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

The state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted 5-0 to let PG&E raise $299 million through rate increases over the next two years, in addition to nearly another $1 billion stretched over decades, to pay for tests, repairs and upgrades, some of which were erroneously reported as already done. The utility had asked for significantly more.   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

Governor Jerry Brown, perhaps sensing he was going to have a public relations problem on his hands, fired the public relations company that was gearing up for a $10 million promotion of the soon-to-be completed San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge reconstruction.   read more

The diagnosis by doctors at PacifiCare sounded serious and expensive: “malignant neoplasm of the prostate.” Cancer. And that’s the way it was billed to Medicare. However, when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General asked the giant health care provider later on for documentation, it got paperwork for suture removal and left shoulder bursitis/tendonitis.   read more

Although 462 California cities and 53 counties managed to comply with new state reporting requirements on salaries, pension benefits and other compensation, the city of Bell, whose massive overpayments to public officials inspired the rules, missed the October 31 filing deadline.   read more

Sentencing reform advocate and former Pennsylvania prisons chief Jeffrey A. Beard was named Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Wednesday by Governor Jerry Brown. He replaces Matthew Cate, who left in October after four and a half years to head the California State Association of Cities.   read more

The Center for Biological Diversity called “discussion draft” regulations by the California Department of Conservation’s Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources fatally flawed because they “would keep California's fracking shrouded in secrecy and do little to contain the many threats posed by fracking.”   read more

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered nine data brokerage companies to tell the government what it currently doesn’t tell consumers—how it collects and sells the personal information of Americans. Two of the companies, CoreLogic of Irvine and ID Analytics of San Diego, are headquartered in California.   read more

State Controller John Chiang updated his public employee compensation website this week and Greg Johnson topped the list for all municipal employees in 2011 with a total compensation package of $677,172 granted him by the wealthy town of 5,000. His regular pay that year was $230,697, but his total wage compensation was fleshed out with a $446,475 parting gift when he was forced to resign in October 2011.   read more

The California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) has at least $500 million invested in the company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre of 20 children and six adults.   read more

Lawyers can’t do it and doctors can’t do it. Now thousands of other licensed professionals in California won’t be able to do it. Assembly Bill 2570, signed by the governor in September, will kick into effect January 1 and prohibit licensed professionals from adding gag orders to civil suit settlements that prevent consumers from working with authorities conducting investigations of wrongdoing.   read more

Three months ago, the state fined PetSmart Inc. $392,842 for selling 33 unregistered pesticide products, including antimicrobial cage liners, reptile bedding and anti-flea and tick pet shampoo, in its California stores. PetSmart paid the fine but, according to an investigation by California Watch, many of the products are still on their shelves.   read more

It is harder to be an anonymous face in the crowd in San Diego since an unnamed law enforcement agency began using cutting-edge facial recognition software to identify crime suspects and help populate a burgeoning database with images.   read more

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last week that PG&E has hired 48 new inspectors to check more than 1,500 critical pieces of electrical equipment in Alameda County and the South Bay it believes employees skipped over and may have lied about. Eight company employees and 11 contract workers were suspended or fired.   read more

Young Californians aren’t smoking cigarettes as much as they used to, but they’ve replaced that nasty habit with increased use of chewing tobacco, snuff, hookahs and cigarillos.   read more

The state Commission on Judicial Performance meted out one of its rare public admonishments this week to Orange County Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson for comments he made in a rape case four years ago. Johnson said, "If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage in inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case.”   read more