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

Ontario charged that “chronic neglect and mismanagement” by Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) is costing the local Inland Empire airport a ton of money and threatening its very existence. The “dire and increasingly urgent” situation cost the Ontario area at least $540 million and 10,000 jobs in 2012, according to a legal claim filed in April by the city. The claim was a precursor to the lawsuit filed Monday in Riverside County Superior Court.   read more

Sean Parker, who booked the entire Ventana Inn and Spa for the nuptials, built a wedding site that resembled a movie set in an ecologically sensitive part of Big Sur. He hired contractors to build fake ruins, multiple event platforms, rock walls, a pond with a waterfall, a dance floor and a stone bridge at a closed public campground, according to the commission staff report.   read more

Is it a bad sign when your state is considering plans to store cold water behind dams so that global warming doesn’t kill 82% of the native fish? A study by researchers at the University of California, Davis predicted that warmer water from climate change would have a devastating effect on native fish, including Delta smelt, Central Valley Chinook salmon and Kern River rainbow trout, if current trends continue. But only 19% of non-native fish would be similarly threatened.   read more

“In 2012 alone, 16 state agencies and affiliated nonprofits reported major data breaches,” according to the center’s report, released last week. Although state security guidelines call for the encryption of sensitive data by agencies, the center found that one-fourth of the 283 computers and phones containing confidential information that were reported lost or stolen during the last decade lacked that fundamental protection.   read more

Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff was not happy with the FAA’s decision to punt the issue to local negotiators. “The report recommends several steps to minimize helicopter noise, but, not surprisingly, stops short of recommending regulatory action opposed by industry,” he wrote. “Voluntary measures in the past have provided little relief for residents, and I am skeptical that without a determined effort to oversee them by the FAA that they will do so now.”   read more

Climate change is likely to turn much of the largest expanse of tidal salt marsh on the Pacific Coast of the United States into mudflats as higher global temperatures raise coastal waters precipitously, the report said. The USGS surveyed 12 marshes near Petaluma River, San Pablo Bay, Napa River and South San Francisco Bay and found that 95% will lose their vegetation under an all-too-likely scenario for a 4-foot sea-level rise.   read more

Christopher Surbey, an ex-PG&E specialist who claims he was hired to help fix the database system in 2011, is suing his former employer for firing him later in the year. The lawsuit, according to Courthouse News Service, alleges PG&E retaliated against Surbey for accusing the company of tricking regulators into granting rate increases to pay for database system upgrades it wasn’t going to make.   read more

The successful Stockton businessman reportedly employed 75 people at his seven legal medical marijuana dispensaries for which he had local and state business permits and paid state taxes.U.S. Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner wrote. Davies supplied his shops with marijuana he grew and stored at warehouses around town and when stopped by police on the way to answer a burglar alarm at one of them, he freely told them where he was going.   read more

This week, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) said it has identified $102.7 million that it failed to bill responsible parties, $45 billion it billed but didn’t collect and $37.3 million that is tied up in litigation. Altogether, the department noted 1,700 sites that fell through the cracks. The reason for the missing money? The department hasn’t had a system in place to track billing since its creation 26 years ago.   read more

The three-judge panel ruled that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had failed to properly include public participation in the process of changing the state’s lethal injection procedures (pdf). Underlying the court’s ruling was a decision by the CDCR to reject the federal judge’s suggestion that it should substitute a one-drug alternative for the state’s preferred three-drug lethal cocktail.   read more

It doesn’t take Carmageddon or Carmageddon II to make life hell on the almost-always-jammed 405 Freeway running from the Westside of Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley and beyond. A 14-month delay in completion of the $1-billion freeway-widening project, and its accompanying $100 million cost overrun, will accomplish the task very nicely.   read more

Although the project has been under active consideration for nearly a decade, critics say there has never been a proper cost-benefit analysis, and that the latest blizzard of numbers is inadequate. Restore the Delta, a group that opposes Governor Jerry Brown’s plan, said the estimated cost of tunnel construction alone has tripled in the past three years.   read more

It’s been nearly 10 years since reporter Gary Webb shot himself in the head following a torrent of criticism over his series of stories for the San Jose Mercury News about the crack-cocaine epidemic ravaging Los Angeles and the country.   read more

Environmental writer Jenny Price and Escape Apps have designed a smartphone application—Our Malibu Beaches—that identifies hidden public beaches and previously unidentified access points to them along Malibu’s 27-mile coastline. Until now, the wealthy people who own homes along 20 miles of that exclusive shore have been very successful at shutting the public out.   read more

Walmart pleaded guilty and agreed to pay a fine of $81.6 million. The crime, which involves multiple violations of the Clean Water Act and an environmental pesticide law, is a misdemeanor. Six misdemeanors, to be precise.   read more

The cash-strapped commission agreed in May 2012 to lease day-to-day control of the Coliseum to the University of Southern California (USC), whose football team plays there, but control of the parking is still being fought over with other Exposition Park tenants. Robert Stein, a member of the board that runs the park, told the Los Angeles Times what is at stake: “If they (USC) take over the parking structure, they're virtually closing down the museums, because there's no place to park.”   read more