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

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that floor dust samples in 100% of the 40 early-childhood education centers tested positive for 14 different PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, and four non-PBDE flame retardants, including tris phosphate compounds.None of these chemicals are good. They have been linked to hormone disruption and lowered IQs in children. Around 90% of children’s furniture contains the chemicals.   read more

The city has a minimum wage of $10.74 and the largest job-growth rate, around 4%, over the past 12 months among the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas, according to the Paychex/IHS Small Business Jobs Index. Republicans have generally considered supporters of raising the minimum wage to be Socialists. So it wasn't surprising to see Senator Elizabeth Warren asked on CBS's “Face the Nation” to explain why her critics were wrong to call her one. She just laughed and ignored the question.   read more

The city council voted 11-0 Friday to let developer Geoffrey H. Palmer put a bridge across a main street to link two sections of his 526-unit Da Vinci apartment complex. His attorney argued that “the area surrounding the project site (and the tunnel under the 110 freeway) are often congregating places for homeless persons.” City planner Blake Lamb told the committee her department did not believe you deal with the homeless problem through “the physical segregation of people.”   read more

"I think the results would be horrible if the tests had been counted this year," Elizabeth Topkis, the testing coordinator at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies, told the Los Angeles Times. In addition to dealing with an entirely different test that focuses on a range of learning skills other than rote memorization, kids are tested in areas teachers weren’t trained to prepare them for. And there are no bubbles to fill in with a No. 2 pencil. They will use computers.   read more

The 69th Speaker of the Democratically-controlled Assembly, Toni Atkins, is a coal miner's daughter whose experience growing up poor in Virginia informs her legislative agenda, which features an emphasis on economic development, affordable housing, homelessness and health care. Atkins, the first openly gay woman to hold the position, was sworn in May 12.   read more

Terry Baynes at Reuters said the lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court on behalf of John Harrington and Alex Talon, is seeking class-action status on behalf of all those who came away from the Obamacare website thinking it assured enrollees access to the entire network. Covered California has never provided the list it promised of participating doctors and hospitals, for various reasons, and doesn't seem likely to in the near future.   read more

While earthquake-prone California weighs the future of expanded quake-linked fracking in the state, a new report says that humans have already raised the seismic threat-level through groundwater extraction. A study of the San Joaquin Valley published in the journal Nature last week found the valley floor has been sinking for decades while the surrounding mountains rise as wells suck water out of the region's aquifers. The activity causes stress to the San Andreas Fault and others nearby.   read more

Jessica Urbina, an 18-year-old senior, was informed last week that the photo she submitted won’t be in the school’s annual yearbook because she is clad in a natty black tuxedo in violation of the Catholic archdiocese rule that girls must appear in dresses. Urbina’s brother, Michael, mounted an online campaign (#JessicasTux) to get the decision reversed and it has extracted a few concessions, although it remains to be seen if the original photo will appear.   read more

The Latino numbers account in large part for California's abysmal integration numbers. While California is the third-worst state in the country in segregating African Americans, behind New York and Illinois, it earns the top spot among Latinos. In 1970, Latinos attended schools that were 54% white; that number is nearly 16% now.   read more

Caltrans senior engineer Brian Maroney confirmed this week that more than 200 steel rods anchoring the main cable and tower on the bridge's new east span could be at risk in an earthquake. The rods have shifted since first installed and are close to metal plates with sharp edges nearby. “This is sacred ground,” Maroney said. “The cable and the tower are the backbone and the spine, critical elements to this bridge. I don't want to be worrying about the cable system.”   read more

One of the avowed goals of the California Dietetic Association (CDA) is to facilitate “the delivery of healthcare to California” and “ensure and promote informed food decisions by consumers.” To that end, the association held its annual conference for nutritionists and dieticians at the Marriott Hotel in Pomona last month and served up a heaping helping of junk food, junk science and corporate propaganda.   read more

“The fraud was rampant, it was brazen and it permeated every part of the Medicaid system,” according to Acting Assistant Attorney General O’Neil. Eight people were charged in Los Angeles with scheming to falsely extract $32 million from the government, with $24 million of that attributed to a single doctor, Robert A. Glazer.   read more

The trial of Deputy James Sexton, one of seven accused department employees, began this week and FBI agent Leah Marx explained how the government thinks the deception went down. Sexton is one of 20 department personnel arrested in a wide-ranging civil rights and public corruption scandal that began with a tip from an informant and devolved for awhile into a cat-and-mouse game built around a sting gone awry.   read more

In short order, gay Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black accepted a re-invitation from the college and the city suspended Public Health Director Eric Walsh with pay pending a review of his homophobic and otherwise controversial online remarks. Black didn't wait for the review and accepted a job running a six-county district in the Georgia Public Health Department   read more

A report from the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) said the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) didn't inspect 2,100 of 3,702 “high-priority” wells drilled between 2009 and 2012. The finding was of particular concern because the oil and gas industry in recently years has embraced enhanced technology, like fracking and acidization, that pose a greater threat to groundwater and other water sources than conventional drilling techniques.   read more

The registry had 9,200 listings of foreclosed properties last year, bringing the four-year total to 32,000. But the city only takes a look at them if there is a complaint. “Our inspectors are really busy,” Luke Zamperini, spokesman for the city's Division of Building and Safety, told the L.A. Times. “We can't afford to be driving around the streets looking for work.”   read more