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

As California slashes away at its public support for higher education, its four-year colleges continue to dominate the nation in tuition increases. A database unveiled by the U.S. Department of Education reveals a list of schools boasting the largest tuition increases littered with California institutions. Seven University of California campuses led by campuses at Berkeley and Los Angeles, are among the list’s top 5%, with tuition increases averaging 40 to 43% between 2009 and 2011.   read more

Ten years ago in Oregon, a ballot initiative to label genetically modified food appeared to have two-thirds of voters’ support, but fell before an advertising onslaught. On June 13, California’s Secretary of State certified a similar measure for the November ballot and estimates are that opposition groups are prepared to spend between $60 million and $80 million to defeat it.   read more

California water wars are legendary—some retold in movies like Chinatown—and none is more memorable than the fight over a Peripheral Canal in the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta that voters decided at the ballot box in 1982. Now, the proposed canal’s sequel may be about to debut.   read more

A senior adviser to Governor Jerry Brown, Jacob Appelsmith was appointed Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control director in January 2011.   read more

Mary D. Nichols, the two-time chair of the Air Resources Board, was born in Minneapolis, Minn., and grew up in Ithaca, N.Y. Her father was a professor at Cornell University and mayor of Ithaca. As a youth Nichols marched in protest against public school air-raid drills, worked with the American Friends Service Committee on peace issues and spent the Civil Rights summer of 1964 with fellow Cornell students helping to register voters in Fayette County, Tenn.   read more

Facing federal deadlines and a skeptical public, the High-Speed Rail Authority reached out in May 2012 to former Caltrans Director Jeff Morales to be its chief executive officer. Morales grew in the Washington, D.C., area after his father, George Morales, an anesthesiologist and native of Mexico, settled there in 1951. The elder Morales was part of the trauma team that attended to President Ronald Reagan after the 1981 attempt on his life.   read more

California State University has recently experienced unprecedented cuts in funding and now it is losing its leader. Embattled Chancellor Charles B. Reed announced that he is retiring after 14 years at the helm of the 23-campus system but is expected to stay in his post until the board of trustees picks a successor.   read more

Harvard graduate Ted Kaczynski, the so-call Unabomber whose 20-plus known victims include five in California (including two deaths), upgraded his alumni directory entry to include these “awards”: “Eight life sentences, issued by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, 1998.”   read more

SB 1844 would make it illegal for employers and college administrators to ask job applicants and students for their social media account passwords.   read more

Texas-based Heritage Pacific Financial is aggressively pursuing more than 1,000 former homeowners who took out second mortgages on their homes, claiming that foreclosure doesn’t let them off the hook   read more