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 school’s Center for Regional Change found that voters 18-24 made up 8.1% of the electorate voting by mail in California’s 2012 statewide election, but cast 23% of the 69,000 screwed up Vote-by-Mail (VBM) ballots. Sixty-five percent of the rejected youth VBM ballots were tossed because they arrived late. Twenty-three percent were bounced because matching signatures didn’t match and 7% forgot to sign them altogether.   read more

How did the utility do it during a tumultuous period that included a ton of bad publicity and billion-dollar payout after a defective pipeline exploded, leveling a neighborhood and killing eight people in San Bruno? The Oakland Tribune gave credit to a rate increase granted by the PUC and lower-than-expected charges for its mandated pipeline repair work.   read more

At issue are so-called off-site signs, ones that advertise a product not available on-site. Courts in the past have upheld Los Angeles laws that treat a sign on McDonald’s differently than a sign advertising a McDonald’s 10 miles away. Judge Lavin said there was no difference: the advertiser is expressing his free speech right in both cases. His decision openly contradicted a decision in 2011 by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which he was neither “required nor inclined to follow.”   read more

The class-action lawsuit alleged that the practice of rearranging the debit card charges just to generate overdraft fees and misleading customers about it violated state laws. A customer with $100 in his account could charge nine $10 items before charging a $90 item. Instead of the $90 item generating a single $35 (or so) overdraft fee at the end of processing, it is processed first, triggering eight overdrafts for $280.   read more

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein accepted Stockton’s plan that raises taxes, reduces employee compensation and pays creditors a percentage owed, but does not disable the defined-benefit pension plan. Klein introduced that as a real possibility earlier in the month when he ruled that federal bankruptcy laws outranked state law, which requires cities to make good on their pension obligations to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).   read more

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) has a backlog of more than 11,000 complaints related to long-term health care facilities, many of them with “relatively high priorities,” according to a report issued Thursday. The state auditor found 370 of those involved situations where patients were in “immediate jeopardy―indicating a situation that poses a threat to an individual’s life or health.”   read more

“Despite the association of biking with healthy lifestyles and environmental benefits, a surprisingly large number of fatally injured bicyclists have blood alcohol concentrations [BOC] of 0.08% or higher,” the report said. The report does not make a direct correlation between drunk bicyclists and the proclivity for riding without a helmet. Sixty-five percent of dead bicyclists weren’t wearing helmets, compared to 17% who were.   read more

L.A. Unified board member Steve Zimmer told KPCC he and other officials don’t know how widespread the problem is. He said the problems included missing data from classes taken at community colleges and summer school. LAUSD has made November 1 the deadline to straighten out the mess. California State University and the University of California want applications filed by November 30, but many schools require applications in October and early November.   read more

Private information of nearly half the state’s residents was exposed in 2013, a six-fold increase over the previous year, according to the state’s 2014 California Data Breach Report. That hyperventilating-worthy 18.5 million-person figure was distorted by two massive breaches. But the 167 breaches by state agencies and companies in 2013 were 28% more than the previous year.   read more

After making mortgage payments on her condo for 16 years, Kilgore refinanced with a “pick-a-payment” loan through World Savings. The next day, she realized she’d agreed to a bad loan and tried to get it rescinded, but World Savings wouldn’t agree. Kilgore’s loan was eventually acquired by Wells Fargo and was kicked out of her condo. That meant that Kilgore was unable to receive subsidies to run the oxygen concentrator she needed to breathe because she didn’t have a permanent address.   read more

More than 34,000 small donors in California were outspent by just 864 large donors, the 10th largest ratio of big donors to small donors in the country. Texas ranked No. 1 by having one single large donor outspend 8,767 small donors. Sixty-seven percent of California’s $43,911,097 in primary contributions came from big donors. Again, Texas was No. 1, with big donors accounting for 80% of contributions.   read more

Sixteen percent of those who participated in The Atlantic's first “Insiders Poll” blamed threats to privacy on “unconcerned citizens and our complacent culture” and 8% pointed a finger at government. Facebook garnered the most support as the most abusive tech company at 14%, followed by Google at 11%. Third-party data brokers also checked in at 8%.   read more

The cost of smoking worked out to $487 per Californian, and $4,603 per smoker. The costs varied by locale, ranging from $374 per resident in Orange County to $1,002 in Lake County. Direct healthcare costs are responsible for 54.4%, or $9.8 billion, of total smoking costs. Loss of productivity from premature death accounted for 37.6% of the costs and lost productivity from illness was 7.9%.   read more

The Riverside Press-Enterprise reported that the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) detected methylene chloride at levels four times the average found in Southern California cities but doesn't know where it is coming from. The chemical is a common industrial solvent used for many purposes including: paint stripping, vapor degreasing, printing, foam manufacturing and electronics manufacturing.   read more

There is very little oil drilling in tiny San Benito County and, as far as anyone knows, no fracking. But that did not stop the county from becoming the first in the state to put a fracking ban on the November 4 ballot for voters to decide. They have since been joined by the counties of Santa Barbara and Mendocino, according to Paul Rogers at the San Jose Mercury News, in an effort to do on a piecemeal basis what advocates for a statewide ban failed to do in the Legislature.   read more

The historic natural lake has undergone a major restoration but is still teeming with giant, alien, invasive fish species. Workers will dump 47 gallons of Rotenone in a 5% solution into the lake on a single day. Rotenone is a piscicide that suffocates gill breathers. It is mildly hazardous to humans and mammals and has been banned in the United States for use on land, coastal waters and lagoons. It has been banned entirely in Europe.   read more