The obscurely powerful Central Basin Municipal Water District is in the news again — in more ways than one. An L.A. Times story details how the agency has paid nearly $200,000 for fake news stories on a fake news website so that when you type the name of the agency in Google, the search results all appear to be positive news coverage. It raises questions about the agency's use of taxpayer money, of course, but also about how Google classifies sites it labels news.
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Last look at Van Nuys location