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 for-profit parent company of Everest Institute, Everest College, WyoTech and Heald brands, with a couple dozen campuses in California, was accused of deceptively marketing $568 million in private loans to students who defaulted on 60% of them over three years. The lawsuit asks that the loans be wiped out. Corinthian sold all of the Genesis loan notes it owned―170,000 loans worth $505 million―to a third party on August 20 for $19 million.   read more

The 396-bed building, which cost $253 million, was constructed without full cooking facilities because the state thought it had a deal with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to arrange for independent food service. That didn’t happen. So, despite there being an estimated 6,000-plus homeless and disabled veterans wandering around Los Angeles—tops in the nation—half the home for senior veterans at the sprawling Westwood campus is sporting cobwebs.   read more

The inspection form approved by the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority lists “body odor” as one of 52 criteria airport officers can use to boot someone out of the taxi queue. In addition to inspecting a vehicle’s body condition, internal cleanliness, brakes, lights, the heater, etc., officers can check for “foul interior odors” in general, and body odor in particular.   read more

PUC Chairman Michael Peevey announced he would not participate in deciding the penalty it would assess Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) for its actions contributing to the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people and leveled a Bay Area neighborhood. Peevey’s chief aide, Carol Brown, resigned under fire for her participation in e-mail exchanges between the regulator and the utility that coordinated their actions and sealed their symbiotic relationship with expressions of love.   read more

A Freedom of Information Act request by MuckRock has identified police departments at five California school districts that have gotten in on the giveaway. The Los Angeles School Police Department has 61 assault rifles, three grenade launchers and one mine-resistant vehicle. Documents from MuckRock also indicate more than 100 college police forces have received military surplus through the 1033 program, including the University of California, Berkeley.   read more

According to the lawsuit, filed in July in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the 700-member cooperative was taking the worst quality “flush rice” and mixing it in with higher-priced premium and medium quality rice. The flush rice is so crummy, food and drug laws allow it to be stored in less than optimal conditions. It is “filthy, putrid, decomposed, or substandard” and is not meant to be consumed by people. But pets eat it up.   read more

It appears they are being kicked out of the subsidized medical insurance program because Covered California has determined their incomes are so low they belong in cheaper (and sometimes free) Medi-Cal. Insurance agent Evette Tsang, who reported that three clients with incomes above the Medi-Cal threshold were bumped, said, “My biggest problem is we don’t know what income standard they’re using.”   read more

The California Secretary of State announced last Friday that Silicon Valley millionaire Tim Draper’s initiative fell short of the number of signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot in November 2016. Although he turned in 1.14 million signatures (pdf), far more than the required 807,615, a random sample of 54,000 of them indicated that a third were invalid.   read more

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy gave Senator Roderick D. Wright (D-Inglewood) 90 days in lockup, fined him $2,000, ordered him to perform 1,500 hours of community service and put him on probation for three years for not living in his district and lying about it. The judge said Wright understood the law and displayed “arrogance” by acting as if it didn’t apply to him. The Associated Press said she pretty much called him a liar.   read more

The NRC was responding directly to safety issues raised by Michael Peck, its former senior inspector at Diablo Canyon who said the plant should be shut down until further studies are conducted. PG&E released a four-year study which, the utility said, “demonstrates Diablo Canyon continues to be seismically safe.”   read more

Governor Jerry Brown signed a law this week that makes it illegal for companies to prohibit negative reviews being posted on popular ratings sites like Yelp. Assembly Bill 2365 bars companies from slipping into contracts language that forbids customers from commenting publicly in a negative fashion about their experiences.   read more

I what may be the biggest battle yet in the fight to pass a tax on soft drinks, voters in Berkeley will decide in November whether to adopt a one-cent-per-fluid-ounce tax on soda companies. But the industry, which has successfully defeated every soda tax effort in the country so far, is determined to keep Berkeley from becoming the first community to take this big step.   read more

Three federal indictments laid out allegations that Mexican black market peso brokers sought out legitimate businesses in Mexico who would buy goods in Los Angeles. The L.A. wholesaler is paid in dollars by the Sinaloa Cartel and the importer pays the broker in pesos. The broker takes his cut and passes the rest to the cartel. Everybody is happy, except law enforcement and people who would rather not have cartels selling illegal drugs through a proficient black market in their country.   read more

Construction jobs were once a crucial segment of middle-class employment, but that has deteriorated significantly. The study looked at statistics dating back to 1972, when only 6% of the construction industry was considered “informal.” Since then, misclassified workers and those missing from the payroll have grown 400%.   read more

“The discouraging news is CalPERS’ lack of robust auditing, underutilization of advanced technology, and its generally passive approach to the problem invites abuse,” Controller John Chiang wrote. The report estimated that one particular pension enhancement, Employer Paid Member Contributions (EPMC), granted by 97 of the reporting entities, would cost CalPERS extra pension benefits worth $796 over 20 years.   read more

Commissioner Michael Florio and Judges Melanie Darling and Kevin Dudney wrote that Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric would unfairly get most of any money recovered from Mitsubishi, the manufacturer of equipment that failed. The regulators want a fairer division of any insurance money that is collected down the road and a review of potential savings from refinancing San Onofre assets.   read more