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

Residents in 285 homes in the Los Angeles County County city of Carson would like someone to do something about the deep layer of crude-oil-soaked soil oozing benzene and methane and other toxic chemicals just a few feet beneath their houses. A bunch of them filed a class-action suit against Shell Oil Co. and others in 2010, and were joined in the legal fray last week by Carson, itself.   read more

Cash-strapped California schools, as well as beleaguered school districts across the country, might be much more financially secure if their states hadn’t disposed of the “sacred” trusts given them by the federal government when they joined the union. That’s the conclusion of A Magnificent Endowment: America’s School Land Trusts, a report recently released by the Center for the School of the Future at Utah State University.   read more

A lawsuit filed against San Francisco-based Hipster claims that the popular mobile app company downloaded address books, passwords and other sensitive material for use by third parties without the knowledge or consent of users. The plaintiffs’ suit asserts that, “Literally billions of contacts from the address books of tens of millions of unsuspecting wireless mobile device owners have now been accessed and stolen.”   read more

Ponzi schemes are characterized by their recruitment of investors, whose money is then used to pay off previous “investors,” rather that placed in profitable, income-generating enterprises. They are named after Charles Ponzi, a legendary scam artist of the early 20th century.   read more

Is it a bad sign when the latest slogan of your righteous cause is: “It’s Not Over”? Last week, the folks at Whittier Hills Oil Watch—a group that opposes oil drilling in a nature preserve purchased by the city of Whittier with funds earmarked for conservation—saw their cause granted a small, last-second reprieve by the courts.   read more

You no longer have to smile for the camera if you’re running a red light in San Diego. Newly-elected Mayor Bob Filner announced last week that he was ending the controversial “traffic trap” program begun in 1998, and on Friday the cameras were turned off at 15 intersections throughout the city.   read more

There is no shortage of explanations about why health care costs in the United States are higher than anywhere else on the planet except the Marshall Islands, but one contributing factor might be questionable billing by outpatient surgery centers like Advanced Surgical Partners in Costa Mesa. The center charged teacher Lynne Nielsen $87,500 for a 20-minute procedure on her knee that normally runs around $3,000, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.   read more

Chevron Corp. was handed 25 citations and fined $963,200 for “willful violations” at its Richmond oil refinery that resulted in a fire that belched gas and black smoke into the air last year. Since Chevron earned $244 billion in sales and other operating revenues in 2011, it should take the company a little more than two minutes to recoup its potential losses, assuming it actually pays the fine.   read more

It is open season on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and California-based Prime Healthcare Services got off the first volley Wednesday. The 21-hospital chain, citing a controversial court decision invalidating three recess appointments to the board by President Barack Obama, said it wouldn’t abide by two of the board’s recent decisions.   read more

Lawmakers regularly assign tasks and responsibilities to agencies or institutions for which they fail to provide proper funding. The rules are broken or in dispute so often that there is a separate government agency, the Commission on State Mandates, that resolves complaints.   read more

An estimated 571 full-time, non-union workers in agencies spread across government—many of whom are salaried supervisors—hold dual positions, which allows moonlighting, otherwise restricted overtime pay and other perks. State data identifies nearly a dozen agencies that allow the double paychecks, including the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, where 75 lieutenants also moonlight as sergeants or correctional officers and 55 sergeants double-dip in lesser jobs, too.   read more

Republican State Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, cited a year ago for carrying a loaded concealed weapon without the proper permit at Ontario International Airport, introduced legislation this week to arm school employees, including teachers. The bill is Tea Party activist Donnelly’s response to the Sandy Hook massacre that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults.   read more

The San Jose Unified School District has been a shining example for 11 years of how setting lofty goals—and strict requirements—for high school graduation can boost student performance. The incredible results that San Jose reported for six years, widely cited by the model’s supporters and emulators, were wildly inaccurate and misleading.   read more

Bisphenol A (BPA) has been linked to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, and almost made the state list in 2009. Many observers thought that a critical report in 2008 from the National Toxicology Program (NTP) would gain BPA automatic entrance to the list of chemicals known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity. It didn’t happen.   read more

As California lawmakers poured through myriad proposals this week for reducing the threat from guns, one didn’t involve changing the law at all. Just enforcing it. Nearly 20,000 registered gun owners in possession of 39,000 handguns and 1,600 assault weapons have convictions for felonies, domestic violence or drugs, or mental health conditions that prevent them, by law, from being armed. But the state has not dedicated the necessary manpower and financial assets to rounding up the weaponry.   read more

In the wake of revelations that the California Department of Parks and Recreation had millions of dollars hidden in one of its operating funds, the Department of Finance embarked upon a quick audit of other agencies that turned up $200 million spread here and there. Last week, the Los Angeles Times added to the count when it wrote about $3.6 million that the auditors missed—and the newspaper found—stashed, at various times, by the Department of Forestry and Fire (Cal Fire).   read more