Stories you shouldn’t miss:

Greg Ahern.
1. Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern has leapt at the chance to cooperate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in the wake of the killing of a Pleasanton woman by a undocumented immigrant this summer in San Francisco, the Mercury News$ reports. Ahern has notified ICE officials of at least one hundred inmates who were about to be released from custody in the past seven weeks, regardless if the person committed a violent or nonviolent crime. Some counties are only notifying ICE of undocumented inmates with a violent criminal record. Immigrant rights activists oppose such notifications — and liberal San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi said he has no plans to cooperate with ICE.
2. A mysterious group is pushing a petition drive in Richmond to overturn the city’s new rent control law, Bay City News reports (via the CoCo Times$). Landlord groups strongly opposed the new law, which the city council approved on August 5. Rent control advocates are running a counter-campaign to defeat the petition drive.
3. Firearms experts say UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett has no one to blame but herself for getting her gun and badge stolen from her car along the shoreline earlier this month, the Chron$ reports. Experts said Bennett should not have left her gun and badge in the trunk of her car when she went running.
[jump]
4. An appellate court today is deciding the fate of California’s death penalty law, following a ruling from a lower court judge who declared that it was unconstitutional, The New York Times$ reports.
5. California lawmakers are considering taxing all healthcare plans in order to avoid losing $1 billion in annual federal funds for MediCal, the Chron$ reports. The Obama administration has threatened to withhold the funding because it says California’s practice of only taxing MediCal-compliant plans is illegal.
6. Six inmates at San Quentin Prison have contracted Legionnaire’s disease, a highly contagious form of pneumonia caused by airborne bacteria, the Chron$ reports. The outbreak has prompted prison officials to bring in bottled water and meals cooked offsite.
7. Governor Jerry Brown’s administration is moving forward with his controversial plan to build two giant water tunnels underneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, requesting a construction permit for the first stages of the project from the state water board, the AP reports (h/t Rough & Tumble).
8. A new UC Berkeley study concludes that renewal energy laws create jobs overall, contradicting claims by the oil and gas industry, the LA Times$ reports.
9. PG&E is proposing to hike electricity rates on customers with solar power to higher levels than previously thought — a move that the solar energy industry says will stifle clean power in California, the Chron reports.
10. And state legislators are moving forward with legislation to ban ivory sales in California in an attempt to stem the slaughter of elephants in Africa, the Mercury News$ reports.

2. A mysterious group is pushing a petition drive in Richmond to overturn the city’s new rent control law, Bay City News reports (via the CoCo Times$). Landlord groups strongly opposed the new law, which the city council approved on August 5. Rent control advocates are running a counter-campaign to defeat the petition drive.
3. Firearms experts say UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett has no one to blame but herself for getting her gun and badge stolen from her car along the shoreline earlier this month, the Chron$ reports. Experts said Bennett should not have left her gun and badge in the trunk of her car when she went running.
[jump]
4. An appellate court today is deciding the fate of California’s death penalty law, following a ruling from a lower court judge who declared that it was unconstitutional, The New York Times$ reports.
5. California lawmakers are considering taxing all healthcare plans in order to avoid losing $1 billion in annual federal funds for MediCal, the Chron$ reports. The Obama administration has threatened to withhold the funding because it says California’s practice of only taxing MediCal-compliant plans is illegal.
6. Six inmates at San Quentin Prison have contracted Legionnaire’s disease, a highly contagious form of pneumonia caused by airborne bacteria, the Chron$ reports. The outbreak has prompted prison officials to bring in bottled water and meals cooked offsite.
7. Governor Jerry Brown’s administration is moving forward with his controversial plan to build two giant water tunnels underneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, requesting a construction permit for the first stages of the project from the state water board, the AP reports (h/t Rough & Tumble).
8. A new UC Berkeley study concludes that renewal energy laws create jobs overall, contradicting claims by the oil and gas industry, the LA Times$ reports.
9. PG&E is proposing to hike electricity rates on customers with solar power to higher levels than previously thought — a move that the solar energy industry says will stifle clean power in California, the Chron reports.
10. And state legislators are moving forward with legislation to ban ivory sales in California in an attempt to stem the slaughter of elephants in Africa, the Mercury News$ reports.