Yes, California's eneregy market was diddled by JP Morgan Chase -- this is not a new concept -- but not to worry, according to state officials: California got the settlement it deserved.
From the Bee's Dale Kasler: "California energy officials said today they got "every penny" they demanded in a $410 million settlement paid by JPMorgan Chase & Co. over manipulative electricity trades."
"JPMorgan, in a deal announced by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will cough up $124 million in profits to California ratepayers. In addition, the big bank agreed not to fight California officials over $262 million in disputed profits that had already been recouped by the state or were never paid to JPMorgan in the first place."
"In total, the deal is worth $386 million to California consumers, said Nancy Saracino, general counsel of the California Independent System Operator. The ISO runs the state's transmission grid, buys last-minute power from vendors like JPMorgan and blew the whistle on the firm's manipulative trading practices."
Commercial fishing groups, backed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, have gone to court to challenge the feds' lifting of a ban on sea otters in Southern California waters.
From Donna Jones in the Santa Cruz Sentinel: "In 2001, federal authorities, recognizing the otter management program wasn't working -- the population at San Nicolas failed to thrive and otters ignored the boundary restriction -- announced they would no longer enforce the ban. But technically, it remained in place, leaving sea otters in southern waters without the federal protections afforded their northern brethren."
"That led to a lawsuit filed by the two environmental groups, which maintain the threatened species needs to reoccupy its historic territory to recover. A settlement in that case led to the federal agency's policy reversal in December."
"Steve Shimek, executive director of The Otter Project in Monterey, said over-fishing, not otters, is the problem for the commercial fishing industry."
Anaheim, the largest California city that still has at-large city council elections rather than district-by-district contests, will have its day in court to decide if it complies with state voting laws.
From the Voice of OC's Adam Elmahrek: "An Orange County Superior Court Judge Tuesday morning set a March 17 trial date for a lawsuit alleging Anaheim's at large City Council elections violate the California Voting Rights Act."
"The American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit, filed on behalf of Latino activists, argues that the city's at large council elections disenfranchise Latino voters by giving people in wealthy and mostly white neighborhoods more voting power than Latinos, who constitute 53 percent of the city's residents."
"As a result, the suit asserts, the City Council's all-white and relatively affluent members steer more city resources to wealthier communities at the expense of poorer Latino communities."
Inmates' advocates say Gov. Brown should get on the stick and help resolve the prisoners' hunger strike.
From Melanie Mason in the LAT: "Around 50 people gathered on the Capitol's south lawn to show support for the inmates on strike and call for changes to policies regarding solitary confinement. Three organizers then delivered petitions with more than 70,000 signatures to the governor's office."
"Dolores Canales, co-founder of the California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement, broke into tears after presenting the signatures to a member of the governor's staff."
"These prisoners are so committed to the cause that they would put their own bodies through such suffering and be now on the 23rd day of the hunger strike. It's because the message is of suffering. The message is of torment," said Canales, whose son John Martinez has been incarcerated at the Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) for 18 years."
Speaking of the hunger strike, which was prompted by the state's solitary confinement policies, an array of celebs, academics and others with no background in correctional policy said California should stop isolating prisoners.
From the AP: "Celebrities including Jay Leno and Gloria Steinem have condemned the isolation of inmates to control gang violence at California prisons - a practice that sparked a hunger strike by hundreds of inmates."
"The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, Peter Coyote and Noam Chomsky also signed a letter sent Monday to Gov. Jerry Brown that calls isolation units "extensions of the same inhumanity practiced at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay," the Los Angeles Times reported."
"Raitt performed once at San Quentin and it "made a profound impact on her," spokeswoman Annie Heller-Gutwillig told the paper."
And from our "Tall, Dark and Handsome" file comes the tale of being tall -- and the issues that go along with it.
"Last week, a team of researchers led by Geoffrey Kabat of Albert Einstein College of Medicine published a study showing that each additional 4 inches of height increases the risk of all types of cancer by 13 percent among post-menopausal women."
"That statistic should shock you. If we could hold all other risk factors equal—which, of course, we cannot—the average woman in China, simply due to her height, would be 13 percent more likely to get cancer than an average Guatemalan woman. Dutch women, with an average height above 5-foot-6, would be more than 25 percent more likely to get cancer than Guatemalans. And female models and WNBA players—well, the numbers look even worse for them."
"Most people I know would love to be taller. Parents with slow-growing children often ask pediatricians for growth hormone to save their kids the indignity of being short. I get it. Tall people—particularly tall men—earn more moneyand are held in higher esteem than their shorter colleagues. Tall people also have higher IQs and a wider selection of mates. The association between height and success is perpetuated, in part, because tall, successful people marry tall and successful."
