THE 710 TUNNEL; PROPOSITION 36: IS IT WORKING?; INTELLIGENT DESIGN
THE 710 TUNNEL
For nearly 50 years, residents of Pasadena and Alhambra have been at odds, fighting over the building of a freeway. At the center of the debate is a 6.2-mile gap between the 210 and the 710 freeways, originally intended to connect. However, this break runs through a historic, tree-lined neighborhood of California Craftsman homes in South Pasadena. Residents there vehemently oppose the building of a freeway through the area, but traffic-weary residents of nearby Alhambra, think it would bring relief. Earlier this month, Congress approved $2.4 million to study the possibility of extending the freeway with a five-mile, $2-billion tunnel. Larry Mantle talks with Bill Bogaard, Mayor of Pasadena, David Margrave, South Pasadena City Councilman, and Mark Pisano, Executive Director of Southern California Association of Governments, about the feasibility of such a tunnel and the impact it would have on surrounding communities.
PROPOSITION 36: IS IT WORKING?
Proposition 36, approved by 61 percent of voters in November 2000, requires that first and second-time nonviolent drug offenders be sent to treatment programs instead of prison. A just-released evaluation of the program finds that only a quarter of the participants actually complete drug treatment program. The results, compiled each year, come at a time when legislators are debating whether or not to continue funding the alternative program and whether to amend the law to let judges jail offenders who refuse treatment or who keep abusing drugs. Larry Mantle talks with UCLA's Douglas Longshore, lead investigator of the Prop. 36 evaluation, Senator Denise Ducheny, representing California's 40th district, and Kathryn Jett, Director of Alcohol and Drug Programs for the State of California.
INTELLIGENT DESIGN
Should intelligent design be taught in schools? Larry poses the question to John Mark Reynolds, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Biola University, and Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine.