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 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for violating the constitutional rights of Americans who try to use cameras near ports of entry.   read more

AB 1707 was a hot potato when it came up for a vote in the Assembly on August 30. Some legislators feared they might be viewed as soft on crime if they voted for a bill that would allow a limited number of people who had been designated as child abusers when they were minors―including foster children who were nicked for getting into fights―to have their names removed from the state registry.   read more

Apparently size matters when determining who has to pass through controversial airport body scanners, which have been challenged on safety and privacy grounds. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is replacing the invasive scanners at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and six other major airports, but cited a desire to simply speed up the security process and is, in fact, shipping the scanners to smaller airports.   read more

When two Los Angeles city council members wanted to write an ordinance to deal with 100 controversial electronic billboards currently the subject of lawsuits, they turned to the experts―lobbyists for Clear Channel, the outdoor advertising company that owned 80% of the signs.   read more

Fourteen Southern Californians have been accused by the FBI of taking advantage of a flaw in Citibank's online banking system to extract $1 million at cash kiosks in casinos before going on gambling splurges.   read more

Twenty years after a federal study found no cancer danger to people living near nuclear power plants, a new study is being launched at seven facilities, including one at California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station between San Diego and Los Angeles.   read more

Charter schools are growing by leaps and bounds in California, but apparently without the requisite financial oversight the law requires. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General has released an audit of the agency’s division that oversees the burgeoning charter school industry and found that federal grants and fiscal activities were not being properly monitored.   read more

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, mirroring activities across the state, is shipping 500 guns that it seized to a factory to be melted down for rebar. That leaves an estimated 310 million guns in the hands of U.S. citizens and an untold number of guns in the hands of Californians.   read more

American International Group (AIG) has agreed to pay $25 million to $30 million to 10,000 California beneficiaries of life insurance policies the company overlooked, bringing to $138 million the amount recovered by the state from five insurance companies. The latest agreement is part of a larger pact that recovered $300 million for beneficiaries in 39 states and the District of Columbia.   read more

The cities of San Francisco and San Bruno asked the state’s hand-picked mediator in the deadly San Bruno pipeline explosion settlement talks―DLA Piper, the law firm of famed negotiator and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell―to step down Tuesday because of an alleged conflict of interest.   read more

Former City of Bell Police Chief Randy Adams will have to get by on a $240,000-a-year pension after an administrative law judge turned down his bid to have it nearly doubled. That leaves him as the eighth highest pensioner in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).   read more

Russ George was anointed the world’s first geo-vigilante in The New Yorker this week for dumping 100 tons of iron sulfate off the coast of British Columbia in July, triggering a 10,000-square-kilometer plankton bloom that the California businessman hoped would pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and take to the Pacific Ocean’s depths.   read more

State lawmakers must be wondering, “What ever happened to grade inflation?” California State University released its first-ever legislative report card last week, rating lawmakers on how well they supported issues that benefited the school and higher education in general, and no one made the Dean’s list.   read more

Doris Thompson is 82, walks hunched over with a limp, has trouble hearing and is an unrepentant career cat burglar. Last week, the woman with more than 25 aliases, a 21-page rap sheet that goes back 50 years and hair styled like boxing promoter Don King was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for doing what she does best, or at least most often—burglarizing doctors’ offices in Southern California.   read more

The advertising mailer seems unmistakably clear: “The US Food and Drug Administration says a labeling policy like Prop 37 would be ‘inherently misleading’ ” and beneath the quote is the FDA logo. It may be clear, but it’s probably not true.   read more

Drones, those unmanned aerial machines flying regular deadly missions in Afghanistan, North Africa and the Middle East, are slowly being deployed by U.S. law enforcement agencies for crime fighting and other assorted chores―like surveillance. Now, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department has submitted a proposal to become the first law enforcement agency in California to have a drone of its own.   read more