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

880,000 Medicare healthcare providers divvied up $77 billion in 2012. The top 2% collected almost 25%. That included a Berkeley doctor who allegedly met her customers at restaurants in and around Oakland—including Burger King, House of Chicken and Waffles and Starbucks—to prescribe prescription drugs, including oxycodone. The indictment said Dr. Toni Daniels picked up $64,000 that way between October 2010 and April 2011 and failed to file with the IRS after earning $144,000 in 2010.   read more

In late 2011, former cop Anthony Arevalos was convicted of sexual battery against 13 women over a period of months. Questions were raised then why Arevalos hadn't been confronted earlier about the string of complaints, but it wasn't until last week that information surfaced that knowledge of the officer's criminal behavior went much further back.   read more

Supporters of the effort to keep the Oakland football team happy and the baseball team from bolting to San Jose fear the cause may have suffered a major setback. “You just don't throw the crown prince's name out there and say he's in a deal when he's not,” Councilman Larry Reid, who sits on the coliseum's oversight board, told the Oakland Tribune.   read more

The dirty little secret of Covered California (CC) is that those using the state's version of Obamacare, presumably to receive a premium subsidy, have far fewer physician and hospital choices than those who deal directly with an insurance provider. In other words, someone whose doctors or hospital are in the regular Blue Shield of California network may very well not be able to find them in the Blue Shield CC exchange network. Sometimes they might find just one.   read more

U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton singled out the excessive use of pepper spray and solitary confinement as examples of cruel and unusual punishment—they are quite usual in California prisons—and gave corrections officials a number of directives in his 74-page order on how to better handle the inmates. He stopped short of banning the practices and gave the state 60 days to change its policies in coordination with the court-appointed special master.   read more

When last heard from back in January, the Los Angeles 2020 Commission was reporting on the problems faced by the city and the steady decline that was sure to continue if nothing was done to address them, but offered no solutions. The commission's new report, “A Time for Action,” does, sort of. Education, homelessness and transportation are beyond the scope of this report, although, the report concedes, “education is the civil rights issue of our time.”   read more

A new Field Poll (pdf) unsurprisingly has Governor Jerry Brown way ahead of his potential Republican opponents, garnering a 57% approval rate from all likely voters in the run-up to the November 4 election. Right-wing Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is way behind at 17%, but the biggest surprise was that the more mainstream conservative Republican candidate, Neel Kashkari, registered a miniscule 2%.   read more

An in-house investigation by the LAPD found that half of the 80 cars in the Southeast Division were missing the car antenna that allows the department to hear and record the officers while they work. Spot checks found missing antennae in other divisions too. Investigators did not tell the civilian Police Commission about the discovery last year or pursue the officers who disabled their antennae.   read more

It's been two months since lawyers refiled a lawsuit on behalf of U.S. sailors who claim they were made sick during a rescue mission to Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, and so far this one hasn't been tossed by the judge. Seventy-nine sailors aboard the San Diego-based USS Ronald Reagan filed a $1 billion federal class-action lawsuit against Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) for injuries they sustained when the aircraft carrier rushed to assist survivors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.   read more

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs paid out more than $200 million for wrongful deaths of vets in the decade after 9/11, $8 million of which went to families in California, according to The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR). The center had to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the VA data and pumped it into an interactive graphic that gives details on the 59 veterans in California, and 1,000 nationwide, who shouldn't have died when they did.   read more

The bill would have made “it unlawful to hold in captivity, or use, a wild-caught or captive-bred orca, as defined, for performance or entertainment purposes.” The orcas would be moved into a larger sea pen and could not be bred. The main issue debated, before the committee canned the bill, was whether the killer whales are thriving as performing show animals in a constrained habitat or being brutalized by it.   read more

It's a good thing Samuel In worked for the city and not the state. California revised the legal code in 2013 to eliminate any exceptions to the law that denied pensions to public employees or officials who commit felonies. Los Angeles, a charter city that manages its own pensions, is not bound by that state law and is more lenient. The pension isn't the only benefit In will keep. He is eligible for a healthcare subsidy of $1,459 a month.   read more

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the city Planning Department is currently investigating 85 people for violating an ordinance that requires someone like Jeffrey Katz to acquire a conditional-use permit to house someone for less than 30 days. Katz, a special-ed teacher, found out the hard way that the law is being enforced. He got an eviction notice for letting people camp out in his living room.   read more

Paul Mitchell and Michael Vargas, two political operatives who have started a website and a campaign, “AIPrl Fooled,” to inform AIP members that they probably registered with the group by mistake, thinking they were declaring as Independents. “People just assume they see the word 'independent' and they say, 'That's right, I'm independent,' then click the box on American Independent Party,” Vargas told KPCC.   read more

The Contra Costa Times says that the 19 homicides in the 1.5-square-mile neighborhood works out to an average of 133 killings per 100,000 people annually. That compares most unfavorably to Richmond, one of the deadliest cities in America, where the rate is 19 per 100,000. Charges were filed in only five of the 19 homicides, and two of those were brought by an agency that doesn't patrol North Richmond.   read more

Big Oil Floods the Capitol:How California’ s Oil Companies Funnel Funds Into the Legislature, a report released this month by Common Cause and the ACCE Institute, says that the oil and gas lobby has spent nearly $15 million to influence Sacramento lawmakers halfway through the 2014-15 legislative session. The record is $25.5 million, set in 2011-12. Oil and gas lobbying expenditures have increased 400% since 1999-2000.   read more