#california-investigation

#california-investigation

The Springs fire in Riverside county has grown to 3,500 acres, prompting local authorities to issue several evacuation orders. The fire is concentrated in an area mostly north and east of Lake Perris, burning portions of the surrounding state recreation area.

The expansion of automatic license plate readers as a source of deep concern is evident as government authorities seek ways to target immigrant and transgender communities.

Sheryl Davis is accused of steering millions of dollars to Collective Impact, a San Francisco-based nonprofit she previously ran as executive director, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday by the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

Eight individuals were arrested and 15 charged in a scheme to defraud Medicare of over $50 million by running sham hospice facilities across Southern California. Federal officials described the actions as brazen efforts to commit fraud, with many billed patients not being terminally ill.

John Kaehny has written and successfully lobbied for the passage of state and New York City laws related to government transparency and accountability, including the first open data law in the world in 2012.

Isaiah Jamon Andrews, 20, of Kern, Washington, is suspected of fatally shooting a 20-year-old man at a hotel in Seattle on October 15.

"What's the consequences if we allow 800 residents to be in a severe fire with no evacuation routes? We're being asked to choose between two really bad options."

Davis allegedly directed more than $4.5 million to Collective Impact from the Dream Keeper Initiative, a city program that distributes arts and culture grants to the Black community, the DA said.

Property owners who want to handle clearance themselves—and avoid racking up costs—should have responded to the county by March 10 to receive a property-specific deadline.

A California Division of Occupational Safety and Health investigation into the July 18 blast resulted in eight citations and more than $350,000 in fines, according to records from the state agency reviewed by The Times.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office must comply with subpoenas issued by the county's civilian oversight board as part of a whistleblower investigation into alleged misconduct, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

The report states, 'Inexplicably, no code enforcement occurred, even though all dangerous fireworks had been banned by ordinance throughout rural Yolo County since 2001.' This lack of oversight allowed the fireworks businesses to expand unchecked, culminating in the deadly explosion.

The patchwork efforts to identify and safely remove contamination left by the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires has been akin to the Wild West. Experts have given conflicting guidance on best practices. Shortly after the fires, the federal government suddenly refused to adhere to California's decades-old post-fire soil-testing policy; California later considered following suit. Meanwhile, insurance companies have resisted remediation practices widely recommended by scientists for still-standing homes.

What I observed was not simply a difficult fire under extreme conditions, Butler said. It was the predictable outcome of a breakdown in leadership, preparedness and command discipline. Firefighters were forced to improvise without adequate resources, unified command or consistent safety oversight. This was not a failure of effort by firefighters. It was a failure of leadership above them.

One year ago, Nancy Ward, then the director of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES), petitioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency to spearhead the cleanup of toxic ash and fire debris cloaking more than 12,000 homes across Los Angeles County. Although Ward's decision ensured the federal government would assume the bulk of disaster costs, it came with a major trade off.