CalMatters: California Abortion: What Next After Pill Ruling?
California’s Democratic lawmakers have spent the past year enacting legislation to protect abortion rights in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s reversal, but a ruling today by a Texas federal judge is one thing they can’t touch. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk suspended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone more than 20 years ago, arguing that it was flawed and invalid. Kacsmaryk issued a temporary stay on his ruling for seven days to allow the Biden Justice Department to appeal, which it quickly did. The ruling is likely to pull the drug from pharmacy shelves unless a higher court intervenes while the case moves through the appeal process. (Hwang, 4/7)

San Francisco Chronicle: Medication Abortions Will Be More Painful Without Mifepristone
By suspending a drug used in medicated abortions Friday, a conservative federal judge in Texas did more than make it harder for people to obtain abortions. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk also made it more painful. (Garofoli, 4/7)

The Hill: Biden Slams Texas Abortion Pill Ruling As ‘Political, Ideological’ Attack
President Biden slammed the ruling by a federal judge in Texas rejecting the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of an abortion pill as a “political, ideological” attack. Biden said in a statement on Friday that the court has substituted its judgment for that of the FDA, which he called the “expert agency” on approving drugs. He said mifepristone, the pill, has been available for more than 22 years and safely and effectively used by millions of women in the United States and throughout the world. “If this ruling were to stand, then there will be virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks,” he said. (Gans, 4/8)

The Hill: Biden’s Health Chief Says ‘Everything Is On The Table’ To Fight Abortion Pill Ruling
President Biden’s health chief said “everything is on the table” to fight the Texas abortion pill ruling last week that blocked the prescribing and distribution of mifepristone, including ignoring the ruling as some Democrats have suggested. (Sforza, 4/9)

NBC News: House Democrats To Introduce Bill To Shore Up Abortion Pill Access After Texas Ruling
Reps. Pat Ryan of New York and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas will introduce the Protecting Reproductive Freedom Act on Monday during a pro forma session of the House, seeking to reaffirm the Food and Drug Administration’s final approval authority on medication abortion and continue to allow providers to prescribe the abortion pill via telehealth, which was widely expanded during the coronavirus pandemic. (Vitali, 4/10)

KQED: CalFresh’s Pandemic Benefits Expire This Month
From extra unemployment assistance to free COVID testing and eviction moratoriums, pandemic-era assistance is fading away. The latest to fall are extra payments for recipients of CalFresh, the state’s version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. (Guevarra, Montecillo, Esquinca and Severn, 4/10)

The New York Times: The School Where The Pandemic Never Ended
As the nation’s schools ‘return to normal,’ teachers in an L.A. neighborhood hit hard by Covid are left to manage their students’ grief — and their own. (Bernhard, 4/5)

Los Angeles Times: David Crosby Died After Contracting COVID-19, Graham Nash Says
Rock singer David Crosby died in January after contracting COVID-19, his longtime musical collaborator and friend Graham Nash said in a new interview. Speaking on an episode of the “Kyle Meredith With...” podcast released Friday, Nash said his former Crosby, Stills and Nash bandmate, who died Jan. 19 at age 81, had fallen ill while on his latest tour. (Rottenberg, 4/8)

Axios: COVID-19 Played A Role In U.S.'s Increasing Maternal Morality Rate
The U.S. maternal mortality rate increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, disproportionately impacting Black women, with far higher odds of severe complications among pregnant patients with COVID infection at delivery, a new analysis published in JAMA Network Open found. (Dreher and Gonzalez, 4/10)

Los Angeles Times: Will New Legislation Help Those With Mental Illness? 
When lawmakers, mayors, psychiatrists and mental health advocates gathered last month to unveil a bill that would “enact major changes to California’s behavioral health law,” they put into motion an annual ritual in Sacramento. Updating the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act has long been the goal of critics who say the landmark 1967 law has become an impediment to providing mental health treatment for those most in need. (Curwen, 4/9)

VC Star: Nurses Union Votes To Ratify Contract With County Of Ventura
Nurses in Ventura County-run hospitals and health care sites voted Friday to ratify a contract they said would bring most of them as much as 30% more compensation over five years. (Kisken, 4/7)

Fresno Bee: Valley Children’s Hospital Sees Uptick In Adult Patients 
Nena Falcon never imagined her 81-year-old mother dying at a children’s hospital, or more specifically at Valley Children’s Hospital where her mother passed away in February. (Amaro, 4/8)

Sacramento Business Journal: Eskaton Selling Skilled Nursing Facilities For $35.6 Million 
After a rough few years for the industry, Eskaton is exiting stand-alone skilled nursing, and from now on will focus only on its residential living and senior services. (Hamann, 4/7)

Los Angeles Daily News: Honoring The Poetry Of An Intensive Care Nurse’s Compassion 
Christine was just being herself, an intensive care nurse; it’s a job she was obviously born to fill, a job she handled with effortless grace. I don’t think she realized she was creating poetry, moving seamlessly like one couplet blending into the next. (Bunin, 4/8)

Los Angeles Times: Fentanyl-Laced Pills Kept Killing Even After Feds Knew Of Threat
There was the teenager from Texas. The father from San Diego. The runner from Indiana. They went for a day trip. Or a wedding. Or a winter vacation. But they all died after taking counterfeit pain pills purchased at drugstores in Mexico. And they all got those medications in the more than three years between the time the federal government learned of the threat and officials finally warned the public. (Blakinger and Sheets, 4/10)

Los Angeles Times: Overdose Deaths At Skid Row Housing Trust Building Hint At Wider Problem
Cecilia Montoya saw body bags being pushed out of her skid row apartment building on gurneys after three people were found dead of drug overdoses, possibly related to fentanyl, on Wednesday. The sight was disturbing but not shocking to Montoya. (Vives, 4/7)

Oaklandside: New Treatment Options Could Help Curb Oakland’s Meth Crisis
In 2017, Dr. Andrew Herring, an emergency medicine doctor and director of research at Oakland’s Highland Hospital, took on his biggest project yet: starting a patient-centered, open-access clinic for Oaklanders with substance use disorder looking for treatment. The main idea behind the new clinic was to initiate medication-assisted substance use disorder treatment the same day patients arrived in the Emergency Department, instead of waiting until days after when a person might be hard to contact or not as open to treatment. (Buller, 4/7)

San Bernardino Sun: Father Of Fentanyl Victim Launches Billboard Campaign Along Southern California Freeways
Jim Rauh has been fighting his own war against fentanyl since it claimed the life of his 37-year-old son, Thomas, in 2015. ... Now the Ohio man has taken his campaign to billboards along Southern California freeways in Los Angeles and Orange counties, with signs carrying the stark message: “Fentanyl is the number one cause of death for Americans age 18 to 45.” (Nelson, 4/7)

Los Angeles Times: Special Delivery: Drones Are Smuggling Contraband Into California Prisons, Feds Say
Walls and rules have never stopped prisoners from getting what they need. Drugs, phones and other contraband have been smuggled in by guards and visitors, flung over fences and even stashed inside hollowed-out pastries in care packages. Now, two men are accused of using an increasingly common technology to bypass prison walls: drones. Federal prosecutors in Fresno have charged Jose Enrique Oropeza and David Ramirez Jr. with using drones to drop loads of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine, tobacco and cellphones into the yards of seven prisons across California. (Ormseth, 4/9)

The Washington Post: California Pauses Mortgage Aid Program Within Days Because Of Demand
California officials said Friday they were being forced to pause a new mortgage relief program for first-time home buyers less than two weeks after it began, because of overwhelming demand. The “California Dream for All Shared Appreciation Loan” program, aimed at lower- and middle-income borrowers, was designed to provide loans amounting to 20 percent of a home’s purchase price — substantially more generous than existing state and federal programs. (Werner, 4/7)

CapRadio: Unhoused Residents At Sacramento’s 'Camp Resolution' Reach First-Of-Its-Kind Lease To Remain On City-Owned Property
Residents at a large Sacramento homeless encampment called Camp Resolution are celebrating a first-of-its-kind lease that allows them to remain on a city-owned property until all have obtained permanent housing. Advocates for unhoused residents say the deal is unprecedented in the Sacramento region and possibly nationwide. But now that it’s in place, supporters of the camp say they are focused on two key goals: securing permanent housing and urging the city and county to extend similar legal protections to encampments across the region. (Nichols, 4/10)

Los Angeles Blade: New Study: 1 In 3 Gay, Lesbian, & Bi Youths Having Trouble Sleeping
A study published last month by the National Library of Medicine and online LGBT Health magazine revealed that sexual minority status may be linked to sleep disturbance in early adolescence. The study sample was 8,563 adolescents 10- to 14-years-old, of which 4.4% identified as sexual minority individuals. Sexual minority status was associated with self-reported trouble falling or staying asleep with 35.1% or 1 in 3 self-reported trouble falling or staying asleep. The purpose of the study was to examine associations between sexual minority status (e.g., gay, lesbian, or bisexual) and sleep problems in a demographically diverse, national sample of U.S. early adolescents. (4/9)

KVPR: Compost Facility Holding Human Waste In Cross Hairs Of Tulare Lake Flooding
Every day, truckloads of LA County sewage sludge end up in the southern San Joaquin Valley. A facility called Tulare Lake Compost transforms human waste from the Southland into nutrient-rich fertilizer. But now, the lake’s once-in-a-generation return is threatening to flood its namesake operation. If that happens, partially treated human waste could contaminate the lake water and surrounding farmland. As a precaution, plant managers have reduced sewage shipments by half. Beginning next week, shipments will cease altogether. (Yeager, 4/7)

Los Angeles Daily News: Can Doctors, Neighbors, School Leaders Stop Gun Violence? LA County Plan Says Yes
An outside-the-box plan addressing gun violence and mass shootings released by Los Angeles County officials on Friday, April 7 emphasizes preventive actions that can be taken by neighbors, school officials and emergency room doctors as part of a public health approach to the problem. (Scauzillo, 4/7)