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Tue, Dec

Immigration Courts: A Game of 'Refugee Roulette'

TRUTHDIG-“Refugee Roulette” is the name of the game, and it’s a sure loser for most of the increasing number of unauthorized immigrants being arrested and hauled into court by the Trump administration. They face judges whose decisions amount to a denial of equal justice. 

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'No Kill' Alert! LA City Trust Funds May be Used for Feral Cats and 'Free' Pets

ANIMAL WATCH-LA Animal Services GM Brenda Barnette is struggling so desperately to reach the Best Friends' "no kill" goal in 2017 that she now wants increased access to donated money in two prudently restricted City Trust Funds: (1) the Animal Sterilization Fund (aka 'Spay/Neuter Fund' or 'Pet Sterilization Fund'), a special trust established to assure continuity of financial assistance for spaying/neutering pet dogs and cats owned by City residents; and (2) the Animal Welfare Trust Fund, designated to support established shelter programs and capital improvements to maintain safe and healthy conditions for LA's impounded stray, abandoned  and unwanted  animals. 

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Virtual Reality … So Real It’s Scary!

GELFAND’S WORLD--I was standing on the bow of a sunken tug boat, looking up towards the surface about 100 feet above me, with manta rays swimming near the surface but sometimes coming closer. It seemed real, with the sort of detached feeling you get from being under the ocean. Mind you, that aura is something you get for real on scuba, but this time it was in virtual reality (VR) as demonstrated to me by Steven Xu of Vive.com.

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California Scores In Bottom 10 on Gun Deaths … But Sill a Long Way to Go

THIS IS WHAT I KNOW-It’s been over a week since the Las Vegas Massacre that ended the lives of 58 people, as well as injuring almost 500 others. Since Columbine, we’ve watched coverage for far too many of these mass shootings. There are different faces attached to victims and the perpetrators. Typically, we hear about red flags. But each and every time, the display of violence sparks another gun control debate.

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Los Angeles: Illegal Planning Capital of the World

TALE OF TWO LA’S--Three doors from my house in Venice, a builder tore down a 1940’s bungalow and put up a two-story spec house that fills every square foot of allowable space on the lot.  But when the house didn’t sell at the $4 million asking price, the builder listed it on Airbnb at $1400 a night, and now it’s the functional equivalent of a hotel, with guests coming and going and partying at all hours on the roof deck and around the pool and spa.  

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Must Read! How Nextdoor Found 10 Million People While LA City Planning Found 100

SPECIAL REPORT--In 2013, I was organizing for the startup Nextdoor, the social networking app for neighborhoods whose logo is a cute ’n chunky house. Nobody had heard of Nextdoor, and Los Angeles had only a handful of users. Four years later, Nextdoor has 10 million registered users in 160,000 neighborhoods in the U.S., Netherlands, U.K., and Germany. 

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Liberty Park: Can a Lawn Become a Protected Landmark?

DEEGAN ON LA-One man’s lawn may be another man’s landmark. That seems to be the proposition being advanced concerning Koreatown’s Liberty Park, a large 2.5-acre swath of green separating Wilshire Boulevard from the 1967-built Beneficial Plaza building, an 11-story Late Modern office building that was set back 315 feet from the roadway to create the green open space. 

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