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

Proposition 13, the tax initiative that not only froze tax rates in 1978 but restructured California politics and how the state does business, withstood yet another, albeit innovative, judicial challenge. Former University of California, Los Angeles, Chancellor Charles M. Young was challenging only that part of the initiative that required two-thirds majorities in the Legislature to raise taxes, not the property tax caps.   read more

Cadiz Inc. has unsuccessfully pushed a plan to ship water from a Mojave aquifer to Southern California cities for more than a decade, running afoul of environmentalists, desert residents, nearby mining interests, political watchdogs and water district officials. Its quest didn’t get any easier this past week when environmental documents quantified the known presence of toxic hexavalent chromium in amounts far beyond public health goals.   read more

A Superior Court judge has given parents in the poor Southern California school district of Adelanto the green light to become the first in the nation to use a petition trigger to take over a school, although a number of them have changed their minds about the move.   read more

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), following about nine months behind California, has banned the use of bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles, but will continue to allow its use in plastic bottles used by adults. The FDA’s decision was less dramatic than it may appear, since manufacturers of baby bottles and sippy cups had already stopped using the controversial industrial chemical.   read more

The state Department of Education announced it is delaying the release of standardized test results for two weeks while it investigates the online posting of test booklet photographs. Students at 11 high schools and one middle school posted photos, most likely taken with cellphones, of various pages, including some with test questions.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown announced the appointment of Janelle Beland as acting director of the Department of Parks and Recreation on the same day that her predecessor, Ruth Coleman, tendered her resignation amid two scandals.   read more

Moments after news hit Friday that the Department of Parks and Recreation—which scrambled all year to find outside money to keep parks open through the summer—had a hidden $54 million surplus stashed away where not even the Department of Finance would find it, Director Ruth Coleman sent out her letter of resignation.   read more

Buoyed by having experienced its 11th straight month of job growth, Californians tried to forget that the June improvement was miniscule; lower jobless numbers could be accounted for by discouraged job seekers giving up the hunt; and the state still has the third worst unemployment in the nation.   read more

Last year, Los Angeles spent months preparing drivers for “Carmageddon,” an inescapable epic traffic jam that was expected to lock up the city during a 53-hour closure of the well-traveled 405 Freeway. The July disaster didn’t happen. People stayed home. But wary of complacency after last year’s false alarm, the city is ramping up its early warning system again because the same freeway is going to get whacked in late September.   read more

When California passed a law last year banning possession and sale of shark fins, it joined a worldwide movement against the mutilation of sharks for their fins and decimation of shark populations in general. Last week, two groups sued in federal court to have the law overturned.   read more

How rude! Meniffee City Council members thought they had finally found something they could agree on: a proposed politeness policy called the “Social Contract” that would at least mitigate the squabbling ever present since incorporation in 2008 as Riverside County’s 26th city.   read more

The approval by the federal government of seven more waivers from the Bush era “No Child Left Behind” education standards pushed the national total to 33 but still doesn’t include California. It has been apparent for years that states could not legitimately comply with the lofty standards established by Congress, which refused to rework the 2002 law, so the Obama administration has allowed them exemptions from key provisions if they could come up with a plan of their own that passes muster.   read more

Although foreclosures in California continue to wreak havoc on the lives of homeowners for the fifth year in a row, 1 million tenants have also been directly impacted by the crisis, according to Tenants Together, a statewide organization for renters’ rights.   read more

As California races toward a 2020 deadline for its utilities to generate 33% of their electricity from renewable energy sources, some of them are badly lagging. A report by the Union of Concerned Citizens (UCS) analyzed the state’s top 10 utilities, which provide about 25% of California’s electricity, and found a wide range of accomplishment. Three utilities were singled out as having gotten off to a “false start.”   read more

The average retiree in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) receives around $28,000 a year, which by and large supplants Social Security for them. But when enraged Californians break out the pitchforks and flaming torches to protest overgenerous pension payouts they think are bankrupting the state, they’re often focused on the $100,000-a-Year Club.   read more

While most state employees received a 4.6% pay cut as of July 1, most state Senate staffers have received pay increases over the last 12 months. Fewer Assembly staff members have also received merit pay raises during the same period, usually in the 3.6% to 5% range.   read more