CBS News: Proposed $35 Price Cap On Insulin Heads To Gov. Gavin Newsom's Desk
A proposal by a Bay Area lawmaker that would cap the cost of insulin to $35 is heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom's desk after being unanimously approved by state legislators. ... Several major insulin makers such as Eli Lilly and Sanofi have already capped their out-of-pocket prices at $35 a month. (9/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Moves One Step Closer To Five Paid Sick Days, With Unions Banking On COVID Lessons
California employers will be required to provide workers with five days of paid sick leave under legislation passed by the state Legislature on Wednesday, up from the current three-day requirement. While similar attempts to expand paid sick leave have stalled in the past, politically powerful unions are banking on workplace lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to be enough to get Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the bill this time around. (Mays, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: Bill To Restrict Solitary Confinement In California Stalls Out In Sacramento
In a blow to criminal justice reform advocates and a win for corrections officials, California lawmakers delayed legislation on Wednesday to restrict the use of solitary confinement in prisons, jails and immigration detention centers, to buy time to negotiate with Gov. Gavin Newsom over safety concerns. Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) agreed to hold Assembly Bill 280 in the final days of this year’s legislative session amid opposition from sheriffs and prison officials and skepticism from Newsom over its sweeping application and definition of segregated confinement, known as solitary. The legislation may be considered in 2024. (Wiley, 9/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Bill By Toni Atkins To Curb Jail Deaths, Improve Oversight Wins Passage And Moves To Governor 
After twice being amended in the wake of opposition from law enforcement groups, a bill aimed at reducing the number of people who die in California jails passed the Legislature and is headed to the governor’s desk. Senate Bill 519, introduced by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, in response to the escalating death rate in San Diego County jails, would create the position of director of in-custody review inside the Board of State and Community Corrections, the panel that oversees county jails. (McDonald, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Send Newsom Child Sex Trafficking Bill
The California Legislature approved legislation Wednesday to increase penalties for child sex traffickers, a seemingly simple bill that turned into one of the most divisive issues this year in the state Capitol. Senate Bill 14 would classify sex trafficking of minors as a “serious” felony under California’s penal code, which triggers the state’s “three strikes” law that allows prosecutors to pursue life sentences in some cases. (Wiley, 9/13)

Sacramento Bee: Could California Child Sex Trafficking Bill Hurt Victims? Why Some Advocates Are Against It
California lawmakers are on the verge of sending Gov. Gavin Newsom a bill to strengthen penalties for child sex traffickers, a measure that roiled the Capitol this summer. Assembly members voted unanimously on Monday to pass Senate Bill 14 from Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. It is expected to return to the Senate on Wednesday for approval of Assembly amendments before reaching the governor’s desk. (Holden, 9/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gun Advocates Are Already Suing Over New California Gun Law
Hours after California lawmakers voted to limit the areas where firearms could be carried in public, gun advocates filed suit in federal court saying the proposed law would endanger gun owners, harm businesses and violate the constitutional right to bear arms.SB2 by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge (Los Angeles County), won final legislative approval in the state Senate on Tuesday and will not take effect until January once it is signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a sponsor of the measure. But later in the day, lawyers for the National Rifle Association’s California affiliate, other firearms organizations and a number of legal gun owners asked a federal judge in Santa Ana to prohibit the state from enforcing the measure. (Egelko, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: 9th Circuit Rules California Ban On Marketing Guns To Minors Is Probably Unconstitutional 
California’s law banning the marketing of firearms to minors is probably unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment, a federal appellate court ruled Wednesday. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee wrote that while the ban may be intended to diminish gun violence, the “First Amendment demands more than good intentions and wishful thinking to warrant the government’s muzzling of speech.” (Rector, 9/13)

The Oaklandside: Oakland Finds Money To Stave Off Most Violence Prevention Cuts
A last-minute reprieve has saved Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention from having to cut much of the funding for its nonprofit contractors, who work on the frontline with people experiencing violence and crime. When Oakland approved its biennial budget in June, violence prevention was one of the departments that took a big hit. The department was originally envisioning budget cuts of roughly 22% for every contractor it employs, amounting to several million dollars. (Wolfe, 9/13)

The Bakersfield Californian: Detainees, Advocates Outraged Over COVID Outbreak At Golden State Annex 
Civil rights advocates are up in arms amid an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak at Golden State Annex, an immigrant detention center in McFarland. (Donegan, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: More COVID Shots Are Coming. How Many People Will Get Them?
A new coronavirus shot will be available starting this week, but the big question is how many people will get one. Attitudes about COVID-19 are clearly shifting, as is to be expected since it long ceased to be the sort of suffocating public health threat that ground the globe to a halt. But health officials note that vaccines are a major driver of that progress, and continued inoculations — much like a typical flu shot — can help keep the coronavirus confined. (Lin II, 9/13)

Fresno Bee: When Should You Get Covid, Flu and RSV Shots This Season? California Doctors Explain
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention met on Tuesday and finalized recommendations for the new COVID-19 vaccine, which is formulated to target the XBB lineage of the omicron variant. The updated vaccine will be available to everyone 6 months and older by the end of this week, according to the center. (Truong, 9/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Vaccine Hesitancy Isn’t Just For COVID. Why Rabies Could Come Back
Approximately 5,000 cases of rabies in animals are reported in the United States annually .... This disease continues to pose a risk to the health of animals and their human contacts. That’s why we were dismayed to see a recent national survey conducted by researchers at the Boston University School of Public Health and published in the journal Vaccine that suggested the existence of a surprising degree of vaccine hesitancy in dog owner populations. Over half of the surveyed pet owners displayed some level of hesitancy to vaccinate their dogs, including vaccines against rabies. (Mani and Weese, 9/13)

EdSource: A Learning Recovery That Wasn’t – Missed Opportunities And The Ongoing Costs Of Covid 
Money is running low, and time is short to help America’s students fully regain the learning they lost since the pandemic. Based on their continued academic struggles and mental health challenges, a report released Wednesday concluded most probably won’t. The second yearly report by a national education research organization examining the impacts of Covid on K-12 education offered that sobering outlook while highlighting some notable state and local efforts nationwide. It also called for a shift in the mission of high school to make connections for students adrift in the wake of Covid. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis called it “blurring the lines between high school, higher education, and the workforce” in an essay in the report. (Fensterwald, 9/13)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Found 'Major Deficiencies' At Hospital Pharmacy On Probation
The California State Board of Pharmacy documented "major deficiencies" related to staff training and knowledge in 2019 at Sutter Coast Hospital's compounding pharmacy, which was recently placed on a three-year probation. (Carbajal, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: STDs Have Been On The Rise. Who Should Pick Up The Tab For Testing?
“This type of work cannot just be exclusively publicly funded,” said Dr. Rita Singhal, the department’s chief medical officer and director of the disease control bureau. “The more revenue for this effort, the better.” In the past, the department said it spent between $1.1 million and $2.3 million annually on testing for STDs. ... “If you’re trying to control a disease that’s spiking, you have to take away any deterrents, any obstacles” to routine screening, said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. (Alpert Reyes, 9/13)

KVPR: The San Joaquin Valley Needs More Doctors. New University Programs Are Producing Them
It’s long been expected that, if you were a San Joaquin Valley student who aspired to become a doctor, you would have to leave the Valley to do so. But new programs are underway that will allow local students to become MDs without having to travel far from home. Among the new freshmen to recently start classes at UC Merced are 15 students who are the first admitted into SJV Prime+, a new program to support future doctors from their first years of undergraduate education all the way through to earning their degrees as doctors of medicine. (Livinal, 9/13)

NBC News: Anti-Asian Racism In The Medical Field Is A Common Reality, Yale-Led Survey Finds
Throughout his career in medicine, David Yang, 32, says he’s acutely felt the impacts of his race. A Chinese American emergency medicine fellow at the Yale School of Medicine, Yang said he’s had slurs hurled at him by patients, faced racist comments tying him to Covid, and has been confused with his Asian colleagues. He knew there were others who shared his experience, but he said meaningful research on the subject of anti-Asian racism in the medical field just didn’t exist. So he put forth his own study, and surveyed two dozen medical students. (Venkatraman, 9/13)

Sacramento Bee: Gavin Newsom Says Court Case Limiting California Homeless Sweeps Should Go To Supreme Court
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday night that California would file a brief supporting the city of San Francisco in a court case that has significantly limited homeless encampment sweeps in the city where he was once mayor. “I hope this goes to the Supreme Court,” Newsom said during a Q&A session hosted by Politico. “It’s just gone too far. People’s lives are at risk.” (Angst, 9/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: This Map Shows Where San Francisco's Homeless Shelters Are Located
A lawsuit against San Francisco over how it clears homeless encampments has thrust the city’s shelter system — and whether it is adequate — into the legal and political spotlight. In December, the Coalition on Homelessness persuaded a federal judge to temporarily limit when San Francisco can remove homeless people and their belongings from public areas, saying such sweeps have in many cases violated unhoused persons’ rights. The city can still remove encampments for health and safety reasons after providing three-days’ notice, or can do so to ensure ADA compliance or to keep corridors clear for potential emergencies. (Leonard, 9/14)

The Oaklandside: OUSD Student Homelessness Grew Nearly 70% In 3 Years
The number of homeless students attending Oakland Unified schools grew nearly 70% over the last three years—up to 1,780 students in 2023—a significant increase over years prior to the pandemic, when the number hovered around 1,000. Several factors—including Bay Area housing costs, a growing number of unaccompanied immigrant children, and changes in how the district collects housing data—are responsible for the increase, according to Trish Anderson who runs the McKinney-Vento office at OUSD, which provides resources to unhoused students.  (McBride, 9/13)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Vista Council Considering Emergency Declaration To Accelerate Local Homeless Shelter 
Frustrated by a recent lack of shelter capacity despite spending $200,000 on beds this year, Vista City Council members agreed in an emergency meeting Tuesday night that they should at least consider using extreme measures to get a new facility up and running as soon as possible. (Sisson and Nelson, 9/13)

Voice Of San Diego: Vista Wants To Fast Track The Opening Of A New Shelter
Vista City Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday after learning that its homeless residents aren’t getting into shelters because of limited shelter capacity. The city now wants to fast track the opening of its own homeless shelter, and city leaders might declare an emergency to make that happen. (Layne, 9/14)

Los Angeles Times: CA Cities Try Licensed Tent Villages To Ease Homelessness
The rows of white canvas cabin tents newly erected in an out-of-the-way quarter of Culver City, along the bank of Ballona Creek, have the ambiance of an Army field base. Miles to the east in South Los Angeles, more modest camping tents — like one might buy at a sporting goods store — line the parking lot of the shuttered Lincoln Theater, evoking something more like a Boy Scout jamboree. (Smith, 9/14)

Military.com: VA Electronic Health Record Rollout Unlikely To Resume For A Year After Being Derailed By Problems
The Department of Veterans Affairs said Wednesday it may resume agency-wide adoption of its new electronic health records system next summer, after it was placed on hold in April due to problems involving patient health and safety and frustration among users.VA officials told members of Congress that introduction of the Oracle Cerner system across 166 additional hospitals could resume in 2024 if the department makes progress on several goals, including a successful rollout in March at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Illinois. (Kime, 9/13)

Modern Healthcare: Government Shutdown Risk To DSH Payments, PEPFAR, Other Programs
With all eyes on a possible government shutdown at the end of the month, Congress is also on the brink of plunging large swathes of the healthcare system into limbo. Numerous pieces of legislation meant to fund or reauthorize a slew of major programs affecting hospitals, federally qualified health centers, medical education programs, opioid and HIV/AIDS treatment programs and even pandemic preparedness expire on Sept. 30. (McAuliff, 9/13)

Bloomberg: Pentagon Vows To Stick With Abortion Policy, Spurning Tuberville’s Demands
The Pentagon won’t yield to demands from Senator Tommy Tuberville to scrap its travel policy for service members seeking an abortion in exchange for lifting his blockade on more than 300 military promotions, Defense Department spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Wednesday. “We are not changing our policy,” Singh said on Bloomberg Television’s “Balance of Power.” (Tiron, 9/13)

The Washington Post: A Navy Chaplain’s Stillbirth Tests Military Medical Malpractice System 
The pain surged throughout her lower body. Navy chaplain Mercedes Petitfrere, 20 weeks pregnant with her first child, rushed to the emergency room at her military hospital in Jacksonville, N.C. Her abdomen throbbed. She could hardly walk. It hurt to pee. A midwife at Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune attributed her pain to fibroids. But Petitfrere — a 35-year-old Black lieutenant whose pregnancy was considered high-risk because of her age — explained that she’d had the benign growths in her uterus for a long time, and that they had never caused any pain. (Shapira, 9/14)

Vox: The Unconstitutional Plan To Stop Women From Traveling Out Of State For An Abortion, Explained
As the Court explained in Saenz v. Roe (1999), the right to travel has “three different components” — the right of citizens to “enter and to leave another State,” the right to be treated “as a welcome visitor” when visiting another state, and the right to be treated the same way as established residents of a state after moving to that state. Each of these rights flows from a different provision of the Constitution. Of those three components, the right to travel out of state to obtain an abortion flows from the right to citizens to “enter and leave another State,” and the Court indicated in Edwards v. California (1941) that this right is rooted in a doctrine known as the dormant commerce clause. (Millhiser, 9/12)

NBC News: Fentanyl Plus Stimulants Drives ‘Fourth Wave’ Of Overdose Epidemic In The U.S.
The proportion of overdoses involving fentanyl and a stimulant — most commonly cocaine and methamphetamine — increased more than fiftyfold from 2010 to 2021, a study published Thursday in the journal Addiction found. “The roots really did start with overprescribing prescription opioids, but now it is really characterized by stimulants and fentanyl,” said Chelsea Shover, an assistant professor-in-residence at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who co-authored the study. (Sullivan, 9/14)

Axios: The Stark U.S. Divide In Xylazine Use
There are stark regional differences in the use of xylazine, a powerful veterinary sedative increasingly mixed with illicit fentanyl that can cause skin-rotting wounds, according to a new report from the drug testing lab Millennium Health. (Millman, 9/14)

Fox News: Rubio Bill Would Cut Off 'Radical Gender Ideology' In Health Care Systems
Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio introduced legislation Wednesday that would ban government agencies and federally funded hospitals from forcing employees to partake in programs that "promote radical gender ideology." "It is deeply disturbing to see the progressive left infiltrate the American healthcare system and compromise the quality of patient care in the process. I am introducing the Protecting Conscience in Healthcare Act to stop this harmful, radical gender ideology in American hospitals and healthcare facilities," Rubio said in comment on the legislation, which was exclusively obtained by Fox News Digital. (Colton, 9/13)

East Bay Times: Robbers Take Vitamins And Medications From California Rite Aid Store
Three thieves threatened a Rite Aid worker in Brea with pepper spray Wednesday evening during a robbery in which they filled several trash bags with vitamins and over-the-counter medications, police said. (Darwish, 9/13)

Los Angeles Times: California's Disadvantaged Rural High Schoolers Struggle
Teachers across Modoc County assessed their students, relying on a fact of small-town life that can be both a blessing and a curse: everyone knows everyone’s business. They did an informal, anonymous tally of what are called adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, which include abuse or neglect; a parent’s death, incarceration or divorce; and mental illness or substance abuse in the home. About 58% of kids in Modoc County, Norby said, were believed to have four or more ACEs, putting them at significantly higher risk later in life of suicide, substance abuse, chronic health problems and unemployment. (Branson-Potts, 9/14)

Stat: New Generation Of Researchers Unravel 'Hispanic Paradox' 
For 40 years, researchers have unsuccessfully tried to explain — or debunk — the “Hispanic Paradox,” the finding that Hispanic Americans live several years longer than white Americans on average, despite having far less income and health care and higher rates of diabetes and obesity. Now, armed with more comprehensive data, powerful genomic tools, and a rich cultural awareness of the communities they study, a new generation of scientists is finally making headway. (McFarling, 9/14)