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 California Department of Conservation announced on Thursday that it was cracking down on 30 oil and gas operators who failed to file any reports, even half-assed ones, and was fining each of them the maximum amount allowed under law—$4,500. In the end, 329 quarterly reports out of 433 were received. But 87 of them were missing data, in the wrong format or otherwise screwed up.   read more

The policy change, outlined in a seven-page document, will not affect federal agencies outside the DOJ or state and local law enforcement. As near as anyone can tell, the cell-site simulator technology is popular in California. The feds will continue to hand out grants to local law enforcement to purchase the technology. The DOJ will require its officials to delete data inadvertently gathered from non-targeted phones but won't give annual reports to Congress on how the new policy fares.   read more

Democrats, who dominate the Assembly, named Anthony Rendon, 47, of Los Angeles speaker-elect on Thursday, changing the political calculus in the manic last few weeks of the legislative session. Atkins was sworn in as speaker in May 2014 after defeating Rendon. The next speaker is part of the first group of lawmakers governed by less restrictive term limits and can remain in the Assembly for eight more years.   read more

The latest eight indicted don’t appear to be big fish, although they face decades in prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cathy Ostiller told the Associated Press they did not profit from the scheme. Counselors were particularly vulnerable. “As far as we can tell, most of these employees were minimum-wage earners,” Ostiller said. “They were not doing this for luxury yachts.”   read more

The site has two parts. Dashboard is a data visualization tool, full of nifty crime charts and graphs built around pre-selected data sets. The Open Data Portal allows access to downloadable raw data dating back 30 years. But the datasets are limited and the site only displays a small portion of the state’s information. The website asks visitors to suggest new data sets.   read more

The FBI and Riverside County District Attorney’s office descended on Palm Springs City Hall with warrants in hand and spent the day packing up boxes of stuff. They also dropped by an apartment listed in Pougnet’s name seeking documents and eventually met with the mayor himself. The Desert Sun reported that the FBI said it took items that were in his possession.   read more

The council took an extra week to ponder the numbers and try to craft an escape hatch should the financial and/or political landscape change markedly before voting 15-0 to move forward. The vote comes just days after a report from Los Angeles City Administrator Miguel Santana and Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso said, “It is difficult to determine the fiscal impact and risk to the city of hosting the 2024 Games at this time.”   read more

The agreement was reached in response to a lawsuit brought in 2009 that was eventually expanded into a class action on behalf of an estimated 2,858 prisoners—down from 4,000—held in prolonged, and almost complete, isolation. Jeffrey Beard, the secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), said at a press conference Tuesday that as many as 1,800 prisoners could be affected.   read more

State lawmakers sent legislation to Governor Jerry Brown this week that attempts to move the needle on women's pay disparity by expanding the meaning of equal work, increasing transparency, protecting workers who ask about equal pay and beefing up enforcement mechanisms. The governor has said he will sign it. The most important change no longer limits pay comparisons to the precise same work. Instead, the work need only be “substantially similar.”   read more

The lowlights of the AP investigation begin with the California Military Family Relief Fund, established by the Legislature in 2004 to assist dependents of National Guard troops who are deployed overseas. The check-off raised $1.5 million, of which $1.2 million went unspent. None of the $235,000 collected for California Colorectal Cancer Prevention Fund was spent on cancer.   read more

Alaska Bulk Water CEO Terry Trapp told USA Today last week his company was this close to bringing the complex deal together and would begin shipping water by tanker to California by the end of the year. His company has rights to 9 billion gallons of water in Sitka’s Blue Lake. One can almost hear thirsty Californians salivating at the prospect, but it might be advisable for them to preserve their precious bodily fluids.   read more

New statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that California grants more exemptions from vaccinations and has lower immunization rates than the national median. The vaccine exemption rate in California is 2.7%, compared to the national median of 1.7%. That is actually an improvement for the state over the 2013-14 rate of 3.4%, inspired in part by the high-profile debate over vaccines nationally.   read more

The San Francisco Chronicle said PG&E clarified some its cost estimates and they look even worse for solar users. Most solar users would pay $29 more a month than they do now while the more aggressive solar users, who install batteries to reduce their power usage, would pay just $13 more. PG&E calculated that the average cost to solar users would be an additional $20 a month.   read more

State lawmakers are developing targeted drone laws on the fly, often as highly-publicized incidents make ignoring the problem difficult. A year ago, LAPD got pretty ticked off about Torrance resident Daniel Saulmon flying his drones over DUI checkpoints, traffic stops, police stations and other places where he suspects misconduct by the authorities. This year, pending Senate Bill 170 would make it a misdemeanor for knowingly flying a drone over a prison or jail.   read more

“Knowing that much of the fish sold in Nestlé’s pet food is likely the product of slave labor is material to consumers not wishing to support slave labor with their purchasing power,” the 32-page complaint claims. The legal action follows by one week a class-action lawsuit filed against Costco Wholesale Corporation on behalf of a California woman who claims the company buys its farmed prawns from Thailand, where they are fed fish caught by slave labor on boats.   read more

So why all the self-congratulatory back slapping over the state exceeding Governor Jerry Brown's arbitrary conservation goal and cutting back on water usage by 31.3% in July? Topping the state’s goal of 25% is better than falling short, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we are winning or even gaining ground against the threat of extended drought.   read more