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With a heartbeat abortion ban solidly in place in South Carolina, lawyers for the state and Planned Parenthood return to the state’s highest court Wednesday to argue how restrictive the ban should be. The law is being enforced in South Carolina as a ban on almost all abortions around six weeks after conception, setting that mark as the time cardiac activity starts. But Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups are arguing the 2023 law includes alternative definitions about the timing of a fetal heart forming and a “heartbeat” starting and the true ban should start around nine or 10 weeks. (Collins, 2/12)

The California Attorney General’s Office is challenging a rural Catholic hospital’s assertion that emergency abortion requirements violate its religious freedom. In recently filed court documents, the state argues that Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Humboldt County “endangers the safety of its patients” by refusing to provide emergency abortion care. This latest move by the office of Attorney General Rob Bonta stems from a lawsuit filed by the state in September on behalf of a Humboldt County woman who says she was denied a medically necessary abortion by St. Joseph after a pregnancy loss. The denial of care endangered her life, the lawsuit states. (LaFever, 2/11)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators in Sacramento seem to agree: Prescription drug prices are too high. But lawmakers and the second-term governor are at odds over what to do about it, and a recent proposal could trigger one of the biggest health care battles in Sacramento this year. A California bill awaiting its first hearing would subject drug industry intermediaries known as pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, to licensing by the state Department of Insurance. (Mai-Duc, 2/11)

It’s been three months since California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, a new law that pledged to provide “mass treatment” for those facing certain drug charges. But since the law took effect on Dec. 18, some counties are scrambling to fulfill that promise. Now, prosecutors have the ability to charge people convicted of various third-time drug offenses with a so-called treatment-mandated felony, which would direct them to substance use disorder or mental health treatment in lieu of up to three years in jail or prison. (Mihalovich, 2/11)

Mayor Daniel Lurie named a former Medicaid director as San Francisco’s new public health director, tapping an experienced healthcare administrator to help lead the city’s response to the drug crisis in one of his most consequential appointments since taking office last month. Daniel Tsai, who ran the Medicaid program under former President Joe Biden, will succeed Dr. Grant Colfax, who announced in mid-January that he would resign after almost six years running the city’s Department of Public Health. Tsai is the second new department head that Lurie has named since he became mayor; he previously appointed a new fire chief. (Morris, 2/11)

In a rare case of a parent being charged after a school shooting, a judge on Tuesday granted a $500,000 bond for the father of a 14-year-old boy accused of a deadly attack at a north Georgia high school. Colin Gray has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the Sept. 4 mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder. (Martin, 2/12)