KQED: San Francisco Prepares To Roll Out CARE Court
Gov. Gavin Newsom has been talking a big game about CARE (Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment) Court, the state’s new plan for treating people with severe mental illness. CARE Court, which every county in California will have to implement by next year, focuses on steering people suffering from severe psychosis, such as schizophrenia, and addiction into treatment. It will allow first responders, family members, clinicians and others to ask a judge to order treatment plans for unhoused people with severe psychotic disorders. (Guevarra, Montecillo, Esquinca and Shafer, 5/31)

Bay Area News Group: Santa Clara County Reports 1% Dip In Homelessness, Spike In Family Homelessness
Despite moving thousands of homeless people into permanent homes last year, Santa Clara County saw its unhoused population remain virtually unchanged, even as the number of homeless families spiked, according to preliminary results from its latest “point-in-time” count. The count, taken on a single night in January, identified 9,903 people living outdoors, in vehicles or in homeless shelters across the county. That was a 1% dip from the more than 10,000 homeless people counted at the start of last year. (Varian, 5/30)

Solving Sacramento: WellSpace’s ‘Crib’ Program Provides Temporary Alternative To Hospital Or Jail For Unhoused People In Crisis
WellSpace Health CEO Jonathan Porteus was walking toward his organization’s 24-hour crisis receiving center at 7th and H streets in Sacramento when he encountered a Regional Transit officer heading out the door. “I asked him what was going on,” Porteus, the CEO for 11 years, said about the recent encounter. “He goes, ‘Well, I just spent two minutes dropping a guy off.’” (Martarano, 5/30)

Los Angeles Times: Bass' Inside Safe Plan Faces Resistance In Downtown L.A.
Homeless outreach workers went to the streets of downtown Los Angeles last month and delivered what is now a seasoned sales pitch: Give up your spot on the sidewalk, and try living in a nearby hotel room instead. David Ruther, who has a tent on Broadway near the 101 Freeway, had an emphatic response: No way. (Zahniser, 5/30)

Los Angeles Times: Fentanyl Overdoses, Deaths Are A Daily Battle For L.A.’s Homeless Population
Fentanyl is fueling a surge in overdoses among unhoused people in Los Angeles, playing out as a daily battle for life and death in encampments. (Vives, 5/31)

NPR: Appeals Court Approves A Deal To Shield The Sackler Family From Opioid Lawsuits 
In a landmark ruling Tuesday, a federal appeals court in New York cleared the way for a bankruptcy deal for opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma. The deal will shield members of the Sackler family, who own the company, from future lawsuits. The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals spent more than a year reviewing the case after a lower court ruled it was improper for Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy deal to block future lawsuits against the Sackler family. (Mann, 5/30)

Axios: Court Ruling Casts Long Shadow Over Future Opioid Lawsuits
A federal appeals court on Tuesday potentially laid the groundwork for corporations to avoid legal exposure in future opioid lawsuits through a technicality in bankruptcy law. The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, as part of a proposed bankruptcy settlement, members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma could be shielded from current and future civil claims in exchange for paying up to $6 billion and giving up control of the company. (Moreno, 5/31)

AP: US Sanctions Chinese, Mexican Companies Over Pill Making Machinery
The United States Treasury sanctioned more than a dozen people and businesses in China and Mexico Tuesday that allegedly helped provide machines used to make counterfeit prescription drugs in the latest efforts to confront trafficking of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl. Those targeted for sanctions were all involved in one or another with the sale of pill press machines, molds and other equipment drug cartels use to produce counterfeit pills. (5/30)

California Healthline: Mood-Altering Mushroom Sales Bloom Despite Safety Concerns
The well-known “Amanita muscaria” mushroom is legal to possess and consume in 49 states. The market for gummies, powders, and capsules containing extracts of the fungus is raising eyebrows, though, amid concerns from the FDA and in the absence of human clinical trials. (Ogozalek, 5/31)

Modern Healthcare: Kaiser Permanente Invests $10M In Denver Health
The Oakland, California-based integrated health system will give a $5 million grant to Denver Health and another $5 million in matching funds if area organizations or other health systems financially support the safety-net hospital. Denver Health, which cares for about 30% of the city's population each year, including many indigent and uninsured residents at its 555-bed hospital and affiliated outpatient network, reported a $23.8 million operating loss in 2022 as its uncompensated care costs increased and its labor and supply costs swelled. (Kacik, 5/31)

Stat: New Survey Shows Racism Is A Huge Problem In Nursing 
A family nurse practitioner in New York City, Jose M. Maria has come to expect overt racism from patients. “I’ve been called the N-word, I’ve been called, you name it,” he said. A triple minority in nursing — Black, Latino, and male — he often gets mistaken for a janitor. More subtle racist behavior has come from supervisors and fellow nurses in past jobs, too — uncomfortable looks in the break room, extra questioning from supervisors over narcotics errors he’s responsibly reported and been cleared for. “I’ve felt I’ve had a target on my back.” (McFarling, 5/31)

California Healthline: How A Medical Recoding May Limit Cancer Patients’ Options For Breast Reconstruction
The federal government’s arcane process for medical coding is influencing which reconstructive surgery options are available, creating anxiety for breast cancer patients. (Pradhan, Werner, and Winick, 5/31)

The New York Times: Elizabeth Holmes Reports to Prison to Begin More Than 11-Year Sentence
Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced entrepreneur who was convicted of defrauding investors at her failed blood testing start-up, Theranos, reported to a federal prison in Texas on Tuesday to begin her 11-year, three-month sentence. Ms. Holmes surrendered to F.P.C. Bryan, a minimum-security prison camp for women roughly 90 minutes from Houston. She pulled up in a Ford Expedition that appeared to be driven by her mother, Noel Holmes. Her father, Christian Holmes, appeared to be inside. (Griffith, 5/30)

Reuters: Illumina CEO Survived Icahn's Challenge By More Than 2-To-1 Margin 
San Diego-based Illumina Inc. CEO Francis deSouza survived a challenge to his board seat from activist investor Carl Icahn last week by securing more than twice the shareholder votes than the number his challenger received, the company said in a filing on Tuesday. While the outcome of the vote was known, the tally had not been previously disclosed. It gives deSouza legitimacy to carry on after Icahn mustered enough shareholder support to oust Illumina's board chair John Thompson and install one of his board nominees, Andrew Teno. (Herbst-Bayliss, 5/30)

Orange County Register: LA City Attorney Wins $5M Settlement From Biggest U.S. Ghost Gun Manufacturer 
The nation’s largest manufacturer of ghost gun kits must pay millions of dollars in penalties and must conduct customer background checks and include serial numbers on its products sold throughout California, under a settlement won by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office. The settlement includes $5 million in payouts, according to City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office, which made the announcement Tuesday, May 30. That includes $4 million in civil penalties to be paid by the gun manufacturer, Polymer80, and $1 million in civil penalties leveled against the company’s two founders, Feldstein Soto’s office said. (Tat, 5/30)

Sacramento Bee: California Orders Sacramento County To Remove All Foster Children From Cells By June 16
The California Department of Social Services has ordered Sacramento County to remove foster children from a former juvenile detention facility next month. (Clift, 5/30)

Politico: Senate Braces For Last-Minute Conservative Demands On Debt Deal 
Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden achieved what once looked improbable: A bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. Now any one senator has the leverage to bring the country right to the brink of default. After the House’s planned Wednesday vote to raise the debt ceiling through 2024, the Senate will have only days before the June 5 deadline. And Senate leaders may have to do procedural acrobatics to clear the bill through their chamber in time to keep financial markets and everyday Americans comfortable. (Everett and Diaz, 5/30)

NBC News: Anti-Hunger Advocates Slam The Expanded Work Requirements For SNAP Participants Included In The Debt Limit Deal
While Republicans say the expanded work requirements would help people get jobs, anti-hunger advocates argue that requirements should be eliminated altogether, citing research that indicates they don’t have a measurable effect on participants’ employment. “It’s not doing anything to help them, to help the economy. It’s just a punitive way to take food away from people,” said Ellen Vollinger, the SNAP director for the Food Research & Action Center, an anti-hunger group. (Chuck and McCorvey, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Debt-Ceiling Deal Raises Age Of Americans Who Must Work For Food Aid 
Some older adults would be required to work to get food aid under the federal debt-limit deal set for congressional votes this week, while others would be newly exempt from having to find a job, in one of the more controversial provisions of the compromise agreement. The deal struck by President Biden and House GOP negotiators over the weekend would raise the age to 54, up from 49, for able-bodied, low-income adults without dependents who would be required to work at least 80 hours a month to receive food aid. (Peterson, 5/31)

The Guardian: Asian Americans Do Not Have Access To Abortion Information, Survey Finds 
Asian Americans do not have adequate access to information about how to obtain an abortion, according to a new report. Cultural stigmas against conversations about sexual and reproductive health and a lack of in-language information on abortion has stifled knowledge of abortion care among Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians, researchers found. (Yang, 5/31)

AP: Food Poisoning Outbreaks Tied To Sick Workers, CDC Says
Food workers who showed up while sick or contagious were linked to about 40% of restaurant food poisoning outbreaks with a known cause between 2017 and 2019, federal health officials said Tuesday. Norovirus and salmonella, germs that can cause severe illness, were the most common cause of 800 outbreaks, which encompassed 875 restaurants and were reported by 25 state and local health departments. (Aleccia, 5/30)

CIDRAP: Good Sleep Linked To Lower Odds Of Developing Long COVID
Having a healthy sleep schedule before COVID-19 infection may help prevent long COVID, according to a study today in JAMA Network Open. The cohort study included 1,979 women who participated in the Nurses' Health Study II, completing surveys about sleep habits and COVID infections between April 2020 and November 2021. (Soucheray, 5/30)

CIDRAP: Night Shift Work, Binge Drinking Linked To Increased COVID Risk In Nurses
Working the night shift or binge drinking may double the risk of COVID-19 infection, according to a study of nurses published this week in Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. Poor sleep quality and binge drinking have been associated with COVID-19 infections, likely because both promote a pro-inflammatory state. (Soucheray, 5/30)