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

If you think it’s hot now, wait until 2041. Even as a recent poll from Stanford University shows a two-year decline in support for government action on global warming, a new study out of UCLA predicts 4-to-5-degree average temperature increases in Southern California by the middle of the century.   read more

California’s K-12 schools used to be among the nation’s best, and best supported, despite a diverse and steadily growing state population. But according to the U.S. Census, the state’s spending per pupil slipped to 35th in the nation in 2009-10 from 23rd two years earlier. The Golden State spending fell to $9,375 per pupil, $1,240 less than the national average.   read more

Three dozen Californians lost their lives in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that included destruction of the World Trade Center in New York. After the attacks the state set up the “California Memorial Scholarship Fund” for family of those who lost their lives, and identified 42 people who were eligible for assistance. Only four of the 16 people who signed up before the 2005 deadline have taken advantage of it.   read more

Less than a month after proposing fast-tracking high-speed rail construction around California environmental legislation, the Brown administration is hitting the brakes. The governor’s staff emailed key environmental groups that it would no longer pursue efforts to bypass elements of the state’s 1970 landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).   read more

California drivers aren’t being paranoid if they feel they’re being watched and tracked. And photographed. And filed in a database that holds what amounts to a GPS record of their movements. It is actually their license plates that are being photographed and filed.   read more

In April, the California Chamber of Commerce published a list of 24 bills it and other business groups deemed “job killers.” They included Senate Bill 1528, which would roll back a Supreme Court decision limiting medical liability lawsuit claims, and a host of proposals that deal with “unnecessary regulations,” workplace mandates and other “barriers to economic recovery.” The chamber probably needn’t worry.   read more

Locked in tight runoff with a Democratic opponent for a seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, former Republican Secretary of State Bruce McPherson sought to shed the most negative image attached to him: his party affiliation. McPherson joined a growing number of Californians who identify themselves as independents.   read more

Who knew that heavily ticketing children as young as 7 might have a deleterious effect on them and their parents? Apparently, Los Angeles school police and administrators do now and have agreed to review a policy that resulted in 33,500 court summonses for students 10 to 18 years of age during a three-year period.   read more

Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) officials announced Monday that a faulty computer model led to problems that shut down the San Onofre nuclear plant in January, but left unanswered a host of questions.   read more

When Sgt. Nicholas C. Fredsti of San Diego was killed in Afghanistan on Friday, he joined more than 700 fellow Californians who have lost their lives in that country and Iraq since 2001.   read more

When Norman B. Smith went public in September 2011 with his story about being denied a liver transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles because he legally smoked medical marijuana, he said he was hoping knowledge of his plight would help change the policy. It didn’t.   read more

Sergio C. Garcia wants to be a lawyer. He put himself through college and law school, passed the bar examination on his first try in 2009 and applied for admittance to the bar in 2011. There is only one thing standing between him and a promising legal career. Garcia is an illegal immigrant.   read more

There is a run on fancy duck liver at high-end restaurants in California—where prices are skyrocketing amid secretive gourmand gatherings—as the state’s July 1 ban on foie gras approaches.   read more

When San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) pitches its new plan to allow customers a chance to prepay their utility bills, it talks up the program’s convenience and potential cost savings. What it fails to mention is the abrogation of consumer protections that shield the public, often low-income families, from being abruptly disconnected.   read more

Robert Rizzo, former chief administrative officer for the city of Bell and poster child for abusively large government-funded pension payouts, had his pension cut for a second time when the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) notified him June 6 that he is not entitled to five years’ worth of credit he bought for himself with city funds.   read more

Spy plane? Weapons carrier? Troop transport? Nobody was quite sure what the unmanned X-37B was doing while it orbited the Earth for more than a year, and the speculation continued after it touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base Saturday, 130 miles north of Los Angeles.   read more