Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) laid out for the Senate Tuesday an incredible four-year tale of the CIA allegedly spying on Congress, lying about it and then continuing to do it while fighting to prevent publication of a report on its torture/detention program. Feinstein is chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has compiled a 6,300-page program review that the agency claims is full of errors and shouldn’t be released.   read more

The list of retail stores that received recalled meat from Rancho Feeding Corporation of Petaluma was 211 pages long before federal officials nearly tripled the number of outlets Wednesday to almost 6,400. It is not clear which stores received meat from cows with cancerous eyes.   read more

Duncan, 31, struck a plea deal with the feds for his work managing grow operations at a legal medical marijuana dispensary and reported to Mendota Federal Correctional Institution near Fresno Monday. At least the state considered it legal. He was just an employee, not an owner, but was caught in the crossfire between state and federal officials over conflicting and confusing laws.   read more

The federal government is sufficiently unimpressed that it has not bothered to monitor the radiation’s approach. But the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity (CMER) has used private funds to harness resources from around the world to track, measure and analyze this “unprecedented event” on its website.   read more

The beleaguered Hanford company was shut down indefinitely on Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for “unsanitary conditions,” although there was no specific information immediately released about what triggered the action. But by Wednesday the No. 3 provider of meat products to the federal school lunch program was back in business without much explanation, according to the Fresno Bee. No product recall was involved.   read more

The Bee told Brown’s story in March 2013. He was given a one-way ticket and three days worth of meds for his schizophrenia, depression and anxiety. He was told to call 911 upon arriving at his destination, a bit of advice that, according to another class-action lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco, was not given to a substantial number cut loose by the hospital.   read more

“This behavior is the very definition of predatory and this website made a game out of humiliating victims for profit,” Attorney General Harris said. California is trying to extradite him. The website, WinByState.com, solicited photographs from scorned males and posted them, sometimes identifying the victim by name. Posters obtained the photos consensually, in better times, or by stealing them. Photos on the website were organized by locale, and California had more than 400 images.   read more

The reform would limit the amount of time a Death Row prisoner could pursue appeals, shift the initial appeals process from the state Supreme Court to Superior Courts, remove the threat of sanctions against doctors who administer lethal injections and fast track changes to the execution procedure. Theoretically, an inmate could be executed in five years, instead of the 12-15 years it typically takes now.   read more

The New Yorker told his story this week, detailing the extensive measures Switzerland-based Syngenta took to protect its financial interest in a pesticide it produced by attacking its chief critic. A psychological profile was drawn up to pinpoint his vulnerabilities. Documents discussed his insecurities growing up poor and black in South Carolina (“scarred for life”) and how they could be exploited.   read more

Companies like The GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), two of the industry’s leaders, want black and Hispanic prisoners because they tend to be younger than white inmates, due to the passage of mandatory sentencing laws in the 1980s that targeted drug offenders (who tended to be minorities). Younger prisoners are cheaper to care for than older ones, due to medical costs, which is why private prisons want more minorities.   read more

In all, the slaughterhouse recalled 8.7 million pounds of beef and cow parts from suspected diseased and unhealthy animals that allegedly did not receive a full inspection from the federal government. The meat products were shipped to distribution centers in California, Texas, Florida and Illinois between January 1, 2013 and January 7 of this year, while the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) investigated the company.   read more

The judge ruled last month that the government should clear Malaysian architecture Professor Rahinah Ibrahim, but held off releasing the text of his ruling to see if the Department of Homeland Security would do the right thing. The department claimed during the hearing of a lawsuit brought by Ibrahim that it had already taken her off the list and cleared her name, but the judge was skeptical and the professor and her daughter, who is a U.S. citizen, have not been allowed back in the country.   read more

The past two years, there were large leaps in the number of exonerations reported since 1989, but they were not necessarily a result of increased exonerations. “The main reason for the rapid increases in the number of exonerations in California and later in New York is the nature of the searches we have been conducting,” authors of the report wrote.   read more

Missouri thinks California is monkeying around with the flow of goods across state lines and its lawsuit says the “clear purpose [is] to protect California farmers from out-of-state competition.” The Humane Society, which was the leading proponent of Proposition 2 in 2008, says the California demands amount to leaving the birds enough space to reduce the incidence of salmonella, and make it easier to keep the cages clean of excrement, flies, rats and disease.   read more

In a settlement that could hold national implications, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) agreed not to shackle immigrant detainees appearing in a San Francisco court through most of their proceedings. ICE acts as prosecutor in court, and in advocating for deportation or other punishment it often seeks to portray the immigrant as dangerous and untrustworthy. Having them shackled sends a powerful message of presumed menace.   read more

Although details are still sketchy, Representative George Miller, a Democrat from the Central Valley, called the bill “misguided” and “dangerous.” He told the San Francisco Chronicle it is an “attempt to gut federal and state environmental and water protections without sound science or considering the economic toll on the Northern California economy.”   read more