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 Associated Press reported this week that it reviewed three years worth of BLM records covering drilling in Kern County between 2009 and 2012 and found 31 sites that had not been looked at. The sites are important because they are considered at high risk of contaminating water and were included in a larger national study released by the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) last month.   read more

Justice Marvin Baxter, a Governor Deukmejian appointee 24 years ago, announced Wednesday he will retire when his term is up in January, joining Justice Joyce Kennard, who retired in April. Baxter is considered by many to be the most conservative member of the court, although the unpredictable Kennard outflanked him on more than one occasion.   read more

The Chronicle study found 4,798 properties listed on Airbnb in San Francisco. They included some shared and private rooms and at least one tree house. But almost two-thirds involved an entire house or apartment. One hundred and sixty properties appeared to be rented full-time. Around 86% of the 3,785 hosts were only involved with one property. But 513 hosts operated two or three. Connotate didn’t find the big illegal hotels it found in New York City through Airbnb.   read more

With the statewide Controller’s race and other close local contests still up in the air, thousands of late absentee ballots cast in California’s June 3 election will not be counted even if they were dropped in the mail days before votes were tallied. That’s because the postmark doesn’t matter. Absentee ballots, which account for more than half the votes cast, must be in official hands by the time the polls close and there are few exceptions.   read more

Specifically, the auditor found the commission took an average of 46 days to start an investigation and 238 days to complete it. CPUC investigators failed to conduct a site visit or used flawed investigative techniques in 17 of the 40 instances reviewed by the auditor and took an average of five months to hand out the 13 citations it eventually deemed appropriate.   read more

Kneier was caught on a security videotape strolling down the sidewalk with his wife in the wealthy Southern California town on June 7, glancing briefly to his right before tossing a bag of dog crap into his neighbor’s yard and continuing on his way. The surveillance video went viral and Kneier’s reputation went in the toilet.   read more

The oil and gas industry reported 477 fracking, acidization and gravel-packing operations in Orange and Los Angeles counties using 22,500 tons of chemicals, many of which are known to be toxic if released into the air, which they are. The companies admit to using 44 different air toxics, some of which are carcinogenic but trade-secret chemicals are identified in a more vague fashion, e.g. a “lubricant,” “surfincant” or “mixture.”   read more

California argued that identifying the sponsor of legislation is important to protect the integrity of elections and promote an informed electorate. Judge O’Scannlain thought that was nonsense. If voters really cared about who was sponsoring legislation “they need only make a trip” to the city clerk’s office and look it up, he wrote.   read more

Videos show Hunt walking through City Hall in full Klan regalia, mingling with disinterested folks going about their business, and speaking at various public meetings. He is articulate, informed and passionate about his cause, which is the treatment of vendors on Venice Beach. City Attorney Mike Feuer advised the council that his investigation found witnesses didn’t think he was a problem.   read more

The city council voted 7-3 to enact rules that severely limit how many dispensaries can operate, where they are located and where they get their pot from. Pot shop attorney James Anthony told the San Jose Mercury News, “Nobody can operate under those environments. It's a de facto ban and in kind of a sneaky way.”   read more

Incidents of whooping cough, or pertussis, are running about 10 times higher than normal in the state. Highly-contagious whooping cough is cyclical, peaking every three or four years, so CDPH officials said they weren’t shocked that the numbers are soaring like they last did in 2010. But this year’s outbreak could be exacerbated by a growing movement in the country to avoid vaccines.   read more

This is a report driven hard by politics. If it were driven by a societal imperative to care properly for veterans—many of whom are homeless, unemployed and suffering mightily from decades of warfare and deprivation—the problems at VA hospitals wouldn’t exist or come as a shock to people. The audit warns, “This accelerated effort led, unavoidably, to a number of limitations, which serve to caution against over–interpretation of these findings.”   read more

A new map published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) shows the known locations nationally of where the agencies are using Stingray technology, but as the ACLU points out, it “dramatically under-represents” use of the surveillance equipment that the authorities fight to keep secret. Stingray pretends that it is a cell tower and fools wireless phones into establishing a connection. Once connected, the authorities can trace the location and download its information.   read more

The San Francisco Fire Department’s fleet of ambulances is old and broken down, while its crews are understaffed. As a result, it has fallen woefully short of state requirements, for four straight years, that it respond to at least 80% of the 911 medical calls it receives. About one-third of the aged fleet is out of commission on any given day. An ambulance’s lifespan is about 10 years, and 23 of the fleet’s 43 vehicles are at least that old.   read more

Jurors were deadlocked 8-4 in favor of guilty during their deliberations over the fate of Pearson, according to the Fresno Bee, but instead of telling the judge they were at an impasse, they filled out a form that declared the defendant not guilty. They didn’t inform the judge about what they had done until after the verdict had been read in court, making it official.   read more

Biologist Scott Bauer identified 550 grows with 19,000 plants in each of the two watersheds and calculated they consumed 20% to 30% of the Redwood Creek and Salmon Creek. He assumed that each plant would need 6 gallons of water per day through its approximated 150-day growing season. “We knew people were diverting water for marijuana operations,” Bauer told the Associated Press. “We didn't know they could consume all the water in a stream.”   read more