Governor Jerry Brown threatened a U.S. Supreme Court fight if federal authorities don’t relinquish their 7-year control of California’s prison system and stop forcing the state to pour money down a “rat hole of incarceration.” The governor declared the “prison crisis is over” and the “job’s done” at a press conference on Tuesday, the day after the state handed over its admittedly deficient court-ordered plan for further reducing the prison population by June and improving inmate health care.   read more

The U.S. Supreme Court waded into admittedly polluted waters on Monday when it unanimously ruled that Los Angeles County cannot be held responsible for the effluence that runs through the L.A. River on its way to being dumped in the Santa Monica Bay. Local governments essentially argued that so many communities along the Los Angeles, Santa Clara and San Gabriel rivers were dumping so much crap in them that it was virtually impossible at this point to assign blame to anyone for the pollution.   read more

Despite state laws legalizing medical marijuana, the former owner of three pot shops in Southern California’s Inland Empire was sentenced by a federal judge to 10 years in prison on Monday. Aaron Sandusky was found guilty of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and intent to distribute at his G3 Holistic facilities after a jury trial last October that was largely devoid of discussion about the conflict between state and federal law.   read more

Considering that San Onofre nuclear energy is almost certain to be absent again next summer, JPMorgan’s attempt to block renovations at a power plant in Southern California was bound to engender another round of jousting with regulators.   read more

A San Diego Superior Court judge smacked down the state’s main child welfare agency for writing regulations that short-circuited a 5-year-old law meant to increase public access to information about kids who died while under its supervision.   read more

The argument that corporations are people has been famously made by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney—“Corporations are people, too, my friend” —and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2010 landmark Citizens United case that unleashed untold millions of dollars in dark money on the U.S. political system.   read more

A new way of mapping the incidence of breast cancer in California has turned up four “areas of concern” that did not previously exist. An “area of concern,” which could be smaller than a county or stretch across county lines, is one in which breast cancer rates are 10-20% higher than the state average.   read more

Drivers with suspended licenses or none at all are nearly three times more likely to cause fatal accidents than lawful drivers in California, according to a study of fatal automobile crashes. The study was seized upon by those with an anti-immigration bent as evidence that visitors from other countries pose a threat to the state’s safety and well-being.   read more

For various reasons―including budget restraints, policy priorities, politics and convenience―neither the Attorney General’s office, law enforcement nor the state Medical Board that oversees physicians have utilized the database much to track down corrupt or negligent doctors who are illegally prescribing boatloads of drugs to the addicted and undeserving, often to the detriment of their patients.   read more

There are 876 new laws poised to take effect today, or shortly thereafter, passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Jerry Brown during the past year. Another 120 bills were vetoed by the governor, and the absence of some could prove as meaningful as those that survived.   read more

The high court, on a 6-1 vote, said that “the state's interest in promoting collective bargaining to resolve labor disputes” accorded unions special protection from laws which recognize that private walkways in front of stores are not fair game for anyone who wants to be a presence.   read more

The show must not go on if it means cruelty for the animals involved, say Los Angeles politicians considering a ban on circus elephant shows. Next year the LA City Council will vote on a plan to prohibit circuses from using elephants in shows. Pushed by animal rights advocates, the ban would mostly affect The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which has been bringing Asian elephants to the city since 1919.   read more

Nevada has never been truly happy sharing Lake Tahoe with California. Its state legislators―far more friendly to developers and far less cozy with environmentalists―have tried to dissolve the 43-year-old compact that binds them on at least a half dozen occasions since 1975, but failed each time.   read more

Southern California Edison’s proposal to restart one of the damaged reactors at the San Onofre Nuclear Power Generating Station—and run it at 70% power to see what might shake loose—received a cold reception from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).   read more

California completed an 848-square-mile network of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) this month by opening its last link along the northern coast. It was a bruising process, begun after passage of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) in 1999, to establish a patchwork of new marine sanctuaries in five regions from Mexico to the Oregon border.   read more

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) handed out “administrative” penalties totaling $785,500 to 10 hospitals this week for 12 unfortunate incidents, some of which had deadly consequences. The mistakes that led to the fines included wrong-site surgery, screwed up medication and misplacement of surgical materials inside patients.   read more