CalMatters: To Head Off Hospital Closures, California Legislators Are Fast-Tracking A Loan Program
California hospitals in financial trouble will soon be able to apply for interest-free state loans, although key questions about the selection process aren’t yet resolved. (Ibarra, 5/4)

AP: California Lawmakers OK Emergency Loans To Failing Hospitals
Alarmed by the closure of a rural hospital earlier this year, California lawmakers on Thursday voted to loan $150 million to struggling medical centers in the hope of preventing a cascade of similar failures across the state. (Beam, 5/4)

AP: WHO Downgrades COVID Pandemic, Says It's No Longer Emergency
The World Health Organization said Friday that COVID-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies worldwide and killed at least 7 million people worldwide. WHO said that even though the emergency phase was over, the pandemic hasn’t come to an end, noting recent spikes in cases in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The U.N. health agency says that thousands of people are still dying from the virus every week. (Cheng and Keaten, 5/5)

Los Angeles Times: Free At-Home COVID Tests End May 11 For Some. How To Stock Up
The expiration of the national COVID-19 public health emergency Thursday evening will mean the end of free at-home tests for some, though many Californians will still be able to get their hands on screening kits. (Lin II and Money, 5/5)

Los Angeles Times: Deaths From COVID Plunged In 2022, But It's Still A Top Killer
The COVID-19 death toll — now 1.13 million in the U.S. and 6.9 million worldwide — is staggering, with a national death toll that exceeds the last global pandemic of this scale, although the global tally is far lower. The flu pandemic that began in 1918 resulted in an estimated 675,000 deaths in the U.S. and at least 50 million worldwide. (Lin II and Money, 5/4)

Axios: The Health Care Dangers Of A Debt Default
If the federal government breaches the debt ceiling, Medicare wouldn't be able to pay providers — and states wouldn't get their federal Medicaid funding, experts tell Axios. Losing out on those payments, even for a short time, could be disastrous for providers’ bottom lines — and the effects could trickle down to patients. (Goldman and Knight, 5/5)

Bloomberg: White House Says It Backs New Rules For AI After Kamala Harris Meeting 
Vice President Kamala Harris said the White House would support new regulations or legislation to mitigate the potential harms from artificial intelligence technology after a meeting Thursday with the chief executive officers of Alphabet Inc., Microsoft Corp., OpenAI Inc., and Anthropic. (Sink, 5/4)

CNN: Sen. Feinstein Pushes Back On Criticism Of Her Absence 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday pushed back on claims that her extended absence from the Senate, and the Judiciary Committee, as she recovers from shingles has caused a significant delay in advancing and confirming judicial nominees. Feinstein indicated in the statement that she still plans to return but did not say when that would happen. (5/4)

Los Angeles Times: Despite Renewed Focus, Scarce Details On Sen. Feinstein's Health 
A handful of activists from the progressive group Indivisible hopped on Zoom this week to directly pose questions to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff that are swirling in the U.S. Capitol and California political circles. (Mason, Oreskes and Joseph, 5/4)

Politico: U.S. Must Do More To Prepare For Future Pandemic Threats, Health Officials Say
The United States must do more to prepare for future pandemics and biological threats, top federal health officials told the Senate HELP Committee on Thursday. “The increased frequency of outbreaks mean that we should not be asking if we will face another serious public health threat, but when,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said. (Lim, 5/4)

The Washington Post: FDA Considers Whether To Allow Over-The-Counter Sales Of Birth Control Pills
The FDA could decide on the application by the end of the summer. If it approves the OTC switch, it would mark the latest milestone in a reproductive health landscape shaken by seismic legal and political upheavals during the past year. This month marks the 63rd anniversary of the FDA’s approval of the first birth control pill — a move that transformed American society. Many consider the arrival of the pill, promoted for decades by activists determined to give women greater sexual and economic freedom, to be a landmark moment in the 20th century. (McGinley, Roubein and Johnson, 5/4)

Military Times: Catholic Bishop Of Military Personnel Takes Shot At VA Abortion Policy
The Catholic clergyman who oversees military personnel and their families took aim at the Biden administration’s abortion policies in a pastoral letter released last Friday. Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio, of the U.S. Archdiocese for Military Services, condemned the U.S. Senate and Biden administration for defending a Department of Veterans Affairs policy that expanded abortion services to service members and veterans. (Perez, 5/4)

CapRadio: Abortion Rights Groups Say California Lawmakers Must Stay ‘Nimble’ Ahead Of Anticipated Challenges
At a restaurant two blocks from the Capitol, California Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis told a group of people lobbying for abortion rights that with the upbringing she had, in a Greek immigrant community in the 1970s, she very nearly didn’t have the life and career she has had. “My older sister is just two and a half years older than me, was married with her first baby when she was 19,” she said. (Wolffe, 5/4)

The Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Is Running Out Of Research Monkeys
America’s monkey shortage is getting worse. The pandemic has exacerbated a continuing supply crunch, throttling research and threatening the country’s ability to respond to public health disasters, including the next pandemic. That is according to a new report published Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine that noted that new ways of studying biology, using artificial-intelligence models or cells in culture, aren’t ready to replace testing in monkeys. (Subbaraman, 5/4)

Axios: Immigrants Are Disproportionately Uninsured In The United States
Immigrant adults and children under the age of 65, including those who are undocumented, account for 8% of the U.S. population but make up nearly 32% of the uninsured population in the country, according to a new report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Dreher, 5/5)

The Desert Sun: Homelessness In Palm Springs, Coachella Valley Increased In 2023
The number of homeless people in the Coachella Valley increased this year, according to the newly released 2023 Riverside County homeless point-in-time data. (Sasic, 5/4)

LAist: LA City Council Approves New Plan For More Hollywood And DTLA Housing – How Will It Impact The Areas?
The Los Angeles City Council voted 13-0 Wednesday to approve new development plans allowing up to 135,000 new homes in Hollywood and Downtown L.A. over the next two decades. Lawmakers cheered the passage of the two community plan updates, which were decades in the making (Hollywood’s hasn’t been successfully updated since 1988). The Hollywood and Downtown L.A. community plans provide ground rules for future development. (LAist 89.3 FM, 5/4)

Axios: Study: Mental Health-Related ER Visits Among Young People Nearly Doubled In A Decade
Emergency room visits for young people in mental distress rose sharply over the last decade, per a report published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Between 2011 to 2020, emergency department visits among children, adolescents and young adults for mental health reasons approximately doubled, a group of researchers and physicians found. (Habeshian, 5/4)

The Hill: Employees Love Remote Work, But Is It Good For Our Mental Health?
The mental health implications of telework is a relatively new field of study. And that makes sense, given that only 5 percent of American work took place remotely before the pandemic. “There aren’t really experts in it. This is all new,” said Eric Elbogen, a professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University. “There are just so many questions we still don’t know the answers to.” (De Visé, 5/4)

California Focus: Californians Are Happy, So Why The Population Losses?
California lost a net of more than 114,000 residents during the last year and about 500,000 over the last three years.So why are Californians who stayed and those who arrived during that same time among the happiest folks in America? (Tom Elias, 5/4)

East Bay Times: California Health Care Providers' Retreat From COVID Masking Is Shameful
When the California Department of Public Health last month lifted mask mandates in health care settings, it didn’t even cross my mind as a physician and CEO of Roots Community Health Center to drop masks in clinics I oversee in the East Bay and San Jose. (Dr. Noha Aboelata, 5/5)

EdSource: Don't Leave Students With Disabilities Out Of California's Investments
California’s lowest-performing and most-segregated student group is at risk of being left out of one of the state’s most important education reforms — the unprecedented investment in community schools. (Hayin Kimner and Kristin Wright, 5/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: How Big Tech Is Undermining Women's Reproductive Rights
Californians and other Americans were shaken last year when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sending women’s rights back five decades — and placing millions of American women at risk. (Ashley Boyd, 5/2)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego County Right To Address Shortage Of Mental Health Workers 
When Democrats took control of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors after the November 2020 election, one of their first policy shifts came in efforts to improve behavioral health services. (5/4)

San Francisco Chronicle: Telemedicine Helps People In Pain. Don't Take That Away
As palliative care physicians, we have witnessed how the increased flexibility to use video telemedicine made possible by the COVID-19 public health emergency has allowed us to reach people who previously had little access to care. (Carly Zapata, Kara E. Bischoff, Steven Z. Pantilat and Robert M. Wachter, 5/2)

Los Angeles Times: California Wants More Psychiatric Detentions. It Won't Help
Another mental health bill is before the California Senate, passed by the judiciary committee on April 25. This bill, backed by some urban mayors, would make it easier to forcibly treat more people. It comes on the heels of CARE Court, a program rolling out this year that broadened state powers to impose psychiatric care. (Rob Wipond, 5/1)

Los Angeles Times: School Meals Are Laden With Sugar And Sodium. Students Need Healthier Food
Nutritious meals are a key part of helping level the playing field in the educational attainment of lower-income students, especially Latino and Black children. California public schools began offering free meals to all students beginning in the 2022-23 school year in light of rising rates of food insecurity and to destigmatize free school meals. (4/28)