Assembly Bill 258—co-sponsored by the Americans for Safe Access (ASA), passed overwhelmingly in the Legislature and signed recently by Governor Brown—prevents hospitals from denying transplants to candidates based on their use of medical marijuana. Around 1,150 Californians currently on organ transplant lists use medical marijuana and people were being kicked off lists after waiting for years.   read more

Sacramento Mayor (and former NBA star) Kevin Johnson filed a lawsuit to prevent the release of e-mail exchanges with lawyers over his involvement with the now-bankrupt National Conference of Black Mayors (NCBM). He was president of the organization for its final year, until May 2014. He formed a new organization, the African American Mayors Association, afterward amid a hail of lawsuits in a sea of vitriol.   read more

"Lynching’ has such a painful history for African Americans that the law should only use it for what it is―murder by mob,” bill co-author state Senator Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. Now that the phraseology of the law has been dealt with, there might be something to be said for revisiting its substance. Police have used the law, especially in recent years, to bust up political and social demonstrations.   read more

The county shut down its Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) and cut in half the number of hospital beds available to mentally-ill patients. The decision was made when social services statewide and at local levels were eviscerated in the budget bloodbaths triggered by the Great Recession. Five years later, Sacramento County’s fiscal condition has improved, but the county’s attitude has not.   read more

The city passed separate ordinances governing streets/sidewalks and parks that empower police to take down encampments and haul away stuff with 24-hour notice. Big stuff, like tents and mattresses, can go immediately. Homeless are subject to tickets and misdemeanor charges. The mayor supported the ordinances, then said he would delay implementation until amendments were passed.   read more

Despite the respite from L.A.’s rapacious thirst, it’s hard to imagine much of a future for Mono Lake in the Age of Drought. It has been the subject of lengthy litigation over its decline, beginning with a Public Trust lawsuit in 1979, and is about to reach a new marker of devastation. The Los Angeles Times sketched out the very sketchy-looking future of California’s second-largest gull colony.   read more

It’s usually not a good thing when your foundation needs to be fixed, especially if problems have been evident for years and people are already being harmed. The state budget signed by Governor Jerry Brown last week took a stab at answering public demands for reform by funding an oversight panel to report on how the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) is doing.   read more

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio M. Grillo ruled last week that patients must be notified when classified as incapacitated and given an opportunity to argue the case in court should they be so inclined. Anything less is a denial of constitutionally guaranteed due process of law.   read more

Newark is a fairly safe Silicon Valley community by conventional standards, but statistics don’t necessarily correlate with risk aversive fear factors. Newark Unified Superintendent Dave Marken told the Contra Costa Times, “Unfortunately, we have an increase in deranged individuals who go into campuses, churches, malls and theaters with one thing in mind: to create as much carnage as possible.”   read more

After years of measuring contaminants using decades-old, pre-fracking standards that looked for naturally-occurring contaminants, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered Chevron in April to conduct new tests. A report on those tests was turned in last week and showed petroleum hydrocarbons, acetone, an industrial solvent, and trace amounts of benzene, a carcinogen.   read more

Plaintiffs claim that the company has known that their drinks breached the safety level. When Proposition 65 was passed in California, Pepsi gave the public the impression it had complied with the new chemical requirement when, in fact, it had not. The soft drink maker intentionally misled the public, said the complaint. The lawsuit also argues that many consumers drink more than one 12-ounce serving of Pepsi a day, putting them at an even greater risk from unhealthy exposure to the chemical.   read more

Butte Creek is (was) home to the biggest of three remaining wild populations of adult salmon in the Central Valley―2,000 strong. In 2012, writing in its own publication about efforts to count salmon in Butte Creek, PG&E noted a warning from Clint Garmon, director of California’s Department of Fish and Game: “There’s lots of different stakeholders that have interest in seeing these fish do well, and PG&E is as big a part of that as all the other stakeholders involved.”   read more

The auditor suggested that the Bar might have devoted more resources to disciplining its members if it hadn’t spent $76.6 million in 2012 to purchase and renovate a building in Los Angeles. She said the Bar was not very transparent about its maneuvers, and “underestimated the total cost by more than $50 million” in an April 2012 report to the Legislature.   read more

The first half of the film shows workers torturing the chickens as they slam them into the shackles, punching them and pulling out feathers of live birds, seemingly for fun. The birds are often shackled improperly and the blade misses their heads, allowing them to complete the process, which ends in boiling, while still alive.   read more

The agreement ends two lawsuits, brought in 2009 and 2012, over the denial of access to water, shade and basic amenities in the brutal summer heat of the Central Valley. The UFW says 28 people died from the heat between 2005 and 2013, while the state only cops to 17, according to Associated Press. The union has accused Cal-OSHA of systematically ignoring the plight of workers and not conducting inspections in 55 of 78 officially-filed complaints in 2011 alone.   read more

The state Assembly voted unanimously for AB 287, which helps clarify for the buyer that a vehicle is under recall, but would only restrict the sales of recalled used cars that are classified as “Stop Sale-Stop Drive,” around 1% of sales. Consumer groups argue that there is something fraudulent about heavily advertising a vehicle as “CarMax Quality Certified, which means every used car at CarMax must pass a Certified Quality Inspection,” when it has known defects.   read more