Los Angeles Times: UC Says Trump's Grant Suspensions At UCLA Total $584 Million, A 'Death Knell' For Research
The University of California president on Wednesday said Trump administration grant suspensions at UCLA total $584 million, cuts that would be a “death knell” to medical, science and energy research and have spurred negotiations with federal officials. The figure represents more than half of the direct and indirect payments UCLA receives for federal grants and contracts each year — and is more than twice the amount of cash-flow initially thought to be suspended when details first came out last week about federal agencies freezing campus grants over allegations of antisemitism. (Kaleem, 8/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: UCLA Renames Nursing School After $30M Donation
UCLA School of Nursing is getting a new name after receiving a $30 million commitment, the largest in the school’s history. The school will now be the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing in honor of donor Joe Wen, a UCLA alumnus and local entrepreneur, according to an Aug. 5 university news release. Mr. Wen immigrated with his family from Taiwan as a teenager and earned a bachelor’s in economics from UCLA in 1998. In 2003, he launched a paper trading company that evolved into Formosa Ltd. (Taylor, 8/6)

Becker's Hospital Review: 1-Day Nurse Strike Set At Prime's West Anaheim Medical Center
Members of the California Nurses Association are set to hold a one-day strike Aug. 12 at West Anaheim (Calif.) Medical Center to protest what the union said is the hospital’s “refusal” to address nurse turnover. The union represents more than 360 nurses at the hospital, according to the CNA. West Anaheim is part of Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare, a 51-hospital system with nearly 57,000 employees and affiliated physicians. (Gooch, 8/6)

Voice of San Diego: Forced Treatment Hasn’t Flooded Hospital Emergency Rooms - Yet
County supervisors postponed implementing a state conservatorship expansion law after hospitals warned it could overwhelm San Diego emergency rooms. Yet there hasn’t been a dramatic influx of patients in the months since the county implemented the state law in January, just over a year after supervisors considered whether to immediately implement it or hold off. (Halverstadt, 8/7)

Becker's Hospital Review: Why Kaiser Permanente Is Adding AI To Its Patient Portal In Southern California
Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente has been experimenting with AI in its patient portal, increasing patient engagement and experience in the process. The health system’s Southern California Permanente Medical Group, headquartered in Pasadena, launched the Kaiser Permanente Intelligent Navigator for its 4.9 million patients in October. The platform allows patients to chat with AI via a text box to book appointments and connect with the care they need. (Bruce, 8/6)

Newsweek: 1-In-20 Hospital Patients Spend 24 Hours Waiting In Emergency Departments
Wait times for emergency hospitalizations continue to rise, with 1 in 20 Americans having to spend more than 24 hours in the emergency department before receiving a bed. This is the warning of a new study led by the University of Michigan (U-M) Medical School, which looked into the problem known as "boarding." (Millington, 8/6)

Modern Healthcare: Medical Video Games, Escape Rooms Level Up Continuing Education
A video game that gives you points if you clear a blocked artery. An escape room competition inside a hospital. This is not your usual way of training clinicians, keeping their skills fresh and allowing them to earn continuing medical education credits for free. But it may be the next big thing inside hospitals, as leaders reshape training, look for ways to better engage employees and get them out of lecture halls where they sit glassy-eyed, stealing glances at their phones. (Dubinsky, 8/6)

The Hill: ACA Premiums Set To Spike 
The proposed rates are preliminary and could change before being finalized in late summer. The analysis includes proposed rate changes from 312 insurers in all 50 states and DC. It’s the largest rate change insurers have requested since 2018, the last time that policy uncertainty contributed to sharp premium increases. On average, ACA marketplace insurers are raising premiums by about 20 percent in 2026, KFF found. (Weixel, Choi and O’Connell-Domenech, 8/6)

The Hill: U.S. Chamber Loses Appeal On Medicare Drug Price Case
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a lower court’s ruling to dismiss a challenge to the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, finding once again that the parties involved did not have standing to sue. Almost exactly one year ago, a federal judge dismissed the Chamber’s lawsuit challenging the Medicare negotiation program established through the Inflation Reduction Act. (Choi, 8/6)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County WIC Earns National Breastfeeding Award, Hosts Public Event Thursday 
Sonoma County’s nutrition program for women, infants and children — known as WIC — has received a national award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for its breastfeeding support services. (Armstrong, 8/6)

Times of San Diego: Mothers’ Milk Bank California Hosts San Diego Milk Drive In August
In recognition of National Breastfeeding Awareness Month, Mothers’ Milk Bank California is hosting a milk drive at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women and Newborns. These events make it easier for families to donate lifesaving breast milk for medically fragile infants and help meet the growing demand, a news release said. (Sklar, 8/6)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Student-Run Nonprofit Gives High Schoolers A Leg Up For Science And Medical Careers 
An organization started by two Spring Valley students is helping underserved youths build scientific skills and apply that in research settings. The idea is to prepare students who otherwise wouldn’t get that training, so they are ready for university-level studies and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and medical fields. (McIntosh, 8/6)

Voice of OC: Costa Mesa Donates $100K For Immigration Aid; Explores Joining Lawsuit Against ICE Sweeps
Costa Mesa leaders are looking to take a stronger stand against an aggressive federal deportation dragnet amidst increasing reports of neighborhoods frozen in fear of getting caught up in the widespread ICE sweeps that started this summer. That fear has left some families in town sheltering at home – scared to go to school, to buy groceries and even visit the doctor, with some people missing work and forfeiting their paychecks in hopes they won’t be separated from their loved ones. (Elattar, 8/6)

Orange County Register: Santa Ana Unified, OC School Of The Arts Settle Special Ed Lawsuit For $8.55 Million
The Santa Ana Unified School District and Orange County School of the Arts announced Wednesday, Aug. 6, they have reached an $8.55 million settlement, officially ending a nearly six-year legal battle over special education funding. The dispute, which began in 2019, centered on whether OCSA, then a charter school under SAUSD, owed the district for districtwide special education costs under state law — initially, the district said $16 million was due. (Kang, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Dance Company Infinite Flow Is Advancing Disability Inclusion
In a one-room studio tucked down an alley in Burbank, four dancers spin in unison around an orange-walled room. Two on foot and two in wheelchairs. It’s late and it’s hot — the AC is busted. But their unrelenting positivity and persistence are in full force as they prepare for a music video shoot. They’re members of Infinite Flow Dance, which employs disabled and non-disabled dancers of diverse identities. The company also represents an array of non-apparent disabilities including chronic illness, deafness, blindness and neurodivergence. (Burtner, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Marijuana Businesses Will Pay Higher Fees, As Industry Struggles
Legal marijuana businesses in Los Angeles will pay thousands more dollars in renewal fees, the City Council decided Tuesday, bringing fresh financial woes to an already constricting market. City officials said the fee increases are necessary to make up for declining tax revenue from the marijuana industry, at a time when the city is in dire financial straits. (Goldberg, 8/5)

Bay Area News Group: Three Palestinian Children Arrive In Bay Area For Medical Treatment Of Injuries Suffered In War
The arrivals in the Bay Area are part of a project to evacuate injured Palestinian children to the United States, said Steve Sosebee, founder and executive director of HEAL Palestine, the U.S.-based nonprofit that organized the evacuations. Those who arrived in the Bay Area are part of a total of eleven children who have been brought to cities across the United States this week for medical treatment alongside 25 family members, Sosebee said. (Pender, 8/7)

The Wall Street Journal: The Mystery Of The L.A. Mansion Filled With Surrogate Children
In early May, after a baby was hospitalized with possible signs of child abuse, police showed up at a nine-bedroom mansion in Arcadia, a Los Angeles suburb known for lavish homes and residents with roots in China. Inside, they found 15 more children, none older than 3, living under the care of nannies. The investigative trail led them to six more children at other homes in the Los Angeles area. A Chinese-born man and woman living in the mansion said they were the parents of all 22 children. Birth certificates list them as such. What mystified police was that the children appeared to have been born all over the U.S., and in rapid succession. (Long, Foldy and Randazzo, 8/5)

Los Angeles Times: Norco Prison Will Close. Will It Be Restored To Its Former Glory? 
A Riverside County state correctional facility housing nearly 3,000 inmates is slated to close in fall 2026, continuing a wave of recent prison shutdowns, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Monday. A declining prison population and multimillion-dollar cost savings for the state were the motivating factors for the shuttering, according to the department. The Norco prison is a Level 2 medium-security correctional facility holding 2,766 inmates who committed felonies. Approximately 1,200 workers staff the prison, according to the department. (Campa, 8/5)

EdSource: L.A. County’s Failure To Educate Incarcerated Youth Is ‘Systemic,’ Report Says 
Local government agencies in charge of youth violated the educational and civil rights of students in Los Angeles County’s juvenile justice facilities for decades by punting responsibility and inaction, according to a report released Wednesday. “Who has the power? Chronicling Los Angeles County’s systemic failures to educate incarcerated youth” blames the disconnected, vast network of local and state agencies — from the board of supervisors to the local probation department to the county office of education and more — that play one role or another in managing the county’s juvenile legal system, for the disruption in the care and education of youth in one of the nation’s largest systems. (Rosales, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: California Fires Are Burning And Incoming Heat Wave Could Make Things Worse
Authorities in California are bracing themselves for a prolonged heat wave this week that could amplify the risks of a wildfire and intensify fires already burning in the southern and central portions of the state. The warming trend is forecast to bake almost all of inland California over the next week, dialing up the heat on what’s already been a fiery summer in the state’s southern half, and raising the risks up north after a relatively quiet start to the season. (Toohey, 8/5)

San Francisco Chronicle: California’s Earlier Wildfire Seasons Caused By Climate Change
New research is backing up what many have long believed: that climate change is to blame for California’s increasingly early wildfire seasons. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, researchers said hotter, drier conditions over the last three decades had gradually elevated the state’s fire risk. Between 1992 and 2020, global warming made the fire season earlier by about a week in some regions and by more than two months in others. (Hodgman, 8/6)

Los Angeles Times: Major Clean Power Plant Serving L.A. Goes Fully Online In Kern County 
One of the largest solar and battery power plants in the United States is now supplying Los Angeles and Glendale from Kern County. Local leaders and clean energy experts gathered Tuesday beneath a blazing desert sun to mark the initiation of full production from 1.36 million solar panels and 172 lithium iron phosphate batteries that make up the Eland solar-plus-storage electricity project. It’s as large as 13 Dodger stadiums, parking lots included, and will generate 7% of the electricity for all of the city of Los Angeles, much of it at a record-low price. (Smith, 8/6)

The Boston Globe: New Hope For Alzheimer’s: Groundbreaking Harvard Study Finds Lithium Reverses Brain Aging
Could a common metal used to treat psychiatric disorders be the holy grail that prevents and even reverses Alzheimer’s disease? In a provocative new study, Harvard Medical School scientists found that lithium, an element found in some foods and drinking water and in trace amounts in our bodies, can confer resistance to brain aging and Alzheimer’s. Their work, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, reveals that lithium was the only trace metal that was significantly depleted in the brains of people in the earliest stages of memory loss during aging. The scientists also found that feeding tiny amounts of lithium to mice that were deprived of the substance and showed signs of dementia restored their memory. The research suggests a new approach to preventing and treating the mind-robbing disease. (Lazar, 8/6)

ScienceDaily: Alzheimer’s Risk May Start At The Brain’s Border, Not Inside It 
The brain's health depends on more than just its neurons. A complex network of blood vessels and immune cells acts as the brain's dedicated guardians -- controlling what enters, cleaning up waste, and protecting it from threats by forming the blood-brain barrier. A new study from Gladstone Institutes and UC San Francisco (UCSF) reveals that many genetic risk factors for neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and stroke exert their effects within these very guardian cells. (8/4)

MedPage Today: Abstracts Related To Dietary Guidelines Pulled From Meeting, Raising Concerns
Abstracts related to work done by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) were retracted from a major nutrition conference, sparking concerns that 2 years of work producing a robust scientific report may be disregarded, sources told MedPage Today. In February, the American Society for Nutrition accepted the abstracts for its 2025 meeting in Orlando, and they were set to be presented by government employees, according to DGAC member Christopher Gardner, PhD, an expert in diabetes and nutrition at Stanford University. (Robertson, 8/6)

ABC News: Americans Consume More Than Half Of Their Calories From Ultra-Processed Foods: CDC
Adults and children in the United States are getting more than 50% of their total calories from ultra-processed foods, according to a new federal report released early Thursday. Among Americans aged 1 and older, an average of 55% of their total calories came from ultra-processed foods, according to results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted between August 2021 and August 2023 and run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (Kekatos, 8/7)

MedPage Today: French Fries Singled Out For Diabetes Risk
Eating French fries multiple times a week was associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, though this wasn't the case for baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes, researchers said. For every increment of three servings weekly of French fries, the rate of type 2 diabetes increased by 20% (95% CI 1.12-1.28), and for every increment of three servings weekly of total potato, the rate increased by 5% (95% CI 1.02-1.08), reported Walter Willett, MD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues. (Rudd, 8/6)