The (Santa Rosa) Press Democrat: Sonoma County Supervisors To Vote On Ambulance Rate Hike Tied To Inflation
Sonoma County Fire District, the county’s largest ambulance operator, is poised to receive a 2.4% ambulance rate increase, a far cry from what it was seeking only a few months ago. (Murphy and Espinoza, 9/8)

Modesto Bee: Modesto, County Reject Grand Jury Dispatch Recommendations
Stanislaus County and Modesto have proposed responses to a critical grand jury report on a 911 dispatch center dispute. Both entities agree with certain findings in the 2024-25 civil grand jury report but largely disagree with its recommendations and said they won’t implement them. The grand jury report, released June 25, scrutinized the issues related to the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office’s refusal to join other agencies in connecting with a new computer-assisted dispatch system at the Stanislaus Regional 911 center. (Carlson, 9/8)

VC Star: Oxnard Watchdog Led Drive Against Chemical Restraints In Nursing Homes
Long-term care watchdog Sylvia Taylor-Stein remembers visiting activity rooms in Ventura County nursing homes and finding clusters of residents so sedated they couldn't talk. (Kisken, 9/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: 21 Health System Rating Downgrades
Multiple hospitals and health systems have suffered downgrades to their financial ratings this year amid rising expenses, ongoing operating losses and challenging work environments. Here are 19 hospitals and health systems that received credit rating downgrades from Fitch Ratings or Moody’s Investors Service in 2025. (Cass, 9/9)

Modern Healthcare: August Jobs Report Shows Healthcare Jobs May Be Slowing
Healthcare was one of the few upbeat spots in the most recent jobs report but the shine may be starting to wear off. Labor Department employment data released Friday noted that job gains in healthcare helped offset weakness in other parts of the economy. That said, even in healthcare, the gains aren’t what they once were, as evidenced by new and revised figures. The report comes as the industry’s employers trim jobs up and down the ladder and hold positions open, preparing for the implications of the federal tax bill and uncertainty over tariffs. (DeSilva, 9/8)

Becker's Hospital Review: Hospital Group Urges Federal Probe Of Drugmakers' 340B Rebate Models: 5 Notes
The American Hospital Association is calling on federal regulators to launch an antitrust investigation into its claims of drug manufacturers’ actions regarding 340B rebate models. In a letter sent to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, the AHA accused several pharmaceutical giants of undermining the 340B drug pricing program through behavior the association said may violate federal competition laws. (Murphy, 9/8)

LAist: Construction Workers Are Getting Sick With Valley Fever In Riverside County. Why Are Cases Up?
Construction workers should keep an eye on their health in Riverside County. The area is on track to have more people sick with valley fever than last year, according to public health officials, who want residents to be on alert now because the peak of the season is still ahead. Valley fever has been steadily rising in the county and across the state over the last decade. It’s typically associated with the Central Valley, but it does show up in Southern California’s urban areas. Here’s what you should know. (Hernández, 9/9)

Bay Area News Group: East Bay MUD Adopts New UV Light Technology To Combat Water Quality Threats 
The East Bay Municipal Utility District’s newest $325 million addition to the Orinda Water Treatment Plant centers around a high-tech plan to use ultraviolet light as the primary decontamination strategy to combat rising organic matter found in the Mokelumne watershed. (Hunter, 9/9)

San Francisco Chronicle: Garnet Fire Produces Huge Smoke Plume, Air Quality Plummets In Sierra
The Garnet Fire, spreading in the Sierra National Forest in eastern Fresno County, has burned nearly 50,000 acres and is sending thick haze and hazardous air to nearby communities. By Monday morning, the air quality index ranged from the very unhealthy category in Yosemite Valley to the hazardous category in Tuolumne Meadows, Mammoth Lakes, Bishop and Lee Vining. Air quality temporarily deteriorated in Lake Tahoe, although the haze was expected to gradually clear throughout the day there. (Edwards, 9/8)

CalMatters: Mom Of CA Overdose Victim Pledges To Keep Fighting In Capitol
Christine Matlock Dougherty received the text just after noon on the last Friday in August. The mental health legislation she’d been advocating for in memory of her son was dead, held indefinitely by the state Senate Appropriations Committee in an annual culling of bills. Just like that. Poof. In the text, Sherry Daley, a lobbyist with the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals, which sponsored the bill, explained simply: “The bill was held. It won’t be moving forward this year. Sorry.” More than four years have passed since Dougherty lost her 23-year-old son, Ryan Matlock, to a fentanyl overdose after his insurance refused to cover his stay in residential treatment. (Wiener, 9/9)

Bay Area News Group: Oakland Nonprofit Is Analyzing Drugs For Users
As the social service providers handed out fruit snacks and water bottles on Thursday, down the block from a needle exchange on Berkeley’s University Avenue, they asked passers-by an unusual question: Did they want to “check” their drugs? (Stringer, 9/9)

The San Diego Union-Tribune: Downtown San Diego Encampments Are Down. Homelessness Countywide Is A Moving Target.
Encampment numbers in that area have repeatedly dropped since the City Council boosted penalties for sleeping outside in mid-2023. Before the camping ban passed, it wasn’t unheard of for teams with the Downtown San Diego Partnership to record around 2,000 individuals on local sidewalks. Now it’s been more than a year since the total broke 1,000. (Nelson, 9/8)

Los Angeles Times: Deaths And Grim Conditions In L.A. County Jails Prompt State Lawsuit
The California Department of Justice will sue Los Angeles County, Sheriff Robert Luna and his department for what Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called a “humanitarian crisis” inside the county jails. Inmates lack basic access to clean water and edible food, and are housed in unsafe, dirty facilities infested with roaches and rats, Bonta said in a news conference Monday. “More alarming, people are dying,” he said. (McDonald and Sheets, 9/8)

Military.com: Transgender Military Kids Face 'Profound Harm' From Health Care Restrictions, Lawsuit Alleges
Military families with transgender children are suing the Pentagon over the Trump administration’s efforts to cut off gender-affirming health care to military dependents. In a lawsuit filed Monday, three families are alleging that the administration’s moves go beyond a law that was passed last year to restrict gender-affirming care for military children and violate a separate law that says federal regulations cannot be “arbitrary and capricious.” (Kheel, 9/8)

Axios: White House Looking To Cut Certain Disability Benefits
Hundreds of thousands of a poor Americans are poised to get their disability benefits cut, as the Trump administration moves to reverse a Biden-era change. It would hurt low-income and disabled Americans at a time when inflation is driving up the cost of food and shelter; and further cuts to Medicaid and food benefits are on tap. (Peck, 9/8)

San Francisco Chronicle: Social Security Checks Are Going Away — What You Need To Know
The federal government will stop issuing paper checks for nearly all payments, including Social Security benefits and tax refunds, beginning Sept. 30. The change follows an executive order signed earlier this year by President Donald Trump directing agencies to move entirely to electronic payments. (Vaziri, 9/8)

The 19th: Trump Downplays Domestic Violence
President Donald Trump on Monday downplayed the severity of domestic violence crimes, saying that were it not for “things that take place in the home they call crime,” the administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., would have resulted in a bigger statistical reduction in crime. (Barclay, 9/8)

Bloomberg: FDA Head Says Government Hasn’t Started Writing Autism Report
US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said the federal government has not yet started writing a report on the possible causes of autism but reaffirmed a longstanding promise that it will be released “within a month.” Makary said last week’s Wall Street Journal story about the autism report was “premature.” (Cohrs Zhang, 9/8)

Politico: Trump Shares Video Highlighting Discredited Theory Linking Vaccines To Autism
President Donald Trump on Monday posted a video to his social media account promoting the discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. The decades-old video, in part, features David Geier, who Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tapped this spring to investigate links between vaccines and autism, alongside his father, Dr. Mark Geier, whose medical license was suspended following claims he endangered children with autism. (Messerly, 9/8)

Newsweek: Human Evolution May Explain High Autism Rates
Scientists have uncovered new evidence suggesting that autism may have it roots in how the human brain has evolved. "Our results suggest that some of the same genetic changes that make the human brain unique also made humans more neurodiverse," said the study's lead author, Alexander L. Starr in a statement. (Notarantonio, 9/9)

Stat: Kennedy Allies Rally As Vaccine Policies Pose Possible Rift With Trump
Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s aggressive moves to change vaccine policy — adopted by leaders at other federal health agencies — may be putting him at odds with President Trump himself. Now Kennedy’s allies are rallying to support him, believing the coming weeks and months will be key to cementing the Make America Healthy Again agenda in Washington. (Cirruzzo and Payne, 9/8)

The Hill: Democrats Urge Caution In Battle Over Vaccines, RFK Jr.
Democrats are jumping into the fray to voice their disapproval about Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the broader debate of rolling back vaccines, which was announced in Florida this past week. But after the public pushback on COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines on the heels of the pandemic, some voices in the Democratic Party are urging restraint, even as public opinion leans toward them and Republicans show their own divisions. (Parnes, 9/8)

Capital & Main: MAHA Promised Healthier Kids. But School Lunches May Deliver Less.
The rise of Make America Healthy Again arrived with big promises for kids: an end to chronic disease, a focus on nutrition and healthier school meals. For school food professionals and public health advocates, it seemed like an unexpected win that could benefit the millions of children who rely on federal school meals, often the most nutritious — and sometimes the only reliable — food they receive all day. That push to improve children’s health from a Republican administration was all the more surprising, considering the political attacks Michelle Obama endured when she campaigned to improve school nutrition. (Stukin, 9/8)

MedPage Today: NIH Chief Becomes Loomer's Next Target
The latest Trump administration official to field criticism from far-right activist Laura Loomer is NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD. Last week, Loomer posted a video on X showing Bhattacharya being confronted about the topic of animal testing as he entered the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C. Along with the video, Loomer alleged in her post that the NIH is extending animal testing grants and "issuing tens of millions of dollars in new grants that fund testing on dogs, cats and primates." (Henderson, 9/8)