Los Angeles Times: California Heat Dome Could Mean Lows Over 100 In Death Valley 
The heat dome parked over Southern California is expected to spin thermometers to nearly 130 degrees this weekend in Death Valley — where even overnight lows could exceed 100. (Childs, 7/13)

The Desert Sun: Extreme Heat: At Least 10 Days Of Temps Above 110 Degrees In Forecast. Will Records Fall? 
Starting Friday, high temperatures in the region are forecasted at 115 degrees and above at least through Monday and Tuesday, with high temperatures topping out at 120 to 121 degrees on Saturday and Sunday, bringing temperatures at 120 or above to the region for the first time since 2021. (Rode, 7/13)

Bay Area News Group: Spare The Air Alert Issued As Bay Area Heat Starts To Build
“We anticipated the the possibility of unhealthy conditions coming later in the week due to the increasing temperatures,” air district spokeswoman Tina Landis said. She added the district didn’t have confidence in the bad air conditions until Thursday. (Hurd, 7/13)

The Bakersfield Californian: City To Open 2 Cooling Centers 
Cooling centers are set to open in Bakersfield through this weekend to help the unhoused and those without air conditioning escape the hot temperatures. (7/13)

Sacramento Bee: State Worker Health Insurance Premiums May See Double-Digits Hikes. What CalPERS Is Considering
CalPERS health insurance policyholders will likely see their premiums grow by more than 11% on average next year, according to preliminary prices that the board of the nation’s largest pension will consider at its meeting next week in Monterey. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System provides health insurance for more than 1.5 million people, including roughly 770,000 state and local public employees and retirees and about 770,000 dependents. (Miller, 7/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: One Big Way S.F.’s Oldest Hospital Could Change Under UCSF
A proposal for UCSF to absorb St. Mary’s Medical Center into its vast medical network has rattled some of its senior doctors and prompted questions about what would happen if the Catholic institution transformed into a secular hospital. Under current ownership, St. Mary’s employees are technically required to follow the Catholic Church’s ethical and religious directives, which ban contraceptives, abortions, sterilization and gender care. (Mishanec, 7/13)

San Gabriel Valley Tribune: Healthcare Workers Picket West Anaheim Medical Center
In what has become an ongoing mantra at area hospitals, healthcare workers at West Anaheim Medical Center picketed the facility Thursday, July 13, demanding higher wages and increased staffing. In December, nearly 200 nursing assistants, emergency medical technicians, housekeepers, food service workers and pharmacy and lab techs at the hospital voted to join the National Union of Healthcare Workers in hopes of seeing their concerns met. But they say management is “not even budging.” (Smith, 7/13)

Los Angeles Times: Failures At L.A. Hospital Led To Patient Death, State Finds
Faulty practices at a Los Angeles hospital led to a patient hemorrhaging to death hours after giving birth by cesarean section, a state investigation found. California Hospital Medical Center in downtown L.A. failed to recognize signs that the patient was bleeding internally, which resulted in the woman returning to the operating room four hours after those signs began to emerge, according to the California Department of Public Health. (Alpert Reyes, 7/13)

Los Angeles Times: Homeless World Cup Offers Hope, Compassion For Global Problem
Sienna Jackson doesn’t know where she’d be if she hadn’t found Street Soccer USA. But she knows where she wouldn’t be: in a home, in dental school or starring for the U.S. in the Homeless World Cup. “My mental state would have went to trash,” said Jackson, 25, who had less than $3 in her pocket when her mother kicked her out of her home just after her 20th birthday. “I think I probably would have turned to drugs and alcohol. I honestly think I would have given up on myself.” (Baxter and Vives, 7/14)

inewsource: Lack Of Compliance With CA Lead Law Risks Children’s Health
Despite a California law requiring expanded lead testing for the first time at child care centers, thousands of facilities remain untested, potentially putting the health of children across the state at risk. More than 7,800 facilities — 54% of California’s child care centers — have yet to test for lead and could be out of compliance, according to an inewsource analysis of the state data, including testing results released by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. (Briseño and Niebla, 7/13)

VC Star: Ventura County Fire Department Starts Deploying Ambulances In Deal With AMR
The Ventura County Fire Department has deployed its own ambulances for the first time in a deal with American Medical Response, the only other provider of emergency ambulance service in the county. (Wilson, 7/13)

Stat: Does Aspartame Cause Cancer? What New WHO Guidance Says
Aspartame, the popular artificial sweetener in diet sodas and chewing gums, may possibly cause cancer — but the risk appears to be very low for occasional consumers of these products, according to two reports released Thursday evening by the World Health Organization. The first report, penned by the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), found “limited evidence” that aspartame may cause liver cancer. The second, from the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), reconfirmed the WHO’s previous recommendations that the sweetener is generally safe up until very large doses. (Florko, 7/13)

CNN: Study Finds More Clues As To Why ‘SuperAgers’ Have Better Brains 
In the largest observational study to date on “SuperAgers” — people in their 80s who have brains as sharp as those 30 years younger — researchers in Spain found key differences in lifestyle that may contribute to these older adults’ razor-sharp minds. SuperAgers in the study had more gray matter in parts of the brain related to movement, and they scored higher on agility, balance and mobility tests than typical older adults — even though the physical activity levels of the two groups were the same. (LaMotte, 7/13)

CapRadio: 'People Are Calling': More Californians Are Reaching Out To 988 Mental Health Hotline
For Amanda Wood, the first counselor hired to service the new 988 mental health hotline at the Crisis Support Services of Alameda County, one story sticks out. She was working an overnight shift when a young man called, and told her he was thinking of killing himself and others. “His and his family's safety was at high risk,” she said. “From the beginning of the call, I knew how important it was to take my time.” (Wolffe, 7/13)

CNN: 988: One Year After Launch, Mental Health Crisis Line Still Building Awareness And Staffing
Sunday marks the first anniversary of 988’s launch, and there have been nearly 5 million calls, texts and online chat messages answered through 988 in the year since its launch, according to data released Thursday by the US Department of Health and Human Services. “That is well over a million, close to 2 million, more than what we saw in previous similar time frames,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra told CNN. “We now have to make sure that we continue to build the end of the pipeline, which means once they’ve called in, we’ve got to make sure they’re getting services as well.” (Howard and Viswanathan, 7/13)

Stat: FDA Approves First Over-The-Counter Birth Control Pill
In a highly anticipated move, the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, a decision that could transform the way contraception is delivered in the United States. For the first time, people will now be able to readily purchase birth control online and at pharmacies, convenience stores, and grocery stores without a prescription, a requirement that has been seen as a hurdle to greater access to contraception. Called the Opill, it is expected to become available in the first quarter of 2024, but the pricing has not yet been disclosed by Perrigo, the company that manufactures the pill. (Silverman, 7/13)

Axios: Cost Could Limit Demand For Over-The-Counter Birth Control Pills
While the Food and Drug Administration's decision to approve over-the-counter birth control pills could make contraception more accessible in places where it's hard to find a prescriber, the still-unknown cost could be a major hurdle. Health insurance plans are not required to cover birth control methods obtained without a prescription, meaning that consumers who take HRA Pharma's Opill, once it's available over-the-counter next year, will likely pay out-of-pocket. (Gonzalez, 7/14)

Bay Area News Group: UCSF Medical Chief Wachter Laid Low By Virus He Helped People Avoid
Through the miserable years of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Bob Wachter, the University of California-San Francisco medical department chair, became a beacon of guidance to hundreds of thousands who followed his social media tips on avoiding the virus that killed more than 1.1 million Americans. (Woolfolk, 7/13)

California Healthline: How A Combination Of Covid Lawsuits And Media Coverage Keeps Misinformation Churning
Even as the covid-19 pandemic wanes, litigation — whether about vaccines, masks, or a range of other public health policies made during the pandemic — isn’t about to end. (Tahir, 7/14)

The 19th: House Votes To Eliminate Abortion Provisions In 2024 Defense Bill
After the Supreme Court’ decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization landed last year, ending the federal right to an abortion, the Biden administration issued new rules to assist service members and military dependents who had to travel across state lines for abortion services. However, House members voted 221-213 Thursday night to pass an amendment eliminating these abortion provisions from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill. (Padilla, 7/13)

Pasadena Star News: LA County Moves First 88 Youth Detainees To Los Padrinos Ahead Of State Shutdown 
Los Angeles County quietly moved a third of its juvenile detainees to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall this week, marking the first time the facility has housed youth prisoners since 2019. (Henry, 7/13)

Los Angeles Daily News: Who Will Pay For A $25 Healthcare Minimum Wage? The Patients Who Can Least Afford It. 
California is in a healthcare workforce crisis. There are not enough healthcare workers for our increasingly diverse, growing, and aging population. To aid with recruitment and retention, a proposed law, Senate Bill 525, introduced by Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, would establish a $25 minimum wage for California’s healthcare workers by the year 2025. (Louise McCarthy, Corinne Sanchez and Paula Wilson, 7/11)

CalMatters: California Has Tragically Come Full Circle On Mental Illness Treatment 
In the 1960s, American psychiatric hospitals began to close their doors. The movement began in California, first with the large state hospitals and then the small community hospitals as well. By 1994 nearly half a million former patients had been sent back to live with their families, who were often unable to care for them. A quarter million newly discharged patients ended up on the streets or behind bars. (Alice Feller, 7/12)

Fresno Bee: Health Care In Fresno Can Improve By Supporting Promotoras, Or Community Liaisons
On Thursday, Zócalo Public Square is hosting an event in Fresno to examine what makes a good health-care job in the county. Visión y Compromiso believes that to build healthy families and communities we must start with recognizing and supporting promotoras. (Maria Lemus, 7/11)

CalMatters: California Can End Health Insurance Tactic Delaying Urgent Care
In 2008, I began rapidly losing my vision from a condition called Idiopathic intracranial hypertension. I eventually lost my independence, my ability to work and, ultimately, my life as I knew it. But it wasn’t just the condition itself that led me to lose my eyesight. It was also the countless delays to obtaining treatment I encountered, thanks to so-called prior authorization. (Ocean McIntyre, 7/7)

Los Angeles Times: Why Can't We Create Safe Camps For Homeless People?
Several times a week I drive the same route, taking a shortcut through a neighborhood of old warehouses and auto repair shops on my way home. I know I will see two things. First comes a vacant lot on the corner, dilapidated, surrounded by chain-link fencing. Then, a couple blocks to the south, a homeless encampment with jumbles of rusted cars and tents, piles of junk and battered furniture, on either side of the road. (David Wharton, 7/13)

East Bay Times: Stop California's Abusive Disabilities Act Lawsuits
The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law in 1990 with the goal of providing access to public places for those with disabilities. It was the most sweeping affirmation of rights for the disabled in the nation’s history. (Aaron Hichman, 7/13)

East Bay Times: When It Comes To Skittles And Kids, Better Safe Than Sorry
Assembly Bill 418, introduced by Jesse Gabriel, D-Woodland Hills, would prohibit the sale in California of candy with any of the five chemicals: brominated vegetable oil (BVO), potassium bromate, propyl paraben, Red Dye No. 3 and titanium dioxide. (7/13)

East Bay Times: Why Forcing People With Addiction Into Treatment Won't Work
As doctors treating addiction everyday in the Bay Area, we care for patients who have to fight not only a ruthless disease but also a medical system that is inadequately equipped to help them. California Senate Bill 43, by expanding the definition of grave disability to people with substance-use disorder without providing any new resources or funding, will not help our patients. (Dr. Jack Pollack and Dr. Rachel Sussman, 7/10)