LA's $218 million deficit. Medical relief efforts in Haiti. Is bipartisanship possible in Washington? And, can some vegetative patients make decisions about their own care?
LA Council delays job cuts
The Los Angeles City Council is $218-million in the hole and has to make some drastic cuts. But after all-day negotiations Wednesday, council members put off a decision to cut as many as 1000 jobs. On the table now, is the possibility of a freeze on LAPD hiring, which the city’s budget analyst says could save the city $69.3 million. But the Mayor wants to replace departing cops. How will the City Council come to terms with all the competing needs and agendas?
Guests:
Matt Szabo, Deputy Chief of Staff to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
Bernard Parks, Councilman, 8th District, Chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee
Jose Huizar, Los Angeles City Councilmember, 14th District
Haiti: Medical relief efforts
Estimates are some 200,000 people died in Haiti’s January 12 earthquake. Patients with head, chest or abdominal injuries or whose limbs had been badly crushed needed immediate surgery, but with the collapse of hospitals, nothing was available. And now, the lingering effects of disease and malnutrition plague the millions of people left homeless by the quake. How do relief workers even begin to approach such a catastrophe, in this poverty stricken nation with so little functioning infrastructure?
Guests:
Corey Flintoff, correspondent, foreign desk, National Public Radio. He returned from Haiti on Sunday.
Alex Cottin, Regional Director of Merlin USA, an international medical aid agency that works in 39 countries. Returned from Haiti on Saturday-- he arrived there within 48 hours of the earthquake.
The B-word: is bipartisanship even possible?
It’s the latest and greatest buzz word: bipartisanship. President Obama spoke of it in his State of the Union, calling out both Republicans and Democrats, saying this country expects its representatives to work together to get things done. But is there enough political pay off for bipartisanship to ever work? What about ideologically; is there sufficient common ground between the two parties to achieve real reform? Or are lawmakers simply too polarized? And if that’s the case, are we just doomed?
Guests:
Ken Rudin, NPR Political Editor; writes the Political Junkie Blog
Dan Schnur, Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and adjunct faculty at USC Annenberg School
Darry Sragow, attorney and long time democratic strategist
Are vegetative patients able to think?
In a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers report that a form of brain scanning could be used to determine the consciousness of patients who appear to be in a persistent vegetative state. Using functional magnetic resonance, five patients showed brain activity that indicated awareness and intent, with one patient able to communicate 'yes' and 'no' answers. The findings, all in subjects with traumatic brain injuries, could lead to a test to determine a patient's consciousness, as well as inform a family's decision to continue or end life support.
The study "Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness,"published in The New England Journal of Medicine
Guests:
Dr. Allan H. Ropper, author of editorial accompanying study in The New England Journal of Medicine; neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston
Dr. Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, Neurologist and Director of the Neuroscience Imaging Center at UC San Francisco