Los Angeles Times: California Senate Passes Bill That Aims To Make AI Chatbots Safer
California lawmakers on Tuesday moved one step closer to placing more guardrails around artificial intelligence-powered chatbots. The Senate passed a bill that aims to make chatbots used for companionship safer after parents raised concerns that virtual characters harmed their childrens’ mental health. (Wong, 6/3)

The Bay Area Reporter: LGBTQ Bills Advance Out Of CA Legislative Chambers
Legislation aimed at protecting the rights and health care of LGBTQ Californians, particularly those who are transgender or living with HIV, is moving forward this session in Sacramento. Ahead of the June 6 deadline for the Legislature to pass bills out of their chamber of origin, 15 bills of importance to the LGBTQ community had already advanced as of June 2 and will be taken up for final passage by legislators later this summer. Of the 20 bills the Bay Area Reporter is tracking this year, nine in the Senate had been passed as of Monday. (Bajko, 6/3)

AP: Trump Pushes A July 4th Deadline For Tax Bill As Republican Senators Dig In
President Donald Trump wants his “big, beautiful” bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he’s pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later. Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House earlier this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it’s still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package. (Mascaro and Jalonick, 6/4)

California Healthline: Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Continues Assault On Obamacare
The domestic policy legislation the House advanced in May includes the most substantial rollback of the Affordable Care Act since President Donald Trump and his Republican allies tried to pass legislation in 2017 that would have largely repealed President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment. (Galewitz and Appleby, 6/3)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Administration Revokes Guidance Requiring Hospitals To Provide Emergency Abortions
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it would revoke guidance to the nation’s hospitals that directed them to provide emergency abortions to women when they are necessary to stabilize their medical condition. That guidance was issued to hospitals in 2022, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court upended national abortion rights in the U.S. It was an effort by the Biden administration to preserve abortion access for extreme cases in which women were experiencing medical emergencies and needed an abortion to prevent organ loss or severe hemorrhaging, among other serious complications. (Seitz, 6/3)

The Hill: FDA Chief Pledges Review Of Abortion Pill Mifepristone
Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary committed to reviewing the abortion drug mifepristone in a letter sent to Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “As with all drugs, FDA continues to closely monitor the postmarketing safety data on mifepristone for the medical termination of early pregnancy,” Makary wrote to Hawley. “As the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, I am committed to conducting a review of mifepristone and working with the professional career scientists at the Agency who review this data,” he added in the letter. (O’Connell-Domenech, 6/3)

Politico: Judge Orders Trump Admin To Maintain Gender-Affirming Care For Transgender Inmates
A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue providing gender-affirming care to hundreds of transgender prison inmates, ruling that an abrupt decision to curtail their medical care was not based on any “reasoned” analysis, as the law requires. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth previously ordered the Bureau of Prisons to continue to provide medical care to several individual prisoners who are transgender, but his ruling Tuesday is the first that broadly blocks federal prison officials from carrying out an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting “gender ideology.” (Gerstein and Cheney, 6/3)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: After Stalled Launch And $16 Million Bond Payoff, Napa County To Turn Unused Jail Site Into Mental Health Hub
A Napa County facility built to help low-level offenders transition out of jail never served its intended purpose. Now, after years of delays and a $16 million payout to terminate state bond obligations, county officials are giving the site a new mission: mental health and addiction care. (Mehta, 6/3)

The Intersection: Valley Foster Care Agencies Are Facing An Insurance Crisis, Possible Closure
The nonprofit agencies that serve some of the Central Valley’s most vulnerable youth have found themselves stuck between the proverbial rock and the hardest of decisions. After the largest insurer of nonprofit foster care agencies across California announced it was pulling out of the market and would not renew policies last year, organizations had a choice to make — find new insurance at a much higher rate, or stop placing youth with foster families. (Rowland, 6/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Hikes Ambulance Prices Again, As City Considers Bringing Service In-House
San Diego is raising the fees patients get billed for ambulance rides by 18% over the next three years, but City Council members argued Tuesday that insurance companies will pay the hikes — not individual patients. (Garrick, 6/3)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Desmond Votes Against His Own Resolution On Sewage Crisis 
The San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved a resolution Wednesday that urges the federal government to pressure Mexico to end the Tijuana River sewage crisis. (Murga, 6/3)

Voice Of San Diego: Aguirre Shifts On Sanctuary Policy
Amid widespread condemnation of a federal immigration raid last weekend at a popular South Park restaurant, county supervisorial candidate Paloma Aguirre is softening her stance on a controversial county immigration policy. Speaking to KPBS on Monday, Aguirre said she supports the county’s so-called “super sanctuary” policy, which bars county employees from assisting federal deportation efforts even in cases involving immigrants convicted of violent felonies. (Hinch, 6/4)

The Intersection: This Pop-Up Nightclub Is A Place Of ‘Pure Happiness’ For Merced’s Disabled Adults
The pop-up event, known as Club 67, isn’t a typical nightclub. The event provides a “judgement-free zone” for Merced’s adult disabled community to experience a nightclub environment where adults with disabilities can dance and visit with friends without worrying about mixing alcohol with medications or being treated poorly by other club goers who may not understand their disabilities. (Vaccari, Merced FOCUS, 6/3)

Times of San Diego: Pacific Beach-Based Resource Center Says Unsheltered Numbers Increasing
Citywide homelessness is down in the latest Point-in-Time Count. But a Pacific Beach unsheltered services provider doubts the reliability of that assessment, noting the situation there is worsening. Homelessness is growing, she said, especially among seniors. Homelessness in the city dropped 13.5% from a year ago, according to data released by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness from the most recent Point-in-Time Count in January. (Schwab, 6/3)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass Will Be Spared From Testifying In Homeless Case
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass won’t be called as a witness in a multiday federal court hearing that could determine whether the city’s homelessness programs are placed in receivership. Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, told U.S. District Judge David O. Carter on Tuesday that he and his legal team were withdrawing subpoenas issued in recent weeks to Bass and City Councilmembers Monica Rodriguez and Traci Park. Battling over the appearances, which were opposed by the city, would have delayed the proceedings for several months, he said. (Zahniser and Smith, 6/3)

Los Angeles Times: California Freshwater Fish Found To Be Teeming With Parasites. How To Keep From Getting Sick
More than 90% of popular freshwater fish in Southern California are carrying human-infecting parasites, researchers say. This poses a significant danger for those who like to eat freshly caught freshwater fish. But there are ways to protect yourself. The parasites are called trematodes. Two species of the flatworms were discovered in California’s freshwater fish, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The tiny, flattened and sluglike creatures can cause gastrointestinal problems, weight loss and lethargy when a person eats an infected fish. (Garcia, 6/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Confused Over Conflicting COVID Vaccine Guidance? What To Know
Federal health officials have in recent weeks given conflicting — and at times confusing — guidance around who should get vaccinated against COVID-19. These changes mark a significant departure from the CDC’s previous recommendations, which advised everyone 6 months and older to get the vaccine. (Ho, 6/3)

Los Angeles Times: Regulators Seek To Phase Out Gas-Powered Appliances In Southern California
Southern California’s air quality regulators are set to vote this week on new rules aimed at phasing out the sale of gas-powered furnaces and water heaters in the region. The South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD, which covers all of Orange County and large swaths of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, is scheduled to vote Friday on two proposed regulations designed to limit emissions of nitrogen oxides, or NOx — the key pollutants that form smog. (Smith, 6/4)

The New York Times: From No Hope To A Potential Cure For A Deadly Blood Cancer
A group of 97 patients had longstanding multiple myeloma, a common blood cancer that doctors consider incurable, and faced a certain, and extremely painful, death within about a year. They had gone through a series of treatments, each of which controlled their disease for a while. But then it came back, as it always does. They reached the stage where they had no more options and were facing hospice. They all got immunotherapy, in a study that was a last-ditch effort. (Kolata, 6/3)

California Healthline: Two Patients Faced Chemo. The One Who Survived Demanded A Test To See If It Was Safe.
Worried that President Donald Trump’s FDA might not act, a panel of cancer experts recommended that doctors consider testing before dosing patients with a commonly used but sometimes deadly cancer drug. It came too late for many patients. (Allen, 6/4)

Bay Area News Group: Osteoporosis: NASA-Inspired Belt Lowers Bone Fracture Risk
Dr. David Karpf is a Stanford endocrinologist and internationally recognized osteoporosis expert who has been advising Bone Health Technologies since 2001. He helped develop the first alendronate sodium medications that accompanied astronauts to space to slow down the breakdown of their bones and also emphasizes the living nature of bones. (Jung, 6/4)

MedPage Today: Study Supports Lowering Colon Cancer Screening Age
A single-center study supported recent U.S. recommendations that lowered the colorectal cancer screening age to 45.Screening colonoscopy outcomes were slightly less common in people ages 45-49 compared with those 50-54 years old, but only the risk for any adenoma was significantly lower in the younger group, ... reported Jeffrey Lee, MD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Northern California in Pleasanton, and colleagues in JAMA. (6/3)

Fortune Well: Cannabis—Whether Smoked Or Eaten—Is Bad For Your Heart, New Study Finds. It's Just One Of Many Risks
Smoking weed, according to a small new study out of University of California San Francisco, is bad for your heart—and so is consuming cannabis as an edible. The report, published May 28 in JAMA Cardiology, found that people who regularly used marijuana in either form had vascular function that was reduced by about half when compared to those who did not use cannabis—a dysfunction comparable to that of tobacco smokers. (Greenfield, 6/3)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Business Owner Pleads Guilty To Role In $51M Medicare Fraud Scheme
A Chula Vista man who owned and operated multiple durable medical equipment companies pleaded guilty to his role in a $51 million Medicare fraud scheme. Fernando Ayub, 48, and his co-conspirators sold orthotics to Medicare beneficiaries and paid kickbacks to sham marketing companies that provided fraudulent prescriptions for durable medical equipment, according to a May 27 Justice Department news release. In total, he paid $3.7 million in kickbacks. (Cass, 6/3)

Modern Healthcare: Clinicians Use Generative AI More Often At Home Than Work: Survey
Healthcare workers use artificial intelligence more in their personal lives than in professional settings, according to a survey published Tuesday. Information services company Wolters Kluwer and marketing research firm Ipsos surveyed 312 U.S. healthcare professionals on AI in healthcare. Despite all the hype, fewer respondents use generative AI at work than at home. (Turner, 6/3)

California Healthline: 'An Arm and a Leg' Podcast: A Mathematical Solution For US Hospitals?
An immigrant mathematician is on a mission to save U.S. hospitals billions of dollars and improve the lives of doctors, nurses, and patients. At one hospital, it's working. (6/2)