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 finding is significant for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that California was fined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2012 for exceeding smog limitations. More than $100 million has been collected. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District asked the EPA to give it an exemption from the standards because of outside influences beyond their control.   read more

California hasn’t executed any inmates since 2006, but voters overwhelmingly reaffirmed in 2012 that it wants to keep the death penalty. Consequently, the list of condemned prisoners has grown from 646 that year to 751. Twenty are women, housed at the Central California Women's Facility near Chowchilla. The state would like to keep all the men at San Quentin, but Death Row only holds 715 people.   read more

Provost John Etchemendy sent a letter to the faculty warning of allegations that an “unusually high” number of cheaters were taking advantage of the school’s Honor Code. “One faculty member reported allegations that may involve as many as 20 percent of the students in one large introductory course,” he wrote. That could add up to more than 120 students for that one class. Eighty-three students were caught cheating all of last year, according to a university spokeswoman.   read more

“This industry is not being transparent about how much water they use," U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D- California) said. There has never been an environmental assessment of bottling at Strawberry Creek. And no government authority has ever told Nestle to cut back its operations because of the drought. That’s how public review of big corporations is conducted; it’s not that way for individual water users.   read more

“In the southern Sierra Nevada it’s devastating,” Tom Smith, a forest pest management specialist for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire), told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s epidemic and it’s probably going to get even worse.” As the beetles deliver a final death blow to the trees already weakened by drought, many believe the massive die-off increases the likelihood of devastating fires.   read more

Judge Richard L. Fruin, Jr. invalidated Malibu’s state-mandated housing plan for violating laws that require a minimum number of housing units for the less fortunate. “Housing stock that is made available only to family members or domestic employees does not qualify as low-income housing,” he wrote in his decision.   read more

The herbicide scares the hell out of a lot of environmentalists and many scientists, but got a clean bill of health from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1991, six years after its original classification as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” Now, the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO) has revisited the controversial herbicide, which is used in conjunction with genetically modified crops (GMOs), and determined it “probably” causes cancer.   read more

Mayor Ed Lee took offense at Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed into law by Republican Governor Mike Pence, which allows individuals and businesses to discriminate against people they are uncomfortable around. “San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by the State of Indiana,” he said.   read more

The 39-year-old former gang member, sentenced to life in prison at 16, was the first inmate to be resentenced under new legislative guidelines. The United States was the only country in the world, as of 2013, that allowed minors to be incarcerated for life without the possibility of parole, according to the Sentencing Project.   read more

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported this week that California nearly tripled its 2013 solar output, while noting at the same time that hydroelectric power use in the state was down 46% last year compared to the five-year average. Overall, the state’s use of renewable energy sources inched up a bit last year, but it is far below 2011, before the four-year drought kicked in and hydroelectric power was more than double the current output.   read more

Public Defender Jeff Adachi and chief attorney Matt Gonzalez sent a letter to Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi alleging “serious misconduct” by deputies that included allegations of forced gambling, threats of physical violence and other abuse. According to Adachi and a report from a private investigator engaged by the public defender, Deputy Scott Neu forced 150-pound Ricardo Palikiko Garcia to fight 350-pound Stanly Harris twice while others watched.   read more

An audit of the legal aspects of the project said the park was a mess from the start. Politicians put a $410 price tag on the project in 2006, based on available funding, and hired a design firm. Ten years later, more than $359 million has been spent to develop just 88 acres, or 6.5% of the park. “It was fiction all the time,” the 157-page audit said,   read more

A couple years ago, CALPIRG said of California, “Without a central location for the data, the state simply lacks the digital infrastructure to build upon.” That is still true and the main reason the state received a failing grade. “California does not succeed in creating a ‘one-stop’ transparency portal, prompting Executive Director Emily Rusch to say the state "has remained stagnant, with a long way to go.”   read more

The state agency CalTech (not the school) currently oversees 45 IT projects conducted by various agencies worth $4 billion. That’s four times as much money as the auditor says the state has wasted on failed projects between 1994 and 2013. The auditor said six of the ongoing projects, worth $575 million, have problems that could lead to delays and cost overruns.   read more

The liberal arts school was founded in 1996 as an institute and also operated as an Islamic seminary before transforming into a four-year college in 2009. It offers a B.A. in Islamic Law and Theology as well as courses in politics, astronomy, and American history, among others. "Religiously-affiliated colleges are plentiful in the United States, but the vast majority are Christian," said Jack Jenkins. "There are a few Jewish higher education institutions...and even some Buddhist schools.”   read more

The study uses 319 internal documents from the International Sugar Research Foundation from 1959-1971 that discuss how the industry manipulated the federal research funding priorities of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) U.S. National Institute of Dental Research and shaped national policy for decades to come. “These tactics are strikingly similar to what we saw in the tobacco industry in the same era,” said Glantz, who is a co-author on the sugar report.   read more