NEW IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL "PATH TO CITIZENSHIP"; NEWLY DISCOVERED FOSSIL LINKS FISH AND LAND ANIMALS; HIV, SEXUAL HISTORY AND THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT; MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS APPROVE MANDATORY HEALTH INSURANCE; BAD REPORTING OR BAD NEWS?
NEW IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL "PATH TO CITIZENSHIP"
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist offered a new plan yesterday to overhaul US immigration policy. It would offer a path for immigrants to eventually apply for citizenship. Lawmakers are calling it a “huge break through.” Larry talks to Arian Campo-Flores, reporter for Newsweek, and Republican Congressman John Campbell about this new development.
NEWLY DISCOVERED FOSSIL LINKS FISH AND LAND ANIMALS
In a literal story with legs, the discovery of a new arctic fossil is said to fill an evolutionary gap between fish and limbed animals. The 375-million-year-old fossils indicate that the new species has a skull, neck, ribs, and part of a fin like the earliest limbed animals, but also has fins and scales like a fish. Larry speaks with Dr. Ted Daeschler, co-leader of the expedition to Ellesmere Island, to learn more about the exciting finding.
HIV, SEXUAL HISTORY AND THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT
The California Supreme Court is hearing a woman's claim that her x-husband owes her damages because he infected her with HIV. The court will have to consider how much a sex partner is entitled to know about the other's sexual history. Legal observers say the case is important because the court will have to weigh health concerns against the right to sexual privacy. Larry talks with Robert Bradley Sears, Executive Director, the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation and the Law, a thinktank at the UCLA school of law.
MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS APPROVE MANDATORY HEALTH INSURANCE
This week, a bill requiring mandatory health insurance in Massachusetts passed that state's legislature with overwhelming support. State Democratic legislators, Senator Edward Kennedy, insurers, academics, businesses, hospitals, and advocates for the poor all provided input to the bill, which Republican governor Mitt Romney says he will sign. The pioneering bill provides a mechanism for all of the state's citizens to obtain health insurance; it is the closest any state has come to universal health coverage. Larry gets the details of the bill from Fawn Phelps of Boston-based advocacy group Health Care for All, and then probes the possibility of importing some of the elements of the policy to California, with Professor Gerald Kominski, Associate Director, UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-38).
BAD REPORTING OR BAD NEWS?
Some Bush administration officials and prominent conservatives have been crying foul over the media's recent coverage of the war in Iraq. They accuse the media of failing to report progress in the war, instead focusing only on the violence. Larry talks with Tim Graham, Director of Media Analysis for the Media Research Center, and Jonathan Taplin, Professor of Communications, at USC's Annenberg School of Communications.