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.”

Cleanup is just beginning for a contaminated industrial site in South Gate, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials who are leading the effort.

The small southeast L.A. city was built on industry — in the early 20th century it boomed with auto, chemical and other manufacturers.

That legacy also left it with three Superfund sites, areas designated by the federal government as highly contaminated with hazardous waste.

The three sites are all clustered on a large lot framed by Southern and Rayo avenues. A residential neighborhood is nearby.

“This site is less than 50 yards away from a home, so we want to make sure that we clean it to a point where we can feel confident,” said South Gate Mayor Joshua Barron.

South Gate is home to about 90,000 people, the majority of whom are Latino. The median household income is about $74,500 and the state has identified the city and surrounding communities to be disproportionately burdened by pollution and its health effects.

This site, dubbed the Southern Avenue Industrial Area, housed a screw manufacturing business for 30 years, then a carpet adhesive plant. Both businesses are now defunct and the site was designated by the federal government as a Superfund site in 2012.

The pollution at this property was compounded by pollution from companies next door.

One of the two adjacent Superfund sites was used by Cooper Drum Co., a steel drum recycling plant. A group of Cooper Drum’s former customers, including chemical manufacturers and oil companies, are paying for part of that cleanup. The other site, previously operated by an aircraft rivet and conveyor belt manufacturer, is still in the analysis and planning stages.

At the Southern Avenue site where the EPA broke ground Tuesday, analyses commissioned by the agency found widespread lead and other toxic contamination in the soil, as well as a plume of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen, in the groundwater.

Officials say the plume has not affected the deeper aquifer South Gate and other southeast L.A. cities rely on for drinking water.

In 1986, the city closed water wells contaminated by the neighboring Cooper Drum site.

EPA project manager Kelia Liang explains the cleanup effort in South Gate on Tuesday.

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Erin Stone

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LAist

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“ The water is safe to drink,” said Mike Montgomery, superfund director for the EPA. “What we're trying to do is prevent it from becoming impacted.”

EPA officials estimate soil cleanup will take about two months. Groundwater cleanup planning will start in 2027 and could take a year or more. The whole effort is estimated to cost between $45 million and $60 million, primarily through federal dollars.

The summer heat may be sweltering at the moment in Southern California, but predictions about this winter’s El Niño show it could be the strongest on record.

So the LAist newsroom wants to know: What questions do you have? (You can submit below.)

We can tell you now that El Niño is a climate pattern that happens roughly every two to seven years, and is one of the most powerful drivers of the Earth’s weather.

During an El Niño event, the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America warms to above normal temperatures. The warm ocean adds moisture and heat to the atmosphere, influencing atmospheric circulation, temperatures and precipitation on a massive scale.

El Niño typically results in mild weather in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern part of the country.

In Southern California, we could start to see the effects of El Niño in the late fall or early winter. Generally, those effects include significant rain and high sea levels and the consequences that come with them, such as flooding, mudslides and coastal erosion.

Forecasters say there is a more than 90% chance of a powerful El Niño event this year, and a 70% chance that it’s record-setting.

That said, uncertainty remains around how exactly this winter’s El Niño will play out here.

So as you gear up for an El Niño winter, ask us your questions and we’ll do our best to get answers in the months ahead.

The company behind the Garden Grove hazardous waste scare earlier this year is planning to resume full operations in late September, subject to an independently monitored, court-approved safety plan.

GKN Aerospace employs 500 people at its Garden Grove facility.

What happened?

GKN Aerospace said in a news release that it had permanently decommissioned the tank that set off the hazmat scare in May and forced some 50,000 nearby residents to evacuate.

Removal of the tank is pending review and approval from state regulatory agencies, according to an emailed response from Salma Elshakre, a spokesperson for the Orange County Health Care Agency, which is overseeing the cleanup.

All of the toxic chemical, methyl methacrylate (also known as MMA), has been removed from nearby tanks as well, Elshakre said.

What about the compensation fund?

This week, the company also announced a forthcoming $100 million compensation fund for affected residents and businesses. GKN expects to release details on how to apply in the coming months.

What's next?

At least 39 lawsuits have been filed against the company in conjunction with the hazmat incident, according to a GKN webpage set up to track the fallout. The company pledged to explain the legal effect of participating in the compensation fund before it is launched.

What's the community reaction?

Garden Grove Mayor Stephanie Klopfenstein said in a statement that the city “welcome[s] this progress and will continue to expect GKN to address the broader effects on our community.”

A coalition of community groups called GKN Out of Garden Grove Coalition wants the city to shut down the GKN plant completely. The coalition plans to release a report documenting the company’s alleged history of hazardous waste failures at a news conference Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. at 11300 Stanford Ave. in Garden Grove.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.