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Two California counties profit from a loophole in the “sanctuary state” law, while most others have canceled their ICE contracts under public pressure or let them expire. When California’s sanctuary state law, Senate Bill 54, was approved, the public assumed that local law enforcement would be prevented from cooperating with ICE agents except when dealing with people “convicted of a serious or violent felony,” such as murder, rape, child abuse or battery.
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California’s stem cell agency gave away $14 million this month, which could be described as less than a drop in its $3 billion bucket. But the talk at the agency’s awards meeting July 19 was not about largess. Instead it was about the lack of cash, lack of time and the need to split “babies” and “buckets.”
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Will the sun set on daylight savings?
California voters will decide in November if they want to set their clocks twice a year to save daylight hours.
The ballot measure would overturn California’s 1949 voter-approved initiative called the Daylight Savings Time Act, which established Standard Pacific Time in California. The new measure, if approved, would
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The new law gives consumers the right to access their personal information collected by big businesses. It gives them the right to delete it, the right to know what information is being sold and the right to stop businesses from selling their information. It also prohibits businesses from selling the personal information of youth under 16 unless they opt in.
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Few people know that there are federal safety limits for exposure to the weak radiation emitted by cellphones and other wireless devices. There often is language about this embedded right in our phones, but finding it requires knowing where to look, wading through sometimes five or more steps and then making sense of the technical jargon.
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Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s split decision dealing a significant blow to public unions, California union leaders remain optimistic about their ability to stay viable. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, but people understand the value that the union brings to their lives and institutions,” said Matthew Hardy, a spokesperson for the California Federation of Teachers.
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The head of the California Democratic Party says the CDP will no longer accept political contributions from private prison corporations. Party Chair Eric Bauman said any contributions received since May 21, 2017 would be “donated to organizations doing critical work to protect immigrants from the Trump administration or to support and rehabilitate recently incarcerated folks.”
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As California rents and property values continue to rise, it should come as no surprise that three housing-related measures will face voters on the November ballot, targeting veterans’ home loans, local rent control and housing construction for the homeless. Statewide, the average rent on a one-bedroom apartment is about $1,400, and a home costs $440,000 — far more than double the national average of $180,000.
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So you think privately run prisons are a Republican thing? Perhaps in Texas and Tennessee. But in deep blue California, it is the Democrats who take in the most contributions from for-profit correctional corporations, primarily Florida’s The GEO Group and the Tennessee-based CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America.
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A controversial bill to reinstate federal tribal recognition to a long defunct Siskiyou County American Indian rancheria is stalled in the House of Representatives amid questions about the group’s authenticity and motivations. House Resolution 3535, sponsored by Congress Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, would reinstate federal recognition to Ruffey Rancheria, a home for “landless Indians” in Etna approved in 1907 and terminated by Congress some 50 years later.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrest an undocumented immigrant in California. (Photo: ICE, 2017)
