Fresno Bee: Fresno Hospital Fined After Patient Dies When Object Was Left Inside Her During Surgery
Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno was issued a state penalty of nearly $79,000 — the highest the hospital has received since 2015 — after a violation in procedures during a 2022 surgery led to a cancer patient’s death, according to state records that became publicly available this week. (Amaro, 5/20)

The Bakersfield Californian: County Recognizes Emergency Medical Service Workers 
Emergency medical services professionals are recognizing EMS Week under the banner of "Where emergency care begins." (5/21)

Los Angeles Times: California Counties Scramble Ahead Of CARE Court Launch 
In four months, the gavel will fall, and the state’s first CARE Courts will be in session. Seven counties opted for an Oct. 1 rollout of the law that orders each county to create special courts, whose judges have the authority to order treatment plans for individuals with untreated schizophrenia and related disorders. Even though the plans are not compulsory, the courts hope for compliance as the law tries to straddle a line between voluntary and mandated treatment. (Curwen, 5/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: Another Bay Area Politician’s Health Scare Holds Lessons For Feinstein
For the 16 months remaining in her term, Sen. Dianne Feinstein will have just one job: Show up to work and vote the Democratic Party line. The bar for California’s 89-year-old senator has dropped that low as she returns from her nearly three-month absence while she battled complications from shingles. (Garofoli, 5/21)

San Diego Union-Tribune: County Directs City Of San Diego To Add More Restrooms To Combat Hepatitis A Among Homeless Residents 
Adding more restrooms downtown has long been a demand of advocates and those living on city streets, but a recent resurgence of hepatitis A infections among homeless residents forced the issue, with the county health officer, Dr. Wilma Wooten, asking for an increase in street sanitation and vaccination last week. (Sisson, 5/22)

Sacramento Bee: We Called 148 Affordable Properties During A Homeless Crisis. Only 3 Had Units Available 
The staff of Project Roomkey – a pandemic-response homelessness initiative coming to a close – provided homeless residents in the Vagabond Inn with a list of 160 affordable rental properties across the county, which they were encouraged to contact themselves. The Sacramento Bee called all 148 phone numbers on that list. Only three buildings had an immediately available unit. The list and its 145 dead ends drive home the staggering hurdles faced by the county’s most vulnerable residents. (Lange, 5/21)

The Coast News: Blakespear's Gun Safety Bill Heads To Assembly Ahead Of Cardiff Rally
A bill introduced by newly-elected State Sen. Senator Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) requiring California gun sellers to post warnings about the dangers of firearms in the home is now making its way to the state Assembly. (Mellos, 5/19)

Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Police Gun Buyback Brings Less Than Prior Events
The Sacramento Police Department hosted its first gun buyback of 2023 on Saturday. The event brought in 128 guns from the community, according to a news release from the department. That number is less than half of the guns collected at the department’s October buyback and six less than the same event from one year ago. (Muegge, 5/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: CHP Pointing More Guns At People At Traffic Stops, According To Data
From 2019 to 2020, The Chronicle found that the total number of people subject to use of force by the CHP increased by about 70%, going from about 1,040 to nearly 1,750. The CHP then used force against over 2,000 people in 2021 — twice the number it did in 2019, even though the agency made 20% fewer stops overall. (Neilson, 5/19)

CalMatters: UC Disability Services Understaffed, Students Say
When Cyn Gomez arrived on UC Berkeley’s campus as a second-year student in fall 2022, they realized they’d taken the benefits of online learning for granted. Their depression and anxiety, in addition to their learning disabilities, made the transition to in-person classes difficult. So they turned to the university’s Disabled Students’ Program, seeking accommodations that would excuse some class absences and provide them access to recorded lectures. But it took Gomez almost three weeks to schedule and undergo an intake appointment with a disability specialist. By the time the office had approved Gomez’s accommodations, the first two months of their sophomore year had already gone by. (Tagami, 5/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Teen Patients Have Their Hollywood Moment At Prom
When 15-year-old Destiny Kates arrived at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital prom shop, she already knew what makeup design she was going with. A butterfly. She rarely wears makeup, but for this night she wanted to go all-out. “I will match my dress perfectly,” she said. “I just like butterflies, and I envisioned it when I saw my dress.” (Parker, 5/21)

Los Angeles Times: DeSantis Wants To 'Make America Florida.' That Could Mean Many Uninsured 
California and many other states are working to limit the damage by expanding access to healthcare for low-income people and connecting more people to subsidized insurance. Florida, on the other hand, is one of a dwindling number of states that continue to reject federal Obamacare money to insure more low-income residents under Medicaid. (Bierman, 5/22)

Reveal: The Long Campaign To Turn Birth Control Into The New Abortion
When the Supreme Court’s decision undoing Roe v. Wade came down, anti-abortion groups were jubilant – but far from satisfied. Many in the movement have a new target: hormonal birth control. It seems contradictory; doesn’t preventing unwanted pregnancies also prevent abortions? But anti-abortion groups don’t see it that way. They claim that hormonal contraceptives like IUDs and the pill can actually cause abortions. One prominent group making this claim is Students for Life of America, whose president has said she wants such contraceptives to be illegal. (Mostafa, Butler and Mieszkowski, 5/20)

The Washington Post: Antiabortion Groups Push 2024 GOP Candidates To Embrace National Ban
Leaders of the antiabortion movement gathered in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago office last week to head off what they viewed as a potential crisis. The former president’s reelection campaign had recently said that abortion restrictions “should be decided at the state level.” Days later, his rival, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, delivered a speech arguing against federal abortion limits that did not have enough votes to pass both chambers of Congress. (Scherer and Dawsey, 5/18)

The Washington Post: Republicans Deploy New Playbook For Abortion Bans
Immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Republican lawmakers were quick to embrace so-called “trigger” bans designed to take effect as soon as the decision was released, while others rushed to pass additional restrictions that would halt the procedure in their states, sometimes backing proposals that did not include exceptions for rape or incest. Now, almost a year later, lawmakers in some Republican-led states have started coalescing behind bans that allow most abortions to continue — a reaction, some Republicans say, to the sustained political backlash to abortion restrictions that has been mounting since the landmark decision in June. (Roubein, Kitchener and Itkowitz, 5/20)

Reuters: Don't Delay Reforms To Prepare For Next Pandemic - WHO Chief 
The head of the World Health Organization on Monday urged countries to carry out the reforms needed to prepare for the next pandemic and honour a previous commitment to boost financing for the U.N. health agency. Speaking at the WHO's annual health assembly weeks after ending the global emergency status for the COVID-19 pandemic, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was time to advance negotiations on preventing the next one. (5/22)

Bloomberg: WHO Starts Global Network To Analyze Genetic Code Of Viruses
The World Health Organization is starting a global network to help protect people from the threats of infectious disease through pathogen genomics. The International Pathogen Surveillance Network, based on technology used to map out the genetic code of disease-causing organisms, will connect countries and regions, while improving systems for collecting and analyzing samples, the WHO said in a statement Saturday. (Maedler, 5/20)

The Hill: Biden Says He Thinks He Has Authority To Use 14th Amendment On Debt Ceiling 
President Biden on Sunday said he believes he has the authority to use the 14th Amendment to unilaterally address the debt ceiling, but he acknowledged potential legal challenges could still lead the nation to default if he went that route. “I’m looking at the 14th Amendment as to whether or not we have the authority — I think we have the authority,” Biden told reporters at a press conference in Hiroshima, Japan. (Samuels, 5/21)

NPR: These Are The People Who Will Be Impacted By A U.S. Debt Default 
Veterans, seniors and government employees: These are just some of the people who stand to be impacted if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warns that without additional borrowing authority, the U.S. could run short of cash to pay its bills as early as June 1. ... It would also be felt very directly by ordinary people. (Horsley, 5/22)

Reuters: Obesity Drug Brings Heart Health Benefit Alongside Weight Loss, Study Says 
Taking Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO) new obesity drug may help reduce the risk of heart disease as well as boosting weight loss, according to new research from the United States. After a year of taking semaglutide, marketed as Wegovy, patients’ risk of suffering from conditions like a heart attack or a stroke over the next ten years dropped to 6.3% from 7.6% when measured by a commonly used calculator, researchers at the Mayo Clinic found. (Rigby, 5/19)

The Atlantic: Could Ozempic Also Be An Anti-Addiction Drug?
All her life, Victoria Rutledge thought of herself as someone with an addictive personality. Her first addiction was alcohol. After she got sober in her early 30s, she replaced drinking with food and shopping, which she thought about constantly. She would spend $500 on organic groceries, only to have them go bad in her fridge. “I couldn’t stop from going to that extreme,” she told me. When she ran errands at Target, she would impulsively throw extra things—candles, makeup, skin-care products—into her cart. (Zhang, 5/19)

NBC News: Weight Loss Drugs Can Lead To Muscle Loss, Too. Is That A Bad Thing?
Weight loss drugs have soared in popularity in the past year, helping some lose dramatic amounts of weight — but not all that weight is fat. Some of that is actually lean mass, which is everything in the body that isn’t fat, including your bones, organs and, importantly, muscle. (Sullivan, 5/20)

Stat: Novo Pauses Ads For Weight Loss Drug Wegovy Amid Demand
Novo Nordisk is pausing ads for its obesity drug Wegovy as it struggles to keep up with surging demand, the latest hurdle in its rollout of the weight loss drug. “To avoid stimulating further demand for this medicine, we’re pausing some key Wegovy promotional efforts,” the Danish drugmaker said in an emailed statement. (Chen, 5/19)

USA Today: Recalled Eye Drops Linked To Bacteria Tied To Four Deaths, CDC Says
Four people have now died in a multistate outbreak of a drug-resistant bacteria strain tied to recalled eye drops, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC and the Food and Drug Administration in February warned patients and clinicians to stop using EzriCare or Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears products after one death from an infection and reactions in dozens of patients, some who experienced permanent eye loss. (Snider, 5/20)

USA Today: Black Women Find Shortage When Looking For Black Sperm Donors
When Mardochée Julien-West and her wife decided to become moms through in vitro fertilization, they knew they definitely wanted Black babies. They just didn’t know how hard that would be. Julien-West remembers first looking donors at a cryobank in 2020. When she and her wife Yevette filtered the search for Black men, their options dwindled from hundreds of choices to only two. (Lee Myers and Triggs, 5/21)