State & U.S. News: June 2009

Riverside, L.A. and San Bernardino say assessors are pulling in the lowest numbers in property tax collections in more than 10 years; bad news for their cash-poor local governments. Revenue from property taxes has always provided a source of income for cities.  Assessors say reduction in auto sales, rate of foreclosures and low real estate sales will devastate the tax rolls.

 

California counties impose work furloughs, pay cuts, postpone city repairs and reduce public services.  In L.A. County, assessor Rick Auerbach estimates a 1% reduction in the $1.1 trillion property-tax base and says losses will be greater in coming months.

 

A ban on medical marijuana dispensary closures by L.A.’s U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien have people wondering why he had prosecutors back off, then changed his mind and sent a confidential memo to prosecutors lifting the ban.  O’Brien’s decision came  days after Attorney General Eric Holder stated medical marijuana prosecutions would not be a priority for Obama’s Justice Department. 

 

A federal judge blocked a federal rule that allows people to carry concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.  The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar- Kotelly halts a change in regulations issued during the Bush administration and orders further review.  The rule effective in January allows visitors to carry a loaded gun into a park or wildlife refuge as long as the person has a permit for a concealed weapon and the state where the park or refuge was located allowed concealed firearms. Previously, guns in parks had been severely restricted.

 

State Controller John Chiang announced that California has resumed tax refunds.  A new budget issues payments for income-tax refunds, grants for college students, needy families, elderly, blind and disabled—frozen when California ran out of cash in February. 

 

Governor Schwarzenegger’s administration rolls out a new ethics policy.  Statements for officials’ travel expenses to be posted on the Web amid speculation regarding outside income and the free use of government expense accounts by top aides and other appointees of the governor.  New ethics rules apply to all senior staff members.

 

A San Diego zoo worker responsible for skin infections at the zoo.  A baby elephant being hand-raised by zoo keepers because its mother couldn’t care for it was infected along with 20  human caretakers.  This is the first case of methicillin-resistant ataphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in a zoo elephant and the first recorded transmission of the bug from zoo animal to human being, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

 

The state’s interagency Climate Action Team issued the first of 40 reports outlining how Californians can deal with floods, erosion and other effects of rising sea levels.  Computer models suggest that hundreds of thousands of people and billions of dollars in property and infrastructure are at risk if ocean levels rise 55 inches by the end of the century.  This affects coastal development in areas targeted for sea level rise, and halts federally subsidized insurance for property likely affected, requiring that all coastal structures be built to adapt to the change.

 

State department of Education estimates a lay off 26,500 teachers, 15,000 bus drivers, janitors, secretaries and administrators.

 

Rotting/damaged warships off San Francisco Bay don’t cause environmental contamination says the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration  Because of the findings, the agency said “NO” to specific cleanup in any areas near the 70 ships that will remain in the bay, ready for action in case of war.

 

A California stem cell company’s stock jumped after President Obama ended an eight-year limit on federal funding for studies of embryonic stem cells.  The new executive order allows federal funding for research on numerous embryonic stem cell lines that did not qualify for federal support under a policy signed by former President Bush in 2001.  Scientists/patient-advocacy groups lobbied for years to overturn restrictions hoping research offers improved medical treatments for damaged spinal nerves, reinforce weakened heart muscle and help to restore a diabetic’s ability to manufacture insulin. 

 

Owner of an Orange County car dealership accounting for about five percent of all Lamborghinis sold worldwide plead guilty to a  felony involving wire fraud.  Viken Keuylian (45) from Laguna Beach, is facing  30 years in prison.  Reports state Keuylian defrauded Volkswagen Credit Inc. out of $12 million when Volkswagen Credit loaned the money to Keuylian to buy cars and he was to repay the loan when the cars sold.  He got around not paying by saying the cars he had sold were still on the lots, using the money to pay debts, some for a vineyard and a Beverly Hills Lotus car dealership. 

 

U.S. Department of Justice investigating Inglewood Police Department as the incidence of officer-involved shootings of unarmed suspects increases.  This is look #2 by the Justice Department into community protests last year when Inglewood officers shot and killed four people— three of whom were unarmed—in a four-month period.  The L.A. County Office of Independent Review investigated at the city’s request, finding that Inglewood police resorted to physical or deadly force in many of their arrests.

 

A 16 year old internet prank caller from North Carolina was arrested for allegedly making a bomb threat against Purdue University.  The boy, a subculture internet celebrity took donations from kids around the country who wanted to get out of school for the day in exchange for calling in a bomb threat to their school.  

 

Stats show that one in 50 children become homeless in the U.S. each year.  The National Center on Family Homelessness researched data (2005-2006) finding 1.5 million children without homes and rising with home fore- closures.  Most were in Texas, Georgia New Mexico, Arkansas, & Louisiana.  Hawaii, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island & North Dakota fared better.  The study says that homeless children have poor health, emotional problems and low graduation rates.

 

Vo Duong Tran, a former FBI agent, made plans to rob an Orange County  ”stash house” that he thought was filled with $500,000 in drug money.  The agent came from New Orleans hoping to get rich but instead was convicted in a Santa Ana federal court on charges related to botched home-invasion robbery.  Tran (41) conspired with a supposed accomplice (an undercover FBI agent) to commit the robbery.  He hoped to create a crew of criminal associates to commit crimes. 

 

Father of teenager Brandon McInerney, who is accused of gunning down a gay classmate was found dead in his home.  The death of 45-year-old Bill McInerney is blamed on an accidental head injury.  Brandon McInerney is being tried as an adult for the death of classmate Lawrence “Larry” King.  The two boys (both 15 years old) were fighting for days before the attack, and it’s alleged King had a romantic interest in McInerney.  

 

President Obama told American’s in a White House speech that he proposes cutting nearly 100 Federal Government spending programs from the budget.  The President cited examples like a defense program, a literacy program and a Department of Education office in Paris.

 

A man strolled into a First Baptist church near St. Louis during a meeting and shot to death the pastor and two congregants according to police reports.  Churchgoers wrestled the gunman to the ground as he waved a knife, slashing himself and two other people.  The assailant was not known  by any of the 150-or-so congregants.

 

The failure in passport security is higher reports say due to the rising problem in counterfeit documents.  As proof of leniency, the identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy were obtained by a government investigator in a test of security measures.

 

The House of Representatives has now passed a bill—H.R. 627 giving rights to credit cardholders.  Heralded as “The Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights”, the bill has gotten heavy opposition from banking regulators who have been accused of tricking and trapping honest cardholders to increase their profits.

 

The Supreme Court ruled that: “Only election districts in which minorities make up at least half of the voting-age population are entitled to the protections of a part of the Voting Rights Act that seeks to ensure and preserve minority voting power”.

 

North Carolina officials argued that the act required that they maintain black influence at the voting booth by creating a district that included about 39 percent of the black voting-age population.  In effect the theory was that the law protected black voters willing to join white “crossover voters” to elect a candidate of the black voters’ choice.  It was rejected by the court in a 5-to-4 vote.

 

The Obama administration says it will not use “enemy combatant” in reference to Guantánamo Bay detainees, but asserts the power to detain them. 

 

Thousands of government workers are canvassing neighborhoods and verifying addresses in L.A. and across the nation, marking the beginning of the once-in-a-decade statistical portrait of America: the U.S. census.  The population count will start next year, but census workers have started identifying 145 million addresses in May.  Workers are using GPS technology that enables them to pinpoint locations to  improve the accuracy of the census. The census  will be difficult in areas such as Los Angeles, where multi-family households are increasingly common, homeless people crowd city streets and immigrants speak hundreds of languages. Census results are required by the Constitution and used to redraw congressional districts and guide distribution of billions in federal funds for schools, roads and social service programs.

 

The United States won election to the U.N. Human Rights Council for the first time, joining 17 other nations also picked for the body after the Obama administration ended a U.S. policy of boycotting it.  U..S. . Ambassador Susan Rice said, “We are looking forward to working from within with a broad cross-section of member states to strengthen and reform the Human Rights Council.”  The United States was one of 18 countries elected or reelected to three-year terms on the 47-seat Geneva-based council in a vote by the U.N. General Assembly, joining 29 others who are in mid-term.