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

The counties of Monterey, Yuba and Kings will no longer have to get pre-clearance from the federal government to change their election rules, despite a history of discrimination against Latinos and Asians. The high court’s 5-4 ruling Monday ends use of a formula Congress prescribed for determining where discrimination was occurring.   read more

Alternatives to traditional taxicabs—Uber, Lyft and Sidecar—have arrived in Los Angeles with the temporary blessing of the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and been slapped with a cease and desist order by the city. They took less than a day to defy the order.   read more

Although the usual procedure is to cite protesters for a misdemeanor offense and release them, in this instance they were handcuffed and herded into sheriff’s department buses and held there for hours. The buses lacked bathrooms and it was reportedly not a pretty sight. The demonstrators were put through a lengthy booking process and held overnight, packed into overcrowded county jail cells. The next day, two of the arrestees were charged and the rest were released without charges.   read more

California blew off a federal court monitor after being told a few months ago that it had to move 3,300 inmates out of two prisons because of a “public health emergency” caused by Valley Fever. Now, the U.S. District Court judge who has been clashing with the state over reducing its grossly overcrowded prison population has given the state 90 days to find new homes for thousand of those at-risk inmates at Avenal and Pleasant Valley state prisons.   read more

A decline in snowfall poses a direct threat to drinking water, agriculture and tourism that would ripple through the economy. In some areas, at lower elevations, precipitation that would have been snow will, instead, be rain, which could impact flood control and cause damage to mountain and river ecosystems.   read more

State lawmakers, stung by criticism that their attempt to gut the California Public Records Act last week was about secrecy in government—not fiscal responsibility, as they claim—introduced a proposal that voters pass a constitutional amendment ensuring that local governments get stuck with the bill, not the state.   read more

According to the Complaint, local and federal records readily available to ICE agents clearly show that Gonzalez is a native-born U.S. citizen born in the Pacoima community of Los Angeles. Noting that low-level agents can request holds with no supervision and no finding of probable cause, the Complaint alleges that this has caused 834 U.S. citizens and more than 20,000 legal, permanent residents with no criminal records to be detained—both violations of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.   read more

Cemetery Director Tom Mullen said a big chunk of the landscape greenery is dead on purpose. Gravestones are being realigned in certain sections, so the ground has to be prepared just so. They turn off the water and use Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer to finish the job. But a larger chunk of real estate involves an upgrade to the irrigation system, which is plagued by broken valves.   read more

Skilling, who was Enron chief operating officer, was found guilty in 2006 of securities fraud, insider trading, conspiracy and lying to auditors, and sentenced to 24 years in prison. Its demise cost investors billions, employees their pensions and corporate pirates their reputations as brilliant, innovative entrepreneurs. Enron nearly bankrupted California in the process.   read more

California’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) rejected arguments from its own Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) that Cal Am shareholders should foot the bill. That didn’t happen. Instead, a deal was cut that passes $48 million of the bill to Cal Am customers in Monterey County. The State Coastal Conservancy will kick in another $25 million and $10 million will come from federal grants and private donations to cover the reconfigured cost of $83 million.   read more

The commission has come under scrutiny and criticism in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision in 2010, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for and against candidates. The court made it clear that the commission could require disclosure of contributors to nonprofit organizations with political connections, but it has been deadlocked over the issue for years.   read more

A three-judge panel tried to cut through years of courthouse negotiations, confrontation and frustration and ordered that state prisons (pdf) immediately prepare to release enough inmates on “good time credits” to relieve dangerous, inhumane overcrowding. They waived any local and state laws and regulations that stand in the way.   read more

When Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Orange County announced last month that it would no longer be performing elective abortions, the reason given was a lack of demand for the service. Critics suspected the decision was related to its recent merger with Catholic healthcare provider St. Joseph Health Systems, and on Thursday the Los Angeles Times confirmed that was the case.   read more

Although the 6-foot-wide strip, stretching 1.5 miles along Spring Street, brightened the day of bicyclists who rode on it, the neon green paint proved too distracting for filmmakers. They claim that the bright lights of a film set reflect off the paint, causing a weird green glow everywhere and ruining one of the most popular locations for street shots in L.A.   read more

San Jose’s lawsuit confronts the exemption—the “dark side to this storied institution”— head-on. “Baseball is big business in the United States with combined 2012 annual revenues of $7.5 billion,” the suit argues. “Whereas baseball may have started as a local affair, modern baseball is squarely within the realm of interstate commerce.”   read more

The couple pleaded guilty Tuesday to multiple felonies for terrorizing tenants in San Francisco between 2005 and 2007. They reportedly cut telephone lines, soaked tenants beds with ammonia, and power-sawed through the floor, twice. At one point, Nicole Macy sent an email to her own lawyer pretending to be one of the tenants, and threatened to kidnap and dismember the attorney’s children.   read more