The move by the state Department of General Services (DGS) indicates workers will be stuck in a building described by the Sacramento Bee as having a “history of toxic mold, defective elevators, leaking windows, corroded wastewater pipes, floods, and exterior glass panels that spontaneously break or pop off. “Even though my lawyers told me not to say this, I don’t think it’s safe,” Board Chairman Jerome Horton told the Bee.   read more

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released a “Comprehensive Proposed Rulemaking” plan to increase the safety of the trains and improve emergency response after a wakeup call from Canada. Forty-seven people died in July 2013 when a train carrying 63 cars of Bakken crude from North Dakota derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec. Meanwhile, California more than doubled the amount of oil-by-rail it usually receives in the first quarter of the year.   read more

California just endured the hottest six months in its recorded history, but that didn’t stop state and federal government agencies from joining with the Yurok tribe to turn up the heat on marijuana growers blamed for sucking up the reservation’s water in Humboldt County. It is anticipated that tens of thousands of plants will be eradicated in the next 10 days.   read more

After using the department's official number of 109,000 Medi-Cal doctors in a story, the California Health Report was informed that the state only had 104,422 licensed physicians as of 2013. And not all of the licensed doctors accept Medi-Cal patients. Molly Weed, a spokeswoman for the Medical Board of California told Health Report reporter Hannah Guzik, “They don’t have any idea how many physicians are actually accepting new Medi-Cal patients.”   read more

The building contained 80 years worth of files, including W2s, payroll sheets, employment records and confidential files, and removal wasn’t really going anywhere. “Nobody really knew what was there, where it was hidden, or to whom it belonged,” district spokesman Troy Flint said. After the story broke, the district stationed security guards at the building and hired a company to box up the records and move them elsewhere.   read more

The judge reduced the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones to life in prison after blaming the state for unconstitutionally delaying the death penalty process for years. He noted that only 13 inmates have been executed since 1978 out of 900 who have been sentenced to death. “For all practical purposes then, a sentence of death in California is a sentence of life imprisonment with the remote possibility of death—a sentence no rational legislature or jury could ever impose,” he wrote.   read more

Apparently the reporting process from the water districts has been tightened up since media reports noted a lack of monitoring. The board imposed a $500 fine-a-day for a series of offenses for individuals, including washing a driveway with a hose, too much runoff while watering landscape, washing a car with a nozzle-less hose and using unrecycled, potable water in a water feature.   read more

In a tone that reflected surprise bordering on astonishment, Justice Werdegar recalled the simple language of Proposition 184 as it ticked off escalating penalties for repeated criminal acts. Separate strikes for a single act “contravene the voter’s clear understanding of how the Three Strikes law was intended to work.” It took 20 years for that “clear understanding” to be articulated by the High Court.   read more

The private medical records of 4.6 million Californians have been exposed since 2009, according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data analyzed by the Center for Health Reporting. But it is not only patients who are victims. Blue Shield of California confirmed on Thursday that the Social Security numbers of 18,000 doctors were released when the insurance company inadvertently included them in mandatory monthly filings with California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC).   read more

The state collects basic information about water wells: where they’re drilled, how deep they go and the geological formations encountered. State agencies can look at it, and so can people with permission from the well owner and folks doing environmental cleanup studies. But researchers, the general public and other interested parties cannot. Every other Western state allows that.   read more

The complaint alleges that when FedEx found that a package containing hazardous materials was damaged, defective, broken or leaking at one of its three hubs or 31 terminals, the company would either ship the package to the recipient, rewrap the package and send it back to the sender, or take it out of the package and hang on to it.   read more

The California Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) announced that it is launching an investigation of the insurance companies to see if they violated state laws in the way they configured smaller networks of doctors and hospitals for patients enrolled through the Covered California exchange. But as is often the case, the real scandal isn’t necessarily what’s illegal.   read more

Only 270 of the 443 urban water suppliers sent a survey by the state bothered to respond and 42 of them submitted incomplete data. Based on their self-reporting, water use was down just 5% statewide through May this year, compared to a three-year baseline from January-May 2011 to 2013.   read more

The 38-year-old law that created the Coastal Commission empowered it to sue violators of California’s coastal laws, an expensive proposition that forces the agency to choose who it pursues carefully. That will still be the case for those who allegedly build without proper permits and damage wetlands, but the commission will have an additional weapon to take on those who illegally deny people public access to beaches.   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

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