Women suspected in Palm Desert retail robbery plead not guilty
Auditor-controller unveils county's Fiscal Year 2023-24 Audit Plan
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Riverside's Festival of Lights begins with switch-on ceremony Saturday; Palm Springs parade to feature canine mayor next month By City News Service
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he famed Festival of Lights will return to downtown Riverside, beginning Saturday and continuing to the start of 2024, featuring millions of lights, holiday displays, ice skating and other entertainment on the pedestrian mall. "Step into a world of wonder as we illuminate the night with our renowned holiday light collection, setting your heart aglow with festive cheer," according to a statement from the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, whose owner, Duane Roberts, inaugurated the tradition in 1992. "Every year, it attracts 500,000 visitors, all thrilled to watch the display come to life through the Holidays." This year's fest will be extended, beginning almost a week early. The switch-on ceremony is scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday. The ceremony
The Supreme Court has adopted a conduct code, but who will enforce it? By Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica
year with Pattern Energy for the SunZia Wind Project in New Mexico. "Once built, the project will provide as much as 3,515 MW to multiple customers across the Southwest, making it the largest renewable wind energy generation facility in the United States," according to the city. Officials said the agree-
Series: Friends of the Court: SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors upreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ decadeslong friendship with real estate tycoon Harlan Crow and Samuel Alito’s luxury travel with billionaire Paul Singer have raised questions about influence and ethics at the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court on Monday released a code of conduct governing the behavior of the country’s most powerful judges for the first time in its history. But experts said it was unclear if the new rules, which do not include any enforcement mechanism, would address the issues raised by recent revelations about justices’ ethics and conduct. The nine-page code, with an accompanying five pages of commentary, was signed by all the sitting justices and covers everything from the acceptance of gifts, to recusal standards, to avoiding improper outside influence on the justices. The step followed months of reporting by ProPublica detailing undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices from wealthy political donors. The code does not specify who, if anyone, could determine whether the rules had been violated. The new Supreme Court code’s lack of any apparent enforcement process is “the elephant in the room,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas who studies the court. “Even the most stringent and aggressive ethics rules don’t mean all that much if there’s no mechanism for enforcing them. And the justices’ unwillingness to even nod toward that difficulty kicks the ball squarely back into Congress’ court.” Nevertheless, some leading observers of the court described the creation of an explicit, written code as a landmark in the court’s 234-year history. “The Supreme Court’s promulgation of a code of conduct today is of surpassing historic significance,” former federal appellate judge J. Michael Luttig told ProPublica. “The court must lead by the example that only it can set for the federal judiciary, as it does today.” A statement released by the court on Monday accompanying the code said it was formulated to dispel “the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.” It said the code “largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.” A series of ProPublica stories this year detailed a pattern
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| Photo courtesy of the City of Riverside, CA - Riverside Festival of Lights/Facebook
has traditionally been held the day after Thanksgiving, but organizers wanted to get a head start on this season's activities.
"This will be a great opportunity for Riversiders to bring their families downtown after
kids get out of school for the Thanksgiving break," Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said.
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This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Riverside's wind power buy puts city ahead of 2030 clean energy goal iverside Public Utilities has reached an agreement to obtain 125 megawatts of windgenerated electricity from a new facility under construction in New Mexico, which will allow the city to reach the 2030 statewide clean energy mandate with more than three years to spare, officials announced last week. The Riverside City Council on Tuesday approved the
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power purchase and sale agreement, which will boost RPU’s renewable energy resources from the current 45.4% of the utility’s overall energy load to nearly 70% when the project gets started in March 2026, according to a city statement. That percentage will surpass the state's legislated benchmark of 60% renewable energy by 2030 for municipalities. “This power purchase
agreement not only reinforces the City’s dedication to clean energy, but also positions us as a leader in renewable energy,” RPU Deputy General Manager Daniel E. Garcia said in a statement. “It is a critical step towards a greener and more sustainable future for our community and the entire region.” The city entered into a 15-year agreement that has been negotiated for over a