Top Stories
Shhh! Santa Clara County Sheriff Is Getting a Stingray Cellphone Tracker
The lone dissenter among the Santa Clara supervisors, Joe Simitian, addressed his concerns in remarks to Sheriff Smith at Tuesday’s meeting, according to the San Jose Mercury News: “Just to be clear, we're being asked to spend $500,000 of taxpayers’ money, plus $40,000 a year for a product the brand name of which you are not sure, the specs you don't know, a demonstration you haven't seen for which there is no policy in place, for which you have a nondisclosure agreement.” read more
Oakland VA Lost Thousands of Veterans Claims, Found Them, Then Lost Them Again
Investigators found a disorganized mess at the Oakland VA; what they didn’t find were records of the 13,184 unprocessed informal claims or the 2,155 identified as requiring additional action. “We also could not confirm that only 537 informal claims remained to be processed following the special project team’s review,” the OIG said, blaming “poor record-keeping practices.” read more
California Prisoners Killed at Twice the National Rate and Sex Offenders Fare the Worst
While the high homicide rate reflects badly on the state's correctional institutions, it is not half the suicide rate of 20 per 100,000 prisoners. Death by homicide is even with deaths related to alcohol and drugs in state lockup, a place where one might expect access to be somewhat limited.
Illness is by far the greatest cause of death in California prisons, where the overall rate is 228 per 100,000. read more
UCLA Hospital Warns 179 Ex-Patients of Superbug Linked to Two Deaths
The drug-resistant bacteria CRE (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae) was found on two pieces of equipment used in a “complex” endoscopic procedure that they underwent at the hospital between last October and January. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites a report on their website that CRE “can contribute to death in up to 50% of patients who become infected.” read more
Right-Wingers Toss Their Cookies over “Radical Brownies” in Oakland
The group is the inaugural chapter of an organization that its sponsors, two “queer women of color and avid trans allies,” hope inspires the creation of other chapters devoted to promoting “culturally-inclusive values” among young girls, 8-11 years old. One story in the right-wing media criticizing them asked in a headline, "When Do Brownies Become Brownshirts?” read more
New Study Turns Up the Heat on Megadrought Predictions
Ault was a co-author of a study released last September that used some of the same data to paint an equally bleak picture of the future, but contained a caveat: “We stress that our results have only used precipitation, yet temperature may play a substantial role in driving or exacerbating drought.” The new study focuses on temperature and says higher temperatures from global warming will evaporate whatever water is around at accelerated rates. read more
Cancer Patient and Doctors Sue in San Francisco for Right to Die
The suit, which was filed by the Disability Rights Law Center (DRLC) on behalf of White and the doctors, seeks a ruling that California’s assisted-suicide statute does not apply to cases where “physicians provide aid in dying to mentally competent, terminally-ill patients.” The lawsuit seeks to protect doctors from being prosecuted for helping ill patients. read more
Extreme Levels of Cancer-Causing Chemicals Found in State’s Fracking Wastewater
The Center for Biological Diversity said its analysis found benzene levels at more than 1,500 times the federal limits for drinking water in tests dating back to last April. Center attorney Hollin Kretzmann told the L.A. Times the situation is “a disaster. The aquifer information is a complete mess. They are trying to piece it all together—in some cases decades after these injections started.” read more
California May Need to Frack More to Regain Lost Earthquake Crown
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) crunched data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and counted 562 Oklahoma earthquakes with a magnitude 3.0 or greater, compared to 180 in California. The state averaged 1-3 quakes a year from 1975 to 2008 The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) says scientists lay the blame squarely on the oil and gas industry: read more
Only Six of 279 State Parks Made Money, and Government Has a Problem with That
The state parks system wasn’t designed for them to be self-supporting—they rely mostly on state government funding—so it’s not a surprise to find revenues fell about $300 million short of expenses in fiscal year 2013-14. A new report proposes a new organization, Parks California, be formed to remake the troubled parks system. The governing board would include people with expertise in business and finance, marketing, communications, citizen engagement and, uh, parks. read more
“Top-Two” Primary Fails to Unleash the Pragmatic, Centrist California Voter
The hunt for the illusive—some would say mythological—independent centrist voter continues. Holding a single open primary in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of their party affiliation, are the only ones to advance to the general election did not produce less polarization, an increase in turnout or different outcomes. read more
State Lets Oil Drillers Use Hundreds of Wells to Inject Wastewater into Central Valley Aquifers
On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that state records show government allowed the companies to drill at least 171 waste-disposal wells into aquifers of drinkable water and 253 more into aquifers that could be (or had been) drinkable with treatment. Another 40 wells pumped water into aquifers for which there is no known data on water quality. read more
Drought Snapshot: “Dismally Meager” Snowpack and First-Ever Dry January in S.F.
Snowpack in the mountains was 25% of normal. “Clearly not good news,” Frank Gehrke, the chief of snow surveys for California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR), told National Geographic. “With this paltry a snowpack, the runoff is going to be pretty sparse.” read more
California Sees Smoke, Suspects Fire and Declares E-Cigarettes a Health Threat
E-cigarettes, which vaporize liquids containing nicotine, have been marketed as a less harmful way of smoking and a way to help kick the old-school tobacco habit. The report acknowledged that vaping may, indeed, be safer than cigarettes, but that doesn’t mean they are safe. “Exposure to nicotine during adolescence can harm brain development,” it says, while maintaining there is “no scientific evidence that e-cigarettes help smokers successfully quit traditional cigarettes.” read more
African-Americans Are 9.8% of L.A., but 43.1% of Its Homicide Victims
Blacks and Latinos combined are 89% of the victims, but only 57% of the population. Around 62% of the killings were linked to gangs and 86% of all victims were male. Although the public image is of young street toughs going berserk before their short lives reach a violent end, one-third of the victims are 26-35 years old, compared to one-quarter of those 18-25. read more
Blue Shield/Sutter Health Dispute Has 280,000 Looking for New Doctors
Blue Shield accuses Sutter, which operates 23 hospitals, of charging way more than other providers and wants a rate rollback. Sutter disputes that and wants to short-circuit lawsuits alleging anti-competitive behavior, not just medical disputes, by requiring binding arbitration instead of court review. read more