AP: California Bill Would Eventually Ban All Tobacco Sales
Some California lawmakers want to eventually ban all tobacco sales in the nation's most populous state, filing legislation to make it illegal to sell cigarettes and other products to anyone born after Jan. 1, 2007. (Beam, 2/23)

State Of Reform: UCLA Study Finds Success In Whole Person Care Pilot Program, But Statewide Poll Shows Californians Remain Concerned About Costs
A UCLA study published last December found that California’s Whole Person Care (WPC) Pilot Program was successful in bringing quality healthcare to the most vulnerable Californians and those living with chronic health conditions, but polls show Californians remain concerned about healthcare costs. (Saunders, 2/23)

The Bakersfield Californian: Kern Public Health To Ask Supervisors To Declare End To Local COVID-19 Health Emergency 
Kern County Public Health will ask the county Board of Supervisors to end a local COVID-19 health emergency declared nearly three years ago after Kern County hospitals withstood two recent coronavirus surges and treatment options have been folded into current systems, the county public health spokeswoman told The Californian. (Desai and Donegan, 2/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: COVID In California: U.S. Ending Pandemic Era Aid For Groceries
Against a backdrop of plunging global COVID-19 cases and deaths, California on Thursday reported a stabilization in case numbers and hospitalizations after a month of increases. (Vaziri, 2/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: Conservative Group Sues Kaiser Permanente Over Transgender Care
The conservative nonprofit Center for American Liberty said Thursday that it has filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente alleging that it provided inappropriate gender hormone therapies and surgical procedures to a teenager who later de-transitioned. (Allday, 2/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Mateo Cancer Nonprofit Scrambling After Theft Of Van
Workers at Bay Area Cancer Connections were stunned Tuesday morning as they were preparing to load the nonprofit’s van for their daily rounds around San Mateo providing wigs, prosthetics and bras to breast and ovarian cancer patients. (Umanzor, 2/23)

Orange County Register: As Huntington Beach Restricts Pride Flag, Health Foundation Pulls Event From City 
Blue Shield of California Foundation pulled its summer retreat from the city’s Waterfront Beach Resort after the City Council first began to move forward with an ordinance that only allows government and various military flags to be flown. (Kang, 2/23)

Reuters: First Zantac Cancer Risk Trial In Calif. Postponed Five Months
The first scheduled trial over claims that GSK Plc's heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer, which had been set to begin Monday, has been postponed by five months. (Pierson, 2/24)

Capital & Main: 'I Was So Sad All The Time. I Was So Angry All The Time.'
A report from the front lines of California’s Black mental health crisis. (Sánchez-Tello, 2/23)

California Healthline: 'What the Health? Podcast: Senators Have Mental Health Crises, Too
When U.S. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania checked himself into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of depression this month, he got an unusual reaction from his colleagues in Congress: compassion. It’s a far cry from how politicians once kept their mental health issues under wraps at all costs. Meanwhile, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley is stirring up controversy by proposing that all politicians over age 75 be required to pass a mental competency test to hold office. (2/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: Is California Overdose Rate Going Down? Experts Weigh In
California’s overdose death rate is showing signs of flattening after a years-long ascent fueled by the extra-potent opioid, fentanyl, federal estimates show. But researchers caution the improvements may not last. (Leonard, 2/24)

East Bay Times: What Shrinking Water Supply Will Mean For California
Downpours or drought, California’s farm belt will need to tighten up in the next two decades and grow fewer crops.There simply won’t be enough water to sustain present irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley. (George Skelton, 2/22)

KQED: Violence Against Unhoused People Is All Too Common. Here's What To Do If You Witness It
When a video of a gallery owner in San Francisco using a hose to spray water on an unhoused woman on the sidewalk went viral, Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia was horrified, but not surprised. Growing up without a permanent home in Los Angeles, Gray-Garcia has seen what violence against people who are unhoused looks like up close. So, she knows how rare it is for such acts of violence to be reported, and how even more unlikely it is for perpetrators to be held accountable. (Johnson, 2/23)

Capital & Main: In L.A., Unhoused People Say City Sweeps Leave Them Vulnerable To Hypothermia
At least 14 unhoused people froze to death in 2021 in Los Angeles County, but the city of L.A. throws away vital winter items in sweeps of tent communities — and it did so again this year, during one of the coldest, rainiest winters in recent memory, unhoused people say. Mutual aid groups who distribute winter gear say they are caught in a painful, expensive cycle with the city, distributing the items one week and watching them get thrown away the next. (Ross, 2/22)

East Bay Times: How Repeat Exposures To Mass Shootings Traumatizes Youth
Exposure to gun violence at any point during childhood is an adverse childhood experience, and extensive research on exposure to these experiences shows links to dozens of negative outcomes in a person’s life. (Sonali Rajan, Charles Branas and Mark S Kaplan, 2/22)

Los Angeles Daily News: Single Payer Stunt Makes A Comeback In Sacramento 
On Friday, Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, introduced Assembly Bill 1690. The minimal text of the bill announces, “the intent of the Legislature to guarantee accessible, affordable, equitable, and high-quality health care for all Californians through a comprehensive universal single-payer health care program that benefits every resident of the state.” (2/21)

Los Angeles Times: Mask Mandates And The Right Wing
What is it about conservative COVID deniers and masks? For some reason, mask mandates have been the target of more overheated carping by right-wingers about anti-COVID measures than almost anything else, vaccines aside. (Michael Hiltzik, 2/24)

Mercury News: Youth Mental Health Facility Will Fill Major Santa Clara County Need
It’s one of Santa Clara County parents’ worst nightmares. A child develops a mental health problem to such a degree that treatment at a psychiatric hospital becomes necessary. (2/24)

The Desert Sun: Bad Governance At Play In Scrapping Coachella's Recovery Village
The desert was on its way to getting a much-needed mental health center in Coachella – until those hopes were officially dashed last week by Riverside County – which had championed the project and then suddenly scrapped its plans. (2/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: A Republican Criminal Justice Idea California Democrats Should Support
Spurred by a recent spate of mass shootings, California lawmakers are gearing up to debate a host of bills that aim to reduce gun violence by strengthening the state’s strongest-in-the-nation firearm laws. But the supermajority-Democratic Legislature should also seriously consider a proposal, authored by Republican Assembly Member Joe Patterson of Rocklin (Placer County), that approaches the problem from a different, oft-overlooked angle: classifying domestic violence as a “violent” crime, increasing penalties for the worst and most dangerous offenders. (Emily Hoeven, 2/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Are SF Mental Health And Homeless Response Teams Being Set Up To Fail?
In January 2017, two San Francisco Police officers responded to a call from someone complaining that a neighbor was knocking on their adjoining wall. Arriving at the scene, the officers found Sean Moore, who had schizophrenia, in the midst of a mental health crisis. (2/19)

Los Angeles Daily News: California Is Spending More Than Ever To Reduce Homelessness, But Its Current Strategy Is Not Working 
California’s homeless crisis continues to get worse, with the public increasingly — and understandably — frustrated by the ever-present tent cities that envelop public parks, at aggressive panhandlers and shocking stories of sexual abuse and open-air drug markets in homeless encampments. Despite the chaos, the state seems incapable of getting the situation under control. (2/22)

San Diego Union-Times: San Diego Right To Treat The Fentanyl Crisis With Urgency 
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria issued an executive order in November directing the Police Department “to strengthen and prioritize enforcement for fentanyl sales-related crimes to the greatest extent possible.” (2/22)