The Bakersfield Californian: Ridgecrest Regional Hospital Plans Additional Layoffs, Hopes To Avoid Closure 
The federally designated critical access hospital in Ridgecrest notified Kern County authorities last week that "continued financial hardships" have forced it to let go 31 more employees just two months after it said the layoff of 29 others will require it to suspend maternity care March 1. (Cox, 2/15)

The Bakersfield Californian: KHS Gives Out $20 Million To Tackle Kern's Biggest Health Needs 
Kern's largest health plan, dipping again into its financial reserves for the sake of local underserved communities, on Thursday came up with $20 million to help address what it sees as the biggest challenges facing the delivery of health care across the county. (Cox, 2/15)

Capital & Main: A Hospital’s Overflowing Emergency Room, Our Sick Health System
Last summer, officials at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in South Los Angeles made a decision: If they didn’t start yelling for help, their facility was headed for a total shutdown. In the abstract, the problem seemed to make no sense. How could this hospital be in trouble? Not only is MLK (as locals often call it) a newer facility with consecutive five-star ratings from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, but it also fills a desperate need in a federally certified health care desert and practically overflows with patients. (Kreidler, 2/15)

San Diego Union-Tribune: One Year After Launching, El Cajon Touts Success Of County's First 911 Overhaul Program
Heartland Fire & Rescue launched a pilot program in 2023 to make its emergency medical system more efficient by diverting some 911 calls to nurses. (Mapp, 2/15)

USA Today: Nearly Half Of Health Care Workers Have Witnessed Racism, Discrimination, Report Shows
Younger and Black or Latino health care workers were more likely than their older or white counterparts to say they noticed discrimination against patients. Among the key findings in the survey: 47% of U.S. health care workers said they witnessed discrimination against patients, and 52% said that racism against patients was a major problem. (Alltucker, 2/15)

Modern Healthcare: Nursing Homes Grapple With CNA Training Backlogs 
Instructor shortages and regulatory hurdles are creating training logjams for certified nursing assistants as nursing homes struggle to find enough of them to meet increased demand. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services requires nursing assistants to receive at least 75 hours of training for certification. Those workers are vital to nursing homes because they provide most of the hands-on patient care and are at the heart of a proposed federal staffing mandate. (Eastabrook, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: New Synthetic Molecule May Outsmart Drug-Resistant Bacteria 
An estimated 2.8 million people in the U.S. contract infections each year from bacteria resistant to antibiotics, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. More than 35,000 of them die. Despite the mounting toll — and the prospect of an eventual surge in superbug fatalities — the development of new antibiotics has failed to keep pace with the threat. A new medicine capable of combating Gram-negative bacteria, a particularly hardy type of bug with inner and outer membranes that antibiotics struggle to cross, hasn’t hit the market in 50 years. (Purtill, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: Student Charged In Planned Mass Shooting At Ontario School 
An Ontario-area high school senior who is accused of planning to shoot up his campus as an homage to the Columbine High School massacre was booked Wednesday in San Bernardino County. Ontario Christian High School senior Sebastian Villasenor was charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of attempted criminal threats, according to county Dist. Atty. Jason Anderson. (Campa, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: 90 Minutes. 4 Killed. A Random 'Senseless Rampage' That Terrorized Southeast L.A.
The first gunshots rang out in Bell half an hour before midnight. Two men in a red vehicle sped away, leaving behind one man dead Sunday night outside an elementary school. Over the next 90 minutes, authorities say, southeast Los Angeles County was the scene of a terrifying and seemingly random string of killings. When it was over, four people were dead in a series of drive-by shootings within five miles of each other, including a 14-year-old boy. The violence left family members of the victims grieving and communities reeling. (Solis, 2/15)

USA Today: Gun Shops That Sell The Most Guns Used In Crime Revealed In New List
The federal government has stepped up its scrutiny of gun stores that sell guns used in crimes, with the number of stores singled out more than doubling in the past four years. Which gun stores sell the most crime guns has been kept secret for more than two decades, since 2003 under the George W. Bush administration. But a Freedom of Information Act request from USA TODAY unearthed a glimpse of them and showed that the vast majority of guns used in crimes are sold by a small fraction of America’s gun shops. Among the more than 1,300 outlets targeted in 2023 by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are many of the largest sellers – Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s, Rural King and Sportsman’s Warehouse – along with some less well-known stores, such as Town Guns in Richmond, Virginia, and Ammo Bros in Ontario, California. (Penzenstadler, 2/15)

Bay Area News Group: Federal Judge Weighs Contempt Of Court Order Against Federal Prisons Bureau Over Accused Retaliation At FCI Dublin
A federal judge is weighing holding the Federal Bureau of Prisons in contempt of court amid allegations that staff at the troubled FCI Dublin women’s prison retaliated against an inmate for testifying about conditions at the scandal-plagued facility. (Rodgers, 2/15)

Pasadena Star News: State Orders Shutdown Of LA County’s Two Largest Juvenile Facilities 
A state regulatory board has ordered Los Angeles County to shut down its two largest juvenile facilities in the next 60 days over substandard conditions, setting the stage for a potential nightmare scenario where the county will have hundreds of youth in its custody and nowhere locally to hold them. (Henry, 2/15)

NPR: DOJ Watchdog Finds 187 Inmate Suicides In Federal Prisons Over 8-Year Period
Over an eight-year period, 344 inmates in federal prison died from suicide, homicide or accidents, according to a report released Thursday by the Justice Department's inspector general. ... "Today's report identified numerous operational and managerial deficiencies, which created unsafe conditions prior to and at the time of a number of theses deaths," Inspector General Michael Horowitz said. (Lucas, 2/15)

KQED: Biden's Drug Czar Shares Vision For Tackling Overdose Crisis In San Francisco And Beyond
Certain opioid-treatment medications that help fight addiction and prevent overdoses may now be easier to access after the federal government this month loosened restrictions on obtaining them. The updated rules essentially make permanent the pandemic-era changes that relaxed barriers to treatment, such as no longer requiring some patients to show up in person every day to take methadone and other medications — a change that cities like San Francisco found effective in increasing participation in such programs. (Johnson, 2/15)

NBC News: CDC May Recommend Some People Get A New Covid Booster This Spring
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering whether to recommend yet another Covid booster shot this spring, especially for people most at risk for severe complications of the illness. ... While it's unlikely that the majority of Americans would opt for another dose — just 21.9% of adults received the latest version of the vaccine — experts say that it's critical to make it available sooner rather than later. (Edwards, 2/15)

CIDRAP: New COVID Antiviral Candidate Linked To Shorter Symptoms
Treatment with ensitrelvir, an oral SARS-CoV-2 3C-like protease inhibitor developed in Japan, shortened COVID-19 symptoms in people who received the medication within 3 days of symptom onset, researchers reported recently in JAMA Network Open. In 2023, the drug—made by Shionogi—was authorized for emergency use in Japan and received a fast-track review designation from the US Food and Drug Administration. (Schnirring, 2/15)

Stat: ACIP Vaccine Advisory Panel Sees Its Vacancies Filled
The Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it is filling eight vacancies, including the chairmanship, on an important advisory panel on vaccine policy that was down to less than half of its normal roster for months. (Branswell, 2/15)

Stat: Covid-19 Vaccine Confidence Soured By Officials, GOP Argues
A House hearing on vaccine safety claims sought to pierce through Americans’ falling confidence in routine shots and the spread of Covid-19 misinformation — sometimes from people in the room. (Owermohle, 2/15)

CalMatters: California's Mental Health Ballot Measure Is The Best Chance In Decades To Change The System
For nine years, I begged Alameda County agencies to give my intermittently homeless and schizophrenic ward the care she needed to stay alive and well. Last September, some 12 years after I became her legal guardian, she fatally overdosed on meth and fentanyl. (Alison Monroe, 2/12)

CalMatters: Decades Of Progress Are At Stake. California Voters Must Reject Mental Health Ballot Measure
We are the people who live with serious mental illness. We are clients and providers in California’s public mental health system. We are voting “no” on Proposition 1, the mental health funding reform and bond measure on the March ballot. (Clare Cortright, 2/12)

San Diego Union-Tribune: EMTs And Paramedics Don't Reflect Our Community's Diversity. Here's How That Can Change.
During a health emergency, you do not want to worry about the quality of care you will receive. Everyone deserves emergency health care that is both competent and culturally sensitive. Here in San Diego County, the national shortage of emergency medical service, or EMS, personnel has affected us too. There is an alarming lack of diversity in the industry — and this can adversely affect patients. (Jason Hums, 2/12)

Los Angeles Times: Why Many L.A. Ambulances Probably Aren't Racing To Emergencies 
The lights and sirens of emergency medical services are pervasive in the United States. Not only are our screens saturated with them, but it’s hard to go far in any large city without seeing an ambulance race by. The public often assumes that the vehicle is on its way to a life-or-death emergency. But those who have worked in EMS know that is overwhelmingly not the case. (John Nevin, 2/14)

Los Angeles Daily News: How Legal Adventurism Stifles Medical Innovation 
The recent decision of the California Appellate Court in Gilead Life Sciences v. Superior Court, should send tremors though both producers and consumers of drugs alike. (Richard Epstein, 2/16)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Wants Worksites To Be Cooler. New Regulations Aren’t Enough
This spring, California is poised to become the third state in the nation to adopt specific regulations around indoor temperatures for frontline workers. Following in the footsteps of Minnesota and Oregon, the regulations proposed by California’s Occupational Safety and Standards Board would require worksites to remain below 87 degrees when employees are present and 82 degrees when wearing protective clothing. (Matthew Hart, 2/12)

The San Luis Obispo Tribune: After My Brother Was Diagnosed With A Rare, Aggressive Cancer, I Found Hope Through Advocacy
In October of 2005, my brother, Mark, was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive cancer of the bile duct, at the age of 38. This set me on a path of relentless research and advocacy. Ultimately, it led our family to found the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. (Stacie Lindsey, 2/15)