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

In a unanimous decision, the state justices granted Chang posthumous admission to the Bar. It is the court’s first such posthumous declaration. The ruling is an eight-page apology for the sentiments and actions of the state—and the subsequent failure to put it right for 125 years—that denied Chang an opportunity to practice law.   read more

The plan, which extends wildlife protections and puts the area off-limits for energy and mineral extraction, was two-years in the making. The area is home to more than a quarter million breeding seabirds, 25 endangered or threatened species, 36 marine mammal species and a large population of great white sharks.   read more

Medical records were stacked on shelves and sitting in boxes on the floor when investigators from the California Department of Justice searched the building last week. The clinic closed seven months after its parent, the Bay Area Consortium for Quality Health Care, filed for bankruptcy amid allegations of mismanaged public funds.   read more

The Bishop Paiute Tribe is suing the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department in U.S. District Court, claiming its sovereign rights were violated by the arrest of a tribal police officer. The Sheriff’s Department, which has and uses stun guns, wants tribal Officer Daniel Johnson punished for using a stun gun on a woman during a domestic dispute, and asked for the order to stop the tribal police from “illegally exercising state police powers under the color of authority.”   read more

We have one year to show some recognition of the problem and do something real about it. “California has no contingency plan for a persistent drought like this one (let alone a 20-plus-year mega-drought), except, apparently, staying in emergency mode and praying for rain,” Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech, wrote in a Los Angeles Times op-ed last week.   read more

Picker’s $1.6-billion plan, which he detailed last week, is $200 million larger than one recommended by two administrative law judges, and shifts some future pipeline upgrade costs from ratepayers to PG&E shareholders. It received guarded support from San Bruno officials. Mayor Jim Ruane asked the Chronicle, “What, after all, does this do to revamp the PUC, PG&E and their relationship?”   read more

Robert Durst, black-sheep member of a wealthy New York real estate dynasty, has been in law enforcement's cross-hairs since the 1982 disappearance of his wife in New York State, the subsequent Beverly Hills murder of a close friend, and the murder and dismemberment of an elderly neighbor in Galveston, Texas. In the final episode Sunday night of the six-part HBO documentary about him, Durst is captured on mike whispering to himself, “What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”   read more

Exide will pay $38.6 million to close and clean up the plant. Another $9 million will go into a trust fund to clean up the mess they made of the neighborhood, including 216 homes. But the federal government will not pursue prosecution for criminal conduct, although the company admitted to, “including the illegal storage, illegal disposal, illegal shipment and illegal transportation of hazardous waste.   read more

State regulators rejected 1 in 5 prescription requests on behalf of poor children, including foster home youth, in an effort to rein in the profligate use of the drugs. The number of antipsychotic prescription requests dropped from 16,915 in October to 6,950 in January, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). The rejection rate rose from 6% to 18%.   read more

The board is still trying to shape a system, called “Smarter Balance,” that will correspond to the national Common Core standards, which focus on critical thinking rather than rote memorization. Many observers thought the board’s decision was a foregone conclusion, with the inevitable switch in one year and the chaos already existing throughout state schools.   read more

What was shocking Wednesday as experts testified before the state Senate Energy, Utilities and Communication Committee about a culture of “lawlessness” at the PUC is that anyone could even feign surprise. It’s how we roll in California. Although there is language abounding in rules about the impropriety of regulators becoming overly cozy with regulatees, commissioners aren’t required to report every contact and there is no penalty for violation of the rules.   read more

A report on the outside-the-box business model says it is squeezing the already-tight Los Angeles housing market and is being gamed by entrepreneurs, who are anything but mom-and-pop renters and homeowners. “The 7,316 units taken off the rental market by Airbnb is equivalent to seven years of affordable housing construction in Los Angeles,” according to “Airbnb, Rising Rent, and the Housing Crisis in Los Angeles.”   read more

The schools allegedly issued Form I-20s, which indicate acceptance into a government-certified school as a full-time student, to foreign nationals who had no intention of attending the schools and often lived outside of Los Angeles. Six months of “tuition” cost up to $1,800 and allegedly netted the operators $6 million a year. The schools’ 1,500 students were largely Korean and Chinese.   read more

The lawsuits seek documents that are generally considered public records, including contracts or other agreements with the manufacturer. Law enforcement agencies claim that "trade secrets" trump the California Public Records Act. The devices are broadly used by police without any oversight by the public, government agencies or courts.   read more

The odds of an 8.0 quake in the next 30 years have risen from 4.7% to 7%. While that is only 2.3 percentage points higher, it can also be read as a much scarier 48.9% increase. The new report abandons past models that assumed an earthquake happened along a single fault, and factors in multiple faults rupturing simultaneously.   read more

Essentially, Harris was requiring that the chain commit to keeping the hospitals open and provide the same level of care that the Daughters of Charity have. A key condition, and one cited by Prime as the deal killer, required compliance with terms of the agreement for 10 years, not the five negotiated with Daughters.   read more