“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 and limit their time outdoors.

Yahushua’s family is supporting 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.

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 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 , 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.”

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, 鈥極K, 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, 鈥楲eave 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.

Schoolyards can reach 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 and , 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 , according to the 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 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 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. , 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鈥榮 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.”

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It’s a听first-in-the-nation experiment听that expands a Biden administration strategy to take Medicaid beyond traditional medical care and into the realm of social services.

“Climate change is a health-care issue,” Health and Human Services Secretary听Xavier Becerra听told me, adding that states should be encouraged to experiment with ways to improve people’s health.

But Medicaid’s expansion into social services could lead to abuse, especially when government pays for equipment or services that everyone wants, said听Sherry Glied, dean of听New York University’s graduate school of public service.

“The challenge here is that air conditioners are something that both healthy people and people who have your really serious condition benefit from,” Glied said. “Most people have air conditioners for reasons that have nothing to do with their health.”

Many states are already spending听听on services like helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for people with diabetes. But Oregon is the first to spend Medicaid money explicitly on climate-related equipment to help its most vulnerable residents 鈥� an estimated听200,000听enrollees.

Recipients must meet federal guidelines that categorize them as “facing certain life transitions,” a stringent听听that disqualify most enrollees. For example, a person with an underlying medical condition that could worsen during a heat wave, and who is also at risk for homelessness or has been released from prison in the past year, could receive an air conditioner. But someone with stable housing might not qualify.

“Each person is going to be looked at as what they need for their particular circumstance,” said听Dave Baden, deputy director for programs and policy at the听Oregon Health Authority, which administers the state’s Medicaid program, with about听. The program, part of a five-year听$1.1 billion听effort that includes housing and nutrition services, also pays for mini fridges to keep medications cold, portable power supplies to run ventilators and other medical devices during outages, space heaters for winter and air filters to improve air quality during wildfire season.

Scientists and public health officials say climate change poses a growing health risk. The federal government’s听听projects that more frequent and intense floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme temperatures and storms will cause more deaths, cardiovascular disease from poor air quality and other problems.听

The mounting health effects disproportionately hit low-income Americans and people of color, who are often covered by Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people.

Most of the听102听Oregonians who died during a deadly heat dome that settled over the Pacific Northwest in 2021 “were elderly, isolated and living with low incomes,” a听听found.

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The equipment, which started going out in March, expands a Biden administration strategy to move Medicaid beyond traditional medical care and into the realm of social services.

At least 20 states, including California, , and Washington, already direct billions of Medicaid dollars into programs such as helping homeless people get housing and preparing healthy meals for people with diabetes, according to KFF. Oregon is the first to use Medicaid money explicitly for climate-related costs, part of its five-year, $1.1 billion effort to address social needs, which also includes housing and nutrition benefits.

State and federal health officials hope to show that taxpayer money and lives can be saved when investments are made before disaster strikes.

“Climate change is a health care issue,” so helping Oregon’s poorest and sickest residents prepare for potentially dangerous heat, drought, and other extreme weather makes sense, said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on a visit to Sacramento, California, in early April.

Becerra said the Biden administration wants states to experiment with how best to improve patient health, whether by keeping someone housed instead of homeless, or reducing their exposure to heat with an air conditioner.

But Medicaid’s expansion into social services may duplicate existing housing and nutrition programs offered by other federal agencies, while some needy Americans can’t get essential medical care, said , director of the Medicaid and Health Safety Net Reform Initiative at the Paragon Health Institute.

“There are intellectually disabled people in the United States waiting for Medicaid services. They’re on a waitlist,” said Alexander, who oversaw state health agencies in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. “Meanwhile Medicaid has money for housing and food and air conditioners for recipients. Seems to me that we should serve the intellectually disabled first before we get into all of these new areas.”

Scientists and public health officials say climate change poses a growing health risk. More frequent and intense floods, droughts, wildfires, extreme temperatures, and storms cause more deaths, cardiovascular disease from poor air quality, and other problems, according to the federal government’s .

The mounting health effects disproportionately hit low-income Americans and people of color, who are often covered by Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people.

Most of the 102 Oregonians who died during the deadly heat dome that settled over the Pacific Northwest in 2021 “were elderly, isolated and living with low incomes,” according to a , which administers the state’s Medicaid program, with about . The OHA’s analysis of urgent care and emergency room use from May through September of 2021 and 2022 found that 60% of heat-related illness visits were from residents of areas with a median household income below $50,000.

“In the last 10-plus years, the amount of fires and smoke events and excessive heat events that we’ve had has shown the disproportionate impact of those events on those with lower incomes,” said Dave Baden, the OHA’s deputy director for programs and policy.

And, because dangerously high temperatures aren’t common in Oregon, many residents don’t have air conditioning in their homes.

Traditionally, states hit by natural disasters and public health emergencies have asked the federal government for on back-up power, air filters, and other equipment to help victims recover. But those requests came after the fact, following federal emergency declarations.

Oregon wants to be proactive and pay for equipment that will help an estimated 200,000 residents manage their health at home before extreme weather or climate-related disaster hits, Baden said. In addition to air conditioning units, the program will pay for mini fridges to keep medications cold, portable power supplies to run ventilators and other medical devices during outages, space heaters for winter, and air filters to improve air quality during wildfire season.

In March, the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program, began asking health insurers to who might need help coping with extreme weather. Recipients must meet federal guidelines that categorize them as “facing certain life transitions,” a stringent set of requirements that disqualify most enrollees. For example, a person with an underlying medical condition that could worsen during a heat wave, and who is also at risk for homelessness or has been released from prison in the past year, could receive an air conditioner. But someone with stable housing might not qualify.

“You could be in a housing complex, and your neighbor qualified for an air conditioner and you didn’t,” Baden said.

At the offices of insurer AllCare Health in Grants Pass, Oregon, air conditioners, air filters, and mini fridges were piled in three rooms in mid-April, ready to be handed over to Medicaid patients. The health plan provided equipment to 19 households in March. The idea is to get the supplies into people’s homes before the summer fire season engulfs the valley in smoke.

Health plans don’t want to find themselves “fighting the masses” at Home Depot when the skies are already smoky or the heat is unbearable, said Josh Balloch, AllCare’s vice president of health policy.

“We’re competing against everybody else, and you can’t find a fan on a hot day,” he said.

Oregon and some other states have already used Medicaid money to buy air conditioners, air purifiers, and other goods for enrollees, but not under the category of climate change. For example, to help asthma patients and New York to provide air conditioners to asthma patients.

Baden said Oregon health officials will evaluate whether sending air conditioners and other equipment to patients saves money by looking at their claim records in the coming years.

If Oregon can help enrollees avoid a costly trip to the doctor or the ER after extreme weather, other state Medicaid programs may ask the federal government if they can adopt the benefit. Many states haven’t yet used Medicaid money for climate change because it affects people and regions differently, said Paul Shattuck, a senior fellow at Mathematica, a research organization that has surveyed state Medicaid directors on the issue.

“The health risks of climate change are everywhere, but the nature of risk exposure is completely different in every state,” Shattuck said. “It’s been challenging for Medicaid to get momentum because each state is left to their own devices to figure out what to do.”

A California state lawmaker last year introduced legislation that would have required Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program, to add a climate benefit under its existing social services expansion. The program would have been similar to Oregon’s, but , by Assembly member Lisa Calderon, died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which questioned in a whether “climate change remediation supports can be defined as cost-effective.”

The cost savings are clear to Kaiser Permanente. After the 2021 heat wave, it sent air conditioners to 81 patients in Oregon and southwest Washington whose health conditions might get worse in extreme heat, said Catherine Potter, community health consultant at the health system. The following year, Kaiser Permanente estimated it had prevented $42,000 in heat-related ER visits and $400,000 in hospital admissions, she said.

“We didn’t used to have extreme heat like this, and we do now,” said Potter, who has lived in the temperate Portland area for 30 years. “If we can prevent these adverse impacts, we should be preventing them especially for people that are going to be most affected.”

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The deal comes a month after the administration unexpectedly rejected sweeping heat standards for workers in sweltering warehouses, steamy kitchens, and other dangerously hot job sites. The rules had been years in the making, and a state worker safety board voted to adopt them March 21. But in a controversial move, the administration upended the process by saying the cost to cool state prisons was unclear 鈥� and likely very expensive.

So the Democratic administration said the rules can proceed but must exempt tens of thousands of workers at 33 state prisons, conservation camps, and local jails, “in recognition of the unique implementation challenges,” said Eric Berg, of California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, at a Thursday hearing. A separate regulation will be drafted for correctional facilities, which could take a year, if not longer.

It’s unclear if the standards will become law in time to protect millions of other workers from summer’s intensifying heat. The compromise rules must go through a 15-day public comment period, and legal reviews within 100 days, which could push implementation well into summer. But that can’t even happen until the original regulation is rejected by the Office of Administrative Law, which has until next month.

“Summer is arriving, and many workers, unfortunately, are going to suffer heat conditions,” said , legal director at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. “Some will likely get really sick, potentially even die from heat illness, while we continue to wait for the standard.”

Berg told members of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board on April 18 that Cal/OSHA would try to accelerate the timeline and get protections in place for summer.

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and rules for indoor workplaces have been in the works since 2016. The proposed standards would require work sites to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Buildings could be cooled with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods.

The rules allow workarounds for businesses that can’t cool their workplaces sufficiently, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens.

Because the rules would have a sweeping economic impact, state law requires Newsom’s Department of Finance to sign off on the financial projections, which it refused to do last month when it was unclear how much the regulations would cost state prisons. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said implementing the standards in its prisons and other facilities could cost billions, but the pegged the cost at less than $1 million a year.

Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer couldn’t promise that the compromise rules would be signed off on, but “given that the earlier correctional estimates were the issue before, not having them in the revised package would appear to address that issue,” he said.

Business and agricultural groups complained repeatedly during the rulemaking process that complying with the rules would burden businesses financially. At the April 18 hearing, they highlighted the administration’s lack of transparency and questioned why one sector should be given an exemption over another.

“The massive state costs that are of concern, specifically around prisons in the billions of dollars, are also costs that California employers will bear,” said Robert Moutrie, a senior policy advocate at the California Chamber of Commerce.

Labor advocates asked board members not to exempt prisons, saying corrections workers need protection from heat, too.

“It’s a huge concern that prison workplaces all over are being excluded from the heat standard, leaving out not just guards, but also nurses, janitors, and the other prison workers across California unprotected from heat,” said AnaStacia Nicol Wright, an attorney with Worksafe, a workplace safety advocacy nonprofit. “California needs to prioritize the safety and well-being of their workers, regardless of whether they work in corrections, a farm, or a sugar refinery.”

Prisons will continue to provide cooling stations in air-conditioned areas, and make water stations, fans, portable cooling units, and ice more available to workers, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Prison housing units, which house roughly as of April 17, all can be cooled, usually with evaporative coolers and fans. The department has 58,135 staff members, spokesperson Terri Hardy said.

Only have adopted heat rules for indoor workers. Legislation has , and even though the Biden administration has initiated the long process of establishing national heat standards for outdoor and indoor work, they may take years to finalize.

in California from indoor heat between 2010 and 2017. Heat stress can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, occurred nationally, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

“These are not overly cumbersome things to implement, and they are easy ways to keep people safe and healthy,” said Jessica Early, patient advocacy coordinator at the National Union of Healthcare Workers. “Now is the urgent time to make our workplaces safer and more resilient in the face of rising temperatures.”

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The administration’s eleventh-hour move, which it attributed to the cost of the new regulations, angered workplace safety advocates and state regulators, setting off a mad scramble to implement emergency rules before summer.

But it’s unclear how, when, or if the emergency rules will come down, and whether they’ll be in place in time to protect workers from the intensifying heat.

“It’s the administration’s moral obligation to fix this,” said Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a former state lawmaker and the chief officer of the California Labor Federation, which represents more than 1,300 unions. “There needs to be emergency regulations or legislation quickly, because we can’t stop summer.”

California has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and indoor workplaces were supposed to be next. The proposed standards would have required work sites to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Buildings could be cooled with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods.

The rules would have allowed workarounds for businesses that couldn’t cool their workplaces sufficiently, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens.

Despite concerns from the administration, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board approved the rules at its March 21 meeting, prompting a tense political standoff between workplace safety advocates and Newsom, the second-term Democratic governor who has sought to elevate his national profile and claim progressive leadership on climate change and worker rights 鈥� key platforms for the Democratic Party.

State Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said the issue isn’t the state’s ballooning budget deficit 鈥� estimated between and 鈥� but a to nail down the cost of the rules to the state government.

“It wasn’t, 鈥榃e’re trying to sink these regulations,’” Palmer said.

Palmer said the administration received a murky cost estimate from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation indicating that implementing the standards in its prisons and other facilities could cost billions. The , on the other hand, pegged the cost at less than $1 million a year.

“Without our concurrence of the fiscal estimates, those regulations in their latest iteration will not go into effect,” he said.

According to Corrections spokesperson Albert Lundeen, the rules would entail major spending that could require the legislature to fund “extensive capital improvements.” He added that the agency is committed to discussing “how these regulations could be implemented cost-effectively at our institutions to further bolster worker safety.”

Board members argue the state has had years to analyze the cost of the proposed standards, and that it must quickly impose emergency regulations. But it’s not clear how that might happen, whether in days by the administration or months via the state budget process 鈥� or another way.

“This is a public health emergency,” said Laura Stock, a board member who is also an at the University of California-Berkeley.

Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon defended the move to halt permanent regulations, saying approving them would be “imprudent” without a detailed cost estimate.

“The administration is committed to implementing the indoor heat regulations and ensuring workplace protections,” she said in a statement. “We are exploring all options to put these worker protections in place, including working with the legislature.”

Only have adopted heat rules for indoor workers. Legislation has , and even though the Biden administration has initiated the long process of establishing national heat standards for outdoor and indoor work, they may take years to finalize.

in California from indoor heat between 2010 and 2017. Heat stress can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, occurred nationally, which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

The process to adopt California’s indoor head standards started in 2016 and involved years of negotiations with businesses and labor advocates.

Several board members acknowledged that they were frustrated by the administration’s lack of support when they adopted the regulations in March 鈥� after their meeting was temporarily halted by angry, chanting warehouse workers 鈥� knowing they would not go into effect. Instead, they said, they wanted to amplify pressure on Newsom.

“Every summer is hotter than the last, and workers who aren’t protected are going to suffer heat illness or death,” said Dave Harrison, a board member and with Operating Engineers Local 3. “Our hope was that the vote would be symbolic in sending a message to the state government that, listen, this is important, so we decided to vote on it anyway and put it back into the state’s court.”

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But the board that oversees worker safety immediately defied the administration Thursday by unanimously approving new standards intended to protect people who work in poorly ventilated warehouses, steamy restaurant kitchens, and other indoor job sites.

The showdown represents a setback to the state’s , and throws the fate of the rules into unknown territory. They had been expected to take effect by summer.

The move by the Democratic administration angered board members, who called it a “last-minute stunt” that undermines their regulatory process. It also sparked a protest by warehouse workers, who temporarily shut down the meeting as they waved signs declaring that “Heat Kills!” and loudly chanted, “What do we want? Heat protection! When do we want it? Now!”

“We got blindsided today, and I don’t think it was fair,” said David Thomas, chair of the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, who became visibly upset several times during the meeting. “They hung our ass out to dry.”

The rules to protect indoor workers had been years in the making, but Newsom’s Department of Finance informed board staffers the night before the vote that it couldn’t sign off. They told us “the potential fiscal impacts on public sector entities haven’t been fully analyzed,” Eric Berg, deputy chief of health and research and standards at California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health, reported to the board.

Newsom spokesperson Omar Rodriguez declined to comment. But Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer disputed the characterization of the administration’s concerns as “last-minute.” He said the administration has held meetings with board staffers for weeks to discuss estimates for how much it would cost the state to implement the rules in its own buildings. They provided the most recent estimates to Palmer’s department in February.

, the Department of Finance is required to approve a fiscal review for any regulation that would have significant economic impacts.

For example, the indoor heat standard proposal could cost the state billions of dollars just to keep its prisons cool enough for workers and inmates, Palmer said, based on the board’s estimate.

“We need to evaluate that. Is it too high? Is it on point?” he said. “This is not a decision made in an arbitrary manner or concerning policy. We did not have the time to do due diligence.”

Palmer would not comment on how much longer it would take to analyze the cost of the rule.

The deadline to keep the proposal on track is March 30. Otherwise the years-long regulatory process may have to start from scratch. But this is unknown territory, and board members said at the March 21 meeting they are not sure how to proceed. Some suggested they could adopt emergency regulations 鈥� but even that would take time.

The state has had heat standards on the books for outdoor workers , and indoor workplaces were supposed to be next. The proposed standard would require work sites to be cooled below 87 degrees Fahrenheit when employees are present and below 82 degrees in places where workers wear protective clothing or are exposed to radiant heat, such as furnaces. Buildings could be cooled with air conditioning, fans, misters, and other methods.

For businesses that couldn’t cool their workplaces sufficiently, such as laundries or restaurant kitchens, where commercial boilers, ovens, and fryers operate, the rule would offer them the option of giving workers cooldown areas and other relief.

Some businesses have expressed fear that they won’t be able to meet the requirements if they are enacted, even with the flexibility the regulation offers. Providing a place for a kitchen worker to cool down in a small restaurant, for example, might not be feasible, according to the California Restaurant Association.

But workers and labor advocates demanded at the March 21 meeting that the board take action, saying employers must protect workers and adapt to a warming climate.

“How many workers have to end up hospitalized or, even worse, end up dying because of heat illness, because there’s no protections put in place?” Yesenia Barrera, an organizer with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, asked board members.

Heat stress can lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, cardiac arrest, and kidney failure. In 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported , which is likely an undercount because health care providers are not required to report them. It’s not clear how many of these deaths are related to work, either indoors or outdoors.

In California, from heat between 2010 and 2017, seven of them because of indoor heat, according to the Rand Corp., which analyzed the state’s proposed indoor heat rules.

Only two other states, Minnesota and Oregon, have adopted heat rules for indoor workers, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nationally, legislation has stalled in Congress, and even though the Biden administration has initiated the long process of establishing national heat standards for outdoor and indoor work, the rules are likely to take years to finalize.

California regulators have crafted the indoor rules to complement the state’s . Those say that when temperatures exceed 80 degrees, employers must provide shade and observe workers for signs of heat illness. At or above 95 degrees, they must come up with ways to prevent heat illness, such as reducing work hours or providing additional breaks. also have rules for outdoor workers.

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State senators passed legislation in January that would toughen gun storage requirements, embracing a White House priority that has languished in Congress.

Many states, including California, have laws in place requiring gun owners to securely store their firearms when children are present. The Biden administration wants to go further by requiring gun owners to secure firearms most of the time.

Firearms were the for children ages 1 to 17 in 2020, 2021 and 2022, according to of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by KFF. In 2022, an average of seven children a day died of gunshots.

The Justice Department unveiled in December, as part of the Biden administration’s to encourage states to lead on gun safety. It’s also a tacit acknowledgment that Congress, where Republicans control the House and can block most bills from moving through the Senate, isn’t going to act.

Lawmakers in, ,, and have introduced measures similar to California’s gun storage bill, but they have yet to advance. lawmaker did, too, but the GOP-controlled legislature killed it almost immediately in mid-February. and already have implemented comparable regulations.

“If you’re from a red state, it’s almost virtually impossible to get anything passed,” said South Dakota state Rep. Linda Duba, a Democrat, who called her GOP colleagues beholden to the National Rifle Association. “They are so worried about the NRA rating and their reelection that they can’t see beyond it.”

California Republicans and the NRA describe California’s bill as excessive, saying it would infringe upon Second Amendment rights.

The NRA supports “empowering individuals to make responsible choices, rather than eroding their freedoms with typical California-style gun control,” said Daniel Reid of the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action.

Even if it passes, California’s measure is likely to be vulnerable to legal challenges.

The bill would extend gun storage rules to all residences, a mandate similar to the Biden administration’s proposal, and require owners to secure firearms in a lockbox or a safe. The White House proposal gives gun owners the option of using a trigger lock. California state Sen. Anthony Portantino (D), who spoke about his in January via video conference, told me he believes the measure stands a better chance at passing in California’s Democratic-controlled legislature than in Congress.

It’s unclear whether California Gov. Gavin Newsom would sign it. The Democrat, often mentioned as a future presidential hopeful, has signed several gun-safety laws, but he declined, through a spokesperson, to comment on this one.

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Even though many states, including California, have laws in place for safely storing guns when children are present, the Biden administration wants them to go further by requiring gun owners to secure firearms most of the time.

California’s Senate passed a in January that would adopt the White House recommendation. State Sen. Anthony Portantino, the author of SB 53, said the idea is to make it harder for anybody, not just children, to find and use a gun to commit crime or kill or accidentally harm themselves. Portantino spoke about his bill in January.

But critics argue the proposal would violate the constitutional right to bear arms by making firearms difficult to access in potentially life-threatening situations, such as home break-ins. The measure is likely to face legal challenges should it clear the remaining legislative hurdles.

“This is a recognition that guns kill people, and the readily available unlocked guns kill more people,” the Democrat from Burbank told his colleagues during debate on the Senate floor. “The best way to make it safer for our children to go to school, and for people in households where there’s trauma, is to make sure the weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands. And the way to do that is to lock them up.”

In 2021, about lived in homes with firearms, including 4.6 million in households with loaded and unlocked firearms, according to a national firearms survey.

The Department of Justice in December unveiled for states to consider. “It’s a simple step that can save lives,” said Stefanie Feldman, director of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

Since then, lawmakers in , , , , , and have also introduced similar measures, but none of the bills have yet received a committee hearing. In , the Republican-controlled legislature killed similar legislation in February, for the second time in two years. and already have implemented comparable regulations.

The model legislation is part of a by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration to encourage states to take the lead on gun safety as legislation has stalled in Congress, including bills to enact universal background checks and ban the sale and possession of assault weapons.

Legislation that would create the , which was introduced in January 2023, has yet to get a hearing in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

Gun-related legislation has increasingly become victim to partisan politics as Republicans have embraced a gun rights agenda to shore up political support, said Robert Spitzer, a professor emeritus of political science at the State University of New York-Cortland who has written books on American gun policy.

“The states have always been referred to as the laboratories of democracy,” Spitzer said. “It’s a place where laws are often enacted when you can’t get things done at the national level.”

requires guns, whether they’re loaded or unloaded, be secured using a method such as a gun safe or trigger lock in places where they could get into the hands of a minor, a felon, or anyone prohibited from possessing a firearm. Portantino, who introduced the existing law in 2019, is also a candidate in a .

The bill moving through the state’s Democratic-controlled legislature would extend gun storage rules to all residences, a mandate similar to the Biden administration’s proposal, and require owners to secure firearms in a lockbox or safe. The White House proposal gives gun owners the option of using a trigger lock 鈥� a lock that fits over a gun’s trigger mechanism that prevents the gun from being fired 鈥� instead of a lockbox or safe.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has signed a number of gun control laws, declined, through a spokesperson, to comment on the measure.

But keeping a gun in a locked box or making it unusable with a trigger lock, which requires a key or combination, could be problematic, critics say. In communities struggling with violent crime, a disabled gun would be useless for self-defense, said California state Sen. Kelly Seyarto, a Republican from Murrieta.

“You don’t have time when somebody breaks into your house to fiddle with the lock and the storage and get your gun out,” Seyarto said on the Senate floor. “Because by then you will be dead.”

Seyarto and the National Rifle Association say the California bill is excessive and that, because gun owners might be unable to defend themselves, it would infringe on Second Amendment rights.

“This bill’s one-size-fits-all approach fails to consider individual circumstances and imposes undue burdens,” said Daniel Reid, managing director of state and local affairs for the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action. “We support empowering individuals to make responsible choices, rather than eroding their freedoms with typical California-style gun control.”

Firearms were the for children ages 1-17 in 2020, 2021, and 2022, according to analyses of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by KFF. In 2022, an average of seven children a day died from getting shot.

The number of children “lost to gun violence, to shooting, is unfathomable,” said first lady Jill Biden at a White House event in January. She called on school principals to communicate with parents about safe gun storage. The Department of Education also schools can send to parents explaining that safely storing firearms “can help prevent them from getting into the hands of children and teens, who may use them to, intentionally or unintentionally, harm themselves or others.”

Roughly in 25 incidents from 2008 to 2017 acquired their firearms from the home of a parent or close relative, according to the Secret Service.

On Feb. 6, a jury in Michigan convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the killings of four high school students in 2021 because her son, the shooter, used a gun and ammunition she had failed to secure in their home. In December, Deja Taylor, the mom of a 6-year-old boy who shot his first grade teacher in a Virginia classroom with her gun, was after pleading guilty to child neglect.

At least 82 bills before state legislatures address gun storage, with varying requirements, said Lindsay Nichols, a policy director at Giffords, which advocates for stricter gun laws and was founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head in Tucson in 2011. Six people died in the shooting. The bills’ prospects often depend on which party controls the state legislature. That’s what happened in South Dakota in mid-February, said Democratic state Rep. Linda Duba, whose measure died in committee.

“If you’re from a red state, it’s almost virtually impossible to get anything passed,” said Duba, who attended a White House meeting on gun safety in December.

If California’s bill becomes law, legal experts say, it will be challenged in court. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a long-standing concealed carry law in New York, issuing a landmark ruling that firearm laws must be consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition” of firearm regulation.

Since then, federal district judges have struck down California laws that ban people from carrying concealed guns in many public places and require a background check for ammunition purchases. Appeals court judges later overturned those rulings, allowing the laws to take effect while the legal wrangling proceeds.

“Second Amendment law is profoundly unsettled right now,” said , a UCLA law professor who specializes in constitutional law. “And courts can’t seem to agree on which gun laws are constitutional and which aren’t.”

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Several of them attended the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, , late last year, where more than 120 countries acknowledging the growing health impacts of climate change and their responsibility to keep people safe.

“Leaders from around the world are coming to these climate negotiations understanding that climate change is both killing and hurting their people,” said , secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency, who represented California in Dubai.

In August and September 2020 alone, when burned around California, as many as 3,000 older residents from wildfire smoke-related causes, according to estimates from Stanford University researchers.

California has taken steps on its own to address climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions, such as of new gas-powered cars and light trucks by 2035 and to provide a growing share of electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar. The policies are intended to reduce the state’s air pollution, which consistently ranks among the worst in the nation 鈥� especially in the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles basin 鈥� and contributes to the premature deaths of annually.

Regulators estimate California’s climate policies could reduce the cost of hospitalizations, asthma cases, and lost work and school days by in 2045 alone.

“If we don’t take action, it has an impact on public health. It also has a massive economic impact,” said Liane Randolph, who chairs the California Air Resources Board and also attended the conference., Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Tribal Affairs secretary, spoke with 素人色情片Health News senior correspondent Samantha Young to explain how California is trying to keep its nearly 40 million residents safe. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is the biggest health threat that climate change poses for Californians, and what is the state doing about it?

Randolph: The biggest challenges are extreme heat and wildfire smoke. And climate change is making the existing health threats worse. For example, . What is happening is that high-heat days are becoming more common. And while we have reduced ozone levels and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere, we still end up with days where air quality levels are exceeded because we have more high-heat days that create additional smog.

We have a comprehensive document, called the , to tackle climate change. The key piece of it is reducing the combustion of fossil fuels because those have public health impacts on the ground for air quality and they have climate impacts. We are moving to zero-emission vehicles, moving to renewable energy, moving to zero-emission space and water heaters. All of these strategies move us away from the combustion of fossil fuels.

California itself cannot tackle climate change worldwide, but what we can do is support new technologies that can then be replicated, ideally, around the country and around the world. We’re encouraging the development of all the way from passenger vehicles to heavy-duty vehicles. We’re fostering the market for technologies like that allow people to heat and cool their homes without using gas. All of these things need to get support and have a market. We can create markets that can percolate through the rest of the world.

Snider-Ashtari: Many tribes have been relocated to places that don’t have good access to water, and that was by design, by the federal government and the state. So, tribes are already in places where it’s designed to be inhospitable to life. As things get worse, and there are more stressors, less water, hotter summers, Indian Country are these islands of vulnerability within California.

A lot of our ancestral food sources that tribes have relied on are either not there or they are there at the wrong time of year. Salmon populations are . Native people can’t access abalone right now because of and overharvesting. The , which is a major supplement to diets. With certain species not able to thrive in a changing climate, you’re just not going to be able to get the same kind of nutrition in rural California that you would in other places. We will have bigger impacts on the health stressors that Native people already suffer from, like .

One of the things that we’ve been looking at with tribes is to address climate issues. We’ve been reintegrating cultural burning practices so the smoke will clear out invasive pests and make sure the forest floor is healthy. We can promote forest health to prevent large-scale wildfires, which leads to the pumping of carbon into the atmosphere, and we can create better crops for Native people so they can have their critical food sources. Tribes aren’t going anywhere. The rest of us could move anywhere we want, but tribes 鈥� these are our ancestral homelands.

Crowfoot: We are experiencing multiple overlapping health threats. Wildfire, drought, and extreme heat cost lives in California. Wildfire gets a lot of attention, particularly when it’s barreling down on communities, which is a major danger. But less discussed are the . During our worst wildfire seasons, weeks of dangerous air blanket the state. For Californians that have preexisting medical conditions, for the elderly, for kids, that is really dangerous.

As it relates to drought, several hundred thousand Californians in their homes during drought because they’re on shallow groundwater wells. That’s a major health impact in the most vulnerable, poorest, most isolated communities in California. And then there’s extreme heat. It’s now the biggest climate-driven killer in California and other parts of the world.

Building our resilience to these climate impacts is a matter of health and safety. We have really clear action plans. We have one on , specifically on water supply and how we’re going to supplant the loss of water supply in the next two decades. We have . Not only are we improving the ability to fight wildfires, but we’re spending a ton of money protecting communities, improving landscapes. And we have an to improve protections for people, everything from noticing when extreme heat is bearing down, providing places of refuge in communities where people don’t have air conditioning, and trying to get more shade cover at schools and on the streets.

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Con estos recursos se están creando más programas de prevención de la violencia, que se han visto abrumados en algunas ciudades por un aumento en la criminalidad violenta desde el inicio de la pandemia de covid-19.

Según defensores, una inyección de financiamiento federal confiable podría permitir que estas organizaciones sin fines de lucro amplíen su alcance para llegar a más residentes con mayor riesgo de ser víctimas de disparos, o de disparar a alguien.

Hasta ahora, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nueva York y Oregon han aprobado leyes que permiten el uso de fondos de Medicaid para la prevención de la violencia armada, según Kyle Fischer, director de políticas y defensa de , que ha abogado por cambios en las políticas de Medicaid a nivel federal y estatal que permitan este gasto.

Se espera que más estados sigan este ejemplo.

“Se trata de acciones concretas que podemos tomar y que evitan los debates en torno a la ”, dijo Fischer.

Con la legislación de control de armas estancada en el Congreso, la administración Biden ha abierto los fondos federales de Medicaid a la prevención de la violencia con armas de fuego para ayudar a estados y ciudades a combatirla. El presidente Joe Biden novedoso en abril de 2021, y ahora el dinero está comenzando a llegar a los estados interesados.

Pero el proceso para desbloquear el financiamiento ha sido largo y no está claro cuánto dinero se gastará finalmente en estos programas. Debido a que Medicaid, que proporciona atención médica a residentes de bajos ingresos y discapacitados, es un programa estatal-federal, los estados también deben aprobar el gasto en prevención de la violencia.

En Illinois, que hace dos años se convirtió en uno de los primeros estados en autorizar fondos de Medicaid para prevenir la violencia, Chicago CRED espera obtener la aprobación para su programa esta primavera. Arne Duncan, ex secretario nacional de Educación de la administración Obama y director ejecutivo de este grupo, dijo que vale la pena esperar por este dinero, y que aspira a que la experiencia de su estado acelere el proceso para otros.

“Estamos tratando de construir una infraestructura de salud pública para combatir la violencia con armas de fuego”, dijo Duncan. “Que Medicaid comience a participar en este espacio y cree esas oportunidades podría ser un cambio esencial”.

En 2020, muchas ciudades se enfrentaron a un aumento en los tiroteos y homicidios después que, en respuesta a la pandemia, se cerraran escuelas, negocios y servicios sociales críticos.

Ese mismo año, la policía asesinó al afroamericano George Floyd en Minneapolis, lo que desencadenó protestas a nivel nacional y llamados a reducir el financiamiento policial. Los estadounidenses, que ya están armados hasta los dientes, .

Si bien ya no hay estado de pandemia, y las tasas de homicidios a nivel nacional, en algunas ciudades no han bajado. La cantidad de compras de armas es históricamente alta en Estados Unidos, que se estima tiene .

Programas que funcionaron hace unos años en lugares como Oakland, California, que habían recibido elogios por reducir la violencia armada, no dan abasto. Memphis en noviembre superó su .

“Tenemos una prevalencia excepcionalmente alta de posesión de armas de fuego en Estados Unidos”, dijo Garen Wintemute, profesor de medicina de emergencia y presidente de prevención de la violencia en la Universidad de California-Davis. “Tenemos más armas en manos civiles que civiles, con alrededor de 400 millones de armas en el país”.

“Las armas son herramientas, y si pones una herramienta en manos de alguien, la van a usar”, agregó.

La violencia con armas de fuego también tiene un costo elevado. Estudios de la Oficina de Responsabilidad del Gobierno y la Facultad de Medicina de Harvard que el costo de cuidar a los sobrevivientes de disparos va desde en tratamientos iniciales hasta en los 12 meses posteriores.

Y no solo las víctimas necesitan ayuda médica.

“Hay mucho dolor. Padres que pierden a sus hijos, abuelos que pierden a sus nietos. Eso afecta enormemente la salud de las personas”, dijo Noha Aboelata, directora ejecutiva fundadora de , en Oakland. “Vecindarios enteros sufren estrés y trauma continuos”.

A pesar del proceso largo y a menudo burocrático, los dólares de Medicaid son increíblemente atractivos para las organizaciones comunitarias que históricamente han dependido de donaciones filantrópicas y subvenciones, que pueden variar de un año a otro.

“Medicaid es confiable”, dijo Fischer. “Si estás haciendo el trabajo, estás calificado y cuidas a los pacientes, puedes obtener un reembolso por el trabajo que haces”.

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