A dilapidated greenhouse at a Northern California nursery was home to dozens of farmworkers and their families, who were living in tiny and unsafe dwellings without ventilation, authorities said on Friday.
Officials found 62 makeshift dwellings inside the greenhouse on a property in rural Monterey County.
They were put together with plywood, sheetrock and other materials, Monterey County Government spokesperson Nick Pasculli said.
Photo: AFP
“There are exposed gas lines and wiring, no proper sewer. The conditions are very rough,” Pasculli said.
It was not yet clear if the farmworkers were employed at the nursery in the community of Royal Oaks or just lived there, Pasculli said.
He added that some residents were paying up to US$2,000 per month in rent and one told investigators he had lived there for more than eight months.
Investigators have not yet determined where the migrant families are from, although some of them speak indigenous languages native to the Mexican state of Oaxaca, he said.
Authorities started investigating the property this week after receiving an anonymous complaint.
The nursery owner would be fined nearly US$60,000 each day his property is in contravention of structural, health and environmental codes, Pasculli said.
The landlord’s name was not released due to an ongoing investigation, he said.
County officials were working with the families to find suitable housing and their landlord would have to pay for two months of rent for each of the 62 families that were living on his property, Pasculli said.
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
The Vatican Museums on Thursday unveiled the last and most important of the restored Raphael Rooms, the spectacularly frescoed reception rooms of the Apostolic Palace that in some ways rival the Sistine Chapel as the peak of high Renaissance artistry. A decade-long project to clean and restore the largest of the four Raphael Rooms uncovered a novel mural painting technique that Renaissance painter and architect Raphael began, but never completed. He used oil paint directly on the wall, and arranged a grid of nails embedded in the walls to hold in place the resin surface onto which he painted. Vatican Museums officials
RSS