Becker's Hospital Review: California Hospital CEO Exits After 10 Months
After less than a year in the role, Christopher Bjornberg is no longer CEO of Brawley, Calif.-based Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District, the hospital board confirmed in a statement shared with Becker's on Sept. 9. (Kuchno, 9/9)

Becker's Hospital Review: Workers Push Back On California Hospital's Proposed Closures
California Nurses Association members are condemning a proposal to end births and intensive care services at the 49-bed Santa Paula (Calif.) Hospital on Oct. 15, relocating them to the 272-bed Ventura County Medical Center about 15 miles away. The members, including nurses and healthcare workers from Ventura County, announced plans to hold an informational picket and address the county board of supervisors on Sept. 10 to oppose the board's approval of the proposal. (Gooch, 9/9)

The San Joaquin Valley Sun: Valley Children's Nurses Could Lose Out On Tens Of Thousands In Unpaid Wages For A Mere $50. Here's Why.
As it faces a growing number of lawsuits from its nurses, Valley Children’s Hospital is proposing to pay its healthcare workforce around $50 each in a settlement over a class action lawsuit over alleged violations of labor law. But some employees could be missing out on tens of thousands of dollars in claims from the hospital over a dispute on unpaid wages if the settlement is ultimately approved. (Gligich, 9/9)

CBS News: Bay Area Surgeon Says AI Is Advancing Rapidly Into Hospitals And Operating Rooms
The healthcare industry is on the brink of a technological revolution, with AI poised to reshape decision making before, after, and even during surgical procedures. Dr. Curt Langlotz, the director of the Center for AI in Medicine and Imaging at Stanford University said this new technology holds a lot of promise, as long as it's used responsibly. (Hod, 9/9)

Becker's Hospital Review: $1.5M Kaiser Grant To Create Health Equity Playbook
Black Directors Health Equity Agenda, a Chicago-based coalition of Black board directors, seeks to address health disparities in public hospitals and community health centers with a $1.5 million grant from Kaiser Permanente. Announced Sept. 5, the grant from Kaiser Permanente's fund at the East Bay Community Foundation will enable BDHA to create a health equity playbook for healthcare board directors and executive leaders, according to the coalition's news release. (Gooch, 9/9)

CBS News: Mammogram Patients Will Soon Have To Be Told About Their Breast Density. Here's What To Know
Mammography facilities will soon have to notify patients about the density of their breasts, a step aimed at improving early detection of breast cancer. The new rule, which goes into effect Tuesday, was part of updated mammography regulations outlined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year. While similar laws have already been enacted in many states, including Colorado and Minnesota, this is the first nationwide regulation. (Moniuszko, 9/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Novartis Is Building Manufacturing Site In Carlsbad To Bolster Precision Cancer Treatment 
Pharmaceutical giant Novartis is building a new manufacturing facility in Carlsbad that will help expand the production of its precision cancer treatments. (Rocha, 9/9)

The New York Times: Almost 50 Million Americans Have Had An Obamacare Plan Since 2014
Nearly 50 million Americans have been covered by health insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces since they opened a decade ago, according to tax data analyzed by the Treasury Department and published on Tuesday. Federal officials said that the findings represent roughly one in seven U.S. residents, a broad swath of the population that underscores the vast, and seemingly irreversible, reach of the 2010 law. (Weiland, 9/10)

Managed Healthcare Executive: The Affordable Care Act: A Strong Card For Harris And The Democrats As Trump Says He Can Improve Upon It
Many provisions of the Affordable Care Act are popular and the healthcare reform law has brought the proportion of Americans without healthcare insurance down to an all-time low. As president, Donald Trump backed "repeal and replace" efforts. (Kaplan, 9/9)

KCRA: What Is Prop 35? Makes A Permanent Tax On Health Insurance Providers
Proposition 35 asks California voters to make permanent a tax on health insurance providers, also known as managed care organizations. The measure also sets rules around how the state uses the money collected from that tax. California has expanded those who are eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program. Healthcare providers have complained the state reimburses doctors, nurse practitioners and others too little for providing services to Medi-Cal patients. The measure requires the state to use the money collected from the tax to be used only to reimburse those Medi-Cal providers for primary, specialty and emergency care plus family planning, mental health and prescription drugs. (Zavala, 9/9)

CalMatters: LA Homeless Authority Sued Over Secret Shelter Records
A string of sexual assaults in Los Angeles shelters. A brutal murder in a motel transformed into emergency pandemic housing. Rats, roaches and garbage piling up in supposed safe havens. What else is happening inside homeless shelters in California’s biggest city? CalMatters filed a lawsuit last week to find out, after the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority repeatedly denied our attempts to inspect shelter incident reports under California’s Public Records Act. The law allows the public broad access to governmental records. (Hepler, 9/9)

Voice of San Diego: How The City’s Responding To The Loss Of Hundreds Of Shelter Beds
By early next year, the city will be down hundreds of homeless shelter beds. City officials have yet to publicly reveal how they will replace most of them within the next few months. For now, Mayor Todd Gloria is sharing one major piece of the plan the city could execute this fall: expanding two homeless campsites in Balboa Park to accommodate dozens of additional tents. (Halverstadt, 9/10)

LAist: LA’s Extreme Heat Is Making The Air Worse To Breathe. Here’s Why
No, it’s not just in your mind. The Southland’s heat waves really do make the air extra gross to breathe. That’s because high heat helps accelerate a molecular reaction in the air, resulting in the production of one of the main ingredients in smog: ozone. “There is a lot of evidence now on how heat and poor air quality together could have a worse impact on health than each one of them alone,” said Rima Habre, a USC associate professor of environmental health and spatial sciences. (Hernandez, 9/9)

San Diego Union-Tribune: San Diego County, Schools And Air Pollution Control Officers Answer To Reports Of 'Unhealthy Levels' Of Toxic Gas Near Tijuana River
Discovery of a second, potentially lethal gas in the Tijuana River Valley where sewage from Mexico routinely spills over the border into south San Diego communities prompted South County school districts to cancel outdoor activities Monday and officials to reiterate calls for emergency assistance. (Murga, 9/9)

Los Angeles Times: Human Activity Fuels Two-Thirds Of Global Methane Emissions
The world is moving in a perilous direction when it comes to planet-warming methane emissions, which are soaring to record highs driven largely by human activity, new research warns. Although many people associate methane with cow burps and melting permafrost, a paper published this week in the journal Earth System Science Data found that global methane emissions over the last five years have risen faster than ever — and at least two-thirds of those emissions are now coming from human sources. (Smith, 9/10)

MSN: COVID-19: New XEC Strain 'Just Getting Started' Sparks Concern Amid Summer Wave Of US Cases
A newly discovered more contagious COVID-19 strain spreading rapidly through Europe is sparking concerns among health authorities around the globe as the United States is experiencing its largest wave of cases in over two years. XEC, which was first identified in Germany, may eventually overtake the current dominant subvariant, KP.3.1.1, which is currently most common in the United States, accounting for about 42 percent of cases nationally according to data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released on Saturday, Aug. 31. (Lombardi, 9/8)

Financial Express: Antibody That Can Counter All Variants Of COVID-19 Discovered
A team of researchers has discovered an antibody that can counter all known variants of the COVID-19 virus. The scientists also claim the antibody can also resist distantly related viruses that infect other animals.SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus causing COVID-19, uses its spike protein to invade and infect another individual, or the host. Antibodies, produced by the host in response, bind to the spike protein to block its action and prevent infection. The researchers, led by those at The University of Texas in Austin, US, isolated the antibody ‘SC27’ from the plasma donated by four patients. These patients had breakthrough infections, which occur when a vaccinated individual gets infected. The findings of the study were published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. (9/10)

The New York Times: Teen Girls’ Brains Aged Rapidly During Pandemic, Study Finds
A study of adolescent brain development that tested children before and after coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in the United States found that girls’ brains aged far faster than expected, something the researchers attributed to social isolation. The study from the University of Washington, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, measured cortical thinning, a process that starts in either late childhood or early adolescence, as the brain begins to prune redundant synapses and shrink its outer layer. (Barry, 9/9)

CIDRAP: Cancer Diagnoses Lagged Into Year 2 Of Pandemic 
Cancer diagnoses in the United States dropped almost 10% below expected rates in 2020 as people missed annual screenings, and medical clinics closed in the early months of the pandemic. (Soucheray, 9/9)

NBC News: Apple Will Start Selling AirPods With Built-In Hearing Aids
Apple said Monday that a version of its latest AirPods earbuds will come with built-in hearing aids, which it says would help more than 1 billion people globally. The feature on the AirPods Pro, which Apple describes as equivalent to an over-the-counter hearing aid, is designed for users with mild to moderate hearing loss. After users take hearing tests on iPhones or iPads running iOS 18, their AirPods will make "personalized dynamic adjustments" to allow them to properly hear their immediate listening environments, with sounds boosted to prescribed levels in real time. (Wile and Yang, 9/9)

Modern Healthcare: Mental Health Parity Rule Finalized By Biden Administration
Health insurance companies will have to upgrade their mental health benefits to match the coverage they offer for other care under a final rule three federal departments issued Monday. The latest mental health parity regulation from the Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury departments, first proposed in July 2023, builds on decades of policymaking designed to promote access to behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment. (Early, 9/9)

Modern Healthcare: Congressional Fighting Could Derail Healthcare Agenda —Again
Congress returns this week with little time to pass annual spending bills that fund agencies including the Health and Human Services Department — but a new fight over migrant voting threatens to derail those efforts. Lawmakers are supposed to pass 12 appropriations bills before the start of each new fiscal year Oct. 1. When lawmakers left town at the end of the July, the House had passed just five, despite Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) pledge to pass them all. The Senate had passed none. (McAuliff, 9/9)

Stat: House Passes Bill That Targets China Biotechs
The House Monday passed a bill by 306 to 81 votes to make drug companies stop doing business with some Chinese biotechs within eight years if they want to remain in good standing with the federal government. (Wilkerson, 9/9)

AP: Trump Signals Support For Reclassifying Pot As A Less Dangerous Drug, In Line With Harris' Position
Donald Trump has signaled support for a potentially historic federal policy shift to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, putting his position in line with that of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris. The commonality reflects a major shift toward broad public support for legalization in recent years and marks the first time that both major-party presidential candidates support broad cannabis reform, according to the U.S. Cannabis Council. (Whitehurst and Matat, 9/9)

Military.com: $12 Billion More For VA Medical Budget Urgently Needed, Department Says 
If Congress does not include extra funding for Department of Veterans Affairs medical services in an upcoming stopgap spending bill, the department will struggle to keep up with demand for care, administration officials are warning. On a conference call with reporters Monday, VA officials confirmed they are asking Congress to include an extra $12 billion for the department's medical budget in the upcoming stopgap spending measure -- which must be passed into law by the end of the month -- to ensure outreach to veterans and growth of the system can continue apace without compromising wait times and staffing levels. (Kheel, 9/9)

CBS News: Trump And Harris' Views On Abortion And IVF Access, Explained 
Trump and Harris have talked about their stances on abortion and what the future might hold for abortion access if elected in the 2024 presidential election. (Quinn, 9/10)

NPR: Harris Campaign Launches 'Reproductive Freedom' Bus Tour In Key States
As former President Trump struggles with messaging on the issue of abortion, Vice President Harris’ campaign is making a major push focused on the issue. The Harris campaign is running ads focused on reproductive rights in several key states, and recently launched a bus tour that will make about 50 stops focusing on battleground states between now and Election Day, Nov. 5. (McCammon, 9/10)

The New York Times: Kagan Sees Threats To Everyday Rights Beyond Abortion
Justice Elena Kagan said on Monday that Americans were right to worry about the future of rights that form the fabric of their everyday lives — such as access to contraception and interracial and gay marriage — since the Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. Justice Kagan said that in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, her colleagues had overturned the right to abortion with a historical argument that American women had not been free to have the procedure earlier in the nation’s history. (Kantor, 9/9)

Reuters: US Supreme Court's Kagan Says Emergency Docket Does Not Lead To Court's Best Work 
Justice Elena Kagan said the U.S. Supreme Court would be better off spending less time hurrying through cases on its emergency docket. "It's a very hard problem," Kagan said on Monday in an hour-long interview with a professor at New York University's law school. "I don't think we do our best work in this way." (Stempel, 9/9)

Reuters: Trojan Condoms Contain 'Forever Chemicals,' Lawsuit Claims 
A new lawsuit on Monday claims that Trojan condoms are not safe because they contain toxic "forever chemicals," which have been linked to cancer. In a proposed class action filed in Manhattan federal court, the plaintiff Matthew Goodman said Church & Dwight's (CHD.N), opens new tab products, advertised as "America's #1 Condom," are unfit for their intended purpose because they contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. (Stempel, 9/9)