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Authorities were still searching Wednesday for one former resident of the St. Louis nursing home that closed down abruptly last month. St. Louis police are requesting assistance locating the man, Frederick Caruthers, 61, a former resident of the Northview Village Nursing Home. Missouri State Highway Patrol issued an endangered silver advisory for Caruthers Wednesday afternoon. (Merrilees, 1/3)

Gov. Gavin Newsom gathered with city leaders and public safety officials Wednesday to urge support of Proposition 1, an overhaul of the state’s mental health system that will be on California’s March 5 primary election ballot. The measure would reform California’s Mental Health Services Act and create a $6.4-billion bond to provide 10,000 new behavioral-health beds. ... “Everything people have been telling us they desperately need and expect of us, we’ve incorporated into Proposition 1,” Newsom said. (Petrow-Cohen, 1/3)

A group of state legislators and children’s safety advocates are planning a renewed campaign to import British digital safeguards for kids into the United States as they look to ward off legal challenges from the tech industry. After California passed a landmark online safety law in 2021 — styled after child protection rules in the United Kingdom — lawmakers in several other states, including Maryland and Minnesota, introduced their own versions. (Lima, 1/2)

With three daughters, Brandon and Monica Jones have their hands full. In the mornings, their older two girls are able to get themselves ready for the most part, but it’s the youngest, 2-year-old Skylar who runs around the kitchen screaming and laughing and making a mess with her breakfast. It’s a bit chaotic but Brandon Jones understands it’s part of the normal process of growing up. As the executive director of the Minnesota Association for Children’s Mental Health, he also knows that lots of other Black children and families struggle with the pressures of racism and poverty and the long-term problems they create. (Miles, 1/4)

Houston physicians are looking for new ways to address the rapidly growing number of congenital syphilis cases at the local and national level, as public health officials grapple with funding woes. The Houston Health Department, which declared a local syphilis outbreak last year, lost about $4.2 million of grant funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a result of the federal debt ceiling deal. The money was intended for states and local jurisdictions to train and hire additional disease intervention specialists. (Gill, 1/3)

A new rule requiring child welfare agencies to place LGBTQ children in “environments free of hostility, mistreatment, or abuse” based on the child’s sexual orientation, gender identity or expression is drawing opposition from Republicans. The proposed rule, issued in September by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), also would require caregivers to undergo cultural competency training to ensure LGBTQ youths are placed in homes where their identities are affirmed. (Migdon, 1/3)

Finding high-quality, affordable child care is hard. Just ask any parent. But when a child has special needs, child care suddenly gets a whole lot harder -- for parents and child care providers alike. (Kroen, 1/3)