CalMatters: Homeless Californians, Arrested For Sleeping Outside, Head To Trial
Wickey Twohands woke up early on the day he was scheduled to go on trial for sleeping outside. First, he dropped off all his possessions — a bedroll, blankets, clothes and some food — at a friend’s house for safekeeping. Then the 77-year-old caught a bus to the courthouse in downtown Fresno. He arrived an hour early, before his lawyer or even the judge, and took a seat on a bench in the hall to wait. “I didn’t want to miss it,” he said. (Kendall, 2/25)

CalMatters: Inside The Scandals And Abuse Pushing CA Homeless Out Of Shelters
The records catalog the chaos inside California homeless shelters. In Salinas, internal emails say the staff at one brand-new shelter grabbed the best donations for themselves and helped friends and family jump the line for housing. In Los Angeles, court records show a leading nonprofit hired a man who was convicted of attempted murder to work security at a shelter, where he committed three sex crimes in one day. (Hepler, 2/25)

Bay Area News Group: San Jose Launches Program To Unite Homeless Residents With Loved Ones Willing To Take Them In
The City Council has allocated $200,000 in this year’s budget for the program, with the goal of more quickly transitioning people off the streets, at a fraction of the cost of placing them into the city’s shelter system. Only those not awaiting placement in the city’s shelters would be eligible for the new program. (Patel, 2/25)

Voice of San Diego: Supe Pitches Clearing Encampments In High-Risk Fire Areas
After a string of January fires tied to homeless camps, County Supervisor Jim Desmond wants the county to clear encampments in high-risk fire areas when red-flag warnings are in effect. Desmond will urge fellow supervisors to vote Tuesday to direct county officials to identify high-risk zones in unincorporated areas the county oversees with “significant” homeless camps and prioritize removing those. (2/25)

Los Angeles Times: Evacuations Failed, 85 People Died In Camp Fire. What Are Lessons For L.A.?
In the end, 85 people died, making the Camp fire the deadliest wildfire in California history. Six years later, how that Northern California community responded to the botched evacuations offers lessons for Los Angeles County, where wireless evacuation alerts to western Altadena came nine hours after the Eaton fire broke out. A Times investigation in January found that of the 17 confirmed deaths, all occurred on the west side. (Jarvie, 2/25)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: ‘Like Playing Russian Roulette’: Fentanyl’s Deadly Grip On Sonoma County
“It’s like playing Russian Roulette right now,” Sonoma County District Attorney Carla Rodriguez said Monday, referring to the danger of unknowingly ingesting fentanyl-laced drugs. (Smalstig, 2/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Can One Man Help Wipe Out S.F.’s Drug Markets?
So could [David] Kennedy — a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and founder of the National Network for Safe Communities — help San Francisco eradicate its relentless open-air drug markets? Some city officials want to find out. Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, with the support of Board President Rafael Mandelman and Supervisor Matt Dorsey, will make a formal request to Mayor Daniel Lurie and the board on Tuesday to hire Kennedy as an independent contractor to analyze San Francisco’s open-air drug markets and create an intervention plan tailored to the city. (Angst, 2/25)

San Francisco Chronicle: 9th Circuit Upholds Elizabeth Holmes' Fraud Conviction
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the fraud convictions, 11-year prison sentence and $452 million restitution order against Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the blood-testing company Theranos, for falsely claiming revolutionary technology that could conduct hundreds of lab tests from a few drops of blood. Holmes and her then-boyfriend, Ramesh “Sonny” Balwani, Theranos’ president and chief operating officer, were convicted in separate trials in 2022 of deceiving investors and the public about the capabilities of their blood-testing equipment. Holmes was convicted of four counts of fraud, while Balwani was convicted of 12 felony charges and sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison. (Egelko, 2/24)

Becker's Hospital Review: PA Pay, By State
Compensation for physician assistants/associates varies by state, with California PAs earning the highest average income in 2023 at $143,074 — an 11.5% increase from 2019, according to a report released Feb. 24 by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants. The NCCPA's 2023 Statistical Profile of Board Certified PAs by State examines PA roles across the U.S., including practice disciplines, settings and locations, job satisfaction, burnout and pay. From January 2021 to Dec. 31, 2023, about 150,000 board-certified PAs provided responses for the report. (Gooch, 2/24)

The Hill: Supreme Court Schedules Arguments In Case Where Trump Administration Is Defending ACA
The Supreme Court on Monday scheduled arguments for April 21 in a case that could decide the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement that insurers cover certain preventive services. In a surprising move, the Trump administration said it will continue the Biden White House’s defense of that requirement.  But some legal experts said the arguments being presented by the Justice Department indicate a desire to give Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. substantial control over an independent government task force. (Weixel, 2/24)

Forbes: GOP Resistance To Medicaid Cuts Could Tank Tuesday's House Budget Vote
House Republicans are expected to vote on a spending blueprint Tuesday that would kickstart the legislative process for enacting President Donald Trump’s policy agenda—but nearly $1 trillion in potential cuts to Medicaid has made some Republicans uneasy, threatening to derail its passage. (Dorn, 2/24)

Politico: Dems Are Preparing To Blast Republicans On Health Care. It Worked In 2018.
House Democrats hammered Republicans on health care to win back the majority in 2018. Now, they are preparing to punish them again. Private messaging guidance from party leaders, sent to Democratic lawmakers ahead of a planned Tuesday budget vote and obtained by POLITICO, urged them to accuse Republicans of “betray[ing] the middle class by cutting Medicaid while giving huge tax breaks to billionaire donors.” And it encouraged members to “localize” the effects of slashing billions from Medicaid. (Schneider and Wu, 2/25)

AP: Supreme Court Turns Back Challenges To Laws Keeping Abortion Opponents Away From Clinics, Patients
The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a pair of cases from abortion opponents who say laws limiting anti-abortion demonstrations near clinics violate their First Amendment rights. The majority did not explain their reasoning for turning down the appeals, as is typical, but two conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, disagreed. The cities said the laws were passed to address disturbing behavior from protesters outside of health care clinics. (Whitehurst, 2/24)

Mother Jones: The Anti-Abortion Movement Is Splintering
Earlier this month, Kristan Hawkins, head of the influential anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, told her 85,000 followers on X that a particularly militant faction of anti-abortion activists worried her more than pro-choice protesters. “The sad thing is the people I fear getting shot by, most of the time, aren’t crazy Leftists (most of them don’t have guns or how to use them, lol)…but ‘abolitionists,’” she posted. “Think about that.” The post appeared to be in response to allegations that Hawkins and other pro-life leaders had thwarted a recent bill in North Dakota that would have criminalized abortion. Those accusations came from the group that Hawkins mentioned in her tweet: “abolitionists,” or activists who believe that abortion should be completely illegal with no exceptions. (Butler, 2/24)

Berkeleyside: What Does Threatened Federal Funding Do For California Schools?
The U.S. Department of Education alarmed school leaders last week by threatening to withhold federal funding from schools and colleges that do not abandon “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs. President Donald Trump has also threatened to withhold federal funding from states or schools that allow transgender students to play sports on teams that align with their gender identity. It is unclear exactly which federal funding could be targeted to be cut from schools. There are several different educational programs funded by the federal government. (Stavely and Willis, 2/24)

Bay Area Reporter: LGBTQ Agenda: National Group Helps Advocates Enshrine Marriage Equality In State Statutes
Americans concerned about LGBTQ equality are working on enshrining marriage equality rights in state governing documents. With Republican President Donald Trump in the White House, Congress controlled by the GOP, and a conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, advocates said there is real concern that same-sex marriage rights may erode. ... Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, a queer woman who is the executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., touted recent election wins in California, Hawaii, and Colorado in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. (Ferrannini, 2/25)

The New York Times: F.D.A. Reinstates Fired Medical Device, Food And Legal Staffers
The Food and Drug Administration has reinstated dozens of specialized employees involved in food safety, review of medical devices and other areas who were laid off last week, according to more than a dozen workers who got called back. The total number of employees recalled was not immediately clear. But a person familiar with the conversations said nearly all of the roughly 180 medical division employees who had been let go would get their jobs back. (Jewett, 2/24)

Stat: Some NIH Study Sections To Resume Reviews; Grant Funding Remains Unclear
After weeks of being blocked by the Trump administration, one crucial step in the National Institutes of Health process for funding biomedical research is being largely restored, but it seems that won’t immediately allow new grants to be approved and resume the flow of millions of dollars to universities and medical schools. (Molteni and McFarling, 2/24)

Axios: Rare Disease Meeting Gets Pushed Off By HHS
As hundreds of researchers, patient advocates and policymakers gather in Washington, D.C., this week for an advocacy fly-in on rare diseases, a notable gap has appeared on their schedule: an annual gathering hosted by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health. (Reed, 2/25)

Stat: U.S. Joins WHO-Led Flu Vaccine Meeting, Despite Planned Withdrawal From Agency
Two U.S. government agencies that are key players in the World Health Organization-led process to select the flu viruses for next winter’s influenza vaccines are participating in a meeting to discuss the issue, despite the Trump administration’s plans to withdraw from the global health agency, sources told STAT. (Branswell, 2/24)

The War Horse: Nonprofit Launches Burn Pit Registry For Civilian Military Contractors
Despite facing many of the same risks service members do, military contractors have little in the way of support or resources when they return home. A new organization launching this month aims to change that. The Association of War Zone Contractors is the first nonprofit dedicated to organizing and advocating for the hundreds thousands of contractors the U.S. relies on in its overseas operations. Like generations of veterans before who have come home from battle, scarred physically and psychologically, and pushed for better care, the group hopes to draw attention—and eventually resources—to support contractors as they increasingly bear the costs of war. (Kehrt, 2/25)

The Hill: VA Fires Another 1,400 Employees
The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday fired another 1,400 employees amid outcry over a lack of transparency from the agency after 1,000 workers were axed earlier this month. The VA said the individuals dismissed were “non-mission critical” probationary employees who have served less than two years, according to a department statement. (Mitchell, 2/24)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Keeping Lakeside Egg Ranch Flu Free Takes Constant Vigilance
Three years into a nationwide avian influenza outbreak that has forced millions of egg-laying birds to be killed after becoming infected, Hilliker’s Ranch in Lakeside has been able to keep producing day in and day out with a little luck and a lot of effort around sanitation. (Sisson, 2/24)

CNN: FDA Delays When A Final Rule On What Foods Can Be Labeled As ‘Healthy’ Goes Into Effect
The US Food and Drug Administration’s new standards for foods before they can be labeled as “healthy” on their packaging will go into effect about two months later than planned, according to a government document scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday. (Howard, 2/24)

Axios: FDA OKs Adaptive Brain Pacemaker For Parkinson's Treatment
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted its first approval for a pacemaker-like device for the brain to ease symptoms of Parkinson's disease, which affects nearly 1 million people in the United States. (Goldman, 2/25)

The Guardian: Antioxidants In Fruits And Flowers Seem To Counteract Harmful Effects Of Microplastics, Study Shows
Antioxidants that give fruits and flowers their vibrant colors seem to counteract some of the most dangerous reproductive system effects of exposure to microplastics, such as decreased fertility, and could ultimately be used in developing treatments, new peer-reviewed research shows. The paper focused on microplastics’ reproductive toxicity and plant compounds called anthocyanins, which are widely found in nuts, fruits and vegetables. The new review of scientific literature on anthocyanins found that the compounds are probably protective against a range of plastic-induced impacts on hormones, reductions in testosterone and estrogen, decreased sperm counts, lower sperm quality, erectile dysfunction and ovarian damage. (Perkins, 2/24)

The Wall Street Journal: Red Light Therapy Gets The Green Light, Sort Of
Red-light therapy is getting the green light in some health circles, but it’s early yet to say whether that’s a good thing. The treatment, a type of light therapy called photobiomodulation that involves exposing the body to low levels of red or near-infrared light, purports to help users lose weight, look younger and balance mood. It’s popping up everywhere from hotel spas to European beehives. (Janin, 2/24)

The Washington Post: A Surprising Health Benefit Of Drinking Tea
A new study published in ACS Food Science & Technology, found that tea leaves naturally adsorb heavy metals, filtering out harmful water contaminants like lead, cadmium or arsenic. The metals become trapped on the surface of the tea leaves and can be removed by simply filtering out the leaves or tossing the tea bag. (Ajasa, 2/25)