San Francisco Chronicle: Kaiser Sells Oakland Tower, Garage For Astounding Price
Kaiser Permanente has quietly sold an aging office tower that it’s owned for more than two decades near Oakland’s Lake Merritt. The 21-story office tower at 1950 Franklin St. has been largely vacant since the start of the pandemic. A spokesperson for the healthcare giant confirmed Wednesday that it has also sold a 635-space parking garage across the street at 1901 Franklin — the two properties are connected by a pedestrian bridge that spans over Franklin Street. (Waxmann, 9/11)

Stat: 5 Takeaways From Congress’ Hearing On Overhauling Organ Transplant System
On Wednesday, two transplant doctors, one watchdog and a nephrologist-turned-advocate sat before members of Congress to talk about the nation’s troubled organ transplant system. For over two hours the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations ran through allegations of inefficiency, inertia, negligence and corruption in the groups charged with coordinating transplants throughout the U.S. New, jaw-dropping claims also came to light. (Cueto, 9/11)

Times of San Diego: Primrose Bio Partners With Polish Firm To Develop Products That Lead To MRNA Therapies
Primrose Bio, a San Diego biotechnology company that aims to improve the manufacture of next-generation therapeutics, has begun a partnership to jointly develop and market products for mRNA medicines. ExploRNA Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in Poland that is advancing mRNA technologies, vaccines and therapeutics, will join with Primrose on the project. (9/11)

KVPR: Whatever Happened To ... The Global Effort To Wipe Out Cervical Cancer With A Vaccine?
Over the years, NPR (and our blog) have reported on the global effort to eliminate cervical cancer with the HPV vaccine introduced in 2007. Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is a group of over 200 viruses that are common in humans. Most types don’t cause any problems, but some can develop into diseases such as genital warts or cancer, and 99% of the world’s 660,000 annual cases of cervical cancers are caused by two strains, which can be sexually transmitted. (Kritz, 9/12)

The Boston Globe: High Adderall Doses Increase Risk Of Psychosis, McLean Researchers Say
High doses of Adderall, the widely prescribed drug for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, were associated with more than a fivefold increased risk for a first-time episode of psychosis or mania, according to a study released Thursday by McLean Hospital. The risk was greatest for patients who took doses exceeding 40 milligrams, according to Dr. Lauren V. Moran, lead author of the paper and a psychiatrist who studies the benefits and perils of prescribed drugs. (Saltzman, 9/12)

Reuters: Weight-Loss Market To See 16 New Drugs By 2029, Report Estimates
The market for weight-loss treatments is expected to see 16 new drugs vying for a slice of the lucrative business currently dominated by Novo Nordisk ( and Eli Lilly, according to estimates from analysts at Morningstar and Pitchbook. In a joint report published on Monday, analysts estimated the market for obesity treatments could expand to $200 billion by 2031. The 16 drugs could launch by 2029, with roughly $70 billion of the GLP-1 market coming from these new challengers. (9/11)

CalMatters: CA Cities OK New Homeless Camp Bans After Supreme Court Case
It’s been a little more than two months since the U.S. Supreme Court gave cities the green light to crack down on homeless encampments. Already, Santa Monica is considering barring its homeless residents from using sleeping bags, San Joaquin County is poised to force unhoused people to move 300 feet every hour, and Fresno has made it illegal to camp anywhere at any time — even if no shelter is available. At least 14 California cities and one county have passed new ordinances that prohibit camping or updated existing ordinances to make them more punitive, another dozen are considering new bans, and at least four have dusted off old camping bans that hadn’t been fully enforced in years. (Kendall, 9/12)

Berkeleyside: Berkeley Council OK's More Aggressive Encampment Sweep Policy
Now facing a lawsuit accusing the city of allowing public nuisances in the forms of longstanding encampments for the unhoused, Berkeley’s City Council has given the city administration more latitude to clear people and property out of those encampments in certain circumstances. The new policy, approved 8-1 Tuesday following and hours-long public hearing, reads that Berkeley will continue to offer shelter beds or other housing when closing encampments. But it also lays out a list of public safety-related exceptions under which the city can close encampments even when no other housing or shelter is available, such as public health and fire risks, public nuisances or encumbrances on work zones, medians, travel lanes and sidewalks. (Gecan, 9/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: Berkeley Businesses Sue City Over Nearby Homeless Encampments.
A group of Berkeley businesses, including some prominent names in the food and drink industry, have filed a suit against the city of Berkeley over homeless encampments near them, becoming the latest flashpoint in a contentious national debate. (Kadvany, 9/11)

Los Angeles Times: L.A. Case Tests Limits Of Murder Charges For Fentanyl Overdoses
Mo Ida Solomon’s head rested on a coffee table. Her fingers, dusted with white powder, gripped the edge of it. Her half-opened eyes stared at nothing. She died in July 2023 at her Los Angeles apartment. Eight months later, a homicide detective showed a photograph of Solomon’s body to Casey Linder, who said they had been “good friends for a long time.” (Ormseth, 9/12)

Fox News: Lack Of Sleep Among Children Could Lead To Drug, Alcohol Use: Study
A good night’s sleep has many proven benefits — potentially including a healthier future for kids. New research from Penn State University analyzed how childhood sleep patterns could be linked to future substance use. Researchers at the university found that adolescents who went to bed later and slept fewer hours during their childhood were more likely to have consumed alcohol or marijuana by the age of 15. (Stabile, 9/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Donald Trump's Infant Execution Claim Obscured A Real Policy Debate
During a discussion on abortion rights in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, former President Donald Trump repeated an outrageous claim: He said Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats are so extreme on the issue, they support executing infants after they’re born. Trump’s hyperbolic lie about murdering live infants — ABC News moderator Linsey Davis intervened to say, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born” — made it easy to miss a point he pressed Harris on: “Will she allow abortion in the eighth month, ninth month, seventh month?” he asked. (Libby, 9/11)

AP: More Women Had Their Tubes Tied After Roe V. Wade Was Overturned 
More women chose to have their tubes tied after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, a new study shows, and the biggest increases were in states that ban abortion. A research letter published Wednesday in JAMA examined insurance claims data from 2021 and 2022 for around 4.8 million women who got tubal ligations, which are surgeries to close the fallopian tubes so the patient can no longer get pregnant. The data came from 36 states and Washington, D.C., and researchers categorized these places as “banned,” “limited” or “protected,” based on their abortion policies. (Ungar, 9/11)

The Atlantic: What Abortion Bans Do To Doctors 
Kylie cooper has seen all the ways a pregnancy can go terrifyingly, perilously wrong. She is an obstetrician who manages high-risk patients, also known as a maternal-fetal-medicine specialist, or MFM. The awkward hyphenation highlights the duality of the role. Cooper must care for two patients at once: mother and fetus, mom and baby. On good days, she helps women with complicated pregnancies bring home healthy babies. On bad days, she has to tell families that this will not be possible. Sometimes, they ask her to end the pregnancy; prior to the summer of 2022, she was able to do so. (Zhang, 9/12)

Roll Call: For Many, Incomplete Answers On Mental Health Care And Pregnancy
Eighteen U.S. states have enacted laws that exclude mental health or risk of suicide among the medical reasons a woman can have an abortion. But women who spoke to CQ Roll Call faced obstacles finding answers on how to treat mental illness during pregnancy even when they were not considering abortion. (Raman, 9/12)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here's What Trump's ‘Transgender Operations’ Debate Claim Referred To
It was only one of many bromides from former President Donald Trump in Tuesday night’s debate — that Vice President Kamala Harris “wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison. This is a radical left liberal that would do this.” But aside from his repeated attacks on Harris’ policies on immigration and her supposedly far-left views, the Republican presidential candidate managed to call viewers’ attention to his opponent’s quiet proposal for a change in government policy on the treatment of transgender migrants in federal custody. (Egelko, 9/11)

Stat: Key Senate Republican Throws Cold Water On Affordable Care Act Repeal, Site-Neutral Payment Policy
A key Senate Republican dismissed the idea that the Affordable Care Act can be repealed next Congress, despite former President Trump’s interest in the issue. If Republicans take control of the Senate after November’s election, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) would likely be in charge of the Senate’s health committee, which would share responsibility for changes to the Affordable Care Act. He said Wednesday morning that any comprehensive health care reforms would have to be bipartisan, and noted that repealing the Affordable Care Act would be a nonstarter among Democrats. (Zhang, 9/11)

NBC News: After Years Of Threats, Trump Still Doesn't Have A Plan To Replace Obamacare
After eight years of threatening to repeal the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare, former President Donald Trump still doesn’t have a comprehensive plan to replace it. Experts doubt it would happen under a second Trump administration either, given the difficulty of coming up with a policy that satisfies all parties and the former president’s lack of a specific plan. (Lovelace Jr., 9/11)

Berkeleyside: Radiation Testing To Start This Month At Cesar Chavez Park 
Portions of Cesar Chavez Park will be closed for five days beginning at the end of September as a drone is flown over the ground to determine if there are unsafe radiation levels. The gamma drone testing, carried out by UC Berkeley nuclear engineering experts, will begin on Sept. 30 and last through Oct. 4, said Mary Skramstad, the city’s environmental compliance specialist. The testing was mandated by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board after archival documents emerged earlier this year showing that 11,100 pounds of industrial waste believed to contain radioactive material and pesticides, including the now-banned chemical DDT, may have been dumped in the park when it was still a landfill in the 1960s and ’70s. (Kwok, 9/11)

San Francisco Chronicle: California Faces High Risk For Valley Fever, Connected To Weather
A potentially deadly fungal infection known as valley fever has dramatically risen in California, with the number of reported cases nearly quadrupling in the last decade, from around 2,300 cases in 2014 to over 9,000 in 2023. A new scientific study describes where and when valley fever took off across the state over the past two decades. Swings between wet and dry conditions, expected to intensify with global warming, were associated with the highest case counts. (Lee, 9/11)

Los Angeles Times: Lawmakers Take 'Creative' Approach To Enforcing Heat Safety Rules For Farmworkers
Erika Patricia Deluque Barros said she was working in a tomato field in Yolo County when she first started feeling shaky and nauseous. An immigrant from Colombia with little experience working in the fields, she said she didn’t know at the time that the summer heat could make her sick. “I didn’t know the sun here could kill,” Deluque Barros said. “I didn’t know what sunstroke was, and nobody had told me what could happen.” (9/12)

CBS News: Extreme Heat Is Linked To Pregnancy Complications, Including Stillbirths And Miscarriages — And The Risk Is Growing
Our warming planet is putting those who are pregnant at higher risk — and the impacts go far beyond heat-related illnesses. Research shows that along with the dangers presented to the general population, extreme heat puts pregnant people — and their unborn fetuses — at risk of life-threatening conditions. During pregnancy, expectant moms are more vulnerable to viruses and environmental conditions. And one of the threats comes from tiny insects: mosquitoes that can carry a handful of diseases.  (Cohen, Wholf and Jurica, 9/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: County Says Its Tijuana River Valley Monitoring Shows No ‘Imminent Danger Or Threat’ 
County officials said early Tuesday morning that an emergency air monitoring effort focused on the Tijuana River Valley did show an elevated level of hydrogen sulfide, but not hydrogen cyanide as reported Monday by university researchers. (Sisson, 9/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Judge Rejects Effort To Reinstate City Workers’ Asbestos Lawsuit Against San Diego 
Superior Court Judge Katherine A. Bacal has denied a request from lawyers representing dozens of San Diego city employees whose initial lawsuit claiming they were wrongly exposed to asbestos was dismissed last spring. (McDonald, 9/11)

San Diego Union-Tribune: What To Do About Mosquitoes As September Swelters 
Hand crews descended on a residential neighborhood in Oceanside Tuesday morning, spraying pesticides to kill mosquitoes after a resident in the area tested positive for dengue virus infection. (Sisson, 9/10)

The Washington Post: Calif. Official Facing Censure For Allegedly Siphoning Covid Relief Funds
A California county leader on Tuesday was removed from his committee assignments and regional board positions after allegations that he helped funnel millions in pandemic relief funding into a nonprofit run by his daughter. The other four members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to remove Andrew Do, a Republican who represents the county’s first district, from all of his committee assignments and regional board positions. The move comes amid mounting pressure for Do to resign and a county lawsuit against the nonprofit that allegedly embezzled more than $10 million, most of which had been intended for meals for the elderly and people with disabilities in Orange County. (Somasundaram, 9/11)

USA Today: 'Very High' COVID-19 Levels Reported In Half The US, CDC Shares
The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that last month nearly half of the United States have reported "very high" levels of COVID-19 activity. As concerns with COVID have waned across the U.S., the CDC has come to rely on wastewater data to track the virus, which often lags several weeks behind current case counts. (Forbes, 9/11)

KVPR: Schools Are Putting Vape Detectors In Bathrooms — Paid For By Juul
E-cigarette use among young people in the U.S. dropped significantly over the past year, according to a new government study. The hopeful signs come as more schools are installing high-tech vape detectors in bathrooms and locker rooms to curb student use of e-cigarettes. Some districts are using money from a $1.7 billion legal settlement against e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs to pay for the devices. But there’s disagreement over whether monitors are the best way to address the problem, and they have raised some privacy concerns. (Neuman, 9/12)

Berkeleyside: Remembering Jonathan Gold, Poet And Advocate For The Disabled
Jonathan Gold, who dedicated his life to working with the disabled, died peacefully on July 14. He was 79. Described by friends as a poet and “eternal scholar,” Jonathan was born on Nov. 3, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York. His later youth was spent in Manhattan, where he and his older brother, Jeremy, mostly stayed out of trouble growing up on the Lower East Side. (9/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Steve Silberman, Science Journalist And Grateful Dead Scholar Who Wrote About Autism, Dies At 66
Steve Silberman’s vocation as a Grateful Dead scholar and writer began organically, on a blanket on the grass at a concert in the sun. ... Silberman was known for wearing a custom T-shirt to a Halloween show bearing the message “Your Hallucinations Are My Costume,” and for his skill at putting cultural, scientific and medical complexity into common language, which he did during decades as a science journalist and in his 500-page treatise, “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity” published in 2015. (Whiting, 9/12)