The Sacramento Bee: CA Bill Would Bar Tobacco Sales To Anyone Born In 2007 Or Later
In the ‘90s, it was a first-in the nation ban on smoking in most indoor locations. Last year, 63% of Californians voted to uphold a state law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products. Now, a proposal for a generational ban on tobacco sales. (Sheeler, 2/17)

The Sacramento Bee: ‘They’re Only Getting More Essential.’ California Home Caregivers Seek Statewide Bargaining Power
California’s in-home caregivers, a historically underpaid workforce that serves a rapidly aging population, could receive a significant boost in bargaining power under a new bill introduced Friday. (Miller, 2/17)

CalMatters: California Legislature: Last-Minute Rush Of Bills
California doesn’t really need 2,600 new laws, right? Nevertheless, state lawmakers proposed 500 new bills on Friday, the 2023 session’s introduction deadline, bringing the total to about 2,600. That’s the most in more than a decade, according to veteran Capitol lobbyist Chris Micheli. More than 1,000 are “placeholder” bills without specific language. Reminder: More bills are typically introduced in odd-numbered years, the first year of the Legislature’s two-year sessions. (Kamal, 2/21)

AP: Democratic Governors Form Alliance On Abortion Rights
Democratic governors in 20 states are launching a network intended to strengthen abortion access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision nixing a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy and instead shifting regulatory powers over the procedure to state governments. Organizers, led by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, described the Reproductive Freedom Alliance as a way for governors and their staffs to share best practices and affirm abortion rights for the approximately 170 million Americans who live in the consortium’s footprint — and even ensuring services for the remainder of U.S. residents who live in states with more restrictive laws. (Barrow and Mulvihill, 2/21)

Jefferson Public Radio: California Lawmakers Seek To Bolster The State As An “Abortion Sanctuary” 
Two bills introduced in the legislature this week would bolster California's status as an abortion haven: one expanding who can provide abortions and the other protecting data privacy of those seeking care. (Wolffe, 2/18)

San Francisco Chronicle: An Abortion Patient Navigator Shares The Biggest Challenges So Far
There are now two dozen staffers doing some form of patient navigation across California’s seven Planned Parenthood affiliates. (Garofoli, 2/19)

Los Angeles Times: Kids Under 5 Being Left Behind With COVID-19 Vaccines 
Black and Latino children in Los Angeles County younger than 5 have COVID-19 vaccination rates in the single digits, reflecting a broad trend nationwide that has public health experts concerned and seeking ways to boost those figures. (Evans, 2/21)

Orange County Register: Crisis Looms As Aging Boom, Dementia Increase Demand For Care For Elderly
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, in early 2020, about 4.5 million Americans were paid to work in eldercare, most at nursing homes, assisted-living facilities or as in-home aides. Over the next 24 months, more than 240,000 of those workers left the profession, a decline that made eldercare one of the country’s hardest-hit industries, at least in terms of pandemic-related job losses. Worse, thousands of the people who “left” eldercare did so because they were no longer alive. (Mouchard, 2/19)

Los Angeles Times: Heat Waves Are Killing More L.A. Homeless People
Although the unhoused population represents about 70,000 of Los Angeles County’s more than 9.8 million people, they accounted for nearly half — 5 in 12 — of deaths from heat illness or heat exposure last year, according to data from the coroner’s office. Half of those deaths occurred during August’s blistering “heat dome” or in the days immediately after. (Lin, 2/19)

San Francisco Chronicle: Bay Area Low-Income Housing Next To Toxic Dump
In 2007 there were high hopes for Bay Point’s marinas and the 250 acres that lie east of the railroad tracks in hardscrabble Contra Costa County. A redevelopment plan for this land that lies along Suisun Bay called for an expanded and upgraded harbor with housing, restaurants and a new boardwalk along the waterfront. Pacific Gas and Electric Co, which owns the property, had plans to clean up the metals and toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that Shell Oil Products Co. had dumped there decades earlier. (Dineen, 2/20)

Los Angeles Times: Mandatory Evictions For Arrested Tenants Face Ban Under Bill
California tenants and their families would no longer face mandatory eviction or exclusion based on their criminal histories or brushes with law enforcement under new legislation introduced Friday. Assembly Bill 1418 takes aim at local policies known as “crime-free housing,” which can force landlords to evict tenants accused of breaking the law or refuse to rent to those with prior criminal convictions. (Dillon, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: A California Grant That Helped Syringe Programs Is Drying Up 
The California Harm Reduction Initiative, which helped dozens of syringe programs hire staff and pay for operational expenses, dries up later this year. (Alpert Reyes, 2/19)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Police Launch Efforts To Combat Fentanyl Crisis In San Diego, Including Search Dogs And Overdose Maps
In an effort to combat the opioid overdose crisis, the San Diego Police Department is rolling out two new initiatives: police dogs trained to detect the drug fentanyl and software used to map where overdoses have occurred in the city. (Hernandez, 2/20)

Los Angeles Times: 'Tranq,' Aka Xylazine, May Worsen California Overdose Crisis
A new drug — a sedative normally used for animals — is increasingly making its way into the illicit drug trade in California, and local officials are concerned its arrival could worsen an already alarming overdose crisis. Traces of xylazine, commonly known as “tranq,” have been found to have contributed to a small number of overdose deaths in San Francisco and Los Angeles, indicating the drug commonly used by veterinarians to tranquilize animals has already started to make its way into illegal street drugs here. (Hernandez, 2/18)

Los Angeles Times: Federal EPA Urged To Assist In Troubled Exide Lead Cleanup
Amid California’s long struggle to hold an industrial polluter accountable and remove lead contamination from neighborhoods southeast of downtown Los Angeles, members of Congress are now calling on the federal Environmental Protection Agency to assist in the troubled cleanup of areas surrounding the closed Exide battery recycling plant — the largest and most costly effort in California history. (Garrison, 2/17)

Los Angeles Times: Progress On L.A. County Stormwater Capture Program Slowing 
Only weeks ago, Angelenos watched as trillions of gallons of precious stormwater poured into the region’s concrete waterways, slid down slick pavement and washed out to sea. After so many months of drought-related water restrictions, it seemed to many like a missed opportunity. (Smith, 2/21)

Politico: ‘My Kids Are Being Poisoned’: How Aviators Escaped America’s War On Lead
Veronica Licon and her pediatrician were stumped in 2011 when her son’s blood showed high levels of lead. Her home did not contain the usual culprits for childhood lead poisoning: lead paint or lead pipes. Paint can be removed. Pipes can be replaced. But Licon lives directly under the flight path to Reid-Hillview Airport in East San Jose, Calif. The small airplanes and choppers flying overhead run on leaded gasoline, dusting her home with a neurotoxin research links to lowered IQ and behavioral problems in children. There’s nothing Licon can do about that. (Wittenberg, 2/20)

Orange County Register: What Can Disneyland Do To Help Prevent Suicides At Its Parking Structures?
The second suicide in three months at Disneyland has raised the possibility that the Happiest Place on Earth will have to take proactive measures to help prevent people from taking their lives at the Anaheim theme park resort. A woman who jumped or fell from the Mickey & Friends parking structure on Saturday evening is the second apparent suicide at the Disneyland garage since December and the fifth since 2010. (MacDonald, 2/20)