The Desert Sun: Desert Healthcare District Seeks Public Input On Tenet Hospital Lease
As the Desert Healthcare District and Foundation continues to discuss Tenet Healthcare's proposed lease for Desert Regional Medical Center, it will now also seek the public's opinion on a key proposal. (Sasic, 1/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: Healthgrades' 50 Top Hospitals For 2024 
Healthgrades has recognized 250 hospitals nationwide for exceptional care via its "America's Best Hospitals" awards, released Jan. 23. Three lists feature America's 50, 100 and 250 best hospitals, which represent the top 1 percent, 2 percent and 5 percent of hospitals in the nation, respectively. (Taylor, 1/23)

Becker's Hospital Review: Highest-Paying States For 6 Nurse Professions 
California was the top-paying state for three nursing professions. (Taylor, 1/22)

Becker's Hospital Review: Former California Clinic Owner Gets Prison For Fraud Scheme
The former president and CEO of Whittier, Calif-based Santa Maria's Children and Family Center was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for submitting fraudulent claims to the state's Medicaid program. In addition to a 124-month prison sentence, Vincenzo Rubino, 59, of Valencia, Calif., was ordered to pay more than $3.8 million restitution, according to a Jan. 22 news release. He was also ordered to pay a money judgment of more than $2.3 million. (Cass, 1/23)   

San Diego Union-Tribune: Salk Institute Biologist Ron Evans Wins Coveted Japan Prize 
Ronald Evans, the Salk Institute biologist whose insights about hormones have helped scientists develop more effective drugs for cancer, diabetes and heart disease, was awarded the Japan Prize Tuesday for his work in the fields of medical and pharmaceutical science. (Robbins, 1/23)

San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Doctors Use AI To Make Smarter Diagnoses Of Lower Back Pain MRIs
Artificial intelligence can already answer questions and produce fantastical images from a few short words. Now, increasingly, it is helping doctors analyze images from inside patients’ bodies to identify disease in new ways. Researchers at UCSF are harnessing AI to read medical scans such as MRIs and help spot nuances or connections that even the most highly trained clinical professionals might miss. The software can more exactly quantify degradation, identify links between disparate symptoms, collect higher quality data, and even reduce the time patients have to spend inside claustrophobic scanners. (DiFeliciantonio, 1/24)

The New York Times: Gene Therapy Allows An 11-Year-Old Boy To Hear For The First Time 
Aissam Dam, an 11-year-old boy, grew up in a world of profound silence. He was born deaf and had never heard anything. While living in a poor community in Morocco, he expressed himself with a sign language he invented and had no schooling. Last year, after moving to Spain, his family took him to a hearing specialist, who made a surprising suggestion: Aissam might be eligible for a clinical trial using gene therapy. On Oct. 4, Aissam was treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, becoming the first person to get gene therapy in the United States for congenital deafness. The goal was to provide him with hearing, but the researchers had no idea if the treatment would work or, if it did, how much he would hear. The treatment was a success, introducing a child who had known nothing of sound to a new world. (Kolata, 1/23)

The Bakersfield Californian: Valadao Proposes Bill To Eliminate 'Marriage Penalty' For Disabled Receiving Benefits 
All Kelly Kulzer-Reyes wants as a parent is for her daughter with Down syndrome, Amelia, 11, to live a life without barriers. However, Kulzer-Reyes has fought an uphill battle to ensure her daughter and other individuals with developmental disabilities get the rights that they deserve. (Nguyen, 1/23)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Majority Of County Supervisors Support March Ballot Measure Giving State Larger Share Of Mental Health Funds 
Though some of its members said they are concerned about losing control of millions in state mental health funds, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday to endorse Proposition 1, the $6.38 billion bond that would leverage revenue from California’s existing millionaire tax to build more facilities for those who need mental health and substance abuse treatment. (Sisson, 1/23)

San Diego Union-Tribune: Two Homeless Shelters Were Evacuated Amid San Diego's Historic Storm. Only One May Fill Back Up.
Monday’s historic rainfall fell hard on the thousands of people who live on San Diego streets as well as residents of two shelter sites. Around 160 had to leave the city’s first designated camping area, while more than 320 escaped the Alpha Project tent, which may be damaged beyond repair. (Nelson and Alvarenga, 1/23)

Sacramento Bee: A Record 250 Homeless People Died In Sacramento In 2022
Two hundred and fifty homeless people died in Sacramento in 2022, according to new coroner data — more than ever before. The list for 2023, which is still being finalized, is currently at 227, and is expected to surpass 250. The number has been climbing steadily since 2020, when there were 137 deaths. In 2013, there were a fraction of the deaths, 60, according to an annual report from the Sacramento Regional Coalition to End Homelessness. (Clift, 1/24)

Voice of OC: Orange County To Open New Emergency Shelters In Anaheim As Homeless Deaths Rise 
Orange County leaders have been facing questions from homeless advocates for months on when they were going to open an emergency shelter for the thousands of homeless residents on the street. Now – a month into winter – Anaheim is set to receive just over $137,000 from the county to house 50 homeless people spread across a series of local churches with the help of Love Anaheim, a coalition of faith groups and other nonprofits focused on helping the city, according to their website. (Biesiada, 1/24)

San Francisco Chronicle: This Bay Area County Adopts Plan To Force Homeless Into Shelter
The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a controversial proposal that aims to “encourage” homeless residents at illegal encampments to accept shelter or be charged with a misdemeanor. The “Hopeful Horizons” ordinance, introduced by Board President Warren Slocum and Supervisor Dave Pine, would allow authorities to charge people living in encampments on public property with a misdemeanor after a person is given two written warnings and if a person declines shelter twice, the county said. The ordinance requires a second reading and vote to take effect, the county said. (Parker, 1/23)

Times of San Diego: County Supervisors Advance 'Street Health' Proposal To Help Unsheltered San Diegans 
The county Board of Supervisors Tuesday unanimously approved the development of a regional “street health” initiative to help homeless people with behavioral health care, vaccine access and self-sufficiency programs. Supervisors directed Sarah Aghassi, interim chief administrative officer, to work with the Health and Human Services Agency, street medicine providers, consumers and managed care Medi-Cal plans to develop the program and report back within 90 days. (Ireland, 1/23)

Los Angeles Times: California Inmate Died After Not Being Given His HIV Medicine, Suit Says 
The last time Lesley Overfield went to see her son in jail, everything had changed. She visited El Dorado County Jail every two weeks or so, and when she’d previously seen him, he’d been fine, walking and talking and looking healthy. But on April 22, when she visited her 38-year-old, HIV-positive son at the facility near Lake Tahoe and the Nevada border, he was completely different. Nicholas Overfield was in a wheelchair. He was unable to lift the phone to talk with his mother from behind the glass partition in the visiting room. Then he leaned forward and put his head down on the table. The two never spoke on that visit. Two months later, he was dead of a viral infection, varicella zoster virus encephalitis, which is among the conditions associated with AIDS, according to his family’s attorney, Ty Clarke. Medical records show that Overfield was not administered his HIV antiretroviral medications while in jail. Now, Lesley Overfield is suing over her son’s death. (Goldberg, 1/24)

CalMatters: As California Closes Prisons, State Spending Per Inmate Hits A New Record
The cost of imprisoning one person in California has increased by more than 90% in the past decade, reaching a record-breaking $132,860 annually, according to state finance documents. That’s nearly twice as expensive as the annual undergraduate tuition — $66,640 — at the University of Southern California, the most costly private university in the state. (Hwang and Duara, 1/23)

KQED: In California, Anti-Abortion Centers Outnumber Abortion Clinics
Despite California’s reputation as a sanctuary state for abortion rights, it is also home to hundreds of “crisis pregnancy centers” located directly next to abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood. These centers are designed to look like community health clinics, but most of them don’t have a medical license. And they have an explicit goal: to persuade people not to have an abortion. (Guevarra, 1/24)

Reuters: Biden Administration Urges US Supreme Court To Reverse Abortion Pill Curbs
A 2023 judicial decision that would curb access to the abortion pill threatens to disrupt the authority of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and harm the American healthcare system, President Joe Biden's administration told the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, urging the justices to reverse the ruling. The Justice Department filed a written brief outlining its main arguments to preserve broad access to the pill, called mifepristone, in its appeal of an August decision by the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that barred telemedicine prescriptions and shipments by mail of the drug. (Chung, 1/23)

Axios: DOJ Tells SCOTUS Curbing Abortion Pill Access "Threatens Profound Harms"
The Biden administration told the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday that a lower court's decision to curtail the widely used abortion pill mifepristone would have "disruptive consequences" for women and the FDA if it's allowed to stand. (Falconer, 1/24)

The Washington Post: Haley’s Calls For ‘Consensus’ On Abortion Draw Mixed Interpretations 
After Nikki Haley recently fielded questions from reporters at a seafood restaurant here, she stopped to greet a diner who wanted to talk about the Republican candidate’s call for “consensus” on abortion at the federal level. “There is no consensus on that; that’s the problem,” the woman told Haley. “No, but that’s why we’ve got to quit demonizing that issue,” Haley then said, identifying areas she said are suitable for compromise such as access to contraception, banning late-term abortions, and ensuring that women who have abortions do not face jail time or the death penalty. (Wells, 1/23)

Los Angeles Times: Monterey Park shooting survivors dance again in sadness, solidarity: ‘Nothing can kill our spirit’
Cindy Lao’s line dance was destroyed by gunfire a year ago, but her spirit wasn’t. On Sunday, the one-year anniversary of the deadliest mass shooting in modern Los Angeles County history, Lao led a small group of people onto a makeshift dance floor at World Seafood Restaurant. The Alhambra eatery was hosting a banquet for survivors of the Monterey Park mass shooting. “I was fortunate,” said Lao, a dance instructor at Star Ballroom Dance Studio, the site of the massacre. “I feel lucky I can live today. And tonight, I was dancing for the 11 people who left us that evening, with a heavy heart and deep sadness.” (Lin and Park, 1/22)

San Francisco Chronicle: Judge Halts California Law Requiring Police To Submit Gender Identity
A judge halted enforcement Tuesday of a new statewide rule requiring law enforcement officers to disclose their own gender identity in reporting traffic stops to a California antidiscrimination board. As part of the state’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act, passed in 2015, California police officers are required to record information about people they stop and submit the data to the state, which compiles and analyzes the information in annual reports. Since Jan. 1, new regulations by Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office have required officers to also notify their employer whether they are cisgender, transgender or nonbinary, information the police agency relays to the state.  (Egelko, 1/23)

Orange County Register: ‘Like He Was Trapped In A Box’: The Oral History Of Bronny James’ Heart Scare – Orange County Register
Five and a half months later, the joy courses through Bronny James’ every movement. Sneakers squeak and music thumps within a sleeping Galen Center this Jan. 3, and James’ mouth twists into an O as he pulls a jumper from the corner. Lenses watch him, patiently, from the baseline, the ones he can never escape. He corkscrews a bounce pass during a pre-game drill with faux razzle. A showman. But only for himself, right now, and no one else. (Evans, 1/23)

NPR: Racism Linked To Health Risks, Brain Changes In Minorities
Scientists know that Black people are at a greater risk for health problems like heart disease, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease than white people. A growing body of research shows that racism in health care and in daily life contributes to these long-standing health disparities for Black communities. Now, some researchers are asking whether part of the explanation involves how racism, across individual interactions and systems, may physically alter the brain. (Hamilton, Carlson, and Ramirez, 1/24)