Last Updated on September 30, 2026 by Daily News Staff

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Santa Ana police are asking for the public’s help identifying a woman accused of deliberately running over and killing a puppy after leaving the animal in a residential street earlier this month.

The disturbing incident occurred at approximately 9:15 a.m. on September 8, 2026, in the 900 block of West Park Lane, near 926 W. Park Lane. Police said the dog, described as a pit bull mix puppy, was later found dead in the street.

Investigators subsequently obtained home-surveillance footage showing an older-model green or blue Honda Odyssey minivan stopped along the street.

According to police, the female driver opened the vehicle’s door and placed the puppy on the ground. The puppy went underneath the minivan, and the woman then allegedly placed food on the street near the driver’s side of the vehicle.

As the puppy approached the food, the driver moved the minivan forward. Police said the vehicle’s rear driver’s-side tire went over the puppy and that the minivan remained stopped on the animal for approximately 15 seconds before the driver drove away.

A nearby resident later told officers that they had seen the minivan in the area and believed the puppy had been deliberately run over. Police and animal services personnel spent several weeks canvassing the neighborhood and eventually located surveillance footage that authorities said corroborated the witness’s account.

Police searching for driver

Investigators have not been able to obtain a readable license plate from the surveillance footage.

As of September 30, Santa Ana police were seeking information that could help identify either the woman or the older green or blue Honda Odyssey seen in the video.

Anyone with information about the case is being asked to contact Santa Ana police at 714-245-8378.

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The case comes two years after another highly publicized animal-cruelty incident in Santa Ana involving a woman accused of intentionally running over a 2-month-old Rottweiler puppy in August 2024. In that case, the puppy survived after emergency treatment, and the suspect subsequently turned herself in to police.

STM Daily News will update this story if authorities announce an identification, arrest or charges in the case.

Sure and Related Links

Los Angeles Times — “Santa Ana Police search for woman who appears to deliberately run over puppy in disturbing video”
Los Angeles Times report

CBS Los Angeles — “Santa Ana police seek minivan driver who allegedly intentionally ran over puppy”
CBS Los Angeles report

NBC Los Angeles — “Female driver wanted for ‘intentionally’ running over a puppy in Santa Ana”
NBC Los Angeles report

MyNewsLA — “Santa Ana Police Seek Help Woman Who Fatally Struck Puppy”
MyNewsLA report

A new real-world study of adults over age 55 with overweight or obesity found that sustained use of Zepbound (tirzepatide) for weight management was associated with lower healthcare costs over time compared with similar adults who were not treated. Eli Lilly and Company said the findings were driven in part by lower rates of hospital admissions and emergency department visits, and were published in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

What the study found

According to Lilly, researchers estimated healthcare cost differences over time (excluding the cost of Zepbound itself) using two established analytic methods. Across both approaches, monthly healthcare costs were lower, on average, among older adults who stayed on Zepbound.

Key estimates reported in the release include:

• At six months: costs were up to 15% lower (up to $181 per patient, per month).
• At 12 months: the estimated difference widened to as much as $607 per patient, per month, reflecting up to 38% lower costs than those not treated (estimates varied by model).

In the primary analysis, adults over 55 treated with Zepbound had lower rates of hospital admissions and emergency department visits across every follow-up period, along with numerically higher rates of routine outpatient and office visitsa pattern the company said was consistent with greater engagement in routine care.

Why Medicare is part of the conversation

Lilly said the cost findings may be relevant for older adults, including those in Medicares GLP-1 Bridge program. The company noted that beginning at six months, estimated healthcare savings nearly covered the programs monthly treatment cost of $195 per patient, per month, and by 12 months the estimated savings exceeded the reported monthly treatment cost.

Its important to note the release also emphasizes a limitation: claims data do not capture Zepbounds net price, and the study excluded the cost of Zepbound from total treatment costs. That means the reported differences reflect potential savings elsewhere in care that could offset treatment costs, not the full net cost impact.

Who was included in the analysis

The retrospective observational cohort study used Komodos Healthcare Map, a database of de-identified claims data from more than 330 million individuals enrolled in U.S. healthcare plans. The analysis included 15,843 adults over age 55 (mean age 64.5) with obesity or overweight plus at least one obesity-related complication who initiated Zepbound between November 2023 and September 2025. Each Zepbound user was matched 1:1 with a control participant who met the same eligibility criteria but did not initiate GLP-1 or GIP/GLP-1 receptor agonist medication.

What Zepbound is

Zepbound (tirzepatide) is a dual GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist indicated for adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have at least one weight-related medical problem, to lose weight and keep it off. Lilly also noted Zepbound is FDA-approved to treat adults with moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea and obesity, and should be used alongside a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity.

Safety summary (high level)

The release includes an indications and safety summary with warnings. Among other risks, Lilly notes Zepbound carries a warning about thyroid tumors, including thyroid cancer, and may cause serious side effects such as severe stomach problems, dehydration leading to kidney problems, gallbladder problems, pancreatitis, serious allergic reactions, and low blood sugar (especially when used with certain diabetes medicines). Patients should talk with a healthcare provider about risks and whether the medication is appropriate for them.

Related Links

• Zepbound (official product site): https://zepbound.lilly.com/
• Lilly newsroom: https://www.lilly.com/news
• Journal page (publisher hub): https://dom-pubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14631326
• Medicare (official): https://www.medicare.gov/
• FDA MedWatch (side effect reporting): https://www.fda.gov/medwatch

Source

• PRNewswire / Eli Lilly and Company press release (Aug. 26, 2026): Zepbound linked to lower healthcare costs in adults over age 55 with obesity according to a real-world study

💪 Your health journey starts here! Explore the latest health news, fitness tips, wellness trends, and healthy living advice. Share your thoughts in the comments and subscribe to the STM Daily News newsletter to stay informed and inspired every day.

Ben Zdencanovic, University of Cambridge

California and Minnesota Face $1B Medicaid Funding Hold

The Trump administration announced on July 21, 2026, that it’s withholding US$867 million in federal healthcare funding for California and $200 million for Minnesota – a total of more than $1 billion.

Federal officials said the two states had failed to provide sufficient evidence that a number of disputed medical claims were legitimate. These include bills for in-home care and other services covered by the two states’ Medicaid programs for low-income residents.

Medicaid administrators say the funds can be recovered if the states supply the requested documentation. But the action is highly unusual: Typically, Medicaid officials partner with states to conduct an audit when they suspect fraud, a careful process that often takes years.

It’s the second time in 2026 that the Trump administration has withheld or deferred federal Medicaid funds for several states, including California and Minnesota, because of alleged fraud and abuse. The Democratic governors of those states have called the decision a politically motivated attack on their constituents.

I’m a historian of social policy who led the first comprehensive historical overview of Medi-Cal, California’s statewide Medicaid system. I’ve found that U.S. leaders have long used the language of fraud and abuse to blur the line between correcting very real failures within Medicaid and – as I believe the Trump administration is currently doing – discrediting and defunding the program itself.

Slashing the safety net

The Medicaid restrictions are part of the Trump administration’s overall efforts to slash federal funding for the safety net.

The large tax-and-spending bill that Trump signed into law in July 2025 as the cornerstone of his second-term agenda pared eligibility for Medicaid by introducing work requirements for some adults. It is cutting close to $1 trillion in federal spending on the program over the next decade.

Researchers estimate that almost 12 million people, on top of the estimated 28 million without health insurance in 2025, could become uninsured by 2034 due to these changes. By mid-2026, more than 3 million people had already lost their insurance coverage due to Republican changes to the Affordable Care Act.

‘Padlocking’ the ‘cookie jar’

In February 2026, Vice President JD Vance, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, announced a new anti-fraud initiative called Comprehensive Regulations to Uncover Suspicious Healthcare.

Also known by its rather unsubtle acronym, CRUSH, this initiative is taking unprecedented steps to withhold and defer funds in response to suspected fraud. “CMS is done trying to catch fraudsters with their hands in the cookie jar,” Oz said in announcing CRUSH’s formation. “Instead, we’re padlocking the jar and letting them starve.”

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To be sure, Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse – such as providers billing Medicaid for services that are unnecessary or never rendered – are very real problems that cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually. They do divert funds from the low-income and disabled Americans enrolled in the program.

But the Trump administration’s latest moves are part of a much broader history of weaponizing Medicaid fraud and abuse – both real and imagined. I see them as a politicized attempt to prove that Medicaid itself is wasteful, that state governments cannot be trusted to administer federal money, and that public benefits inevitably invite dishonesty.

Providing little oversight at the start

Medicaid was established, along with Medicare for older adults, in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” reforms. Despite providing millions of Americans with health insurance coverage for the first time, these programs had few centralized mechanisms for the kind of federal oversight that could prevent and catch fraud and abuse.

And the sheer scale and complexity of the Medicaid system – joint federal-state funding, varying eligibility requirements, millions of enrollees and thousands of providers – created opportunities for questionable billing practices among providers.

The 1970s saw a number of highly publicized Medicaid scandals involving nursing homes, laboratories, pharmacies and so-called “Medicaid mills” – healthcare providers that sought to bill the government for large numbers of Medicaid patients for shoddy and often fraudulent care.

A series of high-profile congressional investigations spurred demand for stronger Medicaid oversight and enforcement. That led to the Medicare-Medicaid Anti-Fraud and Abuse Amendments of 1977, which established the national Medicaid Fraud Control Units program.

The state-run Medicaid Fraud Control Units received generous federal matching funds to investigate and prosecute fraud.

The most serious Medicaid fraud was generally committed by healthcare providers and contractors, not patients. Medicaid Fraud Control Units were principally responsible for investigating providers, while also prosecuting the abuse and neglect of patients whose care was billed to Medicaid.

At the same time, however, Medicaid was becoming entangled in a broader political debate over social spending, whether many Americans were becoming too dependent on government benefits, and the alleged use of benefits by people who should not have received them. In the 1980s and 1990s, widely circulated stories about Medicaid exposed fraud and malfeasance by providers.

But disproportionately, they also highlighted the comparatively few instances of fraud by people enrolled in the program, such as cases where they submitted false receipts for covered medically related travel or sold drugs they obtained through Medicaid for free or at low cost.

Using Medicare fraud to justify spending cuts

The distinction between Medicaid and cash assistance programs, such as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children “welfare” program, frequently disappeared in political rhetoric. False or exaggerated stories that portrayed African American single mothers living extravagantly while fraudulently claiming welfare benefits became potent symbols of supposed government failure.

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While campaigning as a presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan seized on this trope of the “welfare queen” in his attacks on social spending.

By the mid-1990s, opposition to welfare programs had become increasingly bipartisan. Politicians in both parties often used tales of Medicaid fraud on the part of providers and recipients to justify tighter eligibility rules and spending cuts.

Federal oversight expanded further with the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, which created the Medicaid Integrity Program and strengthened federal oversight of state programs. The Affordable Care Act, the landmark healthcare legislation Congress passed in 2010, added new measures to screen providers and verify billing.

Concerns about Medicaid’s “integrity” became highly politicized in the debates surrounding the ACA. Critics of Medicaid expansion argued that increasing the number of people who could get health insurance through the program would increase fraud and improper enrollment. Supporters of expanding Medicaid to help more Americans gain health insurance maintained that anti-fraud rhetoric often disguised ideological opposition to the program’s expansion.

Blurring distinctions then and now

For the six decades that this program has helped millions of low-income Americans get healthcare, politicians have blurred the distinction between protecting Medicaid from abuse and using abuse to discredit Medicaid itself.

In my view, the Trump administration’s campaigns against California and Minnesota continue that pattern. It is using real weaknesses within Medicaid to advance much broader political arguments: that Democratic states cannot be trusted, that public benefits naturally invite abuse, and that withholding funds is itself a form of reform.

The result will no doubt be that fewer low-income Americans will be able to get the healthcare they need.

Ben Zdencanovic, Assistant Professor of U.S. History, University of Cambridge

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

💪 Your health journey starts here! Explore the latest health news, fitness tips, wellness trends, and healthy living advice. Share your thoughts in the comments and subscribe to the STM Daily News newsletter to stay informed and inspired every day.

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