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

With a March 1 signup deadline looming and California HIV/AIDS patients girding for the worst, health insurer Anthem Blue Cross backed off and suspended a program that would have forced them to purchase their medications through the mail. Many of the drugs need refrigeration, and delivery to a house, apartment or office could be problematic for more than just safety reasons.   read more

A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit may help determine once and for all how many Wiccans—nature worshiping pagans who practice witchcraft—there are in California prisons and whether they get a chaplain to attend to their religious needs.   read more

After decades of controversy and $600 million worth of cleaning up, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) closed the books on one of the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites—10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. More than a thousand users of the landfill paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and cleanup for problems that included toxic gas emissions, contaminated surface water runoff and groundwater pollution.   read more

In reviewing audits conducted for eight years, beginning January 1, 2005, State Auditor Elaine Howle estimated that if entities had implemented all the auditor’s recommendations, the state would net $1.5 billion. Her office issued 106 reports between November 2005 and October 2011, which included 1,249 recommendations. As of September 2012, 83% had been implemented.   read more

A federal judge in Oregon delivered a death sentence for California sea lions that venture into the Pacific Northwest in search of Chinook salmon and steelheads. U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon ruled in a lawsuit brought by the Humane Society of the United States that a fisheries preservation program—at the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River and at the Willamette Falls fish ladder on the Willamette River—is legal.   read more

California housing prices have been trending upward of late, buoying spirits, although not quite as dramatically as last week’s announcement of a sharp drop in foreclosures. But underpinning these changes are record-low interest rates imposed by the Fed, poor fixed-rate returns, low housing inventory, a heavy influx of foreign money and investors looking for property they can rent or flip.   read more

After Nevada politicians made it clear that they would pull out of a 43-year-old joint agreement with California for managing Lake Tahoe, which straddles their border, unless developers were given more sway and environmentalists were reined in, a new regional plan was adopted in December that did just that. Last week, the Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore sued to block it.   read more

Thousands of California ballots cast in the election last November will never be counted. Late postmarks, questionable signatures and other anomalies doomed thousands of vote-by-mail ballots, as they do every year. But at least 407 perfectly fine ballots also weren’t counted because of a snafu in Sacramento County, where election workers found an unopened, sealed bag of ballots sitting on a shelf in a warehouse.   read more

After seven years of trying to modernize its vehicle registration system, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) found that “minimal work” had been done and now would be “a natural breaking point for the project.” So, on January 31, they fired the contractor, Hewlett-Packard’s HP Enterprise Services.   read more

The 2,850 acres surrounding the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Ventura County, north of Los Angeles, have been dangerously contaminated for more than 50 years. After years of denial, finger-pointing and delay, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and California inked a deal in 2010 to finally clean up the agency’s 451.2-acre portion of the mess. But a report by NASA’s inspector general threatens to derail the agreement.   read more

O’Connor pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge Thursday after agreeing to a plea deal that lets her try to pay back $2.1 million she took from her deceased husband Robert O. Peterson’s charitable foundation to cover gambling debts. She has two years to make good on her promise or prosecution could resume.   read more

Despite its reputation as never having met a tax it didn’t like, California is the only major energy-producing state that doesn’t levy an oil extraction tax on drillers. Check that. The state does charge an 8-cent-per-barrel tax to cover expenses of the oil and gas industry’s chief regulator, the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources in the Department of Conservation. That is compared to the 25% “severance” tax that Alaska charges, which brings in billions of dollars to state coffers.   read more

Insurance firms doing business in California have reduced their investments in Iran-linked companies by 97% since the state pressured them to divest in 2009. But eight businesses, including State Farm, continue to maintain ties. In 2009, companies were doing $6 billion worth of business with corporations tied to Iran’s military, energy and nuclear sectors.   read more

When San Francisco was chosen in January 2011 to host the 2013 America’s Cup sailing event, optimistic supporters projected 8,000 new jobs and the infusion of $1.2 billion into the local economy. But fund-raising efforts have come up short and the city is reportedly looking at being left on the hook for $20 million.   read more

California is starting to rack up a big budget surplus; billions from Propositions 30 and 39 loom; and Governor Jerry Brown wants to use this good fortune to direct $1.4 billion more to higher education next year, a 13% increase. The independent Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) thinks the governor’s concern for education is a good thing, but his budget proposals for 2013-14 are not.   read more

San Bruno, California-based CBR Systems Inc., which claims to be the world’s leading stem cell bank, hopefully does a better job of storing its product than it does personal data from clients. The company agreed to separate settlements with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and potential class-action plaintiffs resulting from its loss of Social Security numbers and credit card information for 298,000 of its clients.   read more