ICE agents have reportedly claimed to be police officers to gain consent to enter a person’s home – a tactic that is viewed as unethical, but within the powers granted to the officers. Civil rights groups supported Kalra’s bill, looking to stymie the Trump administration’s promise to use any and all available tools to deport undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes. Many groups fear Trump will expand deportations to include all undocumented immigrants, their families and relatives.   read more

Brown vetoed a broader version of the bill last year as the state struggled with a giant budget deficit. Mandatory meal and rest breaks were stripped out of the current bill, along with protections for part-time baby-sitters, and it passed the Senate and Assembly along strict party lines. It is expected to affect between 100,000 and 200,000 workers.   read more

Stockton’s plan further reduces worker benefits, asks the voters for a tax increase to pay police, and pays some creditors less than they are owed. It will not, however, renege on its pension obligations—unless Judge Christopher Klein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Sacramento says otherwise. The city reportedly has deals with 14 of its 19 major creditor groups and negotiated a settlement with employees and retirees to reduce their claim from $538 million to $5.1 million.   read more

Lawyers for Mayfair House, a boutique that sports fur-lined parkas for $1,800 and other clothes and accessories, filed a five-count complaint in federal court, according to the Los Angeles Times, that argues the West Hollywood law violates both the state and U.S. Constitutions. The ordinance prohibits stores in the city from selling, trading, distributing, importing or exporting any fur product.   read more

Brookfield Office Properties Inc. stands to save millions of dollars in property taxes on four skyscrapers the company is buying in downtown Los Angeles by structuring the $2.1 billion deal with Prop. 13 in mind. The official buyer will actually be DTL Holdings, a new company of which Brookfield owns just 47%, just below the threshold for reassessment. It will save the company up to $10 million a year.   read more

U.S. District Magistrate Judge Nandor Vadas ruled (pdf) Wednesday that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) failed to consider the best available science in assessing the effect of sonar on marine mammals. He agreed with environmental groups and local tribes that more up-to-date studies indicate dolphins and whales have “greater susceptibility” to mid-frequency sonar than previously thought, and ordered the NMFS to consider them in reassessing its permit for the Navy.   read more

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plan is to issue a golden eagle take permit to Shiloh IV Wind Project, which operates 50 turbines on 3,500 acres in Solano County. In exchange for taking precautionary measures to protect the birds, the company would be allowed to kill five eagles over five years. “It really does set a precedent,” FWS Deputy Assistant Regional Director Scott Flaherty told Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle.   read more

The conventional wisdom is that the Internet, competition from the innovative private sector and sky-high pension costs of pampered federal employees are killing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). It’s not true. The post office is being savaged for thinly-disguised political reasons, including the enrichment of a few select individuals. Investigative journalist Peter Byrne says California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, is one of those profiting mightily.   read more

The charges on Neal’s ticket, in addition to the base fine, included: a state penalty assessment ($100), a county penalty assessment ($70), traffic school ($59), DNA identification fund ($50), court construction ($50), court operations ($40), conviction assessment ($35), state surcharge ($20), emergency medical services ($20), emergency medical air transportation ($4) and night court ($1).   read more

Around 300 high schoolers at three of the schools given the first batch of iPads a week ago took them home and wasted little time figuring out how to bypass security measures meant to keep them off of social media and away from restricted websites. Enterprising students deleted their student profiles, freeing their computers from the district network, and alerted their friends that Facebook, Pandora, Twitter and all that good stuff was theirs for the typing.   read more

So methyl iodide is out. And methyl bromide is on the way out. Organic solutions aren’t being given any serious consideration by the powers that be, which begs the question: What’s next? Chloropicrin is getting a lot of attention. Paul Towers, organizing director for Pesticide Action Network, calls it “methyl iodide 2.0.”   read more

Mitsubishi was given a “notice of noncompliance” for building steam generators with inherent design flaws generated by faulty computer design modeling problems. Edison was chastised for not noticing the problems. Friends of the Earth energy specialist Damon Moglen told the Los Angeles Times, “It's proof that the NRC is a lap dog and not a watchdog.”   read more

Senate Bill 568, which takes effect on January 1, 2015, lets minors delete photographs and other posts on social media like Facebook by doing it themselves or requesting a site operator to do it. The law only covers material posted by the individual, so pictures uploaded by vengeful ex-lovers or heartless compatriots live forever in infamy.   read more

The House voted 217-210 last week to slash the program by $39 billion over 10 years, require able-bodied adults to work, shorten the benefits period to three months and limit eligibility. Republicans cast all the “yes” votes. One in seven American households, ravaged by five years of the Great Recession, receive food stamps.   read more

The Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend that residents of the low-income University Park had complained to state air quality officials 251 times over three years, prompting 15 citations for the operator over the smells, Allenco Energy Inc. But the situation was deemed safe by the South Coast Air Management District.   read more

NOM announced on Friday that it would join a campaign to repeal a law, passed by the Legislature in August and signed by Governor Jerry Brown, that guarantees transgender students equal access to school facilities and activities. The law is the first of its kind in the nation.   read more

The bill fundamentally changes the way forests on national land would be managed. It would, for the first time, set timber harvesting levels in legislation, rather than through the more deliberative regulatory process that includes public input and environmental analyses. And it provides exemptions from the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.   read more