New round of California grants for non-profit cultural institutionsL Round 8: Nonprofit cultural institutions only:
Application window: Friday, August 27th through Wednesday, September 8th. Eligible applicants: Only non-profit cultural institutions with any revenue size that meet eligibility criteria found at CAReliefGrant.com
Eligible grant award: $5,000 – $25,000. Details: Approximately $16 Million dollars remain under the Nonprofit Cultural Institutions Program. Eligible nonprofit cultural institutions must complete a new application even if they already applied in Rounds 1,2, 5, or 6.; nonprofit cultural institutions that applied in Round 4 do not need to re-apply; grants will only be available to nonprofit cultural institutions that did not receive funding in any previous rounds; grants will be prioritized based on the documented percentage revenue declines based on a reporting period comparing Q2 and Q3 of 2020 versus Q2 and Q3 of 2019

Round 9: New Applicants and Waitlisted applicants from certain previous rounds. Application window: Thursday, September 9th through Thursday, September 30th. Eligible applicants: current waitlisted applicants from certain previous rounds and new applicants that meet eligibility criteria found at CAReliefGrant.com. Eligible grant award: $5,000 – $25,000
Details: Applicants not selected to move forward in the review process in Rounds 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, or 7 do not need to re-apply and will be automatically moved into Round 9.

New applicants will need to apply at CAReliefGrant.com

Vaccinations: On June 12, 2021, a federal District Court in Texas in Bridges, et al v. Houston Methodist Hospital et al, Docket No. 4:21-cv-01774 (S.D. Tex. Jun 01, 2021) dismissed a case challenging a hospital’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for employees. This is the first court opinion addressing the ability of employers to require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The decision is also notable in that it rejects the argument, which has been advanced in other cases challenging mandatory vaccination policies in the employment context, that such policies are prohibited by the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”).

With coronavirus statistics continuing to soar to unnerving levels, the Los Angeles City Council took up a proposal introduced Wednesday by City Council President Nury Martinez that would require proof of at least partial vaccination against COVID-19 to enter public indoor spaces in the city, including restaurants, bars, gyms, concert venues, movie theaters and retail establishments.

The state’s top schools chief made another push for Californians to get COVID-19 shots, saying during a visit to Los Angeles County on Wednesday that given the continuing rise in coronavirus cases just as schools are reopening, the best thing people can do to protect themselves and others would be to get vaccinated immediately.

There have been preliminary conversations at the legislative level about mandating vaccinations in K-12 schools, he said, noting, however, that there’s no guarantee if or when such a proposal would become law. No bill has been introduced and the legislative session is set to end mid-September.

The U.S. nursing home industry’s resistance to forcing workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 for fear that too many of them might quit began to crack this week when its biggest player announced its employees must get the shot to keep their jobs. The new requirement at Genesis Healthcare, which has 70,000 employees at nearly 400 nursing homes and senior communities, is the clearest sign yet that owners may be willing to risk an exodus at already dangerously understaffed facilities to quickly vaccinate the 40% of workers still resisting shots and fend off the surging delta variant.

Some experts are calling for mandatory vaccinations at nursing homes, warning that unprotected staff members are endangering residents. Even residents who have been inoculated are vulnerable because many are elderly and frail, with weak immune systems.
More than 1,250 nursing home residents across theU.S. were infected with COVID-19 in the week ending July 25, double the number from theweek earlier, and 202 died, according to federal data.

California will require all of its roughly 2.2 million health care workers and long-term care workers to be fully vaccinated by Sept. 30 as the nation’s most populous state is losing ground in the battle against new infections of a more dangerous coronavirus variant.
The order, issued Thursday by the California Department of Public Health, is different than what Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said last month when he announced health care workers would have the choice of either getting vaccinated or submitting to weekly testing.

Now the order does not give health care workers a choice. It says all must be fully vaccinated by the end of September, with exceptions for people who decline the vaccine because of a religious belief or workers who cannot be inoculated because of a qualifying medical reason backed up by a note signed by a licensed medical professional.

Cases: Pasadena recorded 44 new COVID-19 infections on Wednesday, although no deaths attributed to the virus were reported, officials said. The count raised Pasadena’s pandemic total to 12,048 confirmed infections, while fatalities held steady at 353, according to Pasadena Public Health Department data. An average of 32.3 new cases of COVID-19 were detected in the city each day over the prior week, representing the highest rate since Feb. 9.

Huntington Hospital reported treating 16 patients for the virus on Thursday, with two being cared for in an intensive care unit.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 3,672 new infections and 19 deaths on Thursday, bringing the countywide totals to 1,315,313 cases of COVID-19 and 24,379 deaths. L.A. County’s test positivity rate declined 4.7%, down from 5.8% last week, county health officials said. Authorities listed 1,279 patients hospitalized with the virus, representing an increase of 39% since last week.

Public health officials at the state level announced 9,517 new infections and 56 deaths on Thursday, bringing the statewide totals to 3,899,158 COVID-19 infections and 64,206 fatalities. The state’s average weekly positivity rate continued to climb, reaching 7.1%, according to California Department of Public Health data.

As of Thursday, L.A. County accounted for 34% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 39% of the state’s deaths.

 L.A. County reported its highest daily number of new COVID-19 infections since early February and announced 16 more deaths linked to the virus, including a child younger than 12. The child had unspecified underlying health onditions, according to the county Department of Public Health. It marked the sixth COVID-19 death of a child in the county since the pandemic began. Two were under age 12 and four were ages 12-17.

Another 3,734 COVID-19 cases were reported in LA County, the largest single-day number since early February. The new cases gave the county an overall total 1,311,656. The new deaths lifted the county’s death toll to 24,720.

As of Wednesday morning, 1,270 people were reported hospitalized with coronavirus-related illnesses in L.A. County, with 284 in intensive care, according to the state dashboard. That’s an increase from 1,242 people Tuesday. As recently as July 2, there were only 280 people hospitalized with COVID-19-related illnesses.

Rent Relief: Rental assistance paid by the state to pandemic-strapped, lowincome tenants doubled in July, with more than 20,000 renter households getting $242.7 million in rent relief this year so far, state officials said Wednesday, Aug. 4, during a live-streamed press briefing on Zoom.

The state still has a long way to go. The amount approved so far represents less than 5% of the total amount Congress allocated to the state for tenant relief under stimulus bills passed in December and March.

Many more are still waiting. As of Tuesday, the state had received more than 132,000 rental assistance applications from nearly 91,000 households, new state data show. Nearly 80% of those who applied are waiting to have their back rent paid off. Applications received so far requested just over $1 billion in rent relief. The amount paid represents 23% of the amount requested, state figures show. By comparison, the average paid by 26 states reviewed by NBC News was less than 10%, said Gustavo Velasquez, director of the state Housing and Community Development Department.

The Economy: California workers filed more initial claims for unemployment last week than they did the week before, raising questions about whether the state’s job market has begun to heal in a sustained way from COVID-19-linked ailments.
During the week that ended July 31, California workers filed 65,500 claims for jobless benefits, up 1,000 from the week ending July 24, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

California last week produced one-fifth of all the jobless claims filed in the United States.
Nationwide, workers filed 385,000 initial claims for unemployment last week, down 14,000 from the first-time claims the week before. The Labor Department’s U.S. data was adjusted to account for seasonal volatility. The latest unemployment claims filed in California represent the highest weekly number posted since the state reopened its economy in mid-June.

Applications across the U.S. have more or less fallen steadily since topping 900,000 in early January. Still, they remain high by historic levels: Before the pandemic slammed the United States in March 2020, they were coming in at around 220,000 a week.
Altogether, 13 million Americans were receiving some type of unemployment aid the week of July 17, down from 13.2 million the previous week and 32 million a year earlier.

The Biden administration Thursday announced a record injection of money to help communities gird against the effects of climate change, as disasters continue to pummel the United States. The new funds — $3.5 billion in grants to states to protect against floods, wildfires and other threats — mark a shift in U.S. disaster policy as climate change gets worse: Rather than smaller, more targeted investments, the government is throwing huge sums at disaster preparation as fast as it can. The goal of the new money is to get local and state officials to broaden their approach to put less emphasis on small-scale projects that fortify individual homes or buildings, andmore attention on ways to protect entire communities, she said.