KQED: New Bill Aims To Ban Cosmetic Surgery For Intersex Infants
Senate Bill 201 would prohibit medical providers from performing cosmetic surgeries on intersex babies — individuals born with natural variations in sex characteristics or genitalia — until they can make their own decisions. Some of the surgeries that advocates say are medically unnecessary include reducing a clitoris, creating a vagina or removing healthy gonadal tissue. (Medina-Cadena, 2/6)

Los Angeles Times: California Lawmakers Try Once Again To Make It Easier To Prosecute Police Officers For Killing Civilians
A year after the failure of legislation that would have made it easier to criminally prosecute police officers for killing civilians, California lawmakers will once again debate stricter legal standards for officers who use deadly force. This week, legislators are introducing two competing bills on the issue, setting up a renewed clash between civil-liberties organizations and law-enforcement groups. One bill, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and similar groups, would allow district attorneys to more easily prosecute police officers for killing civilians. The other, which has the support of police unions and management, would instead focus on internal department policies and training. (Dillon, 2/6)

Capital Public Radio: California Attorney General Refuses To Release Misconduct Records For Department Of Justice Officers 
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is tasked with enforcing and upholding the state's laws. But when it comes to a new measure that requires the release of law enforcement misconduct records, Becerra is refusing to budge. Becerra has declined to respond to California Public Records Act requests asking for the records and says he's waiting for decisions from several courts before he provides them. (Sebai, 2/6)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Seems To Soften His Threat To Halt Disaster Funding For Calif. Fire Victims
A month after tweeting that he might order FEMA to cut federal disaster funding to California fire victims, President Donald Trump declined to renew that threat and indicated that talks with state officials were going well. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times and several regional newspapers in the Oval Office, Trump said Wednesday that he and California Gov. Gavin Newsom spoke by phone about two weeks ago, after his Jan. 9 tweet that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency not to send more disaster funding to state officials “unless they get their act together, which is unlikely.” (Wire, 2/6)

The Associated Press: Pacific Gas & Electric Vows To Improve Wildfire Prevention
The nation’s largest utility on Wednesday promised to overhaul its wildfire-prevention measures in response to growing legal, financial and public pressure for its role in starting some of the most destructive blazes in California history. In a regulatory filing, Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. proposed to build weather stations, fireproof more miles of electrical wires and shut off power to more of its 5.4 million customers more often when wildfire danger is highest. The embattled utility also vowed to increase inspections, cut more trees and work with forestry experts to lessen its role in starting wildfires. (Elias, 2/6)

San Diego Union-Times: Jacob Announces Initiatives In Affordable Housing, Mental Health And Fire Protection In State Of The County Address
It has been a year of change at the county, and Chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors Dianne Jacob is committed to ensuring that continues.On Wednesday, Jacob delivered the annual State of the County address and unveiled a list of ambitious plans for tackling many of the county’s most pressing concerns. From affordable housing and mental health services to wildfire protection and resident relief in the energy market, Jacob wasn’t shy about embracing change or her plans for more aggressive county government solutions. (Clark, 2/6)

The Bakersfield Californian: Public Health Event Gives Students Mock Disease Outbreak To Resolve
A group of high school students expecting to get a tour of the Kern County Public health facility got more than they bargained for on Wednesday. Soon after the group’s bus stopped at the facility, KCPH Director Matt Constantine boarded the bus to welcome the students, who were surprised to learn what they were really there for: There has been an e-coli outbreak, and it was up to the students to discover the source. (Luiz, 2/6)

Santa Rosa Press Democrat: Nitric Acid Spill Forces Santa Rosa Business Evacuation, Injures One
A nitric acid spill Wednesday at a business in southwest Santa Rosa required the evacuation of up to 25 employees and left one man injured, according to Assistant Fire Marshall Paul Lownthal of the Santa Rosa Fire Department. The spill occurred shortly after noon at a business at 1201 Corporate Center Parkway, Lowenthal said. He said an employee of the business was injured, but did not have details on the severity of the injury. (2/6)

Sacramento Bee: How To Tell If You're In An Abusive Relationship
Here are some signs you may be in an abusive relationship, according to The National Domestic Violence Hotline. (Kumamoto, 2/6)

Los Angeles Times: Costa Mesa Chooses Mercy House To Run Local Homeless Shelter
Costa Mesa’s plans for a local homeless shelter continued to crystallize Tuesday night as City Council members unanimously tabbed Mercy House Living Centers to run the facility. The decision authorizes paying the Santa Ana-based nonprofit up to $1.457 million annually to operate a temporary 50-bed “bridge shelter” planned at Lighthouse Church of the Nazarene in the Westside. (Money, 2/6)

The Desert Sun: Some California Schools Still Waiting On Weed Tax Revenue
California had $70 million in cannabis tax revenue through January, but Coachella Valley schools and others across the state have yet to see a dime in funding promised to youth education programs. In July 2018, at the end of the last budget year, cannabis tax revenue was just able to cover the cost of the new state bureaucracy. But a full year after legalization in California, the state has some more money to spend. (Hong, 2/6)

Stat: Trump Claims Drug Prices Have Fallen. But He’s Cherry-Picking That Data.
President Trump boldly asserted Tuesday that his administration’s efforts to bring down drug prices had led to the largest drop in those figures in nearly half a century. That’s not quite right. (Swetlitz, 2/7)

NPR: Trump Plan To End HIV Spread By 2030 Faces Obstacles
Several HIV/AIDS advocates say that the goal is achievable, but only if the administration reverses course in several major areas of health care policy, including efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act, cut funding for Planned Parenthood and limit LGBTQ and immigrant rights. The initiative's fate will depend on Congress, which will decide whether to fund the new proposal and, if so, by how much. In a press call Wednesday, Dr. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health, declined to specify how much money the president would request from Congress for the program. Those details will be included in the administration's overall budget request, he said. (Neel and Simmons-Duffin, 2/6)

The New York Times: What Is Late-Term Abortion? Trump Got It Wrong
President Trump on Tuesday evening asked Congress to ban a type of abortion often referred to as “late-term abortion.” He said he wanted to protect “children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.” He scorned New York’s recently passed Reproductive Health Act, saying that lawmakers had “cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.” It was an image he has used before, including in a campaign debate with Hillary Clinton. (Belluck, 2/6)

The Associated Press: With Anti-Abortion Push, Trump Woos Evangelicals Again
With a fierce denunciation of late-term abortions, President Donald Trump is making a move to re-energize evangelical voters whose support will be vital in heading off any possible 2020 primary challenge. Trump, at arguably the weakest point of his presidency, seized on abortion during his State of the Union address Tuesday to re-engage on a divisive cultural issue, using both religious rhetoric aimed at conservative Christians and scathing attacks on Democratic lawmakers who support abortion rights — in particular, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. (2/6)

The New York Times: Democrats Unite To Begin Push To Protect Pre-Existing Condition Coverage
Democrats, claiming a mandate from voters, opened a legislative campaign on Wednesday to secure protections under the Affordable Care Act for people with pre-existing medical conditions, putting aside divisions over a more ambitious push for “Medicare for all” in favor of shoring up existing law.“ Health care was the single most important issue to voters in the 2018 election,” said Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, as she convened a hearing on a decision by a federal district judge in Texas that would invalidate the entire law. (Pear, 2/6)

The Hill: 2020 Dems Walk Fine Line With Support For ‘Medicare For All’
Democratic presidential contenders face a dilemma on how far to go in championing “Medicare for all.” Stopping short of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s fully government-run system risks alienating progressives, but embracing the Vermont independent’s bill opens up lines of attack around eliminating the private insurance coverage most people already have. (Sullivan, 2/7)

The Wall Street Journal: Do E-Cigarettes Do More Good Than Harm?
The rise of e-cigarettes is often seen through two completely different lenses. On one side: Their surging use among teenagers has caused widespread alarm because of health concerns about e-cigarettes themselves and worries that they encourage youngsters to eventually smoke tobacco. (2/6)

The Washington Post: ‘It Will Take Off Like A Wildfire’: The Unique Dangers Of The Washington State Measles Outbreak
Amber Gorrow is afraid to leave her house with her infant son because she lives at the epicenter of Washington state’s worst measles outbreak in more than two decades. Born eight weeks ago, Leon is too young to get his first measles shot, putting him at risk for the highly contagious respiratory virus, which can be fatal in small children. Gorrow also lives in a community where she said being anti-vaccine is as acceptable as being vegan or going gluten free. Almost a quarter of kids in Clark County, Wash., a suburb of Portland, Ore., go to school without measles, mumps and rubella immunizations, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) recently declared a state of emergency amid concern that things could rapidly spin out of control. (Sun and O'Hagan, 2/6)

The Wall Street Journal: Hospitals Turn To Biometrics To Identify Patients
Biometric technology is coming to the hospital. Biometric systems, which identify people through fingerprints or other physical characteristics, have long been in use in sectors like law enforcement and consumer electronics. Now hospitals are using iris and palm-vein scanning to overcome a growing patient-identification problem. (Gormley, 2/6)

Stat: Blood Test For Alzheimer's Aims To Give Drug Makers A Neeeded Tool
It would seem difficult to put up worse numbers than experimental Alzheimer’s drugs, 99 percent of which have failed in clinical trials since 2002. But another corner of Alzheimer’s research has managed it: blood tests to either diagnose the disease in asymptomatic patients or predict which healthy people will develop it years in the future. Although you wouldn’t know it from frequent headlines proclaiming, “Blood test can predict Alzheimer’s,” the percentage of tests that looked promising in a (usually small) study but eventually fell flat is … 100 percent. (Begley, 2/6)

The Associated Press: AP Source: Former Michigan Rep. John Dingell In Hospice Care
Former Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, is receiving hospice care, a person familiar with the situation said Wednesday. The person was not authorized to speak publicly but told The Associated Press about the 92-year-old Dingell’s condition.Dingell posted on Twitter Wednesday evening, telling his followers, “I want to thank you all for your incredibly kind words and prayers. You’re not done with me just yet.” (Taylor and Karoub, 2/6)

The New York Times: Safe Injection Site For Opioid Users Faces Trump Administration Crackdown
The Justice Department is suing to stop a Philadelphia group from opening what some public health experts and mayors consider the next front in fighting the opioid epidemic: a place where people who inject fentanyl and other illicit drugs can do so under medical supervision. The nonprofit group, Safehouse, was formed last year to house the country’s first so-called safe injection site in Philadelphia, which has one of the nation’s highest rates of overdose deaths. Safehouse had been planning to open the site as soon as next month, and a law firm has been representing it pro bono in anticipation of a crackdown by the Trump administration. (Goodnough, 2/6)