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

Although the State Medical Board is quick to acknowledge in its Sunset Review Report has known for a long time that consumers are “being injured by unlicensed individuals working out of garages, back office clinics, etc.,” it has only sporadically run a separate unit for dealing with the unlicensed practice of medicine.   read more

More than half of the 11 propositions on the California ballot yesterday appeared courtesy of wealthy individuals—millionaires and billionaires who had a vision and the cash to shape the focus, by and large, of the state’s political discourse over the past six months. Only two of the six appeared to have won their contests, and they were arguably the most progressive of the bunch.   read more

A new state payroll system for In-Home Support Services workers―16 years in the making―has been put on hold after pilot programs in Merced, San Diego and Yolo counties crashed and burned. “It has been an unmitigated disaster,” Steve Mehlman, spokesman for the United Domestic Workers Homecare Providers union, told the Merced Sun-Star after reports abounded of problems with timesheets, missed paychecks and other payroll issues for workers.   read more

An Orange County animal-rights activist, moved by the death of hundreds of fish in a freeway big-rig crash last month, asked the city of Irvine to post a memorial sign at the scene of the accident and was promptly smacked down.   read more

An Arizona group that dumped $11 million at the last minute into conservative election efforts in California finally fessed up to where it got the money: a group associated with former President George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove via a group supported by the right-wing billionaire Koch brothers. The names of the actual original donors are still unknown.   read more

Faced with a two-month deadline to produce a plan that meets court-ordered prison population reductions, California state officials admit that the long-term projection is for prison growth and that they exaggerated the number of low-level offenders eligible for transfer to county jails.   read more

The Moraga School District, defending itself in a civil lawsuit filed by a former student who was molested for years by two teachers in the 1990s, argued in court papers that the girl contributed to the abused by being “careless and negligent.”   read more

After a gas pipeline in San Bruno exploded in flames, killing eight people and leveling a neighborhood, a federal investigation laid the blame at the feet of pipeline owner Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) but included lax state oversight as a contributing factor.   read more

The clock is running on Barclays for the bank to show U.S. regulators that it shouldn’t be fined a record $470 million for manipulation of California’s electricity markets. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) accused Barclays of making trades in the energy market that it purposely lost money on in order to make huge profits on investments in a related derivatives swaps market.   read more

On the eve of votes in Richmond and El Monte on taxation of sugar-sweetened sodas, a new study says if the tax were applied statewide, the danger of diabetes and heart disease would plummet and be most acutely felt among the ethnic groups at highest risk.   read more

California leads the nation in exonerations of people wrongly convicted of crimes, according to preliminary findings by the California Wrongful Convictions Project. The early numbers indicate that 214 people have been unfairly incarcerated since 1989, resulting in them serving 1,300 years behind bars at a cost to taxpayers of $129 million.   read more

Kish Rajan dropped out of the re-election race for Walnut Creek City Council to accept Governor Jerry Brown’s appointment in September 2012 as the first director of the newly-created Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz).   read more

Getting a prescription filled at your favorite pharmacy is getting easier by the day. You don’t even have to ask; the pharmacy will sign you up for an automatic refill without your permission and order your meds, even if you don’t want them to.   read more

A federal judge has handed down a decision that California's rule requiring qualification for the ballot 135 days before the primary election is unconstitutionally restrictive and must be changed.   read more

California has had marked success since 2009 at getting more children medically insured—and, consequently, provided with better health care—but the program critical to that success was axed this year by Governor Jerry Brown’s budget.   read more

The state Department of Parks and Recreation spent months scrambling around for money to keep parks open earlier in the year before $54 million was found hidden in its coffers. As it turns out, the department’s shortfall was also partially the result of an arrangement it has with wealthy donors who receive access to primo recreational venues, like Hearst Castle, but don’t pay the required event fees.   read more