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Calif. Lawmaker To Protest Mexican President's Visit Because Of U.S. Marine Jailed In Mexico

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A California state assemblyman plans to stage a protest outside the governor’s mansion next week to demand that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who is to be honored at luncheon there Aug. 26, ensure the release of a U.S. Marine held captive in Mexico.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, who recently lost in a bid to become the Republican nominee in the gubernatorial election in November, declined an invitation to the luncheon and assailed Gov. Jerry Brown for hosting the luncheon in honor of the Mexican president.

“I am writing to decline your luncheon invitation,” read the letter Donnelly sent Brown, which the assemblyman made public, “and to express my deep disappointment that you would entertain the president of a nation that is holding an active-duty U.S. Marine captive.”

Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has said that he was headed to dinner in San Ysidro on March 31 when he mistakenly wound up at a border crossing in Tijuana.

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Bankrupt California City Eyes Marijuana for Revenue

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The bankrupt California city of San Bernardino has a new idea for raising revenue – legalize medical marijuana, and tax the pot.

Ironically, the plan was spurred by concerns about not having enough resources to crack down on the illegal medical marijuana dealers springing up all over town.

So the city is now looking at legalizing the sellers, and using the proceeds to enforce the regulations.

It’s not quite “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” but like many municipalities in California today, San Bernardino is recognizing that it could be bringing millions of dollars into its foundering coffers each year if it opened its doors to regulated medical marijuana dispensaries. And it would be able to have a say in who operates these places, as well as how and where.

“This is a no-brainer,” said Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project in California. “More and more people are realizing that you’d really have to be in the Stone Age to oppose this.”

Read more from this story HERE.

California May Vote on ‘Six States’ Plan in 2016

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Photo Credit: Ed Uthman / Creative CommonsAn initiative to break California into six separate states has proven to be more than just fodder for late night talk show jokes, after receiving enough signatures to be placed on the November 2016 ballot, the campaign announced Monday.

Venture capitalist Tim Draper is the initiative’s only backer thus far, having contributed $4.9 million of his own money to propel the plan forward. But that funding has apparently gained results. Campaign spokesperson Roger Salazar said Monday that they had accumulated more than the 808,000 signatures necessary to gain placement on the ballot, Reuters reports, and it will be filed Tuesday.

“It’s important because it will help us create a more responsive, more innovative and more local government, and that ultimately will end up being better for all of Californians,” Salazar told Reuters. “The idea … is to create six states with responsive local governments – states that are more representative and accountable to their constituents.

Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Officer Under Scrutiny for Firing Gun During L.A. Protest

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Photo Credit: Donkey HoteyFour people have been arrested and a Homeland Security officer is under investigation for firing his weapon during a weekend scuffle between pro-Israel demonstrators and Palestinian supporters outside the Federal Building in Los Angeles.

The altercation Sunday evening grew out of a shouting match between the occupants of two vehicles that escalated when several people from one vehicle were assaulted by suspects in the other, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said.

An officer of the Federal Protective Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who witnessed the assault intervened and fired his weapon, but no one was hit by gunfire or otherwise injured, Sheriff’s Sergeant Carmen Arballo said.

She said four suspects were arrested. According to sheriff’s officials, the four were booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon after some of those involved in the melee were seen brandishing wooden poles, City News Service reported.

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California Removes 'Husband' and 'Wife' from California Marriage Law

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Photo Credit: TownHall One word can make all the difference when it comes to definitions. Exhibit A: exchange the words “husband and wife” for a more inclusive term, and you have the phrase “I now pronounce you spouses.” In the state of California, they are paying special attention to keep their vernacular as progressive as possible.

Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a bill Monday to formally make marriage gender-neutral to reflect the state’s allowance of same-sex unions. According to Senate Bill 1306:

Under existing law, a reference to “husband” and “wife,” “spouses,” or “married persons,” or a comparable term, includes persons who are lawfully married to each other and persons who were previously lawfully married to each other, as is appropriate under the circumstances of the particular case.

The bill would delete references to “husband” or “wife” in the Family Code and would instead refer to a “spouse,” and would make other related changes.

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California Declares Whooping Cough Epidemic

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Photo Credit: CNNCalifornia is being hit hard with a whooping cough epidemic, according to the state’s public health department, with 800 cases reported in the past two weeks alone.

The agency says that there were 3,458 whooping cough cases reported between January 1 and June 10, well ahead of the number of cases reported for all of 2013.

This is a problem of “epidemic proportions,” the department said. And the number of actual cases may be even higher, because past studies have shown that for every case of whooping cough that is reported, there are 10 more that are not officially counted.

Whooping cough, known to doctors as pertussis, is a highly contagious respiratory infection that is caused by a bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis.

The popular name for the disease comes from the whooping sound an infected person makes when gasping for breath after a coughing fit.

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Russian Bombers Fly Within 50 Miles of California Coast

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Photo Credit: APFour Russian strategic bombers triggered U.S. air defense systems while conducting practice bombing runs near Alaska this week, with two of the Tu-95 Bear H aircraft coming within 50 miles of the California coast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) confirmed Wednesday.

“The last time we saw anything similar was two years ago on the Fourth of July,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Norad spokesman, told the Free Beacon.

Davis said the latest Bear H incursions began Monday around 4:30 p.m. Pacific time when radar detected the four turbo-prop powered bombers approaching the U.S. air defense zone near the far western Aleutian Islands.

Two U.S. Air Force F-22 jets were scrambled and intercepted the bombers over the Aleutians.

After tracking the bombers as they flew eastward, two of the four Bears turned around and headed west toward the Russian Far East. The bombers are believed to be based at the Russian strategic base near Anadyr, Russia.

Read more from this story HERE.

In California, Life With Parole Increasingly Leads To Freedom

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Photo Credit: Jeremy Raff / KQEDCalifornia has more than 26,000 inmates serving life sentences with the possibility of parole. Until recently, that possibility was a slim one; “lifers,” who are mostly murderers, rarely got out of prison.

But that’s changing. Since 2009, more than twice as many lifers have been paroled in California than in the previous two decades combined.

The shift in parole policy comes as California is under orders from the U.S. Supreme Court to relieve prison overcrowding. But state officials insist the rising number of lifers being paroled has nothing to do with that. Instead, they say, it’s the confluence of several other factors, including a 2008 state Supreme Court ruling that made it harder to deny parole to inmates who are no longer considered dangerous.

Since that ruling, parole boards have recommended release at a much higher rate than in previous years — and Gov. Jerry Brown is blocking fewer paroles than his predecessors.

Today, even for murderers, the possibility of parole is more than just a pipe dream. The change is being felt on both sides of the prison walls.

Read more from this story HERE.

7 Dead in Drive-By Shooting Near UC Santa Barbara

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Photo Credit: AP The Daily Nexus, Daniel SlovinskyBy Raquel Maria Dillon and Julie Watson.

A drive-by shooter went on a nighttime rampage near a Santa Barbara university campus that left seven people dead, including the attacker, and seven others wounded, authorities said Saturday.

The gunman got into two gun battles with deputies Friday night in the beachside community of Isla Vista before crashing his black BMW into a parked car, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.

Deputies found him dead with a gunshot wound to the head, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether he was killed by gunfire or if he committed suicide, he said.

A semi-automatic handgun was recovered from the scene near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Investigators know the gunman’s name, but Brown said he couldn’t release it pending notification of relatives.

“We’re analyzing both written and videotaped evidence that suggests that this atrocity was a premeditated mass murder,” Brown said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: Facebook Santa Barbara Mass Shooting: Son of ‘Hunger Games’ Second Unit Director Is Suspected Gunman

By Erik Hayden.

A 22-year-old gunman killed six people in an Isla Vista rampage that began with a 140-page manifesto and an apartment stabbing and ended with a crashed BMW and an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“It all has to come to this,” Elliot Rodger stated during a nearly seven-minute “Retribution” video uploaded to YouTube on May 23. He later added: “After I’ve annihilated every single girl in the sorority house, I’ll take to the streets of Isla Vista and slay every single person I see there.”

Rodger, who died of a gunshot wound in the BMW, is the son of Hunger Games second unit director Peter Rodger. He had been a student who attended Santa Barbara City College classes sporadically since 2011.

The Santa Barbara sheriff’s office had made contact with Rodger three times prior to the mass shooting, including an April 30 incident where deputies followed up on a request from a family member who asked that police check on his welfare.

“The deputies contacted the suspect, at the time found him to be polite and courteous, he downplayed the concerns for his welfare and the deputies cleared the call,” stated Sheriff Bill Brown at a Saturday evening press conference carried live on local stations and cable broadcasters.

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Thousands Flee California ‘Fire in the Sky’

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Photo Credit: AFP / Bill Wechter

Photo Credit: AFP / Bill Wechter

Thousands of people fled raging wildfires in southern California which destroyed homes and triggered evacuations at a nuclear power plant, a military base and a Legoland amusement park.

The blazes, which also closed a major north-south highway, come amid record temperatures in the western US state, where the annual wildfire season typically starts much later in the year.

At least 15 buildings have been destroyed, including three homes, said Michael Davis, fire chief in the seaside resort of Carlsbad, north of San Diego.

“At times it looks like there’s fire in the sky with the wind whipping back and forth,” eyewitness Ryan Marble, waiting in a long line at a gas station to get fuel to evacuate, told The Los Angeles Times newspaper.

About a dozen non-essential staff at the San Onofre nuclear power plant were evacuated “as a precaution” due to a nearby brush fire, the plant said on its Twitter feed.

Read more from this story HERE.