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

Proofpoint said it detected the attacks between December 23 and June 6 when waves of emails, 100,000 at a time, three times a day, started pouring out of more than 100,000 everyday consumer gadgets. More than 25% were sent by devices that were not laptops, desktop computers, tablets or smartphones. The gadgets included routers, televisions, multi-media centers and at least one refrigerator that were connected to the Internet.   read more

Once the city has the information, it will have to decide what to do with it. Doing a proper survey of the city’s concrete properties, evaluating them for safety, setting up a process for addressing the problem and then actually fixing the buildings would be enormously expensive and fraught with the usual bureaucratic frustrations that accompany such endeavors.   read more

The California Department of Public Health reported last December 18 that reported pertussis cases had already reached 1,904 and when the final numbers are reported in the spring they may show a doubling from the year before. Three years after an epidemic of whooping cough—largely eliminated from the general population for 53 years—struck 9,120 people in California in 2010 and killed 10 infants, researchers blamed the outbreak on parents who refused to vaccinate their kids.   read more

The beating of Kelly Thomas was captured by a security camera at a transit parking lot in the city of Fullerton and the broadcast video horrified the nation. Thomas repeatedly says he is sorry and tries to cooperate with the officers’ instructions. They find his actions a tad impudent and resistant. After putting Latex gloves on, one officer leans over, makes a fist next to Thomas’ face and says, “Now see these fists? They’re going to fuck you up.”   read more

“I find that the petitioners have not identified any sensitive customer information that is not already protected by the existing privacy laws and regulations,” Commissioner Mark Ferron said at the meeting. “Nor have they documented any examples of actual breaches of customer privacy.” CFC Executive Director Richard Holober didn’t think the “grossly ignorant” commission ruling was about consumers.   read more

Federal safety officials have been suggesting since the Richmond refinery fire in August 2012 that California overhaul its safety systems for industrial complexes and switch to a system called "safety case." They like it in the United Kingdom, Australia and Norway. Board Chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso wants it, and the staff strongly recommended it in a recently-released 115-page draft report. Last week, the board rejected the idea, 2-1.   read more

Donnelly celebrated his good fortune by releasing an ad that stars him and Cuban-American actress Maria Conchita Alonso, who translates the candidate’s words into Spanish, sort of, while extolling his virtues, which include his anger and manly testicular “big ones.” Donnelly’s ad was an obvious outreach to Latino voters, who favor Democrats by overwhelming numbers, as well as those who oppose gun control. He hopes to put “a gun in every Californian’s gun safe.”   read more

Exide, which sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors last June, has been accused of presenting a health hazard to more than 100,000 people living near the plant, which melts down up to 40,000 batteries a day. The AQMD civil suit alleges air quality violations, mostly involving illegal lead and arsenic emissions.   read more

Commissioner John Blair tossed Cecelia Abadie’s ticket for distracted driving, but issued a narrow ruling that there was reasonable doubt the glasses were turned on. Abadie said she was glad she won her case, but was hoping for a ruling that even if the glasses were turned on, they wouldn’t be considered a distraction. It may be the first time a driver was ticketed for wearing the high-tech apparatus.   read more

The first year of a three-year study by the U.S. Forest Service and University of California, Riverside, found that air pollution harmed native plants in the eastern end of the mountains, fostering growth of non-native grasses. Those grasses are also known as “flashy fuels” because they have been linked to larger, more frequent fires.   read more

The bill would suspend sales until it has been determined “whether the Postal Service is complying with its statutory and regulatory requirements in the relocation of services, closure, and sale” of historic post offices. It aims to slow the march to sell off 600 buildings nationwide that Congress itself initiated.   read more

On Wednesday, two months after investigators for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suffered some of the same symptoms while touring the facility, Allenco was hit with a series of citations for violating the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts.. EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld told the Los Angeles Times that findings from the November 6 inspection were worrisome because they “go to the heart of how a safe operation is supposed to be run.”   read more

Questioning California’s commitment to “a fundamental right in a functioning democracy,” Cantil-Sakauye laid out her own plan for the state that would increase court funding $1.2 billion over three years. By her calculation, it would take an additional $266 million the first year just to “tread water.” The governor proposed less than half that, $105 million, but the chief justice thinks $612 million is a more realistic number.   read more

U.S. District Judges Lawrence K. Karlton and Thelton E. Henderson and U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt concluded Monday that months of talks between the state and lawyers representing prisoners were going nowhere. The judges want California prisons, which now hold 118,435 inmates, to shed 6,271 of them and get within 137.5% of design capacity for the state’s 34 facilities.   read more

Although insurance companies paid out $18 million on behalf of the Catholic Church, the diocese has had to pony up $14 million of its own money in settlements and judgments, and at least $1 million more in legal fees. To date, damages have been awarded in 38 local clergy sexual-abuse cases and more cases are pending.   read more

Ibrahim, a Muslim, was banned in 2005 when she attempted to fly with her daughter from San Francisco International Airport to her native country, Malaysia, where she was to present her doctoral research at a Stanford-sponsored conference. Ibrahim filed a lawsuit and suggested that her inclusion on the list was a mistake.   read more