California Officials Ordered to Shrink Prison Population

By Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton
In a historic move, a panel of three federal judges today ordered the state of California to reduce its prison population by more than 40,000 inmates in the next two years.
The order, which will not result in the immediate release of any of the state's 167,000 inmates, almost certainly will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first time the high court will have faced such a case.
California's prison system is operating at 190 percent of its design capacity of 84,210 inmates, and the judges said the state must devise an inmate reduction plan within 45 days unless a stay is ordered to allow an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court
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Protesters Disrupt Foreclosure; Auctioneer Sent To Hospital With Chest Pains

A large crowd of protesters disrupted several foreclosure auctions today on the Sacramento County Courthouse steps, winning temporary cancellation of one Sacramento foreclosure and sending an auctioneer to the hospital with chest pains.
Bidders on the homes, all declining to provide their names, called the ACORN protest the first major disruption of an established auction schedule that plays out every weekday at the courthouse following 37,000 foreclosures in the capital region since Jan. 2007.
About 75 statewide members of the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now, in the capital for a lobbying day on housing issues, delayed at least three auctioneers from selling foreclosed homes today.
"Many of the sales that are happening now are around houses that could be saved by the (loan modification and refinance) plans starting to be implemented," said Amy Schur, California director of ACORN.
The group organized the protest with bullhorns, whistles and chants of "Save Our Homes," to make its case for a moratorium on foreclosures until plans unveiled in March by the Obama administration have a chance to work.
Organizers called the Sacramento action the newest in a series of protests by its "Home Defenders" in the Bay Area and Southern California.
As the first auction was to begin at 9:30 a.m. on the Sacramento County Courthouse steps, Los Angeles ACORN member Kathleen Thompson-Boons asked an unidentified auctioneer with LPS Financial Services of Sacramento "to stop the auction."
When the auctioneer resumed seeking bids from nine potential bidders, Thompson-Boons asked again, prompting the auctioneer to say, "If you're not going to bid, then go away."
Seconds later, protesters surrounded the group, chanting, blowing whistles and creating a commotion that made it impossible to hear. The auctioneer, who had a pacemaker according to associates, began to collapse and was later taken to a local hospital.
The protest continued for about 90 minutes. ACORN members left after cheering a concession by LPS Financial Services to cancel a specific requested foreclosure auction for one Sacramento family. Minutes later, as the group left, the auctions resumed as scheduled.

47 California Businesses on Tainted-Spice List

By Niesha Lofing
More than three dozen Asian restaurants and eight supermarkets in the Sacramento region are now listed as customers of a Bay Area company under state and federal scrutiny after its spice products were linked to an outbreak of salmonella.
The list was released late Monday night by the state Department of Public Health, the same day investigators expanded the recall of U.F. Union International Food Co.'s spice products to include some of the company's Uncle Chen line of pepper products.
The company voluntarily recalled its Lian How brand peppers and other spices Saturday after health officials "isolated Salmonella from an open container of Lian How White Pepper, which was found at a restaurant where some outbreak victims ate," according to a statement on the company's Web site.
So far the salmonella outbreak has sickened 42 people in four states. Thirty-three cases have been reported in California. Locally, five cases were reported in Sacramento County and one case was reported in El Dorado County. Full Story Here