The Los Angeles Times reported that 4,000 applications for nursing certification are lying on desks at the Board of Registered Nursing because the new system, booted up last October and designed to handle online data for 37 licensing boards and bureaus, isn’t performing as advertised. Some estimates go as high as 6,000.   read more

A three-judge federal panel announced last month that time had run out for the state to correct conditions they deemed cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Constitution, and that they would draw up their own solution within a month. This is that. The judges plan is a combination of early-release for prisoners, more flexible parole requirements and a dose of wishful thinking.   read more

Customers can check with their insurance companies directly for more definitive information, but like calls to Covered California, that could entail hours on the phone with no guarantee of a happy ending. Or the physicians and hospital themselves can be called. But, as customers are finding out, there is no guarantee that any of them have correct information.   read more

“Of greatest concern,” Kelso wrote in his report released last week, “were systemic and prison-wide failures that continue to pose a serious risk of harm—and deny basic rights—to the 1,200-plus prisoners (and 550-plus Armstrong class members) housed there.” Kelso listed eight general areas, and cited numerous individual instances, of failure at the 54-building, $839 million complex:   read more

“CalFire failed to comply with discovery orders and directives, destroyed critical evidence, failed to produce documents it should have produced months earlier, and engaged in a systematic campaign of misdirection with the purpose of recovering money from the Defendants,” the judge wrote. He found the agency's actions "corrupt and tainted."   read more

The last in a long line of parties involved in litigation over decades of chemical dumping—testers and manufacturers of munitions, rocket motors and fireworks—settled (pdf) a lawsuit brought by the nearby city of Colton but argued by the U.S. Department of Justice. At least 20 public drinking wells in the area were forced to close years before the source of contamination was formally identified.   read more

The confidential medical records of patients of Cottage Health System were a Google search away from discovery for months after being inadvertently exposed to the Internet last October.They included names, addresses and dates of birth, as well as information on medical procedures, lab tests and other personal medical notes. “Nobody bothered to encrypt the data,” attorney Brian Kabateck said. “It's just careless.”   read more

As a result of the banking restrictions, dispensary owners with piles of cash are robbery targets stuck with very inefficient ways to run a business. Paying employees and bills, making purchases and safely storing their loot are problematic. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that the federal government will revisit regulations that make it way too dangerous for banks to accept deposits or make loans tied to medical marijuana because of fear they will be prosecuted.   read more

The small water systems serve communities in Central California that range in size from 39 to approximately 11,000 users. There are approximately 3,000 such systems, with at least 15 service connections each, providing water in California. Smaller communities are more vulnerable during droughts because they tend to have fewer alternatives when their primary water source dries up.   read more

The state banned the commingling of items it will redeem, like beer and soda cans, with items it won’t pay for, including wine and liquor bottles. The new rules are expected to save the state between $3.5 million and $8.5 million a year, according to the Los Angeles Times, which found anecdotal evidence that individual recyclers were earning, as a result, half of what they used to.   read more

Once the city has the information, it will have to decide what to do with it. Doing a proper survey of the city’s concrete properties, evaluating them for safety, setting up a process for addressing the problem and then actually fixing the buildings would be enormously expensive and fraught with the usual bureaucratic frustrations that accompany such endeavors.   read more

“I find that the petitioners have not identified any sensitive customer information that is not already protected by the existing privacy laws and regulations,” Commissioner Mark Ferron said at the meeting. “Nor have they documented any examples of actual breaches of customer privacy.” CFC Executive Director Richard Holober didn’t think the “grossly ignorant” commission ruling was about consumers.   read more

Exide, which sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors last June, has been accused of presenting a health hazard to more than 100,000 people living near the plant, which melts down up to 40,000 batteries a day. The AQMD civil suit alleges air quality violations, mostly involving illegal lead and arsenic emissions.   read more

U.S. District Judges Lawrence K. Karlton and Thelton E. Henderson and U.S. 9th Circuit Court Judge Stephen Reinhardt concluded Monday that months of talks between the state and lawyers representing prisoners were going nowhere. The judges want California prisons, which now hold 118,435 inmates, to shed 6,271 of them and get within 137.5% of design capacity for the state’s 34 facilities.   read more

While solar is still a hot commodity, especially in California where state law compels utilities to get a third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, there has been a decided shift from large projects to mid-size and small ones. One large project was approved in 2008, 10 in 2010 and one more in 2011, according to the California Energy Commission’s website on Large Solar Energy Projects. The site was last updated September 14, 2012.   read more

Roy Paul Gressly has hauled hazardous waste around the state of California for years, putting it in places it shouldn’t be and dodging rules and regulations. Last week, he pleaded no contest in Los Angeles Superior Court to six felony violations involving storage, transportation and disposal of toxic waste. He will not be allowed to own a hazardous waste business—until his probation is over, according to a press release from the DTSC. And then, presumably, he can return to his chosen field.   read more