Los Angeles Times: Deputies Warned To Decontaminate Clothes After Lead, Asbestos Found In Air Near Eaton Fire
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent an urgent message out to patrol cars Wednesday afternoon, warning deputies in Altadena that, after days of nearby wildfires, the air is so toxic they should wear masks and decontaminate their uniforms before stepping foot in their homes. Sent at 4:35 p.m., the message began “**Attn all personnel**” and said that the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s hazmat team reported the air in Altadena is “‘hazardous, containing lead, asbestos and other harmful particulates.” (Blakinger, 1/16)

Bloomberg: Burning Teslas In LA Add To Toxic Mix Hindering Wildfire Cleanup
As the smoke clears from devastating Los Angeles wildfires, efforts to clean up the affected areas are being complicated by burnt-out electric and hybrid vehicles and home-battery storage systems. Lithium batteries from Tesla Inc., along with those from other carmakers, have added to the mix of toxic materials requiring specialized removal in the wake of the fires, delaying the fire victims’ return to their properties. (Kamisher, Curtis and Carson, 1/16)

Los Angeles Times: Pasadena Unified School District Announces Phased Reopening For Schools
The Pasadena Unified School District will reopen campuses in phases over a two-week stretch with the goal of returning all students to in-person learning by the end of January as it begins recovery from the Eaton fire, which destroyed several schools and forced the closure of all campuses. District officials, speaking at a board meeting Thursday night, said that an initial group of schools would reopen Jan. 23, bringing at least 3,400 students back to classrooms. (Miller, 1/16)

CBS News: Many Northern California Registered Nurses March In Support Of Staffing, Patient Protections Against AI
Thousands of registered nurse members of National Nurses United, including many in Northern California, participated in marches and rallies on Thursday, demanding safe staffing levels and patient safeguards with the introduction of artificial intelligence, the NNU says. More than 100,000 NNU members are entering contract negotiations, saying they "plan to confront industry decisions that undermine patients' health and well-being and fail to address chronic RN recruitment and retention issues –  in favor of increasing profits." (Downs, 1/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: $150M Sought From California Hospital Over Alleged Breach Of Contract
Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai is facing allegations of appropriating the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic's reputation and assets without compensation in a $150 million lawsuit. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses the hospital of conspiring with  Santa Monica Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Group, Kerlan-Jobe said in a Jan. 16 news release shared with Becker's. (Behm, 1/16)

KVPR: What We Know About How Soon Madera Community Hospital Could Reopen
Nearly a year after Madera Community Hospital was purchased — and more than two years after it originally shuttered — hospital leaders say it could be open as early as next month. The hospital, the only general acute care facility in all of Madera County, has remained shuttered since its abrupt closure in late 2022. Leaders declared bankruptcy a few months later. (Klein, 1/15)

Los Angeles Times: Cedars-Sinai, Federal Agency Announce Agreement On Maternal Care
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center has reached an agreement with the government to resolve allegations that it violated federal laws against discrimination when treating pregnant Black, Latina and other patients of color, officials said Thursday. The agreement with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights comes two months after the agency told Cedars-Sinai its investigation “raises concerns that a lower standard of care is provided to Black patients compared to their white counterparts — especially leading up to and during obstetric hemorrhage.” (Alpert Reyes, 1/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: CommonSpirit Moving 'Fast And Aggressively' Toward Single EHR: CEO
When Wright Lassiter III took over as CommonSpirit CEO in 2022 — three years after the merger between Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives and San Francisco-based Dignity Health was completed — one of his key goals was to unify the health system into a single, integrated entity. "We were an organization that still functioned a lot like the vestiges of its component parts," Mr. Lassiter said Jan. 14 at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. "While respecting legacy is critically important, one of the levers that CommonSpirit expected to drive success in its alignment in 2019 was to function as a unified system, to be integrated." (Condon, 1/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: UCSF Health, GE HealthCare Launch Innovation Hub: 4 Notes
San Francisco-based UCSF Health and GE HealthCare have launched an innovation hub to propel medical imaging into the future. ... The Care Innovation Hub will focus on three areas: access to advanced imaging, noninvasive diagnosis and management of neurological and neurodegenerative disease, and precision oncology. (Bruce, 1/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Sharp HealthCare Nabs Naming Rights For San Diego FC
San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare's name will adorn a new 50,000-square-foot training center used by MLS franchise San Diego FC. The Sharp HealthCare Performance Center will open Feb. 4 in El Cajon. ... As part of the multiyear agreement, Sharp HealthCare will also serve as the pro soccer team's official healthcare and insurance partner. (Bruce, 1/16)

Los Angeles Times: Bogus Stem Cell Clinics Want To Kill Key FDA Regulations
For years, the Food and Drug Administration has taken up arms against clinics hawking unproven and ineffective stem cell treatments to desperate patients looking for cures of intractable diseases and conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and even erectile dysfunction. As the FDA has repeatedly cautioned, there is no scientifically validated evidence that these treatments work. They’re typically not covered by insurance. For the clinics, however, they’re money-makers, with fees of $9,000 or more per treatment; the clinics often recommend multiple treatments. (Hiltzik, 1/17)

Becker's Hospital Review: Gilead, Government Settle HIV Drug Patent Dispute
[Foster City-based] Gilead Sciences reached a settlement with the Justice Department and HHS that resolves a five-year legal dispute regarding patents for its HIV prevention drugs, Truvada and Descovy. The litigation, which began in 2019, centered around claims that Gilead had infringed on patents held by the government, particularly those issued to the CDC for the use of Truvada and Descovy as pre-exposure prophylaxis, according to a Jan. 15 news release from the company. (Murphy, 1/16)

The Washington Post: As Bird Flu Affects More People And Animals, CDC Urges Faster Testing
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory Thursday urging health-care workers treating patients hospitalized with the flu to perform an additional test for bird flu within 24 hours of admission. The advisory reflects increasing concern about the widening outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza that is sickening more people and animals in the United States and Canada. (Sun, 1/16)

The New York Times: With A Series Of Actions, Biden Races To Constrain Trump 
In the final days of his term, President Biden has issued a series of policy decisions intended to cement his agenda and, in some cases, make it harder for President-elect Donald J. Trump to put in place his own. The 11th-hour decisions, many of them executive actions, include measures on environmental justice, prison reform, immigration and foreign relations. Some are intended to preserve Mr. Biden’s legacy, while others are last-ditch efforts to expand his approach. Many are likely to be undone after Mr. Trump takes office next week. (Kanno-Youngs, 1/16)

The New York Times: Biden to Commute Sentences of Nearly 2,500 Drug Offenders
President Biden announced on Friday that he would commute the sentences of nearly 2,500 inmates serving long prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses, the broadest commutation of individual sentences ever issued by a U.S. president. ... Mr. Biden said his latest commutations would help those who received sentences based on now-discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, or faced inflated charges for drug crimes. (Green and Kanno-Youngs, 1/17)

The 19th: Young People Urge Biden To Publish The Equal Rights Amendment
Every day for the final week-and-a-half of Joe Biden’s presidency, Rosie Couture and other members of the Young Feminist Party she co-founded in high school have been picketing in sub-freezing temperatures outside the White House, urging the outgoing president to make sure the U.S. Constitution protects their rights before he leaves office. (Becker, 1/16)

The New York Times: State Attorneys General Ask Courts To Preserve Biden-Era Gun Control Measures
More than a dozen state attorneys general, all Democrats, asked on Thursday to join federal legal efforts to preserve two Biden-era gun control policies, a signal of partisan legal fights to come as President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to power. The two policy shifts are different. One would require buyers at gun shows to undergo a background check. ... The other, to ban a kind of trigger that can make a semiautomatic weapon fire like a machine gun. (Schwartz, 1/16)

MedPage Today: Healthcare In The Mix In President Biden's Farewell Address
In a brief and somber farewell address to the nation on Wednesday night, President Biden touched on a number of his administration's accomplishments in healthcare as he summed up his time in office. ... Biden, 82, said it was an "honor to see essential workers getting us through a once-in-a-century pandemic, the heroism of servicemembers, and the first responders keeping us safe." (Frieden, 1/16)

Bay Area News Group: San Ramon Mixed-Use Neighborhood Creates Medical Hub To Speed Housing
The principal owner of Bishop Ranch in San Ramon has created a centralized medical and health hub in a push to pave the way for more housing within the mixed-use East Bay neighborhood. (Avalos, 1/17)

Times of San Diego: South Bay Residents Tell CDC How Border Sewage Affects Their Health, Quality Of Life
Have South Bay residents suffered health problems because of ongoing issues with Tijuana River sewage? Many think so. Nearly 70% of those who took part in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey believe that at least one person in their household had a symptom due to exposure to border sewage, officials said Thursday. (1/16)

Los Angeles Times: FTC Refers Snap Complaint Alleging Its Chatbot Harms Young Users
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday announced it had referred a complaint against Snap Inc. to the Department of Justice, alleging the social media company’s AI-powered chatbot is harmful to young users. ... The referral signals the federal government has child safety concerns surrounding AI chatbots that can generate text and images. The Santa Monica-based company released a chatbot called My AI that runs on OpenAI’s technology in 2023 that can recommend what to watch, suggest a dinner recipe, help plan a trip or do other tasks. (Wong, 1/16)

San Diego Union-Tribune: On Wildfire And Bird Flu Prevention, Newsom Failed Californians 
At least 24 lives were lost in last week’s fires. Sadly, the death toll will likely climb as officials reconcile missing person’s reports. The horrors facing Southern Californians are unfathomable. Countless Californians have heartbreakingly lost their homes, businesses and jobs with no end in sight. (Alexandra Macedo, 1/16)

East Bay Times: In L.A.’s Darkest Moment, Angelenos Shine With Aid And Food
Right now, Los Angeles seethes with the collective trauma of a metro area of millions buffeted about by hurricane-force winds that began last week. People whose lives and livelihoods were swallowed by an unrelenting blaze have been forced into the sort of stasis that accompanies the first few days after a crisis erupts. (Sean Beckner Carmitchel and Mel Buer, 1/15)

Los Angeles Times: After The Surgeon General's Warning, Rethink Sacramental Wine
I grew up seeing wine as a symbol of joy, holiness and a tool for elevating the mundane. From the weekly Kiddush (a blessing said over a wine cup) on Shabbat to holidays like Purim, Passover and Simchat Torah, wine occupies a sacred space in Judaism. But this month, the surgeon general’s advisory on alcohol’s link to cancer has shaken me. It reminded me that even cherished traditions carry risks we must confront. (Eli Federman, 1/14)

Los Angeles Blade: Second Trump Administration Will Put Trans Youth At Further Risk
When Andrew Joseph White, a 26-year-old transgender author, released his third novel, “Compound Fractures,” a young adult thriller, last fall, it became an instant New York Times, USA Today, and Indie bestseller. This book is a story about an autistic trans* boy who was dragged into a generational feud. It also mentioned President-elect Donald Trump and his influence on the working class in the American South. The popularity of this novel among young readers shows that modern day teenagers are more political than some folks from older generations expect them to be. (Ayman Eckford, 1/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: How We’re Failing Our Elders With Alzheimer’s And Dementia
We also dread dementia because it forces us to reckon with our existential lack of control. The irony is, that we have abdicated responsibility for the only thing we can control: how we treat our elders with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and as an extension, their caregivers. (Courtney Martin, 1/13)