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

Two activists posing as biotech representatives secretly recorded a meeting with a Planned Parenthood executive about the system that facilitates research on fetal tissue and edited it into two videos, released a week apart, to sound like her agency sells fetal parts for profit.That’s illegal and, in this case, not true. California also has an Invasion of Privacy Act and it is generally against the law to record someone without their knowledge.   read more

San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith Hayes settled the dispute between the two universities, ruling in a lawsuit brought by UC that it would get the database that includes information from dozens of clinical trials across the country. Dr. Paul Aisen left UC San Diego in June to establish a rival Alzheimer’s program at USC, taking the project's database and a claim on $100 million in government funding with him.   read more

“Because the City agreed to contribute ‘assets’ beyond its capital contribution, Plaintiffs infer a nefarious, backroom deal to subsidize the investor group’s purchase of the team, separate from the Arena,” the judge wrote. If not nefarious, the deal was at least complicated and admittedly played out behind the scenes by powerful financial and political interests.   read more

Based on data from 2013, the latest available, the report ranked the state 14th in Health, 38th in Education and 42nd in Family and Community to go with its 49th place in Economic Well-Being. California is no stranger to income inequality, but it does have the eighth-largest economy on the planet. How can so many kids be in financially-strapped homes? The answer starts with the cost of that housing.   read more

Jeffrey Lash told people he was some sort of secret agent, under surveillance by U.S. agencies. He shared an over-stuffed 2,000-square-foot condo with his fiancée, whose name is on the lease. Every room was crammed with guns, ammo, chemicals and stuff that had to be removed by a Hazardous Materials Unit (Hazmat). It was valued at between $500,000 and $1 million.   read more

“It is hard to believe that in 2015 the State of California is operating a facially discriminatory program that perpetuates the outdated stereotype that only women can be caregivers," said attorney Grunfeld. "Our clients meet the stringent criteria of this program except for their gender. The Governor and CDCR should stop defending their discriminatory law and let qualified men participate in the ACP. Defendants’ policies de-legitimize the role that men play in their families."   read more

The authors want the state to pursue a highly-regulated marketplace built to reduce, if not eliminate, the competing illegal pot industry without actually trying too hard to produce and deliver its own product. The report warns against “lowering the price of marijuana for recreational users, creating and promoting the largest industry possible or raising the maximum amount of tax revenue.”   read more

Carey’s encounter with the police was caught on a surveillance camera at Union Rescue Mission and someone’s cellphone and went viral, but she received little attention at the time because she was not the focal point. All eyes were on Cameroonian immigrant Charly Keunang and his struggle with police, during which the homeless man allegedly pulled a gun from an officer’s holster and was promptly shot to death.   read more

On Tuesday, the council agreed to spend another $55 million to bring the plant back online by 2016. The facility could provide around 30% of the city’s water needs. Operation of the plant will add $10-$20 to utility bills each month, but council members expressed a willingness to pay that even if giant El Niño storm systems bring heavy, sustained rain to the area, as many climatologists cautiously predict.   read more

The California Energy Commission (CEC) keeps track of this sort of thing and according to them, refiners averaged gross profits of 49.3 cents per gallon from 1999-2014. So far this year, the average is 88.8 cents. The commission calculated that on July 6, when retail prices averaged $3.432, the refiner’s take was $1.166.   read more

Krebbs on Security reported this week that a group of pissed-off hackers that call themselves “The Impact Team” grabbed a large cache of data from Ashley Madison’s parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media, and posted it online. 24/7 Wall St says that would include 533,000 Los Angeles residents and 91,000 San Diegans, who may or may not have been cheating on a partner.   read more

Smithline is an environmental lawyer who has split his time between the private and public sectors.Governor Jerry Brown appointed him this month to replace Caroll Mortensen, who was director since October 2011. Mortensen is now senior environmental specialist in CalRecycle’s Legislative and External Affairs Office, agency spokesperson Mark Oldfield told Resource Recycling.   read more

Byron-Bethany Irrigation District in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta area was informed Monday it would have to pay $1.5 million for diverting water for two weeks after being told to stop. The district provides water to 160 farms and the planned community of Mountain House (pop. 15,000), a decade-old exburb 60 miles outside of San Francisco.   read more

Many people have heard that California will most likely be considering some form of legalized recreational marijuana initiative on the November 2016 ballot. But the state’s secretary of state has cleared 28 other prospective ballot initiatives for circulation and the gathering of qualifying signatures. This would be a very different state if they passed.   read more

The evictions by Jacobs became a hot topic about two months ago when consumer and renter advocacy groups, like Tenants Together (TT), started using him as the poster child for the state’s insincerity about affordable housing issues. The agency he heads, CalHFA, provides financial assistance for poor and working-class first-time home buyers and participates in the rental market through loans to developers building multifamily housing.   read more

School districts don’t call them no-bid contracts—those are illegal—but the way they misuse state-approved “lease lease-back” deals involving billions of dollars allows contractors to work on projects without bidding, the court said. In the case of Fresno Unified School District (FUSD), the court agreed with an attorney who called it a “sham and subterfuge.”   read more