Los Angeles Times: Valley Fever Strikes Attendees Of California Music Festival
California health officials are urging people who attended the Kern County music festival Lightning in a Bottle to seek medical care if they are experiencing respiratory symptoms or a fever. Authorities have identified five patients with valley fever who attended the six-day event, which was held May 22-27 at Buena Vista Lake, near Bakersfield. Three people have been hospitalized. More than 20,000 people attended the festival. (Rust, 7/29)

KVPR: Detection Of COVID-19 In San Joaquin Valley Wastewater Is On The Rise
According to new data from the California Surveillance of Wastewater Systems Network, the detection of COVID-19 in San Joaquin Valley wastewater has risen substantially and is now categorized as 'high.' The network tracks COVID-19 levels in wastewater across the state. (Arakelian and Linden, 7/29)

The Desert Sun: COVID Cases Rising In California, Approaching Summer 2022 Levels
If it seems like everyone is getting sick these days, there's some truth to that: COVID-19 cases in California are on the rise again. When looking at the state's wastewater data, this summer's levels are approaching those seen in the summer of 2022. (Sasic, 7/29)

ABC News: New Initiative Launched By WHO To Develop MRNA Bird Flu Vaccines
The World Health Organization announced Monday that it has launched an initiative to help accelerate the development of a human bird flu vaccine using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. The project, which will be led by Argentinian pharmaceutical company Sinergium Biotech, will aim to identify vaccine candidates for manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries, the WHO said. (Kekatos, 7/30)

The Washington Post: A Surprising Byproduct Of Wildfires: Contaminated Drinking Water
When the mayor of Las Vegas, N.M., issued a warning in 2022 to its 13,000 residents, it wasn’t over a fire — they had recently lived through the state’s largest wildfire in its history: Calf Canyon/Hermits Peak. The dire warning was that the city had 30 days of clean water left. The 2022 monsoon rains covered the Gallinas watershed, where cleared trees from the Santa Fe National Forest and ash-covered grounds made for flash-flood conditions. The storms introduced massive amounts of carbon from burned trees and plant life into the streams and reservoirs. Water treatment couldn’t keep up, making their stores undrinkable. (Wolfe and Steckelberg, 7/29)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Innovative San Ysidro Center Will Provide Refuge From Wildfires, Heat Waves And Power Outages 
Casa Familiar, the San Ysidro-based community development organization, is embarking on a new mission: protecting some of South County’s most underserved residents from extreme weather. (Murga, 7/29)

Voice of San Diego: We're About To Drink Toilet Water. What You Need To Know
Try driving up Morena Boulevard in Mission Valley, or north through Bay Park and Clairemont, and chances are you’ll be bottlenecked by an army of orange traffic cones demarking a huge construction project that will consume northern San Diego for years to come. The city of San Diego is currently building a massive wastewater-to-drinking water recycling system – but it must tear up the streets to do it. The new pipe route tunnels from Morena Pump Station near the San Diego International Airport, then 10 miles north to University City and then another 8 miles to Miramar Reservoir, the final stop for all our transformed toilet water. But wait – Why is San Diego drinking its own sewage in the first place? And how is that even possible? (Elmer, 7/30)

KVPR: American Red Cross Says Disasters Are More Frequent Since A Decade Ago
The American Red Cross says it is responding to twice as many major disasters as it did at this time a decade ago. (Rodriguez-Delgado, 7/29)

Los Angeles Times: Supervisors Set To Reaffirm Policy Against Jailing Homeless People
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to take up a proposal Tuesday reaffirming its policy against criminalizing homelessness — the latest response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing enforcement of anticamping laws. The five-member board is set to consider a motion clarifying that county’s jails “will not be used to hold people arrested due to enforcement of anti-camping ordinances” — an approach that is already in effect, according to Constance Farrell, spokesperson for County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath. (Smith and Zahniser, 7/29)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Chula Vista Taps Into Housing Fund For Homeless Prevention, Affordable Housing Development
Chula Vista will make $4 million available to developers to build an affordable housing project and more than $500,000 in services officials say will help protect people from becoming homeless. (Murga, 7/29)

Los Angeles Blade: LGBTQ Organizations Lambaste Newsom’s Order Clearing Homeless Encampments
Queer and homeless service organizations are criticizing an executive order issued by California Gov. Gavin Newsom on July 25, directing state agencies to begin dismantling homeless encampments on state land. The groups argue that the move criminalizes homelessness and will directly harm a population that is disproportionately queer and nonwhite, without addressing the homelessness crisis plaguing the state. Newsom’s order directs state agencies to adopt policies to “address encampments on state property” and encourages local governments to do the same. It mandates agencies to give at least 48 hours’ notice before removing encampments, contact service providers for people living at encampments, and store any personal belongings removed for 60 days. (Salerno, 7/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Generations Of Black Women Used Hair Relaxers. They Got Cancer
Before she was a partner at her San Francisco law firm, where she typically litigates reproductive health and environmental justice cases, Tiseme Zegeye was attending college on the East Coast and using hair relaxers to straighten her hair. In her early 20s, Zegeye, who is of Ethiopian descent, opted for a method that studies show most Black women in the U.S. use at some point in their lives — a liquid cosmetic applied to the scalp that chemically alters the texture of hair. The process, which can result in scalp irritation, chemical burns and sores, varies depending on hair type and typically lasts several weeks, or until new hair grows. (Hale, 7/30)

Modern Healthcare: How Pain Management Is Improving For Black, Hispanic Patients
Patients of color receive different pain care than white patients, and universities are turning to implicit bias training for clinicians and revamping medical school curricula to help fix the problem. Disparities between racial groups in pain management largely exist due to the widespread, incorrect belief among providers that race is biological rather than a social construct, according to experts. (Devereaux, 7/29)

Becker's Hospital Review: Inside Providence's 30% Reduction In Unused And Unreleased OR Block Time
Providence, a 51-hospital health system with central offices in Renton, Wash., and Irvine, Calif., recently set out to modernize its perioperative processes and support growth across its organization, which spans seven states. As part of those efforts, the health system is scaling a new AI platform for scheduling surgeries. Providence began rolling out iQueue for Operating Rooms by LeanTaas at its Washington and Montana hospitals in 2023 and has since expanded to other regions. (Gooch, 7/29)

Voice of OC: Does Orange County Need So Many Ambulance Operators?
Orange County leaders may soon be looking to unify ambulance response across the regions amidst concerns the existing system is too broken up between different operators. Those concerns are coming from a new report unveiled last week by Citygate Associates, a consulting firm that recommended the Orange County Fire Authority consolidate the ambulance and dispatch services across the county under one umbrella via a public-private partnership. (Biesiada, 7/30)

NPR: Misdiagnosis Is A Big Problem For Older Adults. Here's What Can Help
Errors in diagnosis are relatively common among older people. The reasons are many: older adults may have multiple conditions, take many medications, and illnesses can look very different in older people than they do in younger ones. Older adults may show different symptoms or none at all. And sometimes health care workers assume that whatever is bothering the patient is “because of your age.” All this can lead to older patients being either under-treated or over-treated. (Milne-Tyte, 7/30)

Times of San Diego: San Diego Women’s Foundation Gives $225,000 To Support Youth Mental Health
The San Diego Women’s Foundation (SDWF), a supporting organization of the San Diego Foundation (SDF), has given over $225,000 to address the youth mental health crisis in the county. On June 28, SDWF announced the three recipients of their Cycle 24 Community Partner Grant, a grant totaling $225,000 in unrestricted and multi-year funding. This year, SDWF has awarded $75,000 grants to Mending Matters, Monarch School Project, and Social Advocates for Youth San Diego. (Bradley, 7/29)

Becker's Hospital Review: California System Eyes Internal Pharmacy Opportunities With Partnership
Loma Linda (Calif.) University Health is collaborating with data analytics firm Loopback Analytics to level up the health system's specialty pharmacy services. Antony Gobin, PharmD, Loma Linda University Health's senior vice president of pharmacy services, told Becker's the Loopback partnership will help identify internal capture opportunities for the pharmacy. (Gregerson, 7/29)

CBS News: Drugs Used For Weight Loss Help People Stop Smoking, Study Finds
Semaglutide, the active ingredient in drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic, can help people lose weight — and a new study says it may also help people quit smoking. In the study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday, researchers found semaglutide was associated with lower risks for tobacco use disorder-related health care measures, including reduced smoking cessation medication prescriptions and counseling. (Moniuszko, 7/29)

Stat: FDA Approves Guardant Colorectal Cancer Screening Test In Big Step For Liquid Biopsy
The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a blood test intended to detect colon cancer, a product many experts hope will help catch cases of the disease early enough so that they can be more easily treated. (Herper, 7/29)

Stat: Study Warns Of More Heart Attacks If Statin Guidance Shifts
If millions of Americans no longer qualify for a statin or a blood pressure medication based on a new calculator updated to better predict their risk, that could lead to 107,000 more heart attacks and strokes over 10 years, a new study estimates. (Cooney, 7/29)

Becker's Hospital Review: 8 Drugs Now In Shortage
In the second quarter of 2024, there were 300 medications in shortage across the U.S. Here are eight new shortages to know about, according to drug supply databases from the FDA and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. (Twenter, 7/29)

CIDRAP: Most Antibiotic Prescriptions For Kids' Ear Infections Are Too Long, Study Finds 
A study conducted at two large pediatric academic healthcare systems found that three-quarters of antibiotic prescriptions for children with ear infections were longer than recommended, researchers reported last week in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. (Dall, 7/29)

Bloomberg: US Commits To Buying HIV Drugs Through African Suppliers
The US government is throwing its weight behind African production of antiretrovirals as the continent grapples the world’s largest HIV epidemic. The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program — known as Pepfar — has committed to expand its purchase of ARVs from local suppliers to cover 2 million African patients, said Stavros Nicolaou, the head of strategic trade at Aspen Pharmacare Holdings Ltd. (Kew, 7/29)

Stat: Transgender Health Research Faces Data Problem On HIV Modeling
Transgender people are at higher-than-average risk of contracting HIV. And yet, when epidemiologist Diana Tordoff set out to analyze how transmission of the virus might change in the U.S. over the next 10 years with increased testing and preventative PrEP medication, she found there wasn’t enough existing data on trans and nonbinary people to answer the question for those populations. (Gaffney, 7/30)

Military.com: Special Needs Military Families Report Mixed Feelings About Program To Help With Medical Care, Services 
A new Pentagon survey of military families with special needs members found that less than half were satisfied and 57% were dissatisfied or had no opinion about the Exceptional Family Member Program, or EFMP, though reactions varied by military branch. The Defense Department surveyed 100,000 active-duty troops enrolled in EFMP from November 2022 through March 2023 to gauge satisfaction with programs for special needs families provided by the military services. (Kime, 7/29)

San Francisco Chronicle: Here Are All Ballot Measures Expected In S.F.’s November Election
San Francisco is notorious for its long ballots that frequently ask voters to weigh in on a dizzying array of issues, and this year is no different. So far over a dozen charter amendments, bonds and local initiatives have qualified for the November ballot, including measures that would fund affordable housing, public safety, youth and family services, create a new inspector general position and institute several government reforms. (Toledo, 7/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Why JD Vance Worries About Childlessness 
After joining the Senate last year, JD Vance became one of the most outspoken lawmakers about the decline in U.S. fertility. The issue has long been on Vance’s mind. In an interview in April with The Wall Street Journal, Vance described low fertility as having many causes, no simple remedy and negative consequences beyond simply a smaller workforce and less sustainable programs such as Social Security. (Ip and Adamy, 7/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Harris Puts Abortion, A Weakness For Trump, At Center Of Campaign
After locking up the support to be the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris’s campaign launched a blitz of abortion-related campaign activities Monday, including events hosted by second gentleman Doug Emhoff and advocates. The campaign also released a video with the vice president condemning a new abortion law in Iowa, hoping to energize women and independent voters with her promise to protect abortion rights. (Lucey, Kusisto and Salama, 7/29)

Politico: Kamala Harris’ Call For ‘Reproductive Freedom’ Means Restoring Roe
Kamala Harris jumped into the presidential race with a broad pledge to “restore reproductive freedom.” The Harris campaign specified Monday that she’s calling for restoring Roe v. Wade. While many abortion-rights groups are championing her bid for the White House, some activists are frustrated with her position on the issue and plan to keep pushing to go further than President Joe Biden. (Messerly and Ollstein, 7/29)

AP: Russia Is Relying On Americans To Spread Election Disinformation, Officials Say 
The Kremlin is turning to unwitting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race, top intelligence officials said Monday, detailing the latest efforts by America’s adversaries to shape public opinion ahead of the 2024 election. The warning comes after a tumultuous few weeks in U.S. politics that have forced Russia, Iran and China to revise some of the details of their propaganda playbook. What hasn’t changed, intelligence officials said, is the determination of these nations to seed the internet with false and incendiary claims about American democracy to undermine faith in the election. (Klepper, 7/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Trump Shooter Began Buying Guns, Bomb Materials More Than a Year Ago, FBI Says
The gunman who tried to assassinate Donald Trump began making dozens of gun-related purchases and stocking up on bomb-making materials more than a year ago, FBI officials said Monday, the strongest indication yet that he had been planning an attack well before he opened fire on the former president. Thomas Matthew Crooks made 25 different gun-related buys online between spring 2023 and the first half of this year, and bought material used in explosives six times, officials said, offering new glimpses into their far-ranging investigation into the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania. Crooks made the purchases online using an alias. (Gurman and Barber, 7/29)

The Wall Street Journal: Biden Calls For Supreme Court Reforms, Constitutional Amendment To Limit Presidential Immunity
President Biden called Monday for a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s recent decision awarding former presidents immunity for crimes they commit while in office—and endorsed proposals for a mandatory ethics code and 18-year term limit for justices. “In recent years, extreme opinions that the Supreme Court has handed down have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections,” Biden said, speaking at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. He cited decisions that the court’s right-leaning majority views as landmark achievements, including rulings that limited federal voting-rights protections, overturned Roe v. Wade and ended affirmative action in college admissions. (Bravin, 7/29)

The New York Times: How The Current Supreme Court Would Look Under Biden’s Term-Limit Plan 
Under Mr. Biden’s term-limit plan, presidents would appoint a new Supreme Court justice every two years. If that rule had already been in effect over the past two decades and each justice had served the full 18-year term, the court’s ideological split would be flipped, as this chart shows. (Shao, 7/29)

Modern Healthcare: Chevron Ruling Could Boost Rural Hospital Medicare Pay
A small hospital in Washington state and 800 other so-called “tweener” hospitals could gain an important label and more financial security in a post-Chevron world. The 67-bed Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles, Washington, is too large to be considered a critical access hospital and too small to be a rural referral center. Critical access hospitals with no more than 25 beds are paid 101% of their costs for many Medicare services. (Kacik, 7/29)

The Washington Post: Medical Worker On Trial In Leak Of Justice Ginsburg’s Health Records
As Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sought to privately battle cancer, federal prosecutors said Monday, her health records reached a dark corner of the internet where users floated antisemitic conspiracy theories. Her information, according to prosecutors and court testimony from an FBI agent, was accessed by a former organ transplant coordinator while she was under the care of George Washington University Hospital in 2019 and then posted to the online message board 4chan, which is known for salacious and conspiracy-themed discussions. (Rizzo, 7/29)