Typo of the Day: LA Olympics Take a Cost Hit

Oh man, we have yet another ridiculous increase in the budget for a public boondoggle in California. This time it’s the LA Olympics:

$700,000! That’s outrageous. That’s the price of a grande latte for every resident of, um, Oxnard. How much does a grande latte cost, anyway?

The online edition provides the actual numbers:

The predicted cost of staging the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics has risen to $6.9 billion, according to an updated budget released Tuesday by the private committee responsible for staging the massive sports event. The new figure represents a $700 million increase over previous estimates, with organizers saying they had to adjust for inflation after L.A., which originally bid for the 2024 Games, agreed to wait four more years.

OK, I get how $700 million can turn into $700 billion or vice versa, but how does it turn into $700,000? There’s no indication in the story that there’s even been a correction, let alone an explanation of how the mistake happened. Weird. But I suppose it doesn’t matter. By the time 2028 rolls around, I’ll bet that the difference between $700,000 and $700 million will seem kind of quaint.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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