Voice of OC: State Auditor Found $1.2 Billion Laying Around At OC’s Health Plan For The Poor
While poor families juggled doctor visits and homeless people died on Orange County’s streets, the local agency they relied on for their public health plans sat on $1.2 billion in unspent cash as of last year, according to the state auditor. And the agency potentially broke state government ethics law when its board of directors hired a former fellow board member as CEO in 2020. That’s according to a Tuesday report from State Auditor Grant Parks, which looked into government activity between the years 2014 and 2022 at CalOptima, the Medi-Cal managed care plan for roughly one million low-income people in OC, whose leaders get paid more than presidents and governors. (Pho, 5/3)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Gun Rights Groups Sue In San Diego To Overturn California's 10-Day Purchase Waiting Period 
A lawsuit filed by gun rights groups in San Diego federal court seeks to overturn California’s 10-day waiting period for new gun purchases, the latest in a growing body of cases filed locally that challenge the state’s strict firearms laws. The lawsuit, filed Monday, claims that “a right delayed is a right denied” and that the 10-day waiting period is enforced even when a state database can confirm a person is eligible to buy a gun within minutes of submitting an application. The suit names California Attorney General Rob Bonta as the lead defendant. (Riggins, 5/2)

Times Of San Diego: Gun Rights Group Sues To End California's 10-Day 'Cooling Off' Period For Firearms Purchases 
The Firearms Policy Coalition, which has frequently challenged California’s gun violence laws, announced Tuesday it has filed suit in federal court in San Diego to end the state’s 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases. The lawsuit argues that if quick checks of state and federal databases “return no records showing that an applicant is prohibited from possessing arms” then an immediate sale should be allowed. (Jennewein, 5/2)

Voice of OC: County Employees Attacked At Work Find A Big Hole In California’s Workers Comp System
When Barbara Bossenmeyer was accidentally shot by an Orange County Sheriff sergeant while working at her desk in John Wayne Airport, family and friends were quick to reassure her that all her bills and any complications would be taken care of. “Everybody was like, ‘Oh you’ll be well taken care of,’” Bossenmeyer said, adding, “That’s not the truth.” When she looked at suing the sheriffs’ department, her lawyers told her that wasn’t an option. Under California’s worker’s compensation laws, employees can’t sue their employers when they’re injured at work in most cases according to the state’s Department of Industrial Relations’ guide for injured workers. (Biesiada, 5/3)

inewsource: Cash-Strapped El Centro Regional Medical Center Has New CEO
The El Centro Regional Medical Center has a new CEO, but Imperial County’s largest hospital remains in dire financial straits. Pablo Velez, who previously headed Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center, will lead the hospital as it grapples with the possibility of running out of cash in mere months. He will report to UC San Diego Health, which expanded its longstanding relationship with El Centro Regional by taking over operations in February. (Bowman, 5/2)

Sacramento Business Journal: Adventist Health Leases Portion Of Roseville Headquarters
Adventist Health has consolidated its office space at its Roseville headquarters, so much so that it now has put part of its building up for lease. (Hamann, 5/2)

Modern Healthcare: 2023 Leapfrog Group Safety Grades Reflect High Infection Rates 
Rates of infection and hospital performance on safety measures continued to worsen during peak periods of the pandemic in late 2021 and 2022, according to data released Wednesday by the Leapfrog Group. (Devereaux, 5/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Genetics Could Be Why Your Meds Aren’t Working. UCSF Is Studying How
Prescription drugs and recommended doses are often adjusted according to a patient’s age, weight and gender. But subtler factors, including specific genes, can also determine how well a drug works — or whether you should take it at all. UCSF next week will start a genetic testing program for patients, believed to be the first of its kind in California and among only a handful in the United States, that helps tailor medications to patients based on their individual genetic makeup. (Ho, 5/2)

Stat: Legal Battle Between Apple And Masimo Ends In Mistrial
A California jury was unable to reach a verdict in a messy, drawn-out legal battle between Apple and patient-monitoring company Masimo. James Selna, the judge presiding, announced the case a mistrial on Monday. (Lawrence, 5/2)

The Washington Post: AI Pioneer Quits Google To Warn Humanity Of The Tech’s Existential Threat
Google computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, who has made significant contributions to the development of artificial intelligence, has left the technology giant to warn the world of the “existential risk” posed by AI systems to humans. The British-Canadian scientist, 75, wrote on Twitter that he quit “so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google.” (Bisset, 5/2)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's Cue Health Lays Off 30 Percent Of Its Workforce 
San Diego’s Cue Health, which saw huge demand for its 20-minute COVID-19 tests from the U.S. government, the NBA, Google and others during the pandemic, is cutting 30 percent of its workforce, the latest in a series of layoffs to reduce costs. (Rocha, 5/2)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County Supervisors Hear Of Local Mental Health Crisis At Community Forum In Santa Rosa
On a Sunday morning this past March, Kathleen Connolly of Fountaingrove found her 32-year-old son Patrick Connolly in his room, “cold and stiff,” with orange foam on his lips, the telltale sign of a fatal fentanyl overdose, she said. Just two days earlier, on March 3, Patrick, who was diagnosed as schizoaffective with severe depression, had been seen at the county’s Crisis Stabilization Unit, a sort of psychiatric emergency department. He was released the next day, she said. (Espinoza, 5/2)

Sacramento Business Journal: Mental Health Services Campus With Future Commercial Elements Planned Near Auburn Airport
A full campus devoted to addressing mental health is being planned south of Auburn Municipal Airport near Auburn. (van der Meer, 5/2)

Sacramento Bee: CA Teachers Sue School District, State Over Transgender Policy
Two San Diego-area middle school teachers are suing their local school district, as well as Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and the members of the California State Board of Education, alleging that they have a First Amendment right to out transgender students to their parents. Elizabeth Mirabelli, who teaches English at Rincon Middle School, and Lori Ann West, who teaches PE at that same school, have filed their lawsuit against Escondido Union School District and the state with support from the Thomas More Society, a conservative Catholic law firm. (Sheeler, 5/2)

San Francisco Chronicle: Oakland Mayor Plans To Split City’s Homelessness Chief Into Two Jobs
Mayor Sheng Thao has proposed splitting the position of Oakland’s homelessness chief into two jobs — her latest attempt to get a handle on the city’s surging crisis and to buttress a key role that the city has struggled to keep filled. Thao, who released her $4.2 billion budget proposal Monday, is making the case to shift responsibility for addressing homelessness in Oakland onto two people who would report to an assistant city administrator to manage the heavy workload and improve results. (Ravani, 5/2)

KQED: Residents Fear Crime And Drugs Near Temporary Housing Sites In San José, But The Evidence Shows Otherwise
San José Mayor Matt Mahan has been pushing to build more emergency interim housing as a cost-effective approach to get unhoused residents off the streets more quickly. It’s intended to be a temporary step toward more permanent housing. But one big roadblock to building it? Local housed residents, who say they want to see solutions to homelessness…just not in their own backyards. (Guevarra, Marzorati, Esquinca, Montecillo, 5/3)

Los Angeles Times: Low Wages, Short Hours Drive Many Fast-Food Workers Into Homelessness
When Jose de la Torre began delivering pizzas for Papa Johns in 2019, he made $15 an hour and shared a one-bedroom apartment in the Florence-Graham neighborhood with half a dozen other people. After two years on the job, his hourly rate was the same but his work schedule had been cut — to about 30 hours a week instead of the full 40, he said. Meanwhile, his everyday living expenses had gone up. He began sleeping in his Nissan Altima, parking it near the Papa Johns in Lynwood where he worked. (Chang, 5/2)

ABC News: Fentanyl Overdose Deaths Surged 279% Since 2016 While Heroin Deaths Fell: CDC
The rate of drug overdose deaths linked to fentanyl in the United States has skyrocketed over the last five years, new federal data showed. The rate of overdose deaths involving fentanyl spiked by 279% between 2016 and 2021 from 5.7 per 100,000 to 21.6 per 100,000, according to a report published early Wednesday by the National Center for Health Statistics' National Vital Statistics System -- which looked at death certificate records. (Kekatos, 5/3)

Politico: Covid-19 Inflamed The Opioid Crisis, Particularly For Black Americans
White House officials for years warned that opioids were becoming rampant in Black communities. Then came Covid-19. In 2020, the rate of drug overdose deaths among Black Americans skyrocketed, increasing faster than that of any other racial or ethnic group in the country. Fentanyl, which had become more ubiquitous, drove the rising toll. On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report showing that more Black Americans died from fentanyl overdoses than from any other drug in 2021 and at far higher rates than whites or Hispanics. (Mahr, 5/3)

EdSource: Is The Child Care Crisis Escalating? 
Nearly 90% of brain growth happens before children start kindergarten. That’s why experts say high-quality care is so vital for small children. It’s also why the ongoing child care crisis is so worrisome and why the Biden administration is once again trying to address the issue on a national scale. To be sure, the child care sector has long been marked by a brutal economic tug-of-war. Most families can’t afford the skyrocketing high cost of care, while many child care workers can’t survive on their pay.  (D'Souza, 5/3)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bob Lee Murder Case: Prosecutors, Defense Clash Over Toxicology
Prosecutors and a defense attorney clashed Tuesday over a toxicology report that showed Cash App founder Bob Lee had drugs in his system the night he was fatally stabbed, with the defense saying the information was relevant and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins saying it was a tactic to denigrate the victim. The topic arose after a court hearing for Nima Momeni, the man accused of murdering Lee on April 4. (Barned-Smith, 5/2)

Stat: Disagreements, Digs Upend Otherwise Bipartisan Hearing On PBMs
The first Senate health committee markup under Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and ranking Republican Bill Cassidy (La.) was rocky from the start — and it only went downhill from there. The committee was supposed to consider several bills to reform drug middlemen practices and make changes to laws governing generic drugs. But the markup was marred by procedural disagreements and ultimately adjourned unexpectedly, over Sanders’ efforts to continue. (Wilkerson, 5/2)

The Washington Post: Biden Needles House GOP Amid Concerns About Spending Cuts Affecting Veterans 
President Biden on Tuesday needled House Republicans for providing no explicit protections for veterans programs in the bill they narrowly passed last week that would condition raising the debt ceiling on deep spending cuts across much of the federal government. House Republicans have insisted military and veterans spending would be shielded, but a lack of specificity in the legislation has left them open to attacks by Democrats and caused grave concern among veteran advocacy groups. (Wagner, 5/2)

Politico: How McCarthy Could Pick Off Centrist Dems With 4 Debt-Limit Ideas 
House Republicans are trying to get a handful of swing-state Democrats in the Senate to support tougher work requirements for food assistance programs. But most have resoundingly rejected the idea. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has signaled he could be open to beefing up work requirements, potentially backing tighter rules for people who are “capable and able to do it.” House Republicans are quick to highlight Biden’s own embrace of welfare reform during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, when the position was less fraught among Democrats and Biden was a sitting senator — but the stricter work rules getting pushed by today’s GOP go beyond those.

ABC News: House Democrats Prepare Long Shot Plan To Try To Force Debt Ceiling Increase 
House Democratic leadership has been working behind the scenes on a long shot plan that could allow their party to go around Speaker Kevin McCarthy and force a vote to raise the debt limit, even if an agreement isn't reached with the Republican majority. The strategy centers on what's called a discharge petition -- a rare and complicated procedural tool that allows members of the House to move a bill out of a committee and bring it to the floor without the support of the majority party leadership. ... In Israel on Monday, where he is leading a congressional delegation, McCarthy said he was ready to negotiate but that "we will not pass a debt ceiling that just raises it without doing something on our debt." (Scott, Pecorin and Peller, 5/2)