cal In COVID-19 Transition
As many as 50,000 Ventura County residents could lose their Medi-Cal insurance over 14 months as COVID-19 pandemic protections expire. (Kisken, 2/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Virus Infection Increases Diabetes Risk By 66%, Penn State Study Finds
COVID-19 survivors have a 66% higher risk of developing type 1 or type 2 diabetes following their diagnosis compared to those who were not infected with the coronavirus, according to a study by Penn State College of Medicine researchers published Monday. The researchers found that SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — binds to an enzyme receptor found on the surface of many organs and tissues, including cells found in the pancreas, small intestine and kidneys, affecting insulin levels. (Vaziri and Beamish, 2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Novavax To Sell 1.5 Million More Covid Vaccines To U.S. Government
The U.S. government has agreed to buy 1.5 million more doses of Novavax Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine, the company said, part of efforts preparing for the end of government purchases and the start of a commercial market for the shots. Novavax wouldn’t provide the monetary value of the deal or the price that the federal government would pay per dose. The Biden administration has said it plans to end in May the national public-health emergency for the pandemic. It is also telling Covid-19 vaccine makers that they will need to start selling their shots commercially. (Whyte and Armour, 2/13)

AP: GOP Launches Probe Into COVID Origins With Letter To Fauci 
House Republicans kicked off an investigation Monday into the origins of COVID-19 by issuing a series of letters to current and former Biden administration officials for documents and testimony. The Republican chairmen of the House Oversight Committee and the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic requested information from several people, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, surrounding the hypothesis that the coronavirus leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab. ... The letters to Fauci, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines, Health Secretary Xavier Beccera and others are the latest effort by the new Republican majority to make good on promises made during the 2022 midterms campaign. (Amiri and Merchant, 2/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Teen Girls ‘Engulfed’ In Sadness And Violence, Federal Report Finds
Teenage girls in the United States are experiencing record levels of sadness, violence and suicidal thoughts, intensifying a decline that began before the COVID-19 pandemic and continued through its social upheaval, according to new federal data. Nearly 3 in 5 girls — about 57% — said they felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, marking a 60% increase from a decade ago, according to the latest edition of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, released Monday. Nearly 1 in 3 said they seriously contemplated attempting suicide. By comparison, 29% of teenage boys reported an increase in feelings of sadness and 14% had considered suicide. (Vaziri, 2/13)

Los Angeles Blade: Female & LGBQ+ Students Experiencing Alarming Rates Of Violence
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its Youth Risk Behavior Survey Data Summary & Trends Report: 2011-2021, in which the CDC disclosed alarming data that documented that rates of violence and worsening cases poor mental health, continued to rise among female and LGBQ+ adolescents. The data found poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors are increasing for nearly all groups of youth and experiences of violence, including sexual violence, are not declining and in some cases are increasing. (2/13)

NPR: Teen Girls And LGBTQ+ Youth Plagued By Violence And Trauma, Survey Says
The report also found that 52% of teens identifying as LGBTQ+ experienced poor mental health in the past year, with 1 in 5 saying they had attempted suicide during that period of time. Among racial and ethnic groups Native American teens were the most likely to have attempted suicide in the year before, followed by Black youth, at 14%. (Chatterjee, 2/13)

Bay Area News Group: Mass Shooting Spurs Crackdown On Unpermitted Farmworker Housing
San Mateo County has created a new task force to crack down on subpar farmworker housing, a response to a mass shooting at two Half Moon Bay mushroom farms that cast a national spotlight on workers living in leaky shacks and shipping containers without usable kitchens or bathrooms. The county announced the new task force Monday, and said it would be dedicated to finding farms that operate workforce housing without the proper permits. Officials have admitted they don’t know how many such operations may exist, though a 2017 census counted 241 total farms in the county. (Kendall, 2/14)

AP: DOJ Giving States $231M For Gun Violence Prevention Programs
The Justice Department is sending out more than $200 million to help states and the District of Columbia administer “red-flag laws” and other crisis-intervention programs as part of the landmark bipartisan gun legislation passed by Congress over the summer, officials said Tuesday. Red-flag laws, also known as extreme risk protection orders, are intended to temporarily remove guns from people with potentially violent behavior and prevent them from hurting themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have red-flag laws. (Whitehurst, 2/14)

Axios: Mass Shootings Leave Americans Feeling Helpless
Axios Today and Axios Latino asked readers and listeners to tell us how their lives have changed amid the rise of mass shootings. In emails and emotional voicemails, they told us they look for exits at the grocery stores, just in case. They say goodbye to their children at school with the fear they may lose them to a mass shooting that day. (Ortiz, Boodhoo and Contreras, 2/14)

Los Angeles Daily News: Intervention Workers In LA, Serving As Alternatives To Cops, Get Needed Support 
More than 100 unarmed intervention workers in Los Angeles, whose jobs involve preventing gang-related violence and responding to other conflicts as an alternative to policing, will get trauma training and support in the coming months under a new city initiative. Project TURN, or Therapeutic Unarmed Response for Neighborhoods, will provide counseling and training to workers in these high-stress jobs – many of whom may internalize the trauma they witness – so they feel better supported and equipped to do their jobs. (Tat, 2/13)

USA Today: Is Your Mom’s Nursing Home Owned By Private Equity? Biden Administration Wants You To Know
The Biden administration today called for nursing homes to provide a complete picture of their owners and operators, proposing a new federal rule central to the president’s plans to improve the quality of care and contain healthcare costs at the facilities. The announcement comes a month after a report from the federal Government Accountability Office called for Medicare and Medicaid regulators to collect more information about nursing home ownership and to share it, in plain terms, with consumers. (Fraser, 2/13)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Administration Calls For Nursing Homes To Disclose More Ownership Details 
The proposal also would require nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to share more information about individuals or organizations that provide administrative services or clinical consulting to nursing homes. Currently, families often don’t know what companies may provide care in nursing homes. The information would be made public, administration officials said. They said the data is important because there are mounting concerns about the quality of care of nursing facilities that are owned by private-equity companies and other types of investment firms—an ownership relationship that has grown since 2011. President Biden in his 2022 State of the Union address criticized private-equity ownership of nursing homes, saying the arrangements drive down quality and raise costs. (Armour, 2/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: What A Ban On Abortion Medication Would Mean For California
If a federal judge in Texas grants conservative groups’ demand to ban a drug used in a majority of all U.S. abortions, his ruling would not prohibit all medication abortions in states like California. But they would become more arduous, and the state’s reproductive care system would face more duress. Opponents of abortion contend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration failed to consider the dangers of mifepristone and acted too hastily in allowing its use in 2000, four years after its makers had applied for approval. (Egelko, 2/13)

KQED: 'Half Of California Hospitals Are In The Red': Pandemic Troubles Pile Up For ERs
The pandemic created a perfect financial storm for California hospitals, and some, reeling from that stress, have even gone bankrupt. In Madera County near Yosemite, the area’s only general hospital closed in January. That left 150,000 residents without an emergency room or specialty care, and many of the hospital’s 700 employees without a job. State lawmakers and industry officials warn many more facilities will be forced to reduce services and some will shutter. (McClurg, 2/13)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Medical Opens New Imaging Center 
Hospital officials gathered Monday to tour Kern Medical’s new Imaging Center, which will offer an array of diagnostic services to its patients that staff say are increasingly underserved. (Donegan, 2/13)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Battle Brewing To Keep Petaluma Valley Hospital Birth Center Open
The battle lines have been drawn over a proposal to close Petaluma Valley Hospital’s Family Birth Center, with a host of supporters of the popular maternity ward gearing up this week to voice their strongest opposition yet. (Espinoza, 2/13)

California Healthline: Nearly $50,000 A Week For A Cancer Drug? A Man Worries About Bankrupting His Family
When Medicare stops paying for a pricey drug that prolongs life, an Ohio man considers giving up treatment to spare his family enormous debt. (Schulte, 2/14)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Temperatures In 30s Expected; Winter Shelters Available
A winter storm is passing through Los Angeles on Tuesday evening with fierce winds of up to 70 miles per hour in the mountains and perhaps a smattering of precipitation. The storm will move out early Wednesday morning, leaving clear but cold weather in its wake, according to the National Weather Service in Oxnard. (Goldberg, 2/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: County Begins Vaccinating Homeless Residents After Increase In Hepatitis A Cases
The San Diego County public health department began a hepatitis A vaccination campaign at a local homeless shelter Monday after detecting a recent increase in the number of cases in the community. (Sisson, 2/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: S.F. Could Kill Plan For Tiny Homes For Homeless Due To ‘Overwhelming’ Backlash, ‘Absurd’ Costs
Nearly everyone in City Hall agrees: San Francisco desperately needs more shelter and housing for the homeless. But familiar hurdles —  a barrage of complaints from neighbors and eye-popping costs — are threatening to derail an innovative proposal to get more people off the streets in the Mission District.   Supervisor Hillary Ronen, who originally championed the idea of transforming a blighted parking lot at 1979 Mission St. into a village of 70 tiny cabins, said plans are now on hold after “overwhelming opposition” from some members of the community and her own skepticism about whether the village will improve the conditions in the neighborhood. (Thadani, 2/13)

Los Angeles Times: Leaving Prison For Many Means Homelessness And Overdose. California Hopes To Change That
Californians who leave prisons and jails soon will have a better chance of success beyond bars. In January, California became the first state permitted to provide some benefits under Medicaid (known here as Medi-Cal) to incarcerated individuals. The new benefits would start 90 days before discharge in an effort to create a smooth transition to the community. (Seidman, 2/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Considers Legalizing Cannabis Cafes To Help Struggling Marijuana Industry
You order a sandwich, a coffee and a marijuana cigarette, then settle in for a musical performance. This could become the future under a bill aimed at changing the landscape of cannabis use in California. (Goldberg, 2/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Shake Shack Must Pay $20K To Trans Bay Area Employee Repeatedly Misgendered At Work
A fast-food chain will pay $20,000 and provide anti-discrimination training to its workers to settle a suit by a former transgender employee in Oakland who said he was repeatedly misgendered by coworkers and got no help from management, a state agency announced Monday. The man started work at a Shake Shack eatery in 2020 after training at the company’s San Francisco office, the state Civil Rights Department said in announcing the settlement. It said other employees, who presumably had received the same training, harassed him daily and regularly referred to him as female. (Egelko, 2/13)