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

A preliminary report on the economic impact of the drought, prepared for the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA), projects 14,500 workers in the state’s farmbelt will lose their jobs and Central Valley growers and farm communities will suffer a $1.7-billion loss. What the report doesn’t do is factor in the long-term consequences of sucking too much water out of the ground to compensate for reductions in other water sources.   read more

The EPA filed a complaint that the lead smelting plant, which has vexed the community and local and state agencies for years, violated the federal Clean Air Act’s emission standards on more than 30 occasions. Although the plant has been under fire for years, it successfully fended off criticism until a South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) report a year ago said 110,000 people were at higher risk of cancer because of the plant's arsenic emissions.   read more

The age of robot-driven cars is here, thanks to Google. These self-driving vehicles on California’s Bay Area roadways are ushering their human passengers to their destinations. So far, Google’s cars have a perfect law-abiding record: Not one of them has been issued a traffic citation…yet. But when that day comes, who’s going to pay the fine? Google? Or the person behind the wheel, who has no control over the car? The programmer who wrote the algorithm that made the mistake?   read more

BigAg’s take of the state’s water supply has been variously calculated at between 79% (by state government) and 93%. A 2012 report from the Pacific Institute opted for the higher number, and contrasts it with 4% for household consumption and 3% for industry. Farmers use 15% of the state’s water to grow a thirsty crop, alfalfa, that is mostly exported to China, where it is used to feed cows.   read more

The 102-page complaint, filed in Orange County Superior Court, accuses Actavis, Endo Health Solutions Inc., Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Purdue Pharma, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries' Cephalon Inc. of peddling drugs using marketing claims not “supported by science and medical experience.” The result is a nation of addicts.   read more

The lawsuit representing 64,600 present and former employees argued they lost $3 billion from 2005 to 2009 and sought triple damages. The companies reportedly established “Do Not Call” lists of employees with instructions to recruiters not to “cold call” them. Instead, this deal would give them around $4,000 apiece. Lawyers want $81 million, or one-fourth of the money.   read more

Three years of dry weather have reduced urban runoff and the flow of pollutants that are the principle source of bacteria and other yucky stuff that makes people sick. The report monitored more than 600 beaches during three distinct periods: “summer dry weather” between April and October 2013; “winter dry weather” from November 2013 to March 2014; and “year-round wet weather conditions.” The news was good for all periods, although the report warns that it probably won’t last.   read more

A license plate reader, mounted in a police car, misread one digit on Denise Green’s license plate, triggering an alert that the vehicle was stolen. Even though the wanted vehicle looked nothing like Green’s, four officers drew their weapons on Green, who was forced from her car and ordered to kneel on the pavement. The incident resulted in Green suing San Francisco, raising the question whether technology alone is enough to legally justify a search.   read more

Kim Lehmkuhl, 34, resigned last week from her $7,000-a-year, part-time job with an epic rant in an email to the City Council that denounced its misogyny, racism and “NIMBY asshattery” while wishing them luck “finding some schmuck” to take the job. Lehmkuhl has been under fire by the City Council since her election in 2012 and was the subject of a recall campaign in her final days.   read more

They went office by office, looking through drawers and shuffling through papers, until they found the cellphone—about 20 minutes into the two-and-a-half-hour raid. The search potentially contaminated a number of cases. The Camp Pendleton office has about 70 cases pending, including one involving Iraq war crimes.   read more

Jackson was given the job in November 2012 with a mandate to reform the department. His predecessor, Ruth Coleman, resigned four months earlier after $54 million was found stashed in department accounts while 70 state parks faced closure because of budget cuts. The department has been squeezed in recent years by a diminishing state commitment to fund its activities.   read more

Between the California drought and earthquake concerns, fracking opponents have convinced about a dozen local governments in the state to curtail or prohibit fracking altogether. These include Butte County, home of California’s second largest reservoir, Lake Oroville, which has lost a third of its water during the drought. A bill introduced in the state Senate would establish a temporary moratorium on fracking while experts study its effects.   read more

The Human Services Agency noted in its report that it’s not just a case of the rich getting richer, although they are. Or the poor getting poorer. They are, too. Fifteen percent of San Franciscans lived in poverty in 2012, compared to 10.5% five years earlier. But it’s the evisceration of the middle class that is skewing the inequality statistics. The percentage of people earning between 50% and 150% of the city’s median income of $72,500 has declined from 45% in 1990 to 34% in 2012.   read more

A hacking program that records the keystrokes of computer users was found on three machines in the Student Health Center at University of California, Irvine. They may have captured the personal data of approximately 1,800 students and 23 non-students. No actual medical records were accessed; just the keystrokes of typists doing things like filling out medical and insurance forms.   read more

Governor Jerry Brown reached across the country this month, to New Jersey, in selecting Alisha Griffin.She has been very active on the national and international scene, representing the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) as a member of the delegation to the Hague Private Law Convention on Child Maintenance and Family Support.   read more

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release a report, probably next month, that reduces the projected 13.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Central California by 96%, to just 600 million barrels. The EIA based its projection on the failure of limited fracking operations already in place in Central California shale country to effectively overcome the challenging geological formations.   read more