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

Times reporters wrote last week about an early peek they got at a school district internal draft report critical of the program that cited a lack of transparency during the bidding process. Among its complaints, the report said that project specifications were changed after much of the competition had been eliminated from the process. It also cited appearances of a conflict of interest between Deasy, his staff and vendors.   read more

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that the state was still missing proper documentation for 100,000 people but they had until late September or October to make their case. And according to Covered California (CC) Executive Director Peter Lee, they might have a case to make. “We are quite confident where people have not provided information it's not because they are not citizens,” Lee reportedly told a CC board meeting. “Rather, it's a challenge of getting the information to us.”   read more

The Texans claim in the suit that the city shared details of its bid with the competition and rejected the staff recommendation in accepting a lousier deal. The lawsuit alleges, “The City Council’s actions appeared heavily swayed by long-term personal and political connections with” CWS. Both companies said they would raise rates for consumers, but CWS promised a smaller bump. Concerns were also expressed about the Texans outsourcing jobs in billing, dispatch, call centers and customer service.   read more

It's been 146 years since a physician, Dr. J.D. Cooper, wrote an editorial in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin that laid out his vision for an alert system to give the city advanced warning of an approaching earthquake. California has pieces of a demonstration earthquake alert system in place that gave a 10-second alert to scientists at the University of California Berkeley Seismo Lab Sunday when a 6.0 shaker hit Napa, but was of no help to folks at the epicenter.   read more

California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) sent letters to seven insurance companies that it had “erroneously approved or did not object” to language in insurance policies that “discriminate against women by limiting or excluding coverage for termination of pregnancies.” That means Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles and Santa Clara University, two Jesuit-run institutions, cannot exclude abortion coverage from employee insurance policies.   read more

“To me it’s complete chaos,” special education teacher Kelly Flores told Yana Gracile at LA School Report two weeks after launch. “I don’t know how to access my students, and even if I could, I don’t know how because I haven’t been trained,” she said. My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS) is responsible for “attendance, scheduling, grades, counseling, discipline, health, A-G course completion, and a great deal more,” according to LAUSD.   read more

Like the earlier settlements, only a portion is aimed at homeowner relief. No bankers are going to jail and a big chunk of the money will be treated as ordinary expenses for tax purposes. “These tax write-offs shift the burden back onto taxpayers and send the wrong message,” U.S. Public Interest Research Group analyst Phineas Baxandall told the Times.   read more

California State Auditor Elaine Howle’s report, which covered five and a half years between July 2008 and December 2013, found 323 instances of money being reimbursed to providers of services “purportedly rendered to deceased beneficiaries.” The auditor accused Medi-Cal administrators of shoddy practices that may have steered $93.7 million to alcohol and drug and rehabilitation clinics under fraudulent circumstances during a four-year period.   read more

With as few as 8% of registered voters showing up to vote in some recent elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has urged the City Council to consider improving turnout with a lottery pilot program. No actual vote would be required, but those participating would have to show up at the polls to participate. There was no decision on what the grand prize for participating in the democratic process.   read more

Mayoral candidate Nat Bates downplayed Chevron support: “Tom wants to make a big deal about a so-called Chevron slush fund. But them spending money on elections is nothing new; he needs to stop crying about it and worry about his own campaign.” Chevron is the chief supplier of cash to Moving Forward, a political action committee (PAC) which is sitting on $1.7 million and already spending aggressively on ads for Bates.   read more

Observers call the birds that ignite in midair “streamers,” for the trail of smoke that follows behind them. The Center for Biological Diversity estimates that 28,000 birds are cooked annually at Ivanpah but BrightSource puts the number at 1,000. Ivanpah has 300,000 heliostat mirrors focusing the sun’s rays on 459-foot-high tanks of water, producing steam to run a conventional turbine that produces electricity.   read more

A suit was filed last week by two men, at least one of whom has ties to the No Berkeley Beverage Tax campaign, which receives funding from the American Beverage Association. It claims that the city substituted the phrase “high-calorie, sugary drinks” for “sugar-sweetened beverage” in the ballot language. The plaintiffs, Anthony Johnson and Leon Cain, would prefer the phrase “sugar-sweetened beverage products” to be used.   read more

Statewide flow averages around 70 million acre feet a year, while those holding water rights can claim 370 million acre feet. That’s the bad news. The worse news is that the study did not factor in riparian rights granted to streamside landowners before 1914. “So in many ways our estimate is a substantial underestimate of the total volume of rights,” co-author and UC Merced professor of water resources Joshua Viers told the Los Angeles Times.   read more

Although university officials tout the benefits of increased diversity, the prime motivation is money. The students will bring an extra $400 million with them to the schools. The university told the Times that no in-state student is denied admission to the UC system because of the change in admission policy the past few years. Even if that were true, being admitted to UC Merced might not placate the California student who in the recent past might have earned a spot at UCLA.   read more

The 11-count indictment alleges that Amaral and Singleton directed Corda and Cabrera to dodge U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors by cutting off the heads of cows with eye cancer and placing healthy cow heads next to the carcasses. Cows that had already been stamped unacceptable had the stamps removed on the kill floor. The indictment says meat from 101 condemned cows and 79 with eye cancer was processed for shipping.   read more

Julia Lurie at Mother Jones says if you’re drinking bottled water “there’s a good chance” it came from California. Aquafina, Dasani, Crystal Geyser and Arrowhead all have operations in California, although Lurie doesn’t quantify how much of the nation’s bottled water comes from the state. The reason is an absence of data. Bottling companies don’t have to say where the water comes from, and, for the most part, they don’t on their labels.   read more