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U of California Event: “Bringing Down Israel Will Benefit Everyone in the World”

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Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Photo Credit: via Zombietime

Won’t someone please think of the murderous terrorists?

A November 12 panel discussion on the University of California’s flagship Berkeley campus was billed as an opportunity to learn about events 7,000 miles away in Israel – and about a Dec. 4 graduate student vote to join the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Instead, attendees were exhorted to bring down the Jewish State.

Hosted by UAW 2865, a union of over 13,000 student-workers across the University of California system, the union’s BDS Caucus brought in guest speakers to “discuss the role of organized labor in the Palestine solidarity movement.”

Panelist Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), dominated the conversation.

“Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers,” she said later.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alleged Cop-Killer in NorCal Been Deported Twice

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Photo Credit: KCRAThe man accused of killing two Northern California sheriff’s deputies Friday was removed from the United States twice in the past, U.S. Immigration and Customs officials said in a statement issued Saturday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte, who also goes by Marcelo Marquez, was sent back to Mexico in 1997, and again in 2001.

Officials said Monroy-Bracamonte was removed by an immigration judge following a conviction in Arizona in 1997 on charges of possession of narcotics for sale.

Read more from this story HERE.

Two Police Officers Killed, Two Others Hurt In California Shooting Spree

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Photo Credit: Business InsiderTwo California sheriff’s deputies were killed and two others were wounded in a shooting spree that started in a motel parking lot in Sacramento on Friday, authorities said.

The two suspects, described on Twitter by the California Highway Patrol as a man and a woman, both Hispanic and heavily armed, were taken into custody, police said.

The incident began on Friday morning in the parking lot of a Motel 6 when a deputy, later identified as Danny Oliver, 47, approached a vehicle considered to be suspicious, said Sacramento County Sheriff Lieutenant R.L. Davis.

Someone inside the car fired multiple rounds at Oliver, who was struck in the chest. On Friday afternoon, Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones said that Oliver had died of his wounds at the University of California, Davis, Medical Center in Sacramento.

Read more from this story HERE.

Outrage: California Forcing Churches to Provide Abortions (+video)

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsThe state of California is compelling churches to cover abortions, despite religious objections, or face the consequences from California’s Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC). . .

In a letter to the one of the churches involved, obtained by The Federalist, California’s DMHC argues that surgical abortion is “a medically necessary basic health care service for which all health care services plans must provide coverage under the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act.”

The letter goes on to state that, while the department recognized the religious exemptions at first, they are “now is requiring health care service plans to provide coverage of all terminations of pregnancies, effective immediately.”

Several churches involved are fighting back.

The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the Life Legal Defense League filed a suit on behalf of seven churches across California. On the lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, ADF senior counsel Casey Mattox claimed that, “California is flagrantly violating the federal law that protects employers from being forced into having abortion in their health insurance plans,” according to World Magazine.

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Most of California Man's Body Eaten by Black Bear

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Photo Credit: Jason EmpeyA wild black bear ate most of a Northern California man who likely died earlier of a heart attack, officials said Friday.

Humboldt County Deputy Coroner Roy Horton said he believes 65-year-old Marion Williams died outside his trailer in a remote area before the bear came upon him.

Authorities discovered the remains on Monday after friends reported Williams missing for five days.

Officials tried to trap and kill the bear but called off their attempt because it is doubtful the bear is still in the area near the man’s home in Redway, about 75 miles south of Humboldt, California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Andrew Hughan said.

Read more from this story HERE.

California Man Rescues Baby from Dumpster; Names her ‘Milagros’ – Miracle

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Photo Credit: CBS video screenshotA California man who helped rescue a newborn girl from a dumpster says he believes that the girl’s rescue was a miracle.

Jimmy Alvarez responded when he heard Jorge Miranda call for help Thursday just before 6 a.m.

Miranda was looking for cans and bottles in a south Merced apartment complex dumpster to sell for recycling, according to the Merced Sun-Star, when he found the baby girl wrapped in a towel under pizza boxes and plastic trash bags.

“He was shocked, he was scared,” Alvarez said of Miranda, who speaks limited English. “The baby was lying in the corner of the dumpster, half naked, the umbilical cord hanging.”

Miranda said the discovery made him feel “very bad.”

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California: Christians Must Pay for Abortions

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Photo Credit: WNDCalifornia has changed its state health insurance rules to require that churches pay for elective abortions, drawing protest from some of the largest pro-life legal teams in the nation and a formal complaint.

“Forcing a church to be party to elective abortion is one of the utmost-imaginable assaults on our most fundamental American freedoms,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Casey Mattox.

Mattox said California “is flagrantly violating the federal law that protects employers from being forced into having abortion in their health insurance plans.”

“No state can blatantly ignore federal law and think that it should continue to receive taxpayer money,” he said.

The case is just the latest in recent months against aggressive federal and state government efforts to force religious individuals and organizations to fund abortion, including through Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

CA Gov. Signs New Gun Restriction: Authorities Can Seize Guns from People Who 'Pose a Threat'

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Photo Credit: AP / Rich PedroncelliBy Don Thompson.

California will become the first state that allows family members to ask a judge to remove firearms from a relative who appears to pose a threat, under legislation Gov. Jerry Brown said Tuesday he had signed.

The bill was proposed by several Democrats and responds to a deadly rampage in May near the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Relatives of the victims and other supporters of the bill said the parents of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger were thwarted in their attempts to seek help for their troubled son before the rampage.

Supporters had said such a measure could have prevented the attacks, winning out over critics who said it would erode gun rights.

“If both of these laws had been in place on May 23, things could have been very different,” Rodger’s father, Peter Rodger, said in a statement Tuesday night. “California, today, is a safer state because of this legislation. Let’s hope other states follow.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APCalifornia becomes first state to ban plastic bags

By FENIT NIRAPPIL.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed the nation’s first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores, driven to action by pollution in streets and waterways.

A national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers immediately said it would seek a voter referendum to repeal the law, which is scheduled to take effect in July 2015.

Under SB270, plastic bags will be phased out of checkout counters at large grocery stores and supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Target starting next summer, and convenience stores and pharmacies in 2016. The law does not apply to bags used for fruits, vegetables or meats, or to shopping bags used at other retailers. It allows grocers to charge a fee of at least 10 cents for using paper bags.

State Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, credits the momentum for statewide legislation to the more than 100 cities and counties, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, that already have such bans.

The law marks a major milestone for environmental activists who have successfully pushed plastic bag bans in cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Austin and Seattle. Hawaii is also on track to have a de-facto statewide ban, with all counties approving prohibitions.

Read more from this story HERE.

With Dry Taps and Toilets, California Drought Turns Desperate

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Photo Credit: Jim Wilson / The New York TimesAfter a nine-hour day working at a citrus packing plant, her body covered in a sheen of fruit wax and dust, there is nothing Angelica Gallegos wants more than a hot shower, with steam to help clear her throat and lungs.

“I can just picture it, that feeling of finally being clean — really refreshed and clean,” Ms. Gallegos, 37, said one recent evening.

But she has not had running water for more than five months — nor is there any tap water in her near future — because of a punishing and relentless drought in California. In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket.

Unlike the Okies who came here fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the people now living on this parched land are stuck. “We don’t have the money to move, and who would buy this house without water?” said Ms. Gallegos, who grew up in the area and shares a tidy mobile home with her husband and two daughters. “When you wake up in the middle of the night sick to your stomach, you have to think about where the water bottle is before you can use the toilet.”

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Daily Water Allocation Could Be the Next California Drought Strategy

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Photo Credit: AP / Rich Pedroncelli
You probably know your Social Security number, your driver’s license number and perhaps the latest wrinkle in mattress marketing, your sleep number.

But do you know your drought number?

The latter represents the amount of water you are allowed to use per day. If you don’t know it, you probably should. Not knowing could cost you money. As California’s severe drought moves into a fourth year, state and local water agencies are working on something called “allocation-based rate structures,” a kind of precursor to water rationing that’s all the rage in Sacramento and in some areas such as Santa Cruz, Irvine and Santa Monica.

Here’s how it works: Your local water company, special district or city assigns you and your household a number in gallons — a daily water allocation. Usually, one number applies to maximum indoor water use, i.e. showers, kitchen and bathroom faucets, dishwashers, clothes washers, etc., and an extra allocation is assigned for outdoor use such as lawn irrigation.

Using census records, aerial photography and satellite imagery, an agency can determine a property’s efficient water usage.

Read more from this story HERE.