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LA28 will award billions in Olympic contracts for the 2028 Games. City officials are worried that local businesses won't get a slice. released by Olympic organizing committee LA28 could end up leaving out businesses in the city of Los Angeles. The plan pledges to award 75% of its spending to local businesses, but defines local as L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. L.A. is the official Olympic host and the financial backstop for the Games. City council members say business owners in the city should benefit the most from the money flowing into the Games. The Olympic contracts are worth up to $4 billion in total, according to LA28.
LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover says LA28 will give L.A. city businesses preferential treatment when awarding contracts, but that focusing exclusively on businesses in the city of L.A. would be fiscally irresponsible.
The Olympic and Paralympic Games will cost billions of dollars to put on, and lucrative contracts will be up for grabs to provide things like cleaning services, construction, catering, and IT services for the month-long spectacle. 'You could have a scenario where no L.A. business does any business with LA28,' Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said at a council committee meeting Tuesday. That's a problem for the city, which is the official Olympic host and the financial backstop for the Games. City Council members say business owners in the city should benefit the most from the money flowing into the Games. The Olympic contracts are worth up to $4 billion in total, according to LA28. The dispute is yet another sign that the relationship between city government and the private organizers of the 2028 Olympics is fraying. In recent months, the two sides have clashed over an LA28's plans for Olympic contracts raises the perennial question about the coming Olympic Games: who in the city will actually benefit from the mega-event that will take over the region in the summer of 2028. It also indicates the limits of the city's ability to influence LA28's decision-making. John Reamer, who leads the city's contracts department, said Tuesday that his staff did not review the procurement plan before it was released, and questioned if the relationship between the city and LA28 was a true 'partnership.' ' that LA28 would allow us to give input, and they would take that input, and we would discuss that input and we would agree upon that input and it would be part of the plan,' he said.
LA28 says it's aiming to keep 75% of its spending in the Greater L.A. area, and put 25% towards small businesses. The report says it will prioritize 'hyperlocal' businesses in the city of L.A., but makes no explicit promises. Instead, it identifies 'local' as anywhere in L.A., Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. At a council committee meeting on the Olympics Tuesday, multiple members criticized that plan as too broad — pushing LA28 to instead make guarantees to businesses in the city of L.A. ' Los Angeles stands alone in terms of its commitment, its investment and the amount of risk that we're bearing,' Harris-Dawson told LAist. 'We think every possible avenue ought to be pursued to make sure you leave the people whole, if not better, off, than they were before this started.'
LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover told the council Tuesday that LA28 would give L.A. city businesses preferential treatment when awarding contracts. 'When all else is equal between two competing suppliers, we will prioritize City of L.A. suppliers,' he said. Hoover said that focusing exclusively on businesses in the city of L.A. would limit competition for those contracts — and that he wouldn't commit to a plan that would limit LA28's ability to secure the best contract that would be financially responsible. 'If I focus solely, first and foremost, on the city of L.A. for small business, then I am artificially reducing the pool of competition, placing greater risk on the city taxpayers and placing greater risk on the backstop of the city of L.A.,' Hoover said.
'We'd rather you pay nominally more to a business in the city, than to save $25,' Harris-Dawson said. 'If you just go for a straight, 'We want the cheapest person in the five-county area,' I can tell you already, you're going to be using a bunch of businesses where the land is cheap and there's no regulation.' Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez echoed those concerns, saying that the minimum wage and cost of living in L.A. are higher — meaning that businesses in Los Angeles may charge more. 'The city of L.A. is the financial back-stop to everything that you are doing. And I don't think that has resonated or permeated through you or this whole board that I just frankly don't trust' he said. 'We have to go to our constituents and say that we are fighting for them to make sure that they're going to get as much business as they can out of this event.'
The dispute over opportunities for local businesses represents one of many areas where the city and LA28 are at odds. An important agreement that will dictate which services the city of Los Angeles will provide and how it will be reimbursed is more than six months late. Last week, city councilmember Monica Rodriguez penned a public letter warning Hoover that for the mega-event, and has put the Secret Service in charge of security planning. Despite those plans, city officials are concerned about who will be left with the bag if the federal funding doesn't come through, or if it doesn't cover all of the city's security costs. Rodriguez warned that if it isn't changed, the current draft agreement could leave L.A. vulnerable to spending hundreds of millions even if LA28 turns a profit.
are also a sore spot for the city council. Olympics tickets cost up to $5,500 and the cheap $28 tickets went fast in the Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky asked Tuesday how much of the service fee would be going to LA28 — a figure that Hoover said he didn't know. 'The tickets are not affordable,' she said. 'A dollar, which would have actually helped us do some of the things that we know we need to do to get ourselves ready as a city for the Olympics, feels like a drop in the bucket compared to a 24% surcharge.'
A key tool of the U.S. spy community will expire this month without action from Congress. The government says the intel gathered through the provision — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA 702 — underpins a majority of the articles in the president's daily intelligence briefing and is a key asset in international counterterrorism and the fight against trafficking. But a number of lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are concerned that FISA 702 allows for the federal government to spy on the communications of American citizens without a warrant, violating their constitutional right to privacy. The program's 2024 authorization is set to expire on April 20 — unless Congress votes to renew it. Congress has always attached an expiration date to Section 702, which makes its renewal a recurring fight on Capitol Hill. Civil liberties-minded legislators of both parties have long been concerned that Section 702 enables illegal, warrantless surveillance of American citizens by the federal government. And unlike most issues in contemporary politics, the issue
A key tool of the U.S. spy community will expire this month without action from Congress. The government says the intel gathered through the provision — Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA 702 — underpins a majority of the articles in the president's daily intelligence briefing and is a key asset in international counterterrorism and the fight against trafficking. But a number of lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, are concerned that FISA 702 allows for the federal government to spy on the communications of American citizens without a warrant, violating their constitutional right to privacy. The looming fight to bolster the law's civil liberties protections is likely to be bruising — and the provision's advocates claim it could jeopardize national security.
Section 702 of FISA empowers U.S. intelligence agencies to collect and review the electronic communications of foreign nationals located outside the United States without obtaining individual court orders. the government uses the information collected through the program to protect the U.S. and its allies from foreign adversaries — including terrorists and spies — as well as to inform cybersecurity efforts. 'The U.S. government recently credited the program with helping to disrupt several terrorist attacks here and abroad, identify the Chinese origins of imported fentanyl precursors, respond to ransomware attacks on U.S. companies, identify Chinese hackers' intrusions into a network used by a key U.S. transportation hub, and disrupt foreign government efforts to carry out kidnappings, assassinations, and espionage on U.S. soil. Those examples just scratch the surface,' Baker said.
The program's 2024 authorization is set to expire on April 20 — unless Congress votes to renew it. Congress has always attached an expiration date to Section 702, which makes its renewal a recurring fight on Capitol Hill. Civil liberties-minded legislators of both parties have long been concerned that Section 702 enables illegal, warrantless surveillance of American citizens by the federal government. And unlike most issues in contemporary politics, the issue
Prominent critics include Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. But, with a change in administration since the last renewal battle, some lawmakers have switched sides. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who previously voted against the renewal because of its lack of a warrant requirement to query information about Americans, 'When used properly, FISA is an effective tool to keep Americans safe. For these reasons, I have called for a clean 18-month extension,' Trump wrote in a March post on. 'With the ongoing successful Military activities against the Terrorist Iranian Regime, it is more important than ever that we remain vigilant, PROTECT our Homeland, Troops, and Diplomats stationed abroad, and maintain our ability to quickly stop bad actors seeking to cause harm to our People and our Country.' That position is a major shift for Trump, who railed against the program in the past. Ahead of the last renewal vote in April 2024, during the Biden administration, Trump
A special court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court , issues a blanket authorization each year that allows the government to collect information about any targets who fall within certain categories proposed by the attorney general and director of national intelligence. The National Security Agency, National Counterterrorism Center, Central Intelligence Agency and FBI obtain that information directly from the U.S. companies that facilitate electronic communication such as email, social media or cellphone service.
surveillance targets in 2025, up from about 246,000 in 2022. Targets could each have many records collected — think about the number of emails that hit your inbox each day — leading to a giant database of information. In 2023, 60% of the president's daily brief items — a daily summary of pressing national security issues prepared for the most senior administration officials — It is also used extensively to combat weapons and drug trafficking — 70% of the CIA's illicit synthetic drug disruptions in 2023 stemmed from FISA 702 data, the document said.
Can the government search for Americans' information inside the trove of information it has collected under Section 702? Yes, under certain parameters that have been gradually narrowed over the nearly two-decade lifespan of the legislation. 'Using the name of a U.S. person hostage to cull through communications of the terrorist network that kidnapped her to pinpoint her location and condition; Using the email address of a U.S. victim of a cyber-attack to quickly identify the scope of malicious cyber activities and to warn the U.S. person of the actual or pending intrusion; Using the name of a government employee that has been approached by foreign spies to detect foreign espionage networks and identify other potential victims; and Using the name of a government official who will be traveling to identify any threats to the official by terrorists or other foreign adversaries.'
No, the government does not need — and has resisted reforms that would require — a targeted court order to search for an American's information in corpus of material gathered under Section 702 authority. Intelligence community and FBI advocates argue that a requirement to obtain a court order to query an American's information would be overly burdensome. 'I am especially concerned about one frequently discussed proposal, which would require the government to obtain a warrant or court order from a judge before personnel could conduct a 'U.S. person query' of information previously obtained through use of Section 702,' then-FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress in 2023, amid the last reauthorization fight. 'A warrant requirement would amount to a de facto ban, because query applications either would not meet the legal standard to win court approval; or because, when the standard could be met, it would be so only after the expenditure of scarce resources, the submission and review of a lengthy legal filing, and the passage of significant time — which, in the world of rapidly evolving threats, the government often does not have. That would be a significant blow to the FBI,' Wray said.
Privacy advocates say that, as written, the FISA statute allows the government to spy on the communications of Americans and others in the U.S. without the permission of a court, in contravention of the privacy guarantees in the Fourth Amendment. 'The FBI — and every other agency that receives Section 702 data — routinely goes searching through that data for the express purpose of finding and using Americans' communications,' according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program. 'The government conducts literally thousands of these backdoor searches every year.'
'The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is supposed to be about surveilling foreigners overseas. That way the government doesn't need a warrant,' Sen. Wyden. 'But because so many of these targets are going to be talking to Americans, Americans get swept up in these searches, and that's what I want to have some checks and balances on.'
that his concerns stem from past privacy violations from the government: 'The system was abused and they spied on thousands of Americans, violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution — and, well, it was a horrible situation.' Documented abuses, detailed in congressionally mandated transparency reports from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, include warrantless searches for
What are the current restrictions on queries for Americans' information by federal law enforcement? FBI agents must receive annual training on FISA and are generally prohibited from searching for information about people in the U.S. if the sole goal of the search is to investigate general criminal activity, rather than find foreign intelligence information, and those searches need approval from a supervisor or an attorney. More senior approval is required when searching for information connected to U.S. political or media figures. Moreover, information from queries cannot be used without court authorization to conduct criminal investigations of people in the U.S., unless the charges pertain to national security, death, kidnapping, serious bodily injury, or a handful of other serious crimes.
— from 119,383 queries from December 2021 to November 2022 to 7,413 queries in the same 2024-2025 window. Civil liberties advocates note that the full scale of searches can't be known — an October 2025 Justice Department
Janitors, nurses, teachers and labor organizers rally at the state Capitol in Sacramento to launch UnRig California on March 11, 2026. California progressives want to hike taxes on corporations and billionaires to absorb federal funding cuts to Medi-Cal. But backfilling the loss would not address the state’s existing — and growing — structural budget deficit, budget experts say.
Progressive California Democrats, who have long fought and failed to raise taxes on the rich, are renewing their push this year in light of a specific threat: The seismic federal cuts to Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for the poor. President Donald Trump’s H.R.1, signed into law last July, is estimated to strip tens of billions a year in state Medi-Cal funding and cause to lose coverage. It has prompted progressive lawmakers and health care advocates to call for higher taxes on corporations or billionaires to keep those at risk of losing benefits on the program.
Progressive lawmakers have introduced at least two proposals to tax corporations, including one that would direct funds toward Medi-Cal. Separately, health care advocates are backing a controversial ballot measure to tax billionaire wealth to replace lost federal dollars.
Progressive California Democrats, who have long fought and failed to raise taxes on the rich, are renewing their push this year in light of a specific threat: The seismic federal cuts to Medi-Cal, the state’s health care program for the poor. President Donald Trump’s H.R.1, signed into law last July, is estimated to strip tens of billions a year in state Medi-Cal funding and cause to lose coverage. It has prompted progressive lawmakers and health care advocates to call for higher taxes on corporations or billionaires to keep those at risk of losing benefits on the program.
“We know that you are not responsible for these awful cuts, but now the responsibility does lie in your hands,” Judy Mark, executive director of Disability Voices United, an advocacy group for people with disabilities and their families, told state lawmakers at a January rally. “You have the power to increase our revenue so that we don’t have to make such devastating cuts.” Progressive lawmakers have introduced at least two proposals to tax corporations, including one that would direct funds toward Medi-Cal. Separately, health care advocates are backing a controversial ballot measure to tax billionaire wealth to replace lost federal dollars.
in future years — so large that the state is already struggling just to sustain the reduced level of care under H.R.1, let alone paying the federal government’s share. Backfilling the Medi-Cal cuts would make the gap larger, said Keely Martin Bosler, former state finance director with more than two decades of experience in state fiscal policy. To “maintain the same insured level of coverage, those costs are on top of the deficits that exist, and so that would be significant.” California, in its fourth consecutive year projecting a deficit, will likely see bigger shortfalls in future years as spending continues to outpace revenue. Even if the state spends nothing to backfill federal cuts, the deficit could reach $22 billion in fiscal year 2027-28, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal.
, acknowledge that the state should now combine sustainable revenue increases with ongoing program cuts to address the sizable deficit as recommended by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The Fair Games Coalition, made up of community leaders, labor organizations and advocates, announce the launch of the Overpaid CEO Tax Initiative in West Hollywood on Jan. 14, 2026.
Newsom, in his last year as governor, has opposed any wealth tax over concerns that it would drive high-income earners out of California and dampen the tax base. Passing any tax increases would also require a two-thirds vote in each legislative chamber, a high bar even with a Democratic supermajority.
The state is constitutionally required to direct roughly 50 cents of each dollar in excess general fund revenue toward K-14 education and reserves. That means the state would need roughly $44 billion in new revenue annually to close a $22 billion budget hole.
, which allows multinational corporations that opt in to only pay taxes on income made within borders of California. That allows companies to establish subsidiaries offshore to avoid paying taxes on their profits, said bill author Assemblymember Connolly told CalMatters his bill would raise $3 to $4 billion annually. But the revenue could swing, and corporations could still find new ways to reduce their California taxes, according to an Acknowledging that the amount wouldn’t close the entire structural deficit, Connolly said it’s “a step in the right direction.” “It’s only one part of the equation. It’s certainly the time to look at potential revenue solutions but also obviously roll up our sleeves and take a hard look at the budget,” Connolly said. He did not specify which areas he’d consider cutting, saying only that protecting health care is where state lawmakers should “draw the line.”
, an Oakland Democrat, would require businesses whose workers rely on Medi-Cal and food stamps to contribute to a fund to “prevent loss of or to restore” health care coverage under H.R.1. There are no details yet on how much the charge would be.
proposed by the SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, which would apply a 5%, one-time tax on billionaires’ wealth and use most of the revenue to backfill federal health care cuts. The initiative would establish a special fund that would exempt the revenue from constitutionally required deposits into education and savings. Supporters estimate it would generate $100 billion over five years. SEIU-UHW spokesperson Suzanne Jimenez told CalMatters that it would allow the state to temporarily continue providing Medi-Cal coverage at the same level while giving state leaders time to figure out how best to sustain it. But even if voters approve the tax measure, critics say the funds could get locked up in court from lawsuits by billionaire taxpayers or by education groups, who might argue it skirts the state’s constitutional requirements to benefit schools. And it’s unclear how the state would sustain the funding after the money runs out: estimates that the measure could drive away billionaires and reduce income tax revenue the state could collect in future years. “The first step is to pass the billionaire tax so that we have five years to work on that plan. And then, right after Election Day, we will be ready to work with the next governor to figure out a long-term solution,” Jimenez said.
While they might do little to address the state’s structural deficit, proposals to tax the rich shrewdly tap into the public anxiety with “rather extraordinary disparity in the distribution of income and wealth,” said Kirk Stark, a professor of tax law and policy at UCLA. “I think that targeting the rich is understandable, but I don’t think that it’s really the kind of policy that can be expected to durably address very long-term structural fiscal imbalance,” he said. More than 60% of California’s likely voters support higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest to help with the state’s budget deficit, according to a
The sentiment especially speaks to progressives, who have made fighting income inequality a core belief. But even the popular idea faces an uphill climb: Some Democrats contend that raising taxes on the state’s highest earners risks driving them away, especially since the state heavily relies on their income tax. Janitors, nurses, teachers and labor organizers rally at the state Capitol in Sacramento to launch UnRig California on March 11, 2026. The initiative is a multiyear campaign aimed at reforming the state’s economy and tax code.
“The wealthiest Californians are also the most mobile Californians,” said former Assembly Budget Chair Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat. “They could easily decide to go domicile in some other parts of the country.” It also could deter businesses and billionaires from moving to California. “Does it signal that California is not a friendly, accommodating jurisdiction for people who want to amass billions upon billions of dollars of wealth?” Stark said. Other ideas to address the state’s budget needs more systemically could pose even bigger political risks, especially as the state’s revenue is booming thanks to an AI-driven economy. Stark said the state should examine its three primary revenue sources: income tax, sales tax and property tax. Since taxing income could dampen the incentive to work, and sales tax could discourage consumption, the state’s property tax — capped at 1% of the property value by Proposition 13 in 1978 — “jumps out as a tax reform that needs to happen in California,” he said. “Not something that’s going to be just a one-time hit on the elite, but a fundamental, structural reconsideration of how the state of California taxes the value of land and structures.”
It’s even harder now with affordability being top of mind for Californians, Ting said. “People are very cost-sensitive because they feel that their groceries are going up, their gas is going up, rent is going up, it’s a very difficult time to introduce even further costs in taxes to middle-class Californians.”
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Lawmakers put millions toward a state library program aimed at bringing Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to California children. Now the state library and a California nonprofit are under fire for how they spent some of the money.
The California-based Strong Reader Partnership was formed by the state library as the local partner, and it was originally set to receive $19 million. But in 2024, with very little of the money spent, lawmakers redirected the money to the Dollywood Foundation, which oversees Parton’s Imagination Library. Ultimately, the project has been able to meet many of its goals, the Dollywood Foundation this year. In all, it has served more than 160,000 children in California and distributed nearly 3 million books. The foundation is administering the program but not donating any money toward the project. , a Bakersfield Republican, said in the hearing that it’s their job to ensure it was still spent correctly, especially since the money was designated for children.
A nonprofit organization created by the California State Library to improve childhood literacy has spent more than $1 million in taxpayer money but has yet to put a single book in the hands of a child.
Lucas, however, blamed the shortcomings on the fact that legislators themselves pulled the organization's funding prematurely. After the hearing, he told CalMatters in a statement that “every taxpayer dollar spent on this program is fully accounted for.” In total, lawmakers allocated $70 million in 2022 to improve children’s love of reading with the intent of giving some of the money to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and some of it to a local organization. The California-based Strong Reader Partnership was formed by the state library as the local partner, and it was originally set to receive $19 million. But in 2024, with very little of the money spent, lawmakers redirected the money to the Dollywood Foundation, which oversees Parton’s Imagination Library. Ultimately, the project has been able to meet many of its goals, the Dollywood Foundation this year. In all, it has served more than 160,000 children in California and distributed nearly 3 million books. The foundation is administering the program but not donating any money toward the project. , a Bakersfield Republican, said in the hearing that it’s their job to ensure it was still spent correctly, especially since the money was designated for children.
In the hearing, Pérez and Grove questioned the Strong Reader Partnership’s finances, repeatedly stating that its accounting practices and business activities were ineffective, negligent or potentially in violation of its state contract. Grove pressed Lucas about why he created a separate nonprofit instead of giving the money directly to the Dollywood Foundation, even though she herself required the state library to do so. that created the program. The bill required “the State Librarian to coordinate with a nonprofit entity, as specified, that is organized solely to promote and encourage reading by the children of the state.” The Dollywood Foundation, which is national and based in Tennessee, was not eligible to be that nonprofit entity. When CalMatters asked Grove why she is criticizing the state library’s formation of a nonprofit when her bill required it, she responded by email but didn’t answer the question. Instead, she reiterated her criticisms of the Strong Reader Partnership, saying that its money was “squandered away without putting books in kids’ hands.”
State lawmakers first questioned the Imagination Library project in 2024, when budget officials, faced with closing a nearly $50 billion, told lawmakers that most of the money for the program remained unspent nearly two years after its launch. That year, the governor keeping the money intact but requiring 90% of it go directly to the Dollywood Foundation instead of the Strong Reader Partnership or any local nonprofit. The foundation did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about its relationship with the Strong Reader Partnership.
Lawmakers said speaking about the bill was a violation of her contract. “You're attempting to influence legislation when it's explicitly stated that you are not supposed to use state taxpayer dollars to do so. Do you agree?” asked Pérez during the April 7 hearing. Harris didn’t answer the question. Also during the hearing, Pérez repeatedly questioned the organization’s financial management, referencing instances when checks bounced, reports were not completed or documents arrived months after lawmakers had requested them. “As far as I can see here, there no local partnerships that you all established in order to facilitate this program over a two-year period,” she said. “We are not able to understand what you did with these dollars and that’s the whole purpose of this hearing.”
The roughly $1 million in state funds that went to the Strong Reader Partnership is less than a thousandth of 1% of the state’s total spending, but that’s not the point, Pérez said “Comments have been made about the amount of money that this is, and that it might be small relative to the budget,” she said before closing out the hearing. “But for me, as a public servant, I take this very seriously. We need to ensure that when we're making a commitment to provide something as simple as books to children, that we're actually delivering on that commitment.”
State and local lawmakers routinely sign contracts and grant money to businesses, including many nonprofit organizations, to enact public services or programs. In the process, taxpayers “lose transparency,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association, a group that opposes higher taxes. “Why is the state government or the local government turning them over to nonprofits instead of having their massive bureaucracies handle these things where someone is accountable?” Shelley said the responsibility lies both with the nonprofits and the Legislature, especially in this instance, because Grove’s bill required the California State Library to work with a local nonprofit.
Juan Gonzalez Morin died at 37 in 2023 after cutting and grinding artificial stone countertops in the Los Angeles area.
California is considering prohibiting the fabrication and installation of artificial-stone countertops — effectively banning the products — in response to an epidemic of the fatal lung disease silicosis among workers who cut, grind and polish countertop slabs before they are fitted into homes and businesses.
Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of pulverized silica, one of the most common minerals on earth. The silica that threatens the fabricators’ lungs comes from quartz, which is crushed and mixed with resins and pigments to make artificial stone — also known as engineered stone — a cheaper, more versatile alternative to natural stone like granite or marble. The ingredients are poured into molds, a process that allows for mass production of countertop slabs. When a slab is cut, ground or polished in preparation for installation, a pestilent powder is released into the air and drawn into workers’ lungs, where it collects and causes slow suffocation.
a silicosis cluster among Southern California countertop fabrication workers in December 2022. Five months after the initial stories were released by Public Health Watch and its media partners, the California Department of Public Health had confirmed 69 cases of silicosis statewide. As of April 8, that California is considering prohibiting the fabrication and installation of artificial-stone countertops — effectively banning the products — in response to an epidemic of the fatal lung disease silicosis among workers who cut, grind and polish countertop slabs before they are fitted into homes and businesses. Silicosis is caused by the inhalation of pulverized silica, one of the most common minerals on earth. Public Health Watch, LAist and Univision were the
a silicosis cluster among Southern California countertop fabrication workers in December 2022. A year later, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board adopted an that required the employers of such workers — most of whom are young, immigrant men — to suppress toxic silica dust with water and take other protective measures. That standard became permanent in December 2024. Five months after the initial stories were released by Public Health Watch and its media partners, the California Department of Public Health had confirmed 69 cases of silicosis statewide. As of April 8, that
The silica that threatens the fabricators’ lungs comes from quartz, which is crushed and mixed with resins and pigments to make artificial stone — also known as engineered stone — a cheaper, more versatile alternative to natural stone like granite or marble. The ingredients are poured into molds, a process that allows for mass production of countertop slabs. When a slab is cut, ground or polished in preparation for installation, a pestilent powder is released into the air and drawn into workers’ lungs, where it collects and causes slow suffocation. There is no cure for silicosis; the only procedure that can buy some victims time is a double-lung transplant, which is expensive, cumbersome and rarely prolongs life beyond 10 years.
The Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board is scheduled to take video testimony from fabrication workers suffering from silicosis at its meeting in Santa Rosa. It is not expected to vote on a ban, however, any sooner than its May 21 meeting in Los Angeles. Should California choose to ban engineered stone, it would be the first state to do so. Australia banned the material in 2024 after experiencing a silicosis outbreak that claimed an estimated 1,000 victims. The standards board is required to respond to a petition submitted in December by the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association, a nonprofit that represents more than 600 physicians and other health experts in seven states. In that petition, the association asked the board to “prohibit all fabrication and installation tasks ... on engineered stone that contains more than 1% crystalline silica. This action is necessary in light of the continuing epidemic of silicosis that is causing disease and death among California fabrication workers ...”
Engineered-stone countertops typically contain more than 90% crystalline silica, the most common and dangerous form of the mineral; another form, amorphous silica, is not believed to pose serious health risks. Lawyers representing hundreds of sick workers and their families in litigation against countertop manufacturers say engineered stone cannot be handled safely. “Artificial stone is too toxic to be safely fabricated,” said Raphael Metzger, who practices in Long Beach and won a — the nation’s first — against 34 manufacturers in August 2024. “Every week I meet with about a half-dozen fabricators, many of whom have silicosis.” “The silicosis crisis is not a failure of rules — it’s a failure of a product,” said James Nevin, based in Novato, California. The medical association’s “proposed ban works because it removes that hazard at its source. Every jurisdiction that has reduced disease has done so by eliminating crystalline silica artificial stone itself — not by pretending it can be used safely.”
Countertop manufacturers are not standing by quietly. In a March 27 letter to the standards board, Cosentino North America, part of Spain’s Cosentino Group, said, “Effective standards already exist, but there are non-compliant fabrication shop owners that do not implement them and put their workers at risk.” With “the correct controls in place,” the company said, “engineered stone can be fabricated safely.”
California’s silica rule is enforced by the state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, known as Cal/OSHA. In a statement to Public Health Watch, a Cal/OSHA spokesperson said the agency had opened more than 140 inspections of fabrication shops since the emergency temporary standard took effect in December 2023. Those inspections unearthed more than 580 violations, the spokesperson said. In a presentation to the standards board at its March meeting, Eric Berg, Cal/OSHA’s deputy chief for health, research and standards, said the agency had assessed a total of $1.8 million in penalties against fabrication shop owners alleged to have violated the silica rule. Stop-work orders were issued to 26 shops where dry-cutting of artificial stone — a prohibited practice — or inadequate respiratory-protection measures were observed, Berg said. Last year, Cal/OSHA estimated that the state had 920 fabrication shops, employing some 4,600 workers.
It's unclear which way the standards board will go when the proposed ban comes up for a vote. In a February 27 letter, Chairman Joseph M. Alioto Jr. urged district attorneys in the seven counties that account for nearly 95% of the silicosis cases in California to pursue criminal charges against violators. “Please do not be misled by the misdemeanor classification of ,” Alioto wrote. “These are no ordinary misdemeanor cases, as the science bears out. Dry-cutting on its own will result in serious injury in a majority of cases. That means that every successful misdemeanor you prosecute will shutter a violating employer and save workers’ lives.”
The medical association on whose petition the board must rule, however, argued that “education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by” engineered stone. After Australia banned the material, alternatives with the same “quality, look and feel” but free of crystalline silica took its place, the petition says. If the standards board follows Australia’s lead, “it is highly likely that these safer products will be made immediately available in the California market, without significant economic consequences for fabrication businesses and their workers.”
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WNBA player opposes new Olympics transgender policy, saying they do 'anything but' protect womenFox News Channel offers its audiences in-depth news reporting, along with opinion and analysis encompassing the principles of free people, free markets and diversity of thought, as an alternative to the left-of-center offerings of the news marketplace.
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Ice hockey coach used a false COVID-19 vaccine certificate to enter China for OlympicsSwiss ice hockey coach Patrick Fischer has admitted he used a certificate falsely claiming he’d been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get around China’s travel restrictions for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Fischer says he made a “serious mistake in this matter” by traveling to Beijing with the Switzerland men’s team using false paperwork.
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Delayed Nielsen Gauge Confirms the Olympics Were Great for NBCUniversal (and Versant)A dispute over methodology changes pushed the release of February’s summary back several weeks.
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$3.3 Billion Grossing Sci-Fi Movie Franchise Arrives on Hulu TodayLionsgate's blockbuster sci-fi franchise has finally found a new streaming home, ahead of its newest sequel's debut later this year.
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