CalMatters: California Homeless Politician Fights For Office
On a pleasant June evening, in the airy chambers of the quaint Mission Revival city hall, the council gathered to discuss the fate of one of their own. It was more than a year since Suza Francina, a longtime councilmember in this small arts- and wellness-oriented town tucked into a mountain valley in Ventura County, lost her rental housing. Now she was staying with a friend outside her district as she struggled to find a new place to live. A recent grand jury report had concluded she was violating residency requirements and should be replaced. (Koseff, 6/22)

Los Angeles Daily News: LA City Council Members Want To Cut Red Tape For Shelters And Low-Income Housing 
During her first week in office, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive directive to fast-track the process for building affordable housing and shelters, a move that also enables developers to cut costs and potentially build more units. (Tat, 6/21)

KQED: California Mayors Are Focusing On Temporary Shelter To Reduce Street Homelessness. But There’s A Tradeoff
Fear of crime and blight in some of California’s biggest cities is increasing pressure on mayors to reduce visible street homelessness fast — even if it means not putting everyone into permanent affordable housing. To do this, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and San Francisco’s London Breed have pushed for more funding for shelters and temporary housing in their city budgets. But homeless advocates worry that more funding for temporary solutions means less funding for permanent housing. (Guevarra, Marzorati, Rodriguez, Esquinca, Herdman, Montecillo, 6/21)

Bay Area News Group: These Bay Area Cities And Counties Getting $46 Million From State To Clear Homeless Camps
Eight local cities and counties are set to receive a share of more than $46 million to move potentially a thousand people out of encampments and into shelter or housing. The awards are part of a $350 million statewide effort Gov. Gavin Newsom launched last year to get more homeless people indoors. (Varian, 6/22)

The Mercury News: How Many Of California's Homeless Residents Are From Out Of State?
Contrary to the oft-spouted belief that California’s temperate climate and supposedly generous social services make it a magnet for the country’s homeless people, a comprehensive new study finds the vast majority of the state’s unhoused residents lived here before losing their housing. Why, then, is California home to almost a third of the nation’s homeless population? The main answer is simple, the University of California San Francisco study authors say: a severe shortage of affordable housing. (Varian and Mehta, 6/22)

Oaklandside: A Guide To Affordable Housing In Oakland
In this guide, we aim to share a lot of that information in one place. We focus on Berkeley and Oakland, but many of the resources can help you find housing throughout Alameda County. We’ve answered some of your most pressing questions, listed resources and programs offering affordable housing, and shared tips on how to apply. (6/22)

Voice Of San Diego: Her Work As A Homeless Advocate Almost Cost Her Everything 
On any given night in February of 2015, Vanessa Graziano could be found in the kitchen she shared with about 100 other women and families. She was probably making spaghetti or chili with cornbread, both crowd favorites. At the time, Graziano was at Serenity House, an inpatient rehab center in Escondido. She was homeless and recovering from a severe addiction to meth that she had been battling with for nearly a decade. (Layne, 6/21)

CalMatters: California Gov. Newsom Is Proposing A Boost In Mental Health Funding. Why Children’s Advocates Are Worried
Come March, California voters will get the chance to weigh in on sweeping changes proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to the state’s mental health funding system — including a $4.68 billion bond measure to add treatment beds — but critics say the proposal pits children’s mental health services against the state’s ballooning homelessness crisis. (Hwang, 6/21)

Capitol Weekly: Life Or Death Choices Ahead For California Institute For Regenerative Medicine
Directors of the $12 billion California stem cell agency will face a fundamental question next week that could determine whether its efforts to produce revolutionary treatments for afflictions ranging from heart disease to cancer will live or die. The question is contained in a briefing on the funding model for the 18-year-old California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), which is the only California state department that has a slow-moving, financial guillotine hanging over it. (Jensen, 6/21)

NBC News: Doctors Say HCA Hospitals Push Patients Into Hospice Care To Improve Mortality Stats
This article is based on interviews with six nurses and 27 doctors who currently practice at 16 HCA hospitals in seven states or did so previously. All said their HCA hospitals pushed palliative and end-of-life care in pursuit of better performance metrics. Internal HCA hospital documents and texts between hospital staffers provided to NBC News support these health care professionals’ views. ... Ghasan Tabel, a doctor who practices at Riverside Community Hospital, an HCA facility in Riverside, California, is troubled by HCA’s palliative care and hospice push. (Morgenson, 6/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: She’s A Hospital ‘Frequent Flyer,’ But Can’t Escape Fentanyl In S.F.
Fentanyl has an ironclad grip on Jessica Didia’s life. She organizes her days around smoking the drug from sheets of foil and shoplifting to pay for it, and she continues this routine despite surviving, by her estimate, more than 100 overdoses. In the intensive care unit at San Francisco General Hospital, which could be called her second home if she had a home at all, Jessica is free from this cycle — for a few days, anyway. (Knight, 6/22)

The New York Times: New Fentanyl Laws Ignite Debate Over Combating Overdose Crisis
Approaches to drug addiction have evolved in recent years, with both states and the federal government allocating more funds for treatment and prevention. The Biden administration has embraced the concept of “harm reduction” — the short-range goal of making drugs less dangerous for users. The Food and Drug Administration has approved an overdose reversal medication, Narcan, for purchase over the counter. But to many public health experts, the tough new fentanyl laws seem like a replay of the war-on-drugs sentencing era of the 1980s and ’90s that responded to crack and powder cocaine. They worry the result will be similar: The incarcerated will be mostly low-level dealers, particularly people of color, who may be selling to support their addictions. (Hoffman, 6/21)

Bay Area Reporter: Don't Let Mpox Be Part Of Your Pride Celebration 
Mpox is at a low ebb in San Francisco, but public health experts caution that the virus has not gone away, and they urge gay and bisexual men to take precautions, including getting both doses of the vaccine. "Cases of mpox in San Francisco remain low, however, we remain watchful as we want to make sure that everyone can enjoy a happy and healthy Pride and summer," San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip told the Bay Area Reporter. "As the summer months and celebrations surrounding Pride approach, now is the ideal time for people to ensure they are protected." (Highleyman, 6/21)

NBC News: CDC Panel Recommends RSV Vaccines For Adults Ages 65 And Up
Adults ages 65 and up should get one of the newly approved RSV vaccines, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided Wednesday. The committee voted 9-5 to recommend two different RSV vaccines for adults ages 65 and up, from the pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and GSK. Thirteen members also voted to recommend the shots for adults ages 60 to 64 based on individual risk levels and in consultation with doctors, with one committee member abstaining. (Bendix, 6/21)

NBC News: CDC Says To Make Sure You're Protected Against Measles Ahead Of Summer Travel
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning Americans to make sure they're fully protected against the measles before traveling internationally this summer. The agency issued a health advisory Wednesday urging that people make certain they've had two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR, vaccine at least two weeks before traveling to areas of the world with active measles outbreaks. (Edwards, 6/21)

Military.com: Lawmakers Advance Bill To Let Disabled Vets Collect Full Benefits, But Hurdles To Passage Remain
A key House panel has for the first time advanced a bill that would dramatically expand benefits for veterans injured in combat. In a voice vote Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee approved the Major Richard Star Act, which would ensure service members who medically retire before 20 years have full access to both military retirement pay and Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits. (Kheel, 6/21)

Military.com: Protections For Troops Booted Over COVID Vaccine Mandate Added To House Defense Bill 
House Republicans moved Wednesday to protect former service members who were discharged over the military's now-defunct COVID-19 vaccine mandate, including easing their path to reinstatement. Troops who were discharged for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine could be reinstated at the rank held when they were separated and without the discharge affecting future career advancement under one of a series of amendments related to the vaccine mandate approved by the House Armed Services Committee. The committee was debating its version of the annual defense policy bill. (Kheel, 6/21)

Military Times: After Two Years, Still No Timeline For Transgender Surgeries At VA
Two years after Veterans Affairs leaders announced they would make “life saving” surgery options for transgender veterans available through department medical centers for the first time, no such operations have been performed, and VA officials admit there is no timeline for when they might begin. The delay comes as a national debate has erupted over both the surgeries and transgender rights. Instead of alleviating some of the stress associated with that, Veterans Affairs officials are adding to the anxiety by failing to follow through with its promise, advocates say. (Shane III, 6/20)

Modern Healthcare: Express Scripts Tricare False Claims Act Lawsuit Dismissed
A federal judge has dismissed a False Claims Act case against Express Scripts that accused the pharmacy benefit manager of providing excessive and medically unnecessary prescription drug refills to military personnel and families and scamming taxpayers out of billions of dollars. Judge Todd Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California wrote in a filing submitted Friday that the dismissal was warranted under the public-disclosure bar, meaning similar claims were made public prior to the lawsuit. (Berryman, 6/21)

The Bakersfield Californian: No More Excuses: Local Veterans Want To See Shovels In The Dirt For VA Clinic 
They don't pretend to have all the answers. But a close-knit group of nearly two dozen Kern County veterans sent a message loud and clear on Wednesday: It's time, they said, to start building the new community-based outpatient clinic for area veterans, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs facility authorized by Congress in 2009. (Mayer, 6/21)

Military.com: Veterans Can Now Use VA Info Line To Report Sexual Assault, Harassment
Veterans and visitors to VA facilities can now report incidents of sexual harassment or assault that occur on campus by calling the Department of Veterans Affairs' 1-800-MyVA411 information line. Officials announced Wednesday that the call center, established in 2019 to provide information on VA health care services, disability compensation and education benefits and serve as a venue to receive veterans' concerns, will take confidential reports on incidents of rape, assault or harassment. (Kime, 6/21)

San Francisco Chronicle: Lab-Grown Chicken Gets Approved For Sale. When Will It Hit Bay Area Restaurants?
For the first time in the U.S., lab-grown chicken from Bay Area companies can officially be sold in restaurants. This week, Alameda food technology company Good Meat and Berkeley’s Upside Foods announced they had received their respective grants of inspection from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This final regulatory approval means the companies can sell their chicken products made from cultivated animal cells nationwide. (Cortez, 6/21)

The Guardian: Metal Recycling Plant Owners Charged For Contaminating LA School Grounds 
The owners of a metal recycling plant operating next to a south LA high school campus have been hit with 22 felony charges, after decades of complaints that the facility was contaminating school grounds with lead and other toxic waste. Announcing the charges on Wednesday, the Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón said that staff and students at Jordan high school in Watts, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, had been “potentially exposed to dangerous levels of pollutants on a daily basis”. (Singh, 6/21)

The Washington Post: Effects Of Dobbs On Maternal Health Care Overwhelmingly Negative, Survey Shows
Sweeping restrictions and even outright abortion bans adopted by states in the year since the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling have had an overwhelmingly negative effect on maternal health care, according to a survey of OBGYNs released Wednesday that provides one of the clearest views yet of how the U.S. Supreme Court decision has affected women’s health care in the United States. The poll by the health research nonprofit KFF reveals that the Dobbs ruling — which ended federal protection on the right to abortion — affected maternal mortality and how pregnancy-related medical emergencies are managed, precipitated a rise in requests for sterilization and has done much more than restrict abortion access. Many OBGYNs said it has also made their jobs more difficult and legally perilous than before, while leading to worse outcomes for patients. (Bellware and Guskin, 6/21)

The 19th: Abortion Bans Are Causing ‘Chilling Effect’ For OBGYNs, Study Says 
It’s been one year since the Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion, and OBGYNs say that it has impacted their ability to perform miscarriages and react in pregnancy-related emergencies, according to a new KFF national survey released Wednesday. Now, they fear those restrictions have led to worse maternal mortality rates, and they fear for future recruitment and retention in their profession. (Padilla, 6/21)

NPR: Googling 'Abortion Clinic Near Me'? The Top Result Is Often An Anti-Abortion Clinic
When people are looking for abortion services, they often turn to Google, searching a phrase like "abortion clinic near me" or "planned parenthood." Yet the ads they'll see at the top of the Google search results are often not abortion providers at all, but instead misleading ads for anti-abortion "crisis pregnancy centers" — facilities that use various tactics to dissuade or delay pregnant people from getting an abortion. (Wamsley, 6/22)

The New York Times: The U.S. Population Is Older Than It Has Ever Been 
The median age in the United States reached a record high of 38.9 in 2022, according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau. It’s a rapid rise. In 2000, the median age was 35, and in 1980, the median was 30. While many 38-year-old millennials may still feel young, that age is an unusually high median for the country. (Goldstein, 6/22)

CNN: FDA To Test Out Nutrition Labels On The Front Of Food Packaging
The United States Food and Drug Administration will test out labels on the front of food packages in the hope of giving shoppers better access to nutrition information, the agency said. The goal is to address diet-related chronic disease by “empowering consumers with nutrition information to help them more easily identify healthier choices and encouraging industry innovation to produce healthier foods,” the FDA said in a recent regulatory filing. (Holcombe, 6/21)