Los Angeles Daily News: Excessive Heat Warnings, Advisories Remain In Effect For Much Of Southern California 
Temperatures are forecasted to hit 100 or more degrees through at least Saturday evening in the Inland Empire, with many along the Southern California coast expected to see highs in the 70s and 80s, forecasters said Wednesday. (Darwish, 7/19)

Los Angeles Times: Extreme Heat Brings Misery To Daily Life In The Southwest
An unrelenting heat wave that has blanketed the the Southwestern U.S. continued to break records Wednesday, inflicting misery in major cities and offering what experts described as a disturbing glimpse into the future as human-caused climate change increases the frequency and duration of extreme heat events. Places such as Las Vegas and Phoenix have always endured broiling summers. But the scale and duration of this heat wave has brought new levels of suffering, from sizzling sidewalks to broken-down cars and passed-out airline passengers. (Herrera, Smith, Lin and Spencer, 7/19)

Bay Area News Group: Bay Area Air Advisory Issued As Smoke From Oregon Fires Drifts Toward Region
Nearly two dozen wildfires burning in Oregon are now affecting the air quality in the Bay Area, officials said Wednesday. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District issued an air quality advisory on Wednesday, saying smoke from the Oregon wildfires is creating moderate air conditions in the Santa Clara Valley. (Hurd, 7/19)

Stanford Daily: Stanford President Resigns Over Manipulated Research
Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will resign effective Aug. 31, according to communications released by the University Wednesday morning. He will also retract or issue lengthy corrections to five widely cited papers for which he was principal author after a Stanford-sponsored investigation found “manipulation of research data.” (Baker, 7/19)

The New York Times: Stanford President Resigns After Report Finds Flaws In His Research
The review, conducted by an outside panel of scientists, refuted the most serious claim involving Dr. Tessier-Lavigne’s work — that an important 2009 Alzheimer’s study was the subject of an investigation that found falsified data and that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had covered it up. The panel concluded that the claims “appear to be mistaken” and that there was no evidence of falsified data or that Dr. Tessier-Lavigne had otherwise engaged in fraud. But the review also stated that the 2009 study, conducted while he was an executive at the biotech company Genentech, had “multiple problems” and “fell below customary standards of scientific rigor and process,” especially for such a potentially important paper. (Saul, 7/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Some People Never Get COVID Symptoms. We May Finally Know Why
About 1 in 5 people who contract the coronavirus exhibit no symptoms. Now, researchers at UCSF have uncovered a genetic mutation potentially responsible for the phenomenon of coronavirus super dodgers. The study, published in Nature, identifies a variant in a gene that enhances early detection and response to SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 — mitigating common symptoms like a runny nose, scratchy throat, or fever and chills. The speedy reaction appears to derive from previous exposure to other coronaviruses, such as those that cause the common cold. (Vaziri, 7/19)

Reuters: US Suspends Federal Funding To Wuhan Lab Over Non-Compliance
The action was taken on Monday following a months-long review that led the HHS to find that "WIV is not compliant with federal regulations and is not presently responsible", according to a memo from the department." The move was undertaken due to WIV's failure to provide documentation on WIV's research requested by NIH related to concerns that WIV violated NIH's biosafety protocols," an HHS spokesperson said in a statement. (7/19)

Los Angeles Times: Over 34,000 L.A. County Households Lost Medi-Cal In July 
More than 34,000 households in Los Angeles County have had their Medi-Cal coverage discontinued this month as California joins other states in beginning to cut off people from Medicaid programs who no longer meet income requirements or whose paperwork was not submitted in time. (Reyes, 7/19)

The New York Times: Health Insurers Deny Medical Care For The Poor At High Rates, Report Says
Private health insurance companies paid by Medicaid denied millions of requests for care for low-income Americans with little oversight from federal and state authorities, according to a new report by U.S. investigators published Wednesday. Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor that covers nearly 87 million people, contracts with companies to reimburse hospitals and doctors for treatment and to manage an individual’s medical care. About three-quarters of people enrolled in Medicaid receive health services through private companies, which are typically paid a fixed amount per patient rather than for each procedure or visit. (Abelson, 7/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego's New Ambulance Deals Projected To Generate Cash
San Diego officials say their plan to take more control over city ambulance service is projected to generate $5 million a year in excess cash they intend to spend on new programs like nurse triage, telemedicine and street-based interventions. (Garrick, 7/20)

inewsource: Doctor Testifies Against UC San Diego In Massive Trial
Nearly every detail of the bitter conflict is under debate, but one point is hard to dispute: A San Diego doctor’s life has been upended since he chose to take on his $47 billion employer. Dr. Kevin Murphy, a former department vice chair and oncologist at UC San Diego, has alleged for the past seven years that the University of California system misused a $10 million fund meant for his research. Once he spoke out about what happened, he claims, top officials led a campaign against him that has only escalated over time. (Castellano, 7/19)

NBC News: Teens Increasingly At The Hospital For Suicidal Thoughts And Attempts
According to the research, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network Open, nearly 66% of the cases were girls, and the average age was 15. The study also revealed seasonal trends: ER visits and hospitalizations were 15% higher in April and 24% higher in October than the January rate, which the study used as a baseline because it was close to the annual average. However, 2020 was an exception both to the seasonal fluctuations and the increase in suicidality over time. (Pandey, 7/19)

Bloomberg: Suicide Risk Rises For Children And Teens During School Year, Study Says
The risk of suicide for kids and teens rises during the school year, researchers said, reflecting the impact of its social and learning pressures on young people’s mental health. Children from the ages of 10 to 18 are more likely to appear at hospitals for suicidal thoughts or attempts in the spring and fall than during summer vacation, according to a study from the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston released Wednesday. The pattern paused in the beginning of 2020, when many schools emptied during the early days of Covid-19. (Griffin, 7/19)

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Threatens To Fine Temecula School District In LGBTQ+ Controversy
Two San Francisco Democrats were at the center of a chaotic school board meeting in Southern California on Tuesday: Gov. Gavin Newsom and slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk. During the nine-hour Temecula Valley Unified meeting, which ran past midnight, some parents spoke in support of the conservative majority on the school board and its bucking of state standards for inclusive and diverse education. (Mays, 7/19)

East Bay Times: California School District To Vote On Forced Outing Of Transgender Students To Their Parents
The Chino Valley Unified School District board is expected to vote on on a parental notification policy Thursday, July 20, that would require schools to notify parents if their child identifies as transgender. (Darling, 7/20)

Los Angeles Times: In War Over Trans Rights A Woman Fights In DeSantis' Florida
Life in small-town Florida was once about blissfully losing her way on hikes, lounging by swimming holes and taking long drives to visit her favorite alligator zoo. Now, each step outside was laden with anxiety as she rushed to memorize a mental map of the safest bathrooms and fastest ways to navigate Walmart before strangers might begin to stare. As a transgender woman in a state where the governor declared war on “transgender ideology,” Violet Rin felt her image of Florida as an idyll fading. She became a near recluse, doubtful that much outside was worth the risks. (Kaleem, 7/20)

Military Times: Pentagon Abortion Policy Talks Fail To Yield Compromise On Nominees
Defense Department leaders fielded questions and concerns from key senators over the military’s abortion access policy in a closed-door briefing Wednesday, but failed to produce any breakthrough in the stalemate over the rules, which has stalled hundreds of military promotions. Democratic lawmakers left the event proclaiming confidence in the legality and need for the policy, which gives travel stipend and leave time for service members to travel across state lines for abortion services if they are stationed in a state where the procedure is limited or outlawed. (Shane III, 7/19)

The Washington Post: Abortion Providers In Democrat-Led States Work With Aid Access To Funnel Pills Into Antiabortion States
The doctor starts each day with a list of addresses and a label maker. Sitting in her basement in New York’s Hudson Valley, next to her grown children’s old bunk beds, she reviews the list of towns and cities she’ll be mailing to that day: Baton Rouge, Tucson, Houston. A month ago, a phone call was the only thing the doctor could offer to women in states with abortion bans who faced unexpected pregnancies. Hamstrung by the laws, she could only coach them through the process of taking abortion pills they received from overseas suppliers. (Kitchener, 7/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco Biotech Firm FibroGen Lays Off Almost A Third Of U.S. Staff
San Francisco-based FibroGen will lay off 104 workers, or nearly a third of its U.S. employees, according to a corporate filing on Wednesday. The cuts come a month after FibroGen reported its experimental lung disease drug pamrevlumab failed a late-stage trial. Another drug, roxadustat, also failed a trial in May. Those results prompted the company to cut costs “to extend our cash runway into 2026.” (Li, 7/19)

Axios: FDA Weighs When Software Becomes A Medical Device
An effort to get the FDA to pull a widely used prescription drug monitoring software package off the market is stoking a broader debate over how much technology is influencing opioid prescribing. Driving the news: The Center for U.S. Policy says Bamboo Health's NarxCare should be classified a medical device and subject to regulation, because of the way it helps doctors and other providers decide if a patient should get painkillers. (González and Moreno, 7/19)

KTXL: California Firefighters And Hospitals Clash Over Length Of Patient Off-Loading Times
California firefighters and hospitals are clashing over what is causing reported delays at emergency departments when it comes to offloading patients from the ambulance to the hospital. In a July 6 newsletter, California Professional Firefighters (CPF) outlined the ever-growing time it takes for a paramedic or firefighter to offload their patients after arriving at the hospital and its impact on other emergency responses. (Norbert, 7/19)

Axios: Most Hospitals Profited Off Of Pandemic, Study Finds
COVID relief funds helped almost 75% of U.S. hospitals post positive operating income during the height of the pandemic, according to a new analysis that questions if the federal aid was too generous or misdirected. Why it matters: The findings counter the industry narrative that the pandemic left many facilities in the red and grappling with surging costs of care and supply chain and labor shortages. (Dreher, 7/20)

AP: California Sen. Feinstein Seeks More Control Over Her Late Husband's Trust To Pay Medical Bills
Attorneys for California U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of Congress who has been beset with serious health problems, assert in a court filing that she is being stiffed on payments for “significant” medical bills by a trust created for her benefit by her wealthy late husband. Trustees for the fund said they were “perplexed” by the filing and they have never denied any disbursement for the 90-year-old Feinstein, who was absent from the Senate for two-and-a-half months this year as she contended with shingles and other complications, including a brief bout of encephalitis. (Blood, 7/19)

California Healthline: Congress Considers Easing Regulations On Air Transport Of Donated Organs
A little-noticed provision of sweeping legislation to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration would make it easier to fly human organs from donor to recipient. (DeGuzman, 7/20)

California Healthline: The Painful Legacy Of ‘Law And Order’ Treatment Of Addiction In Jail
Efforts to improve addiction care in jails and prisons are underway across the country. But a rural Alabama county with one of the nation’s highest overdose rates shows how change is slow, while law enforcement officials continue to treat addiction as a crime rather than a medical condition. (Rayasam, 7/19)

Pasadena Star News: LA County Finishes Moving Juvenile Halls To Downey Ahead Of State Shutdown 
Los Angeles County has moved the last of its youth detainees to the newly reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, marking the end of a months-long scramble to clear out the county’s troubled juvenile halls before a state ordered shutdown of those facilities later this month. (Henry, 7/19)

Stat: Dementia Risk Linked To Living In Disadvantaged Areas: Study
Americans who live in neighborhoods with less socioeconomic advantage may have a higher risk of dementia, according to a new study published Wednesday in JAMA Neurology. This can be true regardless of an individual’s background, according to the study, which found that people living in areas of the U.S. with the lowest levels of income, education, employment, and housing quality had a 1.17 times higher risk of developing dementia compared to residents of the least disadvantaged areas. (Castillo, 7/20)

Reuters: Juul Seeks US Authorization For New E-Cigarette
Juul Labs said on Wednesday it was seeking U.S. authorization for a new e-cigarette that has age-verification capabilities and prevents the use of unauthorized refill cartridges. The vaporizer, which has a unique Pod ID chip to prevent the use of counterfeit cartridges and an app to restrict underage access, is already on sale in Britain after its launch in 2021 as JUUL2 System. In its latest premarket tobacco product application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration submitted on Tuesday, Juul Labs said it was seeking to sell tobacco-flavored pods at a nicotine concentration of less than 2%. (7/19)

The Washington Post: Rising Number Of Overdose Deaths Involve Mix Of Opioids With Cocaine, Meth
The evolving overdose crisis in the United States is making another lethal turn, federal disease trackers reported Wednesday: Increasingly, people dying from opioids are also using stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine. An analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that between 2011 and 2021, the age-adjusted rate of overdose deaths involving opioids and cocaine nearly quintupled, far outpacing the rate of deaths involving only cocaine. In 2021 alone, nearly 80 percent of the 24,486 cocaine overdose deaths recorded in the United States also involved an opioid. (Ovalle, 7/19)