Los Angeles Times: New California Law Takes A Step Toward Single-Payer Healthcare
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Saturday that sets the stage for California to work toward universal healthcare, such as a single-payer system that progressive activists have sought for years. The law could help California obtain a waiver that would allocate federal Medicaid and Medicare funds to be used for what could eventually become a single-payer system that would cover every California resident and be financed entirely by state and federal funds. (Sosa, 10/8)

CalMatters: Gavin Newsom Signs Law To 'Overhaul' Mental Health System
Gov. Gavin Newsom today announced he signed the first of a series of bills that aim to transform California’s mental health system. Depending on who you ask, this transformation represents a long overdue humanitarian response— or a worrisome step backward on civil liberties. Today’s signature loosens long-standing rules about who is eligible for involuntary treatment under the half century-old Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, the landmark mental health law that regulates involuntary civil commitment in the state. (Weiner, 10/10)

CNN: Red Dye No. 3: California Governor Signs Bill Banning It 
California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed a landmark law aimed at banning red dye No. 3 and other potentially harmful food additives in consumer goods. On Saturday, the Golden State became the first in the country to forbid the use of the ingredients found in many popular candies, drinks and more, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit environmental health organization that cosponsored the law with Consumer Reports. (Boyette, Rogers and Babineau, 10/9)

CalMatters: California Cosmetics Law Expected To Set National Precedent
Your favorite perfume, nail polish or hair dye may have to undergo a makeover by 2027 if it has one of 26 potentially toxic ingredients now banned by California. A new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will ban more than two dozen ingredients from cosmetics and other personal care products in California — and most likely the rest of the nation. (Sumagaysay,10/10)

San Francisco Chronicle: Gavin Newsom Signs Fentanyl-Focused Bills To Help Opioid Crisis
Gov. Gavin Newsom pointed to budget constraints and his administration’s existing opioid work in vetoing several bills to combat California’s fentanyl crisis, even as he signed others that aim to make addiction and overdose drugs more widely available. The state will require stadiums, concert venues and amusement parks to stock doses of opioid overdose reversal drugs under one new law Newsom signed. Another will require community colleges and California State University campuses to provide fentanyl test strips and inform students about how to access them. (Bollag, 10/9)

Los Angeles Times: Pharmacies Must Report Prescription Errors Under Bill Signed By Governor
For the first time, California pharmacies must report every prescription error under legislation signed by the governor Sunday. The measure — Assembly Bill 1286 — is aimed at reducing the estimated 5 million mistakes pharmacists make each year. ... In a survey of California licensed pharmacists in 2021, 91% of those working at chain pharmacies said staffing wasn’t high enough to provide patients adequate care. (Petersen, 10/9)

Los Angeles Times: Gov. Newsom Signs Bill To Make Rape Kits More Accessible To Students
Seeking to make rape kits more accessible to students, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Monday that will require most California universities and colleges to provide transportation for students to and from a sexual assault treatment center. Assembly member Akilah Weber (D-La Mesa) wrote Assembly Bill 1138, which will require schools to provide free and anonymous transportation to a treatment center that provides Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) exams or to contract with local organizations to provide the transportation. (Lin, 10/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Newsom Vetoes Bill To Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Friday that would have decriminalized psilocybin, aka magic mushrooms — but left the door open for California to reconsider it next year. Newsom, in his veto message, said the measure proposed by San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would have decriminalized possession before therapeutic protections are in place. (Garofoli, 10/7)

Los Angeles Times: Newsom Vetoes Bill That Would Allow Condoms To Be Freely Distributed To Public High School Students
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed legislation that would have provided teenagers attending public high school with access to free condoms and prohibited retailers from refusing to sell them to youths. Newsom said that although he agreed that providing condoms are “important to supporting improved adolescent sexual health,” the bill would have created an unfunded program that was not included in the state’s annual budget. (Sosa, 10/8)

The Sacramento Bee: Newsom Vetoes Cash Assistance For CA Undocumented Seniors
Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation late Sunday night that would have made undocumented seniors eligible for California’s cash assistance program. The bill, authored by Assemblyman Juan Carrillo, D-Palmdale, would have provided $1,100 to $1,900 per month to undocumented individuals who are blind, disabled or older than 65. Currently, California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) is limited to people with eligible immigration status. (Miranda, 10/9)

Pasadena Star News: Newsom Vetoes $1 Billion Fund For Troubled LA County Juvenile Halls, Camps 
Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill earmarking up to $1 billion to support infrastructure improvements at Los Angeles County’s embattled juvenile halls and camps. Newsom sent the bill, AB 695, back to the Assembly without his signature on Sunday, Oct. 8, saying he could not support it for financial reasons. (Henry, 10/9)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Strike Ends, Contract Negotiations To Resume
Members of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and health system leadership will return to the bargaining table Thursday following the coalition’s three-day strike last week. The strike, which involved more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente employees and affected dozens of facilities nationwide, ended Saturday at 6 a.m. Pacific time with no further agreements made on a contract between the coalition and the health system. (Devereaux, 10/9)

CNN: Kaiser Permanente Workers Warn Of Potential Second Strike
A coalition of unions representing thousands of Kaiser Permanente health care workers warned they will walk off the job again next month if a deal is not reached with their employer. Facilities across California, Washington, Oregon, Virginia and Washington DC have threatened to strike for a second time if a new labor contract is not agreed before November 1, after a contract for 3,000 more Kaiser employees in Seattle expires on October 31. (Delouya, 10/10)

Bay Area News Group: Kaiser Chops Jobs In Two East Bay Cities And In Southern California
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals has disclosed plans to trim scores of California jobs, most of them in the Bay Area, according to official filings with state labor officials. The healthcare titan revealed that it plans to eliminate 49 non-union jobs in California, the filings with the state Employment Development Department show. The Bay Area layoffs include a loss of 28 jobs, all in the East Bay, according to the WARN notices. (Avalos, 10/9)

Los Angeles Times: Healthcare Workers Kick Off 5-Day Strike At Four Hospitals Over Staffing Shortage, Labor Practices
Roughly 1,500 essential workers at four hospitals in Los Angeles County kicked off a five-day strike Monday morning to protest what they claim are dangerous working conditions and unfair labor practices by hospital management. ... The strike follows on the heels of what many called a “hot labor summer,” when writers, actors and hotel workers organized labor actions across Southern California. (Solis, 10/9)

Pasadena Star News: Workers Launch Strike At 4 Prime Healthcare Hospitals In Lynwood, Inglewood, Garden Grove And Encino
Rayleen Gentry is used to making tough choices. As a respiratory therapist in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood, she says those decisions are often dictated by a severe staffing shortage. (Smith, 10/9)

USA Today: Walgreens Pharmacists Stage Walkout Just Weeks After Similar Action By CVS Staffers
Just two weeks after dozens of CVS pharmacists protested unsafe working conditions by walking off the job in Kansas City, Walgreens pharmacists followed suit with their own walkout Monday that left stores shuttered or short-staffed across the nation’s second-largest retail pharmacy chain. The organizer estimated that several hundred pharmacists and pharmacy technicians participated in the protest, which will last through Wednesday. (Le Coz, 10/9)

CNN: Walgreens Walkout: 5 Things You Need To Know 
Some stores are remaining open with a skeleton emergency crew – an organizer told CNN that Walgreens had asked regional leaders to mobilize and staff the pharmacies on Monday. Many pharmacies that are open are severely understaffed as the majority of their employees called out today. Some stores said they were able to operate only their drive-thru pharmacy Monday and others said they would be closing early due to a lack of staff. (Goodkind, 10/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: UCSD Buys Alvarado Hospital, Bids To Partner With Tri-City 
Beset by crowded conditions at its two existing hospitals in La Jolla and Hillcrest, UC San Diego Health on Monday said it plans to add a third medical campus, signing a preliminary purchase agreement to buy Alvarado Hospital Medical Center from Prime Healthcare for $200 million. (Sisson, 10/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Small Fire Briefly Halts Surgeries At Kaiser's San Diego Medical Center 
Kasier Permanente’s San Diego Medical Center in Kearny Mesa temporarily halted surgeries Monday morning after a small electrical fire in the facility’s telecommunications equipment room took communications equipment offline. (Sisson, 10/9)

The Desert Sun: Eisenhower’s Latest Expansion Plan Approved. Here's What's Coming To The Campus
Eisenhower Health’s main campus in Rancho Mirage — already set to add a new cardiovascular center within the next few years — is poised to grow even larger, as the city council approved the hospital’s plans Thursday to build new memory care and childcare centers just across Country Club Drive. The memory care and childcare centers, along with a new administrative building for the hospital, are planned for a 4.31-acre site located southeast of the main hospital campus on the opposite side of Country Club Drive. The facility plans include 136 on-site parking spaces, along with supplemental parking across the street at the main hospital. (Coulter, 10/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Bristol Myers Squibb Buys San Diego Cancer Therapy Company For $4.8B 
Mirati Therapeutics, a San Diego biotechnology company developing commercial drugs for cancer treatment, was just purchased by a pharmaceutical giant for more than $4.8 billion. (Rocha, 10/9)

Marin Independent Journal: San Quentin Prisoner’s Widow Wins Key Ruling In COVID Lawsuit
A federal appeals court has ruled that a lawsuit filed by the widow of a San Quentin inmate who died of COVID-19 can move forward. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Tuesday reversed a lower court’s decision that would have prevented the suit from proceeding. (Halstead, 10/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: George Bailey Jail Complaint Cites Sickness, Feces, Racism 
Numerous men locked inside the George Bailey Detention Facility have become sickened after being forced to clean up human waste that regularly overflows from the jail’s aging plumbing, a new complaint to the civilian oversight board alleges. At least two people have contracted staph infections, the complaint adds. (McDonald, 10/8)

Bay Area News Group: When San Jose Police Confront People In Mental Health Crisis, Why Do They End Up Hurting Them So Often? 
Twice in a two-month span, a fragile, self-destructive Thompson “Tommy” Nguyen encountered San Jose police officers trained to deal with people in a mental health crisis. The first time, Nguyen’s family worried the officers might hurt Nguyen, and sent them away. The second time, police killed him. (Salonga, Rowan and Pickoff-White, 10/8)

The Hill: Long COVID Rare Among Children: CDC
New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has shed light on the rate at which long COVID affects children, indicating the condition occurs among only a small minority of them. In a new survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the CDC found that 1.3 percent of children had long COVID in 2022 and 0.5 percent now have it. (Choi, 10/9)

Reuters: Updated Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Shipped To Distributors, To Be Available This Week 
Vaccine maker Novavax Inc on Monday said it has shipped millions of doses its updated COVID-19 shots to distributors after receiving the go-ahead from U.S. regulators. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the updated vaccine last week for emergency use in individuals aged 12 years and older, but batches of the shots needed additional clearance from the FDA before they could be released. (Erman, 10/9)

Voice of OC: Orange County’s 911 Dispatchers Are Chronically Overworked; Can They Handle The Next Disaster?
Orange County’s biggest emergency dispatch center is struggling to staff itself, raising questions over whether there are enough 911 dispatchers. Call center operators are ringing alarm bells saying they’re already brutally overworked – they also warn that the impacts of so much forced overtime is triggering troubling questions about their own ability to handle the county’s next big emergency. (Biesiada, 10/10)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Mortgage Or Memory Care? An Alzheimer’s Diagnosis In San Diego Can Bring Cruel Financial Dilemmas
Alzheimer’s is a double-edged disease. People lose the capacity to make financial and legal decisions exactly when important decisions pop up. People spend more or make expensive mistakes exactly when financial discipline is key. (Popescu, 10/5)

The Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Closes Large Cannabis Complex For Code Violations 
The city of Sacramento has temporarily shut down a large cannabis manufacturing facility, swiftly prompting an explosive council meeting and a lawsuit. Officials on Oct. 2 ordered the closure of Natura, located on Elder Creek Road near Power Inn Road, citing fire code violations that make the Morrison Creek district buildings unsafe for its 450 employees. (Clift and Diamond, 10/9)

Bay Area News Group: ‘A Disturbing New Normal’: Why Have Chemical Releases At Martinez Refinery Continued?
The day before the local high school’s homecoming parade last week, the Martinez Refining Company posted on Facebook wishing students a happy homecoming. But just 24 hours later, the refinery quite literally cast a black cloud over the event. At 11 a.m. on Friday, October 6, an ominous plume of black dust bellowed up from the Martinez Refining Company and floated into the city’s downtown. (McCarthy, 10/9)