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

On Monday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David R. Fields sentenced Noe Iniguez to a year in jail and 36 months probation on three criminal counts for bad things he did to his ex-girlfriend on the Internet. He was the first person convicted and sentenced under California's revenge porn law, one of the few in the nation and a cause for concern among civil libertarians.   read more

The suit contends that the law only allows medical marijuana patients or their caregivers to secure pot by picking it up themselves. Nestdrop provides a one-stop shopping site for customers by contracting with a number of area dispensaries and delivery services. Just click on the site, scan in your prescription and place the order.   read more

The lawsuit, filed in Mendocino County Superior Court, claims the county illegally failed to conduct an environmental review of the impact the predator program would have. Wildlife Services, a federal agency that shouldn’t be confused with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife Service, killed 4 million animals in 2013.   read more

On Friday, after a firestorm of protest, the district had second thoughts. Officials said they would allow Vivian to remain in the school district if the family that employs the mom agrees to become the kid’s official caregiver. Miriam Storch, the nanny's employer, thinks she knows why Vivian was told to leave in the first place. “I don't play the race card lightly, but it's painfully obvious (her school is) all Caucasians," she said.   read more

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that many of the 12,600 insurance agents haven’t been paid for months. Around 2,200 agents are owed around $2 million for shepherding Med-Cal patients through the system and the state doesn’t intend to pay them before January. Backlogs of payments back to June exist for agents who helped sign up small employers. They might get paid in December.   read more

McCarthy, who was promoted from whip this year when Eric Cantor lost his House seat, vowed to do what he could to thwart a new, stronger standard proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for reducing smog-producing ozone. Ozone is so geographically problematic in California, the federal government has a given the state a longer timeline to meet the standards.   read more

From 2002 to 2012, 5,600 cyclists were hit and 36 died. The increase was not totally unexpected. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) closed just one in five hit-and-run cases between 2008 and 2012, according to the Times. Less than half the closed cases were concluded because of an arrest.   read more

The panga boat incursions, which authorities say began around six years ago but intensified recently, have drawn the attention of Homeland Security types, who worry about surreptitious visits of a more serious nature. Here are some of this year’s busts from all along the coast:   read more

As of October 1, 44% of the 195,000 targeted seniors in seven counties had opted out of the Cal MediConnect pilot project, according to the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). They refused to trade a struggle with two giant bureaucracies for a single new one, while often giving up access to their doctors, flexibility and familiar settings.   read more

Chief Michael Bostic, a 34-year law enforcement veteran who retired as assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department in 2007, said at a tearful press conference he reached out to the FBI ostensibly because three members of the city council and the Calixico Police Officers Association (POA) were interfering for political reasons in his investigation of a gang kidnapping and assault of a juvenile. But there was much more at stake.   read more

The last six of the Doobie Dozen weren’t absolved of their transgressions until this week when the county district attorney’s office finally dropped charges—four years after they were busted for operating mobile medical marijuana dispensaries. At least half a dozen agencies and 50 agents participated in the investigation and arrests.   read more

It easily could have been very foul. One million gallons of volatile Bakken crude oil from North Dakota pass along these tracks every each week. “When you hear about a derailment, even if it's just corn, you can’t help but imagine, what if it was Bakken crude?” Stacey Geis, the managing attorney at Earthjustice told KCRA Sacramento.   read more

The Pala Band of Mission Indians in Northern San Diego County became the first Native American tribe in the country to receive permission to open an Internet gambling site, in New Jersey, one year after that state legalized online wagering. New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware are the only states with online gambling and California was expected to join them this year. That didn’t happen.   read more

Lee, who has worked in environmental regulation for more than 20 years, took over the department five months after Director Debbie Rafael resigned under fire. The department, which oversees and regulates the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste, has been accused of being too cozy with corporate polluters and lax in its enforcement of environmental laws.   read more

NBC found that 63% of the broadly-defined adverse events (3,959)in a four-year period were Stage 3 or 4 decubitus ulcers—better known as bedsores. But second on the list with 986 events was “retention of a foreign object in a patient.” That’s 2.7 accidents a day that leave something behind. NBC also tallied 140 surgeries performed on wrong body parts, 114 instances of “death or serious disability associated with a medication error” and 107 sexual assaults on patients,   read more

A friend of winner Patty Lopez described her to the Los Angeles Times as “a candidate that had no political endorsements. She had no credibility, no recognition—she didn't have any funding.” So how did she defeat the incumbent, potential Democratic superstar Raul Bocanegra, for an Assembly seat? Some people are suspicious of the ballot in the 39th District.   read more