St. Cloud Live reports Arctic Cat will suspend operations in St. Cloud and Thief River Falls “due to ongoing business conditions and a ‘softness’ in consumer end-market and design, according to Brandon Haddock, spokesperson for Arctic Cat’s parent company, Textron.”
Bring Me the News reports Boludo in Minneapolis has been fined over $105,000 by the U.S. Department of Labor for overtime violations and illegal labor practices. “According to DOL, Boludo denied overtime to 51 employees at its four Minneapolis restaurants: Boludo El 38, Boludo Downtown, Boludo Uptown and Boludo Como.”
Sahan Journal reports apost by a Prior Lake teacher is concerning parents in the district.
“The post consists of a photo of a cartoon family hugging each other and the words, “A FAMILY THAT IS DEPORTED TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER.” The post was shared by a Facebook account with the name, “Brooke Bendorf,” who was identified by some students and parents in the Prior Lake-Savage Area Schools district as fourth-grade teacher Brooke Zahn.”
Duluth News Tribune reports the U.S. Forest Service will buy more than 6,200 acres of land in the Superior National Forest. “In a decision memo issued Wednesday, Superior National Forest Supervisor Thomas Hall said the decision to buy the land from the Conservation Fund will help it manage lynx habitat, wetlands and wild rice waters, among other resources.”
Axios reports brothers Justin and Mat Ishbia are reportedly interested in buying the Twins from the Pohlads. The siblings bought the NBA’s Suns and WNBA’s Mercury in 2022.
WCCO shared this photo of ice “folding” on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis Thursday:
In November, the world’s most powerful democracy elected as its next president a man who schemed to overturn its last presidential election. A month later, South Koreans swarmed their legislature to block their president’s attempt to impose martial law.
The contrast sums up a year that tested democracy on all sides.
Incumbent parties and leaders were battered in elections that covered 60% of the world’s population, a sign of widespread discontent in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. It also was a sign of democracy working well, as it continued its core function of giving citizens the opportunity to replace the people who govern them.
That made 2024 a year in which the state of democracy is both a glass half full and half empty.
From Asia to Africa to the Americas, it produced examples of democracy working and citizens standing up against attempted coups or authoritarians. At the same time, some of the new regimes ushered in are taking a distinctly authoritarian tack. And the year ends with fresh turmoil in three prominent democracies, Canada, France and Germany.
Crossroads for democracy in the US
Donald Trump ended his last term trying to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden and rallying an angry crowd of supporters, some of whom then stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. It was a shocking end to the U.S.’s long tradition of peacefully transferring power from one president to the next.
Nonetheless, voters in November agreed to give Trump another term in the White House, even as he increasingly embraced authoritarian leaders and promised to seek retribution against those who defended democracy in 2020.
Voters didn’t heed warnings about Trump’s threat to democracy and were driven more by frustration at inflation and a surge in migration during Biden’s term.
That, of course, is democracy in action: Voters can choose to throw out an incumbent party even if the establishment warns that it’s dangerous. Indeed, the glass half full position on Trump is that his win was entirely democratic.
Trump’s 2016 victory was due to a quirk in the country’s 18th century Constitution that awards the presidency not based on a majority of the popular vote, but to whoever wins a majority of state-based Electoral College votes.
But in 2024, Trump won both the popular and Electoral College votes. He also expanded his margins among Latino and Black voters. He won with high turnout, debunking a long-held myth that U.S. conservatives struggle when many people vote. That belief has driven Republican attempts to make it tougher to cast a ballot.
Authoritarians gaining across the globe
The quiet period after the election is to some extent an illusion. Had Trump lost, he and his allies were poised to contest a victory by his Democratic opponent, so it’s not as if anti-democratic tendencies were erased by his win.
Trump’s victory helped trigger turmoil in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government was rocked this week by the resignation of his prominent finance minister over disagreements on handling Trump’s threatened tariffs. And Germany’s government collapsed ahead of elections next year, sparking turmoil in Europe’s largest economy less than two weeks after a similar political meltdown in France.
The returning U.S. president is part of a wave of new leaders who have gained ground in Western countries, some of whom analysts warn are anti-democratic, even if popularly elected, because they seek to dismantle the system of checks and balances that has made it possible for voters to replace them or halt potentially dangerous policies.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a major Trump booster, is an icon of this movement after he revamped his country’s judiciary, legislative maps and media to make it almost impossible for the opposition to win. Two years ago, European Union lawmakers declared that Orban had transformed his country from a democracy into “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy.”
Analysts warn that Slovakia’s leftist, pro-Russian prime minister Robert Fico is headed in that direction. Conservative populist parties also gained ground in the European Union Parliamentary elections in June.
Trump also highlights another worrying trend for democracy — a surge in violence around elections.
The billionaire candidate, controversial for his own rhetoric urging violence on protesters or migrants, was the target of two assassination attempts.
According to Washington, D.C.-based Freedom House, 26 of the year’s 62 elections across the world featured violence, including attacks on local candidates in Mexico and South Africa and violence at polling places in Chad. Slovakia’s Fico was targeted, as well.
That comes as there is a notable dip in enthusiasm for democracy. A Pew poll of 24 countries released earlier this year found widespread dissatisfaction with democracy worldwide, with a median of 59% of voters concerned about how it is working in their country amid economic concerns and a sense of alienation from political elites.
Some wins for democracy in a year of setbacks
Still, there is a clear silver lining for democracy.
The same Pew poll that found its appeal slipping also found that it remains by far the preferred system of government worldwide. And people turned out to demonstrate that, during elections and in protest of anti-democratic moves.
South Korea was not the only foiled attempt to disband democracy. In Bolivia in June, the military tried to replace President Luis Arce, with armored vehicles ramming through the doors of the government palace. But the troops retreated after Arce named a new commander who ordered them back.
In Bangladesh, protests over limits on who can work for the government expanded into public frustration with the 15-year reign of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, toppling her regime and forcing her to flee the country.
In Senegal, the country’s president tried to delay its March election but was overruled by the nation’s top court, and voters replaced him with a largely-unknown opposition leader who had just been freed from prison. In Botswana and South Africa, parties that had ruled for decades stepped aside or shared power without incident after losing elections.
Democracy isn’t static. Its health always depends on the next election. The fall of Germany’s government and possible collapse of Canada’s could just be democracy in action, giving voters a chance to elect new leaders. Or they could usher in more authoritarian regimes.
More will be revealed about how democracy did over the last year as its election results play out in 2025 and the years to come.
When MinnPost was founded in 2007, we had a lot of doubters. No print edition? No paywall? You ask readers for donations to make it all possible? At the time, we were among a small handful of local, startup nonprofit news outlets in the country.
Now, a little over 17 years later, the nonprofit journalism movement that we helped start has exploded to 450-and-growing orgs across the country (and Minnesota!). As part of this hopeful work to rebuild local news, we’ve demonstrated that our 501(c)(3) is much more than an IRS designation. We prioritize our community — not the desires of corporate shareholders or billionaire ownership — and provide all of our reporting at no charge, without a paywall, directly through our site and through free republication partners across Minnesota.
But we’re also not resting on our laurels or standing still. In fact, I’m thrilled to announce that in 2025, we’re embarking on a new chapter of expansion.
Spurred on by a matching challenge gift of $1 million from our founders, Joel and Laurie Kramer, we’re two-thirds of the way toward raising a major capital infusion of at least $2.2 million to increase the size and talent profile of our newsroom and build capacity to engage and reach new audiences in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
What does that look like? By this time next year, our newsroom will be 50% bigger. But it’s not just about the size of our team. Several of these new roles will be senior staff writers that will allow MinnPost to become a destination for enterprising, entrepreneurial journalists who exemplify what we do best: taking audiences beyond the “what and when” of daily coverage to serve as trusted guides into the “how and why” of the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing the Twin Cities metro and all of Minnesota. (Of course, we’ll continue our reputation for identifying and developing promising early-career talent, as well!)
We’re also expanding our audience team to focus on building meaningful relationships with Minnesotans across the state, surfacing unique information needs, particularly for underserved communities, and finding ways for the wide and diverse range of voices and experiences that make up Minnesota to be reflected in our journalism. This work will also offer an incredible opportunity to deepen our collaborations with local outlets — many of which already utilize our free republication policy — across Minnesota.
As we make these additions in the year ahead, you’ll see new bylines and new ways you can connect with the incredible journalists who make up our team. We’ll highlight new initiatives as we launch them and innovate how you can interact with our reporting and other MinnPost audience members. If you’ll pardon my language, MinnPost is a community for people who give a damn about Minnesota’s future. We’re excited to make our journalism an even more central part of how you can understand and look to shape that future.
With all of these exciting investments in our nonprofit newsroom and mission-driven programming, there are myriad ways you can be a part of this chapter of expansion and paywall-free journalism. In fact, we’ll need you with us to pull off this ambitious growth!
Member support is the lifeblood of MinnPost. Donations of all sizes, whether one-time or recurring, will be the bedrock for this growth. We’re in the midst of our year-end drive, so your support right now in any amount is critical. Thanks in advance for your tax-deductible donation before Dec. 31!
If you’re in a position to make a major philanthropic investment at the $5,000+ level, either directly or through a fund, you can help us finish the homestretch of the matching gift on the table and join our leadership circle as a way to connect with our nonprofit newsroom. (Please feel free to contact Laura Lindsay, our advancement director, to discuss further!)
Organizations that sponsor or advertise with MinnPost get a two-fer: You get your message in front of hundreds-of-thousands of highly-engaged, highly-active Minnesotans who give a damn and you make our paywall-free journalism possible. (Brian Perry is always happy to discuss the many options available for all budget sizes.)
And there are ways to be a part of MinnPost and what we’re building that aren’t financial. Sign up for one of our many free newsletters. Follow (and share!) our work on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Bluesky). Come to a MinnPost event (including our marquee people and ideas festival set again for Fall 2025!).
However you join us in this exciting next chapter of growth, we’re honored to have you with our nonprofit newsroom. It’s a perilous time for local media and our civic culture generally, but we’ve shown throughout MinnPost’s history that together we can do incredible things. I’m confident that, standing arm in arm, we’ll continue that legacy in this next chapter of growth and innovation.
With the holiday season in full swing, online gift shopping is the convenient and popular choice for many consumers in today’s digital age.
Those shoppers should beware: A 2023 study by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) showed scams were on the rise, and Minnesota ranked 18th among states last year with $193.9 million in losses.
This year about 70% of consumers in the U.S. said they were likely to shop for holiday gifts through online-only retailers, according to an October Statista study. Over half said they were likely to shop at mass merchants, and a third said they were thinking of shopping at off-price retailers or department stores.
“In 2023, IC3 received a record number of complaints from the American public: 880,428 complaints were registered, with potential losses exceeding $12.5 billion,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Timothy Langan said in the IC3 report.
A variety of scams
The FBI warned consumers that scammers can steal not only hard-earned money but also personal information.
Different types of scams include:
Non-delivery scams where a shopper pays for online goods or services but never receives them.
Non-payment scams where goods or services are shipped but payment is never received.
Auction fraud where a purchased item was misrepresented on an auction site.
And gift card fraud in which a seller might ask to be paid with a pre-paid card. This is where a seller may ask you to send them a gift card number and PIN. Instead of using that gift card for your payment, the scammer will steal the funds, and you’ll never receive your item.
According to the IC3 report, non-payment and non-delivery scams cost people $309 million in 2023.
The FBI said the IC3 receives a large volume of complaints of lost money or fraud in the early months of each year, which suggests a correlation with the previous holiday season’s shopping scams.
Common ways holiday scams are carried out include phishing emails or ads, social media scams including online surveys and offers of vouchers or gift cards, and charity scams.
According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the largest group of BBB Scam Tracker reports, 40% of the total, involve victims of online ads found on Facebook and Instagram.
Consumers told BBB that Facebook and Instagram are often not helpful in addressing violations of their own policies when consumers receive counterfeit goods, nothing at all, or items that were inferior to what was advertised and purchased.
Pop Crush reports that a Facebook scam is also back for the holiday season, aimed at tricking users to reveal login information. The phishing scam involves an email appearing to be from Facebook saying the user has violated its standards.
The message reads, “Recently, we discovered a breach of our Facebook Community Standards on your page. Your page has been disabled for violating Facebook Terms. If you believe the decision is incorrect, you can request a review and file an appeal at the link below.”
The link attached, once clicked, will give the scammer access to private information but will look real due to the fact it looks just like Facebook.com, according to Pop Crush.
The BBB recommends that consumers always log in directly to an account and proceed from there and never click on a sent link.
How to protect yourself
To avoid fraud, the BBB suggests a couple of things:
Check out websites before making a purchase.
Search for contact information and use caution if the site doesn’t have a U.S. or Canadian phone number or doesn’t use a Gmail or Yahoo business email address.
Keep a record of what you ordered.
Scrutinize online reviews.
Pay by credit card as they often provide more protection against fraud than other payment methods.
The FBI suggests not opening unsolicited emails or clicking on any links in those emails. The agency also suggests securing banking and credit accounts with strong and different passwords, securing all other accounts that contain anything of value, staying away from untrustworthy sites and using general caution and vigilance.
Complaints about being the target of a scam can be filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Online shopping fraud can also be reported by visiting websites such as the BBB, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).
Even as groundwater levels have rapidly declined in farming regions from California’s Central Valley to the High Plains, the federal government has mostly taken a hands-off approach to the chronic depletion of the nation’s aquifers. But in a new report for the White House, scientists say the country is facing serious and unprecedented groundwater challenges that call for the federal government to play a larger role.
Members of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology said the country needs better data to provide a comprehensive picture of how much groundwater there is and how fast it is being depleted. The scientists called for a national effort to advance strategies for safeguarding aquifers, including establishing a federal program that would provide incentives to encourage states and communities to manage underground water supplies sustainably.
“The current rate of groundwater pumping exceeds that of natural recharge,” the council said in the report. “Much of the water in the major aquifers in the U.S. is fossil water, recharged over 10,000 years ago, and will not be replaced naturally in centuries and millennia. In the western U.S. groundwater resources are being depleted at alarming rates, mostly from agricultural withdrawal.”
They said that groundwater, which sustains communities, food production and ecosystems, is a strategic resource in the face of climate change, and that addressing depletion is vital for the country’s future and will require a “comprehensive and informed approach.”
“The federal government has limited authority to regulate groundwater, but can deploy financial incentives, technical assistance, and convening power to promote groundwater sustainability,” the scientists said.
The scientific advisory council outlined several recommendations, including creating an interagency working group focused on groundwater; increasing investment in research, data collection and modeling; establishing regional “hubs” to coordinate management efforts; and starting a program that would provide grants to “incentivize groundwater conservation and management based on sound science.”
The 27-member council prepared the report for President Biden’s administration after a fact-finding effort that included hearing testimony from leading scientists and others. The timing of the report’s release one month before the handover of power to President-elect Donald Trump — who has said water is “horribly mismanaged” in California and has pledged to turn on a massive “faucet” for farmers and cities — leaves in doubt whether any of the proposals might lead to concrete changes anytime soon.
But experts said the report for the first time presents a framework for a national strategy that would promote and coordinate efforts to address the overuse of groundwater in regions where unchecked pumping from wells is causing aquifer levels to fall.
The seminal report is “a beacon for the future of groundwater management,” said Jay Famiglietti, a water scientist and global futures professor at Arizona State University. “Its recommendations are comprehensive and forward looking, and if implemented over time, can be a game-changer for groundwater sustainability in the United States.”
He said he thinks the White House report is “one of the most important groundwater documents ever written in the United States.”
Tristan Zannon stands beside a well at his family-owned pistachio farm in the Cuyama Valley. He and other farmers are involved in litigation with large agricultural landowners in the valley amid a dispute over how to manage the shrinking supply of groundwater.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Famiglietti has suggested that the federal government should go further and develop a national water policy. He and other scientists provided testimony to the council during a meeting last year and at a July workshop in Phoenix.
Famiglietti said he told a council staffer that the most important thing the country must do is gain a detailed understanding of “how much groundwater we have, how much we are using, and how these are changing over time.” He said he was pleased that this point was featured prominently in the report, which says the U.S. needs a “whole-of-country, unified, and comprehensive picture” of the nation’s groundwater.
The report notes that states are primarily responsible for water laws, policies and regulations.
In California, for example, the state is gradually implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which sets goals for local agencies to curb overdraft by 2040. In Arizona, groundwater has been regulated in urban areas since 1980, but pumping remains unregulated in rural farming areas, where water levels have been dropping.
The report says that many communities probably “would initiate a transition to science-based groundwater management if funds and technical assistance were available.” The report also outlines how the federal government could help promote efforts to boost groundwater levels through managed aquifer recharge projects.
Famiglietti, a former NASA scientist whose research has included tracking declines in groundwater globally using satellite measurements, said he hopes the Trump administration will heed the recommendations.
“If they do not, I have no doubt that many of us in academics will take the lead on moving forward with various aspects of the plan over the next few years,” he said, adding that implementing even a portion of the recommendations would be beneficial.
Famiglietti and other experts have stressed that preserving groundwater will be crucial for the future of California and other arid Western states. Recent research has shown that global warming, driven by the burning of fossil fuels and rising levels of greenhouse gases, has become a major driver of worsening droughts in the West.
The council noted that irrigation to serve agriculture accounts for about 70% of the nation’s groundwater withdrawals, but offered few specifics about how the federal government could encourage reductions in agricultural water use.
The council suggested providing grants to incentivize “planning, recharge, and sustainable management,” but didn’t provide details. Famiglietti said the government could help by providing incentives for farmers to switch to more efficient irrigation methods, or to grow less water-intensive crops.
Researchers have found that when California farmers are charged more for electricity to run their pumps, they pump less water. These findings show that a tax or fee on water use could help achieve necessary reductions in pumping, said Matt Woerman, a co-author of the research and assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics at Colorado State University.
“There are tons of different ways that you could try to get farmers to extract less water, everything from just putting limits on how much water they’re allowed to use, charging them fees to use this valuable resource, some kind of a subsidy program to use more efficient irrigation infrastructure,” Woerman said.
However, Woerman added that although having federal money directed toward the problem would help, it will be up to local people and agencies to determine which approaches they adopt. Woerman said the council’s recommendations seem like good first steps, but “a lot of the real action is going to have to happen at a more local level.”
In 1976, as the city of Rolling Hills Estates considered plans for a new development on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, officials debated how water should drain through a nearby canyon.
The development would cause increased runoff, city officials noted at the time, which would ideally be maintained by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.
But one other factor was paramount.
“It is recommended that all efforts be made to obtain that [flood control] district’s acceptance,” the city’s resolution from August 1976 said. “However, this should not be done if it requires installation of concrete channels through the canyon bottoms which would defeat the intent of the natural area.”
And so, the drainage plan remained as outlined — failing to meet the flood control district’s requirements and leaving drainage to the purview of the development’s homeowners’ associations, the records said.
That decades-old decision is now the linchpin of a lawsuit that claims the city, county and homeowners’ associations failed to properly manage runoff in that canyon, a section of which would go on to collapse in July 2023, destroying several homes and damaging others in the Peartree Lane landslide.
“The stormwater directed by the county and city drainage facilities into the canyon eroded and down-cut the toe of the slope, causing it to fail in July 2023,” a group of affected homeowners alleged in the lawsuit’s updated complaint. “The city and county deliberately ignored their standard because they preferred the aesthetic beauty of a natural (i.e., unprotected) channel.”
The lawsuit alleges that the drainage decision, made while officials knew that the Palos Verdes Peninsula was landslide-prone, was mishandled and ultimately led to the landslide. The hillside collapse destroyed eight homes and left several others unsafe for inhabitants, just hours after firefighters evacuated families. No one was injured.
City and county officials “knew or should have known that the proposed Park Community and other developments in the watershed area would significantly increase the stormwater flow in the open canyon drainage channel, and that the increased stormwater flow would erode, down-cut, and destabilize the hillside on which plaintiffs’ homes would be built,” says the new complaint, which was filed this month.
The city of Rolling Hills Estates, which concluded that extreme rains from the prior winter caused the landslide, rebutted the lawsuit’s claims.
“At this point, we’re not aware of any city infrastructure or city activity that contributed to the landslide,” said Ed Richards, an attorney representing the city in the lawsuit. He declined to comment on specifics in the case because the litigation remains ongoing.
Lawyers for the county and the homeowners’ associations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, but have denied similar allegations in previous lawsuits.
Earlier this year, another group of residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the landslide filed a similar lawsuit, which also remains ongoing. A judge ruled earlier this month that the two cases were related and they could soon be consolidated.
In that other case, the residents alleged that “due to the design and/or maintenance” of the storm water system, it failed and led to the landslide.
Ken Kasdan and Scott Thomson, attorneys for that group of residents, said they hired experts who conducted on-site assessments, finding that the way water funneled into the canyon “contributed to the slope failure.”
The group has also filed a third lawsuit, alleging the two homeowners’ associations in the community, Rolling Hills Park Community Assn. and Rolling Hills Park Villas Assn., failed “to conduct reasonable inspection, repair, preservation, erosion and sliding prevention, and monitoring of the slope which resulted in the damage.” That case also remains open.
Before construction on this development began, a city engineer in 1976 wrote to Rolling Hills Estates leaders, noting that it was important “to ascertain if any consequences exist in this area as a result of subsidence similar to that which is being experienced in some of the adjacent beach areas,” which the most recent complaint said was in reference to the Portuguese Bend landslide.
At that point, the Portuguese Bend landslide — a few miles southeast from the proposed development — had been slowly pushing land toward the sea for two decades, triggered in 1956 by nearby construction, and initially destroyed dozens of homes. (That landslide remains an issue in Rancho Palos Verdes, which borders Rolling Hills Estates.)
“In spite of the risk of subsidence, [Rolling Hills Estates] insisted on draining stormwater across steep slopes into the open canyon drainage channel,” the updated complaint said. “It chose not to build concrete channels.”
California regulators voted Thursday to impose a permanent set of workplace rules aimed at protecting countertop cutters from silicosis, an incurable disease that has been killing young workers.
The unanimous vote by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board extends and expands on workplace safety rules approved a year ago on an emergency basis, which are due to expire soon.
The rules are aimed at stemming the rise among workers of silicosis, which results from inhaling tiny particles of crystalline silica that scar the lungs, leaving people struggling to breathe.
“This is a devastating disease. The evidence of its cause is overwhelming, and there’s something that we can do about it right now,” board Chair Joseph M. Alioto Jr. said before voting for the rules.
But “I’m concerned that the regulation, in some respects, does not go far enough.”
The California board also voted unanimously to convene an advisory committee to continue assessing how to strengthen the rules and implement them effectively. Alioto said the committee should also consider concerns about the rules raised by industry representatives.
Cal/OSHA estimated the expected costs of the workplace rules at $106.5 million over a decade, which the agency said would be far outstripped by the estimated benefits of $492 million from preventing illness and deaths, not counting the “indirect costs” of pain and suffering, lost wages and lost productivity.
The rules require employers to take steps to protect workers, such as providing protective respirators and using water to suppress dust, when employees are cutting, grinding or polishing slabs. They also eliminate earlier loopholes that allowed stonecutting shops to dodge safety requirements by claiming that protective steps weren’t feasible, according to Cal/OSHA officials.
The agency said that in the past, state rules relied on employers to perform sophisticated assessments to decide what protections were needed. Many failed to do so, forcing the state to do the assessments itself, which could be manipulated by employers changing their usual practices when Cal/OSHA showed up, it said.
Tighter rules have empowered Cal/OSHA to act more quickly when workers were at risk, the agency said. As of early December, the state agency said it had inspected 85 stonecutting shops and issued 22 orders to temporarily shut down equipment or processes until the shops had addressed “imminent hazards” related to silica.
Leobardo Segura Meza, who suffers from silicosis, at his home in Pacoima.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
The rules approved Thursday require businesses to shift laborers to other kinds of work — but keep providing the same pay — if a medical professional recommends it to reduce their silica exposure. They also require more sensitive scans, rather than chest X-rays, to detect silicosis among workers who could be at risk.
Industry groups said the rule took an ineffective, “one-size-fits-all” approach. The Natural Stone Institute and the International Surface Fabricators Assn. called instead for a system they likened to “TSA pre-check.” Businesses that can show silica exposure is consistently below a set level should not have to face many of the stiffer requirements that were ushered in last year, they argued.
“We’re not talking about a rubber stamp,” said Marissa Bankert of the International Surface Fabricators Assn., which represents businesses that cut and polish slabs. “We’re talking about the development of a rigorous system that qualifies the organizations … who are doing things correctly.”
Bankert said her organization doesn’t want workers to fall ill, but under the tighter rules, “we’re still seeing these shops that are not compliant, right? And creating more rules is not going to help those people.”
In a report, Cal/OSHA staff said the rules do include some reduced requirements if employers show that silica exposure is sufficiently low, but argued against easing them further, saying, “the life of workers cannot be put at risk based on the results of air sampling, which can be highly variable from day to day.”
Health officials have tied the silicosis outbreak among countertop cutters to the swelling popularity of engineered stone, which can contain upward of 93% crystalline silica. In a report, Cal/OSHA described the artificial slabs as the most popular choice for countertops in the U.S., with a market size exceeding $17 billion.
Engineered stone companies say their slabs can be cut safely with proper precautions, but Cal/OSHA said that dusty and dangerous conditions have persisted in many of the “fabrication shops” where workers cut and polish slabs to fashion them into countertops.
Experts warned that even with wet cutting, workers can be at risk. Georgia Tech scientist Jenny Houlroyd told the board Thursday that among Georgia workers cutting engineered stone high in silica, “we have not been able to consistently and effectively get companies to keep their exposures below” the limit.
Relying on wet methods and ventilation can be inadequate due to the high level of silica in the slabs, but stonecutters often have a “false sense of security” and end up removing their respirators, Houlroyd said.
Her presentation grabbed the attention of Alioto, who said he was concerned that her data and other findings shared by Cal/OSHA staff might mean that some exceptions laid out in the rules were not scientifically sound.
Bankert of the International Surface Fabricators Assn. told the board Thursday that on the topic of wet cutting, “we have data of our own that completely contradicts that” presented during the meeting.
“Wet methods may not be the total solution, but when coupled with good housekeeping, routine monitoring, medical surveillance and so forth. … We want to work together,” Jim Hieb, chief executive of the Natural Stone Institute, told the board.
More than 200 cases of silicosis have been detected among California workers who cut countertops in recent years, including at least 15 that have led to death, according to public health officials. Men in their 20s, 30s and 40s have ended up relying on oxygen tanks or waiting for lung transplants to survive. One study of California countertop cutters with the disease found the median age among those who had died was 46.
“Workers should not be dying or needing lung transplants for the sake of our kitchen countertops,” Dr. Amy Heinzerling, head of the emerging workplace hazards unit at the California Department of Public Health, told the board.
Heinzerling said the known cases could be the tip of an iceberg because additional workers might not have been screened. State officials warned that if trends don’t change, as many as a fifth of the roughly 5,000 workers in stonecutting shops identified across California could develop silicosis and up to 200 could die of it.
There are also conflicting estimates of the size of the industry: California public health officials have estimated there are more than 800 stonecutting shops across the state, but an industry official said at a UCLA conference earlier this year that his group believed there were roughly 3,000 of them.
Dennys Rene Rivas Williams shows the scars of a double lung transplant required after he was diagnosed with silicosis, an incurable disease caused by inhaling tiny particles of crystalline silica.
(Al Seib / For The Times)
The rules approved Thursday require employers to take steps to protect workers when they are cutting or polishing slabs of engineered stone with more than 0.1% crystalline silica or natural stone with more than 10% silica.
Engineered stone has been broadly banned in Australia, and some researchers have called for other countries to prohibit artificial slabs high in silica, arguing that that is the most effective way to protect workers. When asked whether the California rules go far enough, Houlroyd told a board member that “in an ideal world, I would look to what Australia did.” Several advocates spoke in favor of a ban during the Thursday meeting.
Cal/OSHA has previously warned that if the rules are widely violated, it could take steps toward a ban. But in a report, the agency said it decided against pursuing one at this point because it “could incentivize the growth of illegal fabrication shops that are hidden from regulators” or push scofflaw shops to other states.
State Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City) recently proposed a certification system for stonecutting shops that would require safety training for workers, create a tracking system for shops, and bar slab manufacturers from providing their products to uncertified shops. Then-Assemblymember Luz Rivas abandoned a similar bill in July, saying that state regulators were not receptive to the idea of setting up a tracking system.
In a recent interview, Menjivar said that after a year under the emergency standards, “we are in a better place to say, ‘We gave you a shot. It wasn’t enough’” to state regulators. She was unimpressed by the number of workshops inspected and shut down by Cal/OSHA under the emergency rules.
“I’m sick and tired of us not having urgency when it’s people of color dying,” she said. “If one person died from Beverly Hills, all the alarms would go off.”
First, Santa spoiler alert! And, parents, you what we mean.
When Melissa Marion’s 8-year-old son, Johnny, came home from school saying that a classmate had said Santa wasn’t real, she knew just how she wanted to approach it.
“I was like, ‘You know, people believe what they want to believe.’” Marion said, choosing her words carefully. “And he hasn’t brought it up since.”
She wants Johnny to figure out the truth behind Santa on his own, just as she did growing up. And she plans to do the same with his 4-year-old sister as she gets older. It’s fun to pretend the Christmas magic is still alive, she said, and she wants to keep it going as long as possible.
After parents make the holidays magical for their young children, the age of reality can be tricky to navigate. Here’s what experts have to say about the Santa talk.
Engage with our community-funded journalism as we delve into child care, transitional kindergarten, health and other issues affecting children from birth through age 5.
What to say when a child asks whether Santa is real?
This depends a lot on where a child is developmentally.
Three- and 4-year-olds aren’t likely to question much about the magic, because they tend to be more interested in the end product — Santa’s presents under the tree — rather than the process of how Santa actually got them there.
But by the age of 5 or 6, “children are starting to think about cause and effect,” said Erin O’Connor, a professor of child development at New York University. That’s when they might start questioning the physics of Santa, and asking how exactly a sleigh can travel from the North Pole to their house, or how one bearded man can deliver gifts to millions of kids in a single night.
But these questions don’t mean they want to learn the truth. Children at this age are still gathering evidence about how the world works and may be asking as a way to confirm that Santa is real. O’Connor suggests that parents turn the inquisition back on their children by asking, “That’s an interesting question. What do you think?”
What is the average age when kids learn the truth about Santa?
Surveys since the 1970s have consistently found that children generally figure out the the truth about Santa at 7 or 8. But there is variability. Some 4-year-olds are already telling their parents they don’t believe, while others may hold of for several years beyond.
“That’s part of the reason why it can be so difficult for parents to figure out, is it time?” said Candice Mills, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Natalie Fairman’s oldest daughter discovered Santa wasn’t real at age 10, when she noticed that the gifts from Santa were the same ones she saw in her mom’s Amazon orders.
What is the right age to tell a child about Santa?
O’Connor said parents should explain the Santa reality by age 8 or 9, which is often when they start getting pushback from peers. “It’s really hard to be one of the only third-graders who still believes, and it’s easier coming from a parent or caregiver than from a peer poking fun of you about it.”
By the time kids are asking directly, “Is Santa really real, or are you actually the one bringing the present?” it’s probably time to fess up, Mills said. “When they’re asking those kinds of questions, usually they really want to know the truth at that point.”
But some parents keep doubling down on Santa, even after the children have been told the truth by peers, leaving their kids to start Googling for answers. When parents take it too far, “it can feel more like a violation,” she said.
Krista Vargas said she will take her son’s lead. If he seems to be a bit skeptical or begins to question inequality among the gifts different kids receive, then, she says, she’ll take it as time to have a deeper conversation. For now as a 16-month toddler, he is enjoying the tradition.
Ricky Vargas, Krista Vargas and their son, Sandro, pose with Santa Brown at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Mall on Wednesday.
(Marcus Ubungen/Los Angeles Times)
Last year, Mills published studies of both adults and children ages 6 to 15 about their belief in Santa in a paper called “Debunking the Santa Myth: The Process and Aftermath of Becoming Skeptical About Santa.” Even though around half of children and adults alike reported feeling some negative emotions such as sadness or anger when they discovered the truth, those feelings tended to be short-lived. About half of children said they actually felt good about discovering the truth — especially those who figured it out themselves.
A few adults surveyed, however, still felt resentful about their parents lying to them. Children who learned the truth later — especially if it didn’t happen until the age of 11 — were more likely to experience only negative emotions about it, according to Mills’ study.
How to explain to kids about Santa?
There’s no one right way to do the big reveal. Mills suggests expanding the joy by telling a child that Santa isn’t just one person — it’s a collective effort of people spreading good deeds, and now the child is old enough to become part of the magic themselves. They might volunteer with their child to drop off gifts for children in need, for example, or help create the magic for a younger child.
In Fairman’s case, that’s been by involving her older daughters in Santa deeds for younger siblings, who are 4 and 6.
Is telling your kids that Santa is real considered a lie?
Imagination, O’Connor said, is an important tool for children to navigate their world. So as long as the holiday myth isn’t used in a manner that takes away the safety and security of imagination, then belief in magic shouldn’t be a problem, O’Connor said.
But don’t assume young children are gullible.
When all of the adults in a child’s life consistently tell them that Santa Claus exists, and then they discover, on Christmas morning, “tangible evidence that Santa Claus exists, why would they doubt it?” said Paul Harris an education professor at Harvard who researches child development.
“We adults have persuaded ourselves that this is one of the bonuses of being a child, that you can revel in magical creatures. But there isn’t much evidence that children are predisposed to magical thinking.”
Still, he said, “I don’t think it does any harm.”
And Mills’ research found reason to think the joy and fun outweigh the negatives in the end: A vast majority of children and adults surveyed still celebrated or planned to celebrate Santa with their own children.
This article is part of The Times’ early childhood education initiative, focusing on the learning and development of California children from birth to age 5. For more information about the initiative and its philanthropic funders, go to latimes.com/earlyed.
A U.S. Postal Service worker was arrested Thursday on suspicion of swiping more than 20 checks from the mail and depositing $281,000 into various bank accounts under her name, authorities said.
Joivian Tjuana Hayes, 36, of Compton, was charged with one count of bank fraud and faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in federal prison if convicted, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Hayes, who prosecutors identified as a supervisor at the Costa Mesa Post Office in Orange County, is accused of stealing almost two dozen checks from the office since July, prosecutors said.
Hayes allegedly deposited the checks in her accounts at various banks by forging the signatures of payees, prosecutors said. One of these checks was for more than $114,000, according to authorities.
Surveillance camera footage allegedly shows Hayes depositing the stolen checks at ATMs in Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley and Compton, prosecutors said.
She is also suspected of stealing currency worth tens of thousands of dollars, as well as gold coins, according to authorities.
Federal agents searched Hayes’ Compton residence and her vehicle, a 2023 BMW, on Thursday.
The matter was investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General.
The latest chapter in the saga of a 300-acre development in the Verdugo Mountains revolves around surveillance cameras and native bumblebees. The developer is suing protesters for trespassing onto the property in attempts to gather evidence for why the land should be preserved.
Nevada-based developer Whitebird Inc. has grandiose visions for the luxury complex known as Canyon Hills. The project would transform the rugged hillside above the Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood, which has largely been spared from development, into a tony community with 221 homes.
The development was approved by the Los Angeles City Council in 2005 with a 20-year window of completion running through October 2026.
Multiple groups have protested the project in the two decades since. Locals worried it would bring overpopulation and traffic to the rural community. Environmentalists claimed the homes would be unsafe in the fire-prone mountains.
Whitebird reined in the scope as a result, bringing the footprint from 900 acres down to 300 and donating the remaining 600 acres to be preserved as open space. But activists argue that 300 acres of development is still too much.
After setting aside 600 acres of its 900-acre development for green space, Whitebird’s Canyon Hills project now plans to cover 300 acres with 221 homes. But activists argue that is still too much.
(Whitebird Inc.)
The latest group to protest, No Canyon Hills, formed in spring 2023 as a collection of artists, designers and amateur botanists who say the area’s native flora and wildlife are worth protecting.
Now, with the closing of the 20-year completion window on the horizon, Whitebird is suing.
The developer filed suit against No Canyon Hills on Dec. 10, accusing group members of sneaking onto the property and secretly installing cameras and other surveillance equipment, disobeying posted “No Trespassing” signs. It also accuses the group of boasting about the alleged trespasses, posting proof on social media and in correspondence with government officials.
As a result, Whitebird claimed the activists damaged its reputation, disrupted its enjoyment of the land and increased costs to comply with contractual obligations.
“The Canyon Hills site is private property, not public open space,” said Christopher Frost, an attorney representing Whitebird. “Like all property owners in California, our client has the exclusive right to the use of the land it has owned for over two decades and an expectation of privacy on that land without disruption. The trespassing and unauthorized surveillance we describe in the lawsuit are taking place in violation of those rights.”
The suit also claimed that the protesting efforts delayed the development. It might be right.
In addition to public outreach campaigns, including a petition that has racked up more than 177,000 signatures, No Canyon Hills has brought its concerns to local governmental agencies.
The rare Davidson’s bush mallow is found only on California’s Central Coast and in the hills around Tujunga, including on land where a luxury housing development is planned.
(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)
On Sept. 11, Doug Carstens, an attorney who has represented No Canyon Hills, sent the L.A. Planning Department a note outlining its fears about the development’s effect on local wildlife, specifically two protected species: mountain lions and Crotch’s bumblebees. The complaint included multiple time-stamped pictures of a puma on the property.
Two days later, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) sent Whitebird a notice saying its application for an incidental take permit — a necessary step that lets the developer build homes in an area that is home to protected species, such as Crotch’s bumblebee — was incomplete.
“No Canyon Hills submitted photos to public agencies, then those public agencies became rightfully concerned,” Carsten said. “You can’t just start grading land without accounting for wildlife that’s been documented on-site.”
The project’s original environmental impact report, which was finalized in 2004, found no evidence of mountain lions or protected bees. But as No Canyon Hills co-founder Emma Kemp said, a lot can change in 20 years.
“Certain components of the original impact report, which was conducted 20 years ago, don’t reflect the current status of the land,” Kemp said. “Our goal is to encourage city officials and state agencies to conduct an updated environmental review.”
For now, the project is waiting for Whitebird to receive the incidental take permit related to the Crotch’s bumblebees. Once that’s issued, the company says it will resume development and seek a grading permit from the city.
Opponents of the Canyon Hills development are worried about how the development will affect native Crotch’s bumblebees, a protected species.
(Krystle Hickman)
It’s a race against time. The window of completion closes in less than two years, but Frost said the company will be able to develop the lots by October 2026. It’s unclear what phase the project has to be in by the deadline in order for the city approval to remain valid, but Jack Rubens, Whitebird’s land use attorney, said he expects earth grading for the project to begin long before then.
Kemp isn’t so sure.
“Every month they don’t have the permit, we’re moving closer to the 2026 deadline, and that’s partly because of the advocacy work we’ve been doing,” she said.
Frost said Whitebird is also open to selling the land to a conservation-minded buyer — for the right price.
No Canyon Hills has been in discussion with Whitebird for the past year about a potential sale, according to Kemp, even fundraising on its website with the tagline, “Can we crowd-fund a mountain? Absolutely.”
The fundraising goal is $12 million, but Frost said that’s nowhere near the appropriate value of the land.
The Canyon Hills project would transform a rugged hillside above the Sunland-Tujunga neighborhood into a tony community with 221 homes.
(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)
Whether a deal was ever on the table, Kemp was surprised at the aggressiveness of the lawsuit, given that earlier this year the two parties had been discussing a potential conservation acquisition deal alongside the Trust for Public Land, a nonprofit organization that creates parks and public land.
“Their litigation team has all these slogans on its website of being fighters and ‘unapologetically aggressive,’” she said. “It just seems a bit hostile to a bunch of kids that care about bumblebees.”
Carstens, who isn’t representing No Canyon Hills in the lawsuit but deals with land use issues frequently, said the suit seems like an attempt to intimidate the activists.
“Lots of developers work through these processes without suing the activists,” he said. “If the developer wanted to negotiate selling the property in good faith, filing a lawsuit against an activist doesn’t seem like the best course of doing that.”
Carstens said the suit could backfire. Instead of getting Whitebird relief in the form of damages, it could bring more interest and attention to the group’s cause.
Despite the lawsuit, No Canyon Hills is still interested in buying and conserving the land, though the logistics become a bit tougher now that they have to fundraise for a defense attorney to represent them in court.
“Ultimately, we believe that the conservation of land is bigger than No Canyon Hills or Whitebird,” she said.
She said the most rewarding part of the mission has been seeing younger people get excited about protecting the land and landscape they live in.
“Irrespective of what happens here, that still feels like something to be proud of,” she said. “On the other end, we could end up bankrupt.”
