The Brief

California received $5 billion in federal relief money to help childcares from having to shut their doors during the pandemic, but that funding expired Sept. 30.

One estimate predicted the ending of federal relief dollars, or the “childcare cliff,” would lead to more than 13,000 childcares closing in the state.

But experts say California might be able to stave off the worst of the cliff, at least in the short-term, because of state-level measures in this fiscal year’s budget.

“It's hard to say what we can expect, there are some stopgap measures California has put into place,” said Erik Saucedo, senior policy analyst at the California Budget and Policy Center.

What’s being extended? 

States had discretion in how to use federal relief money. In California, the relief funds were used to provide temporary stipends to childcare providers, waive fees for families who receive subsidized child-care, and provide reimbursements based on enrollment — rather than attendance — for childcare providers who care for children from low-income families.

“To the credit of the Newsom administration, they were very prudent about, as much as possible, treating those dollars as one-time resources,” said Donna Sneeringer, chief strategy officer at the Child Care Resource Center, an organization that helps families with childcare resources in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties.

And while the last of the stipends will go out by the end of the year, California has extended the pandemic-era policies like waiving family fees for many families. Before the pandemic, low-income families who received subsidies for childcare paid up to $600 a month in fees. Now, the most they can pay is about $60, and for families making below 75% of the state’s median income, they’ll be paying $0 in co-payments.

“This really was a huge step,” Sneeringer said. “The fees that had been in place prior to the pandemic were not affordable, and often families would fall behind, end up owing programs money for late family fees, delinquent family fees, and then end up dropping out of the program, so they couldn't even afford the subsidy program.”

The state will also continue to base reimbursements on enrollment, rather than attendance.

What else is being done in California?

In addition to changing the family fee structure, childcare providers who receive state reimbursements to care for low-income children will see a 20% rate increase starting in January, under a new state contract negotiated with the Child Care Providers United, which represents about 40,000 home childcare providers in the state.

The contract also creates a first-ever retirement fund for childcare workers.

A child makes art at Little Sprouts Language Immersion Preschool in L.A. The owner of the home childcare said federal relief funds helped keep her doors from closing.

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Courtesy of Cristian Corona

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“That is why California feels like it might be able to withstand [the ending of relief funds] better,” said Max Arias, executive director at SEIU Local 99 and chair of Child Care Providers United. But he says, still, the reality is that there’s going to be less federal money going into childcare.

“It’s important to remember that even though it's a good example of what we can achieve if we organize… I want to be careful not to say, ‘Hey, we're OK.’ Because we're not OK. Our members are still struggling,” he said.

Why has relief been important?

Cristian Corona opened up her home childcare business, Little Sprouts Language Immersion Preschool, in Mid-City Los Angeles just a month and a half before the pandemic. She had enrolled about 10 students, but then COVID hit.

“It was very, very hurtful. I went down to only one student during that time and keeping up with rent … it was really hard to get all the bills paid,” Corona said.

Stipends from federal relief dollars helped. She was able to pay incentives for her employee, and pay off a loan she took to spruce up her backyard with toys and childcare supplies.

“[The stipends] helped a lot of providers to stay open,” she said, but because the help is gone, she said she, like others she knows, are reconsidering their careers. “I have to think about if I really wanted to stay in this industry.”

Corona, a member of Child Care Providers United, said the contract, which included higher reimbursement rates, was a big win. “To be honest, if we wouldn't have that contract coming, maybe a lot of more providers will have already quit,” she said.

But she said that money will just go to help offset other rising costs. “Everything else is going up – food, the rent, the insurances we have to pay,” she said. “Thinking about all of the expenses that we have, you know, the money is not enough.”

About 15% of California households lack access to high-speed internet, according to the latest report from UC Riverside. Researchers pointed to affordability as one of the biggest barriers to closing the persistent digital divide.

Edward Helderop, associate director at UCR’s Center for Geospatial Sciences and report author, told LAist that the findings weren't surprising.

“A lot of American households and California households don't have high-speed internet available at home,” Helderop said. “It's sort of just an unfortunate reality that that's the case for the state of California.”

What does the report say? 

Nearly one in seven households in California doesn’t have reliable internet access, according to the report. The biggest barrier continues to be affordability. Even in urban areas, like Los Angeles, where broadband internet is more widely available, the average monthly cost can range from $70 to $80 per month.

But in rural areas, broadband internet is still widely unavailable because of a lack of infrastructure investments from private companies. Only two-thirds of rural households have broadband access at home.

“This digital divide represents not just a technological failure, but a profound barrier to economic opportunity, educational advancement, and civic participation that undermines California’s potential for shared prosperity,” the report states.

Experts also call for mandatory broadband data transparency — internet providers should be required to publicly disclose their service speeds, pricing, reliability metrics and coverage areas.

“Private telecom companies administering the service, they're under no obligation to maintain publicly available data sets in the same way that you might get with other utilities,” Helderop said. “There are issues with the fact that the advertised speeds don't really match up with the actual speeds that people experience at home.”

Researchers also recommend that broadband providers be regulated as utilities, like water and power, monitoring rates, quality and service obligations.

“When we regulate something like a utility, it comes with a few regulations that we take for granted,” Helderop said. “Something like a universal service obligation, in which the utility … their primary motive is to provide universal service, so to provide the service to every household in California.”

As a public utility, officials could ensure that providers are offering the same type of service to every household in the state, as well as regulate rates.

Why it matters 

Norma Fernandez, CEO at Everyone On, said access to affordable, high-speed internet is a basic necessity.

"Still, too many families, particularly those in under-resourced communities, predominantly of color, are still left out,” Fernandez said. “Expanding reliable connectivity means addressing affordability, investing in community-centered solutions, and ensuring that digital access is part of every policy conversation."

Digital equity advocates say they see the need from local families every day, but available data doesn’t reflect that.

“On the maps, families appear to live in ‘connected’ neighborhoods, but in reality, they still can’t afford to get online because the monopoly provider’s plans are unaffordable,” Natalie Gonzalez, director at Digital Equity Los Angeles. “The provider-reported broadband maps don’t match what residents experience on the ground, and that gap has real consequences.”

In L.A., for example, hundreds of thousands of households lack reliable internet, but only a fraction qualify for public funding because available data says they’re already served, Gonzalez added.

“Public investment alone doesn’t guarantee equity if the underlying data is flawed,” Gonzalez said. “When the only data regulators have come from the providers themselves, the providers end up defining reality. Communities are then forced to prove they’re disconnected, without access to the same information the companies use to claim coverage.”

Cristal Mojica, digital equity expert at the Michelson Center for Public Policy, said pricing data is intentionally obscured.

“It makes it harder for people to shop around between internet plans,” Mojica told LAist. “It makes it really challenging for our state legislators to be effective and make effective decisions around affordability when they have to try to dig around for that information themselves.”

What’s next? 

California has already invested $6 billion for broadband –called the “Middle-Mile” project –through Senate Bill 156. The 2021 law is the largest state investment in broadband in U.S. history to get more people online.

Helderop explained that broadband investments are typically made possible through grants or loans to private telecom companies, making the state’s investment critical.

“It's the first time that any state, or any government in the United States, is taking it upon themselves to build and then own the infrastructure at the end of it,” Helderop said. “I would say that's probably the primary reason that we don't have universal broadband available to households in the United States right now.”

When completed, the “Middle-Mile” project will open markets to new providers and reduce monopolies, Helderop added.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, is raising the alarm over her late husband’s foundation collecting about 3,000 of his personal scrapbooks and his diary, which she says contain thousands of nude images of women, some of whom might have been minors at the time the photos were taken.

In a press conference Tuesday, Hefner and her attorney, Gloria Allred, announced they’ve filed regulatory complaints with California and Illinois attorneys general, asking them to investigate the foundation’s handling of the scrapbooks. The complaints were filed to both attorneys general because the foundation is registered to do business in California but incorporated in Illinois.

“I believe they include women and possibly girls who never agreed to lifelong possession of their naked images and who have no transparency into where their photos are, how they’re being stored or what will happen to them next,” Hefner said.

She added the diary includes names of women he slept with, notes of sexual acts and other explicit details.

Hefner said she was asked to resign from her position as CEO and president of the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation on Monday after raising concerns about the materials. She said after she declined to resign, she was removed from her role.

She said she was told the scrapbooks may be in a storage facility in California. Allred says they were informed that the foundation plans to digitize them, but it’s unclear what it plans to do with them.

“This is not archival preservation. This is not history. This is control. I am deeply worried about these images getting out,” Hefner said. “Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, digital scanning, online marketplaces and data breaches means that once images leave secure custody, the harm is irreversible. A single security failure could devastate thousands of lives.”

In addition to asking for an investigation into the foundation’s handling of the materials, it also asks the attorneys general to take appropriate actions to secure those images.

LAist has reached out to the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation for comment.

Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, is leaving the agency, the department confirmed on Tuesday.

McLaughlin has become the public face and voice defending the Trump administration's mass deportation policy and immigration tactics over the past year.

"McLaughlin started planning to leave in December but pushed back her departure amid the aftermath of the shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers, according to the people briefed on her exit," DHS said in a statement to NPR.

POLITICO first reported her departure. It is not clear where she is going next, or who will become the agency's next spokesperson.

McLaughlin's exit comes at a tumultuous time for the agency. DHS is currently shut down after lawmakers failed to pass a budget to fund it through the end of the fiscal year in September.

And high-ranking immigration officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, have been summoned to Capitol Hill to testify on the immigration crackdown after immigration agents shot and killed Good and Pretti in Minneapolis.

McLaughlin has been among the most public-facing agency spokespeople, participating in several network interviews. Beyond speaking on DHS' immigration initiatives, McLaughlin also fielded interviews and questions about Noem's handling of national disaster relief and resources, and other parts of the sprawling agency.

Noem praised McLaughlin's work in a statement online, saying she "served with exceptional dedication, tenacity, and professionalism."

"While we are sad to see her leave, we are grateful for her service and wish Tricia nothing but success," she wrote on the social platform X.

Immigration has been the largest part of McLaughlin's portfolio. She often took to network shows and to social media to promote immigration arrests made by the administration, defend actions by DHS agents, and encouraged immigrants to "self-deport."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries praised news of her departure online; "Another MAGA extremist forced out of DHS. Noem next," he posted on X.

Most recently, McLaughlin defended Noem's description of Pretti as a "domestic terrorist" after Customs and Border Protection officers shot and killed him — claims that eventually drew sharp scrutiny from lawmakers, including some Republicans.

"Initial statements were made after reports from CBP on the ground. It was a very chaotic scene," McLaughlin told Fox Business late last month. "The early statements that were released were based on the chaotic scene on the ground and we really need to have true, accurate information to come to light."

During last week's congressional hearings, the heads of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement both denied that they, or anyone under their chains of command, had given Noem information to substantiate that claim that Pretti was a domestic terrorist.

An NPR analysis published in January showed that DHS has made unproven or incorrect claims on social media or in press releases when describing immigrants targeted for deportation or U.S. citizens arrested during protests.

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