AP: Black Californians Hope State Reparations Don't Become Another Broken Promise
San Francisco resident Pia Harris hopes for reparations in her lifetime. But the nonprofit program director is not confident that California lawmakers will turn the recommendations of a first-in-the-nation task force into concrete legislation given pushback from opponents who say slavery was a thing of the past. It frustrates Harris, 45, that reparations opponents won’t acknowledge that life for Black people did not improve with the abolition of chattel slavery in 1865. Black families have been unable to accumulate wealth through property ownership and higher education. Black boys and teenagers are still told to watch out for law enforcement, and Black businesses struggle to get loans, she said. (Austin and Har, 5/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: SF Drug Crisis: New Ads Slam City's Response To Fentanyl Epidemic
A provocative new advertising campaign that seeks to lambaste City Hall’s response to San Francisco’s fentanyl epidemic has arrived in some of the neighborhoods most affected by public drug markets. (Morris, 5/16)

Reuters: White House Wants To Improve Access To Opioid Overdose Reversal Medication
President Joe Biden's administration is seeking to meet with the makers of the life-saving medication naloxone used to reverse opioid overdoses, in an effort to increase access and reduce cost, a spokesperson for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said. (5/17)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Gets More Ambulances On Streets In New Falck Deal 
More ambulances will be responding to emergencies in San Diego starting May 29 as part of a new contract with Falck USA, which has struggled to meet response time goals since taking over the city’s ambulance service in 2021. (Garrick, 5/16)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Biotech Pulls In $100M For Precision Therapy For Hard-To-Treat Tumors
San Diego’s Boundless Bio, which is developing precision therapies to block certain genes from morphing cells into tumors, snagged $100 million in a third round of venture capital funding. (Freeman, 5/16)

Bay Area Reporter: Ongoing Suit Threatens PrEP Coverage As Patient Groups Fight For Copay Assistance 
Patient groups have filed a statement with a federal court supporting a lawsuit seeking to overturn copay accumulator schemes; however, this suit comes as access to life-saving preventative HIV care faces an existential threat from a separate case. Carl Schmid, a gay man who is the executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, told the Bay Area Reporter that a 2021 rule change from the United States Department of Health and Human Services means that health insurance companies can refuse to credit copay assistance funds from drug manufacturers toward deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums from patients, which particularly hurts people living with HIV. (Ferrannini, 5/16)

The Mercury News: Elizabeth Holmes Loses Final Bid To Delay Imprisonment
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes on Tuesday afternoon lost her final bid to stay out of prison while she appeals her fraud conviction and sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a one-page ruling denied Holmes’ attempt to overturn her trial judge’s decision on her incarceration date. (Baron, 5/16)

AP: YouTube’s Recommendations Send Violent And Graphic Gun Videos To 9-Year-Olds, Study Finds 
When researchers at a nonprofit that studies social media wanted to understand the connection between YouTube videos and gun violence, they set up accounts on the platform that mimicked the behavior of typical boys living in the U.S. They simulated two nine-year-olds who both liked video games. The accounts were identical, except that one clicked on the videos recommended by YouTube, and the other ignored the platform’s suggestions. The account that clicked on YouTube’s suggestions was soon flooded with graphic videos about school shootings, tactical gun training videos and how-to instructions on making firearms fully automatic. (Klepper, 5/16)

Los Angeles Daily News: LA County To Treat Severely Mentally Ill Inmates In The Twin Towers Jail 
Part of the Twin Towers jail in Los Angeles will be used to treat inmates with severe mental illness, a way to provide emergency care and evaluate those who may be a danger to themselves or others, according to an action approved Tuesday, May 16, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. (Scauzillo, 5/16)

KPBS: Border Patrol Did Not Provide Food, Shelter To Migrants In Makeshift Camp, Federal Complaint Alleges 
A federal complaint alleges U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) failed to provide adequate food, water, shelter and medical aid to hundreds of migrants detained in a makeshift outdoor camp in San Ysidro that was exposed to the elements. (Solis, 5/16)

NPR: 2 People Were Hurt In A California Bee Attack. Here's What To Do If It Happens To You
A group of aggressive bees descended on passersby in Los Angeles this week and sent at least two people, including a police volunteer, to the hospital. Local TV news footage showed a man in uniform staggering down a street as he attempted to swat away droves of bees before he lost his balance and fell to the ground on Monday. (Hernandez, 5/17)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Israeli Paramedics Teach Congregation First Aid Four Years After Poway Synagogue Attack 
There was no incident to respond to Monday night at the synagogue, but Herbst — a senior paramedic with Israel’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service — was teaching others how to save each other and themselves after a mass shooting or other type of attack. (Lunetta, 5/16)

The Bakersfield Californian: CSUB Awards First Public Health Degree 
When Karla Herrera decided to change her major from pre-nursing to public health, it was a leap of faith that the brand-new program would be a good fit for her. She had to believe not just in herself but in her university. (Ardis, 5/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: Why It Could Be Harder To Avoid Getting COVID In The Future
The end of the national COVID-19 public health emergency has substantially shifted how coronavirus data is gathered and reported. The familiar, colorful community-level reports, graphs illustrating fluctuating case counts and jarring smartphone notifications that helped guide people through the first three years of the pandemic have largely disappeared. As of Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer tracks or publishes data on daily new infections, as states aren’t obligated to report such figures anymore. Instead, the CDC has shifted its surveillance efforts toward monitoring weekly coronavirus-positive hospital admissions and deaths. (Vaziri, 5/16)

CalMatters: California’s COVID Unemployment Mess Isn’t Over Yet 
It’s been 22 months and three unemployment appeals since Nicolas Allen’s last job in Fresno. In the time it has taken the 44-year-old graphic designer to win a fraction of the benefits that he applied for, his wife has weathered a high-risk pregnancy, his youngest son was born and his family has been pushed to the financial brink. Now, Allen is one of thousands of Californians who say they lost jobs due to the pandemic, but are still fighting lengthy legal battles over unemployment money that state and federal relief programs were designed to provide. (Hepler, 5/16)

CNN: Pfizer's Maternal RSV Vaccine Effective At Preventing Severe Infections In Newborns, FDA Says, But Flags Potential Risk Of Preterm Birth
Pfizer’s vaccine to protect newborns from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, by vaccinating their moms late in pregnancy cuts the risk that infants will need to see a doctor or be admitted to the hospital with a moderate to severe infection before 6 months of age, according to a new analysis by government regulators. Many parents have been eagerly anticipating this news, particularly after last year’s long and severe RSV season. (Goodman, 5/16)

CIDRAP: COVID Public Health Measures May Have Led To RSV Resurgence 
A lack of exposure to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic may have led to the global resurgence of the virus in 2022 and 2023, finds a study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics. (Van Beusekom, 5/16)

The New York Times: Supreme Court Decision On Abortion Pills: What To Know And What Comes Next
A federal appeals court in New Orleans is expected to weigh in on whether a commonly used pill, mifepristone, should remain widely available. Here is what’s at stake. (VanSickle and Belluck, 5/17)

The Washington Post: Abortion Laws Triggered Dozens Of Health Complications, New Report Says
A new report has identified dozens of examples in which medical providers say pregnant patients received care in the past year that deviated from care they would have received before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — a sign, researchers said, of a pattern of serious health complications triggered by abortion bans. While no nationwide data has yet emerged to show the extent of these complications, the report, being released Tuesday by researchers at the University of California at San Francisco and shared with The Washington Post, offers a first-of-its-kind summary of anonymized examples from medical providers across the country. (Kitchener, 5/16)

NBC News: Tougher Work Requirements For Federal Aid Programs Pose Obstacle In Debt Limit Talks
As House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden seek an agreement to raise the debt ceiling, Republican demands to impose tougher work requirements for federal aid programs have emerged as an obstacle to finding consensus. The debt ceiling bill House Republicans passed last month, which was negotiated between GOP members and approved along party lines, would expand work requirements for some federal aid programs, including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, a program that provides grocery aid. The proposal has drawn a backlash from many Democrats who oppose such provisions. (Kapur and Doyle, 5/16)

Military.Com: Republicans Vow To Boost Veteran Spending Amid Debt Ceiling Fight 
The Department of Veterans Affairs would get an $18 billion budget bump next year under a plan released by House Republicans on Tuesday amid a knockdown, drag-out political fight over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The GOP bill would give the VA about $153 billion in discretionary funding in 2024, up from $135 billion that the department got this year -- and slightly above the $143 billion the Biden administration requested for next year. (Kheel, 5/16)

Stat: Depression Hits New High Among Americans, Per Survey
More than a quarter of American adults are depressed, a 10% surge from nearly a decade ago, according to the latest Gallup survey. The data come as the Biden administration tries to overhaul mental health care costs and boost the number of health care workers licensed to practice behavioral health care. Congress in this year’s budget also allotted hundreds of millions of dollars to mental health care grants and programs, many of them trained on children or substance misuse. (Owermohle, 5/17)

CNN: Chronic Pain Is Substantially More Common In The US Than Diabetes, Depression And High Blood Pressure, Study Finds
There are more new cases of chronic pain among US adults than other common long-term conditions like diabetes, depression and high blood pressure, according to a new study. The researchers say their findings “emphasize the high disease burden of chronic pain in the US adult population and the need for early management of pain.” (Dillinger, 5/16)

The Hill: Soft Contact Lenses May Contain Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals,’ Research Finds
Many types of soft contact lenses available in the U.S. could contain toxic “forever chemicals,” new research has found. All 18 sets of soft contacts evaluated in a recent consumer study came back with various levels of organic fluorine — an indicator for the presence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). (Udasin, 5/16)