Texas Tribune: Texas Asks Supreme Court To End California Law Banning State-Funded Travel
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to strike down a 2016 California law that bans state-funded travel to states with discriminatory laws — a list Texas landed on nearly three years ago after the Legislature approved a religious-refusal law for adoptions in the state. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, whose office maintains a list of qualifying discriminatory laws, said in June 2017 that the Texas law "allows foster care agencies to discriminate against children in foster care and potentially disqualify LGBT families from the state’s foster and adoption system." (Platoff, 2/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: In A First, Court Says A State Must Provide Gender-Confirmation Surgery To Inmate
A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Monday affirmed its ruling, the first by any appellate court, ordering a state to provide gender-confirmation surgery to a transgender inmate. Ten Republican-appointed judges dissented, including the court’s first openly gay judge. (Egelko, 2/10)

Bloomberg: Holmes Argues To Throw Out Theranos Criminal Fraud Case
Theranos Inc. founder Elizabeth Holmes mounted an attack Monday against charges that she defrauded patients who used her company’s blood tests. The former chief executive of the blood-test startup that imploded after reaching a $9 billion valuation argues that allegations she misled patients should be dismissed as too vague and because the government can’t prove that people who got inaccurate test results were actually harmed. Prosecutors say they’ve got plenty of proof that Holmes and ex-Theranos President Sunny Balwani duped patients into relying on technology they knew was faulty, and put some of those people in peril by providing false lab results. A trial is scheduled for August in San Jose, California. (Rosenblatt, 2/10)

KQED: California Lawmakers Have Refused To Restrict Flavored Vaping — Is That About To Change? 
Officials here pride themselves as national leaders in protecting the health of Californians — so much so that conservatives deride it as the “nanny-state.” And that’s particularly true when it comes to its youth. Yet California is behind some other states and the Trump administration when it comes to cracking down on flavored tobacco and e-cigarette use — nor has it moved to block the sale of flavored vape products containing cannabis. San Francisco-based Juul Labs Inc., maker of vape pens and nicotine pods, poured hundreds of thousands into lobbying and political campaigns — and until now successfully quashed bills to ban flavored tobacco in California.This year could change that. (Aguilera, 2/10)

Sacramento Bee: CA Newspaper Faced Threats After Requesting Gun Permits
The San Francisco Chronicle’s request to Sutter County’s sheriff may have appeared routine to a journalist used to requesting government documents. But asking for information about the 3,700 concealed weapons permit holders in the conservative rural county quickly set off a cascade of threats and vitriol — after the sheriff announced on Facebook he was legally obligated to provide the names. (Sabalow, 2/10)

Capital Public Radio: Survey: Americans Agree Health Care System Needs Fixing
Americans are divided on lots of issues. But a new national survey finds that people across the political spectrum agree on at least one thing: Our health care system needs fixing.The “Hidden Common Ground” survey from Public Agenda, USA Today and Ipsos found that 92 percent of Americans say changes are needed. And a majority of Americans want “either major changes or a complete overhaul of the system,” says Chris Jackson, vice president of the market research firm, Ipsos. (Herman, 2/10)

KQED: Government Plans To Expand DNA Collection From Migrant Detainees 
The Trump administration has launched a pilot program to collect DNA samples from migrants in two locations with plans to expand nationwide. The data is sent to the FBI and entered into a criminal database. A memo from the federal Department of Homeland Security says, "prompt DNA-sample collection could be essential to the detection and solution of crimes [aliens] may have committed or may commit in the United States."  (McClurg, 2/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: A February Without Rain Could Boost Wildfire Danger In Northern California
Meteorologists say much of Northern California likely will not see a drop of rain in February, heightening concerns that summer will arrive with below-average rainfall and tinder-dry hillsides susceptible to wildfire. It’s too early to declare the rainy season a bust, as there could be huge storms in March and April. But a bone-dry February would make it nearly impossible to catch up to seasonal expectations, meteorologists warn.“It’s really dry right now, and that’s making it more likely we’ll have a dry fire season and worse conditions this year,” said LeRoy Westerling, a climate and fire scientist at UC Merced. “But the caveat is, we still have a few months left of the rainy season, and it could change.” (Cabanatuan, 2/11)

KPBS: Some San Diego Hospitals Lagging Behind State Flu Vaccination Goal, While Others Exceeding 
Flu season is especially worrisome because the illness can cause severe complications for the immunocompromised like Hollingsworth or others with underlying health conditions. While researchers are rushing to create a novel coronavirus vaccine amid a global health emergency, one already exists for influenza. Yet a KPBS review of state records shows more than 100,000 California hospital employees who help care for the sick are still not receiving it. (Mento, 2/11)

KQED: Psychedelic Therapy Available To More People Before Clinical Trials End 
Until recently, only participants in clinical trials could qualify for MDMA-assisted therapy. Now the federal Food and Drug Administration has granted researchers what it calls “expanded access.” That means people who can’t find relief other ways — who are “treatment-resistant” — can get this therapy before the FDA approves it. (Klivans, 2/10)

The New York Times: A Grim Landmark As Official Death Toll In China Tops 1,000
The death toll from the coronavirus epidemic is continuing to climb, Chinese officials said Tuesday. The government put the nationwide figure at 1,016. That was up 108 from the day before, when it was 908. The number of cases of infection also grew, to over 42,638. The figure for the day before was put at 40,171. (2/10)

The New York Times: ‘Let’s Not Shake Hands’: Xi Jinping Tours Beijing Amid Coronavirus Crisis
When he stepped inside the municipal office five miles north of the Forbidden City, China’s most powerful leader in decades pulled up the sleeve of his black overcoat and held out his wrist. A woman in a mask and surgical gloves then checked to see if he had a fever. It was Xi Jinping’s first public appearance since meeting the Cambodian prime minister last week, and one of only a handful since the epidemic exploded into a crisis last month. It showed him on what state media declared the “front line” of China’s efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic — even if the actual center of the outbreak lies 600 miles south in the city of Wuhan. (Myers, 2/10)

The New York Times: ‘Like Europe In Medieval Times’: Virus Slows China’s Economy
Workers are stuck in their hometowns. Officials want detailed health plans before factories or offices can reopen. Assembly lines that make General Motors cars and Apple iPhones are standing silent. More than two weeks after China locked down a major city to stop a dangerous viral outbreak, one of the world’s largest economies remains largely idle. Much of the country was supposed to have reopened by now, but its empty streets, quiet factories and legions of inactive workers suggest that weeks or months could pass before this vital motor of global growth is humming again. (Bradsher, 2/10)

Reuters: Here Is What WHO Experts Are Watching On The Coronavirus' Spread
The World Health Organization (WHO) is tracking the epidemic of the new coronavirus in China and how it is spread abroad, as its advance team of international experts travel there to help investigate the outbreak. Here are some issues that WHO epidemiologists are probing to deepen understanding of the virus, believed to have jumped the species barrier at a seafood market in Wuhan in December, to help accelerate development of drugs, diagnostics and vaccines. (2/10)

Reuters: Coronavirus Emergency 'Holds A Very Grave Threat' For World: WHO
China's coronavirus outbreak poses a "very grave threat for the rest of the world", the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday in an appeal for sharing virus samples and speeding up research into drugs and vaccines. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was addressing the start of a two-day meeting aimed at accelerating research into drugs, diagnostics and vaccines into the flu-like virus amid growing concerns about its ability to spread. (2/11)

The New York Times: Pangolins Are Suspected As A Potential Coronavirus Host
In the search for the animal source or sources of the coronavirus epidemic in China, the latest candidate is the pangolin, an endangered, scaly, ant-eating mammal that is imported in huge numbers to Chinese markets for food and medicine. The market in pangolins is so large that they are said to be the most trafficked mammals on the planet. All four Asian species are critically endangered, and it is far from clear whether being identified as a viral host would be good or bad for pangolins. It could decrease the trade in the animals, or cause a backlash. (Gorman, 2/10)

The New York Times: Some Experts Worry As A Germ-Phobic Trump Confronts A Growing Epidemic
When an outbreak of the Ebola virus touched the United States’ shores in mid-2014, Donald J. Trump was still a private citizen. But he had strong opinions about how America should act. Mr. Trump, who has spoken openly about his phobia of germs, closely followed the epidemic, and offered angry commentary about what he said was the Obama administration’s dangerous response. He demanded draconian measures like canceling flights, forcing quarantines and even denying the return of American medical workers who had contracted the disease in Africa. (Crowley, 2/10)

The New York Times: Trump’s $4.8 Trillion Budget Would Cut Safety Net Programs And Boost Defense
President Trump released a $4.8 trillion budget proposal on Monday that includes a familiar list of deep cuts to student loan assistance, affordable housing efforts, food stamps and Medicaid, reflecting Mr. Trump’s election-year effort to continue shrinking the federal safety net. (Tankersley, Sanger-Katz, Rappeport and Cochrane, 2/10)

The New York Times: In Trump’s Budget, Big Health Care Cuts But Few Details
Mr. Trump is running for re-election this year, so his budget can be read as a policy blueprint for his second term if he wins. The budget leaves to the imagination just what that vision is. Unlike in previous years, when the health care budget laid out specific plans to repeal large sections of the Affordable Care Act and replace it, this year’s proposal barely mentions President Barack Obama’s signature health care law. But the deep cuts enshrined in the budget’s numbers are not consistent with modest tweaks. Taken together with Medicaid changes recommended elsewhere in the budget, the proposal would strip about $1 trillion out of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies, the two pillars of the law’s expansion of insurance coverage. By 2029, the cuts to those programs in Mr. Trump’s budget would represent around 85 percent of the total that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would otherwise be spent on Obamacare coverage that year. (Sanger-Katz, 2/10)

The Associated Press: Mystery $844B Pot In Trump Budget Signals Medicaid Cuts
The budget does telegraph that the administration is taking aim at Medicaid. The $600 billion federal-state program covers more than 70 million low-income people, ranging from newborns to elderly nursing home residents. A passage in a dense tome called “Analytical Perspectives” accompanying the budget calls for “ending the financial bias that currently favors able-bodied working-age adults over the truly vulnerable” in Medicaid. Translation: Repeal “Obamacare's" generous federal matching for states that expand their programs to cover low-income adults. A senior administration official briefing reporters on the budget said it would allow states that want more flexibility in Medicaid to accept their federal share as a lump sum. For states staying with traditional Medicaid, the program would grow by 3% on average instead of 5%. Such limits, rejected by Congress in the past, lead to program cuts that compound over time. (2/10)

Stat: Trump Doesn't Want The FDA To Regulate Tobacco
The Trump administration is proposing to strip the Food and Drug Administration of all authority to regulate tobacco products, according to budget documents released Monday. Under the budget proposal, a new agency would be created within the Department of Health and Human Services dedicated solely to regulating tobacco, including e-cigarettes. It’s a striking proposal that directly bucks the will of both Congress and the FDA. (Florko, 2/10)

Reuters: Trump's $4.8 Trillion Budget Gets Chilly Reception From Congress
Democrats said Trump's proposal upended his promise in last week's State of the Union speech to "always protect" the popular Social Security pension plan and the Medicare health plan for seniors. “Americans’ quality, affordable health care will never be safe with President Trump," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Everyone knows the latest Trump budget is dead on arrival in Congress," said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee. (2/10)