Berkeleyside: Court Blocks West Berkeley Camp Sweep, BHS Divided Over Camps
A federal judge has temporarily blocked Berkeley from clearing out an encampment of residents living in tents, vehicles and lean-tos near Eighth and Harrison streets after a group of those residents filed a federal civil suit seeking a restraining order against the city. The civil suit comes as activist groups have locked horns over another smaller camp, in and around Civic Center Park, after a Berkeley High School student reported being groped there. Some members of the high school community have pushed to close the camp in the name of student safety, while some students have been engaged in advocacy opposing the city’s sweeps policy as harmful to the unhoused. (Gecan, 2/14)

Voice of OC: OC Cities Look To Replace Temporary Homeless Shelters With Motels And Churches
Orange County cities are increasingly offering motel vouchers and church beds to homeless people during extreme weather after attempts to set up a cold weather shelter failed for the second year in a row. While several cities have run programs like this in the past, they’re growing in popularity after the short-term shelters at the National Guard armories in Fullerton and Santa Ana have been closed for the past two winters. (Biesiada, 2/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Oceanside Considers Expanding Shelter, Homeless Services 
Expand Oceanside’s new homeless shelter, buy more land for affordable housing, and improve contacts with people in need were among the ideas discussed Wednesday for an update of the city’s homeless action plan. (Diehl, 2/17)

LAist: LA’s Annual Homeless Count Kicks Off Tonight
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count — the largest of its kind in the country — officially starts Tuesday night. Thousands of Angelenos will visit streets and sidewalks across the county over the next three days tallying their unhoused neighbors. The data they collect, which will be released by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) in the coming months, plays a critical role in how resources are used to address homelessness. (Sievertson, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Trump Contract Freeze Slows Safety Measures In Fire Zones
President Trump has insisted that “raking” of the forests and other fuel reduction measures would help prevent wildfires from devastating the West. But early actions by his administration have frozen one of the key programs to complete that sort of work, weeks after a pair of giant fires devastated broad stretches of Altadena and Pacific Palisades. The administration’s block on some Bureau of Land Management contracts comes at the same time that it has frozen most federal government hiring — an action that has led to confusion at the U.S. Forest Service, where the hiring of some firefighters has been postponed. (Rainey, 2/14)

Los Angeles Times: Untangling The Mystery Of Failed Altadena Evacuations: 'There Should Have Been All Sorts Of Red Lights'
What went wrong with L.A. county’s warnings and evacuations is now the subject of two different investigations after Times reporting found that emergency wireless alerts went out to west Altadena almost five hours after fire began to engulf homes in the neighborhood. In some areas, it took even longer. Experts in emergency management said the struggle to coordinate evacuations is puzzling given the time and geography. But they also stressed that fast-moving fires in urban areas can be incredibly challenging and that we do not know enough yet to jump to conclusions about tactics. (Jarvie and Toohey, 2/16)

AP: As Trump Administration Reforms The EPA, Cleanups Of America's Most Toxic Sites Are Uncertain
Just over a mile from where Patricia Flores has lived for almost 20 years, a battery smelter plant spewed toxic elements into the environment for nearly a century. Exide Technologies in southeast Los Angeles polluted thousands of properties with lead and contributed to groundwater contamination with trichloroethylene, or TCE, a cancer-causing chemical. Since Exide declared bankruptcy in 2020, California has invested more than $770 million to clean the various properties. But much more cleanup is needed, and with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, those efforts are uncertain. (Pineda, 2/15)

CBS News San Francisco: Oakland Budget Cuts Threaten Nonprofits And Social Services 
Oakland is cutting $2.6 million in funding for 13 community organizations that provide housing, health and other social services as officials attempt to balance the city's budget. One of the impacted organizations is SOS Meals on Wheels of Alameda County. (Hari, 2/17)

Times of San Diego: Alliant Foundation's Mental Health Consortium, Telehealth Clinic Support Underserved
When beginning therapy, Nicolas Ibarra said the youth he supports often react with wide-eyed uncertainty. His role is to reassure them that there’s nothing to fear. “Mental health isn’t something to be stigmatized or scared of,” Ibarra said. “It can be fun, especially for kids — there’s so much play therapy involved.” (Ireland, 2/14)

Capital & Main: The Radio Show Taking On California’s Youth Mental Health Crisis
Crisis Communicator has become a place for Los Angeles teens to share how they cope with anxiety, stress and depression. This hour-long broadcast is one way of helping California youth through what has been called a mental health crisis. (Sánchez-Tello, 2/17)

Fierce Healthcare: Mass Firings At HHS: Thousands Impacted Across CMS, CDC, FDA
The nation's most distinguished health agencies fired thousands of probationary workers, starting Feb. 13 and extending into the holiday weekend, in what is becoming informally known among federal workers as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. The firings began at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, before extending throughout virtually all of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) divisions by the end of the weekend, reported numerous media outlets. Impacted workers took to social media to confirm the news. (Tong, 2/17)

Bloomberg: FDA Food Head Resigns, Citing Multiple Job Cuts In Division
Jim Jones, the head of the food division at the US Food and Drug Administration who oversaw the agency’s banning of the food dye Red No. 3 earlier this year, stepped down on Monday, citing widespread cuts across the agency that he said will make it hard to implement the types of changes the Trump administration is seeking, according to a document viewed by Bloomberg News. (Edney and Shanker, 2/18)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego Researchers Face Big Losses If Court Allows Trump Funding Cuts 
USA Spending, a federal database that compiles most federal expenditures, shows that UC San Diego received about $71 million in indirect cost reimbursements from federal sources during the 2024-25 budget year, but a statement from the university indicates that this figure underreports the full amount at risk under cuts imposed by the National Institutes of Health. (Sisson, 2/17)

The Hill: Trump Administration Targets ACA Navigators
The Trump administration slashed funding for Affordable Care Act navigators, which help people sign up for ObamaCare coverage on the law’s exchanges, by 90 percent. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Friday announced health insurance navigators will receive just $10 million per year over the next four years. Navigators received $98 million in 2024. (Weixel, 2/14)

San Francisco Chronicle: ADHD Patients, Doctors Are Terrified Of Losing Medication Under RFK Jr
ADHD patients — and the clinicians who treat them — worry they could lose access to [Adderall] under the Trump administration. There is already a nationwide shortage of the drugs that treat ADHD, which has left parents and adult patients scrambling.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who for years has spread false information about the efficacy of vaccines, was confirmed as secretary of Health and Human Services last week. Soon after, President Donald Trump signed a sprawling executive order creating a commission to “Make America Healthy Again” — Kennedy’s mantra — that appeared to take aim specifically at ADHD medication. (Libby, 2/18)

Bay Area News Group: Bay Area Long COVID Sufferers Battle Mysterious Symptoms And Medical Skepticism
In mid-October of last year, Jennifer Hooper was scheduled for an appointment at the Stanford Post-Acute COVID-19 Syndrome Clinic, or PACS — one of the few clinics in the Bay Area where doctors from multiple specialties who are familiar with the needs of COVID long-haulers will work with them to manage their symptoms. But its wait list is so long that her doctor will not be able to see her until September. (Annesha, 2/16)

The New York Times: Trump Will Withhold Money From Schools That Require Covid Vaccines
President Trump ordered on Friday that federal funding be withheld from schools and universities that require students to be vaccinated against Covid, White House officials said, another step in the administration’s campaign against coronavirus vaccine requirements. It was not clear how widely impactful the order would be. No states require K-12 students to be vaccinated against Covid. Only 15 colleges still required Covid vaccines for students as of late last year, according to No College Mandates, an advocacy group. (Mueller, 2/14)

Axios: U.S. Facing Worst Flu Season Since 2009, Experts Say
The worst flu season in 15 years has left hundreds of thousands of Americans hospitalized while straining physicians' offices and emergency departments. This flu season is classified as a "high-severity" season, with estimates of at least 29 million cases, the most since the 2009-2010 flu season, according to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. (Reed, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Second Judge Pauses Trump Order Against Gender-Affirming Care For Youth
A second federal judge has paused President Trump’s executive order halting federal support for gender-affirming care for transgender youth under 19. U.S. District Court Judge Lauren King granted a temporary restraining order on Friday after the Democratic attorneys general of Washington state, Oregon and Minnesota sued the Trump administration. Three doctors joined as plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed this month in the Western District of Washington. (Valdes, 2/15)

Los Angeles Times: EEOC Seeks To Drop Transgender Discrimination Cases, Per Trump Order
Signaling a major shift in civil rights enforcement, the federal agency that enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws has moved to dismiss six of its own cases on behalf of workers alleging gender identity discrimination, arguing that the cases now conflict with President Trump’s recent executive order, court documents say. ... The EEOC is seeking to dismiss three cases in Illinois as well as one in Alabama, New York and California. In each instance, the original complaints allege discrimination against transgender or gender nonconforming workers. The agency cites Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order declaring that the government would recognize only two “immutable” sexes — male and female — as the reason for why it no longer intends to pursue the cases. (Savage and Olson, 2/15)

The Washington Post: Gender Ideology Warnings Added To Restored U.S. Health Webpages
The Trump administration has directed the nation’s premier health agencies to place a notice harshly condemning “gender ideology” on agency webpages that a federal judge ordered be restored online this week. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were asked to place a notice on “any restored pages that were taken down due to their content promoting gender ideology,” according to an email sent from an official at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday evening. (Sun, Roubein and Rizzo, 2/14)

Los Angeles Times: Colleges, K-12 Schools Ordered By Trump Administration To Abolish DEI Or Face Funding Cuts
The U.S. Department of Education has given colleges and schools with race-specific programs — including financial aid and racially themed dormitory floors and graduation ceremonies — until the end of the month to abolish them or risk losing federal funding as educators scrambled over the holiday weekend to interpret the sweeping scope of new guidelines. The “dear colleague” letter from the department’s civil rights division and addressed to K-12 and higher education leaders lays out a new federal anti-discrimination enforcement policy that extends beyond the use of race in admissions, a practice barred since 2023 by the U.S. Supreme Court. (Kaleem, 2/17)

Times of San Diego: As Demand For Elder Care Grows, Families Face Challenges Evaluating Nursing Homes
Finding out the history of a nursing home can be of great value to anyone searching for a facility. It’s like buying a used car — if you know its history then you can be comfortable with your decision. But it doesn’t work that way with nursing homes because the information available is limited and often not entirely accurate, say the experts we spoke with for this story. The problem is the outside world rarely is privy to what goes on inside a nursing home. (August, 2/16)

The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: What's In Store For North Bay Health Care In 2025
As the health care industry continues to face staffing challenges in a post-COVID era, the North Bay Business Journal connected with the leaders at major facilities in the region, asking them about their approach. (2/16)

Becker's Hospital Review: Prime Healthcare Foundation's 2 Phases Of Growth In 2025
Prime Healthcare Foundation — the nonprofit arm of Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare — reported an operating income of $211.6 million in 2024, marking "just about the strongest results in the foundation’s history," CFO Steve Aleman said. "This stable and sustainable operating performance establishes a platform to support plan 2025 strategic growth that will both increase topline revenue, diversify market concentration, and do so without having to raise debt to execute the growth," Mr. Aleman said on Prime Healthcare Foundation's Feb. 14 investor call. (Cass, 2/14)

Modern Healthcare: Private Equity Delays Home Care Company Acquisitions
Uncertainty over interest rates, as well as Medicaid reimbursement and immigration policy, are prompting some private equity investors to delay investments in companies that provide skilled and nonmedical care in the home. Still, attorneys and advisors who help broker home care deals said the highly fragmented sector could remain a long-term sweet spot for investment as an aging population pushes more care to where patients live. (Eastabrook, 2/14)

CalMatters: His Daughter Has An Ultra-Rare Genetic Disorder. His Push To Treat It Just Hit A Major Milestone
California lobbyist Joe Lang wakes up early every morning, checks his email and begins what he calls his second job — helping coordinate a nationwide medical research program into the extremely rare genetic disorder that affects his daughter. It’s not the kind of task he imagined for himself over his long career in Sacramento, and yet he’s been a driving force to find a treatment for the neurodevelopmental disorder that is named after his daughter, Jordan. He helped assemble the research team when his family learned Jordan was just one of a handful of children diagnosed with the syndrome, and he’s been raising money for the work ever since. (Ashton, 2/17)

San Francisco Chronicle: Interrupted Sleep Worsening With Age? Cause May Not Be What You Think
Earlier this month, we put out a call to Chronicle readers to gauge your interest and questions about sleep and aging. We received dozens of responses, many from readers in their 60s, 70s and 80s. An overwhelming number of the questions and concerns were about waking up in the middle of the night — sometimes multiple times — and not being able to fall back asleep. (Ho, 2/17)