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California vows immediate inspections of facilities housing children separated from parents -- California regulators said Saturday they will immediately begin inspections at facilities where scores of immigrant children who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border under a Trump administration crackdown are being held. Paloma Esquivel, Esmeralda Bermudez, Nina Agrawal in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Muni’s Twin Peaks tunnel to close Monday. Riders face 2 months of inconvenience -- After 100 years of carrying commuter-filled streetcars and light-rail trains, Muni’s Twin Peaks Tunnel is getting a much-needed makeover, and the heavy work starts Monday. Michael Cabanatuan in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

Civic leader John Mack, a prominent voice on Los Angeles police reform, dies at 81 -- When John Mack arrived in Los Angeles in 1969 as a rising civil rights figure, he plunged into work on behalf of the city’s minorities and working class. Joel Rubin, David Zahniser and Sonali Kohli in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Lopez: Hollister Ranch access agreement is a wipeout and a sellout, hundreds of beach lovers scream -- Just in time for the start of summer, a new skirmish in an old fight for beach access has broken out in California, where people don’t let anyone kick sand in their faces without kicking back. Steve Lopez in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Political outsiders want to split California in three, but local leaders are skeptical -- So far, the proposal has generated backlash on both sides of the aisle. After the initiative qualified for the ballot, both parties’ candidates for governor came out against it. And earlier, in April, SurveyUSA released polling suggesting only 17 percent of the electorate would vote to divide the state in three. Samuel Metz in the Desert Sun$ -- 6/23/18

California Politics Podcast: This week: A fresh USC/LA Times poll of the November matchups in the race for governor and the U.S. Senate contest. We also discuss the intense political week that was in illegal immigration. And a special state Capitol edition of the politics lightning round. With John Myers and Melanie Mason of the Los Angeles Times. Link here -- 6/23/18

 

California Policy & Politics This Morning

Report says Camp Pendleton slated to house up to 47,000 migrants in temporary detention -- San Diego County could become a destination for tens of thousands of unauthorized immigrants to be housed indefinitely by the U.S. Government, under the zero-tolerance policy implemented by President Donald Trump. Jeff McDonald and Kate Morrissey in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 6/23/18

Former Bay Area base on short list for Trump immigration detention camps, report says -- The revelation stunned residents in the Contra Costa County community and sent local and federal officials into a frenzy as they tried to track down details on the plan to convert the former Naval Weapons Station that has long been eyed as a development to ease the city’s housing crunch. Tatiana Sanchez, Matthias Gafni, Aaron Davis, Rick Hurd in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 6/23/18

Sen. Kamala Harris joins hundreds at San Diego border to protest Trump's zero-tolerance immigration policy -- U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris joined hundreds of protesters along the San Diego border with Mexico on Friday to denounce President Donald Trump for his zero-tolerance immigration policy, which has separated more than 2,300 youth from their families. Joshua Emerson Smith in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ Jennifer Epstein Bloomberg -- 6/23/18

Detainees held in Victorville prison pose problems, raise questions -- Several detainees — brought to Victorville earlier this month after the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration went into effect — arrived with the highly contagious skin condition known as scabies. At least one has chicken pox. Others carry the virus for tuberculosis, though they are not considered contagious. Roxana Kopetman in the Orange County Register Libby Denkmann KPCC -- 6/23/18

Rep. Ted Lieu plays audio of sobbing children from migrant detention center on House floor -- Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) caused a stir on the House floor Friday when he played audio of sobbing children in a migrant detention center crying out for their parents. Associated Press via the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

23andMe’s DNA kit offer for reuniting migrant families raises privacy concerns -- Mountain View genetic testing company 23andMe has offered to donate DNA test kits to help migrant children in detention centers reunite with their parents — prompting logistical and ethical concerns about an undertaking that genetics experts say would be a first in the United States. Catherine Ho in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

The fight over net neutrality in California: ‘threats,’ memes and data caps -- Since being accused of “eviscerating” a bill that sought to reinstate net neutrality in California, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago — a relatively unknown figure outside of Sacramento political circles — has received a firestorm of criticism. Trisha Thadani in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

California lawmaker attacked over net neutrality decision -- A California lawmaker’s decision to alter a net neutrality bill considered one of the nation’s most aggressive efforts to require an equal playing field on the internet has generated intensely personal online attacks aimed at his family as well as criticism from fellow Democrats in Congress. Jonathan J. Cooper Associated Press -- 6/23/18

‘Bot bill’ Moves Ahead In California Legislature, But Not Without Opposition -- A bill that would require social media companies like Facebook and Twitter to clearly label automated accounts — or ‘bots’ — is moving forward in the California Legislature, despite opposition from some tech companies and civil liberties groups. Opponents say the so-called ‘Bot Bill,’ or SB 1001, is too strict and could limit First Amendment rights. Chris Nichols Capital Public Radio -- 6/23/18

Gov. Brown appoints Democratic activist Alice T. Germond to head California's campaign watchdog panel -- Germond, 75, joins the state Fair Political Practices Commission to serve the remaining seven months of the term of former chair Jodi Remke, who resigned last month after part-time members voted to curtail some of her powers. Patrick McGreevy in the Los Angeles Times$ Taryn Luna in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 6/23/18

California Rent Control Initiative Supporters, Opponents Sought Deal To Avoid Ballot Fight — But Failed -- After negotiations failed to reach a deal to avoid a costly campaign this fall, Californians are set to vote on whether to repeal the state law that limits local rent control ordinances known as “Costa-Hawkins.” Ben Adler Capital Public Radio Melody Gutierrez in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

Cage-free egg initiative qualifies for California ballot -- California voters will decide in November whether egg-laying hens must live cage free. Secretary of State Alex Padilla says an initiative setting standards for confining calves, pigs and hens is eligible for the ballot. Associated Press Bryan Anderson in the Sacramento Bee$ Ben Adler Capital Public Radio -- 6/23/18

San Clemente files lawsuit against TCA accusing the toll road agency of violating the state’s Public Records Act -- City officials say the Transportation Corridor Agencies is in violation of the California Public Records Act, because it has not turned over information regarding money spent on lobbyists and public relations in its outreach over expanding the toll road through South Orange County. Erika Ritchie in the Orange County Register -- 6/23/18

Motion picture academy prepares to add new members as diversity push continues -- On Monday, an elite group of film industry professionals around the world will receive Hollywood’s version of Willy Wonka’s golden ticket: an invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Josh Rottenberg in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Economy, Employers, Jobs, Unions, Pensions  

As refugee numbers plummet, workforce feels impact -- As refugees continue to trickle into the U.S., many who work with new arrivals worry that the low numbers will have a lasting impact on economies, schools and families in places like San Diego, where many used to resettle. Kate Morrissey in the San Diego Union-Tribune$ -- 6/23/18

Bill Could Give Californians Unprecedented Control Over Data -- Introduced by State Assembly member Ed Chau and state senator Robert Hertzberg, the bill would allow California residents to find out what information businesses and data brokers collect about them, where that information comes from, and how it's shared. Issie Lapowsky Wired -- 6/23/18

The H-1B visa: A golden ticket loses its luster -- As passage to the U.S. gets harder for tech workers, vital ties between India and Silicon Valley begin to fray. Trisha Thadani in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

A Day Care and a Dog Rescue Benefit: On Facebook, They Were Political Ads -- What do a day care center, a vegetarian restaurant, a hair salon, an outdoor clothing maker and an investigative news publisher have in common? To Facebook, they looked suspiciously like political activists. Kevin Roose in the New York Times$ -- 6/23/18

How Tesla Is Building Cars in Its Parking Lot -- So in the past month, Tesla did what it has always done, whether in a pinch or not—it got flexible. To augment the two Model 3 assembly lines already running inside his at-capacity factory in Fremont, California, Musk set up a third line. In a big white tent. In the factory parking lot. Alex Davies Wired -- 6/23/18

Homeless  

Garcetti says L.A. can resume disputed ban on overnight sidewalk sleeping -- Eleven years ago, Los Angeles officials agreed to stop arresting people who bed down for the night on streets and sidewalks until the city built more homeless housing. Emily Alpert Reyes in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Housing  

Are Sacramento home prices reaching 'bubble' bursting levels? -- The median sales price in Sacramento County hit $360,000 in May, the highest price in any month since 2006, just before real estate prices took a major tumble amid deep recession. Tony Bizjak in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 6/23/18

Education 

$24.3 million in the red, Sac City Unified district cuts its newly launched summer program -- Facing a $24.3 million deficit, the Sacramento City Unified board this week approved a $555.3 million budget that includes eliminating a recently launched summer program and dipping further into reserve funds. Julia Sclafani in the Sacramento Bee$ Bob Moffitt Capital Public Radio -- 6/23/18

California Lawmakers Approve $21M In Immigration Legal Aid For Students -- University of California attorneys opened about 1,200 immigration cases on behalf of students and their families last school year, a 30 percent uptick from the previous year. Megan Burks KPBS -- 6/23/18

Discipline reform gets boost in California budget -- Tucked inside last week’s state budget deal was some good news for California’s school discipline reform advocates — an additional $15 million for tackling issues such as bullying and trauma students have experienced, and training teachers and administrators in alternatives to traditional approaches to discipline. David Washburn EdSource -- 6/23/18

Immigration, Border, Deportation 

Inside the California facilities holding children separated from their parents at the border -- In a quiet nook in the small city of La Verne, small cottages topped with Spanish tile are spread across a sprawling green campus. Long ago, it was an orphanage; now it’s a group home for foster kids. Paloma Esquivel, Esmeralda Bermudez and Nina Agrawal in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

DOJ: Trump's immigration crackdown 'diverting' resources from drug cases -- Federal prosecutors warned they were diverting resources from drug-smuggling cases in southern California to handle the flood of immigration charges brought on by the Trump administration’s border crackdown, records obtained by USA Today show. Brad Heath, USA Today -- 6/23/18

Contractors Won’t Say How Many Detained Immigrant Kids They’re Transporting -- MVM and General Dynamics transport and track undocumented children in government custody. Like the Trump administration, they won’t say whether they’re helping parents find them. Spencer Ackerman The Daily Beast -- 6/23/18

HHS creates task force to reunify migrant families -- HHS on Friday created an “unaccompanied children reunification task force,” a first step toward reunifying thousands of migrant children in the agency’s custody with their families, according to an internal document obtained by Politico. Dan Diamond Politico -- 6/23/18

Reuniting families who were separated at the border could take months, federal officials warn -- The process of reunifying families who have been separated at the border could take months, federal officials said Friday, as lawyers, advocates and lawmakers said that the path ahead remained murky and chaotic, and the Trump administration failed again to provide clear direction on how to resolve the issue. Jazmine Ulloa, Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Noah Bierman in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/23/18

Parted at U.S. border by Trump policy, migrants seek their children -- Merida-Galicia, who is being held in California, is just one of many incarcerated immigrant mothers whose attorneys tell similar stories about chaotic situations in which the mothers don’t know where their children have been taken or how to contact them. The mothers themselves could not be contacted because access to detained immigrants is difficult. Kristina Cooke, Richard Cowan Reuters -- 6/23/18

Can the Border Patrol ask for your papers? This tool shows if you’re in the ‘border zone.’ -- The government’s crackdown on illegal immigration came to an unexpected place on Wednesday: central Maine — about as far from the border with Mexico as it is possible to get. In Penobscot County, Border Patrol agents set up a vehicle checkpoint for 11 hours, stopping scores of vehicles and arresting a man from Haiti, according to the Portland Press Herald. Philip Bump in the Washington Post$ -- 6/23/18

Health 

Overburdened by debt, Sonoma West Medical Center to discuss possible closure -- Officials with Sonoma West Medical Center say the Sebastopol hospital is facing an immediate financial crisis over debt payments that has led them to call for a discussion late next week over whether to begin drawing up plans to close the cash-strapped facility. Martin Espinoza in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat -- 6/23/18

The doctor will see you now – online. Virtual house calls offered widely in Sacramento region -- House calls are making a comeback, with a virtual twist: Three of the Sacramento region's four major health providers – Kaiser Permanente, UC Davis Health and now Sutter Health – offer video visits with primary care providers. Hannah Holzer in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 6/23/18

Environment 

State Launches Criminal Probe Into Death of a Great White Shark -- The results of a necropsy have led California authorities to launch a criminal investigation into the death of a great white shark that washed ashore in Santa Cruz on Sunday. Amel Ahmed KQED -- 6/23/18

Pittsburg residents fear city dump tainted with radioactive waste from San Francisco shipyard -- The Keller Canyon Landfill in the East Bay city of Pittsburg got more dirt from the botched Hunters Point Shipyard cleanup than any other dump site, a Navy official told The Chronicle. Kimberly Veklerov in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/23/18

Also . . . 

Hidden Gems: A Garden Oasis, Buried Deep Underground in Fresno -- It's an underground complex of earthen tunnels containing bedrooms, fishponds, a chapel, a ballroom and endless rooms where citrus trees grow beneath big round skylights. These tunnels are the creation of one man: Baldassare Forestiere. Jessica Placzek and Maddie Gobbo KQED -- 6/23/18

POTUS 45  

Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy is effectively dead -- President Donald Trump may not admit it but, practically speaking, his administration’s “zero-tolerance” border strategy is dead. Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that reality at a meeting Thursday afternoon, according to a former department official with knowledge of the meeting. Ted Hesson Politico -- 6/23/18

The original source for Trump’s claim of 63,000 immigrant murders? Bad data from Steve King in 2006 -- President Trump shifted the gears of his immigration rhetoric a bit Friday, hoping to reclaim the momentum lost after having to publicly backtrack on his administration’s family-separation policy. He returned to a tactic he first embraced less than a month after declaring his candidacy: standing with the parents of people killed by immigrants in the country illegally to suggest that immigrants pose a significant threat to Americans. Philip Bump in the Washington Post$ -- 6/23/18

Beltway 

Republicans fume after Trump’s latest immigration tweet undermines House talks -- With President Trump suddenly more antagonist than ally, House Republicans confronted the grim reality Friday that they may have no way out of an immigration mess of the president’s own making. Mike DeBonis and Erica Werner in the Washington Post$ -- 6/23/18

 

-- Friday Updates 

Report: Huge tent city to detain immigrants proposed in Concord -- The U.S. Navy is reviewing plans to potentially build large-scale detention centers for undocumented immigrants in various parts of the country, including Concord, according to a TIME magazine report on Friday detailing what was described as a draft memo. Hamed Aleaziz and J.K. Dineen in the San Francisco Chronicle$ Matthias Gafni, Aaron Davis, Rick Hurd in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 6/22/18

Trump kills off House immigration bill he had vowed to support '1,000%' -- With an early morning tweet, President Trump put the likely final nail in the coffin of an immigration measure supported by the House GOP leadership, saying that lawmakers shouldn't bother with legislation he had claimed to support just days before. Eli Stokols in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/22/18

California housing about 100 immigrant children separated from parents at the border -- The human fallout from the Trump administration’s abruptly reversed policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S. border has reached California, where some 100 of those children are living in state-licensed group care and foster homes. Karen de Sá and Hamed Aleaziz in the San Francisco Chronicle$ -- 6/22/18

ICE detainee held in California prison diagnosed with chickenpox -- The detainee is among 1,000 immigrants in federal custody who were recently moved to the Victorville Federal Correctional Complex, about 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nicole Chavez and Chris Boyette CNN -- 6/22/18

Future Unclear For Northern California Asylum Seekers -- Californians worried about family members trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border are reaching out to a San Francisco-based legal non-profit group that helps low-income Latino immigrants. Steve Milne Capital Public Radio -- 6/22/18

With court case looming, California unions pack state budget with labor goodies -- Most of the labor measures in the new budget aim to strengthen unions as they prepare to lose money and members in the wake of a looming Supreme Court decision that would forbid them from collecting so-called fair-share fees from workers who benefit from them but don’t want to join them. A decision in the case, Janus vs. AFSCME, is expected in days. Adam Ashton in the Sacramento Bee$ -- 6/22/18

Nearly 400 people used California assisted death law in 2017 -- The California Department of Public Health said 577 people received aid-in-dying drugs in 2017, but not everyone used them. The law allows adults to obtain a prescription for life-ending drugs if a doctor has determined that they have six months or less to live. They can self-administer the drugs. Don Thompson Associated Press -- 6/22/18

Supreme Court ruling updates privacy law for a digital age, saying police need a warrant to get cellphone tracking records -- In a victory for privacy in the digital era, the Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Constitution protects tracking data from a cellphone, requiring police to have a search warrant to obtain cell tower records that can show a person’s movement for days or weeks. David G. Savage in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/22/18

Jinx or coincidence: Why is L.A. City Hall a graveyard for gubernatorial ambitions? -- William Stephens may be best known — to the extent he’s remembered at all — for being California governor in 1917 when anarchists dynamited the governor’s mansion in Sacramento, blowing a small hole in a basement wall. Mark Z. Barabak in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/22/18

Fox: Judge Highlights a Business Concern in Trial Dealing with Sanctuary State -- The judge hearing the federal challenge against California immigrant protection laws put his finger on a problem resulting from one of those laws: “The statute really puts the employer between a rock and a hard place,” the judge said. While greater attention at the Sacramento trial focused on California’s sanctuary state law, the dilemma faced by businesses since the implementation of AB 450, dealing with immigration worksite enforcement actions, also was examined at trial. Joel Fox Fox & Hounds -- 6/22/18

KQED Political Breakdown: California Report host John Sepulvado joins Scott and Marisa to share his experience of reporting from migrant camps in Tornillo, Texas. Then, State Senator Connie Leyva makes the case for visiting Chino, her rise from working at a supermarket to leading the California Labor Federation, why California Democrats need to choose more progressive candidates, and lessons from the legislature's handling of sexual misconduct claims. Link here -- 6/22/18

Full vending machines. Pot on the pillow. What some California hotels are doing to attract marijuana smokers -- A few months after California legalized recreational use of marijuana, the Desert Hot Springs Inn in the Coachella Valley began advertising itself as cannabis friendly — a place where guests can smoke by the pool or heat up a vaporizer in the rooms. Hugo Martin in the Los Angeles Times$ -- 6/22/18

California toddler dies after being left in car for several hours, mom arrested -- An 18-month-old boy died Wednesday after being left inside a car for about 10 hours into the early afternoon, and his 23-year-old mother was arrested on suspicion of willfully causing or permitting a child to suffer great bodily injury or death, according to authorities. Mark Gomez in the San Jose Mercury$ -- 6/22/18