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

A lawsuit filed by the state Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) to find out what mystery donor contributed $100,000 to a campaign against a proposed new Sacramento sports arena smoked out a Seattle businessman who had tried, and failed, to lure the city’s basketball team to his town. A key to the Sacramento bid was the city’s offer to subsidize construction of a new downtown arena to the tune of $258 million.   read more

Fines ranged from $50,000 to $100,000 were meted out to medical centers in eight counties: Los Angeles, San Diego, Alameda, Marin, Orange, Sacramento, Stanislaus and San Bernardino. Three facilities were in Los Angeles County. The incidents included St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, where a patient with cancer of the right kidney inadvertently had his left kidney removed. It was the medical center’s fifth administrative penalty.   read more

British Columbia’s Powerex, Inc. admitted no wrong-doing but joined 40+ companies who have paid in excess of $4 billion to compensate California for the market manipulations that caused rolling blackouts, nearly bankrupted the state and cost utility ratepayers dearly. It is the largest settlement reached to date. The deal still awaits approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).   read more

Judge Michael P. Kenny ruled that the agency overseeing the bullet-train “abused its discretion” by failing to comply with funding and environmental review requirements in the 2008 ballot initiative that authorized the state to sell $9.9 billion in bonds for its construction. The judge said the state has failed to say how it is going to finance the cost of the route’s first extended leg, around $31 billion, and has not received the required environmental clearances.   read more

This is how sausage—and conservation policy—get made. It’s also how an environmental leader gets called “Judas” by a county supervisor and former ally. An environmental group that had been leading a community revolt against plans by the city of Whittier to allow oil drilling on land purchased with public funds for use as a nature preserve reversed course and signed an agreement to drop its opposition in exchange for money.   read more

The first results from a four-year study of California’s most impressive trees indicates they have thrived since the 1970s. No conclusions were reached about why the trees were faring so well. Longer growing seasons from higher temperatures may have helped the sequoias, and more sun from reduced fog might have aided the redwoods. A study three years ago found 33% less fog in redwood coastal areas than a century ago. But there are other factors to consider.   read more

The study of excessive drinking, put together in 2011-12, used a broad array of data from 2006, just before the economic crash gave people a few more good reasons to get drunk. California’s share amounted to 14.3% of the $223.5 billion researchers said the country spent on “losses in workplace productivity, health care expenses, and other costs due to a combination of criminal justice expenses, motor vehicle crash costs, and property damage.”   read more

Coronado police came to the Lewis-Taylor home in August 2011 after an anonymous tip that the couple was operating an unlicensed day care center. They were not. Officers found marijuana while there, but made no arrests after seeing Lewis’s medical pot papers. Three days later, agents from the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency came and took the couple’s children, 4 and 2 years old.   read more

A six-page letter from the U.S. Department of Education outlined four areas where the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) violated federal regulations and warned that its own accreditation would be revoked if the problems were not addressed. The department conducted the review after receiving a 300-page complaint from the California Federation of Teachers and other groups complaining about how the commission treated the college.   read more

It will miss by about a mile and a half and there are no plans to really connect it to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), unless one considers musings about shuttles and people movers as a plan. It’s the second time mass-transit planners have aimed in the direction of the airport and just missed.   read more

The parody was produced by the local television arm of U-T San Diego, the city’s largest newspaper, and stars its news hosts. The gyrating, lip-synching journalists put professional considerations and, some would say, discriminating taste, aside to deliver a flashing message to the mayor and former 10-term congressman accused of making untoward advances to women: #RESIGN.   read more

“It’s the whole political establishment coming down against public power,” San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos said after the PUC voted against setting rates for CleanPowerSF, a renewable power program approved by the board of supervisors last year that would automatically enroll half the city’s 375,000 residential users. The program has been nine years in the making.   read more

Rohrabacher is an outspoken conservative from arguably the most conservative county in the state, and he has been saying weird, insulting stuff since long before Tea Party politicians entered the political theater, stage right. He has been in Congress since 1989. Although he is probably best known for his intellectual contributions to the debate over global warming, he has a broad portfolio of off-the-cuff quips that have endeared him to his constituents.   read more

The Hyperloop comes in two flavors: the $6 billion passenger-only aluminum pods and the $10 billion version that carries cars, too. The solar-powered pods, carrying 28 passengers and spaced up to 100 yards apart, would zip through pressurized tubes, elevated along the I-5 and I-580 freeways, floating on air at a top speed of 760 miles per hour, fast enough to make the L.A.-to-S.F. trip in 30 minutes. A ticket would cost $20.   read more

The attorney general said the companies have made at least 17,970 loans in New York worth $38 million since 2010, for which they were now owed $185 million. Annual interest rates ranged as high as 355%. A two-year $1,000 loan would cost the consumer $4,942 in interest and principal.At least nine other states and the Federal Trade Commission have taken action against CashCall and/or Western Sky, some very recently.   read more

Covered California had planned to post ratings of insurance company offerings alongside prices that will be charged when the exchange opens on October 1 for an expected 5 million healthcare shoppers. And then the state changed its mind. Covered California claimed that the data it was going to use is too old (2011) and doesn’t accurately reflect the health plans that will be offered in the exchange.   read more