Times of San Diego: Holocaust Survivors To Benefit From New $14.5M In State Funding
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature have allocated $14.5 million to sustain the state’s Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program, which provides essential services to more than 2,000 Holocaust survivors across California. The funding, set for distribution this fiscal year, follows advocacy efforts led by Jewish Family Service of San Diego, six other agencies, the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, and the California Legislative Jewish Caucus. (Sklar, 7/10)

Times of San Diego: Lawmakers Call For Federal Action On Tijuana River Pollution Crisis
California lawmakers on Thursday re-introduced the Border Water Quality Restoration and Protection Act to combat ongoing pollution from the Tijuana River. ... [The act] would establish the EPA as the lead agency coordinating efforts between federal, state, tribal and local agencies to deal with pollution. The bill also would establish an EPA Geographic Program that would implement a water quality management program within 180 days of the bill’s passing. (Wallace, 7/10)

Modern Healthcare: How The $1T Medicaid Cuts Law Is Also A $500B Medicare Cuts Law
President Donald Trump and Republicans pledged not to touch Medicare, but the massive tax law enacted over Democratic objections set up more than $500 billion in Medicare cuts — unless Democrats bail the GOP out. Because Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to balloon the federal budget deficit by $3.4 trillion over 10 years, it triggered automatic spending cuts under the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, known as the PAYGO Act. The White House Office of Management and Budget must find $340 billion a year in spending reductions. (McAuliff, 7/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Business Owner Pleads Guilty In $5.9M Medicare Fraud Scheme
A California man who owned two durable medical equipment companies pleaded guilty to his role in a $5.9 million Medicare fraud scheme. Jacobo Melcer, 85, of Bonita, admitted to paying kickbacks to multiple companies for the referral of Medicare beneficiaries and prescriptions for durable medical equipment, according to a July 2 Justice Department news release. Mr. Melcer paid more than $277,000 in kickbacks and fraudulently billed Medicare nearly $5.9 million, of which he received nearly $3.5 million. (Cass, 7/10)

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?' Podcast: Digesting Trump’s Big Budget Law
As he had wanted, President Donald Trump signed his big budget bill into a big budget law in a White House ceremony on July 4, cementing, among other things, billions of dollars in cuts to health programs such as Medicaid. The new law will also reshape rules for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and other health programs. Meanwhile, the threat of layoffs continues to hang over the heads of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services, and funding for health-related contracts and grants remains stalled. (Rovner, 7/10)

Voice Of San Diego: Trump Administration Withholding Nearly $10 Million For Imperial County Schools
For decades, American schools have relied on federal grants to help serve students who have economic and social challenges. But on the cusp of this upcoming school year the Trump administration flipped the script.  One day before billions in federal funds were set to be distributed to schools, the Department of Education sent a letter informing recipients that their allocation would be reconsidered. Now, the future of billions of dollars supporting migrant education, English learners, retention of quality educators in low-income schools and more lies in limbo. (Balc, 7/11)

Reuters: US FDA Publishes 200 Complete Response Letters From Archive In Transparency Drive
Typically, the FDA sends the letters, or CRLs, to drugmakers whose treatments are not approved, detailing reasons and whether additional data is required, but companies have historically exercised discretion on what information from the CRL is shared with investors. The letters published on Thursday were issued in response to applications the FDA had received between 2020 and 2024, the agency said, adding it was in the process of sharing additional letters. (Satija, 7/10)

Los Angeles Times: How A Supreme Court Win For Public Health Bolstered RFK Jr.
Public health advocates won a big case in the Supreme Court on the last day of this year’s term, but the victory came with an asterisk. The decision ended one threat to the no-cost preventive services — from cancer and diabetes screenings to statin drugs and vaccines — used by more than 150 million Americans who have health insurance. (Savage, 7/11)

CIDRAP: FDA Approves Moderna COVID Vaccine For Kids Under 12 At Higher Risk
Vaccine maker Moderna announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted full approval of its Spikevax (mRNA-1273) COVID vaccine for children 6 months to 11 years old. But, because federal officials in May restricted its recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines to adults 65 and older and to people of all ages who are at increased risk for severe disease, Spikevax will be available only to kids in that age range who are at higher risk. (Wappes, 7/10)

Fierce Healthcare: HHS Rescinds Undocumented Immigrant Access To Federal Health Benefits
The Department of Health and Human Services has rescinded a policy from 1998 that gave undocumented immigrants access to certain federal health benefits, such as Head Start and mental health programs. Issued by President Bill Clinton, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was passed into law and deemed a major welfare reform. (Tong, 7/10)

Stat: Stem Cell Research Biobank Is Holding A Going-Out-Of-Business Sale 
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine has for a decade owned a human stem cell biobank that was once the largest of its kind in the world. But the agency and its partners are now racing to sell off thousands of precious samples in a massive fire sale before many of them are discarded. (Wosen, 7/11)

Modern Healthcare: Best Buy Health Layoffs To Hit 161 Employees
Best Buy Co. plans to lay off 161 employees from its healthcare division, according to a worker adjustment and retraining notification in California. The layoff notification was filed on Tuesday, only two weeks after Best Buy announced it was selling Current Health, the at-home care company it acquired nearly four years ago, back to founder Christopher McGhee. The cuts will be effective in September. (Turner, 7/10)

Los Angeles Times: Officials Denounce Immigration Guards Camped At A Glendale Hospital Monitoring Detainee
For a week, two guards linked to the Department of Homeland Security have camped out in the lobby of a Glendale hospital to monitor the movements of a woman patient admitted after she was arrested by federal agents — a constant watch that has been denounced by nurses, a state lawmaker and others. Ariana Gomez, labor representative at California Nurses Assn., which represents nurses at Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center, said Thursday that there is “overwhelming discomfort” about the use of the guards. (Smith, 7/10)

Stat: An Academic Coalition Finalizes An Alternative To Billions Of Dollars Of Cuts To Indirect Payments
A coalition of academic organizations has finalized a proposed alternative to the Trump administration’s plan to cut billions of dollars in research overhead payments. The 10 groups that represent universities, medical centers, and other organizations that are part of this effort, known as the Joint Associations Group, or JAG, haven’t yet presented their finalized model to the academic community. (Wosen, 7/10)

Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital Names New CEO 4 Months After Reopening
Sony Sidhu, DNP, RN, has been named CEO of Madera Community Hospital. Dr. Sidhu has more than 20 years of healthcare experience, most recently serving as CEO of Central Valley Specialty Hospital in Modesto, according to a July 3 hospital news release shared with Becker’s. (Kuchno, 7/10)

AP: Prediabetes In Teens: CDC Finds Nearly 1 In 3 US Youth Have It
A new federal estimate shows a rise in prediabetes among American adolescents, a finding that is spurring concerns about the health of U.S. children — and the way Trump administration health officials are conducting research and communicating information, experts said. In 2023, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. youngsters ages 12 to 17 had prediabetes, according to recently released data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is far higher than a previous estimate that the condition affects about 1 in 5 kids. (Aleccia, 7/10)

California Healthline: The Foster Care System Has A Suicide Problem. Federal Cuts Threaten To Slow Fixes.
Children and young adults in the U.S. foster care system suffer from mental health disorders and die by suicide at far higher rates than the general population, yet the system doesn’t uniformly screen and treat children who are at risk. (Platzman Weinstock, 7/11)

NPR: Why A New Opioid Alternative Is Out Of Reach For Some Pain Patients
Jerry Abrams, a 64-year-old marketing strategist in Minneapolis, used to run marathons. But two decades of degenerative spine disease have left him unable to run — and he's grieving. For Abrams, losing running felt like "the loss of a loved one – that friend who's been with you every day you needed him. "You know, having that taken away from you because of pain is the hardest thing of all," he says. (Lupkin, 7/10)

California Healthline: Who’s Policing Opioid Settlement Spending? A Crowdsourced Database Might Help
Billions in opioid settlement money was meant to be spent on treating and preventing addiction — but what happens if it’s misspent? Some advocates say attorneys general need to pay closer attention. If they don’t, a new tool might empower the public. (Pattani, 7/11)

Capital & Main: Will Covered California Land On Life Support?
For all the right reasons, the conversation about the Donald Trump-led budget reconciliation centers on massive Medicaid funding reductions and the long-term damage they’ll do to public health. With some 15 million Californians relying on Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, to see a doctor, that’s no thought exercise — it’s an emergency. The misery hasn’t arrived yet, but it already feels real. (Mark Kreidler, 7/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Trump’s Budget Cuts Will Lead To A Tsunami Of Food Insecurity In The Bay Area
“I am just so disappointed in the government. I don’t think the full impact of it has hit me yet, honestly,” Greer, a Novato single mother who relies on a Marin County food pantry and SNAP for her daughter and herself, told me. Greer and her daughter both have health issues and nutritious food is critical for them. “I’ve been trying to find how to stock up on stuff more now before we don’t have that SNAP money.” (Tanis Crosby, 7/9)

Los Angeles Times: The Healthcare Cuts Approved By Trump, Republicans Go Well Beyond Medicaid
The federal safety-net healthcare system for low-income and disabled Americans, Medicaid, won’t be the only medical coverage devastated by the package of spending cuts and tax breaks signed into law by President Trump on the Fourth of July. Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimates that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out due to increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled. Those who do stay could be hit with an average monthly premium increase of up to 66%. (Willon, 7/7)

San Diego Union-Tribune: California Is Fighting A Losing Battle Against Title IX And Human Biology 
After an investigation into California’s legal protection of biological males who identify as female competing in the same category with biological females, the federal government informed California that it is in violation of federal law. (Susan Shelley, 7/8)

Los Angeles Blade: USAID’s Demise: America’s Global Betrayal Of Trust
The U.S. Agency for International Development — proudly my institutional home for several years of my international development career and an American institutional global fixture since November 1961 — is no more. How will USAID’s closure impact LGBTQI+ people around the world, especially in poor, struggling countries (“the Global South”)? Time will tell, but “dire,” “appalling,” and “shameful” are appropriate adjectives, given the massive increase in HIV/AIDS deaths that follow the callous, abrupt, and unspeakably cruel cut-off of funding for USAID’s health and humanitarian programming in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care. (Chloe Schwenke, 7/9)