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California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, warned Wednesday that his party needs to "lean in" on COVID-19 prevention, despite hardline opposition. Speaking with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett less than 24 hours after he overwhelmingly survived a recall challenge, Newsom said he views the victory as a sign that his constituents approve of his handling of the pandemic. "So, what I'm saying here is, be affirmative," Newsom said he would tell national Democrats. "Don't be timid. Lean in. Because at the end of the day, it's not just about formal authority of setting the tone and tenor on masks — on vaccines and masks. But it's the moral authority that we have: that we're on the right side of history and we're doing the right thing to save people's lives." (9/15)

Republican lawmakers in more than half of U.S. states have weakened state or local officials' authority to implement policies to protect the public against the coronavirus and other infectious diseases, AP and Kaiser Health News report. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, lawmakers in all 50 states have introduced bills to curb state and local officials' public health authority, a KHN review found. (Gonzalez, 9/15)

As Hurricane Nicholas barreled toward the Gulf Coast Monday, multiple Houston health care institutions announced they would be close COVID-19 testing and vaccine sites Tuesday as a precaution. The storm produced high winds, downed power lines and trees and flooding in some areas of Southeast Texas. However, by midday Tuesday, Houston Health Department and Harris County Public Health announced regular testing and vaccine appointments would resume Wednesday. (Garcia, 9/15)

Now that the Utah Supreme Court has ruled that transgender Utahns can list their gender identity on state records, state lawmakers need to decide how they want to move forward. Legislators essentially have three options, according to Rep. Merrill Nelson, R-Grantsville. The easiest approach, he said, would be for lawmakers to do nothing, and let the Supreme Court’s May ruling stand. Another option, he said, is to revisit state law and clearly define what sex means, particularly when it comes to birth certificates. That “fixed definition” would carry over to other government documents, such as driver licenses, according to Nelson. (Jacobs, 9/15)

The U.S. subsidiary of Formosa Plastics has been fined millions of dollars for endangering the health of the public as well as workers at its Texas petrochemical plant. The plastics company, with headquarters in Taiwan, has agreed to pay $2.85 million in civil penalties to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at its petrochemical manufacturing plant in Point Comfort, near Victoria. (de Luna, 9/15)

State and local governments have shed more than 400,000 jobs since the beginning of 2020, and those jobs have been far slower to return than the private sector positions that have rebounded after the initial shock of the coronavirus pandemic and its economic lockdowns. And there are signs that the exodus of government employees has not reached its nadir: Private sector employment has risen 3.4 percent since December, while state and local governments jobs, exclusive of education positions, are down 0.6 percent, according to an analysis by The Pew Charitable Trust’s State Fiscal Health Initiative. (Wilson, 9/15)