The Brief

Yahushua Robinson was an energetic boy who jumped and danced his way through life. Then, a physical education teacher instructed the 12-year-old to run outside on a day when the temperature climbed to 107 degrees.

“We lose loved ones all the time, but he was taken in a horrific way,” his mother, Janee Robinson, said from the family’s Inland Empire home, about 80 miles southeast of Los Angeles. “I would never want nobody to go through what I’m going through.”

The day her son died, Robinson, who teaches phys ed, kept her elementary school students inside, and she had hoped her children’s teachers would do the same.

The Riverside County Coroner’s Bureau ruled that Yahushua died on Aug. 29 of a heart defect, with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors. His death at Canyon Lake Middle School came on the second day of an excessive heat warning, when people were advised to avoid strenuous activities and limit their time outdoors.

Yahushua’s family is supporting a bill in California that would require the state Department of Education to create guidelines that govern physical activity at public schools during extreme weather, including setting threshold temperatures for when it’s too hot or too cold for students to exercise or play sports outside. If the measure becomes law, the guidelines will have to be in place by Jan. 1, 2026.

Janee Robinson says the cards and messages given to the family after Yahushua Robinson died last August are mementos of the 12-year-old’s spirit and warmth.

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Samantha Young

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KFF Health News

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Many states have adopted protocols to protect student athletes from extreme heat during practices. But the California bill is broader and would require educators to consider all students throughout the school day and in any extreme weather, whether they’re doing jumping jacks in fourth period or playing tag during recess. It’s unclear if the bill will clear a critical committee vote scheduled for May 16.

“Yahushua’s story, it’s very touching. It’s very moving. I think it could have been prevented had we had the right safeguards in place,” said state Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Bakersfield), one of the bill’s authors. “Climate change is impacting everyone, but it’s especially impacting vulnerable communities, especially our children.”

Last year marked the planet’s warmest on record, and extreme weather is becoming more frequent and severe, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Even though most heat deaths and illnesses are preventable, about 1,220 people in the United States are killed by extreme heat every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Young children are especially susceptible to heat illness because their bodies have more trouble regulating temperature, and they rely on adults to protect them from overheating. A person can go from feeling dizzy or experiencing a headache to passing out, having a seizure, or going into a coma, said Chad Vercio, a physician and the division chief of general pediatrics at Loma Linda University Health.

“It can be a really dangerous thing,” Vercio said of heat illness. “It is something that we should take seriously and figure out what we can do to avoid that.”

Eric Robinson remembers his son Yahushua Robinson, 12, who died in August after a physical education instructor told him to run outside on the blacktop during the sweltering heat.

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Samantha Young

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KFF Health News

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It’s unclear how many children have died at school from heat exposure. Eric Robinson, 15, had been sitting in his sports medicine class learning about heatstroke when his sister arrived at his high school unexpectedly the day their brother died.

“They said, ‘OK, go home, Eric. Go home early.’ I walked to the car and my sister’s crying. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t believe that my little brother’s gone. That I won’t be able to see him again. And he’d always bugged me, and I would say, ‘Leave me alone.’”

That morning, Eric had done Yahushua’s hair and loaned him his hat and chain necklace to wear to school.

As temperatures climbed into the 90s that morning, a physical education teacher instructed Yahushua to run on the blacktop. His friends told the family that the sixth grader had repeatedly asked the teacher for water but was denied, his parents said.

The school district has refused to release video footage to the family showing the moment Yahushua collapsed on the blacktop. He died later that day at the hospital.

Melissa Valdez, a Lake Elsinore Unified School District spokesperson, did not respond to calls seeking comment.

SB 1248 would require the California Department of Education to create guidelines that govern physical activity at public schools during extreme weather.

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Samantha Young

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KFF Health News

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Schoolyards can reach dangerously high temperatures on hot days, with asphalt sizzling up to 145 degrees, according to findings by researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Some school districts, such as San Diego Unified and Santa Ana Unified, have hot weather plans or guidelines that call for limiting physical activity and providing water to kids. But there are no statewide standards that K-12 schools must implement to protect students from heat illness.

Under the bill, the California Department of Education must set temperature thresholds requiring schools to modify students’ physical activities during extreme weather, such as heat waves, wildfires, excessive rain, and flooding. Schools would also be required to come up with plans for alternative indoor activities, and staff must be trained to recognize and respond to weather-related distress.

California has had heat rules on the books for outdoor workers since 2005, but it was a latecomer to protecting student athletes, according to the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, which is named after a Minnesota Vikings football player who died from heatstroke in 2001. By comparison, Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, this spring signed a law preventing cities and counties from creating their own heat protections for outdoor workers, has the best protections for student athletes, according to the institute.

Douglas Casa, a professor of kinesiology and the chief executive officer of the institute, said state regulations can establish consistency about how to respond to heat distress and save lives.

“The problem is that each high school doesn’t have a cardiologist and doesn’t have a thermal physiologist and doesn’t have a sickling expert,” Casa said of the medical specialties for heat illness.

In 2022, California released an Extreme Action Heat Plan that recommended state agencies “explore implementation of indoor and outdoor heat exposure rules for schools,” but neither the administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, nor lawmakers have adopted standards.

Lawmakers last year failed to pass legislation that would have required schools to implement a heat plan and replace hot surfaces, such as cement and rubber, with lower-heat surfaces, such as grass and cool pavement. That bill, which drew opposition from school administrators, stalled in committee, in part over cost concerns.

Naj Alikhan, a spokesperson for the Association of California School Administrators, said the new bill takes a different approach and would not require structural and physical changes to schools. The association has not taken a position on the measure, and no other organization has registered opposition.

The Robinson family said children’s lives ought to outweigh any costs that might come with preparing schools to deal with the growing threat of extreme weather. Yahushua‘s death, they say, could save others.

“I really miss him. I cry every day,” said Yahushua’s father, Eric Robinson. “There’s no one day that go by that I don’t cry about my boy.”

Yahushua Robinson’s friends sent cards, drawings, and messages after the 12-year-old died last August with heat and physical exertion as contributing factors. (SAMANTHA YOUNG/KFF HEALTH NEWS)

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Samantha Young

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KFF Health News

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A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to 657 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the budget after several years of the district spending more money than it brings in.

Even as California is poised to fund schools at record high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone. For the last two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit.

The “reduction in force” vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be determined number of positions.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the focus on cutting jobs at the district’s central office was intended to protect schools.

“Does it do it at 100%? No,” Carvalho said. “But this approach reflects the deliberate effort to shield students and frontline educators and support staff from the most severe impacts of this fiscal downturn.”

What positions will be affected? 

LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts include less than 1% of its more than 83,000 member workforce.

Notices will go out to 657 positions concentrated in the district’s central office, but which also work at local schools. More than a third of these are IT technicians, by far the largest group.

The plan also calls for reduced hours and pay for several dozen positions.

The board also voted to issue layoff notices to an additional 2,600 contract management employees and certificated administrators as part of a “routine action that’s been taken annually,” said Saman Bravo-Karimi, the district's chief financial officer

What about teachers? 

LAUSD said it expects to need 350 fewer elementary and 400 fewer high school teachers next year because of declining enrollment and the closure of some non-classroom positions.

While some educators may be moved from one school to another, the district said it does not plan to issue layoff notices to teachers for the 2026-2027 school year.

The district's decision is based on attrition and the assumption that a new labor agreement will lower high school junior and senior class sizes, requiring more educators.

“This is a calculated risk that the district is taking on in order to maintain the stability at the schools throughout the spring semester,” said Kristen Murphy, associate superintendent of talent and labor relations .

Were deeper cuts considered? 

Yes.

Murphy said schools also identified about 800 additional certificated position closures, but that the people in those positions would be moved to different jobs as they became available.

The district is also paying $50-60 million to restore planned cuts to classified positions at school sites.

“We have worked with every possible solution we can think of to reduce that number of initial [layoff] notices and keep as many of our employees as possible,” Murphy said.

How did the board vote? 

Yes:

• Board Member Sherlett Hendy Newbill (BD-1)
• Board President Scott Schmerelson (BD-3)
• Board Member Nick Melvoin (BD-4)
• Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin (BD-7)

“Every person in our LAUSD community contributed to the academic gains last year,” Schmerelson said. “So whether these RIFs are approved or not we will continue to fight until the very last minute for funding.”

No:

• Board Member Rocío Rivas (BD-2)
• Board Member Karla Griego (BD-5)
• Board Member Kelly Gonez (BD-6)

“I will not accept reductions in force as a default response without a clear discipline showing that this is the most responsible and strategic course available to us,” Rivas said.

Rivas, Gonez and Melvoin are on the ballot in this year’s election.

What do employees say?

Representatives from the unions that represent LAUSD school support staff, teachers and principals asked the board to reconsider the proposed cuts at the start of the meeting and to seek additional funding from the state amid growing revenues from the artificial intelligence industry.

“You can decide to be brave and lead in the state by example and show what a fully functioning school system is,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias.

SEIU Local 99 members, which include classroom aides, IT technicians and gardeners, are currently weighing whether to give their leaders the authority to call a strike. Members of the union that represents LAUSD teachers, psychologists, counselors and nurses voted to authorize a strike last month.

The unions, as well as several board members, called on the district to share more information about contracts with third-party companies before making cuts to staffing.

“This framing is not an honest engagement around budget priorities,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “It is a tactic used to scare workers and scare our school communities.”

What happens next? 

By March 15, layoff notices will go out to the 657 impacted employees as well as employees with less seniority in positions that could be “bumped,” to accommodate the employees in the impacted positions.

The district plans to freeze hiring until it can evaluate whether an employee included in the reduction in force can fill any vacant position.

“The district can’t issue these notices and then hire new people if vacancies come up,” Murphy said.

Staff said the board would vote to finalize any un-rescinded layoff notices in May or June.

What else has the district done to save money?

Tuesday’s vote is part of a $1.4 billion fiscal stabilization plan first approved last June.

Bravo Karimi said additional money-saving strategies included transferring $496 million in reserved funding to the district’s general fund and using $796 million to fund future labor agreements.

LAUSD staff’s report to the board said that even if the board approved the reduction in force notices, more cuts will be necessary to balance the budget in future years.

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.