California dumped nearly $28 million into a deteriorating disabled-veterans health care system and the failing program has yet to comply with state and federal regulations. The cutting report says the VA ignored complaints regarding a new computer filing system from its own employees for years and lacked oversight over contractors. It claims the department approved payments for services it couldn't verify were completed and that the renovated system doesn't meet the needs of disabled veterans.   read more

Less than 72 hours after the country’s deadliest mass shooting in Orlando, California lawmakers approved a hoard of gun-control bills Tuesday aimed at limiting rifle purchases and mandating background checks for all ammunition sales. The comprehensive proposals were led by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) and ranged from widening the state’s assault-weapons ban to tightening restrictions on homemade guns created with 3D printing technology.   read more

California air regulators created an uneven playing field when they eased up on air-quality regulations for smaller operators of heavy-duty diesel trucks, a state judge ruled. Postponing deadlines for smaller firms to upgrade to cleaner engines or install better pollution controls was unfair to trucking companies that already spent millions of dollars to comply with new regulations designed to clean up diesel emissions, Fresno County Judge Mark Snauffer ruled.   read more

With millions of homebuyers facing foreclosure after the collapse of the housing bubble, the Federal Trade Commission claims two law firms bilked people for $15 million in a single year in a mortgage scam. The Brookstone Law and Advantis Law firms have marketed themselves as expert litigators in mortgages issues since 2011, the FTC says.   read more

Finding no Second Amendment right to carry a concealed firearm in public, the en banc Ninth Circuit upheld tough California gun laws Thursday. “Based on the overwhelming consensus of historical sources, we conclude that the protection of the Second Amendment — whatever the scope of that protection may be — simply does not extend to the carrying of concealed firearms in public by members of the general public,” Judge William A. Fletcher wrote (pdf) for the majority.   read more

In a historic first, California voters Tuesday sent two Democrats, both minority women, to a November runoff for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. The matchup between state Attorney General Kamala Harris and 10-term Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez marks the first time since voters started electing senators a century ago that Republicans will be absent from California's general election ballot for the Senate. The outcome reaffirms the GOP’s diminished stature in the nation’s most populous state.   read more

The advantage for developers is clear: Projects approved by ballot measures avoid legal challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act. There is a twist, though: Residents often do not even have a chance to vote. So far, the issue has failed to attract much attention in Sacramento. “We’ve ended up with a warping of direct democracy...” said attorney Douglas Carstens. “It’s ramping up. Within a year or two, people will realize what a bad situation this is.”   read more

A Hindu-American group has protested the substitution of the words South Asia for India. People of Japanese descent have argued against including mention of Asian "comfort women" enslaved during World War II. Other groups simply want more about what their people endured, such as the killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire and the Bataan Death March in the Philippines in 1942, when 10,000 Filipinos and 750 Americans died on a forced 60-mile walk to prison.   read more

Seemingly overlooked is the state’s enormous reliance on the Colorado River for its urban water supplies — and the fact that the Colorado is approaching its worst point of crisis in a generation. On May 18 — the same day that California lifted its restrictions — Lake Mead reached its lowest point since 1937. By 2019, the Bureau says, there is a 64% chance it will drop so low as to trigger a federal emergency provision. California is the single largest draw on this resource.   read more

Californians are closely divided, with 48% in favor of speeding up executions and 47% preferring to eliminate them. Opinion polls indicate that public support for the death penalty has been declining in California, and that a majority of the public would prefer a sentence of life without parole for convicted murderers. The November election would be the first in the state's history to ask voters to choose between initiatives supporting and opposing capital punishment.   read more

A reward of $45,000 went to four other men, but Ma got nothing. Teague said he believes the supervisors were prejudiced against Ma because he is Vietnamese. "That's not cool," he said. "How would you like to be locked in a room with three killers for a week?" Teague said it was Ma's escape that flushed the fugitives out of hiding. "Those two guys still in Northern California, they thought, 'Uh-oh,' and they left the motel. That's how they got captured."   read more

Since the evaluation and placement process can stretch on for months, many incapacitated detainees spend more time in jail than if they had pleaded guilty, the federal complaint states. Mentally ill inmates suffer increased risk of suicide, get beat up by other inmates, punished by guards, and often cannot get medication, much less treatment for their illnesses. They also lose pretrial custody credits, which doubles their time compared to other inmates.   read more

California is working on new execution procedures to replace methods that a federal judge barred in 2006. ACLU's Ana Zamora said state prison officials have largely ignored reports of botched executions in other states. Records of the state's current rule-making process showed that ``the Department of Corrections wasn't taking these events seriously and studying them to ensure that we never have that kind of event in California,'' Zamora said.   read more

A doctor on UC’s Board of Regents has been allowed to keep his seat despite a secret investigation that concluded he violated ethics rules by trying to strike a financially beneficial deal between his eye clinics and UCLA, part of the university system the regents oversee. Asked why the inquiry’s conclusions — or even its existence — had been kept confidential until asked about them, UC replied, “The outcomes of whistleblower investigations are not routinely announced publicly.”   read more

Critics countered that dividing the state bar would weaken its overall impact. Trial lawyer Paul Kiesel said that because the bar "is a multifocused group, it has a lot more power than if it were a stripped-down group." Kiesel led a group to restore funding to the courts after their budget was cut by $1 billion after the economic crisis. "The state bar is powerful because of its constituent elements," he said. "If it ain't broke, don't break it."   read more

Southern California regulators must put the brakes on an ExxonMobil refinery that emits 50 tons of hydrogen cyanide in Los Angeles each year, the Refinery Safety Network says in court. The nonprofit sued the South Coast Air Quality Management District on Wednesday in Superior Court, and named ExxonMobil Oil Corp. as a respondent-real party in interest.   read more