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Anthony Wright, a champion for Californians’ health care rights, will take the helm of Families USA in Washington, D.C., where he plans to campaign for more affordable and accessible care nationally. He leaves Health Access California, where he helped outlaw surprise medical billing, require companies to report drug price increases, and cap hospital bills for uninsured patients.
Three leading California officials who represented the state at the United Nations climate talks late last year reflect on climate change’s growing threat to human health — and explain what the state is trying to do about it.
Indoor workers who toil in hot jobsites in California gain immediate protection from this summer’s extreme heat. The state’s worker safety chief announced finalized rules Wednesday, capping a years-long push by workers.
Proposed state standards to protect indoor workers from extreme heat would extend to schools. The rules come as climate change is bringing more frequent and intense heat waves, causing schools nationwide to cancel instruction.
As Congress remains deadlocked on gun policy, the Biden administration is calling on hospital leaders and doctors to gather more data about gunshot injuries and deaths and step up their violence prevention work.
A California lawmaker wants the state to craft guidelines for how and when schoolchildren can play or exercise during extreme weather, including heat waves. The bill comes after a 12-year-old boy died after a physical education instructor told him to run as the temperature topped 90 degrees.
Oregon is giving Medicaid patients air conditioners and other equipment to help them cope with soaring heat, smoky skies, and other dangers of climate change. Oregon health officials hope to show other states and the federal government that they can save lives and money.
After rejecting proposed rules to protect millions of workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other hot workplaces, California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has offered a compromise to allow the protections to take effect this summer. But state and local correctional workers — and prisoners — would have to wait even longer.
A years-long process that would have created heat standards for California workers in warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other indoor job sites catapulted into chaos Thursday when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration pulled its support. Regulators, saying they felt “blindsided,” approved the regulation anyway. It’s unclear what happens next.
State lawmakers are weighing legislation that would require gun owners to keep their firearms locked up most of the time, a move advocated by the Biden administration.
The Biden administration is allowing states to use money from the insurance program for low-income and disabled residents to pay for gun violence prevention. California and six other states have approved such spending, with more expected to follow.
Only a few states have rules to protect workers from the growing threat of extreme heat, either indoors or outdoors. California is expected to adopt heat standards for indoor workers in spring, even as federal legislation has stalled.
A few years ago, Oakland won national acclaim for slashing gun-related crimes. Then the covid-19 pandemic tore through poor neighborhoods, and the murder of George Floyd fueled distrust in police. With guns readily available, violent crime has once again skyrocketed, leaving the community struggling to contain it.
Proposed rules to protect millions of workers from potentially dangerous heat inside workplaces are dead after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration refused to sign off. Labor advocates and state regulators are calling for emergency regulations before temperatures soar this summer.
California is the first state to ban the controversial diagnosis known as “excited delirium,” which has been used increasingly to justify excessive force by law enforcement. A human rights advocate described the law, signed this week by Gov. Gavin Newsom, as a “watershed moment” in criminal justice.
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