Los Angeles Daily News: Heat Wave To Persist Through The Weekend In Southern California, With Inland Empire Feeling The Hottest Temperatures 
A summer heat wave is set to extend its stay in Southern California, and state officials are working to ensure the most vulnerable residents are prepared as triple-digit temperatures make their way across the Inland Empire. (Lee, 7/12)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County Under Heat Warning For Weekend; Officials Forgo Opening Cooling Stations
The “extreme heat” is anticipated to increase the potential for heat-related illnesses, especially for residents spending more time outdoors. (Smalstig, 7/12)

The Bakersfield Californian: Cal/OSHA Issues Heat Hazard Alert, Prepares For Inspections
Cal/OSHA issued a high-heat hazard alert Wednesday, reminding employers to protect workers from potentially deadly illness as the agency gears up for worksite inspections to ensure compliance. (7/12)

The Wall Street Journal: The Air-Conditioning Boom Comes To San Francisco And The Northwest 
The hum of air conditioners is getting louder and more expensive in parts of the U.S. where people used to open a few windows to stay cool in summer. (Carpenter and De Leon, 7/12)

Axios: Too Hot To Handle: What The World's Increasing Heat Does To Our Bodies
With record high temperatures becoming the norm, humans are more regularly hitting the threshold of our ability to cope with heat. Researchers previously believed 95°F at 100% Fahrenheit, equal to about 115°F at 50% humidity, was the maximum a person could endure before losing the ability to adequately regulate body temperature over prolonged exposure. A 2022 study from Penn State researchers found that 87°F at 100% humidity was the maximum for young healthy individuals to adequately regulate. Another recent study suggests a range between 104°F and 122°F — depending on the humidity — is the threshold, NBC News reported. (Reed, 7/13)

Modern Healthcare: Cedars-Sinai Civil Rights Investigation Launched By HHS
The Health and Human Services Department is investigating Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for civil rights violations related to its maternal health services, the regulator confirmed Wednesday. “Maternal health is a priority for the Biden-Harris administration and one in which the HHS Office for Civil Rights is working on around the country to ensure equity and equality in healthcare,” a spokesperson wrote in an email. HHS declined to provide further details on the ongoing investigation, which the Los Angeles Times first reported Tuesday. (Hartnett, 7/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF In Talks To Buy St Mary's, St. Francis Memorial Hospitals
UCSF is in talks to take over St. Mary’s Medical Center, St. Francis Memorial Hospital and several outpatient and urgent care clinics throughout San Francisco currently operated by the Catholic hospital chain Dignity Health, according to a memo reviewed by The Chronicle. (Mishanec, 7/12)

Stat: More Hospitals Are Billing Patients As Online Messages Surge
Health systems drowning in messages from patients are grasping for new ways to manage the deluge — including charging for especially time-consuming responses. In recent months, health systems including Cleveland Clinic and University of Washington have trotted out new billing policies for when patient portal questions require more than just a few minutes of a provider’s time — an attempt to compensate for staff time spent while also stanching the breakneck response pace patients have come to expect in the consumer world. (Ravindranath, 7/13)

Axios: California Lawmakers Consider Minimum Wage For Health Workers
Legislation that would establish the nation's first minimum wage for health care workers advanced in the California State Assembly this week over the objections of an unusual alliance of providers, hospitals and a big nurses union. The Labor and Employment Committee on Wednesday approved the bill, sending it next to the Appropriations Committee and giving it momentum headed into the August recess. (Dreher, 7/13)

CalMatters: Demand For California Caregivers Is Rising, But Their Pay Isn’t. Lawmakers Hope To Change That
By 2030, nearly 1 in 5 Californians will be age 65 or older, according to the nonprofit Public Policy Institute of California. The state will be facing a shortage of as many as 3.2 million care workers by then, said Susan DeMarois, director of the California Department of Aging. (Reyes-Velarde, 7/12)

CNBC: The A.I. Revolution In Health Care Is Coming
The pandemic brought about an explosion in the use of telemedicine. Now, artificial intelligence is set to further transform health care. AI-driven health care goes beyond chatbot doctors and AI diagnoses. Many of the transformations happen behind the scenes with productivity and comprehension enhancements. With 83% of executives agreeing science tech capabilities could help address health-related challenges around the world, the move to AI-driven health care may seem slow at first, but the wave appears to be building. (Curry, 7/12)

Bloomberg: Google's Med-PaLM AI Product For Medical Industry Isn't Ready For Patients Yet
One day in February 2022, two AI researchers at Alphabet Inc.’s Google found themselves engrossed in conversation about artificial intelligence and its potential for real applications in healthcare. As Alan Karthikesalingam and Vivek Natarajan discussed adapting Google’s existing AI models to medical settings, their conversation stretched for hours and into dinner over dosas at a restaurant near the tech giant’s Mountain View headquarters. By the end of the evening, Natarajan had written a first draft of a document that described the possibilities for large language models in health care, including research directions and its challenges. (Alba and Love, 7/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bob Wachter, Sick With COVID, Collapses And Suffers Serious Head Wound
UCSF’s chair of medicine, and one of social media’s most popular COVID advisers, has finally contracted the virus – and he literally has the scars to show for it. Dr. Bob Wachter busted his head open in a bad fall after passing out at home while sick with the virus, and the injury led to bleeding around the brain and hospitalization. He posted a long thread about his experience on Twitter on Wednesday evening. (Neelakandan, 7/12)

The Hill: Chamber Of Commerce Files Motion For Preliminary Injunction On Medicare Drug Negotiation
“We’re seeking timely relief before the government can further implement its illegal and arbitrary price control scheme. If allowed to go into effect, the scheme would harm not only U.S. businesses but U.S. patients — limiting access to medicine, deterring needed investment, and stifling innovation,” Andrew Varcoe, deputy chief counsel at the U.S. Chamber Litigation Center, said in a statement. (Choi, 7/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Majority Of U.S. Voters Support Therapeutic Use Of Psychedelic Drugs
Most U.S. voters support legalizing psychedelics for therapeutic use, and a growing proportion of people who report using psychedelics are “microdosing” — taking tiny amounts of the drugs — and using them for therapeutic purposes, according to a survey released Wednesday by the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics. Sixty-one percent of people say they would support creating a regulated legal framework for the therapeutic use of psychedelics, according to the survey, which polled 1,500 registered voters online and over the phone June 9-15. (Ho, 7/12)

California Healthline: 'An Arm and a Leg' Podcast: Wait, What’s A PBM?
Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are companies that negotiate the prices of prescription drugs. Hear about their role in raising drug prices and the ongoing efforts to regulate this complex industry. (Weissmann, 7/13)

San Francisco Chronicle: Lawsuit To Force California Schools To Out Trans Students Dismissed
A federal judge said California is not violating parents’ rights by requiring public schools to accept students’ gender identities and to let them decide whether to inform their families. (Egelko, 7/12)

CalMatters: LA Homeless Program Clears Camps, But Struggles To House
Tents, makeshift shacks and broken-down RVs crowded both sidewalks under a U.S. Highway 101 overpass in Hollywood seven months ago. More than two-dozen people lived in the squalid encampment, feet from cars flying past. Neighbors and nearby businesses fumed, saying they and their customers felt unsafe. On a Wednesday afternoon last month, all traces of the tents – and the people who lived in them – were gone. The sidewalks were spotless, without even a speck of trash. (Kendall, 7/13)

Los Angeles Times: The Homekey Project Seeks To Guide Homeless Youth Toward Stability
Zahria Eaves got up from her sister’s couch in North Hills. It was April 1 — moving day — and she had not slept that night. Eaves, 22, grew up on the move. She’s lived in 13 cities (she thinks) and spent the last few years “couch hopping.” When Eaves returned to the West Coast in July 2020 from a stint with her mom in Kansas City, she lived with her dad, and then with her sister, her sister’s boyfriend, and their newborn baby. The four of them lived in a motel until a Section 8 voucher led them to a one-bedroom apartment in North Hills for a spell, before she found herself couch surfing again. (Kramon, 7/13) Her dream was go to film school. But she saw no way out of the cycle.

Los Angeles Times: After Jail Deaths, Supervisors Ask LASD To Give More Warm Clothes To Inmates
Weeks after a watchdog report raised concerns about two inmate deaths last winter linked to suspected hypothermia, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a motion Tuesday asking jail officials to give out warmer clothes to people in custody who are cold. (Blakinger, 7/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Pandemic-Era Drinking Lifted California Alcoholic Liver Disease Deaths
Excessive drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic increased alcoholic liver disease deaths so much that the condition killed more Californians than car accidents or breast cancer, a California Healthline analysis has found. Lockdowns made people feel isolated, depressed and anxious, leading some to increase their alcohol intake. Alcohol sales rose during the pandemic, with especially large jumps in consumption of spirits. (Reese, 7/11)

The Hill: How The Pandemic Spurred A Push To Expand Methadone Access
A bipartisan push to expand methadone access across America is picking up momentum after restrictions on the medication were relaxed during the pandemic. Methadone is one of the most effective treatments available for opioid use disorder (OUD), however experts have long feared that easy access could backfire since methadone carries its own potential for abuse and unintentional overdose. (Choi, 7/12)

AP: EPA Moves To Reduce Childhood Exposure To Lead-Based Paint Dust 
The Biden administration on Wednesday moved to reduce children’s exposure to lead, proposing stricter limits on dust from lead-based paint in older homes and child-care facilities. Declaring that “there is no safe level of lead,” the administration estimates that the proposed rule would reduce lead exposure for approximately 250,000 to 500,000 children under the age of six each year. (Lobet and Stobbe, 7/12)

CBS News: Nearly 1 In 10 U.S. Children Have Been Diagnosed With A Developmental Disability, CDC Reports
The share of American children who have ever been diagnosed with a developmental disability increased again in 2021, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and now more than 1 in 10 boys have had an intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder or another developmental delay. Among kids ages 3 to 17 years old, 8.56% have ever been diagnosed with any developmental disability as of 2021, according to the latest results from the agency's ongoing National Health Interview Survey. (Tin, 7/13)

Stat: Schumer's War On Logan Paul's Prime Energy Drink Likely To Fizzle
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the most powerful person in the U.S. Senate, wants the Food and Drug Administration to investigate the increasingly popular energy drink brand Prime. But it’s unclear what grounds the FDA would have to single out the company in the near future, or what the agency could really do on its own if it wanted to take serious actions against its co-founder, social media star and professional wrestler Logan Paul. (Florko, 7/13)

California Healthline: Got Milk In School? Farmers Fight Health Advocates Over The Creamy ‘Whole’ Variety
It has been over a decade since whole milk was served through the National School Lunch Program, after U.S. government dietary guidance effectively banned it. But dairy farmers, some health experts, and members of Congress say it’s time to bring it back. (Galewitz, 7/13)