Essential California Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, July 4, and I’m wishing you a happy Independence Dayfrom Los Angeles. Here’s what’s happening across California: TOP STORIES The Los Angeles Police Department pioneered predictive policing techniques, which employ data technology and information about past crimes to predict future unlawful activity. Other departments around the nation soon adopted predictive policing techniques after the LAPD took the leap in 2010. But the widely hailed tool the LAPD helped create has come under fire in the last 18 months, with numerous departments dumping the software because it did not help them reduce crime and essentially provided information already being gathered by officers patrolling the streets. Beyond concerns from law enforcement, the data-driven programs are also under increasing scrutiny by privacy and civil liberties groups, which say the tactics result in heavier policing of black and Latino communities. Los Angeles Times Federal whiplash: The Trump administration reversed course again on the issue of putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census, as Justice Department lawyers told a federal court Wednesday that they had been “instructed” to try to find a way to add the question, despite statements from the administration on Tuesday that they were giving up the effort. Los Angeles Times