After Years Of ‘Speed Creep,’ LA Will Start Lowering Speed Limits
In a unanimous vote, the Los Angeles City Council Tuesday approved an ordinance that will bring speed limits down by as much as 5 miles per hour on about 177 miles of city streets.
The ordinance marks a break from a decades-old state rule that forced L.A. and other cities to raise speed limits in order to enforce them.
That method, called the 85th percentile rule, dictates that a road’s speed limit should be based on the speed that 85% of people drive at or below, rounded to the nearest interval of five. Put another way, the 15% of drivers going the fastest get to set the pace on local streets. Today on AirTalk, we talk with Ryan Fonseca, KPCC & LAist reporter covering Transportation and Mobility, about the changes.
Read Ryan Fonseca’s full story here.
The Fed Could Soon Step In To Address Inflation. The Pros And Cons, Plus What You Need To Know As A Consumer
Inflation is now at a 40-year high and the rising costs has consumers worried about their wallets. The growing inflation rates put pressure on the Federal Reserve to step in and ramp up interest rates in order to slow the economy down and ease prices. That move would come with consequences like slowing down economic growth and a booming job market. Today on AirTalk, we talk with William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, an economic think tank based in Santa Monica and Delia Fernandez, fee-only certified financial planner and investment advisor and president of Fernandez Financial Advisory, LLC in Los Alamitos about the latest with inflation and what consumers should be considering.
Did The “Rust” Shooting Change How Hollywood Uses Guns On Film Sets?
Since the earliest days of filmmaking, guns have played an important role on Hollywood’s film sets. Our appetite for on-screen gun-use seems to directly parallel real world events. After 9/11, for example, Hollywood reflected our new reality with spy, terrorism and war-related content. This has led to a mutually lucrative relationship between Hollywood and the gun industry. While accidental shootings are rare on film sets, the continued presence of real guns makes the possibility more likely, as evidenced this past October when cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was hit and killed by a live round on the set of the low-budget Western “Rust.” In the tragic aftermath, actors, producers, directors and many Hollywood A-listers like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson called to ban real guns from sets and vowed to only use rubber ones. But since Hutchins’ death, “Rust” headlines have been reduced to a flurry of lawsuits, leaving a dearth of dialogue around Hollywood’s use of real guns on film sets.
Today on AirTalk, we talk to Shirley Li, staff writer at The Atlantic covering culture and Justin A. Joyce, author of the book “Gunslinging Justice: The American Culture of Gun Violence in Westerns and the Law.”
COVID-19 AMA: L.A. County To Lift Indoor Mask Mandate For Vaccinated, Who Might Benefit From A Fourth Shot, And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Kristen R. Choi, professor of nursing and public health at UCLA.
Topics today include:
L.A. County to lift indoor mask mandate for vaccinated people on Friday
- L.A. Unified drops outdoor mask mandate
- The U.S. mask mandate for air travel will expire next month, but some flight attendants say it’s too soon
- A new COVID vaccine shows 100% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalizations, its maker says
- Yes, millions of Americans have caught Omicron. No, we don’t have herd immunity
Who might benefit from a fourth shot – and who might not
- Got a COVID booster? You probably won’t need another for a long time
- New breakdown of hospitalized patients in California hospitals by vaccination status
- How Long COVID exhausts the body
What We All Can Learn From How US Skier Mikaela Shiffrin Handled Disappointing Results At The Beijing Winter Olympics
Coming into the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing, it wasn’t a question of whether or not U.S. star skier Mikaela Shiffrin would medal in one of her events, but rather which medal she’d win. The 26-year-old Coloradoan, already a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist and multi-time World Champion alpine skier, was favored to win gold in three of the six events for which she qualified in Beijing, including her specialties -- the slalom and giant slalom. But as the lights went dim at Beijing National Stadium after the closing ceremony, Shiffrin’s medal count remained the same as it was when those lights went bright for the opening ceremony -- zero. Throughout the 2022 Winter Games, Shiffrin herself even seemed baffled at what was happening. After failing to finish her first run in the women’s slalom event, the second straight event in which she didn’t finish her first run, Shiffrin said in an interview that she was second-guessing “everything I thought I knew…about my own skiing and slalom and racing mentality.” Following another failed run, this time one that took her out of the medal running in a separate event, Shiffrin said “I feel like a joke.”
Shiffrin is far from a joke -- she’s one of the best skiers on Earth -- but the degree of openness with which she addressed her struggles in interviews during and after the Olympics is one rarely seen among athletes of Shiffrin’s caliber. It’s more common to see them brush it off, chalk it up to a bad day or otherwise place blame on an external variable. But Shiffrin’s willingness to be open about her performances with the eyes of the entire world looking on serves as a reminder for others that even these athletes who are the best in the world at what they do, and at times can seem like superhumans to the rest of us, can and do still feel the pressure to succeed, and that just like Shiffrin’s one bad performance at these Olympics doesn’t make her a “joke” or a bad skier, one bad day or mistake or underwhelming performance in our everyday lives does not and should not define us. Recently, we’ve seen other athletes open up about the pressure to succeed, including U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, who dropped out of individual competition at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games to focus on her mental health.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll speak with Dartmouth College assistant athletics director for leadership and mental performance Stephen Gonzalez, who is also a member of the United States Olympic Committee’s Sport Psychology and Mental Training Registry, about how athletes and other professionals performing at the top of their field cope with pressure when the stakes are high and what we can learn from the emotional openness with which Shiffrin addressed her performance in Beijing.
As Tinder Loses Steam, How Are Gen-Z And Younger Millennials Approaching Online Dating?
Tinder has dominated the online dating space for years, with tens of millions of users around the world. but now Gen Z and younger Millennials are swiping left on the app. Platforms like Hinge – the “relationship app” – and Bumble – in which only women message first – have also grown in popularity and users over the last several years. Activity on those apps surged during the pandemic: Tinder recorded 3 billion swipes in a single day in March 2020, its highest one-day total ever; Bumble and OkCupid also saw large increases in activity. Now however, apps like Snack – and its“TikTok meets Tinder” approach – are wooing younger users away. Snack is an example of “video first” dating where users can share TikTok-style videos of themselves to match with others. The bet is that sharing more of your personality up front will help a younger generation of daters find more meaningful connections. This more serious approach to dating was even the basis for “West Elm Caleb,” in which a serial dater was critiqued mercilessly online.
Today on AirTalk, Larry speaks with licensed clinical psychologist and dating coach Dr. Ann Tran about the current state of dating apps, as younger users begin to dictate what’s trending during the pandemic dating scene.