Los Angeles Times: This Rural California County Lost Its Only Hospital, Leaving Residents With Dire Healthcare Choices
The abrupt closure of Madera Community Hospital and its affiliated medical clinics capped years of financial turmoil. Still, most residents in this rural county in California’s geographic center were caught off guard, unaware of just how much was at stake until their hospital was gone. (Gomez and Fry, 6/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: Ransomware Gang Reportedly Steals Data From California Hospital
Panorama City, Calif.-based Mission Community Hospital was infected by ransomware after hacker group RansomHouse exploited vulnerabilities in its Paragon and Cisco systems, DataBreaches.net reported June 4.According to the website, RansomHouse listed on its leak site that it has 2.5 terabytes of the hospital's data and provided some proof, along with a note: "Dear Mission Community Hospital Management, We strongly recommend you to contact us to prevent your confidential data or research data to be leaked or sold to a third party." (Bruce, 6/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Providence Nurses, Clinicians Authorize Strikes
Members of the Oregon Nurses Association at Providence Portland Medical Center, Providence Seaside Hospital, and Providence Home Health and Hospice have voted to authorize three strikes. The union represents about 1,800 nurses and clinicians at the facilities, according to a news release from the ONA shared with Becker's. Providence Portland Medical Center, Providence Seaside Hospital, and Providence Home Health and Hospice are part of Providence, which has 120,000 employees total across Alaska, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington. (Gooch, 6/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: McDonald Named Interim Director Of County Health And Human Services Agency 
Dr. Eric McDonald, a familiar public health voice in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, will temporarily helm the county Health and Human Services Agency when Director Nick Macchione leaves for a new position at UC San Diego Health. (Sisson, 6/5)

Becker's Hospital Review: Meet The New Dean Of UCLA's Medical School
The University of California-Los Angeles has named Steven Dubinett, MD, the next dean of its David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Dubinett was selected for the role following a national search, according to a June 5 news release from UCLA Health. (Kayser, 6/5)

Voice Of San Diego: Homelessness In San Diego Hasn’t Increased Nearly As Much As Its Visibility, Data Shows 
For months, the conversation in San Diego has been absolutely clear. Homelessness is growing and it’s growing fast. But the story that’s going around doesn’t exactly match reality – at least not according to the region’s most consistent census of unhoused people, the point-in-time count. That count shows that in 2022 there were fewer homeless people in San Diego than there were 10 years ago. (Huntsberry, 6/5)

CapRadio: Sacramento Tenant Advocates Say Bill Capping Security Deposits Could Make It Easier To Access Housing
Advocates for affordable housing say it’s not just the monthly rent that makes it expensive to live in Sacramento. It’s also the many upfront costs — like hefty security deposits required by landlords. That’s why advocates like Herman Barahona with the Sacramento Environmental Justice Coalition support Assembly Bill 12, a proposal that would cap deposits at a maximum of one month’s rent. The bill is making its way through the California Legislature. (Nichols, 6/6)

Fierce Healthcare: Apple Rolls Out Mental Health Tracking, Brings Health App To IPad
The roughly half of American smartphone users with iPhones will notice new health and privacy features on their devices starting today. In addition to iPhones’ being equipped with new health features, Apple’s update will give iPad and Apple Watch users access to new tools. All three platforms will gain features that encourage healthy behaviors, reduce the risk of myopia, or nearsightedness, and provide ways to assess and address depression, according to the company. The new features were announced as part of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2023 Monday. (Burky, 6/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Health Officials Urge Caution Amid Potential Re-Emergence Of Mpox As Summer Arrives 
Recently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and public health officials in San Diego County have highlighted a mpox outbreak in Chicago which, according to a May 18 briefing from the CDC, involved 21 new infections. (Sisson, 6/5)

Pasadena Star News: California Is Shutting Down LA County’s Juvenile Halls, But This Unit Is Exempt 
The BSCC’s limited authority over SYTFs has created an unprecedented situation in which the state board has ordered Los Angeles County to close its two main juvenile halls and remove 275 youths from the buildings by July 24 due to “unsuitable” conditions, but is unable to extend that order to cover roughly 80 youth housed in the SYTF unit inside Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, one of the halls slated for closure. (Henry, 6/5)

Voice of OC: Where In The World Are SoCal’s Air Quality Regulators?
Sometimes the bodies burn at night. And residents living next to the Macera Crematory near Santa Ana’s historic Logan Neighborhood ask where their local air quality regulators have been on the resulting pollution, as their 90% Latino area logs more toxic air than 91% of the entire state. That question hung over representatives of the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) like a column of ash at a May 18 community forum in town, where residents got to ask officials about the crematory directly. (Pho and Biesiada, 6/5)

The Hill: Appeals Court To Hear Arguments About ObamaCare Preventive Coverage
A federal appeals court will hear arguments Tuesday about whether to continue a pause of a Texas district court’s ruling that struck down an ObamaCare provision requiring insurers to cover preventive services for free. Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily paused Judge Reed O’Connor’s decision until a panel could hear oral arguments on whether the pause should be continued during the appeals process. (Weixel, 6/5)

Axios: Appeals Court To Weigh Fate Of ACA Preventive Care Requirement
The three-judge panel that will preside over the court hearing is comprised of Judges Edith Brown Clement and Leslie Southwick, two George W. Bush appointees, and Judge Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee. The Justice Department argues the public will be harmed unless the lower court ruling is stayed. Regardless of the outcome, the decision is expected to be appealed to the Supreme Court. (Gonzalez, 6/6)

Axios: LGBT Health Coverage Improved After ACA, Supreme Court Marriage Ruling
Health insurers responded to the 2015 Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriage with more equitable coverage for LGBTQ couples, including spousal benefits, according to a new study published in Health Affairs. The percentage of all LGBTQ adults with a usual source of health care access increased from 64% to 75% from 2013 to 2019. (Dreher, 6/6)

Bloomberg: FDA Revokes Authorization Of J&J’s Covid Vaccine As Demand Wanes 
US regulators revoked emergency authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine after the company’s Janssen unit requested its withdrawal. Janssen informed the Food and Drug Administration that shots bought by the government had expired and there was no demand for the product in the US, the regulator said in a statement released last week. (Cattan, 6/5)

Reuters: Novavax Exec Says Its New COVID Shot Should Work Against Variants On The Rise
Novavax Inc's head of research and development on Monday said an updated COVID-19 vaccine the company is already producing is likely to be protective against other fast-growing coronavirus variants circulating in the U.S. Protein-based vaccines like Novavax's take longer to produce than the messenger RNA-based versions made by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. (Erman, 6/5)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Software Glitch Leads To Bogus Notice To 400 People Who Signed Up For Grail Early Detection Cancer Test
Cancer screening outfit Grail said Friday that a software glitch at a third-party telemedicine vendor led to erroneous letters being sent to about 400 people warning that they may have developed cancer. (Freeman, 6/2)

USA Today: U.S. To Import Chemotherapy Drug Cisplatin From China To Ease Shortage
Citing a shortage of commonly prescribed drugs for U.S. cancer patients, the Food and Drug Administration will temporarily allow overseas drug manufacturers to import some chemotherapy drugs. The FDA will let Qilu Pharmaceutical, a drug manufacturer in China, import the injectable chemotherapy drug cisplatin in 50-milligram vials. Toronto pharmaceutical company Apotex Corp. will distribute the medication in the United States. (Alltucker, 6/5)

USA Today: DNA Sequencing Improves Cancer Treatment But Remains Underused. Why?
Unlike many oncologists, the tears Dr. Thomas Roberts often saw in his office were those of joy. His patients had been told they had less than six months to live. But Roberts, then a fellow specializing in lung cancer care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was able to give many an extra lease on life. Because they had certain genetic mutations in their tumors, he could promise them at least another year and often three, five or more. (Weintraub, 6/6)

Stat: FDA Cancer Head Wants Advisory Panels To Keep Voting On Drugs
As commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Robert Califf has made clear he’d like to do away with the votes that punctuate meetings of expert panels evaluating new drugs for approval. On Sunday, Richard Pazdur, director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence, took issue with his boss. (Chen, 6/5)

USA Today: Should A Baby's DNA Be Sequenced At Birth? Yes, New Study Suggests
What would happen if every newborn's genes were sequenced at birth? That's the question the BabySeq study has been trying to answer for a decade. Its newest results suggest the genetic information could be used to save lives. And not just the baby's. (Weintraub, 6/5)

CNN: How Long You Breastfeed May Impact Your Child’s Test Scores Later, Study Shows 
Whether children were breastfed as infants and for how long may have an impact on their test scores when they are adolescents, according to new research. The report, published Monday in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, followed about 5,000 British children from their infancy in the early 2000s to their last year of high school, according to lead study author Dr. Reneé Pereyra-Elías, a doctoral student and researcher in the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford. (Holcombe, 6/5)

Reuters: Microsoft To Pay $20 Mln To Settle US Charges For Violating Children's Privacy 
Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle U.S. Federal Trade Commission charges that the tech company illegally collected personal information from children without their parents' consent, the FTC said on Monday. The company had been charged with violating the U.S. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from children who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without notifying their parents or obtaining their parents' consent, and by retaining children's personal information, the FTC said in a statement. ... "This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids' avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA," said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. (Singh, 6/5)