The Brief

Sometimes the heat makes you vomit, said Carmen Garcia, a farmworker in the San Joaquin Valley of California. She and her husband spent July in the garlic fields, kneeling on the scorched earth as temperatures hovered above 105 degrees. Her husband had such severe fatigue and nausea that he stayed home from work for three days. He drank lime water instead of seeing a doctor because the couple doesn’t have health insurance. “A lot of people have this happen,” Garcia said.

There are no federal standards to protect workers like the Garcias when days become excessively hot. And without bipartisan support from Congress, even with urgent attention from the Biden administration, relief may not come for years.

President Joe Biden in 2021 tasked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration with developing rules to prevent heat injury and illness. But that 46-step process can take more than a decade and might stall if a Republican is elected president in 2024, because the GOP has generally opposed occupational health regulations over the past 20 years. These rules might require employers to provide ample drinking water, breaks, and a cool-down space in shade or air conditioning when temperatures rise above a certain threshold.

On Sept. 7, OSHA will begin meetings with small-business owners to discuss its proposals, including actions that employers would take when temperatures rise to 90 degrees.

As this summer has broken heat records, Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and other members of Congress have pushed legislation that would speed OSHA’s rule-making process. The bill is named after Asunción Valdivia, a farmworker who fell unconscious while picking grapes in California on a 105-degree day in 2004. His son picked him up from the fields, and Valdivia died of heatstroke on the drive home. “Whether on a farm, driving a truck, or working in a warehouse, workers like Asunción keep our country running while enduring some of the most difficult conditions,” Chu said in a July statement urging Congress to pass the bill.

Trade organizations representing business owners have fought the rules, calling the costs of regulations burdensome. They also say there’s a lack of data to justify blanket rules, given variation among workers and workplaces, ranging from fast-food restaurants to farms. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the most powerful lobby groups in Washington, argued that such standards are nonsensical “because each employee experiences heat differently.” Further, the Chamber said, measures such as work-rest cycles “threaten to directly and substantially impair … employees’ productivity and therefore their employer’s economic viability.”

“Many heat-related issues are not the result of agricultural work or employer mismanagement, but instead result from the modern employee lifestyle,” the National Cotton Council wrote in its response to proposed regulations. For example, air conditioning makes it more difficult for people to adapt to a hot environment after being in a cold dwelling or vehicle, it said, noting “younger workers, who are more used to a more sedentary lifestyle, cannot last a day working outside.”

The Forest Resources Association, representing forest landowners, the timber industry, and mills, added that “heat-related illnesses and deaths are not among the most serious occupational hazards facing workers.” They cited numbers from OSHA: The agency documented 789 heat-related hospitalizations and 54 heat-related deaths through investigations and violations from 2018 to 2021.

OSHA concedes its data is problematic. It has said its numbers “on occupational heat-related illnesses, injuries, and fatalities are likely vast underestimates.” Injuries and illnesses aren’t always recorded, deaths triggered by high temperatures aren’t always attributed to heat, and heat-related damage can be cumulative, causing heart attacks, kidney failure, and other ailments after a person has left their place of employment.

The toll of temperature

To set regulations, OSHA must get a grasp on the toll of heat on indoor and outdoor workers. Justification is a required part of the process because standards will raise costs for employers who need to install air conditioning and ventilation systems indoors, and those whose productivity may drop if outdoor workers are permitted breaks or shorter days when temperatures climb.

Ideally, business owners would move to protect workers from heat regardless of the rules, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We need to do a better job of convincing employers that there is a trade-off between efficiency and sick workers,” he said.

Garcia and her husband suffered the symptoms of heat exhaustion: vomiting, nausea, and fatigue. But their cases are among thousands that go uncounted when people don’t go to the hospital or file complaints for fear of losing their jobs or immigration status. Farmworkers are notoriously underrepresented in official statistics on occupational injuries and illness, said David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University and former OSHA administrator. Researchers who surveyed farmworkers in North Carolina and Georgia found that more than a third of them had heat illness symptoms during the summers of their studies — far higher than what OSHA has registered. Notably, the Georgia study revealed that 34% of farmworkers had no access to regular breaks, and a quarter had no access to shade.

Even cases in which workers are hospitalized might not be attributed to heat if doctors don’t make note of the connection. Many studies link occupational accidents to heat stress, which can cause fatigue, dehydration, and vertigo. In a study in Washington state, farmworkers were found to fall off ladders more often in June and July, among the hottest and most humid months. And in a 2021 report, researchers estimated that hotter temperatures caused approximately 20,000 occupational injuries a year in California between 2001 and 2018, based on workers’ compensation claims.

Heat-related kidney injuries also come up in OSHA’s database of workers severely injured on the job, like an employee at a meat processing plant hospitalized for dehydration and acute kidney injury on a hot June day in Arkansas. But research finds that kidney damage from heat can also be gradual. One study of construction workers laboring over a summer in Saudi Arabia found that 18% developed signs of kidney injury, putting them at risk of kidney failure later.

In addition to quantifying the injuries and deaths caused by heat, OSHA attempts to attach a cost to them so it can calculate potential savings from prevention. “You’ve got to measure things, like what is a life worth?” Michaels said. To workers and their families, suffering has far-reaching consequences that are hard to enumerate. Medical costs are more straightforward. For example, OSHA estimates the direct cost of heat prostration — overheating due to heatstroke or hyperthermia — at nearly $80,000 in direct and indirect costs per case. If this seems high, consider a construction worker in New York who lost consciousness on a hot day and fell from a platform, suffering a kidney laceration, facial fractures, and several broken ribs.

Putting a price tag on heatstroke

Researchers have also tried to tease out the cost to employers in lost productivity. Work moves less efficiently as temperatures rise, and if workers are absent because of illness, and if they have to be replaced, production diminishes as new workers are trained to do the job. Cullen Page, a line cook in Austin, Texas, and a member of the union Restaurant Workers United, works for hours in front of a pizza oven, where, he said, temperatures hovered between 90 and 100 degrees as heat waves blanketed the city in August. “It’s brutal. It affects your thinking. You’re confused,” he said. “I got a heat rash that wouldn’t go away.” Because it’s so hot, he added, the restaurant has a high employee turnover rate. An adequate hood vent over the ovens and improved air conditioning would help, he said, but the owners have yet to make upgrades.

Via 313, the pizza chain where Page works, did not respond to requests for comment.

Page is not alone. An organization representing restaurant employees, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, surveyed thousands of workers, many of whom reported “unsafely hot” conditions: 24% of those in Houston, for example, and 37% in Philadelphia.

“Workers have been exposed to working temperatures of up to 100 degrees after air conditioners and kitchen ventilators were broken, making it uncomfortable and hard for them to breathe,” wrote another group that includes members in the fast-food industry, the Service Employees International Union, in a comment to OSHA. “There is no reason to further delay the creation of a standard when we know the scale of the problem and we know how to protect workers.”

Researchers at the Atlantic Council estimate the U.S. will lose an average of $100 billion annually from heat-induced declines in labor productivity as the climate warms. “It costs employers a lot of money to not protect their workers,” said Juley Fulcher, the worker health and safety advocate at Public Citizen, an advocacy organization in Washington, D.C., that is lobbying for the Asunción Valdivia bill to allow OSHA to enact regulations next year.

For a template, Fulcher suggested looking to California, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, the only states with rules mandating that all outdoor workers have access to water, rest, and shade. Although the regulations aren’t always enforced, they appear to have an impact. After California instituted its standard in 2005, fewer injuries were reported in workers’ compensation claims when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees.

Michaels said OSHA has shown it can act faster than usual when Congress permits it. In the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the agency rapidly passed rules to prevent doctors, nurses, and dentists from being accidentally infected by needles. A similar urgency exists now, he said. “Given the climate crisis and the lengthening of periods of extreme heat,” he said, “it is imperative that Congress pass legislation that enables OSHA to quickly issue a lifesaving standard.”

Several fires are burning across Southern California, with some destroying structures, threatening homes and charring pristine landscapes.

Warm weather and Santa Ana wind conditions have hampered firefighting efforts and are expected to continue through Wednesday this week. The National Weather Service forecasts cooler weather and "May gray" through the weekend.

Here's a roundup of some of the fires burning now.

(All dates refer to today, Tuesday, May 19, unless otherwise noted)

Santa Rosa Island Fire (Santa Barbara County)

• CalFire incident page
• Channel Islands National Park on social media
• Acreage: About 17,000 as of 5 p.m.
• Containment: 0% as of 5 p.m.
• Cause: KTLA and other outlets have reported a man whose boat shipwrecked fired a rescue flare that sparked the fire.

The fire is burning in Channel Island National Park territory. Firefighters traveled by boat with their equipment to get to the island, according to news reports. The island is home to rare and endangered plants and animals.

Sandy Fire (Ventura County)

• CalFire incident page
• Ventura County emergency website (includes evacuation information)
• Acreage: About 1,700 as of 5 p.m.
• Containment: 5% as of 5 p.m.
• Cause: Under investigation

CalFire reported about 2:40 p.m. Tuesday that lessening winds allowed "firefighters to take full advantage of improved weather to strengthen containment lines and continue aggressive suppression efforts. Crews remain actively engaged both on the ground and in the air to gain additional containment and keep the fire within its current perimeter."

The fire started Monday in the southern part of Simi Valley. It eventually spread eastward toward L.A. County communities in the San Fernando Valley, but overnight conditions were favorable to firefighters, CalFire said. Several communities were under evacuation orders and warnings, and schools in the area were closed.

Bain Fire (Riverside County)

• CalFire incident page (includes evacuation information)
• Social media updates
• Acreage: About 900 as of 5:30 p.m.
• Containment: 0% as of 5:30 p.m.
• Cause: Under investigation

The fire was first reported around noon Tuesday, according to CalFire, near Jurupa Valley (east of the 15 Freeway and south of the 60). CBS News Los Angeles reported that four people have been injured.

Verona Fire (Riverside County)

• CalFire incident page (includes evacuation information)
• Social media updates
• Acreage: About 200 as of 5 p.m.
• Containment: 0% as of 5 p.m.
• Cause: Under investigation

Burro Fire (Angeles National Forest)

• CalFire incident page
• Social media updates
• Acreage: 30
• Containment: 70% as of about 5 p.m.
• Cause: Under investigation

The fire started Monday in a mountainous area north of the San Gabriel Reservoir.

Listen to our Big Burn podcast

Fire resources and tips

Check out LAist's wildfire recovery guide.

Prepare for the next disaster:

• Fire season is here. Make sure you're signed up for these alerts
• Every day is now fire season. Let's get you ready for the next wildfire
• Yes, wildfires are getting worse. The history that got us to this moment

If you have to evacuate:

• Why fire officials don't want you to stay and defend your home
• How to get packed up
• How to leave your house
• What evacuation terms mean and how to sign up for alerts

Navigating fire conditions:

• How to drive in high winds and fire danger
• How to prep for power outages
• How to navigate poor air quality

How to help yourself and others:

• Resources for fire victims, evacuees and first responders
• If you want to help fire victims, resist the urge to volunteer
• How to help find lost pets

How to start the recovery process:

• What to do — and not do — when you get home after a wildfire
• How to make an insurance claim
• How to safely clean up wildfire ash

What to do for your kids:

• How to talk to children about wildfires and losing a home
• What parents should know about wildfire air quality

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

California’s community colleges have been battling fraudulent students for years, trying to prevent scammers from stealing financial aid money.

Recent data shows the colleges’ efforts finally may be working.

Last spring, CalMatters reported that colleges were seeing unprecedented reports of fraud, with scammers stealing millions more dollars of student aid than in any previous period, according to reports submitted by colleges to California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Now fewer scammers are bypassing colleges’ vetting systems, according to monthly reports, and school administrators say they’re better, though still not perfect, at detecting and preventing fraud.

After CalMatters reported on the rise in fraud last year, Republican U.S. Congress members called for a federal investigation, a Democratic state legislator launched a state audit and later, California’s Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office approved a new ID verification policy for students. Colleges now are more vigilant about policing fraud, said Jory Hadsell, an executive in technology initiatives for the chancellor’s office, who pointed to better filtering practices and new software to detect fraud.

Between January and March 2025, scammers stole nearly $5.6 million in federal student aid and over $900,000 in state aid. By comparison, this spring colleges have reported losing just under $1.5 million in federal student aid and about $330,000 in state aid to fraudsters.

Last spring was “really the peak,” Hadsell said. He said he anticipates the end-of-year total in 2026 to be “significantly lower” than last year.

Even in the worst months, such as last spring, the money distributed to scammers is less than 1% of the total financial aid distributed to community college students in California. Students use the money to help pay for tuition, books and the cost of daily living expenses, such as rent, transportation and food.

But any fraud, however small, is unacceptable, said Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives. “The ultimate goal for our system is zero.”

Some anti-fraud policies have been slow to take effect. The California Community Colleges Board of Governors voted nearly a year ago to require ID verification for all students, but only about 50% of college students are doing it as of this month. Hadsell said the delays arose in part because of complications verifying information of students under 18 years old, who represent a growing demographic for the community colleges. He said ID verification, which is currently optional, will become mandatory on July 1.

The board also voted to “explore” the option of charging students an application fee of no more than $10, but with the rates of fraud declining and other solutions that seem to work, the chancellor’s office is no longer pursuing that option, Ferguson said.

After blaming California officials, the U.S. Department of Education, which shares responsibility for administering federal aid and detecting fraud, said it would implement a “screening process” for applicants. It was supposed to take effect last fall but didn’t launch until last month, according to press releases from the department and statements from the California Student Aid Commission. CalMatters reached out to the U.S. Education Department five times over the last 12 months, seeking clarification, but the department has refused to respond to questions about delays with the screening process.

When more than a third of college applicants are fake

After classes suddenly moved online during the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office saw an increase in financial aid fraud on their application portal, CCCApply, which is used by nearly every student as the first step in applying to community college.

In 2021, the chancellor’s office suspected roughly 20% of applicants were fraudulent.

The estimate was higher in January 2024, around 25%. Last spring, it was 34%, though some schools saw much higher rates.

After they apply through CCCApply, students get filtered locally at their college of choice. In the Los Rios Community College District, which represents Sacramento, college officials suspected 64% of local applications from January to March 2025 were fraudulent. And that was after the state already vetted them through its portal, said Gabe Ross, a spokesperson for the district. The San Diego and Los Angeles community college districts also reported spikes in the number of fraudulent applications around the same time.

CalMatters reached out to the five largest community college districts for an interview. The Rancho Santiago Community College District, which includes parts of Orange County, did not provide sufficient data to draw conclusions about trends in fraud. The State Center Community College District, which represents schools in Fresno and Madera counties, did not respond to CalMatters’ questions.

Monthly data reports to the chancellor’s office show that once detected, most scammers who applied to community colleges were then caught and kicked out before they could apply for financial aid, but some succeeded.

This year, both Sacramento and San Diego community colleges say they’re seeing fewer attempts at fraud and are getting better at stopping those who try. The San Diego Community College District is now manually screening for fraudulent applications twice a week and is finalizing a contract with a company to help improve its detection software.

CCCApply has improved its filtering process, which helped reduce fraud attempts at Sacramento area colleges, said Ross. “When we talked about such a complex dynamic challenge, it's always hard to identify what's the one thing that sort of moved the needle. The truth is that we needed support from the feds, we needed support from the (chancellor’s) office, and we needed to invest in tools locally.”

This spring, he said the district flagged about 12% of college applications as suspect.

Using AI to detect AI 

Measuring fraud is, by definition, imprecise. If a scammer is truly successful, colleges have no way to identify that fraud.

For a long time, administrators assumed bots enrolling in online classes were responsible for most fraudulent attempts. Yet teachers, students and financial aid administrators say some of the scams are more sophisticated now and are coming from real people impersonating students. Many fraudulent applications to Los Angeles’ community colleges have real names, dates of birth, and addresses that are likely “leaked or stolen,” said Nicole Albo-Lopez, the deputy chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District.

In San Diego, Victor DeVore, dean of student services, said the college district only requires ID verification for students flagged as fraudulent. At that point they must prove their identity, either in person or through Zoom. Once, a potentially fraudulent student appeared on Zoom and presented a valid-looking ID that matched their face, but DeVore’s team noticed that the student’s IP address was odd. “One minute they’re logging in from Nairobi, the next minute they'll be logging in from Virginia,” he said, adding that the use of AI, virtual private networks (VPNs) or other technology has made fraud harder to detect.

Students’ personal data is supposed to be private, but school districts and education technology companies are frequently hacked. Last week, Canvas — one of the go-to learning platforms for California’s community colleges, University of California and California State University campuses — went offline temporarily due to a major hack. Its parent company, Instructure, said last week that it reached an agreement with the hackers to relinquish students’ data.

The state has turned to AI to fight fraud. Last summer, the state chancellor’s office negotiated a multimillion dollar contract with N2N Services Inc., enabling any college in the state to access the company’s software at a discounted rate. The software uses AI to detect potentially fraudulent applicants. Colleges are not required to use it, and so far, only about two-thirds do. Some districts, such as the Los Angeles Community College District, use a different fraud detection software, known as Socure.

Colleges and the state chancellor’s office continue to face political pressure and scrutiny of their approach to fraud. Last month, the U.S. Education Department said it had prevented more than $171 million in fraud in California after implementing a new policy regarding ID verification. Hadsell, with the state chancellor’s office, said the federal policy had no impact on California’s colleges. “They issued some interim guidance last year that basically said you should at least have a Zoom call with students and have them show an ID when you're approving their aid. And those were things that were already happening. It was not, you know, some new thing at least for most of our colleges.”

Kiran Kodithala, the CEO of N2N, which collects its own data on fraud at community colleges, said the education department’s claim makes no sense.

“I don’t see how $171 million in fraud in California can occur,” he said. “There’s no basis for those numbers. We’re not seeing anything remotely close.” Kodithala estimates that N2N has prevented over $34 million in fraud since last summer, though his platform is not yet in use by all of California's 116 community colleges.

Collecting more precise data may take months or years. U.S. Representative Young Kim, who represents parts of Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, launched the effort for a federal investigation last spring, but her office could not provide any updates or confirm that an investigation was in fact underway. At the state level, the Legislature last year approved conducting an audit of how California’s community colleges handled fraud but the findings won’t be released until this summer.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.