Sacramento Bee: Kids Saw 10-Year-Old KJ Shot Dead In Sacramento County. How Do They Grapple With Violence?
Adverse childhood experiences — such as experiencing bloodshed — leave a lasting impression on children, said Montay McDaniel, a therapist with Strive Community Health, a Sacramento-based clinic and counseling service. Many may suffer post-traumatic symptoms such as heightened levels of stress, a lack of sleep, cold sweats or crying uncontrollably, he said. (Desai, 1/7)

Los Angeles Times: East Palo Alto Goes From U.S. 'Murder Capital' To Zero Homicides
This is what it took to make a small city safe. In 1992, East Palo Alto was dubbed the “murder capital” of the U.S., with 42 murders in its 2.5 square miles — a per capita rate higher than that of any other city of any size. In 2023, according to East Palo Alto Police Department statistics released last week, the turnaround seemed complete: zero homicides. Law enforcement leaders, residents and city officials point to a complicated mix of circumstances that turned a crime-ridden community into what the mayor now calls “one of the safest places to live in the peninsula.” (Mejia, 1/8)

NPR: Sales Of Sugary Drinks Fell In Cities With Soda Taxes, Study Finds
Sales of sugary drinks fell dramatically across five U.S. cities, including San Francisco and Oakland, after they implemented taxes targeting those drinks – and those changes were sustained over time. That's according to a study published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum. Researchers say the findings provide more evidence that these controversial taxes really do work. Taxes ranged from 1 to 2 cents per ounce. For a 2-liter bottle of soda, that comes out to between 67 cents to $1.30 extra in taxes. (Godoy, 1/6)

USA Today: How Soda Taxes Across The US Have Helped Trim Sales Of Sugary Drinks
Reducing people's sugar consumption is a boon to American health care, said Dr. Dean Schillinger, who directs the Health Communications Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco and led the research, published Friday in JAMA Health Forum. "When you think about the fact that one in four dollars of our health care spending goes to diabetes alone, any kind of incremental improvement we can get will have massive effects," Schillinger said. (Weintraub, 1/5)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Nonprofit That Serves Youth In Crisis Is In A Crisis Of Its Own, Facing Closure Unless It Can Rally Community Support
The shuttered hospital on Summerfield Road in Santa Rosa that Sutter Health donated to Social Advocates for Youth in 2013 was the realization of a dream for the now-beleaguered nonprofit that serves youth in crisis and has mounted a last ditch fundraising drive to stay open. (Hay, 1/6)

The Bakersfield Californian: Neurotech Startup Looks To Open Clinical Trials Center In Bakersfield 
The promise of neurotechnology stokes Kern's economic development hopes today with an announcement that a startup out of Cambridge, UK has chosen Bakersfield to locate a high-tech center for clinical trials aimed at developing neural digital therapies. (Cox, 1/8)

Stat: Insitro, AI Biotech Unicorn, Brings Cash, New Research To JPM 2024
New artificial intelligence technologies made headlines last year for their ability to do everything from generating fake musical duets to understanding how proteins fold. But in biotech, one of the most well-funded AI players has been quiet. (Herper, 1/7)

Stat: Nonprofit, Backed By Microsoft, To Certify AI Tools In Health Care
A group of academic hospitals and technology companies will form a new nonprofit venture to oversee a nationwide network of laboratories to test artificial intelligence tools designed for use in health care. (Ross, 1/8)

Modern Healthcare: Inside Predictive AI’s Use In Hospital Patient Safety, Quality
Clinicians at some health systems are turning to artificial intelligence-driven tools to predict and avert negative patient outcomes, though stakeholders say caution remains warranted. The provider organizations are using technology to flag patients who may need extra preventive or follow-up attention. Many major electronic health record vendors, including Epic Systems, Allscripts and Oracle's Cerner, have also integrated AI tools into their platforms to help providers forecast risk based on medical history. (Devereaux, 1/5)

Los Angeles Times: Homelessness Is Down In South L.A. But 13,000 Remain Unhoused 
A string of tents and makeshift shelters sat for years west of the 110 Freeway, across the street from an elementary school in the Vermont Vista neighborhood. Then, one day in February, workers cleared the encampment, which stretched about four blocks from Colden Avenue to Century Boulevard, moving dozens of people indoors. Today, a single tent remains, along with about five people living in a pedestrian tunnel under the freeway. Longtime residents said the neighborhood is quiet again, and the sidewalks are clean. (Vives, 1/7)

CapRadio: Downtown Sacramento Motel Transforms Into Permanent Homeless Housing, After Two Years And $31 Million
A former Best Western motel has reopened in downtown Sacramento after being converted into permanent homeless housing, offering nearly 100 residents the chance at a fresh start. Sacramento Central Studios at H and 12th streets is the city’s third motel-conversion project funded by the state’s Homekey initiative and the first downtown. The others are in South Sacramento and Natomas, while Sacramento County recently approved two similar projects. (Nichols, 1/8)

Bay Area News Group: 'There’s No Accountability': Special Master Sought To Oversee Scandal-Plagued Federal Women's Prison In Dublin
Women housed at a troubled Bay Area federal prison say multiple leadership changes at FCI Dublin have done little to end rampant bullying, intimidation and retaliation by its staff — even as the inmates continue to face ongoing sexual abuse from the facility’s corrections officers. (Rodgers, 1/7)

Sacramento Bee: California Guard Drug Task Force Member Arrested, Accused Of Leaking Info To Drug Dealer 
An Army reservist assigned to the California National Guard’s headquarters in Sacramento County and to a counter-drug-trafficking task force has been arrested by the FBI on a weapons charge and is believed to have leaked sensitive information on drug raids to an individual involved in illegal drug activities, court records say. Ruby Celly Uribe, 34, a 17-year Army veteran and sergeant first class, was arrested by the FBI and booked into the Sacramento County Main Jail early Friday on a charge of possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle. (Stanton, 1/5)

The Wall Street Journal: Elon Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders At Tesla And SpaceX
Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. ... The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine. (Glazer and Grind, 1/6)

MarketWatch: Elon Musk On WSJ Story: If Drugs Helped My Productivity, I Would Take Them
That was businessman and inventor Elon Musk responding on his X platform, to an article by The Wall Street Journal that discussed alleged illegal drug use by the Tesla CEO. Citing sources, the article that published on Saturday said Musk had used cocaine, ketamine, psychedelic mushrooms and other substances, and that some board members were worried about potential problems for his health and the empire he watches over. ... “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them!” Musk responded. (Kollmeyer, 1/8)

The Wall Street Journal: Psychedelics Are Going Mainstream. Investing In Them Hasn’t
Psychedelics spent a half-century in political and medical purgatory. Now they’re starting to go mainstream. Respected academic institutes and billionaires are funding research into their therapeutic benefits, and the Food and Drug Administration could soon approve MDMA (known more commonly as ecstasy) for a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The therapeutic potential of these drugs looks promising, but Wall Street and big pharma are still not convinced of the financial potential. Intellectual property is one big concern. While new compounds discovered in a lab can often lead to over a decade of exclusive profits for a pharma company, psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in “magic mushrooms,” have been around for a long time. This makes patenting them more controversial. Companies are patenting formulations of the drugs and even things like the cozy furniture in a treatment room, but questions about patent protection abound. (Wainer, 1/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: Richmond Chevron Refinery Flares For Second Time In One Week
Chevron’s Richmond refinery sent plumes of flame in the air Saturday afternoon, one in a string of flaring incidents that have triggered an investigation into the facility. Company staff notified Richmond city officials about the flaring at its Richmond refinery around 3:30 p.m., the city said in a statement. The episode qualified as a Level 1 on Contra Costa County’s Community Warning System — the lowest level possible, put out when the county doesn’t anticipate any impacts outside the facility. (Munce, 1/6)

Grist: Berkeley's Gas Ban Is All But Dead. What Does That Mean For Other Cities? 
Last week, a federal appeals court decided not to revisit its earlier decision to strike down Berkeley, California’s first-in-the-nation gas ban in new buildings. The ruling dealt a blow to the city of Berkeley, which requested a rehearing after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ initial decision in April, and casts uncertainty over similar policies to electrify buildings in dozens of other cities. (Hu, 1/5)

CalMatters: California’s Proposed Water Conservation Rules Too Stringent And Costly, Analysts Say 
California’s legislative advisers on Friday lambasted the state’s ambitious proposal to regulate urban water conservation, calling the measures costly and difficult to achieve, “in many cases without compelling justifications.” (Becker, 1/7)

Los Angeles Times: Massive Dumping Ground Of WWII-Era Munitions Discovered Off Los Angeles Coast
It’s not just toxic chemical waste and mysterious barrels that litter the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles. Oceanographers have now discovered what appears to be a massive dumping ground of military weaponry. As part of an unprecedented effort to map and better understand the history of ocean dumping in the region, scientists have found a multitude of discarded munition boxes, smoke floats and depth charges lurking 3,000 feet underwater. Most appear to be from the World War II era, and it remains unclear what risk they might pose to the environment. (Xia, 1/5)

Military.com: Sailor Who Died By Suicide On Roosevelt Carrier Faced Lack Of Resources, Poor Leadership By Enlisted Supervisors
A Navy investigation of a suicide aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier last year has revealed deadly shortcomings in the service's peer-based method of addressing mental health, which depends on fellow sailors and deckplate leadership to provide support. The command-directed probe of the death aboard the Roosevelt as it was undergoing a long maintenance period in Washington state details failures by friends on the ship to report warning signs and poor leadership by enlisted supervisors that may have contributed to the death. It also suggests a separate recent suicide cluster aboard another carrier, the USS George Washington, was not an isolated issue. (Toropin, 1/5)

NBC News: Online Racism Is Linked To PTSD Symptoms In Black Youth, Study Finds
Mounting evidence shows the devastating toll online racism takes on Black youth. According to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, Black children and teens who experience racial discrimination online may develop symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Those PTSD symptoms, the researchers found, were also potentially linked to suicidal thoughts. (Bellamy 1/5)

The Washington Post: Congress Has A Deal To Fund The Government And Not Much Time To Pass It
Congressional leaders reached a $1.66 trillion agreement Sunday to finance the federal government in 2024, preserving funding for key domestic and social safety net programs despite GOP demands to cut the budget. Now lawmakers are up against a stiff deadline to pass legislation to codify the deal and avert a partial government shutdown in less than two weeks. Funding runs out for roughly 20 percent of the government — including for essential programs such as some veterans assistance, and food and drug safety services — on Jan. 19, and money for the rest of the government runs out shortly after that, on Feb. 2. (Bogage, 1/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Congressional Negotiators Reach Agreement On $1.6 Trillion Government Spending Level For 2024
Speaker Mike Johnson said the deal contains “hard fought concessions” from Democrats, including on the cancellation of unspent pandemic aid. Still, the overall number is above the levels that some conservatives had demanded. “These final spending levels will not satisfy everyone, and they do not cut as much spending as many of us would like,” Johnson said. (Ferek and Hughes, 1/7)

USA Today: Lloyd Austin Takes Blame For Hospitalization, Kept White House In Dark
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged ''concerns'' over his secret hospitalization but revealed no new details of his condition in a statement released by the Pentagon Saturday. It wasn't until late Friday that the Pentagon disclosed that Austin had been hospitalized after complications from an elective procedure. In the statement, Austin said he "could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better." (Vanden Brook, and Collins, 1/6)

Politico: Biden’s Top Priority For A Second Term: Restoring Abortion Rights 
President Joe Biden’s day one priority if he earns a second term? “First of all: Roe,” deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Sunday during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president has been adamant that we need to restore Roe. It is unfathomable that women today wake up in a country with less rights than their ancestors had years ago,” Fulks said. Biden has been poised to run on what has been described as the strongest abortion rights platform of any general election candidate as he and his allies look to notch a victory in the first presidential election since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. (Garrity, 1/7)

The Hill: Supreme Court’s Looming Mifepristone Decision Leaves Abortion Rights In Spotlight
The Supreme Court’s expected decision this summer on whether to restrict access to medication abortion promises to keep the issue front and center of the 2024 election. Justices will hear a case weighing federal approval of the common abortion pill mifepristone, with a likely ruling in June — five months before voters decide who will go to the White House and Congress, and almost exactly two years after the high court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion. (Vakil, 1/6)