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

Shying away from the escalating battle between local, state and federal authorities over medical marijuana, the sponsor of a bill to regulate and tax the drug withdrew it from consideration. It now appears dead for the year.   read more

California’s miserable economy took its toll on insurers paying workers’ compensation claims in 2011, with losses totaling $2.3 billion. But almost 40% of their costs were administrative.   read more

ICO Global Communications has accused two California appellate justices of having a conflict-of-interest in a fraud and breach-of-contract case that cost the company $603 million.   read more

A woman who left her 11-week-old twins in her locked Cadillac Escalade for 40 minutes while she shopped at the Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton has been banned from shopping at Nordstrom.   read more

A lawyer best known for his work challenging the citizenship of President Barack Obama and the legitimacy of his administration has won a seat on the San Diego Superior Court, defeating a deputy district attorney who had the backing of law enforcement unions and most of the Superior Court judges.   read more

Budget cuts have forced many California school districts to eliminate, and as a result, 2 million low-income children (84%) who benefited from federally-funded school meals during the regular academic year don’t get them.   read more

Although California outlawed lead shot in key areas inhabited by condors in 2008, a new study has found an epidemic of lead poisoning among the few remaining endangered birds. “By any measure, the lead poisoning rates in condors are of epidemic proportions,” says Myra Finkelstein, a toxicologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led the research.   read more

A towering cross on federal property atop Mount Soledad in San Diego may have to come down after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to let stand without comment an appeals court ruling that the memorial illegally conveys a religious message. But it is in no way clear when that might happen.   read more

One-third of the San Francisco Department of Health Care’s $1 million lobbying budget is earmarked for the California Hospital Association, an organization that often finds itself at odds with consumer advocates.   read more

Fallout from the death in March of the billion-dollar computer system that was meant to unify the myriad judicial case management systems across the state is rippling through individual courts as they try to salvage the investments they have already made. The state spent $500 million over a 10-year period on the system, but only a few counties have implemented aspects of it.   read more

A method for rating teachers based on student test scores, co-developed and publicized by the Los Angeles Times in recent years, has been criticized by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) as “inaccurate due to unreliable methodology.”   read more

Like Lucy pulling the ball back before Charlie Brown could kick it, Santa Clara County officials unexpectedly withheld $30 million in money pledged for a new San Francisco 49ers stadium. Construction began in April and the stadium is set to open in 2014. The 49ers are leaving Candlestick Park, and San Francisco proper, where they’ve played since 1971.   read more

Tax credits worth $100 million, doled out annually to keep filmmakers from leaving California, are a net loss for the state and of questionable effectiveness, the independent Office of the Legislative Analyst told the Senate Governance Finance Committee, which is considering a 5-year extension of the program that began in 2009 under actor-turned-governor-turned-actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.   read more

When Governor Jerry Brown appointed Marty Morgenstern secretary of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency in January 2011, he was tapping an old friend. In 1975, Morgenstern was appointed director of the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations by Governor Jerry Brown. He twice served as director of California’s Department of Personnel Administration, once in the first Jerry Brown administration and again for Governor Gray Davis.   read more

San Francisco’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the lower-court ruling “practically unworkable,” but on a 7-2 vote, U.S. Supreme Court justices upheld the decision that closed union shops, like those in California government, must give workers a chance to opt out of unexpected dues increases and special assessments. Unions are already required to give an annual notice of impending increases, which the Court of Appeals had found sufficient.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown and state Democratic leaders worked out the final details of a budget plan that still relies on voters approving an $8.5 billion tax hike in November and giant cuts now in social programs.   read more