Category: Daily News

A Santa Clarita Valley man was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for scheming to fraudulently obtain approximately $1.8 million in COVID-19 relief guaranteed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) through the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

Hassan Kanyike, 30, of Santa Clarita, was sentenced by United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, who also ordered him to pay a $20,000 fine and $1,302,550 in restitution to the SBA and four victim lenders. Kanyike pleaded guilty on March 29 to one count of wire fraud.

From April 2020 to June 2020, Kanyike submitted six fraudulent PPP loan applications and two fraudulent EIDL applications. The applications sought funds to purportedly pay the salaries of employees whom he claimed worked for two of his businesses. Kanyike successfully obtained approximately $1 million through four PPP loans, and another $300,000 through two EIDL loans.

In support of the fraudulent PPP loan applications, Kanyike submitted fake federal tax filings and payroll reports for a used-car business, the Van Nuys-based Falcon Motors. For example, in one loan application, Kanyike falsely claimed the business had 26 employees and an average monthly payroll of $168,000, and he submitted a fabricated IRS tax form claiming Falcon Motors had paid $2,022,300 to employees in 2019.

In reality, Falcon Motors had no employees on payroll. Kanyike further admitted that he obtained additional Employer Identification Numbers from the IRS in April and May 2020 so he could apply for multiple loans for the same used-car business. Kanyike then used a substantial portion of the PPP loan proceeds for his own personal benefit.

Kanyike schemed to fraudulently obtain eight loans totaling approximately $1.8 million, of which six loans worth a total of $1,302,550 were approved.

At the time of his arrest in December 2020, Kanyike had transferred approximately $762,000 to Uganda, his country of citizenship, from one of the business accounts that had received the loan proceeds, in violation of the terms of the PPP and EIDL program.

Homeland Security Investigations and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration investigated the case.

Assistant United States Attorney Richard E. Robinson of the Major Frauds Section and Assistant Chief William Johnston of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section at the Department of Justice prosecuted this case.

As mandates continue to come down from the state, local governments are taking a stand by passing resolutions to avoid COVID related mandates.

The East Bay Times reports that six of the seven City of Oroville council members voted to make Oroville a Constitutional Republic City.

Vice Mayor Scott Thomson, who requested the resolution, says “What we are doing is protecting our citizens’ rights as much as we can on the local level.

“In a way, we are acting as a sanctuary city for our citizens and their rights and freedoms protected by the U.S. and state constitutions,” he added. “Gavin Newsom modeled this type of declaration for us when he declared San Francisco a sanctuary city for what he believed to be overreach by the federal government against his citizens.”

Thompson requested the measure, which was passed 6-1 by the city council on Nov. 2. The resolution is intended to allow the city to opt out of enforcing “any executive orders issued by the state of California or by the United States federal government that are overreaching or clearly violate our constitutionally protected rights.”

And in neighboring Nevada, the Nevada Independent reports that Lyon County became the latest rural county to declare an economic emergency and decline to enforce the governor’s COVID-19 directives on the basis that they hurt businesses.

The county of about 58,000 people joins the rural resistance along with White Pine, Elko and Eureka counties, which are less populous.

“It’s very important the rural counties of our great state to be united with one message going forward,” said Lyon County Commissioner Ken Gray, who spearheaded the effort. “We must stand together as one to face the abuses of our civil liberties which have taken place and stop them from going any further. Instead of working with the local government of Nevada as he should, the governor has chosen to ignore them and their residents.”

And not far away in Oklahoma, The Oklahoman reports that in one of his first acts as the head of the Oklahoma National Guard, new Adjutant General Thomas Mancino ordered that no members of the Oklahoma National Guard be required to take a COVID-19 vaccine.

The memo obtained by The Oklahoman also notes “no negative administrative or legal action will be taken” against guard members who refuse the COVID-19 vaccine.

And Courthouse News reports that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed sweeping restrictions on Covid-19 safety measures into law late Friday following a whirlwind three-day special legislative session at the tail end of last month.

The restrictions, which affect the authority of schools, health officials and private businesses, have been met with pushback from leaders in those communities and are expected to be met with legal challenges.

Some of the restrictions under the new legislation include prohibiting businesses that do not receive federal funds from requiring employees to receive a Covid-19 vaccine or request proof of it. The rule also applies to government agencies and public schools.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said he is ready to fire any of the department’s 12,000 employees who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or get tested twice a week for the disease.

Moore’s stance contrasts with Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who recently went so far as to call a news conference to blast a similar vaccine mandate enacted by the county. The county sheriff predicted mass departures among his deputies as a result, a warning also made but not necessarily panning out by police union officials in Pittsburgh and Chicago.

According to the report by CBS News, the LAPD’s goal of having a fully vaccinated workforce is to ensure the safety and welfare of the department’s officers, civilian workforce, their families and the public, Moore told CBS MoneyWatch.

The LAPD on November 4 began having commanding officers personally delivering notices to 3,500 unvaccinated employees – including 2,239 who had requested an exemption – informing them of the requirements. The approach involves a “one-on-one conversation that was respectful,” said Moore, who expressed a desire to “turn down the volume” on the national debate taking place over vaccine mandates.

So far, the LAPD policy appears to be working. More than 60% of the unvaccinated employees have been officially notified one-on-one of the COVID-19 rules, and as of early Monday all but four had agreed to get vaccinated or request an exemption, Moore said.

Those four were sent home pending disciplinary hearings, with formal steps taken to terminate two of the employees and the others in line for removal if they don’t change their minds, Moore said.

Nearly eight of 10 LAPD employees are fully vaccinated, and 78% have received at least one dose, with 172 workers getting their first shot in the last week.

As in other police forces around the U.S., however, the LAPD has met some resistance to its COVID-19 rule, including a request for a temporary restraining order by the union representing its officers, which was denied by a judge on Wednesday.

“I will not comply at all. The only thing mandatory for me right now is defiance,” LAPD Officer Mike McMahon told CBSLA. The 14-year veteran of the police department, who was among those staging a recent protest across from City Hall, also predicted the vaccine requirement would spark a mass exodus of fellow employees.

The LAPD is probing photos posted on social media of three LAPD officers walking toward a vaccine-mandate protest in uniform, but Moore believes they were monitoring the event as part of their jobs and not as participants.

“If anyone went on-duty-capacity and in uniform and participated in that demonstration that would be wrong,” Moore said, adding he would await the findings of the formal investigation.

Lean healthcare is the application of “lean” ideas in healthcare facilities to minimize waste in every process, procedure, and task through an ongoing system of improvement. Using lean principles, all members of the organization, from clinicians to operations and administration staff, continually strive to identify areas of waste and eliminate anything that does not add value for patients. Taiichi Ohno of Toyota, was the originator of lean principles. He described eight areas of waste that occur in every industry.

A new study found that Lean is a suitable methodology to accelerate patient recovery by reducing the time between on-the-job accidents and the beginning of physical therapy treatment.

The study identified ways to address inefficiencies in the workers’ compensation system and concluded that eliminating pre-authorization for physical therapy and the additional lead time it creates can improve health outcomes and reduce claim costs.

Omar Taha, in collaboration with his peers designed and deployed multiple case studies to better understand the journey of an injured worker within the workers’ compensation system.

This study was in partnership with a national healthcare provider in the field of workers’ compensation to conduct direct observations in five of their clinics across Florida and Pennsylvania. Researchers analyzed the data of 263 injured workers with eight or more physical therapy visits who were treated at clinics in both states over 31 days.

The research concluded activities associated with the pre-authorization of treatment were the primary non-value-added activity from the perspective of the injured worker based on delayed physical therapy treatment. Removing pre-authorization requirements could significantly reduce the lead time for treatment of injured workers. An injured worker could, for example, visit their referring physician and complete their first physical therapy session within the same office visit.

Half of the injured Pennsylvania workers in the researchers’ dataset attended their first physical therapy treatment within less than a day of obtaining a prescription whereas injured Florida workers required more than five days. In Florida, injured workers needed an average of 39.58 days to complete eight physical therapy visits compared to only 27.92 days to complete the same number of visits in Pennsylvania, a median of 34.09 vs. 22.15 days.

The disparity between the two states is likely due to Pennsylvania eliminating pre-authorization activities, according to the study.

“Physical therapy plays a significant role in the treatment of most work-related injuries and drives medical and indemnity costs of workers’ compensation claims,” said Taha, One Call senior director of continuous improvement and doctoral candidate in systems engineering at The George Washington University.

“Our findings corroborate that Lean is an effective methodology in identifying and removing administrative inefficiencies from the treatment process, which could accelerate patients’ recovery, reduce administrative burden on healthcare providers, and improve the overall claim cost,” said Taha.

“Patterns emerged that showed inefficiencies in the information flow between insurance companies, referring care providers, and treatment care providers,” said Professor Thomas A. Mazzuchi from the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering at The George Washington University. “This negatively impacts the delivery of care for injured workers.”

This was the first study to apply Lean methodology to workers’ compensation. The paper titled “Uncovering inefficiencies in the workers’ compensation industry using Lean methodology” was published in The TQM Journal.

A month ago the coronavirus seemed headed for a long winter’s nap in masked and well-vaccinated California. Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted that the Golden State “continues to lead the nation” as the only state to reach the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s yellow “moderate” tier of community virus transmission.

But the Mercury News reports that COVID-19 cases aren’t falling in California anymore. They have climbed back up to the CDC’s blood-red “high” level of virus transmission as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to wreak havoc.

“There are early indications that the decline in the Delta surge at the national level in the U.S. has ended,” said Ali H. Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington, which runs a widely followed model projecting the course of the pandemic. Currently, 19 states have increasing transmission, including several like California “that had previously appeared to have been declining.”

And while much of the Golden State’s current coronavirus woes are driven by virus spread in the less-vaccinated and restricted inland counties, the Bay Area hasn’t been immune. Most Bay Area counties that hoped to reach the yellow moderate level by now remain stubbornly stuck in orange. Marin and Santa Cruz counties, which had reached the yellow level, are back up to orange. San Francisco is the only county in yellow.

So why aren’t Golden Staters reaping more reward for their adherence to health guidance?

“You’re paying for your success, which is weird,” Mokdad said. “You succeed in controlling the virus, and now you’re having infections.”

But he and other health experts say it’s not because the health guidance isn’t sound. Outbreaks burn out once the virus runs out of enough new people without immunity to infect. And people can gain immunity both from infection recovery and vaccines.

With higher vaccination levels than in the Southeast, California saw a smaller wave of cases over the summer as the Delta variant ripped through the country, mostly infecting those who hadn’t been vaccinated. Now that they’ve recovered, they have immunity too, cutting off avenues for the virus to spread.

“These regions are now being partly protected by high prior infection rates,” said Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the medical department at the University of California-San Francisco. “But these people whose immunity comes from COVID are not very well protected, and their immunity will wane with time.”

States in the Southeast hammered with big summer case surges now are faring better simply because, with their combination of vaccinations and infections, they have fewer left who are susceptible to the virus than in California, Mokdad said. But “they got there at a heavy price.”

Other factors also are in play. The Southeast’s hot, humid summers drive people to the air-conditioned indoors where the virus spreads easily, while Californians enjoy moderate weather out in the surf and sand. But the autumn chill is now bringing Californians inside, too.